For It Is Man's Number: olga kurylenko

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Saturday, 25 October 2025

Shudder Saturday: Other (2025)

The last time I watched a horror movie written and directed by David Moreau it was the very surprising and excellent MadS. I had forgotten that he did that though, and was drawn to watch Other because of the lead role for Olga Kurylenko. That may have been a mistake.

Kurylenko plays Alice, a woman who has to head back to check things are in order after the death of her mother. Exploring her childhood home, she soon finds out that there's maybe something a bit wrong about the place. While revisiting a number of memories, Alice starts to process parts of her past that her mind once refused to accept.

Not only is Other bad, it's irritating. Moreau, "helped" in the dialogue department by Jon Goldman, seems to think that he's delivering a wonderful puzzle box to viewers. It's actually just an ugly paperweight, making use of familiar tropes and random inserted scare attempts until a final sequence that is quite laughable in how much Moreau seems to believe in it as a bit of a "gotcha" moment.

There are others in the cast, minor characters here and there, but it mainly rests on the slim shoulders of Kurylenko. As much as I often like her onscreen, she's not right for this role, often unable to give viewers a real insight into her character whenever she's not speaking to others about the situation. Part of the problem is due to the screenplay, admittedly, but someone stronger in the main role could have distracted viewers from some of that main weakness with a strong and mesmerising central performance.

I don't have anything good to say about this, although that's not to say that others may find something to like here. My opinion is affected by how much I disliked the film from the very earliest scenes, which meant that even potentially better moments in the second half didn't do enough to "move the needle" for me. It lost me from the start, and had no major moment that was able to ever regain my interest or goodwill.

If you're as tempted to watch this as I was then I implore you to watch almost any other David Moreau film instead. He can direct good movies. This just isn't one of them. As for Kurylenko, it's clear that she either needs strong enough material or a decent supporting cast to help her along. She also generally does a bit better in action movies, which is maybe something I should keep in mind the next time I see her name used to promote any horror fare.

Pick any other movie to watch this weekend. Just don't pick Other.

3/10

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Sunday, 25 June 2023

Netflix And Chill: Extraction 2 (2023)

If you have heard about Extraction 2 then you have heard about the impressive action sequence near the start of the movie that plays out for just over 20 minutes. It's an impressive spectacle, despite containing at least 50 hidden edits (according to director Sam Hargrave in an article published online by Variety just a few days ago), but one impressive spectacle doesn't necessarily make a movie a complete success.

Although we saw him looking quite close to death at the end of the first film, Chris Hemsworth returns in the role of Tyler Rake. As the title may already have made you aware, he is asked to undertake a mission that requires him to extract someone from hostile territory. This time he is trying to save a family, which puts him in the cross-hairs of two very powerful and dangerous brothers (Zurab Radiani, played by Tornike Gogrichiani, and Davit Radiani, played by Tornike Bziava). At least he's being helped by Nik Khan (Golshifteh Farahani) and Yaz Khan (Adam Bessa), but their plans may be scuppered by the scheming of one of the misguided children being extracted (Sandro, played by Andro Japaridze).

With every main player returning to their role, including Joe Russo at the writing desk, Extraction 2 feels very much like something made by people who enjoyed working together on the first film and wanted to push themselves a bit further this time around. There are more complex sequences, there's a bigger scale to some of the set-pieces, and Hemsworth somehow looks to have added more muscles on to his writhing mass of muscles. It is, in some ways, a bit better than the first film, but it's also inherently more ridiculous and unbelievable, and becomes more and more removed from anything close to reality as it hurtles towards the finish line.

Hemsworth is good enough in the lead role, certainly convincing in the physical side of his performance, and both Farahani and Bessa work well enough alongside him. Nobody is giving their best performance, but this is Extraction 2, a film in which the focus is on the punches and gunshots ahead of any actual characterisation. Both Gogrichiani and Bziava are good villains, although one gets more screentime than the other, and Tinatin Dalakshvili does a good job of being a strong mother finding even more reserves of courage as she and her children are shepherded to what she hopes will be a much safer life for them all. Japaridze is a bit annoying in his role, but does what is asked of him, and his younger sister is portrayed by both Mariami and Marta Kovziashvili (twins who both do just fine in the role). It's also worth mentioning Daniel Bernhardt, a recognisable cinema "heavy" who here plays a . . . cinema "heavy", and plays him well.

This isn't a film you will watch to see commentary on society or human nature (although there is some clunky backstory here that shows why Rake is so determined to successfully complete his mission, and what big mistake he made in his past that he is trying to make up for), but it's a fun time for fans of action. This is the film to watch when you want to see Chris Hemsworth have his arm set on fire and then extinguish the flames with the force of him repeatedly punching other people around him. If that sounds like a treat, and it definitely is, then this is well worth a couple of hours of your time.

7/10

Thursday, 18 November 2021

Noir-vember: Max Payne (2008)

All the signs were there that I wasn't going to be a big fan of Max Payne. I wasn't even very aware of the videogame when it was popular (all I knew is that "bullet time" played a part). Directed by John Moore, who has a filmography not exactly stuffed with classics. Written by Beau Thorne, someone who doesn't seem to have written any other features. And starring Mark Wahlberg, an actor who really depends on a director and cast helping him to do his best.

Wahlberg is Payne, a cop who is more dangerous than he used to be thanks to the death, a few years ago, of his wife and child. Payne likes to go out at night and take care of criminals without the hassle of arresting them and going through any paperwork. His nocturnal activities put him in the company of people who are enjoying a fun new drug. Fun until it makes the user hallucinate some scenario that leads to their sudden death. It's a great product though, apparently, and Payne will come up against a variety of enemies as he sets out to destroy the supply chain. He might also come closer to finding out just why his wife and child were killed.

I really hoped that I would be able to list SOME positives here, considering how often I can find the simplest pleasures in films that are otherwise not really worth giving time to. Unfortunately, that's not the case. There's not one thing here that actually works. The script is a messy mass of clichés, which could have worked if the design, characters, and tone of the film had been managed better. Moore directs with the approach of someone who is actually stringing together videogame scenes without any need to worry about the plotting in between. Are there moments that look pretty cool? Yes. I'd say there were about four or five. You do get the slo-mo bullets, and you also get some demons that appear to the drug addicts who are about to quickly shuffle off this mortal coil. Those moments are the only ones I am willing to acknowledge as being remotely considered highlights.

Wahlberg is very . . . Wahlbergian in the lead role. He's tough. He scowls a lot. He's a tortured soul who wants to make the world a better place. It's a horrible performance from him, despite the fact that he's a potentially great fit for the role. The supporting cast has some better faces, but none of them get good enough material to work with. Olga Kurylenko is a welcome addition to any film, as I have said on many occasions, but she's not onscreen for long enough. Mila Kunis is similarly under-used, and her character is not one that plays to her strengths. Beau Bridges pops in and out of the proceedings until an inevitably strong presence in the finale, and I guess he tries his best, but there are better small turns from Donal Logue, Amaury Nolasco, and Ludacris.

It lacks any decent writing or characters, which isn't entirely unexpected when you go into a movie based on a videogame, but it also lacks enough moments that showcase some cool FX work, doesn't have any memorable set-pieces, and seems unable to move in any way from the plodding and sombre tone that you don’t really want from a lightweight videogame movie.

3/10

Wednesday, 1 September 2021

Prime Time: Momentum (2015)

I have said it on numerous occasions, but there are people who will always get me to watch any movie, for all sorts of reasons. I have been a fan of Olga Kurylenko since her time spent being the highlight of a very messy Bond film, Quantum Of Solace. So I went in to Momentum with the small hope that it would provide me with some easy, unsophisticated, entertainment. That hope soon disappeared.

Things begin with a robbery, one that doesn’t go to plan, and everything is about to get very tricky for the robbers, who have inadvertently stolen a drive that contains some very sensitive information. Olga Kurylenko is Alexis, the most skilled of the robbers, and she ends up being aggressively pursued by the ruthless Mr. Washington (James Purefoy) and his assistants.

That is all I want to say about Momentum. Trust me, that is plenty. The first feature directed by Stephen S. Campanelli, this is an absolute mess from start to finish, a muddled heap of clichés and ineptly-shot action beats. It’s so bad that I am amazed Campanelli has been allowed to make more movies after it.

To be fair, most of the awfulness is delivered by the script, by Adam Marcus and Debra Sullivan (two people who have done much better work on films actually directed by Marcus). It’s absolutely ridiculous throughout, and not in an entertainingly knowing way. The main character is always a step or two ahead of the villain, despite relying on one piece of good fortune after another, and the supporting characters are so barely sketched out that they really needn’t even be there. And you get Mr. Washington taking every opportunity to pretend to be reasonable and eloquently comment on the situation as it is unfolding.

Campanelli takes the script and does nothing to help distract from it. Every decision made seems to highlight either the incompetence or the lack of budget, or both, and most viewers will be keen for this to get to the final scene. There’s one wince-inducing torture sequence, but it feels as if it has been placed here from some other film.

Kurylenko isn’t at her best here, and cannot really sell herself in the role, unfortunately, so the saving Grace turns out to be Purefoy, who at least seems to enjoy being committed to the performance of his one-note villain. Everyone else seems to come from either the cheapest supporting actor agency or Rent-a-thug, with the only other standout being Shelley Nicole, as a badass woman named Ms. Clinton. You also get a cameo from Morgan Freeman, who can easily now put this film as one of the very worst he has been involved with.

You may just glean enough enjoyment from this if you go in with the lowest of expectations, maybe, but it’s pretty terrible, even for the type of entertainment it aims to provide. That still won’t stop me from checking out the many other Kurylenko movies I have yet to see though. I’ll just never revisit this one.

3/10

Friday, 30 July 2021

The November Man (2014)

An action thriller from director Roger Donaldson (who has a lengthy filmography that you could call more eclectic than consistent, but is always worth checking out), The November Man makes perfect use of leading man, Pierce Brosnan, and jumps from one set-piece mixing smarts and violence to the next.

The very basic way to explain this movie is that Brosnan plays a retired CIA agent, named Peter Devereaux, who is called back in to service and ends up protecting Mira Filipova (Olga Kurylenko). A lot of people want Mira dead, and the main person heading up the pursuit is David Mason (Luke Bracey), a young man who was trained by Deveraux.

Based on a book by Bill Granger, The November Man is exactly the kind of movie that it shows itself to be from the very first scenes. The wiser elder agent, the hot-headed youngster, some twists and turns, and Brosnan looking unflappable for most of the runtime.

The script, by Michael Finch and Karl Gajdusek, is decent enough. About as predictable as this sort of thing can do often be, it at least feels satisfying by the time things all come together in the finale. You’re not supposed to know who is actually going to be a hero and who is going to be a villain, but you can figure it all out at least a few steps ahead of the main characters.

Brosnan is on good form, even if he is reusing the kind of performance he already did so well in the Bond movies and The Thomas Crown Affair (as well as a few others from the past couple of decades). Kurylenko does well as the woman in peril, I always like watching her onscreen, and it’s an added bonus to watch one era of Bond work with another era of Bond girl. Bracey is also good in his role, being tough and determined to “win” at all costs, but also still weighed down by his connection to Brosnan’s character. Bill Smitrovich, Will Payton, and Lazar Ristovski all do their part in the main plot, playing various authority figures making life difficult for the lead.

Ultimately a bit too similar to a number of better movies, The November Man is still one that I would recommend to people wanting a bit of action couched in a plot attempting to pretend it is a bit smarter than it really is. It’s paced well, Donaldson directs with enough skill and confidence, there are some decent set-pieces, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, and Brosnan is effortlessly cool throughout.

7/10

Tuesday, 13 July 2021

Black Widow (2021)

A solo, and some might say long overdue, outing for the one female who made up part of the original Avengers movie line-up, Black Widow should have been a chance to right some wrongs. Considering how the character has been used in the movies, and her final main sequence in Avengers: Endgame, allowing her to just have the full spotlight and kick ass without being filtered through the male gaze should have been an easy "win" for the film-makers. Yes, I have repeatedly used the words "should have" here.

Set just after the events of Captain America: Civil War, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) ends up travelling to yet another foreign city, this time looking to meet up with her sorta-sister, Yelena (Florence Pugh). Yelena has managed to get hold of an antidote to the brainwashing drugs that have allowed a powerful figure named Dreykov (Ray Winstone) to create what essentially amounts to an army of Black Widows. Enlisting the help of the people who acted as their main father and mother figures (Alexei, played by David Harbour, and Melina, played by Rachel Weisz), Natasha and Yelena aim to access a top-secret base and thwart Dreykov's grand plan.

Written by Eric Pearson, no stranger to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (having worked on Thor: Ragnarok and some of the enjoyable "one-shots", amongst other projects), and directed by Cate Shortland, who IS a newcomer to this kind of movie, Black Widow feels like a film shaped by far too many people who didn't have to put their name to the main credits. Although the main story is as described above, and there's a decent core exploration of what it means to become a family unit, it's also an obvious and clumsy set-up for Pugh to become a part of the MCU. And any scenes that show a female being controlled by a dangerous man just calls to mind the far superior Jessica Jones show, which debuted over five years ago. This makes Black Widow feel a bit irrelevant when some better writing and direction could have avoided that, because consent/control is a theme that I think will remain depressingly relevant for many years to come.

The other thing working against the movie is the fact that Shortland seems to be directing from a number of notes handed over by men. That's the only reason I can think of for the amount of shots that have the camera sitting low and looking up to focus on the backsides of either Johansson or Pugh.

And then you have the accents. Johansson and Pugh do okay, with the latter struggling more at times. Harbour focuses more on fun than consistency, Weisz tries her best throughout, and Winstone . . . well, Winstone clearly gives up after his earliest scenes, settling on a blend of Russian and Cockney for the rest of his screentime. Aside from the accents, everyone works hard to lift up a script that is beneath them. It's difficult to imagine a superhero movie making effective jokes about the "superhero landing" after Deadpool already did it so well, but they try it here. It falls flat, especially when they then have characters DO the superhero landing without giving them good enough reason to do it. William Hurt makes a welcome return, once again playing Secretary Ross, and Olga Kurylenko fans will be disappointed to find that she's only visible onscreen for about a minute.

There are a couple of good action sequences, but none of them feel close to the quality of some of the superb action set-pieces that we have seen in these movies. That would be absolutely fine if this was a small-scale movie looking to keep things minimal and low-key. It's not. The stakes may seem smaller, in a way, but the big action moments throw far too much around the main characters, whether they are battling multiple enemies in close-range combat, evading a huge tank-like vehicle, using a helicopter to attempt a prison break, or plummeting through the air as they avoid, and use, the debris from a huge explosion.

I've seen people complain about the mishandling of a character named Taskmaster. Not being familiar with this character before this movie, I'd still have to agree. Taskmaster is an impressive foe in the first half of the film, and enjoyably unstoppable, but the third act reveal is surprisingly disappointing, leading to a finale that it's hard to really care about.

There's still a level of polish and professionalism here that makes it easy entertainment, and the music by Lorne Balfe deserves a mention, but this never once felt like an essential big-screen experience. And that's not something you can usually say about any MCU release. I'll end up buying it, the completist in me will demand that I do, but it's not one I will be in a hurry to revisit.

6/10

Saturday, 21 March 2020

Shudder Saturday: The Room (2019)

A wander through very familiar territory for horror fans, The Room is a decent reworking of The Monkey's Paw (the W. W. Jacobs tale so beloved by Stephen King) that starts off nice and light, and then gradually be comes darker and more twisted, leading to one hell of a "punchline".

Olga Kurylenko and Kevin Janssens are Kate and Matt, a couple who move into their new home and soon find a hidden room. Not just any hidden room. This one allows wishes to come true. There are catches, of course, but Kate and Matt need to find out what they are. Not before they have a child though, because who wouldn't use a mysterious wish-granting facility to wish for a child before figuring out all of the small print? Things start to seem a bit off, to put it mildly, and then get worse and worse for the new parents.

Directed by Christian Volckman, his live-action directorial debut after years of working on shorts and one animated feature (Renaissance, from 2005), The Room is a film that ends up being pitched in a bit of a sweet spot, for what it is. Volckman also came up with the idea and the screenplay, helped by Eric Forestier, Sabrina B. Karine, and numerous others, and he knows exactly what he has on his hands. This is a film, like many, that feels as if it could easily be an anthology TV show episode. It works better than some, however, because Volckman doesn't fill the runtime with obvious padding. Things get moving quickly enough, you get some lighter moments in the opening section of the movie, and then it takes a turn. And then another. And another.

The more the room starts to be shown as something dangerous, the more it becomes impossible for the characters to easily extricate themselves from the situation, at least not without using the room even more, even as some kind of "holodeck" to bring the outside to the indoors.

Kurylenko and Janssens are fine in their lead roles, if not the best choices. I'll always enjoy watching the former onscreen, because I like her (insert Jim Carrey from Dumb & Dumber impression here - "I like her a lot"), but there's no real chemistry between the two, although that helps in one or two of the more disturbing later scenes. Joshua Wilson is okay as the young child, while Francis Chapman handles heavier material as the older version of the same character.

Wisely keeping the focus on the house, the room itself, and the two parents dealing with their new child, The Room works as well as it does because it's happy to stay focused on a central predicament that it continues to make even worse than you expect. I'll be honest, it took me an extra few seconds to figure out the implication of that final shot, one that helps to raise an entertaining genre distraction into something that bit more memorable.

7/10

Friday, 12 April 2019

Johnny English Strikes Again (2018)

I wonder who thought that now was a good time to bring back the character of Johnny English, a rather arrogant man who often has ideas he lacks the skill to turn into action, who views himself as superior to his global counterparts, despite consistently proving otherwise, and who seems stuck in a haze of past former glories that are formed from chance events, misconceptions, and moments of standing on the shoulders of others. On second thoughts, it makes perfect sense that this character came back now. But is this new movie any good?

Sort of.

The plot sees Johnny English (Atkinson reprising the role, of course) being the last resort, yet again, when a national emergency needs a hero to avert disaster. This time the disaster is caused by a cyber-criminal. English is reunited with Bough (Ben Miller), he has some classic gadgets to help him along, and also gets the chance to become smitten with a woman named Ophelia Bhuletova (Olga Kurylenko).

There are some good laughs to be had here, a couple of set-pieces made me chuckle throughout, but perhaps not enough to warrant an entire new adventure for the UK's most hapless spy (although, in fairness, this balances the character out between the useless man we first met and the more skilled agent of the second movie, albeit rusty after his years not being in active service). I will always laugh at a scene that has Rowan Atkinson dancing to an intense dance tune, but that can be done without a whole Johnny English movie framing it. Likewise, the sequence in which Atkinson dons a VR headset and causes havoc in London is a lot of fun, but also feels as if it could have been reworked within a better narrative.

Because for all it gets right, and director David Kerr (making his theatrical feature debut after a LOT of impressive TV work) certainly keeps everything moving along briskly enough, in line with the light and amusing script by William Davies (who also wrote the first film), there's an inescapable feeling that we've seen it all before, done better, or we're seeing something that could have been part of a much fresher experience. English is a character trotted out again when he should probably have been left in retirement, although that is a lot of what the film uses to get laughs.

As for the performances, everyone joins in with gusto. Atkinson and Miller make a good duo, once again, with the latter particularly entertaining during the many times he chooses not to comment after yet another disastrous episode or lapse in judgement. Kurylenko is the kind of glamorous and dangerous woman she can play in her sleep, Jake Lacy is a tech whizz who may just be the most obvious link to the cyber-terror, and Emma Thompson is a hoot as a Prime Minister who gets through each bad day with sheer force of will and canny decision-making. And alcohol.

Maybe slightly better than the first movie, especially during a wonderful opening sequence that shows English in his new role as a teacher, but not as good as the second, this is a third outing ultimately undone by how completely unnecessary it feels.

6/10
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Sunday, 12 August 2018

Netflix And Chill: Gun Shy (2017)

Antonio Banderas is a very good actor. He's arguably too good for the daft material he has to work with here but, nevertheless, he sinks his teeth into the role with great gusto. And he's one of the few big plus points about the film.

Here's the plot. Turk Henry (Banderas) is forced to go on holiday with his wife (Olga Kurylenko). She wants to explore the local area. He wants to laze around and drink beer. Unfortunately, his wife is kidnapped, but the ransom is only $1M, which isn't a lot to Henry. He wants to pay but the American agent (Mark Valley) working on his case doesn't want him to. Paying the ransom would be tantamount to funding terrorism in his eyes. So Henry goes to another guy, an independent who gets results (Martin Dingle Wall). Meanwhile, his wife is teaching her captor (Ben Cura) into being a better leader to his men.

Simon West doesn't know what to do with this material, and he's not helped at all by the script, written by Toby Davies and Mark Haskell Smith (the latter having written the source novel, "Salty", that the film is based on). There's not nearly enough action or thrills, which wouldn't be a big deal if any of the comedy was better. Despite the performance from Banderas, the laughs are thin on the ground. The funniest moments come from snippets of Metal Assassin, the band that Banderas was in, singing their greatest hit, "Teenage Ass Patrol". Given how much I enjoyed the stupidity of that song, and at least one other played over the end credits, I wish that someone had been brave enough to turn this into something closer to a rock musical. It had the potential to go all the way up to 11.

Aside from Banderas, the other great performance comes from Wall, all gleaming white teeth, casual misogyny, intelligence hidden behind his laid-back facade, and genuine fun every time he's onscreen. Aisling Loftus is also enjoyable, playing an assistant who travels over to help Banderas. Valley is obviously supposed to be a fun character, but the comedy feels too forced, Cura is fairly bland, and poor Kurylenko isn't given enough to do, apart from be the target that Banderas keeps in his sights as he staggers and bumbles through the whole situation. You also get a small role for David Mitchell, who is even more wasted. I like Mitchell. I think he can be very funny. He's not very good here.

It's probably most telling that the end credits have numerous extra scenes that feel incongruous compared to the mess that came beforehand. One character is even returned from death, only to be killed all over again (I'm assuming that was an alternative ending that the makers decided to stick in there for fun). It sums up the entire movie.

A few people may like Gun Shy more than I did, but I am willing to bet that it won't be many of you. As hard as he tries, Banderas cannot do enough to salvage it.

3/10

Gun Shy can be streamed here in the UK.
Americans can buy it here.

Wednesday, 28 February 2018

The Death Of Stalin (2017)

People living under Josef Stalin didn't have an easy time of things, to put it mildly. He was a dictator who ruled with fear, forcing citizens to adore him and cater to his every whim. Anyone who opposed him, or his views, could end up on a list, spirited away in the middle of the night to be imprisoned and/or executed. His death led to a vacuum that needed filling immediately, while also giving everyone a chance to rewrite the recent narrative to play up their positive aspects in his regime while trying to downplay the negatives. And it's this turbulence, this almost farcical warping of the facts, that is looked at in a comedy that WILL make you laugh aloud without shying away from some of the nastier elements (e.g. some men are spared a bullet in the head as a change of order is delivered mid-way along the line, the difference between life and death being nothing more than a political tactic).

Based on a graphic novel, by Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin, it's easy to see why this material appealed to director Armando Iannucci (a sharp comedic commentator, arrguably best known nowadays for popping the bubble of British politics with The Thick Of It). Iannucci knows how hilarious it can be to observe the hoops that politicians will jump through to serve themselves while also trying to cling on to their elected positions. And he knows that those moments should all be weighed against just how the general public are affected. The scenario shown in The Death Of Stalin may be a bit extreme, but it's undeniable that politicians make life-affecting decisions every single day, sometimes with seemingly very little thought to the consequences.

Bringing all of these points to the screen, playing up the absurdity of certain moments while showing sudden threats and death, Iannucci has banded together with David Schneider, Ian Martin, and Peter Fellows to adapt the screenplay by Nury. That's a talented pool of people right there, and their dialogue is handed over to a hugely talented cast.

Simon Russell Beale may not be on the main poster but he's the main character, Lavrenti Beria, the right hand man to Stalin and the one who has to do the most scheming to try changing his perceived image. He was the man who handed out the "death lists". Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi) is the other main figure trying to get himself into a better position, with Georgy Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor) being the man stuck in the middle, replacing Stalin for the time being, despite not having any real thoughts of his own about the best way to move forward. Othe rmain figures include Vyacheslav Molotov (Michael Palin), Field Marshal Zhukov (Jason Isaacs), and Stalin's children (played by Andrea Riseborough and Rupert Friend).

You may have noticed that none of the actors above are Russian. I can't think of anyone who is. Certainly not Paddy Considine, Paul Whitehouse, Tom Brooke, Paul Chahidi, or any of the other supporting players are either. Olga Kurylenko is the closest, I guess, originating from Ukraine, and there are a few people in much smaller roles who seem native to the country, but that's about it. Which is fine. Iannucci has gone for the best actors, not the best Russian actors, and he hasn't made anyone put on dodgy accents that might make them sound silly. I assume, considering the reaction to the film from certain people in Russia who have commented on the content of it, that this may have been a film difficult to populate with an all-Russian cast. Nobody living there would want to fear a major backlash over their involvement here, which makes the approach from Iannucci sensible, and ultimately beneficial when it comes to the selling of the film.

Nobody puts in a bad performance and it's genuinely hard to pick a standout. I was going to praise the wonderful no-nonsense machismo of Isaacs (his appearance just over the halfway mark also standing out as a way to help the pacing of the film). Then I was going to praise Palin for tapping back into some of his golden comedic ability, especially considering he has been on both sides of such a dictatorial regime now. But Tambor made me laugh a hell of a lot, Buscemi was entertainingly determined to turn things around and not be kept on the back foot, and Beale was a great mix of weaselly charm and Machiavellian scheming at all times.

Darker than you might expect, or just as dark as it should be, The Death Of Stalin is a fantastic comedy aimed at adults, allowing Iannucci to once again chop off the heads of the arrogantly powerful with a gleaming sword of brilliant comedy. And one or two gags about a man wearing a corset.

9/10

Buy it here.
The graphic novel is available here.

Monday, 4 August 2014

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

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