Prime Time: Margin Call (2011)

Another film that I had heard praised often over the past decade or so, Margin Call is a snapshot of the very beginning of the 2008 financial crisis. Okay, maybe not the VERY beginning, which was actually far back when financial institutions started to get more carefree and cocky with their ability to repackage and resell major debts, but it's certainly the day that saw a shockwave ripple through the world of finance. As we call all see now though, no permanent change came from this, at least nothing notable to stop the rich exploiting the market to get even richer while the relatively poor majority get left to pick up the pieces whenever a bubble bursts. So Margin Call feels a bit more sour as a viewing experience because of that knowledge.

Just as he's being removed from his key position in an investment bank, Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci) passes some of his work over to Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto) and asks him to look into it. Sullivan does, and what he finds makes him talk it over with Will Emerson (Paul Bettany), who passes it up the chain to Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey), Jared Cohen (Simon Baker), and, where the buck ultimately stops, John Tuld (Jeremy Irons). Things are set to become very bad, and there will need to be a sacrifice. Will it be Eric, or will it be the tough and ready-for-a-fight Sarah Robertson (Demi Moore).

Margin Call works well by spelling out the circumstances that helped to create the perfect storm that upset everything back in 2008. Viewers may not get every nuance and detail, but there's always enough to at least get some tenuous grasp on (helped by one character specifically asking to have the whole thing explained to him as if he was a child). Writer-director J. C. Chandor knows how to convey the required information, and he also delivers a number of exchanges that reveal the motivations and environment that these main characters are used to, but he also seems to have delivered something that could easily be read as "won't someone think of the poor bankers?" Maybe I am misreading a number of scenes, but it's hard to find any sympathy for characters who are either due to be handsomely rewarded while the rest of the world falls into financial ruin or simply start whining because they won't stay on track to make the millions that they've been dreaming about for some time.

The cast are all very good, at least there's that. Quinto is particularly enjoyable, and his performance here reminded me of how much more I would like to see him do. Tucci is never bad, Spacey works well, and Baker, Moore, and Irons are all very believable. It's Bettany who steals the movie though, even outshining Quinto. Whether providing a running commentary on the unfolding situation or helping to prepare his colleagues for whatever fate might await them, Bettany is able to be mesmerising and charming without working hard to make his character particularly likable.

There's nothing I can really fault, not when it comes to the dialogue and the performances, but personal preference means that I would recommend a number of other movies ahead of this, movies that quite rightly point to those exploiting the situation and blaming them for making a bad time even worse for many other innocent (and not-so-innocent) parties.

7/10

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Netflix And Chill: The Tourist (2010)

A remake of a French film from five years earlier, The Tourist is a film that somehow gained a notorious reputation for just how bad it was. And I'm here to say that it's not actually that bad. It's not very good either, but it's a relatively easy watch with a couple of photogenic stars trying to deliver star turns amidst a number of plot twists that feel increasingly ridiculous as we hurtle towards the welcome relief of the end credits.

Angelina Jolie is Elise, a woman being constantly surveilled by people who want to catch her communicating with her ex, Alexander Pearce. Inspector John Acheson (Paul Bettany) is heading up the surveillance team, and he answers to Chief Inspector Jones (Timothy Dalton). Pearce is responsible for stealing billions of dollars from a mobster, Reginald Shaw (Steven Berkoff), but he's wanted by the authorities because he owes hundreds of millions in back taxes. As a ploy to keep the police on their toes, Elise chooses a random stranger (Frank Tupelo, played by Johnny Depp) to befriend on her travels. That starts everyone thinking that Tupelo is actually Pearce, which puts him in a lot of hot water.

Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Julian Fellowes and one Christopher McQuarrie, The Tourist is arguably most hampered by the fact that it's not really any one thing. While it was nominated in the "musical or comedy" categories at the 2011 Golden Globes, it's not exactly a laugh-riot. It's also never too tense or thrilling, despite the director himself calling it a "travel romance with thriller elements" (according to Wikipedia, so feel free to take that with a pinch of salt). That's a real shame, especially when you have two stars who are more than capable of looking as if they can adequately deal with numerous onscreen death-defying escapades. It also makes it harder to be distracted as one coincidence piles upon another in each subsequent scene.

I didn't mind it though, and I'm used to watching films that I don't rush to place in any one category. There's something enjoyably old-fashioned about the structure, although it's harder for films to be sold as travelogues in an age when seeing the sights of the world is easier than it was back when every early Bond movie was the absolute height of the thrilling and the exotic.

Depp and Jolie are both decent enough choices for the lead roles. The former can do the slightly bumbling and befuddled act, the latter can seem graceful and beautiful and dangerous with seemingly very little effort. Bettany has to become more and more agitated as the film plays out, but it would have been better to see the mess around him increase exponentially with his irritation and anger. Dalton is used sparingly, but is an ever-welcome presence in movies, and Berkoff is unsurprisingly believable as a hard-hearted gangster out for vengeance. Rufus Sewell also has a couple of scenes, but his role could have easily been played by absolutely anyone, and the rest of the cast feels quite bland and anonymous (perhaps just to my unobservant mind, although it would seems like a decision was made to save money elsewhere to give the leads a bumper payday and pay for the scenic locations).

I'm never going to rewatch this, unless forced, and it's not one I'll ever recommend to others. I didn't find it a pain to watch though, and the 103-minute runtime passed by easily enough. It's light, daft, and completely implausible, but I could name you 100 other films that are similar, but with just enough minor improvements to help them avoid the reputation that this has. 

5/10

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Prime Time: Here (2024)

I've said it many times before, and I will undoubtedly say it again, but we definitely lost something when Robert Zemeckis started to become more and more seduced by technology. He was a director once able to use the best special effects to tell wonderful and hugely entertaining stories (having helmed at least two features that could easily be considered absolute classics of the 1980s), but he started to focus more and more on FX-laden movies that just seemed designed to showcase the FX work.

And now we have Here, a film with a couple of gimmicks to attract or repel viewers, depending on your reaction to the main premise. With the camera largely locked off for most of the runtime, Here shows us a house, and the people who have inhabited that house over the decades and centuries. We also see the space as it was before the house was built, sometimes seeing people coming and going from the house across from that space, sometimes seeing people moving through the space when it was just untamed wilderness, and sometimes even seeing a bit of prehistoric action. Although various people come and go, the two main characters are Richard and Margaret, played by Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. They are digitally de-aged for certain scenes, and we get to see most of their lifetime play out in front of us. 

Based on a graphic novel by Richard McGuire, turned into screenplay fork by Zemeckis and Eric Roth, the visual style here may put many people off, but it's a nice way to keep things moving along and keep jumping in between the various generations. What you see are various panels appearing in different areas of the screen as the image transitions from the present to the past, to the very past, and back towards the present. The visuals sometimes lag behind the audio, but it works to keep viewers engaged in a way that wouldn't otherwise wouldn't be possible with such a static camera set-up.

Hanks and Wright are very enjoyable when they get to be front and centre, but they share a lot of the screentime with Paul Bettany and Kelly Reilly (as the parents), Michelle Dockery and Gwilym Lee (a couple who lived in an older incarnation of the house), Ophelia Lovibond and David Fynn (a different couple who also made the place their home at one time), and Nicholas Pinnock, Nikki Amuka-Bird, and a handful of others helping to keep the space busy.

The big surprise, however, is how little the film really rests on the shoulders of the cast. They help, and Bettany and Reilly have some particularly effective moments, but this is a film that actually allows Zemeckis to marry the tech to a strong heartbeat in a way that is unexpectedly satisfying. While it's a technical exercise, one that may only appeal to a minority able to tolerate the use of the format, it's actually more interested in sharing a positive message about the shared experience of life. Birth, love, pain, loss, sacrifice, laughter, tears, and, of course, death.

I don't think I'll ever rewatch this, and I cannot think of anyone I would strongly recommend it to, but I enjoyed it while it was on. Everyone involved, on both sides of the camera, is doing very good work, and there's a lot of sweetness, but, unlike the fixtures and furnishings of the house depicted here, there isn't all that much below the surface. 

6/10

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The Da Vinci Code (2006)

Dan Brown is not Charles Dickens. He's no Brontë. No Stephen King. Even when it comes to thrillers, he's not as good as the likes of Patricia Cornwell, Lee Child, or even (when he's on form) Dean Koontz. But that's not to say that his writing is terrible. He has amassed a huge fanbase over the years, and a lot of that stems from the success of The Da Vinci Code, a thriller that blended some fact with a whole lot of fiction in a way that intrigued readers and made them feel as if they were becoming a bit smarter while the plot became dumber and dumber. That kind of success is very easy to turn your nose up at (especially when you recognise the formula that Brown has used in almost every one of his books, and I have read, and enjoyed,  Deception Point, Digital Fortress, and three of his Langdon adventures, the ones that have so far been adapted into movies), but it also happens for a reason.  Brown knows how to thread together ludicrous plot points into something that is entertaining and thrilling.

You could say the same of director Ron Howard, who has been at the helm of numerous hit movies throughout his career. It's also easy to turn your nose up at many of his works, but they're often hugely popular for similar reasons. Howard is a pro when it comes to the technical side of things, and when it comes to crafting moments of cinematic emotional manipulation. Has he made any absolute classics? You can be the judge of that, but if he's not made one movie that you would always enjoy if you caught it randomly on the TV then I'd be very surprised.

So Howard directing the cinematic adaptation of the book that really made Dan Brown a household name was surely always a guarantee of a blockbuster hit. Put Tom Hanks in the role of Robert Langdon and what could possibly go wrong? Not much, actually, not much at all.

It's a simple enough premise, a straightforward journey complicated by numerous obstacles and twists. Langdon is called to a murder scene inside the Louvre, and that sets him on a quest to both clear his name and find the Holy Grail, which seems to have had its location hidden away in a number of coded messages over the years. Langdon is accompanied by Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), and hopes to enlist the help of and old friend, Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen), as he tries to continue evading Captain Fache (Jean Reno), a self-flagellating albino monk named Silas (Paul Bettany), and others who are in hot pursuit.

Although Howard is in the big chair for this, a lot of the credit should be shared by everyone involved. This is a film that makes it clear just how much care and attention has gone into every department, from the props and design to the casting, and it's also got a gorgeous score by Hans Zimmer. Brown came up with the source material, but Akiva Goldsman does a superb job of making things more cinematic. The twists and turns are nicely handled, the exposition delivered in ways that don't let the film feel as if it has come grinding to a halt, and Hanks and Tautou are a winning pairing in the lead roles.

The supporting cast aren't half bad either. Reno works with an ambiguous character who may have an agenda of his own while he tracks our hero, McKellen has fun with a character who is oh-so-English that it's positively precious, and Bettany is an intriguing presence. Alfred Molina and Jürgen Prochnow also have good parts to play, with the latter involved in a set-piece that emphasises how silly some of the plotting can be, which doesn't necessarily make things any less fun.

It's very easy to mock and dismiss the Dan Brown books. It's also very easy to mock and dismiss the movies based on his books (and I know many complained at the time that Tautou seemed a bit wasted in her role, I think she remains a plus, thanks to her sheer screen presence). Maybe try to see how many positives there are, and simply accept the fact that being a crowd-pleasing work of art is almost always far removed from being the best work of art, but isn't any less worthy when it comes to having made people feel happy and entertained.

8/10

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Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Here it is. The Star Wars spin-off/prequel that we were all excited about when Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (the masters of making unlikely hits) were attached. That excitement started to fade when they parted ways from the project, the safe "creative differences" was the excuse given. And then there were expensive reshoots. And then the film was released, going on to achieve some fairly disappointing numbers at the box office.

I didn't rush to see it, and I didn't hear from too many people who did. It felt like something lacking the spectacle and magic of the main movie series (which even includes those much-criticised prequels, I hasten to add). It felt a bit, dare I say it, pointless.

The mess that led to this film underperforming and being viewed as a big mistake in the ongoing development of the Star Wars cinematic universe is a bit of a shame, because the film itself is a fun sci-fi adventure that benefits from some great lead performances and an enjoyable backstory for a beloved cinematic icon. Okay, we never needed that backstory, I agree, but the writers here - Jonathan and Lawrence Kasdan - at least make it a fun one.

I'm not going to cover the plot details here. It's enough to say that the film follows young Han (played by Alden Ehrenreich) as he sets out to make a name for himself, gets involved with someone who taches him a valuable lesson or two, befriends a large Wookie, meets Lando Calrissian (owner of the Millennium Falcon), and ends up flying through the Kessel Run.

I can't emphasise enough how much this film is lifted by the casting of Ehrenreich in the main role. Some may disagree, and my wife numbers among them, but I think he has just the perfect mix of what young Han should be, in terms of both looks and attitude. I first enjoyed Ehrenreich's acting, like so many other viewers, when I caught him in Hail, Caesar! and I hope that he just keeps going on to bigger and better things (and I would have liked to see him in another Solo movie, but that seems unlikely now). The other three people who easily hold the screen alongside Ehrenreich are Woody Harrelson (as Beckett, a criminal type who becomes a bit of a mentor), Joonas Suotamo playing Chewbacca, and Donald Glover as Lando. All of them are fantastic, but it's Glover who would steal the movie if it wasn't full of so many great little moments for everyone. Emilia Clarke, playing the woman who inavdvertently set Han on his path through life, is better here than she has been in some other movie roles, Paul Bettany gives a fine performance as a crime boss that you should never cross, and Thandie Newton, Jon Favreau (his voice anyway), and Phoebe Waller-Bridge (also a vocal performance) all do solid work. Waller-Bridge has the most fun, which makes it a shame that her character wasn't onscreen for a bit longer.

Ron Howard is the man who ended up in the director's chair. He does the perfectly competent job that you would expect him to do. It's not up there with his best work, and it's not up there with the best of the Star Wars movies, but it's a genuinely good time for viewers wanting to sit back, relax, and spend a couple of hours in the company of a reluctant hero they can find out a little bit more about. The script drops a number of lovely little details throughout, fleshing out a few of the main characters in scenes that entertain without ever betraying their essence (although it's quite easy when you keep things so simple - e.g. Lando is a charming rogue).

There are some touches that feel a bit forced, especially in the third act, but the pleasant surprise is just how much the film feels like Han at every turn. The music by John Powell aside (it never hits the heights that viewers might expect), this feels effortless and charming. It's one that I can see myself revisiting often, which is all down to how much I enjoyed spending time with these characters.

8/10

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Sci-Fi September: Transcendence (2014)

Most people will tell you that Transcendence stinks like a sweaty gym bag that has been dumped in a closet and not cleaned out for months. It's drawn comparisons to The Lawnmower Man (okay, I made that comparison, but I think others also did it) and Max Headroom, and most of those comparisons haven't been too kind. But I enjoyed it. I didn't love it, but it was certainly better than I was expecting.

The plot is pretty simple. Johnny Depp plays master computer egghead Will Caster. When Will is hospitalised, and diagnosed to be dying, he decides that the time has come to overcome the problem of developing computers with self-awareness by inputting himself into the system. When his body dies, he will live on. His wife (Evelyn, played by Rebecca Hall) is very happy with this, but a couple of colleagues (Morgan Freeman and Paul Bettany) are highly disturbed. And perhaps they should be. Because Will in computer form may not actually be Will, but rather a facsimile of him to cover for a computer that can take over the world.

A first time in the director's seat for Wally Pfister (probably best known for his cinematography in the movies of Christopher Nolan) and a first time getting script to screen for Jack Paglen, it would be easy to put the failings of Transcendence down to the fact that the two men didn't have the right experience in their relevant fields. Yet, that just doesn't seem to be the case. The script is far from the best, but it tries to keep things on point while weaving through the plot developments. This is not a film about cool sci-fi stuff and supercomputers. Well, it IS that, but it's more concerned with the moral responsibility that comes with that potential ability to access anywhere, and anything, in the entire world. Pfister may let down anyone who comes looking for a decent set-piece of two, although he doesn't do too badly at all in the big chair.

Depp is okay in the main role, I guess, even if he seems to be phoning it in (no pun intended). It's the rest of the cast who carry the film, which is probably as it should be. Hall is very good as a loving wife adjusting to a new way of life, Freeman does the same kind of thing that he's been doing for a good few years now, and Bettany is able to remind viewers that he's always worth watching, even when not voicing robo-butlers in Marvel movies. Clifton Collins Jr. does well in a relatively small role, Kate Mara is alright as a main player in a group opposed to the growth of modern technology, Cillian Murphy is sadly underused as a cop, and Cole Hauser pops in during the final third to be his usual bundle of awesomeness.

More a mix of Eagle Eye and Lucy than either of the two films mentioned in the opening paragraph, Transcendence may not be to everyone's liking but it at least sticks to its main remit for the duration - which is about two hours. It's serious fare handled with a lightness of touch, although it's also a pretty humour-free experience, and should find one or two extra fans now that it's away from the cinemas and in the home entertainment market.

Never a film for those seeking big thrills or explosions, this focuses on one or two big ideas. Not anything new or perfect, by any means, but I'd tentatively recommend it as something worth watching once. You may hate it. You may end up liking it more than I did.

6/10

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