Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

A tale of an intelligent and powerful man unable to heed the warnings of people who want him to reconsider just how far he wants to push things in the pursuit of his main obsession, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is an interesting and entertaining movie, not least because of how the main storyline seems to run so nicely illustrate the unchecked ego (at that time) of director-star Kenneth Branagh. In fact, considering the lessons he may have learned along the way, I'd love to see what Branagh would do with this material today. Would he keep it much the same, albeit elevated with some superb CGI, or would we end up with a very different beast? I suspect the latter, but I'm not displeased to realise that Branagh could easily make all the same mistakes. Or even some all new ones.

I don't even need to summarise the story here, do I? No. Branagh plays Victor Frankenstein. Helena Bonham Carter is his beloved, Elizabeth. Robert De Niro is the Creature. And you have supporting turns from Tom Hulce, Aidan Quinn, Ian Holm, Richard Briers, John Cleese, Robert Hardy, and many others. Victor Frankenstein wants to conquer death, he wants to create new life, and the end result of his experimentation leads to a great deal of unpleasantness. That's all you need to be reminded of.

With Branagh having made such a big deal at the time of telling everyone that this was going to be a more faithful telling of the Frankenstein story, a film that would get closer to the source than any others that had come before it, it's easy to forget that the script is by Steph Lady (his first and only one, to date) and Frank Darabont. Structuring the whole thing to frame the main, more familiar tale, with bookends that have Victor Frankenstein explaining his woes to an Arctic explorer (Walton, played by Quinn), Lady and Darabont try their best to freshen up the well-worn formula. They're sadly fighting an uphill battle. Having the Creature be intelligent and able to speak, for example, may show us something closer to how things were in Shelley's novel, but it doesn't feel right here. There are over eighty years of Frankenstein on film to be pushing back on, and that's a hell of a lot of cinematic weight. Fortunately, Branagh is ready to take his shirt off and flex some muscles as he attempts to hold his movie as high as he can.

Jokes about his willingness to get shirtless as often as Matthew McConaughey aside, Branagh simply never feels as suited to the lead role as he should be. He's too interested in showing off the production design and making some nice speeches whenever possible, making it harder for viewers to see the gleam in his eyes and the overwhelming obsession that pushes every sane thought out of his mind. It would be silly to call Branagh a bad actor, in my opinion, but he should have, as director, given the lead role to someone else. There's a similar sense while watching De Niro, although he's hampered by the fact that he's depicting the Creature in a way so alien to film viewers. De Niro does quite well in the role, but it doesn't help that he always feels like what he IS - a version of Robert De Niro overlaid with a variety of prosthetic make up. Carter does well enough, and really sells her final moments in the film brilliantly, and Hulce is an enjoyable presence as a friend, ally, and someone hoping to save Frankenstein from himself once the full madness and terror is revealed. Quinn certainly has presence in his relatively minor role, Briers is sweet and likeable as a blind man, and everyone else does well with what they're given, including Celia Imrie, Trevyn McDowell, and a disappointingly underused Cherie Lunghi (as well as those already named above).

Quality emanates from every frame, from the practical production design to the CGI work, from the wonderful matte paintings to the sharp and impressive music from Patrick Doyle. It is, for the time, a remarkable achievement, in film-making terms. Where it falls down, sadly, is in the casting of the most important roles. Perhaps Frankenstein and his Creature need to be played by people who can fully immerse themselves in the roles. This is a very handsome adaptation of a classic tale, but it's not one that really shows Frankenstein and his Creature. It shows Branagh and De Niro in the middle of a wonderful playground. Which is all well and good . . . as long as you like Branagh and De Niro. And I do.

6/10

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The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1996)

Quasimodo, eh. That name rings a bell. *guffaw*

With that lame gag out of the way, it's worth starting this review by mentioning that THAT gag is funnier than most of the lines in this movie. I could also belt out a tune and tell you that my choice of songs would be better than most of the tunes in this movie. Neither of these things made me enjoy the film any less though. I'm just making this clear at the very start.

My lame gag is also a way of clarifying that I'm going to assume people know enough about this story already. Written by Victor Hugo, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame is all about a deformed bell-ringer (Quasimodo, voiced here by Tom Hulce) who lives in the heights of Notre Dame Cathedral. He ends up out in the midst of the public one day, jeered and mocked, and shown some kindness from a beautiful Gypsy woman (Esmeralda, voiced by Demi Moore). The plot then concerns Quasimodo's love for the woman who was kind to him, a "trespassing" suitor (Captain Phoebus, played by Kevin Kline), and the nasty Judge Claude Frollo (voiced by Tony Jay), who is the acting guardian of Quasimodo.

So, bearing in mind it's not too funny and none of the songs are that memorable, what would make The Hunchback Of Notre Dame worth your time? Well, it's just a really good movie, and one that incorporates a number of themes not usually found in cute and colourful animated outings. And the fact that it's not too funny doesn't mean it's completely unfunny, while the songs not being too memorable doesn't mean that they're bad. I found this entertaining throughout, and I enjoyed a few of the main songs, even if I cannot hum any of the tunes right now. Maybe a rewatch will change that.

Written by a whole heap of people, and directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, it's worth celebrating this as a Disneyfied adaptation of quite a dark and twisted classic. All of the voice cast do a great job, it's worth mentioning the presence of Jason Alexander as a gargoyle appropriately named Hugo, and they match their characters perfectly. Kline and Moore are the standouts, but you also have small roles for David Ogden Stiers, playing a kindly head priest, and Paul Kandel as a puppeteer who introduces the main theme of the story.

It's an immersive and rewarding experience, made so by the gorgeous animation and shot choices that bring viewers into the world of late 15th-century Paris, letting them float and fly around the streets and rooftops when free from the confines of Notre Dame itself, and putting viewers alongside some nicely-rounded characters. I'm kicking myself for not getting to this sooner, and I'll look forward to revisiting it. Who knows, maybe one day I'll even check out the sequel, although my expectations will be kept very low down for that.

Highly recommended, unless you're wanting the more standard Disney flick, complete with more hearty chuckles and singalong moments. But you can pick from about fifty of those. So at least give this one your time someday.

8/10

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Parenthood (1989)

Featuring Keanu Reeves before he was best known from Bill and Ted and years before he was Neo, Joaquin Phoenix while he was still known as Leaf and Martha Plimpton . . . . . . when she was known, Parenthood is a fun '80s movie that holds up today just as well as it did when it was first released. It may run slightly overlong, but it's well paced with some big laughs in between all of the wry observations on the joys and perils of parenthood.

Steve Martin and Mary Steenburgen are the main characters, Gil and Karen Buckman, but the narrative also spends plenty of time with Dianne Wiest (playing Helen Buckman, single mother and Gil's sister), Harley Kozak and Rick Moranis (Gil's other sister and her partner), Tom Hulce (Gil's brother) and Jason Robards (Gil's father). The aforementioned Keanu Reeves and Martha Plimpton are a tempestuous, teenage couple (with Plimpton also being Weist's daughter in the film) and Phoenix is Wiest's sullen young son.

Directed by Ron Howard, the film benefits from both the ensemble cast and a fun script written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. The drama and comedy is nicely mixed together in perfect amounts, with a real little bonus for Steve Martin fans as he gets to reference his past live material in a scene that has him creating some balloon animals (yeah, maybe not worth singling out, but I've always loved that sequence more than any other part of the movie).

Everyone gets to have at least one great moment, even the wonderful Helen Shaw (playing the grandma) in the last role of her brief film career. Martin gets to have lots of fun and Steenburgen is superb, but Wiest, Plimpton, Reeves and Phoenix really end up stealing the movie by the time the end credits roll. Moranis and Kozak are both very funny as rather pushy parents, Jason Robards is as good as ever and Tom Hulce does a good job at being a bit of a selfish ass. And then there are the kids, running around and causing problems. I'm not going to say that they all give wonderful, flawless performances but they're all very good at being, well, kids. Job done.

This will definitely appeal more to those who can identify with the many unique situations that come from being a parent, but there's also plenty here to appeal to everyone else. Because we all have some kind of family, which is equally what the film is looking at for most of the runtime.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Steve-Martin-Collection-DVD/dp/B000QJMSFA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374525282&sr=8-1&keywords=steve+martin

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

Will Ferrell may not be the kind of comic actor you can imagine moving smoothly into more dramatic roles, but he does a very good job playing Harold Crick in this movie, a gentle comedy that mixes in some wonderful ideas and a few nice twists and turns.

Harold Crick works for the IRS and lives his life in numbers. He always brushes his teeth a set number of times, he can always answer any mathematical problems thrown at him by colleagues and he stays on quite a predictable, some might say boring, schedule. This all changes completely when Harold starts to hear a voice narrating his every move. Harold seeks help from Professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), who endeavours to help him find out what kind of story he is being made a part of and how it might end. Meanwhile, Harold also falls for a young woman (Maggie Gyllenhaal) that he's been tasked with auditing and starts to really enjoy his life for the first time ever. This doesn't register with writer Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson), who is busy trying to get over her writer's block with the help of an optimistic assistant, Penny Escher (Queen Latifah). Karen doesn't need optimism. She often gets inspiration from sickness, from pain. From death.

Director Marc Forster uses a number of great little tricks to make the most of Zach Helm's smart and gently amusing script. Measurements and numbers appear all over the place in the first section of the movie, allowing viewers to get caught up in the details that govern the life of Harold Crick, the narration provides comedy and also tension and there are many enjoyable callbacks to little details throughout the film.

As already mentioned, Ferrell does well in the lead role, but he has the benefit of a superb supporting cast around him. That's not to sell him short though. His everyman turn here may be the best that he's ever done, in my view, and he makes for a likeable and sympathetic lead. Gyllenhaal is a lot of fun in her role, a woman who wants to choose just where her tax dollars go, and Hoffman is even more enjoyable as he gets to grips with Harold's problem and tries to tick off a variety of literary possibilities. Thompson and Latifah are, for the most part, separate from the central story strand, but they're important characters, of course, and both do very well in their roles.

Overall, Stranger Than Fiction manages to please a lot of different people; those looking for something a bit different from the norm, those looking for something clever, those looking for something with warm humour to it, those looking for something with a bit of romance and those looking for a film that will remind them, funnily enough, of the power of a good book.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-Than-Fiction-Blu-ray-Region/dp/B000NDETHE/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1359497646&sr=8-3