You didn't prepare me for this.

Hanna

(2011)

I thought Joe Wright's Atonement was half of a decent film (the first half) and The Soloist was star-powered with little else to recommend it. This, however, suggests he's not all about assembling casts and cynically chasing prestige projects.

For a start, he shows he has far better chops as an action director that many who have made it their profession. He shoots his scenes clearly and comprehensibly so that, for all the Bourne-ness of the film's premise (CIA tracks down kid/dad super agents who have a murky history that the agency doesn't want revealed), it bears little resemblance to shakycam thrills. The plot may be so-so, and hyper-violent minors suddenly seem like an overburdened sub-genre (see also Kick-Ass), but Wright infuses it with a clear Grimm's fairy tale signature (maybe he saw the underrated Paul Walker thriller Running Scared, which overlayed a similar vibe on an ultra-violent urban thriller) and an ability to render note perfect performances from his cast.

Saoirse Ronan is compelling in the lead role, completely unfamiliar with the populated world and social niceties. Either side of her are Eric Bana as the father figure (his best performance in a good while) and Cate Blanchett as the wicked witch (dependable, but nothing she hasn't done before). A word too for Tom Hollander's grotesque track-suited blonde henchman (whistling one of The Chemical Brothers' compositions) and the over-pronounced but resonant surrogate family that Hanna meets on her travels (Olivia Williams, Jason Flemyng and Jessica Barden); Wright's composition of a scene of open separate shipping crates is as off-kilter and surreal as Hanna's visit to Grimm's theme park.

****

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So you made contact with the French operative?

Atomic Blonde (2017)
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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
(1982)
(SPOILERS) I don’t love Star Trek, but I do love Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That probably isn’t just me, but a common refrain of many a non-devotee of the series. Although, it used to apply to The Voyage Home (the funny one, with the whales, the Star Trek even the target audience for Three Men and a Baby could enjoy). Unfortunately, its high regard has also become the desperate, self-destructive, song-and-verse, be-all-and-end-all of the overlords of the franchise itself, in whichever iteration, it seems. This is understandable to an extent, as Khan is that rare movie sequel made to transcendent effect on almost every level, and one that stands the test of time every bit as well (better, even) as when it was first unveiled.

Dude. You’re my hero and shit.

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(SPOILERS) In which we find Sean Connery – or his agent, whom he got rid of subsequent to this and Cuba – showing how completely out of touch he was by the late 1970s. Hence hitching his cart to the moribund disaster movie genre just as movie entertainment was being rewritten and stolen from under him. He wasn’t alone, of course – pal Michael Caine would appear in both The Swarm and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure during this period – but Meteor’s lack of commercial appeal was only accentuated by how functional and charmless its star is in it. Some have cited Meteor as the worst movie of his career (Christopher Bray in his book on the actor), but its sin is not one of being outright terrible, rather of being terminally dull.

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Flawless (2007)

The present day framing of this nifty little heist flick knocks a star off it, since it's truly lousy. Natalie Dormer is a horrendously annoying reporter interviewing a rather ropily aged Demi Moore, neither of them helped by atrocious dialogue. Back in the '60s Moore fares much better as a much passed-over aging manager in a diamond business who is tempted by Caine's cleaner into cleaning the place out.

Caine's on good form; nothing he hasn't done a hundred times, but full of energy, and the plotting makes it as much fun to work out how he done it as it is to watch the actors. Joss Ackland is surprisingly cast against type as an evil South African while Lambert Wilson has fun as the man investigating who stole what.
***

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