Is it possible a man blinded by love might not see treachery right in front of him?

Tristan + Isolde

(2006)

Is it Kevin Reynolds’ mission to direct faintly dull period pictures between Kevin Costner collaborations? That seems to be the case, with this, Rapa Nui and, to a lesser extent, The Count of Monte Cristo. Tristan is by far his most soporific film, however, and he is fortunate that his career torpor has been relieved by the Hatfields and McCoys mini-series.

Did some less-than-savvy marketing exec think that adding the “+” to the title gave the film some sort of Romeo + Juliet “street” cachet with the kids? That’s the only thing I can come up with (although, it’s unclear which is correct; imdb has a “+”, the poster “&”).

Ridley Scott was originally attached to a version of this tale in the ‘70s, and perhaps he would have had the edge on Boorman’s Excalibur. But I doubt it. The legend predates the Arthurian romance between Lancelot and Guinevere, but just isn’t as compelling. Both involve a love triangle with the king as cuckold, but the Arthurian take has abundant rich mythology surrounding it. Reynolds eliminates any supernatural elements (no love potion here) and goes for the post-Gladiator “blood and brutality” take on legends (see also Bruckheimer’s King Arthur and Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood), thus eliminating much of what made them so compelling in the first place.

The bare bones: Sophia Myles plays Isolde, daughter of the Irish king, who tends the injured Tristan (James Franco) when he washes ashore in Ireland. Naturally, they fall in love. Tristan serves English King Marke (Rufus Sewell), who saved his life when he was a child. Tristan must flee back to Britain, never having learned Isolde’s real name. He wins a tournament as King Marke’s champion but learns that the prize (part of a plot by the King of Ireland), a bride for Marke, is Isolde. Tristan and Isolde embark on a clandestine romance that eventually has ramifications both personal and political.

The most obvious problem with Reynolds’ film, aside from the complete lack of inspiration in the visuals and screenplay, is the miscasting of Franco. He is the personification of the feckless movie brat, surly and tepid when he should be representing a heroic ideal. More superficially, he has the anachronistic look and air of a modern American and does nothing to disguise this. He lacks believability as a brutal fighter and has zero charisma as a doomed lover (and no chemistry with Myles). This isn’t just a jab at the ubiquity of Franco; he was fine in Sam Raimi’s Spider-man films, working against his bland good looks. But here he is called on to do little more than pout and preen; he certainly can’t carry the film. The result is only a little less embarrassing than Orlando Bloom’s leading man duties in Kingdom of Heaven. Crucially, the romance plot, upon which the films drama rests entirely, crumbles. If we don’t sympathise with the title characters, and we don’t, we gravitate towards the measured and reasonable Marke .

Everyone else (Myles, Sewell, Mark Strong, Henry Cavill, David O’Hara) is fine, but Dean Georgaris’ screenplay is lifeless and his dialogue is forgettable (he is also credited on The Manchurian Candidate remake, Paycheck and the second Tomb Raider; not the most illustrious of CVs). Reynolds stages the action competently, but there’s no spark or vitality to lift this extremely pedestrian retelling of the legend.

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Turning Red (2022) (SPOILERS) Those wags at Pixar, eh? Yes, the most – actually, the only – impressive thing about Turning Red is the four-tiered wordplay of its title. Thirteen-year-old Mei (Rosalie Chiang) finds herself turning into a large red panda at emotive moments. She is also, simultaneously, riding the crimson wave for the first time. Further, as a teenager, she characteristically suffers from acute embarrassment (mostly due to the actions of her domineering mother Ming Lee, voiced by Sandra Oh). And finally, of course, Turning Red can be seen diligently spreading communist doctrine left, right and centre. To any political sensibility tuning in to Disney+, basically (so ones with either considerable or zero resistance to woke). Take a guess which of these isn’t getting press in reference to the movie? And by a process of elimination is probably what it it’s really about (you know in the same way most Pixars, as far back as Toy Story and Monsters, Inc . can be given an insi

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Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) (SPOILERS) It would have been a merciful release, had the title card “ The End ”, flashing on screen a little before the ninety-minute mark, not been a false dawn. True, I would still have been unable to swab the bloody dildoes fight from my mind, but at least Everything Everywhere All at Once would have been short. Indeed, by the actual end I was put in mind of a line spoken by co-star James Wong in one of his most indelible roles: “ Now this really pisses me off to no end ”. Or to put it another way, Everything Everywhere All at Once rubbed me up the wrong which way quite a lot of most of the time.

We’ve got the best ball and chain in the world. Your ass.

Wedlock (1991) (SPOILERS) The futuristic prison movie seemed possessed of a particular cachet around this time, quite possibly sparked by the grisly possibilities of hi-tech disincentives to escape. On that front, HBO TV movie Wedlock more than delivers its FX money shot. Elsewhere, it’s less sure of itself, rather fumbling when it exchanges prison tropes for fugitives-on-the-run ones.

Well, something’s broke on your daddy’s spaceship.

Apollo 13 (1995) (SPOILERS) The NASA propaganda movie to end all NASA propaganda movies. Their original conception of the perilous Apollo 13 mission deserves due credit in itself; what better way to bolster waning interest in slightly naff perambulations around a TV studio than to manufacture a crisis event, one emphasising the absurd fragility of the alleged non-terrestrial excursions and the indomitable force that is “science” in achieving them? Apollo 13 the lunar mission was tailor made for Apollo 13 the movie version – make believe the make-believe – and who could have been better to lead this fantasy ride than Guantanamo Hanks at his all-American popularity peak?

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Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) (SPOILERS) By rights, Paul Mazursky’s swinging, post-flower-power-gen partner-swap movie ought to have aged terribly. So much of the era’s scene-specific fare has, particularly so when attempting to reflect its reverberations with any degree of serious intent. Perhaps it’s because Mazursky and co-writer Larry Tucker (also of The Monkees , Alex in Wonderland and I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! ) maintain a wry distance from their characters’ endeavours, much more on the wavelength of Elliott Gould’s Ted than Robert Culp’s Bob; we know any pretensions towards uninhibited expression can’t end well, but we also know Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice have to learn the hard way.

We could be mauled to death by an interstellar monster!

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He’ll regret it to his dying day, if ever he lives that long.

The Quiet Man (1952) (SPOILERS) The John Wayne & John Ford film for those who don’t like John Wayne & John Ford films? The Quiet Man takes its cues from Ford’s earlier How Green Was My Valley in terms of, well less Anglophile and Hibernophile and Cambrophile nostalgia respectively for past times, climes and heritage, as Wayne’s pugilist returns to his family seat and stirs up a hot bed of emotions, not least with Maureen O’Hara’s red-headed hothead. The result is a very likeable movie, for all its inculcated Oirishness and studied eccentricity.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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