I can't drive. I'm a goose.

Cinderella

(2015)

I guess you can’t really complain about a new version of Disney’s animated Cinderella, but live action this time, doing exactly what everyone expected of a new version of Disney’s animated Cinderella, but live action this time. I mean, it could have been fun, vibrant, witty, clever, different, twisted, edgy – any of those things, or even just one – rather than entirely obvious, without even the slightest glimmer of creativity. But then it might have run the risk of not being what audiences wanted (or were made to want, since the Mouse House is astutely serving up yesterday’s leftovers, with a sprig of garnish and advertised as Today’s Special).

It’s difficult to foresee how this wave of live action Disneys will go, as Alice in Wonderland – loathed as it was, but enormously successful, post-converted to 3D as it was – didn’t necessarily head down the typical route, taking an adult Alice and returning her to the location of her childhood adventures. In essence at least, this Cinderella sounds like it also had something else going on, since original director Mark Romanek – who has a contract whereby he can only ever work on pictures for so long before he is thrown off them by studios unimpressed with his vision and potential for lining their coffers – was driving towards something darker. What Disney has ended up with is reflective of the 1950 film in as much as it’s inoffensively unmemorable (except that at least that was an animation, so more striking for all that it wasn’t one of the studio’s best).

They surely must have desired it exactly that tepid, since Chris Weitz, who ensured the adaptation of The Golden Compass had nothing very engaging going for it either, penned the screenplay. And, adding to the monumental averageness of the enterprise, the impossible miracle (tragedy) of Kenneth Branagh’s incarnation as a name director saw him take the helm.

He flirted with this back in the early ‘90s, post Henry V acclaim, when he took on a rightly-derided big screen Frankenstein (itself coming off the back of Coppola’s Dracula). Sir Ken has never been any great shakes as a director. He’s very much from the Chris Carter school of the craft, whereby anything really incontinent or overt, regardless of affinity with the material, is fair game, hence his penchant for relentlessly swirling camera moves to the point of nausea, and a fascination with Dutch angles that would put Sidney J Furie to shame. Somehow, after mounting a limp remake of Sleuth, he got the Thor gig and brought Marvel a hit with its cod-Shakespearean Asgard – and Dutch angles aplenty. And presto, Ken’s fairy godmother has sprung it so he now regularly pops up on director casting lists, be it Jack Ryan or Disney classics.

Cinderella might have done with a bit more of “classic” Ken, the Ken with his delirious camera, as it’s impossibly staid and formal. There’s one moment, as Cinders (Lily James) flees the castle, where he throws in a skewed view, but just the one – that I remember – so perhaps he was on strict rations. It’s all incredibly unadventurous, from the casting (James is okay, Richard Madden is okay, notably more likable than in Game of Thrones, Cate Blanchett is okay, although by her standards she’s on autopilot, Helena Bonham Carter is on autopilot, by way of channelling Joanna Lumley) to the set design, to the sickly mantra (“Have courage, and be kind… and all will be well”; I much prefer her mother’s early pronouncement “I believe in everything”, a good example to set for the kids and one in the eye for Dawkins-types everywhere).

There’s even scant regard for the vaguest drama; everything happens to Cinderella, even her hardships, incredibly easily and with very little effort. Forget about dwelling upon loss etc. The Fairy Godmother’s voiceover nudges the proceedings along throughout, as if the makers are afraid of what might happen if she wasn’t there to state the bleeding obvious and proffer a comfort blanket.

There are a few bright spots. Ben Chaplin brings a tangibly different energy to Cinderella’s father, Nonso Anozie has a considerable fun as the Captain of the Guards, Holliday Grainger and Sophie McShera are suitably bitchy as the stepsisters, and Derek Jacobi is dependably and winningly Derek Jacobi as the King. Stellan Skarsgard, as the Grand Duke, repeatedly seems on the edge of going the full Gert Froebe but unfortunately always brings it back down again (in contrast, Rob Brydon is dreadful in a brief cameo; hopefully he can at least use the anecdote for his next outing with Steve Coogan). The transforming (reverting) coach and crew scene is jolly, but you’d hope it would be, as transforming things are the major attraction of doing this live. Well, that and selling tickets to Disneyworld. And all the princess costumes the little darlings will be begging their parents to buy them.

I’m not averse to a solid Disney fairy tale; in the last decade both Enchanted and Frozen delivered the goods for both the studio’s live action and animation divisions. But this new range, bright (money-making) idea as it may be, has left me unconvinced. Maleficent was unmitigated stodge, but an enormous hit regardless. The upcoming The Jungle Book looks as if it has no reason to be other than the technology that brought it into being.

Warner Bros’ recent Pan illustrated how easy it is to put a foot wrong with this kind of fare (and one wonders how well Universal’s The Huntsman prequel will do bereft of Snow White; Alice Through the Looking Glass likewise, now the 3D boom has lost its initial must-see lustre). I suspect next year’s Beauty and the Beast (from Bill Condon) will be every bit the hit that’s hoped for.

And I don’t doubt that Burton’s Dumbo will turn out to be as competently unnecessary with a dash of whacky as all his remakes. Pinocchio (with Downey Jr)? Well, anything to wash away the taste of the Bengigni version. Another Peter Pan? Why not, someone has to make a live action version that’s both a hit and also good eventually. A couple on the Disney list (The Sword in the Stone, The Black Cauldron) actually have potential, but Cinderella merely confirms that, unlike several of their other franchises (Marvel, Lucasfilm) Disney really only has an eye on how much lucre they’re going to reel in with these retreads, and negligible interest in artistic merit.

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She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

You’re never the same man twice.

The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970)
(SPOILERS) Roger Moore playing dual roles? It sounds like an unintentionally amusing prospect for audiences accustomed to the actor’s “Raise an eyebrow” method of acting. Consequently, this post-Saint pre-Bond role (in which he does offer some notable eyebrow acting) is more of a curiosity for the quality of Sir Rog’s performance than the out-there premise that can’t quite sustain the picture’s running time. It is telling that the same story was adapted for an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents 15 years earlier, since the uncanny idea at its core feels like a much better fit for a trim 50 minute anthology series.

Basil Dearden directs, and co-adapted the screenplay from Anthony Armstrong’s novel The Strange Case of Mr Pelham. Dearden started out with Ealing, helming several Will Hay pictures and a segment of Dead of Night (one might imagine a shortened version of this tale ending up there, or in any of the portmanteau horrors that arrived in the year…

Rejoice! The broken are the more evolved. Rejoice.

Split (2016)
(SPOILERS) M Night Shyamalan went from the toast of twist-based filmmaking to a one-trick pony to the object of abject ridicule in the space of only a couple of pictures: quite a feat. Along the way, I’ve managed to miss several of his pictures, including his last, The Visit, regarded as something of a re-locating of his footing in the low budget horror arena. Split continues that genre readjustment, another Blumhouse production, one that also manages to bridge the gap with the fare that made him famous. But it’s a thematically uneasy film, marrying shlock and serious subject matter in ways that don’t always quite gel.

Shyamalan has seized on a horror staple – nubile teenage girls in peril, prey to a psychotic antagonist – and, no doubt with the best intentions, attempted to warp it. But, in so doing, he has dragged in themes and threads from other, more meritable fare, with the consequence that, in the end, the conflicting positions rather subvert his attempts at subversion…

‘Cos I’m the gringo who always delivers.

American Made (2017)
(SPOILERS) This is definitely more the sort of thing Tom Cruise should be doing, a movie that relies both on his boyish™ charm and at least has pretensions of ever so slightly pushing the envelope of standard multiplex fare, rather than desperately attaching himself to an impersonal franchise (The Mummy) or flailingly attempting to kick start one (Jack Reacher: Never Go Back); remember when Cruise wouldn’t even go near sequels (for about 20 years, The Color of Money aside, and then only the one series)? American Made is still victim to the tendency of his movies to feel superstar-fitted rather than remaining as punchy as they might be on paper (Made’s never quite as satirically sharp as it wants to be), but it at least doesn’t lead its audience by the nose.

Two hundred thousand pounds, for this outstanding example of British pulchritude and learning.

The Avengers 4.18: The Girl From Auntie
I’ve mentioned that a few of these episodes have changed in my appreciation since I last watched the series, and The Girl from Auntie constitutes a very pronounced uptick. Indeed, I don’t know how I failed to rate highly the estimable Liz Fraser filling in for Diana Rigg – mostly absent, on holiday –for the proceedings (taking a not dissimilar amateur impostor-cum-sidekick role to Fenella Fielding in the earlier The Charmers). I could watch Fraser all day, and it’s only a shame this was her single appearance in the show.

By Jove, the natives are restless tonight.

The Avengers 4.17: Small Game for Big Hunters
I wonder if Death at Bargain Prices’ camping scene, suggestive of an exotic clime but based in a department store, was an inspiration for Small Game For Big Hunters’ more protracted excursion to the African country of Kalaya… in Hertfordshire. Gerry O’Hara, in his second of two episodes for the show again delivers on the atmosphere, making the most of Philip Levene’s teleplay.

Old Boggy walks on Lammas Eve.

Jeeves and Wooster 2.5: Kidnapped (aka The Mysterious Stranger)
Kidnapped continues the saga of Chuffnell Hall. Having said of 2.4 that the best Wodehouse adaptations tend to stick closely to the text, this one is an exception that proves the rule, diverging significantly yet still scoring with its highly preposterous additions.

Jeeves: Tis old boggy. He be abroad tonight. He be heading for the railway station.
Gone are many of the imbroglios involving Stoker and Glossop (the estimable Roger Brierley), including the contesting of the former’s uncle’s will. Also gone, sadly, is the inebriated Brinkley throwing potatoes at Stoker, which surely would have been enormous fun. Instead, we concentrate on Bertie being locked aboard Stoker’s yacht in order to secure his marriage to Pauline (as per the novel), Chuffy tailing Pauline in disguise (so there’s a different/additional reason for Stoker to believe Bertie and she spent the night together, this time at a pub en route to Chufnell Hall) and …

I think we’ve returned to Eden. Surely this is how the World once was in the beginning of time.

1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)
Ridley Scott’s first historical epic (The Duellists was his first historical, and his first feature, but hardly an epic) is also one of his least remembered films. It bombed at the box office (as did the year’s other attempted cash-ins on the discovery of America, including Superman: The Movie producers the Salkinds’ Christopher Columbus: The Discovery) and met with a less than rapturous response from critics. Such shunning is undeserved, as 1492: Conquest of Paradise is a richer and more thought-provoking experience than both the avowedly lowbrow Gladiator and the re-evaluated-but-still-so-so director’s cut of Kingdom of Heaven. It may stand guilty of presenting an overly sympathetic portrait of Columbus, but it isn’t shy about pressing a critical stance on his legacy.

Sanchez: The truth is, that he now presides over a state of chaos, of degradation, and of madness. From the beginning, Columbus proved himself completely incapable of ruling these islands…

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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