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.

Comments

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…

I should have mailed it to the Marx Brothers.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
When your hero(es) ride off into the sunset at the end of a film, it’s usually a pretty clear indication that a line is being drawn under their adventures. Sure, rumours surfaced during the ‘90s of various prospective screenplays for a fourth outing for the whip-cracking archeologist. But I’m dubious anyone really expected it to happen. There seemed to be a natural finality to Last Crusade that made the announcement of his 2007 return nostalgically welcome but otherwise unwarranted. That it turned out so tepid merely seemed like confirmation of what we already knew; Indy’s time was past.

You want to investigate me, roll the dice and take your chances.

A Few Good Men (1992)
(SPOILERS) Aaron Sorkin has penned a few good manuscripts in his time, but A Few Good Men, despite being inspired by an actual incident (one related to him by his sister, an army lawyer on a case at the time), falls squarely into the realm of watchable but formulaic. I’m not sure I’d revisited the entire movie since seeing it at the cinema, but my reaction is largely the same: that it’s about as impressively mounted and star-studded as Hollywood gets, but it’s ultimately a rather empty courtroom drama.

Do you read Sutter Cane?

In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
(SPOILERS) The concluding chapter of John Carpenter’s unofficial Apocalypse Trilogy (preceded by The Thing and Prince of Darkness) is also, sadly, his last great movie. Indeed, it stands apart in the qualitative wilderness that beset him during the ‘90s (not for want of output). Michael De Luca’s screenplay had been doing the rounds since the ‘80s, even turned down by Carpenter at one point, and it proves ideal fodder for the director, bringing out the best in him. Even cinematographer Gary K Kibbe seems inspired enough to rise to the occasion. It could do without the chugging rawk soundtrack, perhaps, but then, that was increasingly where Carpenter’s interests resided (as opposed to making decent movies).

If you never do anything, you never become anyone.

An Education (2009)
Carey Mulligan deserves all the attention she received for her central performance, and the depiction of the ‘60s is commendably subdued. I worried there was going to be a full-blown music montage sequence at the climax that undid all the good work, but thankfully it was fairly low key.

Alfred Molina and Olivia Williams are especially strong in the supporting roles, and it's fortunate for credibility’s sake that that Orlando Bloom had to drop out and Dominic Cooper replaced him.
***1/2

Everyone who had a talent for it lived happily ever after.

Empire 30: Favourite Films of the Last 30 Years
Empire’s readers’ poll to celebrate its thirtieth birthday – a request for the ultimate thirty films of the last thirty years, one per year from 1989 – required a bit of thought, particularly since they weren’t just limiting it to your annual favourite (“These can be the films that impressed you the most, the ones that stuck with you, that brought you joy, or came to you at just the right time”). Also – since the question was asked on Twitter, although I don’t know how rigorous they’re being; does it apply to general release, or does it include first film festival showings? – they’re talking UK release dates, rather than US, calling for that extra modicum of mulling. To provide more variety, I opted to limit myself to just one film per director; otherwise, my thirty would have been top heavy with, at very least, Coen Brothers movies. So here’s they are, with runners-up and reasoning:

What happens at 72?

Midsommar (2019)
(SPOILERS) Ari Aster, by rights, ought already to be buckling under the weight of all those accolades amassing around him, pronouncing him a horror wunderkind a mere two films in. But while both Midsommar and Hereditary have both received broadly similar critical acclaim, his second feature will lag behind the first by some distance in box office, unless something significant happens in a hitherto neglected territory. That isn’t such a surprise on seeing it. While Hereditary keeps its hand firmly on the tiller of shock value and incident, so as to sustain it’s already more than adequate running time, Midsommar runs a full twenty minutes longer, which is positively – or rather, negatively – over-indulgent for what we have here, content-wise, and suggests a director whose crowned auteurishness has instantly gone to his head.

You're always sorry, Charles, and there's always a speech, but nobody cares anymore.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)
(SPOILERS) To credit its Rotten Tomatoes score (22%), you’d think X-Men: Dark Phoenix was a travesty that besmirched the name of all good and decent (read: MCU proper) superhero movies, or even last week’s underwhelming creature feature (Godzilla: King of Monsters has somehow reached 40%, despite being a lesser beast in every respect). Is the movie’s fate a self-fulfilling prophecy, what with delayed release dates and extensively reported reshoots? Were critics castigating a fait accompli turkey without giving it a chance? That would be presupposing they’re all sheep, though, and in fairness, other supposed write-offs havecome back from such a brink in the past (World War Z). Whatever the feelings of the majority, Dark Phoenix is actually a mostly okay (twelfth) instalment in the X-franchise – it’s exactly what you’d expect from an X-Men movie at this point, one without any real mojo left and a variable cast struggling to pull its weight. The third act is a bi…

Can you float through the air when you smell a delicious pie?

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
(SPOILERS) Ironically, given the source material, think I probably fell into the category of many who weren't overly disposed to give this big screen Spider-Man a go on the grounds that it was an animation. After all, if it wasn’t "good enough" for live-action, why should I give it my time? Not even Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's pedigree wholly persuaded me; they'd had their stumble of late, although admittedly in that live-action arena. As such, it was only the near-unanimous critics' approval that swayed me, suggesting I'd have been missing out. They – not always the most reliable arbiters of such populist fare, which made the vote of confidence all the more notable – were right. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is not only a first-rate Spider-Man movie, it's a fresh, playful and (perhaps) surprisingly heartfelt origins story.

Why would I turn into a filing cabinet?

Captain Marvel (2019)
(SPOILERS) All superhero movies are formulaic to a greater or lesser degree. Mostly greater. The key to an actually great one – or just a pretty good one – is making that a virtue, rather than something you’re conscious of limiting the whole exercise. The irony of the last two stand-alone MCU pictures is that, while attempting to bring somewhat down-the-line progressive cachet to the series, they’ve delivered rather pedestrian results. Of course, that didn’t dim Black Panther’s cultural cachet (and what do I know, swathes of people also profess to loving it), and Captain Marvel has hit half a billion in its first few days – it seems that, unless you’re poor unloved Ant-Man, an easy $1bn is the new $700m for the MCU – but neither’s protagonist really made that all-important iconic impact.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog