Wow. Who... who are you, my... knights in... shining denim?

Minions

(2015)

It doesn’t take a genius to see why the Minions are such a phenomenon, surpassing the Despicable Me franchise that spawned them (or rather, they’re now enshrined as the underpinning for its massive success). That doesn’t make Minions a great movie, though. It’s as agreeably slipshod and pasted together as you’d expect from an attempt to beat supporting characters into the position of leads, but it nevertheless represents something of a pinnacle as a spin-off and prequel that’s successful in its own right. Usually they stink.

Penguins of Madagascar dealt with the prequel bit in its opening scene, which was also the best scene in a rather sorry affair that, like Minions, struggled to find a tale worth telling. Minions is more transparent in its deficiencies there. It doesn’t even bother trying to explain why such cute, imitable and well-meaning ba-nana-loving fellows are obsessed with serving evil masterminds. They just are. So we get the lowdown on what they did before joining Gru, at its best during a highly inventive (yes) prologue in which they join, and unwittingly undermine, various bosses throughout history, leading to the extinction of the dinosaurs, the demise of ancient Egypt, a brief spell with Count Dracula and an alliance with the always-good-for-a-height-gag Napoleon.

And fetching up in the ‘60s is a massively advantageous decision, since it means the rest of the plot can be strung together with pop hits from the era (with additional help from Geoffrey Rush’s engaging narrator). Not since the early days of DreamWorks Animation has a cartoon feature so shrewdly employed pop songs. Did you ever expect to hear The Doors in a kids’ movie? Should they have? I have no idea. This is a feature featuring a humorous interlude in which a giant Kevin appears to take a whizz.

Kevin, Stuart and Bob find themselves a new despicable boss in the form of Sandra Bullock’s Scarlet Overkill, before embarking for Swinging London. She’s a reasonable but unremarkable villain, much as the ‘60s England setting starts off well (police drinking tea during a high-speed pursuit) but descends into rather desperate spitballing that finds Bob crowned king and Kevin inflated to the aforementioned enormous size. You’re never far from something engaging, though, be it Bob’s friendship with a rat, Scarlet Overkill reading The Three Little Pigs to the three little Minions, the hypno-hat (great use of Hair, with guards reduced to their underwear) or irreverent asides (“Do you think its funny, to mock the elderly?” asks the Keeper of the Crown; “Yeah” comes the reply).

I guess returning Despicable Me (co-)director Pierre Coffin could hardly have passed on duties seeing as how he also voices the trio of Minions. It’s a terrifically inventive, catchy performance(s), but has limited scope for variation, which definitely means the entire movie consists of casting around for things to do. It’s only a surprise Minions is as sustained as it is, that it even got far enough to run out of interesting things to do in the last third. As such, it seems churlish to complain that it might have been better, since I’m not sure it could have been. It exists purely for the cash/merchandising wee ones will get their parents to put down, which means there’s sure be a Minions 2 after Despicable Me 3. A billon dollars worldwide guarantees it.

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Mondo bizarro. No offence man, but you’re in way over your head.

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Isn’t it true, it’s easier to be a holy man on the top of a mountain?

The Razor’s Edge (1984) (SPOILERS) I’d hadn’t so much a hankering as an idle interest in finally getting round to seeing Bill Murray’s passion project. Partly because it seemed like such an odd fit. And partly because passion isn’t something you tend to associate with any Murray movie project, involving as it usually does laidback deadpan. Murray, at nigh-on peak fame – only cemented by the movie he agreed to make to make this movie – embarks on a serious-acting-chops dramatic project, an adaptation of W Somerset Maugham’s story of one man’s journey of spiritual self-discovery. It should at least be interesting, shouldn’t it? A real curio? Alas, not. The Razor’s Edge is desperately turgid.

You have done well to keep so much hair, when so many’s after it.

Jeremiah Johnson (1972) (SPOILERS) Hitherto, I was most familiar with Jeremiah Johnson in the form of a popular animated gif of beardy Robert Redford smiling and nodding in slow zoom close up (a moment that is every bit as cheesy in the film as it is in the gif). For whatever reason, I hadn’t mustered the enthusiasm to check out the 1970s’ The Revenant until now (well, beard-wise, at any rate). It’s easy to distinguish the different personalities at work in the movie. The John Milius one – the (mythic) man against the mythic landscape; the likeably accentuated, semi-poetic dialogue – versus the more naturalistic approach favoured by director Sydney Pollack and star Redford. The fusion of the two makes for a very watchable, if undeniably languorous picture. It was evidently an influence on Dances with Wolves in some respects, although that Best Picture Oscar winner is at greater pains to summon a more sensitive portrayal of Native Americans (and thus, perversely, at times a more patr

Schnell, you stinkers! Come on, raus!

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My Doggett would have called that crazy.

The X-Files 9.4: 4-D I get the impression no one much liked Agent Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish), but I felt, for all the sub-Counsellor Troi, empath twiddling that dogged her characterisation, she was a mostly positive addition to the series’ last two years (of its main run). Undoubtedly, pairing her with Doggett, in anticipation of Gillian Anderson exiting just as David Duchovny had – you rewatch these seasons and you wonder where her head was at in hanging on – made for aggressively facile gender-swapped conflict positions on any given assignment. And generally, I’d have been more interested in seeing how two individuals sympathetic to the cause – her and Mulder – might have got on. Nevertheless, in an episode like 4-D you get her character, and Doggett’s, at probably their best mutual showing.

It’s not as if she were a… maniac, a raving thing.

Psycho (1960) (SPOILERS) One of cinema’s most feted and most studied texts, and for good reason. Even if the worthier and more literate psycho movie of that year is Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom . One effectively ended a prolific director’s career and the other made its maker more in demand than ever, even if he too would discover he had peaked with his populist fear flick. Pretty much all the criticism and praise of Psycho is entirely valid. It remains a marvellously effective low-budget shocker, one peppered with superb performances and masterful staging. It’s also fairly rudimentary in tone, character and psychology. But those negative elements remain irrelevant to its overall power.

You’re a disgrace, sir... Weren’t you at Harrow?

Our Man in Marrakesh aka Bang! Bang! You’re Dead (1966) (SPOILERS) I hadn’t seen this one in more than three decades, and I had in mind that it was a decent spy spoof, well populated with a selection of stalwart British character actors in supporting roles. Well, I had the last bit right. I wasn’t aware this came from the stable of producer Harry Alan Towers, less still of his pedigree, or lack thereof, as a sort of British Roger Corman (he tried his hand at Star Wars with The Shape of Things to Come and Conan the Barbarian with Gor , for example). More legitimately, if you wish to call it that, he was responsible for the Christopher Lee Fu Manchu flicks. Our Man in Marrakesh – riffing overtly on Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana in title – seems to have in mind the then popular spy genre and its burgeoning spoofs, but it’s unsure which it is; too lightweight to work as a thriller and too light on laughs to elicit a chuckle.

I tell you, it saw me! The hanged man’s asphyx saw me!

The Asphyx (1972) (SPOILERS) There was such a welter of British horror from the mid 60s to mid 70s, even leaving aside the Hammers and Amicuses, that it’s easy to lose track of them in the shuffle. This one, the sole directorial effort of Peter Newbrook (a cameraman for David Lean, then a cinematographer), has a strong premise and a decent cast, but it stumbles somewhat when it comes to taking that premise any place interesting. On the plus side, it largely eschews the grue. On the minus, directing clearly wasn’t Newbrook’s forte, and even aided by industry stalwart cinematographer Freddie Young (also a go-to for Lean), The Aspyhx is stylistically rather flat.

The best thing in the world for the inside of a man or a woman is the outside of a horse.

Marnie (1964) (SPOILERS) Hitch in a creative ditch. If you’ve read my Vertigo review, you’ll know I admired rather than really liked the picture many fete as his greatest work. Marnie is, in many ways, a redux, in the way De Palma kept repeating himself in the early 80s only significantly less delirious and… well, compelling. While Marnie succeeds in commanding the attention fitfully, it’s usually for the wrong reasons. And Hitch, digging his heels in as he strives to fashion a star against public disinterest – he failed to persuade Grace Kelly out of retirement for Marnie Rutland – comes entirely adrift with his leads.

You know what I sometimes wish? I sometimes wish I were ordinary like you. Ordinary and dead like all the others.

Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) (SPOILERS) Bryan Forbes’ adaptation of Mark McShane’s 1961’s novel has been much acclaimed. It boasts a distinctive storyline and effective performances from its leads, accompanied by effective black-and-white cinematography from Gerry Turpin and a suitably atmospheric score from John Barry. I’m not sure Forbes makes the most of the material, however, as he underlines Séance on a Wet Afternoon ’s inherently theatrical qualities at the expense of its filmic potential.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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