Woah, he's giving that pig a piggyback.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

(2016)

(SPOILERS) The accolades for Taika Waititi’s latest are of a piece with those for his previous picture, What We Do in the Shadows, in that they’re slightly over-effusive. Hunt for the Wilderpeople strikes unqualified gold with the odd couple relationship between Julian Dennison’s rotund juvenile delinquent Ricky and Sam Neill’s gruff bushman Hec, or “Uncle” as he objects to Ricky calling him. However, it’s less convincing when it comes to Waititi’s erratic comedy quality control. He’s more Paul Hogan than Monty Python.

Maybe such broadness of temperament is an Oz/Kiwi thing, or maybe it’s simply that Waititi’s always a draft or two from honing his material as precisely as he might. It could also be, without going all Mary Whitehouse on Hunt, that there’s a central awkwardness in what passes itself of as a family movie running a central plot motor wherein Uncle is accused of paedophilia (or being “a molesterer”). Even the Carry On… movies would have blanched at the scene in which Ricky is assumed to be describing how he was forced to masturbate Hec. Oh, those earthy New Zealanders and their loveable lewdness! If Victor Salva had been passing by the set, no doubt Waititi would have convinced him to cameo, just for added yuks.

There are jarring tonal shifts throughout, though, as the picture lurches from a poignant scene in which Hec loses Bella to Waititi delivering an indulgent (and not very funny) cameo as the minister at her funeral. Elsewhere, he seems fixated on lobbing us copious pop culture references (The Terminator, The Lord of the Rings, Thelma and Louise), but as randomly as Zuckers and Abrams rather than the at least germane manner Pegg and Wright would, while a stark rites of passage sees Hec putting down his beloved pooch.

It’s almost as if Waititi’s a little shy of letting the grounded, relationship side of the tale tell itself and feels obliged to pep it up in any way he can. Which is a shame, as this is definitely a case of less being more. It doesn’t help that, most of the time, the gags are verging on the second rate. At points too, he will compound this by feeding a character a line because it’s funny, not because they’d say it (Ricky’s “Too soon?” after suggesting Hec remarries), or allow a scene to pass purely because it’s been through his random reference generator (a vision of the ever-phallic ‘80s Flake advert anachronistically materialises before Ricky’s eyes when he meets Kahu, which can be added to the pile of inappropriate moments – if you were nursing the illusion this was a family movie). Generally, the sketch comedy routines are much more successful in the improvised vibe of Shadows, where hit and miss is par for the course. Here, his bungling social services worker (Rachel House) and redneck hunters tend to miss. Waititi even has Dennison administer a passing-out pratfall at one point, which indicates he’s been watching some kids’ TV for research too.

And yet, the Hec-Ricky relationship is genuinely touching (not in a Jimmy Savile sense, although that’s just the kind of gag Waititi would have cracked), and the early scenes with Rima Te Wiata as Bella succeed so profoundly in establishing her as a huge-hearted, kindly soul, that we’re entirely on board with these two lost ones making a fist of things. Sure, the template for Juvie Ricky just needing someone who will accept him and understand him is broad brush, but such uncynical sincerity is entirely appropriate for a kids’ movie. Just not the proliferation of child molestation jests.

Once the manhunt is well underway, Waititi loses focus on his trajectory rather, introducing Rhys Darby in one of his lesser cameos (I do like his bushman outfit, though) and a car chase that may have been a calling card to Marvel (although I’ve yet to be convinced of his blockbuster chops) but feels more like it’s there because referencing another movie is all he can think of for a big finale (which it doesn’t really need anyway).

Neill, who is also on board for Thor Ragnarok, has maybe his best big screen role since Dean Spanley, and it can’t be understated how much he makes Hunt for the Wilderpeople worthwhile for all its rocky passages, effortlessly inscribing it with heart and gravitas. Dennison makes up what he lacks in range and timing with enthusiasm, as the key quality is his strong chemistry with his elder. Maybe Waititi should take on a writing partner (I wonder if the better gags in Shadows didn’t come from Jermain Clement), to lend his screenplays that extra polish. Then he might make a really great movie. A majestical one.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

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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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