I apologise for Oslo's low murder rate.

The Snowman

(2017)

(SPOILERS) Maybe Morton Tyldum made Jo Nesbø adaptations look deceptively easy with Headhunters, although Tyldum hasn’t show such facility with material since, so maybe Nesbø simply suits someone with hackier sensibilities than Tomas Alfredson. It’s a long way down from the classy intrigue of John Le Carré to the serial killer clichés of The Snowman, and I’m inclined to think that, even if Alfredson had managed to film that 15% of the screenplay he says went awry, this wouldn’t have been all that great.

Because that’s Alfredson’s excuse, and as they go, it’s a fairly good one. Working Title’s involvement in the project raises eyebrows since they tend to run a tight, selective ship, but even they’re prone to missteps (Grimsby). They had, after all, made a surprising success of the pared-down Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with Alfredson, so there was probably no reason to think they couldn’t strike gold together again. Perhaps The Snowman was just too commercial. Or perhaps the serial killer genre, while still alive in print and Nordic realms, is spent on the big screen. Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a relative bust, after all. We might even lay its failure at the door of the Red Sparrow effect: the incongruity of English-speaking thesps portraying characters in non-English speaking countries. It might have been an everyday thing once, but today one can legitimately argue people should suck it and learn to read subtitles (or, if you really must adapt it, relocate it to the US, or Britain).

The Snowman wasn’t merely ignored, though; it was visibly spurned. There are nice things to say about the movie – Dion Beebe’s cinematography is gorgeous. You might not be persuaded to live somewhere so chilly, but you can’t deny Norway looks incredibly picturesque. And the cast are eclectic, even if no one ever gets a chance to exactly shine – a movie with Michael Fassbender and Rebecca Ferguson in the leads, supported by JK Simmons, Toby Jones, David Denick, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Val Kilmer can’t be all bad.

Unfortunately, there’s no point at which Alfredson (aided by the efforts of successive editors Claire Simpson and Thelma Schoonmaker – Scorsese was pegged to direct at one point, but made Shutter Island, so it was clearly a toss-up between schlock at Marty Towers that weekend) engages with the material. The killer’s modus operandi seems almost like a parody of such fare (leaving snowmen at the scene of his crimes, and eventually the head of a victim atop one) as does his motivation (he murders women who don’t want their offspring because his mother never wanted him – or so he has assumed, due to her effective suicide, corrected in Harry Hole’s rather trite reinterpretation that it was actually his absent, abusive father he resented; this element is a revision of the novel, where he murdered his mother on discovering his father wasn’t his father).

Harry himself is a walking tortured genius, but without being especially interesting with it. He’s an alcoholic – when he doesn’t have a case, it’s that Sherlock Holmes thing but with booze rather than opiates – and comes armed with a string of failed interpersonal relationships, as admitted during a rather ludicrous expository climax in which the killer threatens his ex (Gainsborough) and her son (Michael Yates, not that one) unless Harry admits to his foibles (“Because I’m selfish. Because I’m an addict. There isn’t enough room for them”). Fassbender looks far too healthy for one abusing himself in such chronic fashion, and the movie has to be chalked up as yet another of his doomed attempts to kick start a franchise (Assassin’s Creed was also a bust, so he has to make do with Erik Lehnsherr for the time being).

Not all the excisions from the source material are necessarily a bad idea. I certainly can’t fault not making Ferguson’s Katrina Bratt a suspect (or was this simply part of the 15% that didn’t get filmed?), which is surely the last resort of the writer desperate for red herrings. On the other hand, she’s unceremoniously killed off here, but goes on to become Harry’s boss in the novels (this being the seventh of them). Her being the daughter of Val Kilmer’s detective Rafto might have worked better if there was some degree of emotional investment in either character. Instead, there’s some tricksy time-shifting, such that we aren’t’ aware Rafto has been dead eight years until Harry finds out. There’s also the problem that poor Val, recovering from throat cancer, is hardly in the movie and has been unceremoniously dubbed, so the character seems even more disconnected from the proceedings.

If The Snowman were more engrossing, the lack of viable suspects among the main characters would probably have highlighted the actual culprit even earlier (Sea of Love syndrome, although at least there we had compelling lead performances propping up the weaknesses of the plot); Denick’s dodgy doctor and Simmons’ businessman only ever seem to be included as distractions, which leaves James D’Arcy’s grieving husband and Jonas Karlsson as Gainsbourg’s boyfriend, the latter further underlying the silliness of the proceedings (that the killer should be someone you know ought really to apply to the victim, rather than the cop investigating the case).

I wouldn’t say The Snowman is straight-up incomprehensible, as some reviews have suggested, but itisdisjointed to the point of distraction. And there’s an additional problem when material this dour and tonally earnest is hinged to plotting so pulpy that it really needs a Paul Verhoeven to bring out the guilty pleasure side. As it is, I suspect Harry Hole will find his home, probably not dissimilarly to Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at a Jack Reacher franchise, on the small screen, where the material is given a chance to breathe and unfold with due care and attention to chronology. And who knows, if Netflix goes fishing for it, it might even end up airing in its native language.

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

What’s so bad about being small? You’re not going to be small forever.

Innerspace (1987) There’s no doubt that Innerspace is a flawed movie. Joe Dante finds himself pulling in different directions, his instincts for comic subversion tempered by the need to play the romance plot straight. He tacitly acknowledges this on the DVD commentary for the film, where he notes Pauline Kael’s criticism that he was attempting to make a mainstream movie; and he was. But, as ever with Dante, it never quite turns out that way. Whereas his kids’ movies treat their protagonists earnestly, this doesn’t come so naturally with adults. I’m a bona fide devotee of Innerspace , but I can’t help but be conscious of its problems. For the most part Dante papers over the cracks; the movie hits certain keynotes of standard Hollywood prescription scripting. But his sensibility inevitably suffuses it. That, and human cartoon Martin Short (an ideal “leading man” for the director) ensure what is, at first glance just another “ Steven Spielberg Presents ” sci-fi/fantas

The Illumi-what-i?

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) (SPOILERS) In which Sam Raimi proves that he can stand proudly with the best – or worst – of them as a good little foot soldier of the woke apocalypse. You’d expect the wilfully anarchic – and Republican – Raimi to choke on the woke, but instead, he’s sucked it up, grinned and bore it. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is so slavishly a production-line Marvel movie, both in plotting and character, and in nu-Feige progressive sensibilities, there was no chance of Sam staggering out from beneath its suffocating demands with anything more than a few scraps of stylistic flourish intact.

This risotto is shmackin’, dude.

Stranger Things Season 4: Part I (SPOILERS) I haven’t had cause, or the urge, to revisit earlier seasons of Stranger Things , but I’m fairly certain my (relatively) positive takes on the first two sequel seasons would adjust down somewhat if I did (a Soviet base under Hawkins? DUMB soft disclosure or not, it’s pretty dumb). In my Season Three review, I called the show “ Netflix’s best-packaged junk food. It knows not to outstay its welcome, doesn’t cause bloat and is disposable in mostly good ways ” I fairly certain the Duffer’s weren’t reading, but it’s as if they decided, as a rebuke, that bloat was the only way to go for Season Four. Hence episodes approaching (or exceeding) twice the standard length. So while the other points – that it wouldn’t stray from its cosy identity and seasons tend to merge in the memory – hold fast, you can feel the ambition of an expansive canvas faltering at the hurdle of Stranger Things ’ essential, curated, nostalgia-appeal inconsequentiality.

Is this supposed to be me? It’s grotesque.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) (SPOILERS) I didn’t hold out much hope for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent being more than moderately tolerable. Not so much because its relatively untested director and his co-writer are mostly known in the TV sphere (and not so much for anything anyone is raving about). Although, it has to be admitted, the finished movie flourishes a degree of digital flatness typical of small-screen productions (it’s fine, but nothing more). Rather, due to the already over-tapped meta-strain of celebs showing they’re good sports about themselves. When Spike Jonze did it with John Malkovich, it was weird and different. By the time we had JCVD , not so much. And both of them are pre-dated by Arnie in Last Action Hero (“ You brought me nothing but pain ” he is told by Jack Slater). Plus, it isn’t as if Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten have much in the way of an angle on Nic; the movie’s basically there to glorify “him”, give or take a few foibles, do

Whacking. I'm hell at whacking.

Witness (1985) (SPOILERS) Witness saw the advent of a relatively brief period – just over half a decade –during which Harrison Ford was willing to use his star power in an attempt to branch out. The results were mixed, and abruptly concluded when his typically too late to go where Daniel Day Lewis, Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro had gone before (with at bare minimum Oscar-nominated results) – but not “ full retard ” – ended in derision with Regarding Henry . He retreated to the world of Tom Clancy, and it’s the point where his cachet began to crumble. There had always been a stolid quality beneath even his more colourful characters, but now it came to the fore. You can see something of that as John Book in Witness – despite his sole Oscar nom, it might be one of Ford’s least interesting performances of the 80s – but it scarcely matters, or that the screenplay (which won) is by turns nostalgic, reactionary, wistful and formulaic, as director Peter Weir, in his Hollywood debu

Are you telling me that I should take my daughter to a witch doctor?

The Exorcist (1973) (SPOILERS) Vast swathes have been written on The Exorcist , duly reflective of its cultural impact. In a significant respect, it’s the first blockbuster – forget Jaws – and also the first of a new kind of special-effects movie. It provoked controversy across all levels of the socio-political spectrum, for explicit content and religious content, both hailed and denounced for the same. William Friedkin, director of William Peter Blatty’s screenplay based on Blatty’s 1971 novel, would have us believe The Exorcist is “ a film about the mystery of faith ”, but it’s evidently much more – and less – than that. There’s a strong argument to be made that movies having the kind of seismic shock on the landscape this one did aren’t simply designed to provoke rumination (or exultation); they’re there to profoundly influence society, even if largely by osmosis, and when one looks at this picture’s architects, such an assessment only gains in credibility.

That, my lad, was a dragon.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) (SPOILERS) It’s alarming how quickly Peter Jackson sabotaged all the goodwill he amassed in the wake of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. A guy who started out directing deliciously deranged homemade horror movies ended up taking home the Oscar for a fantasy movie, of all genres. And then he blew it. He went from a filmmaker whose naysayers were the exception to one whose remaining cheerleaders are considered slightly maladjusted. The Desolation of Smaug recovers some of the territory Jackson has lost over the last decade, but he may be too far-gone to ever regain his crown. Perhaps in years to come The Lord of the Rings trilogy will be seen as an aberration in his filmography. There’s a cartoonishness to the gleeful, twisted anarchy on display in his earlierr work that may be more attuned to the less verimilitudinous aspects of King Kong and The Hobbit s. The exceptions are his female-centric character dramas, Heavenly Creat

Gizmo caca!

Gremlins (1984) I didn’t get to see Gremlins at the cinema. I wanted to, as I had worked myself into a state of great anticipation. There was a six-month gap between its (unseasonal) US release and arrival in the UK, so I had plenty of time to devour clips of cute Gizmo on Film ’84 (the only reason ever to catch Barry Norman was a tantalising glimpse of a much awaited movie, rather than his drab, colourless, reviews) and Gremlins trading cards that came with bubble gum attached (or was it the other way round?). But Gremlins ’ immediate fate for many an eager youngster in Britain was sealed when, after much deliberation, the BBFC granted it a 15 certificate. I had just turned 12, and at that time an attempt to sneak in to see it wouldn’t even have crossed my mind. I’d just have to wait for the video. I didn’t realise it then (because I didn’t know who he was as a filmmaker), but Joe Dante’s irrepressible anarchic wit would have a far stronger effect on me than the un

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls… dyin’ time’s here!

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) Time was kind to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome . As in, it was such a long time since I’d seen the “final chapter” of the trilogy, it had dwindled in my memory to the status of an “alright but not great” sequel. I’d half-expected to have positive things to say along the lines of it being misunderstood, or being able to see what it was trying for but perhaps failing to quite achieve. Instead, I re-discovered a massive turkey that is really a Mad Max movie in name only (appropriately, since Max was an afterthought). This is the kind of picture fans of beloved series tend to loathe; when a favourite character returns but without the qualities or tone that made them adored in the first place (see Indiana Jones in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull , or John McClane in the last two Die Hard s). Thunderdome stinks even more than the methane fuelling Bartertown. I hadn’t been aware of the origins of Thunderdome until recently, mainly because I was

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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