It's "About Time" I Reviewed This *wink*

Richard Curtis movies are an odd bunch. They're funny, full of character, oh-so-British and yet they all feel so similar. The timing of my post a few days from Valentine's Day (here's some cards if you need them) might suggest what the common, far too heavily trodden theme of his movies is. That's correct: love. Who doesn't love love, right?

"I love that escalated Milwaukee whale's vagina". One-liner movies confuse me. 

Love is done to death. Being mushy to each other is more tired than an anaemic Kenyan with diabetes chasing after someone who stole his aid parcel. Curtis isn't helping the matter either, with Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually all being movies about people falling in love whilst being charming and funny. Well, to be more exact, they're all about Hugh Grant falling in love whilst being charming and funny.

They gradually heighten his hair so we can tell the difference between each movie.

What I hate most about Richard Curtis movies, though, is that I don't hate them. Nay, I can't hate them. The bland, overly squishy premises are made up for tenfold by his uncontested mastery of writing believable characters, fantastical yet real situations and superb British wit. And so, it is with joyous displeasure that I introduce to you his latest movie about love (with a little bit of time travel, as the tagline says): About Time.

Lets get the biggest difference between About Time and the rest of Curtis' back catalogue out of the way: there's not a Hugh Grant to be seen for miles. Now I love his cheeky wee face as much as the next straight guy but sometimes an actor can end up the poster boy for a particular type of movie, and Hugh Grant would be on the front cover of every issue of Quirky British Comedy Quarterly.

I couldn't be bothered photo-shopping a magazine cover so here's a photo of him
being stalked by the two most under-appreciated letters of the alphabet.

The other thing that's different about this movie is it's interpretation of what love is. Those of you who've seen Love Actually will likely contest that Curtis has already covered pretty much any form of love you can think of, but that was an ensemble film; none of the concepts were really able to gain the traction they would have if they were given centre stage. In About Time we follow the story of Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) who, having just discovered that the men in his family have the ability to travel backwards through time, sets out on the typical quest for the big "L word". Sounds pretty much like your bog standard romance with some sci-fi, but what the film ends up becoming is something completely different entirely.

"Lesbians...?"

First, though, lets get the sci-fi out of the way. The time travel in About Time is perfect in its simplicity: you can only travel backwards in your own lifetime and whatever changes you make with butterfly effect their way along to present day. Easy peasy. No further explanation given beyond the apparent need for a dark space and clenched fists. Time travel is treated in a similar way to 2012's Looper, the less you try to Doc Brown your way into paradoxes and parallel dimensions the easier it is for everybody, and with a film like this where the concept is more a plot device than anything else it works nicely. Sci-fi nerds might moan, but they're the ones who went to this movie without a girlfriend so fuck them.

Except this guy; he gets way more poon than me.

The film could, if you were the kind of person to cut things in half (towels, children, etc.), be cut in half around about the mid-point in regards to the main focus of the story and the themes being portrayed. Part one has Tim getting used to his time travelling powers while attempting to work out how he can best use them to get a girlfriend. In a nutshell, the first half of the movie is a creepy as fuck take on the usual boy meets girl and they fall madly in love thing. Imagine what you would say and do if you knew you could just jump into a cupboard, turn the clock back to erase it and start over; now remove all of the terrifying revenge fantasies, tone down the filthy sex stuff to a 15 rating and keep all of the horrifying manipulation of the lives of those around you exactly as is. That's what the first half is like.

Standing in cupboards in the middle of the day is never not odd.

Although Tim is portrayed as a lovably useless young man when it comes to social situations, his inherent awkwardness somehow just manages to make what he does even cringier. Whether or not you believe you might have found the woman of your dreams doesn't give you the right to alter her life without her knowing and, although the movie does become suitably adorable when he and Mary (Rachel McAdams) finally get together (aw come one, it's not a spoiler when it's on the poster), it takes a while for that initial shudder of horror to subside.

There are two things wrong with waiting all day for someone to show up at a Kate Moss
exhibition, only one of them is to do with the art.

Part two is where it gets much more interesting, however. I have to say it's either testament to lazy marketing or brilliant marketing (depending on your cynical outlook on life) that all of the film's advertising focussed on Tim and Mary, because about an hour into the film it stops being about them. Mary doesn't quite slip into the background as much as she is more assimilated into the Borg cube of Cornish charm that is Tim's family. Corn cube? Sounds like a particularly difficult bowel movement.

"Resistance is futile. Your poop, as it has been, is over."
And I mocked Trekkies not three paragraphs ago...

The ads for About Time makes you think that this is a film about lovey love, with all the sex and babies and such, but it sneaks up on you in the second act with its real aim: family love. As already mentioned, the men of Tim's family have the unique gift of time travel, which results in a particularly strong bond between Tim and his dad (the glorious Bill Nighy), a relationship that really lets Curtis' knack for believably dynamic human interaction shine through. That said, the love train doesn't have just one stop (oh, god, that was terrible) and you grow to love and cherish each and every one of Tim's beautifully realised family members, which makes watching the hardships they suffer all the more poignant when they come hurtling around the corner.

Sometimes even a Bill Nighy hug can't help.

I feel like I should touch at least a little on the technical side of the movie for a moment. What with being such a plot and character driven affair it's difficult to take the time to appreciate the beautifully framed, natural cinematography and the added little flairs like the recurring sound motif every time Tim travels back in time, but it's all there if you want to find it. There's nothing ground-breaking, but this isn't a film about hiding obscure meaning in baking powder tins and odd camera angles, it's about people, and it's shot to reflect that. Grounded and simple yet beautiful.

Just like dad dancing.

On a whole, this is the sweetest, most sincere story of one man's "extraordinarily ordinary" and ever so slightly creepy life I've ever had the pleasure of watching through floods of tears. Seriously, this will have you bawling by the credits. For once we have ourselves a film about the relationships we have with our families, particularly our parents, and the special little spot we save in our hearts just for them. It's not as forced as Four Weddings and not as cheesy as Love Actually; it's just right. This is by far Richard Curtis' best movie yet.

And just to polish off on as appropriately sentimental a note as possible: I think I can safely say that for as long as I live this movie will be my go-to whenever I need reminded of those things that really matter: how lucky I am to be surrounded by those I love and that those I love are there for me. Mum, dad, I love you guys. Now excuse me while I crawl into a ball and sob for another two hours.

Overall Ben Equivalence Rating

Seeing Your Dad Again for the First Time in Months -

For fucks sake, give him a hug. You've missed him.

Valentine's Day "Love" Counter: 25 uses of the word "love"

Top 5 "Oo, That Looks Good" Movies of 2014

The new year has arrived at long last; we only had to wait 365 days or so for it. And with the new year comes the long wait for the inevitable wave of summer blockbusters that arrive every June with the timing and grace of only the most punctual and voluminous menstrual sloughs.

There is never not a good moment to use this image.

Summer this year seems to be set to flood us like so much body-temperature uterus lining with a veritable smorgasbord of exactly the same movies over and over again. With lots of lasers and jumping and looking seriously into the distance, sci-fi and alien invasion seem to be the aim of the game, so be prepared for, well, lots of sci-fi and aliens; along with the obligatory kids animated movie sequels and another superhero movie, because we're totally not tired of them yet. Yay.

Why can't we all just wait patiently for Ant-Man?

That said, there's still plenty to be excited all through the year so, without further ado (or adon't), I give you my top 5 list of movies that, as the title suggests, make you lean over to your mate in the cinema and shout-whisper, "Dude, we need to see that." Let us begin with:

5. Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 (Release: 21st February)

Subtle...

Oh Lars. What are you like? First Antichrist, now this. What with these, your porn films and that Nazi joke at the Cannes Film Festival two years ago, I almost feel like you're trying too hard to be controversial. And after the cataclysmically awful melodrama of Melancholia I'm starting to worry that you've actually lost your film-maker's touch. What happened? Where's another Dogville?

Won't you think of the children?!

I'm not a man to give up hope, however, and so this is your last chance, Lars, to restore my faith in you. I'm always a fan of the films that steer a little closer to the bone and sexuality has always been something that the film industry has shied away from like a young actress from a Hollywood producer's fly (who said that?!), so I commend the steel balls it must take to make a film that's essentially a two-part, five hour long mainstream porn movie. Whether it'll actually be any good of a film or just there for the shock factor (see Antichrist again) will only be a matter of time. I just hope Trier has realised that a little bit of subtlety and room for interpretation can go a long way.

Ah.

So, for those of you looking for plenty of sex, hamfisted imagery, disturbed characters and a little dash of Rammstein, this looks like the movie of the year for you. Here's the trailer (one of them was originally banned from YouTube), see if you can spot the subliminal vagina at the beginning:

4. The Lego Movie (Release: 14th February)

If you went to see Nymphomaniac and you now need a way to stop your children from crying inconsolably or worse, copying what they saw, you could take them to the next screen to see The Lego Movie. Yes, The Motherfucking Lego Movie. I'm a little too excited for this one as it's directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the directors behind the glorious 21 Jump Street remake (the sequel is also coming out this year, but sadly ranked at number six on my list) and the solidly alright Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, features Morgan Freeman as God, co-stars Will Arnett from Arrested Development as Batman and Liam Neeson is in there somewhere too. There's not a single part of the production or casting line-up that makes me too worried about this becoming yet another all-too-formulaic kid's movie and thank Morgan Freeman, because Warner Bros. have the imaginations of countless children and former-children at stake here.

"Put all your money in a bag and hand it over or another beloved household name gets ruined." - Warner Bros. Marketing Department

Almost all of us have fond memories of ourselves or a sibling spending a rainy Sunday afternoon meticulously building a world of colourful blocks complete with characters, stories, drama and heaps of action; then destroying everything with an alien invasion or massive Godzilla earthquake or with whatever other characters or toys you happened to have lying around. The trailer for this movie evokes exactly the same kind of sense of boundless fun and joyously nonsensical carnage of the childhood imagination. Even the animation style is reminiscent of a kid moving Lego men around like hopscotch players before making the calculated executive decision to curtail the hunt for the secret cave of awesome and swallowing the pieces instead.

"Oh my god, it ate the General! All is lost!"

If all goes well, this will be one part loose "save the world" story, a hundred parts hilariously unhinged chaos and all made from the brightly coloured little blocks of nostalgia that we all know and love. Hit it, YouTube embed:

3. Interstellar (Release: 7th November)

Never before has a poster looked so...Nolany.

Let's go all the way to the end of the year and look at Christopher Nolan's next pet project, Interstellar. It's no surprise that pretty much all anyone outside the production team and cast knows about the movie is that it's something to do with astronauts and wormholes. The cast have stayed tight-lipped about any further details, as is customary with a Nolan movie, so all we can do is wait. Something that will obviously build speculation, and hype, and money. You cheeky bastard, Nolan. You wouldn't get away with this if all of your movies weren't so bloody good.

Nearly all of them.

Looking at the crew, it's certainly going to make for an interesting film. There's the production designer from The Dark Knight, the editor from Inception and Elysium (expect lots of fast shots and not a lot of knowing what's going on) and the cinematographer behind the chilling Let the Right One In, which means we're probably looking at a complicated, fast-paced, creepy movie with lots of twists and turns. So, yeah, a Christopher Nolan film. I canny wait! We'll just have to wait and see what he churns out, as the trailer doesn't really shed any further light on things:

2. The Wolf of Wall Street (Release: 17th January)

I'm kind of cheating here seeing as The Wolf of Wall Street, Martin Scorsese's new biopic of another Henry Hill-type sleazeball called Jordan Belfort, came out in the good old US of We'll Show Our Movies a Month Before You Get Them Ner-nee-ner-ner on Christmas Day, but it doesn't come out over here until mid-January, so I think it still counts.

You wouldn't look so happy without all of your missiles and stupid premiers, would you? Noooooo.
Dick.

A Scorsese movie is really best described by itself, so I present to you the trailer for Wolf of Wall Street and dare you to say that this doesn't have absolutely everything you want from a film in it, up to and including Leonardo DiCaprio's adorable smug-face (see poster above):

1. The Wind Rises (Release: Unannounced)

Hayao Miyazaki is retiring! Why, God, why?! His final movie, The Wind Rises, is a fictional account of the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the man behind the design of the Mitsubishi A5M fighter plane used by Japan during World War II, which eventually evolved into the famous "Kamikaze" A5M Zeros that were in that one good bit of Pearl Harbor. It's caused a bit of a stir over in Japan, what with a story humanising the designer of weapons of war seemingly going against Miyazaki's famously pacifist ideologies. The controversy is only fuelling my hunger for this film even more, however, as it has been hailed as Miyazaki's most personal film and apparently focuses on a healthy dose of adult themes not seen before in an anime that has hit number one on the Japanese box office for the whole of the year. It reminds me of another Studio Ghibli movie set in World War II Japan that featured pretty heavy themes and something about dead bugs...

If I think about it too hard I might start crying again.

Grave of the Fireflies is possibly one of the greatest and most devastating films ever made, and now the best anime director ever (Isao Takahata holds just as strong a place in my heart, mind) has made a new film about the same subject. I think it might kill me if I see this...

Worth it.

I would urge those of you who are a little dubious about watching cartoons (particularly anime) to give this a try, you'll be seeing the work of a master of an industry at his very best. Everyone loves him. As for me, I'll have to watch the trailer at least another 5 times before I can get through the whole thing without breaking the laptop from the resulting efflux of drool and tears of joy:

So, my little band of unholy abominations, what films are you looking forward to this year?

The World's End: Not Quite the End for Pegg and Frost

I always feel bad whenever I decide to review a movie that it turns out I like. Reviewing anything you enjoy feels like a cheat; you end up biased in your criticism and just spend the whole thing fawning over it's unadultered epicness instead of, you know, actually saying something worthwhile.

Attempting to explain everything good about David Bowie descends into guttural screaming and a voiding of all bodily fluids.

I'd already decided to review The World's End before I started watching it, and I whole-heartedly regret my choice; this film is awesome. With Edgar Wright back on the writing and directing helm of the last in the fabulously named "Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy" after Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's disappointing solo effort Paul, The World's End is a funny, painfully self-aware, hyper-violent and utterly charming sci-fi flick that is exactly the same as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz in all of the right ways. Plus, it's all entirely a build up to the post-apocalyptic wasteland in the Sisters of Mercy Song, This Corrosion.

Who'd have thought something so epic could come out of the Sisters of Mercy, eh?

Seeing as I've already let the cat out of the bag as to my overall opinion on this movie, I'm going to restrain myself for as long as possible and talk about the few criticisms I do have of possibly the weakest film out of an overall impeccable trilogy.

Then again, how could you possibly be expected to compete with this?

The overarching message of World's End is very simple to grasp. Too simple. As in Joey Essex trying to unlock a door with a teaspoon levels of simple. It's a technophobia parable in a similar vein to a Phillip K. Dick novel without the weird dreamy undertones or, you know, subtlety. Technology is connecting the world but at the same time destroying our small-town values and, in turn, our individuality. Duuuuuuude. The "let's not let technology rule our lives" moral actually gets spoon fed to you so much during the finale that they actually resort to laying out the entire movie's philosophy in the form of a very shiny powerpoint narrated by Bill Nighy.

"If you would like to refer to page 64 of the prescribed reading material..."

That said, simplicity has always been key in the Cornetto Trilogy (or Fuzzy Shaun World as I shall now call it), with a basic plot allowing for a big blank canvas to spray jokes and blood all over. Shaun is a Romero rip-off that glazes over the typical zombie stuff and focuses on the importance of friendship, ice cream and a pint. Hot Fuzz is a buddy cop movie that's all about friendship, ice cream and...hold on a second here. These three movies are all exactly the same!

You cheeky scamp.

The plot isn't the only thing distilled down to it's basic essence either; the ragtag bunch of misfit friends that make up the principal cast are all purposefully clichéd characters; there's Martin Freeman's workaholic, Nick Frost's tee-total bespectacled bore and Eddie Marsan's family man. However, they've saved the best for Pegg in the form of the film's anti-hero, Gary King. After two movies it's nice to see Pegg and Frost swap their respective roles and it's safe to say that they both shine just as well with Frost playing the straight man to the slightly unhinged, gleefully self-destructive King. He's the natural end-point of the character that's classically "living in the past"; terrible haircut, immature personality, Sisters of Mercy t-shirt and an unhealthy obsession with his lost youth.

I would make a joke about that essentially being the lead singer of any goth band, but Fiona would disembowel me.

In a movie about the advent of technology and embracing the future, Gary King is literally the past, and this is where Edgar Wright and his spectacular attention to detail take to the stage, with one scene ever so surreptitiously playing Kylie Minogue's Step Back in Time while everyone wanders around in school uniforms. It's the little things that make World's End so great; there's some great wee hints to the unfolding story slipped into the spot-on dialogue and there's as much hidden in the background of the various pubs and clubs as you're willing to look for. The one that I spotted first was the adverts on the walls of the slightly-too-identical pubs, each featuring the number corresponding to that place on Gary's ancient "Golden Mile" pub crawl map. Then there's the great use of colour (blue = nasty alien robots), obvious in the form of gallons of blue robot blood and subtle in costuming choices and set design. All in all, if you're anything like me you'll find the most fun in playing spot the difference in the background, knowing all the while that everything you find was put there by crazy, obsessive compulsive people with way too much free time.

*snigger* blue balls...

I guess I've kind of strayed from the whole criticism thing but ah well, I can't help it. The characters are well formed and interesting, the music is excellent (particularly the original score, which uses some very familiar bleeps and bloops to great effect), the jokes are fast paced but never forced, the story is hilariously self aware and firmly tongue in cheek and my god, it's just too perfect! As such, and also due to me having been infected with some sort of vile pox in the past few days, I have little else to say about this film apart from please, if you haven't already, watch it. And while you're at it, watch the other two movies in the trilogy as well, because they're all exceptional.

Overall Ben Equivalence Rating

Going on a Reunion Pub Crawl with Your Old School Mates - 

The plot of the film is literally the only possible outcome to this situation: utter annihilation. 

Italy Month: The Visitor...Visits

Poster design at its finest.

The last week has finally arrived, my children. Movember is drawing to a close and soon we shall bid our lovingly cultivated facial hair goodbye, welcoming back instead the days of smooth skin and itchless chins. December shall be a time to celebrate the dawn of a new era for mankind, with peace and a clean shave to all men.

The birth of Gillette ProGlide; our lord and shaver.

On the subject of Christ-like figures in need of a good trim, our final movie of Italy month features one such character. May I introduce you to The Visitor (aka. Stridulum); a film, judging by it's trailer, that can only be described using the very technical film term of a complete and utter mindfuck. Like David Lynch straddling you, rubbing your forehead with a spoonful of peanut butter and whispering the Portuguese lyrics to "A Whole New World" in your ear levels of brain-humpingness.

Why was I not surprised when I Googled "David Lynch holding a chicken" and actually got a result?

Just to clarify, this film is in English and is set in the US with American actors, but it's still an Italian movie because the director is Italian and I say so, so mneh. I think it's best we just get this one over and done with; the glowing 3.8 out of 10 on IMDb is making this too tempting to resist any longer. On with the show!

And lo and behold, I'm already confounded by the five minute mark, if equal parts intrigued. I'll give credit where credit is due, the set design is captivating at the very least, with the film opening on some strange wasteland where two hooded figures approach each other, an unnatural mist rolling over the horizon followed by a gust of what I assume is either snow or blended feathers.

Or inter-dimensional dandruff.

The image is both unsettlingly pretty and clear in its message, immediately setting up the obvious confrontation that will form the basis of the rest of the movie; some kind of good/evil battle between the now revealed old dude and a creepy girl covered in feathery-snow-hair flakes.

Furries ain't so sexy now, are they internet?

And bam, we're now in some weird futurey-looking room with the aforementioned guy what looks like Jesus and a bunch of creepy bald kids, the whole scene giving off a very Star Wars-y Jedi teaching the adorable little padawaan kind of vibe. This is where the entirety of the film's exposition is laid down in the space of three minutes: basically there was some evil alien dude called Zateen or Satin or whatevs (sounds a bit like some other evil person, but I can't quite place it...) who escaped a space ship and fled to Earth where he spread evil and destruction, as you do, and shagged like, all the women, spreading his evil spirit to their spawn in a display of the most convincing argument for improved birth control since Honey Boo-Boo. He then got caught by some other good guy type dude called Piñata (I prefer my names for these characters) with his army of killer birds and now there's this little girl who's carrying Satin's evil spirit and something something epic Jesus reaction shot.

Insert appropriately dramatic 70's music.

Now that we're up to date on the story, we move on to Atlanta, Georgia (sadly very few zombies and painfully inept mothers about) where we meet our creepy little girl, Katy Collins, and her mother Barbara. I'll be honest, with a good third of the film under my belt I don't really feel like this is deserving of a rating on par with Batman and Robin. Despite some truly abysmal sound editing (everything sounds like it was recorded on the other end of a dodgy phone call with a passenger on the Costa Concordia) and scenes that abruptly cut off without warning, the characters are interesting but not hammy and the plot is so far relatively coherent, suitably captivating and drip feeds just enough weird and creepy to keep you watching without alienating the audience.

Something batsuit nipples didn't manage quite as well...

The film bears an uncanny resemblance to Damien: The Omen II, with our evil child being pulled on both sides by the forces of good and evil, the idea being that whichever one wins them over will have control over their power. The comparisons become almost too apparent as you get further into the film, with plenty tense confrontations and sudden, brutal animal attacks (big, scary ravens replaced here by a really adorable hawk) making up the majority of the run time. However, as Stanley Kubrick totally definitely probably said, it's not the recipe you use but the pie you bake that counts, and The Visitor is just different enough to stand it's ground. That said, The Omen's pie is probably still better.

Evil pie contest winner two years running.

The little girl at the centre of it all, Katy, is most definitely the biggest strength of The Visitor by far; Paige Connor (of no other memorable roles ever) manages to be spectacularly unsettling without ever overplaying her part, albeit helped along with her task by some very nice lighting.

You can get the same effect by rinsing your eyes with bleach.

Katy, although most definitely evil ("accidentally" shooting her mother early in the film), manages to play off her innocent child look better than you would usually expect in the strangely specific genre of terrifying hell-child films [see Orphan], making the often drawn out occasions when she does rear her ugly head all the more unsettling. Plus, by giving the air of a stroppy child groomed by the allure of evil Katy feels less one-sided than the rest of the film's cast, who literally don't even stop at wearing black or white to indicate the side they support like a bunch of weird colour blind football fans.

"Bad guys? Us? No, we drink goat's blood for the health benefits. Promise..."

The list of aspects this supposedly bad film should be commended for still goes on as well. The set design, particularly of Barbara's house, reeks wonderfully of 70's while also adding a kind of futuristic, post-modern vibe to the whole thing, making the sets equally as familiar yet alien as the little girl this whole thing is about. Then there's the cinematography which, although feeling at times like an over-enthusiastic art project, has been considered very carefully and presents the film with what I could only describe as a garish European style (think fabulous Italian men in tight tank tops, but the cinematography equivalent), cramming both subtle and obvious metaphors down your throat as often as it possibly can. Hell, look at the last two screenshots I've shown; one gives a little girl with shining eyes a pair of metal angel wings and the other shows a bunch of scary dark men being dominated in the shot by a brilliant white chandelier. Dat be sum bitchin' imagery, bro.

"Diggit." - Jay Z

By the finale the film takes a very sudden, very obvious Close Encounters of the Third Kind turn; that's two films made within two years of this one whose themes or styles have been shamelessly copied. Poor show. The pace also suddenly picks up, blasting through scenes before you can really get a hold of what's going on, making the last minutes of the film feel less frantic, which is what I assume the makers were trying to go for, and more rushed like when you finish your sentence really quickly while closing the door on some Jehovah's Witnesses.

"SorryI'mnotinterestedpleasedon'tcomehereagain." *SLAM*

I don't think you'd be at all surprised to hear that the good guys win at the end. Everything turns out hunky dory and no-one seems at all worried when Barbara's daughter, who has just been admitted for psychiatric evaluation for being an evil little shit, vanishes off the face of the Earth with a beardy old guy.

To have her head shaved and sit in a room with Jesus for the rest of eternity.

So to wrap up, The Visitor is alright. It's by no means deserving of the awful reviews it gets, but also ain't exactly a masterpiece. It makes up for what it steals from Omen II and Close Encounters (and to some extent The Exorcist) with a little bit of crazy and plenty of style, managing to straddle the oft-crossed line between weird and impenetrable quite comfortably. It's pretty shaggy round the edges in the sense of editing and characterisation, but nothing that detracts too far from what is in essence a pretty enjoyable and unique, albeit predictable, sci-fi.

Moustache Rating

The Poirot -
Looks all fancy and European. Although it pretends to be complex it's actually pretty straightforward.

Some Guy and Some Guy in a Robot Costume

Ow. Yellow. It burns.

Who here loves South Park? High five! Yay for being another immature man-child who likes to pretend you watch it for the social commentary.

"Hehe, he's all covered in- I mean, consumerism and government and...something."

Although there should be no need for justification in bringing up such comedy genius, my question has a point. Some long-time fans may remember a certain episode featuring Cartman's AWESOM-O 4000 robot, which, to the uninitiated or those who don't click every hyperlink they see, consists of Cartman dressing up in some cardboard boxes and talking in a monotone voice to convince the town moron that he's a robot sent from Japan to be his new best friend.

*insert racist Asian joke here*

If you ever wondered what that concept would be like if it was stretched over the course of an entire film and replaced the town idiot with an elderly shut-in in the early stages of dementia, then your worryingly specific request has been granted by Robot and Frank, a relatively low budget slow-paced, sort-of-sci-fi drama featuring Frank Langella. You might know him better as the one who wasn't the TV presenter in Frost/Nixon or the guy with half a face in the hastily excised haemorrhoid that I've mentioned previously, The Box. God, I hated that movie!

Judging by his performance, I assume his character also only had half a buttock.

So what's Robot and Frank like? For twenty minutes it's a bland tale about a very typical forgetful, grumpy old man getting given a robot aide by his "I-care-about-you-but-I'm-obviously-too-successful-and-busy-to-be-a-good-child" son, Hunter, a gesture which he is unsurprisingly unhappy about, but is slowly brought over to as the two of them strike up a wonderful friendship. Essentially the formula for every elderly companionship movie ever made excluding the only good elderly companionship movie ever made, Harold and Maude, but this time with a robot.

This sub-genre needs more robots.

After the twenty minute mark, the addition of, and consequently also the thoughtful moral dilemma surrounding, Frank realising he can use the robot to assist him in reviving his past career as a cat burglar adds some desperately needed individuality to the otherwise forgettable prologue. They decide to rob the local library which is soon to be turned into a completely computerised system, apparently destroying all of the books once they're scanned because that's definitely what you'd do when trying to preserve literature. One of the books in jeopardy is of course an extremely valuable copy of Don Quixote (why it's just sitting in a cabinet in a small town library we will never know), and Frank takes it upon himself to rescue it; most likely from Susan Sarandon's character, who can't help but constantly play with all of the extremely fragile books.

Never before has a priceless artefact been so needlessly fondled.

Then we spend a little while pottering about watching Frank stake out his next target and occasionally forget stuff so we remember that he's not well. Then some more inconsequential plot developments. To be honest, the whole film feels very...bitty... No one aspect of the plot sticks around for long enough to actually get going. We're watching Frank get to know the robot. Now we're being given some sort of heavy handed parable. Now it looks like he's under the most obvious police surveillance ever.

"I AM INCONSPICUOUS."

Frank himself is, frankly (eh, eh!), dull. The writers have tried to push him away from the old man stereotype by making him an ex burglar but despite that he is still just the old man stereotype. He's forgetful, grumpy, unwelcoming to new things and firmly set in his ways.

The robot is, equally so, just a robot, and in many scenes very obviously not a robot. If we would like to go back to my very first comparison, its plainly obvious in parts of the film that the robot is just a person wearing no more that some painted cardboard boxes. Now, it would be impossible to actually use a real robot for the variety and detail of tasks being performed in the movie and still keep a budget under the billions, but did they have to make it so obvious that the whole suit slipped on like a jumper? The blatant falseness of the robot costume, although not a deal breaker, is certainly jarring in a few scenes and definitely takes away from the illusion of a highly sophisticated piece of machinery. That said, Peter Sarsgaard's voice performance as the robot is probably the most convincing piece of acting in the whole movie.

"I have more talent in one circuit that all of you flesh sacs combined."

The other characters out-with the titular pair would be more at home in Flatland than anything requiring three dimensions. The aforementioned son turns up, dumps the robot and leaves, throwing in a few lines to express exasperation and mild sarcasm. All of the other male characters in the film are equally as sarky in everything they do, not one of them managing a single serious sentence without smirking halfway through like so many art students talking about their views on philosophy after reading the wiki page on Nietzsche. The worst perpetrator of this is the smarmy grease-ball that is the closest thing to a villain that the film manages. He looks like a cross between a weasel and a confused toad and seems to be incapable of basic human interactions, including knowing when not to sound like a sarcastic, self-entitled bastard. Essentially me.

I have nicer glasses.

The daughter, Madison, can only be described as an air-headed liberal who spends half of the movie in [impoverished country] "finding herself", turning up just long enough to shoehorn in the inevitable requirement of approaching the "robots replacing humans" dilemma, and raising the argument that although robots can complete the same tasks, they can't do it with the love and affection of humans. After five minutes she realises it's too hard looking after an old person on your own and uses the robot anyway.

To bury Frank and save them all the bother.

Then there's the near-future setting that our story is based in. It's presented as a kind of pseudo-future with little technical advancements here and there, suggesting the more feasible subtle changes in technology likely over the next few decades instead of the Jetson's-esque levels of jetpack awesomeness more commonly presented in cinema. Although it was a nice thought, the people behind making this future world have still managed to fall down the usual potholes, most notably the idea that our phone calls will be voice-activated and permanently displaying video on the living room TV.

"Dad, why are you masturbating at the cat?"

What if you've lost your voice and can't activate the phone with a "hello", or if you're currently in a less than flattering situation, or very simply not in that room? Where's the microphone; do you have to shout at the screen to be heard? What if the room is noisy, or there are other people there? Or if you want to keep watching TV while you're on the phone? There's so many flaws with this idea that I'm amazed people keep trying to suggest it. I mean what brainless fool would actually- oh.

*slow clap*

I've been whinging for a good few paragraphs and I've just polished of a very smooth bottle of Pinot so why don't we take the opportunity to look at at least one good thing to come out of this film? Due to the unique amalgamation of Frank's deteriorating condition and the introduction of an ethically ambiguous piece of pseudo-sentient machinery, the film's makers have stumbled across a goldmine of a parable in the form of the importance of memory in making a person, or being, human. The fragility of Frank's unstable memory is paralleled with the robot's memory, which can be wiped at any time by its owner, and we realise that his attachment to the robot is built predominantly around it's memories of him and their experiences together. When it comes to the choice of whether to wipe the robot's memory or not Frank is hesitant because, by doing so, is he essentially destroying a being which he has slowly grown to know and helped to nurture over months? It is the only moment in a movie otherwise devoid of plot, character or individuality which makes the entirety of the hour and a half of slightly de-saturated stumbling about almost worthwhile. And I needed a bottle of wine to appreciate it properly.

Take from that what you will.

Overall Ben Equivalence Rating

Watching a Feature-length Honda Advert -

Lots of desaturation, pseudo-advanced technology, robots and a distinct lack of plot.