The Green Hornet
Director: Michel Gondry
Starring: Seth Rogen, Jay Chou and Christoph Waltz
Arthur And The Great Adventure
Director: Luc Besson
Starring: Selena Gomez, Freddie Highmore and Stacy Ferguson
Client 9
Director: Alex Gibney
Starring: Eliot Spitzer, Michael Schwendeman and Kim Allen
1. Fast Five – $83.6M
2. Rio – $14.4M
3. Tyler Perry’s Medea’s Big Happy Family – $10M
4. Water For Elephants – $9.1M
5. Prom – $5M
6. Hoodwinked Too! Hood Vs. Evil – $4.1M
7. Soul Surfer – $3.3M
8. Insidious – $2.6M
9. Hop – $2.6M
10. Source Code – $2.5M
The Extraordinary Adventures Of Adèle Blanc-Sec marks the return of fanciful writer/director Luc Besson, and is the big screen adaptation of Jacques Tardi’s acclaimed series of comics.
The film centers on Adèle Blanc-Sec (Louise Bourgoin): a young, go-getting journalist who embarks on an adventure to Egypt, and ups up face to face with all sorts of mummies. Meanwhile, in Paris, panic ensues.
Besson’s film is busy and energetic. The action is adventurous, the plot absorbing, the characters vibrant and the humour dark and caustic.
To some, the plot may seem a little implausible and out-of-control, but it’s hard to condemn the film too much when Besson is being so imaginative and impressively daring with the material.
Adèle, unquestionably the most intriguing character, is played with a breezy, almost klutzy charm by Louise Bourgoin. Although a marvellously feisty, cocksure and brilliantly cutting heroine, Bourgoin brings an impressive level of self-assuredness to Adèle that commendably keeps the character – and film – grounded, appealing, and focused on the task at hand.
The supporting cast are equally terrific, including a blustering, lazy cop (Gilles Lellouche); a trigger-happy hunter (Jean-Paul Rouve); and a charming young scientist (Nicolas Giraud). Each approach their frolicsome roles with both assertiveness and playfulness.
Besson rightfully plays the whole thing for laughs, which makes up for the overindulgent supernatural elements and chaotic sub-plots. Rather than attempting to impress with mountains of CGI, he keeps the action and adventure scenes grounded, with a naturalistic and wholly believable feel. That said, when CGI effects are used, they imbue the film with a touch of class and a stylish air.
The Extraordinary Adventures Of Adèle Blanc-Sec is a joyfully intrepid, if slightly overloaded, fantasy adventure, boasting a director at his most imaginative, and a wondrously energetic lead performance.
Cedar Rapids
Director: Phil Johnston
Starring: Ed Helms, John C. Reilly and Anne Heche
Insidious
Director: James Wan
Starring: Rose Byrne, Patrick Wilson and Ty Simpkins
I Saw The Devil
Director: Jee-woon Kim
Starring: Byung-hun Lee, Min-sik Choi and Gook-hwan Jeon
The Veteran
Director: Matthew Hope
Starring: Toby Kebbell, Ashley Thomas and Adi Bielski
Farewell
Director: Christian Carion
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Diane Kruger and Guillaume Canet
Hobo With A Shotgun is a feature-length adaptation of the highly successful fake trailer made for Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’ Grindhouse, and stars Rutger Hauer, Pasha Ebrahimi, Robb Wells and Molly Dunsworth.
The film centres on a homeless vigilante, Hobo (Hauer), who finds himself trapped in urban chaos. He is surrounded by armed robbers, corrupt cops and even a paedophile Santa. Hobo decides to bring about justice the best way he knows how – with his trusty pump-action shotgun.
Screenwriter John Davies litters the film with throwbacks to 1970′s horror, while conserving a gleeful level of originality and satirical humour into the oft-told one-against-the-world tale. It does wonders to keep viewers on the edge of their seats, and thoroughly entertained throughout. While the premise is a tad sketchy, the scenarios that derive from it – murderous dodgems, a torturous pinata, and the aforementioned unorthodox Santa – certainly aren’t.
Jason Eisener, who opts for practical effects over digital CGI, manages to balance a realistic feel with over-the-top, cartoonish, and incredibly gory violence. He indulges in frenetic cinematography, glorified lighting and a stomping soundtrack to boot, all in keeping with the exploitation genre and the films to which he is paying homage.
The choice to recast Hauer as the Hobo was one of utter genius, and he plays it with effectively straight assurance, keeping the film grounded amidst the hysteria. The supporting cast, a smorgasbord of unknowns and ex-TV stars, helps further to instil and sustain the feel of an authentic exploitation flick – something that previous studios’ efforts have failed to capitalise on.
Dunsworth – a prostitute and Hobo’s unimaginable foil, Abby – stands out amongst the supporting cast. She does tremendously well with a severely underwritten character, providing a brilliant antithesis to Hobo’s ruthlessness. They have a sizzling chemistry on-screen, and a subversive, darkly amusing rapport that feels extremely gratifying.
It’s clear Eisener has an eye for the schlock genre and, by letting his imagination run wild, Hobo With A Shotgun emerges as a sure-to-be perennial, shockingly violent and wonderfully clever yet purposely screwball modern-day vigilante thriller. It’s “bloody” terrific fun.
Twenty years in the making, Pina 3D is visionary filmmaker Wim Wenders’ tribute and love letter to German dance extraordinaire Pina Bausch.
The film is centered on four of Bausch’s most celebrated choreographies – Cafe Müller, The Rite of Spring, Vollmond and Kontakthof – intercut with personal memories of Bausch, related by various members of her international dance company Tanztheater Wuppertal. Wenders’ central focus, however, remains on the dances, bravely leaving Bausch herself as an elusive and mysterious figure.
The various dances – both newly filmed and presented from archive footage – are captured by Wenders in incredibly bold, enthralling and hugely cinematic ways. Whether it be indoors on the theatre stage, or outdoors – at traffic intersections, in parks, or on the monorail – Wenders uses bold cinematography to present viewers with a closer look at the beauty of Bausch’s unique vision.
The spellbinding fusion between dance and documentary proves dance as an incredibly evocative and powerful piece of cinema. By infusing the movements with 3D, Wenders shows that the spatial relationships on the stage can speak to people in different ways, giving us a all together better insight into Bausch’s work. Shots are composed, through vibrant colours or endless perspective, to ensure they make true sense in 3D: opting for the conventional 2D would be missing the point entirely.
As a novice myself, the experience was truly eye-opening: a beautiful and enthralling tribute to Bausch.Instead of employing 3D technology in an attempt to take focus attention away from the under-developed narrative like many recent films, Wenders uses it very carefully, only to accentuate and express the realism of dance. It may well be the best 3D film I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing.
To Wenders, cinema is an ongoing experiment. Pina 3D, whether you’re a dance lover or complete novice, wonderfully highlights this in a way that opens Bausch’s work up to a whole new audience, while never ignoring or sidelining Bausch’s die-hard followers and collaborators. It’s a truly majestic and enterprising piece of expressionist cinema.
Thor
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins and Natalie Portman
1. Fast Five – £5,332,096
2. Rio – £886,669
3. Arthur – £764,468
4. Scream 4 – £730,963
5. Beastly – £553,069
6. Hop – £466,676
7. Red Riding Hood – £345,421
8. Source Code – £331,988
9. TT3D: Closer To The Edge – £312,998
10. Limitless – £282,879
Last Night is a grown-up relationship drama from screenwriter Massy Tadjedin, and stars Sam Worthington, Keira Knightley, Eva Mendes and Guillaume Canet.
The film follows a married couple, Michael and Joanna (Worthington and Knightley), spending the night apart while Michael takes a business trip with attractive colleague Laura (Mendes).
While Michael’s resisting temptation in Los Angeles, Joanna encounters her past love, Alex (Canet), and must battle her own tenacious emotions.
The evocative and provoking screenplay deals with very real and prominent questions, leaving no stone unturned. While some moments seem a little too contrived, once the story finds its feet, it thrusts you back into the characters’ turbulent thoughts and emotions, tossing you from approval of their affairs to complete condemnation.
Tadjedin proves herself as a talent to watch with her stylish, confident and subtle direction, mixing close-ups with long-shots to contrast the amped up tension with the way she teases the multiple relationships.
Knightley is the pick of the four leads, carelessly bouncing from one emotional peak to the next with ease, proving her acting chops outside of her usual period pieces.
Her hidden and under-explored relationship with Canet’s cool and alluring Alex is believable, exhilarating and simply oozing with chemistry, signifying that not all relationships should be ruined with romance.
Worthington commendably conveys the torment of his situation through his performance as Michael, and has the strain written all over his face. Mendes does her seductive mistress justice, making you empathise with Laura’s emotionally strenuous past, no matter how corrupt she is.
Tadjedin has crafted a wonderfully subtle yet probing study into the giddy highs and devastating lows of relationships, proving herself as a director to watch and Last Night as a near-perfect talky romantic thriller.
Directed by Kenneth Branagh, Thor is the latest comic-book adaptation from Marvel, and stars Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hiddleston, Natalie Portman, Kat Dennings and Stellan Skarsgård.
The film centres on Thor (Hemsworth), a powerful but arrogant warrior, who is cast down to Earth by his father Odin (Hopkins) and is forced to live among humans. A beautiful young scientist, Jane Foster (Portman), has a profound effect on Thor, awakening romantic feelings for the first time.
It’s while on Earth that Thor must learn what it takes to be a true hero when the most dangerous villain of his world sends the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth.
Branagh, who seemed at first like an odd choice for director, succeeds in making the fantastical elements feel grounded and realistic: something which was always going to be tricky to achieve. He employs plenty of sweeping cinematography to fully explore the intricately detailed environments, never letting the epic scale get out of hand.
This is aided in no small part by a strong, humorous and consistent screenplay – full of snappy dialogue, subtle references and nifty cameos – which improves the somewhat predictable morality tale. Moreover, he has elicited convincing, enthusiastic performances from his eclectic cast.
Hemsworth truly embodies Thor, proving himself more than capable both in terms of action and humour, stepping up from minor supporting actor to a leading Hollywood star.
He stands out amongst a heavy-weight supporting cast, including ditzy and on-fire Portman, a hilarious and shamefully understated Dennings and an ever-solid Skarsgård.
Hiddleston delivers an effective, and wholly opposing, performance as Thor’s twisted brother Loki – a far cry from his recent low-key turn in Archipelago. Hopkins, as is to be expected, adds a touch of cinematic class as the patriarchal Odin.
It’s a shame the supporting characters aren’t further explored, but it’s a minor issue and understandable considering the circumstances. It’s encouraging to hear that various roles were beefed up after test-screening reactions.
There are, like many big-budget productions, a number of visual and narrative flaws, but Thor manages to be a superbly grounded, infectiously gratifying and valiantly executed summer blockbuster, completely defying mediocre expectations.
All involved in production have done a commendable job in making this superhero movie feel as seasoned and entertaining as possible, embracing the absurd in a way that entirely proves Branagh a sensible choice in director, and Hemsworth a fantastic Thor.
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