basics...
A French action-comedy-drama-fantasy-sci-fi hybrid based on a comic book series, The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec shares sees our titular heroine going all Tomb Raider in early twentieth century Egypt before chasing a pteradactyl around Paris in the search for a cure to revive her tragically-injured sister.
brilliant...
There's nothing that extraordinary or adventurous about this film, other than the opening 15 minutes in Egypt, which borrows liberally from Indiana Jones and director Luc Besson's own The Fifth Element. It's an exciting beginning, preceded by a typically French prologue featuring narration that wouldn't be out of place in Amelié. Where the movie comes into its own is when Adèle returns to her home town, Paris, to find her one hope for saving her sister's life, a barmy professor, is being put to death for unwittingly bringing a prehistoric monster back to life which is now terrorising the city's residents. What follows is a quirky, oddly subdued and suprisingly emotional tale of sisterly love and unfortunate coincidence, backed up by some amusing fish-out-of-water comedy moments from a revived Pharoah and his minions. Wacky, inventive and with a particularly gallic Besson sensibility, Blanc-Sec is a charming movie, with a plucky, interesting heroine at the centre of it all.
but...
It seems churlish to complain that the film is not adventurous enough, but the title promises more than the film delivers - this is no country-hopping travelogue movie, but it certainly whets the appetite for any possible further adventures. I didn't really need to see Louise Bourgoin's boobs though, as pretty as they were.
briefly...
Not reaching the dizzy heights of confection that made Amelié dazzle, Adèle Blanc-Sec's Diverting Adventure is still more exciting and inventive than many of its peers.
I thought that a nice family, Disney movie would be a good way to start my Sunday morning while I waited for Andrew to get out of bed, so I selected Bridge to Terabithia from the DVD recorder and settled back to be entranced with what I thought would be a Narnia-style fantasy. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the movie was actually much better than I expected, but shocked to discover just how sad it got about 2/3rds in! Although there was a happy ending, events took a depressing turn, for a supposed kid's fantasy film.
For a start, the posters/DVD box misrepresent what the film is about. Far from being set in a magical world like Narnia, Wonderland or Middle Earth, it is entirely set on planet Earth, in the US (though filmed in New Zealand), and there's only a few minutes with any CGI creatures, and these exist in the imaginations of the lead characters. The 'bridge' of the title is an imaginary, metaphorical bridge between the real world and imagination, and Terabithia is a fantasy place made up Jesse and Leslie, a couple of outsiders who come together and learn how powerful imagination can be.
The undoubted star of the movie is the 11-year old lead, Jesse, played by 15-year old Josh Hutcherson. He just shines in every scene, and I found myself really carried along by his performance - he was even better than a rather flat Robert Patrick as his on-screen father. I think he'll be an actor to watch in future. His co-star, AnnaSophia Robb, is also great as Leslie, Jesse's new friend and route into Terabithia's fantasy world. There's no explicit romance for these two, they're just friends, and that's as it should be considering the age of the characters, but there is a real bond between them, so when that shocker comes it really hits you in the gut. Well it did me anyway.
Zooey Deschanel is as watchable as ever in a small role as Jesse's music teacher, on whom he has a school-boy crush. The rest of the cast are mostly kids and all are great, though a little clichéd in the school bullies they represent - but even then the story toys with the bullies and shows their (well one of them's) human side in a revelation that is a little shocking for a Disney movie. I think you forget what kids can deal with in films - something that's shocking for an adult a kid may take in their stride.
By the end I'd laughed and I'd had tears welling up in my eyes, and I had thoroughly and utterly enjoyed every minute of this charming and unexpectedly touching movie.
I was not that fussed about seeing Tim Burton's latest movie, especially after what he did the 'remake' of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, so I am pleased to say that I enjoyed Alice in Wonderland thoroughly!
I'm only familiar with Alice through the 1951 Disney animation and I've never read Lewis Carroll's original books, so I didn't really have an idea of what to expect, although I knew the story wasn't just a straight adaptation. Burton makes his Alice a 19 year old on the verge of marriage and adult-hood, who is plagued by dreams of a strange fantasy world. After falling down a rabbit hole, Alice finds herself back in Wonderland - a bit like Return to Oz I suppose (though I'm guessing as I've not watched that, yet) - and all the usual suspects remember her, but she doesn't remember them, although she needs to so that she can slay the Jabberwocky and save Underland (as it's actually called - Alice misremembered it as Wonderland) from the evil Red Queen.
The movie is full of fantastic characters and surprising actors, along with lots of laughs and heart. Mia Wasikowska's Alice is somewhat jaded and a little cold, but she plays the role just right, with only the occasional scene where she seems a bit flat. As the movie opens in the 'real' world, I was name-checking the actors (including the amazing Lindsay Duncan) and, once in Underland, the voice-actors, so I'd completely forgotten that Johnny Depp was even in the thing! Despite bearing an uncanny resemblance to Madonna that only me and Andrew seem to have noticed (it's the gap in his teeth!), Depp's Mad Hatter is a hilarious creation, backed up by a whole host of imaginative and well-voiced collection of supporting characters such as the dormouse (Barbara friggin' Windsor!), Cheshire Cat (Sir Stephen Fry), and the caterpillar (only Alan Rickman!), plus Matt Lucas in a dual role as Tweedles Dee and Dum, who stole every scene he was in. Twice.
Talking of scene stealers, Helena Bonham Carter's Red Queen is easily the best character in the whole film. A close cousin of Blackadder II's Queenie, judging by the delivery, the Red Queen and her castle featured so many great lines and sight gags, it'll take a second viewing to catch them all. As the ethereal White Queen, Anne Hathaway had a less showy part, but she imbued the potentially-irritating wholesome good queen with enough mannerisms and off-beat charm that she completely fit into this weird, weird world.
In 3D the film looked fantastic, and I expect it would look the same in 2D - there wasn't the level of immersion in the movie as in Avatar, but it certainly didn't detract from the experience. Alice had a brighter palate for a Tim Burton film, in keeping with a more family-friendly tone, although there were some rather scary scenes, mostly involving the hideous, slavering Bandersnatch creature. Going into the film with no (or low) expectations meant that I had few preconceptions and as a result I think I enjoyed the film more than I thought I would. In fact I liked everything about it. What a frabjous day!
