REACHING FOR THE MOON

Stars: Miranda Otto, Gloria Pires, Tracy Middendorf, Marcello Airodi, Treat Williams, Marcio Ehrlich, Lola Kirke, Anna Bella Chapman, Tania Costa and Marianna MacNiven.
Writers: Carolina Kotscho, Julie Sayres and Matthew Chapman; based on the book Rare and Commonplace Flowers by Carmen L Oliviera.
Director: Bruno Barreto.

Reviewed at the Opening Night of the 2014 Mardi Gras Film Festival.

Rating: 3.5/5

The conventional biopic approach that veteran Brazilian director Bruno Barreto applies to Reaching for the Moon proves a double-edged sword in terms of the films overall impact. The passion that poet Elizabeth Bishop and architect Lota de Macedo Soares shared in their hillside Shangri-la in the mid 1950’s is lovingly portrayed but fleetingly conveyed; there is a brittle austerity at work here that honours their legacy but shortchanges their human qualities.

One of the western world’s most celebrated writers, Bishop (Miranda Otto) found herself in a stalled creative mindset in 1951 New York, deciding to join her friend Mary (Tracy Middendorf) on an estate outside of Rio de Janeiro. Here, Mary lives with her lesbian partner Lota (Gloria Pires), one of the nation’s leading architects; despite some early conflict, Lota and Elizabeth fall in love, each providing the inspiration for the other’s endeavours.

The dynamic of life within the beautifully constructed grounds of Lota’s home constitutes most of the film’s first half; developments such as Elizabeth’s poetry output and worsening alcoholism, Mary’s adoption of a local girl and Lota’s role in rebuilding the Flamengo Park region of beachfront Rio play out satisfactorily under the workmanlike direction of Barreto. The director clearly adores his homeland, capturing stunning images of the countryside with the help of his DOP Mauro Pinheiro Jr; the period detail is equally sumptuous in the hands of production designer Jose Joaquim Salles and art director Yvette Granata.

As their love and relationship grows increasingly fractious, so does the impact of Barreto’s drama. Having taken her alcoholism to the brink of death in the isolated mountain enclave while Lota advanced her career, Bishop takes a teaching job back in the US; Lota spirals into a deep depression. With the onscreen chemistry of the lead actresses now absent, the focus of the film is diluted; the personal journeys each experience while apart don’t carry a lot of impact or meaning.

The ‘tortured artist’ role brings the best out of the finest actresses (Nicole Kidman’s Virginia Woolf; Salma Hayek’s Frieda Kahlo; Gwyneth Paltrow’s Sylvia Plath) and Miranda Otto, finally getting the rich lead role she has long deserved, is complex and commanding as Bishop. Matching her in every regard is Gloria Pires as Lota; the pair share a very strong bond and convince in some succinct but intimate love scenes. Gay audiences will appreciate that Barreto places no emphasis whatsoever on the mechanics of a lesbian love affair, treating his characters and their plight with non-gender specific respect.

The film represents a safe but sure bet as the opening night attraction for the 2014 Mardi Gras Film Festival. Engaging, non-threatening and pleasing to the eye and ear, Reaching for the Moon ultimately doesn’t soar as its title suggests it might have. Instead, it settles for moments of romantic insight set against the struggle for creative and emotional clarity. 

WINTER'S TALE

Stars: Colin Farrell, Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Jessica Brown Findlay, William Hurt, Eva Marie Saint, Mckayla Twiggs, Ripley Sobo and Will Smith.
Writer: Akiva Goldsman; based upon the novel by Mark Helprin.
Director: Akiva Goldsman.

Rating: 2/5

Although not the first time that fantasy that soared on the page lands with a thud on the screen, Akiva Goldsman’s take on the ‘magical realism’ of Mark Helprin’s vast, dense 1983 novel Winter’s Tale will prove particularly plodding to those unfamiliar with the source material and wanly lacking in wonder to those that are.

Having survived early embarrassment (Batman Forever; Batman & Robin; Lost in Space) to emerge as Hollywood’s go-to-guy for high-end B-movies (A Beautiful Mind; Cinderella Man; The Da Vinci Code), Goldsman’s directorial debut proves an epic folly, exposing the Oscar winner as a filmmaker more enthused by the aesthetics of Helprin’s novel than its heart. One can’t begrudge him the structure of his script, which jettisons long passages and entire characters and mashes familiar elements from the 750-page tome, but fans will deem it unforgivable that the romantic essence and compelling momentum are missing.

Goldsman focuses in on Peter Lake (Colin Farrell), the main character from the first section of Helprin’s book. The petty thief/larrikin is on the run from the seething Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe), a brutal overseer of New York’s tougher burroughs at the turn of the century. They were once allies, but Lake is now marked for death by Soames, whom we come to understand is a demonic minion working for ‘Judge’, aka Lucifer, (Will Smith, in a jarringly misjudged piece of stunt casting).

Having escaped on a white steed (Athansor in the novel, with its own lengthy narrative attached, though none of that detail survived the transition), Lake is convinced by the horse (?) to pull of one last act of petty thieving. And so he meets the consumptive beauty Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay), with whom he forms a spiritual passion. The third act transplants our hero into modern-day New York, where he stumbles the streets in amnesic stupor, ingratiates himself all too easily into the life of journalist Virginia Gamely (Jennifer Connelly) and her sick daughter Abby (Ripley Sobo) and faces off against Pearly.

In his scripts for Practical Magic, I Robot and I Am Legend, Goldsman hinted at otherworldly aspects of earthbound romanticism; in this regard, his script for Winter’s Tale echoes his new-agey contemporaries Michael Tolkin (The Rapture) and Bruce Joel Rubin (Brainstorm; My Life; Ghost; Jacob’s Ladder; The Time Traveller’s Wife). Oddly, it is these themes of existential spirituality and divine fate that so profoundly burden the film. Goldsman desperately wants to honour these elements in the most grand of cinematic traditions but forgets to craft character arcs and personalities that audience can engage with. His wordy script, in which long passages of cumbersome dialogue supplant excised plotting and hoped-for depth and illogicality undermines credibility, makes for a very long 129 minutes.

Nothing indicates the desired prestige status more clearly than the front-loading of above-the-line Oscar winners. Crowe continues his voyage into ‘late-career Brando’ self-parody, his Pearly a truly nutty characterisation complete with often impenetrable Irish brogue and showy monologuing (which is not to say he doesn’t also offer up some of the film’s livelier moments); Connelly is entirely underserved. Past Academy honourees William Hurt and Eva Marie Saint class up smaller parts, while composer Hans Zimmer’s blustery score works hard if largely in vain to wring emotion from every frame.

One highpoint from this otherwise disappointing effort is the risky roll of the dice it represented for Warners Bros. Some courageous backing of difficult literary projects once thought 'unfilmable' has come from their LA boardrooms of late; the Wachowski’s stunning, unfairly-ignored adaptation of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, Baz Luhrmann’s love/hate spin on F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and now Goldman’s effort. One hopes the rocky box office path the films have trod doesn’t deter further investment in book-smart Hollywood cinema.   

ROBOCOP

Stars: Joel Kinnaman, Michael Keaton, Abbie Cornish, Gary Oldman, Samuel L Jackson, Jackie Earle Haley, Michael K Williams, Jennifer Ehle, Jay Baruchel, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Aimee Garcia, Patrick Garrow and John Paul Ruttan.
Writers: Joshua Zeturner; based on an original screenplay by Michael Miner and Edward Neumaier.
Director: Jose Padilha.

Rating: 2.5/5

Polished with that pewter-like modern blockbuster sheen and lacking in all but the most modest attempts at smart sci-fi satire, Jose Padilha’s 2014 RoboCop reboot emerges as a technically competent but intellectually and emotionally inferior reworking of Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 model.

Verhoeven unleashed his rebuilt super-cop Alex Murphy into a bloodthirsty marketplace rife with cinematic carnage and boneheaded action stars. The Dutchman pulled the ultimate swift one on his Hollywood bosses; he gave them the visceral revenge fantasy they wanted, but also tore chunks off the very corporate greed and immoral media pillars that created the bloodlust, nationalistic mindset of Reagan era America he was laying bare.

Brazillian director Padilha, sourced after his street-level Elite Squad films proved he can get audiences up close to urban action, has no such agenda. He lines up O’Reilly/Hannity-type tabloid TV in the form of Samuel L Jackson’s Pat Novak and skewers big business immorality (though that’s the proverbial ‘fish in the barrel’ in a post GFC world), but the resurrection of potential franchise starters like the RoboCop property are carefully orchestrated and….well, no one was going to let smarts get in the way of cashed-up teen moviegoers.

Joel Kinnaman steps into the role of the slain cop; he’s too young, sculptured and brash to compare with the great Peter Weller’s portrayal. Weller was young and sculptured too, but he wasn’t a mouthy upstart; you’d have a beer with Weller after work, but not Kinnaman. Barely surviving a car bomb, there’s not much left of Murphy; his distraught wife Clara (Abbie Cornish) must sign off on her husband before the R&D team from Omnicorp, lead by CEO Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) and head scientist Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman) can start rewiring him.

This deviation from the 1987 film proves the most telling in terms of the remake’s emotional impact. Weller’s Murphy died; Kinnaman’s didn’t. Weller spent Verhoeven’s movie reconnecting with his soul through glimpses of past memory; he was a machine seeking the human spirit that he forgot he had. Kinnaman spends Padilha’s film uncovering clues, avenging wrongs and taking down societies worst. Weller did that too, but it was secondary to his Murphy’s existential struggle; ‘the job’ is all Kinnaman’s character has, whether before or after his mechanisation.

In all other regards, RoboCop ’14 follows the template of the modern action film to the letter - good actors adding weight to daft roles; vid-game aesthetics; brawn and beauty over brains. It won’t disappoint the key commercial demographic, who would be largely unfamiliar with what makes the source material so resonant; old fans will dig the occasional reference, including an honourable reworking of Basil Pouledouris’ great score and knowing nods to the original’s one-line gems (“Dead or alive, you’re coming with me.”)

Jose Padilha wields his camera with skill and exhibits some engaging visual flourishes; the unified vision he shares with his Elite Squad DOP Lula Carvalho is clearly evident. One can’t help but sense the creative unit had one eye on the action and one eye on the suits, careful to give them what they want at the price they wanted. Padilha’s Hollywood debut is craftsmanlike and respectable, which is perhaps not what an updated retelling of Verhoeven’s grimy, gritty, gory classic deserved.

BACKYARD ASHES

Stars: Andrew S Gilbert, John Wood, Felix Williamson, Norah George, Damian Callinan, Lex Marinos, Shingo Usami, Jake Speer, Zenia Starr, Arkaan Shah, Michael Mack, Stephen Holt, Maddison Catlin-Smith and Martin Harper.
Writers: Peter Cox and Mark Grentell.
Director: Mark Grentell.

Rating: 3.5/5

As if the 2013/14 Australian summer had not proven humiliating enough for the English cricket establishment, along comes Mark Grentell’s Backyard Ashes.

The feature debut for the multi-hyphenate auteur is cut from the same Ocker-istic cloth as past odes to suburban idiosyncrasy like The Castle and Emoh Ruo, though thankfully minus the smug satirical edge that slyly mocked their blue-collar ethos. 

Everyman Dougie Waters (Andrew S Gilbert) is a ¼ acre block hero; his little slice of suburban heaven and the family he shares it with is Dream Aussie Life 101. He honours his loving wife, Lilly (Rebecca Massey) and adores his lovely daughter, Kerri (Maddison Catlin-Smith); his vid-camera obsessed teen son Pigeon (Jake Speer), not so much. Most important of all are his factory work-floor mates, amongst them Spock (Damian Callinan), Taka (Shingo Usami), Sachin (Waseem Khan) and Merv (John Wood), all of whom share his passion for beer, blokey mateship and, above all else, backyard cricket.

The arrival of British corporate cost-cutter Edward Lords (a broader-than-broad Felix Williamson) disrupts the dynamic of the group; he sacks Dougie’s neighbour and best mate Norm (Stephen Holt) then thoughtlessly moves into the man’s deserted house (of all Grentell’s strong suits, subtlety is not one of them). A terrible accident involving Lord’s prized pet cat, Dexter and Dougie’s barbeque (which is not as funny as the film needs it to be) sets in motion a winner-take-all cricket match between the boozed-up Aussies and the prickly Poms, the victor taking home the charred remnants of puss.

Grentell’s reliance upon deeply intrinsic cultural references (Richie Benaud impersonations, ‘keys-in-the-pitch’ gags and gently racist humour) should win over a solid slice of the domestic audience, but offshore engagements and in-flight screenings (especially on British Airways) are unlikely. Backyard Ashes is so filled with minutiae humour that targets and skewers Aussie summer-time suburban obsessions, it often resembles a big-screen reworking of the iconic TV series, Kingswood Country.

Shot in the New South Wales’ western megalopolis of Wagga Wagga with the full support of the local city council, Backyard Ashes feels very much like a passion project brought to life by a community who understands the lead character’s essence and the modern working class man’s plight. The Australian film industry has not offered up a more likable spin on the larrikin values that built this nation in a long time.

Backyard Ashes does not pretend to be an intellectual exercise, but it sort of becomes one despite itself. By striving for working-class honesty over hard-sell insight, it achieves both. Grentell’s film defines both our nation’s underdog competitiveness towards the mother country and our ultimate acceptance, through the bonding influence of a shared sporting mythology, that we are not that different from each other after all. 

GIRL, BOY, BAKLA, TOMBOY

Stars: Vice Ganda, Maricel Soriano, Joey Marquez, Ruffa Guiterrez, Cristine Reyes, Kiray Celis, Bobby Andrews, JC de Vera, Ejay Falcon and Xyriel Manabat.
Writer: Alyz Henrich
Director: Wenn V Deramas.

Rating: 3/5

The latest giddy, silly, colourful romp from Pinoy low-brow maestro Wenn V Deramas, Girl Boy Bakla Tomboy will test the tolerance of those uninitiated with his trademark mix of crass sentimentality, shrill hijinx and frantic pacing. For those already in on his jokey style (who clearly number in the 10,000s, if the film’s blockbuster status in its homeland is any measure), Deramas’ wacky vision is good-time cinema of the highest order.

Originally a vehicle for local celebrity John Lapus (dismissed from the project when he refused to lose weight for the lead role), Girl Boy Bakla Tomboy has become a high-profile platform for the versatile Vice Ganda to work his considerable physical comedy schtick in four different roles. The film represents a tour de force of sorts for the TV/film actor; the script and pacing does not allow him explore any particular depth across the four siblings he embodies, but he supplies each with a strongly defined personality and vivid physicality.

Ganda’s four archetypes are a family of quadruplets, who are deviously separated into pairs as babies. Their father, Peter (a rather bewildered Joey Marquez) flees to the US with two infants, who grow into LA princess ‘Girlie’ and cool player, Peter. Meanwhile, the birth mother Pia (Marical Soriano, the pick of the support cast) is left with homosexual son Mark and lesbian daughter Panying.

The family is forced back together when it is discovered Peter requires a liver transplant; when Peter and his LA brats return to Manila, wildly farcical set-ups and grand melodrama become the order of the day until the feel-good ending inevitably plays out (and not soon enough, with the running time stretched to an overly indulgent 104 minutes).

Ganda and Deramas have fun with the various techniques that allow the modern filmmaker to place the same actor in the same frame. It is a credit to the technically proficient crew that these scenes work so well and that the film overall has a superbly polished sheen. The director overplays the tiresome trickery for which he is known, such as sped-up, ‘Benny Hill’-style sight gags and meta references (one character claims her subplot is most important because of her order in the films’ title), but anyone buying a ticket for a Wenn Deramas film knows what they are in for by this stage of the director’s career.

It is a given that for some western viewers who may stumble into Girl, Boy, Bakla, Tomboy during its international rollout, the broad caricatures painted of homosexuality will be unforgivably crass (not to mention that one child character spends the entire film in blackface), as will Deramas’ tendency to value a cheap giggle over a worthwhile, narrative-driven laugh. But there is no denying that the filmmaker has savvy commercial instincts (the diasporic Filipino audience that attended the session in Sydney’s western suburbs with Screen-Space bellowed laughter thoughout) and that he has found a free-wheeling soulmate in his energetic, uninhibited leading man. 

HARLOCK: SPACE PIRATE

Voiced by: Shun Oguri, Toshiyuki Morikawa, Miyuki Sawashiro, Arata Furuta, Yu Aoi, Ayano Fujuda, Haruma Miura, Chikao Ohtsuka and Maaya Sakamoto.
Writers: Harutoshi Fukui and Kiyoto Takeuchi; based on the manga text by Leiji Masumoto.
Director: Shinji Aramaki.

Rating: 3.5/5

The dazzling visuals and immense scale employed by director/animator Shinji Aramaki adequately compensate (just) for the derivative narrative in his update/reboot of Leiji Matsumoto’s visionary 1970’s space-opera, ‘Harlock’.

Familiar elements, both from the source material and the wider anime universe, are forgivable given that Matsumoto’s character was a progenitor for many of the genre’s stock-in-trade components (strong, silent, romantic hero; tightly-clad, sexualised femme-warriors; fighting a rebellious cause against a corrupt tyranny).

What may prove tougher for western audiences to let slide are instantly recognisable nods to such high profile properties as Wall-E, Battlestar Galactica, and Star Wars Episodes 4-6. These come thick and fast, in both the film’s environmentally-theme plotting (the rebirth of mankind on a decimated planet Earth registers when a seedling is discovered, ala Pixar’s lovable robot story) and deep-space spectacle (key characters escape a giant worm that lives dormant in a distant space rock, just as Han and Leia did in The Empire Strikes Back).

That said, Aramaki (a legend-of-sorts amongst the Japanese anime crowd having helmed 2004’s blockbuster, Appleseed) amps up his extraordinary dexterity as a framer of pulsating outer-space action and designer of futuristic worlds. He also deftly handles the themes of vengeance, family bonds, memory and honour within the context of the sci-fi genre (a further nod to Lucas’ game-changing films), even if some of the developments strain credibility and, at 115 minutes, patience.

A series of interstitial title-cards detail the premise. Earth was abandoned when the population’s impact grew unmanageable but, with nowhere else to go, the billions returned, hoping to resettle. This triggered a period of brutal civil conflict called the ‘Homecoming Wars’; the Gaia Coalition is formed, a group who rule that the planet is off-limits to mankind.

But the mysterious, immortal space-pirate Harlock (Shun Oguri), a merciless but honourable revolutionary who traverses the galaxy aboard his classically-themed vessel, the Arcadia, with warrior-hottie Kei (Miyuki Sawashiro) at his side and ethereal alien-hottie Mimay (Yu Aoi) providing wisdom, wants to reclaim Earth in defiance of the Coalition’s edict. Gaia strong-arm militant Ezra (Toshiyuki Morikawa) sends his brother, Logan (Haruma Miura), to infiltrate the Arcadia and assassinate Harlock, but the greenie crusade that the enigmatic Captain is on inspires Logan; soon, the brothers are at odds and the extent of the Gaia Coalition’s web of lies and the fate of the planet are at stake.

The project’s adherence to the convoluted, geek-friendly detail of the lore may prove both an asset and a liability. Harlock’s adventures hold cultural significance and genre weight and Aramaki knows it; the film could never be accused of not given the fans what they want. But at a cost of US$30million and with James Cameron’s vocal endorsement all over the marketing, this should feel more geared towards the international audience. Ultimately, it sort of is but sort of isn’t; a smart sci-fi effort with cutting-edge tech rendering should play wider than Harlock: Space Pirate ever will. 

Harlock: Space Pirate will be released on DVD/Blu-ray in Australia in March 2014 via Anchor Bay Entertainment.

MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM

Stars: Idris Elba, Naomie Harris, Tony Kgorge, Riaad Moosa, Jamie Bartlett, Terry Pheto, Gys de Villiers and Robert Hobbs.
Writer: William Nicholson; based upon an autobiography by Nelson Mandela.
Director: Justin Chadwick.

Rating: 4/5

Justin Chadwick’s biopic of the great man’s life is a well-crafted, largely conventional but no less moving account of an everyman who learnt to deal with the consequences of having greatness thrust upon him.

Chadwick’s background in high-end TV drama serves his latest project well; the airs and graces he attempted with middling success in past big-screen efforts (The Other Boleyn Girl, 2008; The First Grader, 2010; Stolen, 2011) finally find the substance to warrant his style. The UK-born auteur’s command of subtle composition and quietly powerful drama suits Nelson Mandela’s steady climb from idealistic lawyer to iconic freedom fighter.

The ace in this sweeping tale is, of course, Idris Elba in the lead role. Delivering a performance that requires the actor to age from a 30-something firebrand open to the temptations of the flesh above family duties to a noble survivor of cruel imprisonment who would come to represent the hopes of a downtrodden people, Elba delivers fully upon the promise he has exhibited for some time now. Matching his on-screen potency is Naomie Harris as Winnie in a role that has been oddly ignored by the award season predictors; as both the rod that strengthens her husband’s resolve and the burgeoning warrior for her people’s plight, Harris (last seen as Bond’s ballsy offsider in Skyfall) invests wholly in the role.

Chadwick and Elba imbue their Mandela with a richness that honours the living embodiment and a vitality that makes for a compelling screen character. Early scenes that establish him as being at one with his people meld with act two dramatics that see him sacrifice a stable future for the nobility of his beliefs. By the time the stoic, aged activist faces off against the imperilled leaders of a crumbling Apartheid regime, Elba has assumed a gigantic persona and consumes every inch of the widescreen frame.

It is not always an easy task for productions employing the man-vs-myth approach to pull off both aspects with success. Although he accomplished it with skill in Gandhi, Sir Richard Attenborough’s subsequent spins on the lives of Charlie Chaplin, Ernest Hemingway (In Love and War) and Steve Biko (Cry Freedom) are admirable but have not aged well; Spike Lee’s Malcolm X impresses as a cinematic treatment, but seems under-cooked by today’s standards (despite Denzel Washington’s stunning lead performance).

A slightly saggy mid-section means it is not quite the classic biopic treatment that perhaps the late, great man deserved, but Mandela is nevertheless both a stirring tribute and gritty portrayal of a man righting a wrong and influencing a planet in the process. 

WALKING WITH DINOSAURS 3D

Stars: Charlie Rowe, Karl Urban and Angourie Rice.
Featuring the voices of: Justin Long, John Leguizamo, Skyler Stone and Tiya Sircar.
Writer: John Collee.
Directors: Barry Cook and John Nightingale.

Rating: 3/5

Fifteen years after the groundbreaking BBC documentary series became a television phenomenon and in the wake of the arena spectacular that brought the creatures of prehistory to a live audience, the inevitable big-screen brand expansion of the Walking with Dinosaurs property proves to be as slickly-packaged an endeavour as you’d expect from any franchise entrant. That said, extinction for this mighty marketing behemoth feels a little bit closer.

The co-directing mash-up of animation savvy Barry Cook (Mulan; Arthur Christmas) and wildlife doco maestro John Nightingale (producer of the recent theatrical release, One Life) is understandable; each brings the prerequisite skills needed to nail both the emotional and natural realism asked of by the story. They stick very close to the visual aesthetics that proved so successful on the smallscreen; state-of-the-art effects propel the audience into the late Cretaceous period, specifically to within a Pachyrinosaurus herd and their hatchlings as they enjoy an Alaskan spring.

Also held over from the 1999 series is an educational element; as each dinosaur appears, the frame will freeze and a child-like voiceover will give the scientific name, its English translation and its dietary requirements.

Where the film will most wilfully divide impatient parents and their pre-teen company is in the decision to anthropomorphize the lead characters with tart, mall-teen attitudes in the service of a rickety first love/boy-to-man plot. Our protagonist, ‘Patchy’, is voiced by Justin Long with that wide-eyed, ‘golly gee!’ cadence personified by stock Mouse House characters. It is not the only similarity to the Disney oeuvre: many elements recall the studio’s own Dinosaur (not to mention the Land Before Time animated series) and the films narrator, Alex (voiced by John Leguizamo), a wise and witty overseer and feathered friend to Patchy, is clearly modelled upon Rowan Atkinson’s Zazu from The Lion King.

The ultra-realism of the beasts and their surrounds are done a disservice by the ‘Saturday-morning cartoon’ dialogue from the usually reliable John Collee (Happy Feet; Master and Commander). One can envision a version from which the dialogue is removed entirely and fresh narration recorded to accompany the journey of the main characters, with far greater emotional impact. The prehistoric-set narrative is bookended by scenes between a paleontologist (Karl Urban) and his surly teen nephew (Charlie Rowe) that are designed to enhance the ‘personal growth’ subtext but seem throwaway.

Reservations aside, the beautiful widescreen cinematography (landscape footage was shot in Alaska and New Zealand) by first-timer John Brooks melds seamlessly with the pixel-perfect creations of Australian effects house Animal Logic and proves sufficiently captivating in spite of the blah storytelling. Our fascination with the thunder lizards of yore has never waned, which should ensure this spectacle, however undercooked narratively, is a big hit with family audiences.

ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES

Stars: Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, David Koechner, Christina Applegate, Meagan Good, Josh Lawson, James Marsden, Dylan Baker, Greg Kinnear, Kristen Wiig and Harrison Ford.
Writers: Will Ferrell and Adam McKay.
Director: Adam McKay.

Rating: 2.5/5

Will Ferrell’s maroon-hued egomaniac, legendary newsman Ron Burgundy finds nirvana in the early days of the 24-hour news cycle in Adam McKay’s loose-limbed, indulgent sequel. The ensemble seems to be having fun and there are some scattered belly laughs, but the truly inspired nuttiness that made the first Anchorman a cult hit is in short order.

Burgundy has shifted his base from San Diego to New York, where he has established a successful on-air partnership with his wife, Veronica (Christina Applegate). When she is offered the prime time gig to which he felt entitled, Ron descends into a deep depression, hitting rock bottom as a foul-mouthed announcer at SeaWorld. These early scenes are well paced (and feature a fun cameo from Harrison Ford) but don’t strongly establish an inspired reason to revisit Burgundy’s world.

That reason finally manifests in the form of the Global News Network, a soon-to-launch network financed by Aussie millionaire Kench Allenby (Josh Lawson) and headed by strong-willed Linda Jackson (Meaghan Good). Despite his fall from grace, Burgundy is (rather implausibly) given free rein to bring back his old crew – boisterous sports guy Champ Kind (David Koechner), reporter Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) and knuckle-headed weatherman Brick Tamland (Steve Carell).

The overriding gag is that Burgundy’s ‘lowest common denominator’ approach to broadcasting gave birth to the ‘news-as-entertainment’ era; when Burgundy utters, “Why do we have to give people what they need and not what they want?,” dollar signs register with the new network. It is the sequel’s only meaningful attempt at thoughtful satire; in all other regards, McKay and Ferrell’s script is utterly reliant upon puerile silliness and the improvisational skills of its cast.

The best bits are between Carell and guest star Kristen Wiig as like-minded dimwits who fall in love; Rudd has some moments, but Koechner is background noise and Applegate, Greg Kinnear (as Veronica’s new man) and James Marsden (as Ron’s rival) are relegated to bit player contributions. Most troubling is Ferrell’s energy in the lead role. He is older (and looks it) and struggles to recapture the youthful brashness he brought to the part almost 10 years ago. Burgundy 2013 doesn’t inspire laughs as much as he does pity, the casual misogyny and racism that suited the first film’s tone now appearing boorish and outdated.

Anchorman 2 eventually finds a kind of Python-esque craziness in the final third, when disparate elements such as temporary blindness, a great white shark pup and a ‘white bronco’ police chase factor into the denouement. The best reason to see the film is a nonsensical but hilarious sequence that has Ron and his posse facing off against newsmen from the cable network channels. It could be the greatest sequence of cameos in film history and is presented with such fresh vigour that it feels like the inspiration for the entire project.

BIG ASS SPIDER!

Stars: Greg Grunberg, Ray Wise, Lombardo Boyar, Clare Kramer, Lin Shaye, Patrick Bauchau, Ruben Pla, Bob Bledsoe and Alexis Peters.
Writer: Gregory Gieras.
Director: Mike Mendez.

Rating: 3/5

The most pressing mental involvement that Mike Mendez’s silly, scary guilty pleasure requires is – where does one place the inflection? Is it Big ASS Spider (maybe, cos’ it’s got a huge opisthosoma)? Or is it BIG Ass Spider (as in a big spider that lives in…ugh, that’s disgusting)?

Though easily shoehorned into the current craze for D-grade schlock such as Pirahnaconda and Sharknado, Big Ass Spider! exhibits smarter comedic chops and slicker production values that place it above such self-conscious efforts, rightfully earning it critical warmth and audience affection.

The film opens with a striking slow motion piece in which our hero, schlubby pest-control guy Alex Mathis (Greg Grunberg), awakens amidst a scene of urban havoc. Audiences are introduced to the titular star as it scales a downtown skyscraper, Kong-style, before the inevitable ’12 hours earlier’ graphic brings us back to the beginning of the hero’s journey (a funny sequence involving the great Lin Shaye).

Most of the film’s first half is confined to a hospital set, where Mathis is being treated for (you guessed it) a spider bite. In the building’s morgue (lit in typically B-movie dark and creepy shadows), a corpse has been delivered with an unwanted eight-legged passenger that makes short work of a coroner and escapes into the airducts. These scenes play well with horror buffs, riffing inventively on key moments in such genre staples as John Carpenter’s The Thing and Ridley Scott’s Alien.

The military descends, led by Major Braxton Tanner (Ray Wise, stoic and dependable) and Lt Karly Brant (Clare Kramer) and, with Alex and his new offsider, hospital security guy Jose (a scene-stealing Lombardo Boyar) in tow, set about securing downtown LA and stopping the B.A.S.

TV veteran Mendez and writer Gregory Gieras (returning to the sub-genre of ‘Exclamation Mark Cinema’ seven years after Centipede!) find a fun balance between comedy and horror. Grunberg (an experienced support player, best known for long stints on the TV series Heroes, Alias and Felicity) is in sync with his director’s vision and makes for an engaging leading man. A couple of gruesome moments (notably, a Raiders…-style face melt and the giant spider’s first big rampage, through picnickers in Elysian Park) bring what is essentially a homage to 50’s era ‘big bug’ pics into the modern film realm.

Perhaps deliberately, special effects waiver between terrific (the spider’s perch atop the crumbling tower is definitely the money-shot) and a bit wobbly (web imagery proves a problem). But all are proficiently staged and in line with the knowing but respectful self-parodying tone that the production wants to convey.