Pompeii Review

The Plot:

A gladiator fighting for his life in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius finds himself confronted by the corrupt Roman soldiers who massacred his family while also meeting his true love. When the volcano erupts he finds himself in a race against time to escape the burning city with his beloved and take his revenge.

The Good:

Game Of Thrones star Kit Harington graduates to the big screen for his debut role as a leading man. At least nobody can fault the considerable effort it must have taken to chisel his body into a convincingly muscled torso. Though short of stature the young British star is certainly a lean fighting machine, with tousled hair and a well displayed six pack giving him some credibility as an emerging action star.  Armed with a gruff voice and minimal dialogue Harington graduates with some success from being part of a small screen ensemble.

Lost star Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje also delivers a pleasantly heroic turn as gladiator superstar Atticus. Towering a little over his co-star and adding even more convincing muscle to the film’s fight scenes. The film is in truth probably at its best when the pair of gladiators are battling for their lives in the Coliseum.

Cast in a shamelessly villainous role as a ruthless roman senator, Kiefer Sutherland clearly relishes the opportunity to ham things up as a pantomime villain. The 24 star has a sneering charisma on screen which keeps things comfortably watchable and even manages to briefly distract from the impending destruction of the city.

From its early Gladiator-esque drama, to its explosive final scenes, Pompeii never fails to at least hold audience’s attention. It also deserves some credit for creating actual characters and a plot, instead of lazily relying on just the promise of massive explosions to hook audience’s attention. Michael Bay… take note.

The Bad:

The Pompeii posters carry the tagline ‘No Warning No Escape’, unfortunately anyone with a basic grasp of world history or who has seen the film’s trailer knows exactly what’s coming. An over eager promotional campaign perhaps revealed a little too much detail of Pompeii’s inevitable fiery CGI destruction. It’s hard to create distracting subplots surrounding actual characters and their lives when audiences are mostly waiting to watch the world’s most infamous volcanic eruption.

When Vesuvius finally does start raining fire and destruction down upon Pompeii the special effects are competent but unlikely to create the sense of shock and awe which classic disaster movies once seemed capable of. Audiences are now so accustomed to CGI destruction, that cartoonish tidal waves or fireballs probably won’t impress anyone. Unfortunately, there are also a few moments near the end of the film of less than convincing CGI work during an increasingly implausible horseback chase.

The film perhaps fails to make the most of acting talents like Jared Harris and Carrie-Anne Moss, both given scarce screen time in brief supporting roles. Meanwhile, it gives love interest Emily Browning far too much attention, lingering frequently on her pretty but ineffectual performance.

Pompeii’s most obvious flaw is that even as the action ramps up towards an explosive climax it takes persistent breaks for dramatic monologues and unnecessarily contrived fight scenes. The film struggles forlornly to maintain its early subplots amidst an increasing mess of explosive scenery. It’s impossible to ignore the obvious fact that instead of fighting with each other or making heartfelt declarations all the characters should just be running away from the approaching wall of flames and molten lava.

The Ugly Truth:

Pompeii delivers a mostly satisfying CGI spectacle and physical performances from a clearly enthusiastic cast. The film ambitiously tries to be a combination of Titanic and Gladiator. Though it lacks the romance and credible drama of both, the result is a watchable ‘disaster movie’ effort none the less.

Premiere video interviews below:

Sundance London 2014 Pictures

The Sundance London Film and Music Festival 2014 took place over the weekend at the O2 Arena showcasing a selection of the very best in independent cinema and music content. This year’s festival saw the UK premiere of numerous titles including new films from Ryan Reynolds, Gemma Arterton, Rose McGowan, David Cross, Steve Coogan and Michael Fassbender. Check out a selection of pictuer galleries below featuring all the stars.

Transcendence Review

The Plot:

Dr Will Caster, a brilliant scientist on the verge of creating a powerful new artificial intelligence, is fatally injured in an assassination attempt by a violent anti-technology organisation. His desperate wife and best friend help copy his consciousness onto a computer as he slowly dies. But who or what have they really created…?

The Good:

Christopher Nolan’s critically acclaimed cinematographer Wally Pfister makes a solid directing debut, with a movie that actually bears many of Nolan’s hallmarks. Transcendence is an intelligent science fiction film that refreshingly relies more on big ideas than big explosions. It shuns cheap theatrics and superfluous action set pieces in favour of a serious exploration of the growing interface between man and machine.

The film packs artificial intelligence, nano-technology, gene therapies, matter manipulation, hive minds and environmental control into one simple and cohesive narrative. It’s a story that also manages to avoid all the usual genre clichés of secret government organisations or megalomaniac billionaire villains. For science fiction fans it’s likely to be a welcome change from a lazy combination of Transformers and pyrotechnics.

The film is helped along by a genuinely impressive cast which includes Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy, Kate Mara and Paul Bettany. Rebecca Hall in particular carries much of the film, as her character struggles to reconcile her love for her husband with her growing uncertainty about what ‘he’ is becoming. Johnny Depp and his familiar husky tones also breathe convincing electronic life into the increasingly omniscient and morally ambiguous digital copy of Dr Will Caster.

The Bad:

Although Transcendence touches readily on a whole range of interesting philosophical and technological issues, in truth there’s actually fairly limited discussion surrounding these ideas. Clever concepts provide the film with plot points and a sense of narrative momentum, but never quiet give it the same aura of profound depth that film’s like Inception accomplished with much simpler ideas. Perhaps with Nolan directing and help from a Hans Zimmer soundtrack the film could have attracted enough attention/emotion to have an impact on pop culture and at the box office.

Fans expecting typical blockbuster action may be left disappointed by the films slow burning technological drama. Though it might be welcomed from a low-budget indie effort, it’s not what audiences naturally expect from a heavily marketed Hollywood film with a $100million dollar budget and a truly A-List cast.

Much of the cast have little to do with their considerable talents. Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy and Kate Mara could all easily have been replaced by less familiar and gifted performers.  Their mere presence lends the film credibility at the cost of heighted audience expectations that are never truly met.

The Ugly Truth:

Transcendence deserves much better than its weak box office opening. It’s actually a thoughtful and well-crafted technological thriller that echoes many classic sci-fi films and explores intriguing possibilities for mankind’s future.

Ricky Gervais Derek Season 2 Interview

Red Carpet News sat down with Ricky Gervais to talk about the second series of comedy/drama Derek, Karl Pilkington and the triumphant return of David Brent. Here’s what Ricky had to say about it all:

Q. Where do you get your ideas from?

I steal them from real life, or they pop into my head. And then it takes over. And then once you’re in the moment you revert to your own experience or behavior. But in general it’s usually, I write about what I know and then it’s just I suppose, putting the work in and getting 20 pages.

Q. Is that hard though?

It is hard because I’m so consumed by these ideas but I’m also consumed by fun. I wanna enjoy everything, even if it’s just a reaction shot I’ve got to get excited by it. I want the funniest reaction shot possible. It’s just creating a world really. But it’s nice to have something in your hand. And sometimes you’re not inspired by anything and you just have to do something and put it in a drawer. And you come back a week later and there’s something there that excites you now that you’d forgotten about, or you did more than you thought, or you throw away the rubbish and there’s one gem. So there’s not real process other than being in the moment. I think all my best stuff was when I come up with the idea and then I’m actually in amongst the actors directing and I don’t know why that is. I think you up your game. You control it a bit more. You feel it a bit more. You don’t usually say things the character wouldn’t say. Whereas if you’re directing people to say things it’s not as organic. A lot of what you do in real life is in a non verbal, subliminal level. The office for me in terms of acting was a study in body language. David Brent would lie with his eyes or his feet. That’s when it comes to life. I think my stand up is best when I act it out as apposed to telling jokes. When I start acting as Hitler and Nietzche having an argument it’s just twice as funny as saying ‘I think of weird stuff. It’s like they’ve got the video of the joke now. It’s so much stronger. Seeing is believing when it comes to acting. There’s nothing in acting that wasn’t meant to be acted out. You can’t read Shakespeare, you have to see Shakespeare.

Q. With series two there’s unfortunately a lot less of Dougie. Could you just not persuade Karl to come back?

I didn’t want to convince him because if you saw him in the first series sweating and being nervous. He couldn’t really act with other people. I honestly didn’t know whether to hug him or put him down. But he was just the icing on the cake so he does his job in this. And it’s gotta be about what’s right for the show. The show is so much more about Hannah and Derek anyway.

Q. Do you miss having him on set just to tackle?

Yeah that was just an excuse but I wrestle with Arthur instead.

Q. Could you see yourself still writing this where you’re in the care home?

Like Last of The Summer Wine? When they replaced the actors with their sons (laughs) Well that’s the other thing. Just working with these actors and actresses. Just because you get to 80 and 90 doesn’t mean you don’t  find things funny or tell the most horrendously dirty jokes. They were embarrassing the youngsters because they knew they could. So yeah if I could be in a care home like Broad Hill I’d take it.

Q. Would you try and be saucy with people just to shock them?

Well this might be in my blood but when my granddad was in hospital dying we went to visit him and the nurses told her that he was being rude to other patients and keeping them awake. When she asked ‘is this true?’ he said ‘yep. If I can’t sleep, no fucker can.’ So I think I’ve got that in me. To answer your question more seriously I think this could keep on going. But I don’t think I will. I think I certainly want to do the two series and a special and then see. I don’t want to make TV for the sake of it. It’s the first I’ve ever considered doing a third series. But it might be a third series or a special.

Q. You have gone back to Brent now. Are you less reluctant than you might have been previously, to going back to old characters?

I like going back more now. I didn’t want to keep David Brent going because I wanted to do other things but now I’ve done other things it feels safe to go back. And it’s a joy. I’m hooked again. I brought him back for Comic Relief and it was a joy I loved it and particularly the songs. I always sneak a song in. I wrote a song with David Bowie for Extras. I wrote one for The Simpsons, Sesame Street and I’ve written another 15 for Brent. And it’s sort of a safety net as well because as much fun as it is it’s still fun to be a pretend rock star for the day. And Brent has never really gone away. He’s still a lovely character to play.

Q. Could you leave Derek then and come back to him later?

Yeah I think so. I’d love to. This series ends lovely. I can always end with the last episode of the last series. I made sure of that with the office. That could’ve ended with 6 [episodes] or 12. And [Derek] could end with 12. But I think I’d like to do the special. I’m thinking of filming a documentary with David Brent trying to be a pop star whilst juggling  repping. He thinks it’s sort of a Scorcese doing the Rolling Stones when it’s actually a Where Are They Now?

Q. Do you ever have a pinch me moment? Like what?

Well… Anything I say now is horrendous. It’s funny because I was doing an interview the other day and got asked ‘what’s the most extravagant thing you’ve bought?’ and I said I don’t really do that. I don’t buy expensive jewelry, I don’t gamble, I don’t do fast cars, I don’t do drugs. I suppose a work of art maybe? And then I went ‘Oh, erm indoor swimming pool… indoor golf…’ and it all sort of fell down (laughs) But I meant ‘that’s all part of the house’ it’s concrete. Concrete filled with water. It doesn’t count as extravagant!

Q. Are you aware it is?

Well it’s evolution. When I first got a job on XFM it was the richest I’d ever been! So you don’t see it really. But I do pinch myself. I know how lucky I am and I sometimes feel guilty about it as well. All you can do is know I didn’t do anything bad to get the money. I didn’t invest in blood diamonds. I mucked around as a fat 40 year old.

Q. How do you feel about growing old when writing [Derek]?

Terrible. I walk down the stairs and it takes me about 10 minutes for my knees to form. I think the important thing is being happy. And I think I’ve gotten happier and happier. Last year was the happiest ten years. This will be the happiest 10 years of my life. I don’t fear old age. I don’t fear death. You fear things around that. Like awful illness or pain.

 

 

Spielberg takes on Catholic Drama

Steven Spielberg has added yet another project to his growing list of new films in active development. Currently at work executive producing Jurassic Park sequel Jurassic World, Spielberg will reportedly also be taking on directing duties for The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara.

The film is set to be adapted from David Kertzer’s book documenting the controversial real life story of a 19th Century Jewish boy who was forcibly taken from his parents by Catholic authorities in Italy after it was revealed he had been baptized during a bout of illness.

Spielberg already has his sights set on historical drama Montezuma and sci-fi blockbuster Robopocalypse. So it’s unclear for now exactly when production will start.