In the jungle no-one can hear you scream

One of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s action classics gets the reboot treatment in Predators, which goes on UK general release on July 8^th.

In some ways it’s surprising that the Predator franchise has gone on for as long as it has. Predator was a cult 80’s classic that picked up an Oscar nomination and several major awards. Unfortunately, the series ran out of ideas almost as soon as it had begun and Hollywood was never able to develop the concept beyond its schlock pulp roots; relying instead on comic book fanboy appeal to sell movie tickets.

Based on a script written by Robert Rodriguez in the mid 1990s and produced by Rodriguez’ production company, Predators returns the series to the jungle environment of the original and a semblance of its visceral horror roots. Perhaps in an attempt to wash away bad memories of Predator 2 and the two Aliens Versus Predator films, Predators is a direct sequel to the Schwarzenegger film, right down to the music that resurrects Alan Silvestri’s original score.

The basic premise too remains unchanged, and similarly evokes the spirit of The Most Dangerous Game, the short story where hunters become the hunted. In Predators, a disparate group of seemingly unconnected people find themselves inexplicably transported to a mysterious jungle and must band together as they are stalked and hunted down by the titular alien hunters. Before long they find themselves looking up at an alien sky and realize that their problems are only just beginning.

If this sounds a little more outlandish than the original, it’s not the only thing. The characters in Predators are “colourful” to say the least. Unlike Schwarzenegger’s black ops team, which lent a shred of real-world authenticity to a story that required some suspension of disbelief, the characters in Predators are an eclectic bunch; ranging from an American mercenary (Adrien Brody), to a Mexican drug cartel enforcer (Danny Trejo), a Spetsnaz soldier (Oleg Taktarov), an Israeli  sniper (Alice Braga), an African death squad soldier (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), a death row inmate (Walton Goggins), a Yakuza hitman (Louis Ozawa Changchien) and a disgraced doctor (Topher Grace).

Unfortunately while the cast works well together for the most part (Brody, not usually known for physical roles, carries off the lead a lot better  than I thought he could), none of the characters they play are developed beyond the level of caricature. It’s a clear weakness of a screenplay that is more concerned with action and with making the characters look cool rather than fleshing them out in any detail. It’s perhaps an unfair criticism of this type of film, especially as the Schwarzenegger  film wasn’t exactly Shakespearean drama; but even though the audience knows that most of the characters are going to end up as dog food for the aliens, I think it is still possible to create compelling characters. After all, Jim Cameron did it in Aliens. Of course, director Nimrod Antal isn’t Cameron (neither is Robert Rodriguez for that matter) and Predators is a much less ambitious film than Aliens ever was.

 The first third of the film does a fair job of building up tension, as the characters begin to explore and try to understand what is happening to them. In contrast, the second half is a bit of a letdown – most notably with the appearance of Lawrence Fishburne’s character and a cartoonishly overacted performance that robs the film of any dramatic credibility it might have had. Later, when the Predators begin their attack, the film lapses into a fairly predictable chase riddled with action clichés.

For me, the biggest disappointment is that Predators offers little that is actually new.  Rodriguez throws a new type of Predator and some alien hunting dogs into the mix, but nothing that really provides a more in-depth understanding of the Predator aliens themselves, their society or their technology. Unlike Aliens which introduced the Alien Queen, there’s no additional material here that builds on what came before, in that sense it’s a wasted opportunity. Something quite special could have been done here if only the film-makers weren’t content merely to play with the formula. Even the action offers nothing in the way of innovation. After last summer’s excellent District 9, I had hoped for something a little more imaginative in terms of alien weaponry; yet here too Predators does little more than recycle content from the original film.

I wouldn’t say Predators is a bad film, its merely competent; and like so many other recent movies, it isn’t something that’s likely to have a great deal of replay value. It is however, far superior to the godawful AVP films and even Predator 2. If action and gore are all you're looking for, this will certainly hit all the right buttons. Anyone expecting something more out the franchise will probably be disappointed.

Not Your Father's Robin Hood

Ridley Scott's attempt to do justice to the Robin Hood legend drops the fantasy and comedy of Prince of Thieves to give us a film steeped in 12th century medieval history. At least, that's the theory.


As with 2003's King Arthur (and Troy, to a lesser extent), you have to be a little suspicious of a film that purports to be the true story of an ancient myth, the actual truth of which continues to elude historians.


Fortunately, the Robin Hood legend has proven to be not only durable but also somewhat malleable; parts of the story can be changed so long as key elements are retained. The problem with attempting to tell the story in a realist way (besides the dodgy and completely unverifiable claim to historical accuracy) is that its the embellishment of the myth that have given it its power and enduring appeal. Removing the fantasy from Robin Hood, King Arthur or The Iliad is, on some level, to fundamentally misunderstand the essence of those stories. Sure people are interested in the history that underlies these legends, but once you strip away the magic you lose a lot of what makes the story unique.


The fact that Scott's film is a prequel story works somewhat in its favour, but strangely it seems to be more enjoyable the less you think of it as a Robin Hood film. The action kicks off almost exactly where Scott's 2005 medieval epic Kingdom of Heaven finished; so close in fact you could be forgiven for thinking it a sequel. And like the earlier movie it is as much as a commentary on modern day politics as it is an attempt to do justice to the underlying history. In the case of Robin Hood case we have the coronation of King John and the events leading up to the signing of the Magna Carta, with the Robin Hood figure presented as the catalyst for those events.


It's a bold idea, but it doesn't quite pay off because the film spends so much time on build-up and exposition that Robin's character is never fully integrated into the narrative. Unlike Gladiator, which overcame a relatively thin plot by never taking the focus away from Maximus and the arena, Robin Hood is so densely plotted (which is surprising as the story it tells is relatively simple) that just as some character development gets going the film jumps abruptly to a build-up scene halfway across the country. 


If only more of a focus had been placed on Robin Hood and less on the extraneous events going on around him it could have been a lot more satisfying. As it is, what we have essentially is a poor man's Braveheart, a period action film with a liberty from tyranny subtext, that while competently directed and acted has no emotional core.


As you'd expect Scott's trademark visual style is very much in evidence and there is some amazing cinematography of rural England. The action too is competently handled, and the major set piece battles are thrilling - though nothing really on the scale of Kingdom of Heaven (or Gladiator) or which goes beyond a 12 rating.


Russell Crowe is perfectly adequate in the central role as Robin Longstride, but it's not exactly a memorable performance, though this is more to do with the limitations of the screenplay than with any faults in his acting. Similarly, Cate Blanchett is always worth watching, but I couldn't help but think that she was a little too old to play Marian; and by and large she isn't given a whole lot to do. 


The supporting cast are solid, but play rather close to type. Mark Strong is fast becoming the eponymous Hollywood bad guy and he certainly doesn't disappoint as Sir Godfrey, a French spy in King John's court. I wouldn't mind seeing Strong in some more varied roles, but when you're good you're good - and Strong has obviously cornered his particular market. Similarly, Max Von Sydow only seems to play father figures these days (see Solomon Kane Review). It's not really a fair complaint perhaps as many actors find themselves pigeon-holed in their later years; but it would be nice to see Sydow doing something a bit more challenging - as Henry Fonda did in Once Upon a Time in the West.

In many ways Scott's film is reminiscent of Richard Lester's Robin and Marian, in that the Merry Men play are sidelined and play little role in the story. Clearly this is so that more screen time is given to the interplay between Robin and Marian, but it does have the effect of removing another layer from story and further distancing it from its mythic roots.

Robin Hood is a perfectly enjoyable film in its own right, but it does nothing that Mel Gibson's Braveheart didn't do several times better and is a more satisfying film into the bargain. As a retelling of the Robin Hood legend, it's doesn't really work and Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (despite the mullets, American accents and the vomit inducing Bryan Adams theme) was a lot more fun.

Iron Man 2: Twice The Sound, Twice The Fury

I'm probably going to get a bit of flak for this but I didn't really like the original Iron Man. Personally I found it rather dull and anti-climactic. It got huge praise from critics of course and the audiences voted with their bums (which is the only vote that counts in the final analysis). So two years on we have the inevitable sequel: Iron Man 2.

Iron Man 2 is about what you'd expect from a sequel. A whole bunch of money has been thrown at the screen, it's bigger, louder and more explodey; but once the cinema buzz has worn off you may well find yourself pining for the original. It is also nowhere near as good as either The Dark Knight or Spiderman 2.

Set six months after the end of the first film, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is trying to come to terms with the aftermath of his public admission that he is Iron Man. The US government is demanding that he turn over the Iron Man suit to the military, as business rivals and foreign governments race to copy its  technology. But Stark has bigger problems, the experimental reactor in his chest that keeps his heart beating is malfunctioning and is slowly killing him with heavy metal poisoning unless he can develop a cure.

I have to admit that I'm not terribly familiar with the comic incarnation of Iron Man, so I can't say how it faithful the movie version is; but to me Tony Stark/Iron Man is one of the more complex characters in Marvel's lineup. In many ways Tony Stark is the polar opposite of Bruce Wayne/Batman - both are eccentric billionaires, but where Wayne is motivated by an ideological desire to be a symbol against crime, Stark is driven by no particular goal other than his own capricious nature.

This makes for easily one of the most character-driven superheroes we've seen to date and so it is in the Iron Man movies. Where the film-makers have succeeded is they clearly understood how important it was to get the casting right as a larger than life character requires a larger than life actor to pull it off. Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark is about as good as it gets, without his charisma and energy, neither of these movies would have gotten off the ground.

Unfortunately that is both the big flaw and the saving grace of Iron Man 2. As with the first film, it relies heavily on Robert Downey Jr's performance and the eccentricities of Tony Stark's character to distract the audience from the paper-thin story underneath. In Iron Man 2, Stark's manner and behaviour are so erratic that it is impossible to identify with him in a context that the audience can relate to.

What the film really lacks is a strong character arc. Stark's brush with his own mortality should really be the central theme, just as Peter Parker's struggle with living a double life formed the heart and soul of Spiderman 2. As it is, Stark flits from eccentric genius to complete nutter in the blink of an eye. One moment he's drunkenly wrecking his own birthday party, the next he's building a particle accelerator in his basement. Downey Jr. is so good that it's never less than fun to watch, but I was left wondering what the point of it all was or what Stark learned from his experiences.

Quite simply, the film-makers have sacrificed character development in order to deliver a film that is as much a direct sequel to Iron Man as it is a curtain raiser for The Avengers movie. The result of this is a script that introduces a number of characters and sub-plots for the spin-off which tie into, but ultimately distract from the main storyline. The main casualty of this is that short shrift is given to the villains and the themes that those characters are intended to embody are never really explored.

Sam Rockwell as Stark's business rival Justin Hammer does a great job of channeling Bill Gates, but apart from a lot of monologuing and corporate speak - his character is given very little to do. The same is true of Ivan Vanko, a Russian underworld figure with a grudge against the Stark family (played in a rather understated performance by Mickey Rourke). If anything, Vanko is the more interesting of the two; but his backstory, which should provide the central conflict in the movie, never really goes anywhere. Ultimately, it all comes down to a big action shoot-out and at this Iron Man 2 excels as well as any big summer movie.

All grumbling aside, it is a fun movie and it's good to see the cast of the first film reunited again. Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow still have great on-screen chemistry and the sexual tension between their characters adds a lot of humour to the movie. Don Cheadle is a worthy replacement for Terence Howard as Rhodes and his character enjoys a much bigger role this time around. I was less keen on Scarlett Johansen and Samuel L. Jackson, mainly because their characters are only in it to promote The Avengers.

If you're looking for a big summer movie that you can sit back with a big bag of popcorn and switch off your brain to, you could do a lot worse than Iron Man 2.

Titans Clash, But Who Cares?

I have good memories of the original Clash of the Titans. Sure Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion effects were a few years past their sell-by date. Sure Harry Hamlin made Mark Hamill look like Lawrence Olivier, but the film had a certain goofy saturday morning charm that fired the imagination of an 7 year old kid who grew up on 30's pulp stories and old Tarzan flicks.

It had a solid enough story, more or less boiled down to its mythic archetype: a hero falls in love with a princess, goes on a dangerous quest to save her life and take his place as king. What could go wrong?

So I found myself asking that question and somewhat looking forward to the big-budget remake, in all its 3D, CGI assisted glory. Naturally there's the law of averages says that it will be (at best) sub-par, but when it's a movie you loved as a kid you tend to be a bit more forgiving.

Unfortunately, hype and anticipation do not a good movie make and so it is with this new, supposedly "improved" Clash of the Titans.

Quite why screenwriters Travis Beacham, Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi took a perfectly good story and turned it into a turgid, overcomplicated mess is frankly unclear; but it seems to be a yet another case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. The result is an overproduced and overlong movie that for all it's frenetic action and spectacular (more or less) CGI monster effects is boring and completely uninvolving.

The story centers around a rivalry between two Olympian Gods: Zeus and his brother Hades for control of the heavens; and a second separate conflict between man and the entire pantheon of Greek Gods. In the middle of these machinations Perseus, who unbeknownst to him is the son of Zeus, seeks revenge against Hades for the death of his adoptive family during an attack on the city of Argos. With Argos threatened with destruction by the Kraken (a monster under the control of Hades), Perseus agrees to lead a quest to bring back the head of the Medusa, the only monster that can defeat the Kraken and give him a chance to revenge himself on Hades.

It's a confusing setup and one which does little but dilute the original premise; and as a result the entire story loses cohesion. For a start, it is never explained exactly why Man is at war with the Gods, what the Gods have done to cause this resentment, or indeed what threat Man could actually pose to omnipotent beings. It's an idea that should have been ditched early on as it really serves little purpose and almost seems shoehorned in from a different movie entirely. Similarly, we're expected to believe that a God (the King of Gods in fact) is gullible and would fall for a plan that the audience can see coming a mile off.

You can kind of see where they were trying to go with this, its the kind of high-concept idea that attempts to transcend the bounds of the source material, unfortunately the screenwriters involved just aren't talented enough to pull it off and the whole thing becomes contrived.

The worst part is that by making Perseus' quest all about revenge and by sidelining by any romantic interested with the princess it becomes very difficult to care about any of the characters. Even so, the action frequently cuts back to the doomed city as it gets closer and closer to zero-hour to remind the audience what the heroes are fighting for. Unfortunately, the people of Argos are shown to be the most intolerant bunch of degenerates and religious extremists this side of Sodom and Gomorroah; you almost wish that the Kraken would kill them to put everyone out of their misery!

For an action film, Clash of the Titans is surprisingly dull, moving from obligatory action scene to obligatory action scene. As with a lot of recent movies, like 300 or The Matrix sequels, action fatigue sets in. In trying to give the audience more bang for their buck the film loses pace. The fight scenes go on for too long and what little tension they create is squandered by an overabundance of slow-motion. Criminally, very little of this stuff serves to advance the plot and ultimately the script relies less on character action as it does on deux ex machina.

If there's one thing the film has in its favor it is the effects work, which works for the most part, though it isn't anything you haven't already many times before; but let's face it, it's pretty much expected these days. The visualization of the Greek Gods is one particular highlight, you do get a sense from both Zeus and Hades that these are beings of unlimited power. In contrast the monsters are a bit hit and miss. The Medusa sequence, that was quite terrifying in the original film is hampered by a creature design that is inferior to Harryhausen's original. The Kraken is perhaps the best of the bunch, if only because it provides the sense of scale and destructive power that was impossible to convey with stop-motion.

It isn't a well-acted movie either, Sam Worthington's Perseus is almost identical to the character he has played in both Avatar and Terminator Salvation. Imagine a smaller and less angry version of Gerard Butler's character from 300 and you're about there. He's better than Harry Hamlin, but to be honest that's no achievement. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes are in big-budget scenery chewing mode as Zeus and Hades, though thankfully nowhere near the level of hamminess you usually see from Anthony Hopkins in these sorts of roles. Mads Mikkelson is perhaps the only one who gets out of the movie with any dignity, playing his veteran soldier with the same quiet gravitas you usually expect from Neeson.

Gemma Arterton has to be the worst of the bunch and must surely rank as the blandest, most uninteresting actress since Saffron Burrows got eaten by that shark in Deep Blue Sea. Sure, she's easy on the eyes but she delivers every line with all the charisma and personality of a dead fish. Not only is she a horrible actress, but her role in this film is solely to provide exposition and the love interest that is no longer fulfilled by the Princess Andromeda. I can only hope after seeing this, and her brief, cringeworthy appearance in Quantum of Solace that her fame is a flash in the pan.

Above: Gemma Arterton "acts"

I've had enough of Hollywood trampling on my childhood memories and Titans is a textbook example of how not to remake a classic movie (if you can call the original a classic, of course). It's worth a rent, I suppose, but it really isn't worth paying the best part of 10 quid to see it in the cinema. If you're a fan of the original, skip this entirely and break out the Blu Ray or the old DVD. You'll thank yourself for not having seen this.

Howard's Puritan Swordsman Makes His Big Screen Debut

The big problem I had with Solomon Kane is, ironically enough, nothing to do with the film itself. Like the two Schwarzenegger Conan efforts and Kevin Sorbo's Kull the Conqueror what we have here is as much a pastiche of Robert E. Howard's work as it is a faithful adaptation.

As with many of the golden age writers, in the 70-odd years since his work first hit the news stands, Howard's stories have been ruthlessly gutted and pillaged by every two-bit, third rate hack wanting to write a fantasy novel or pen a paint by numbers fantasy film. Indeed, by the time a movie studio gets around to give Howard's work the cinematic treatment it deserves, you're left with the feeling that you've seen it all before.

In that regard, Solomon Kane is more a victim of this pilfering of the source material than it is with any faults in the film-making. Everything about it is derivative. The plot while solid, is entirely predictable and offers little in the way of surprises.

That said, as film adaptations go Solomon Kane is better than most. I will even go a step further and say that this is, to date, the single best film adaptation of Robert E. Howard's work.

For the uninitiated, Solomon Kane is a 16th century puritan swordsman who wanders the earth fighting evil with an almost religious zeal and (in typical Howard fashion) a sharp sword or two. If you're thinking that this sounds rather similar to that Van Helsing movie from a few years ago, you would be right.

However, where that film was a steaming dog pile of CGI heavy action set pieces strung together with gratuitous shots of Kate Beckinsale's cleavage and leather clad posterior, Solomon Kane has rather more meat on its bones.

Where the film really stands out is in the quality of the production - made on a relatively low budget of $40 million, Solomon Kane easily stands up alongside big budget Hollywood efforts made for two to three times the price. British director Michael J. Bassett has clearly set out to do justice to Howard's work, and on most counts he has succeeded. The tone is suitably grim and oppressive; Kane's England is a land of mist, rain and mud, where a man can hardly walk 50 yards down a country road without being set upon by bandits who would happily knife him for his boot laces as for his money.

The action is suitably visceral and brutal, very much on a level with the scenes described in Howard's stories as Kane hacks, stabs and shoots his way through innumerable bald-headed baddies who all manage to look like stunt doubles for Jason Statham. If you've ever wanted to see a movie sword fight where a man's head is hacked off in three blows, or where someone's skull is cleft to the teeth, then this is definitely the one for you.

Unfortunately all of this comes at a price, and it's that the film takes itself a little too seriously for its own good. It's a dark movie, both in tone and cinematography with no humour in the script to break up the tension; and the dialogue, while authentically Howardian ("Silence... you dogs!") is somewhat one-dimensional. This isn't helped by a predictable script, which introduces secondary characters merely to be sword fodder for Kane or his foes. The end result is a film that is exhausting to watch, despite it's sub 2-hour run time.

The biggest flaw though is the distinct lack of a strong villain for Kane to pit himself against; what we get is the archetypal mask-wearing Black Knight (who is no different to any other mask-wearing fantasy villain) who turns up periodically to remind the audience that there's evil at work. In fact, the chief villain doesn't even appear on-screen until the last 10 minutes. It's a lost opportunity, one which could have elavated this film from mere competence to something quite special.

I wouldn't want anyone to think that Solomon Kane is a bad film, it isn't. As I said, as adaptations of Robert E Howard go, this is easily the best attempt to date to adapt one of Howard's characters for a modern audience.

The always watchable James Purefoy is excellent as Solomon Kane, though admittedly his performance isn't anywhere near as compelling as his portrayal of Mark Antony in HBO's Rome, but this has more to do with the limitations of the screenplay than anything else. Howard fans will no doubt appreciate Purefoy's extra touch of authenticity, playing Kane with a West Country accent.

The supporting cast are a bit of a mixed bag - veteran actors Pete Postlethwaite, Alice Krige and Max Von Sydow are perfectly good casting choices, but the script gives them so little to do that you might wonder why they bothered to show up as almost anyone could have filled their roles.

I certainly didn't dislike Solomon Kane, it is far from perfect but at the same time it stands head and shoulders above big budget Hollywood efforts like 300, or even the remake of Clash of the Titans. It's definitely a good start, and Howard fans can only be glad that a film-maker has finally taken his work seriously and treated it with as much respect as Peter Jackson lavished on Lord of the Rings. Supposedly, a different production company is handling the new Conan movie, scheduled for theatrical release some time in 2011, but if Kane is anything to go by - there's certainly reason to be optimistic.

At the time of writing, Solomon Kane has only seen general release in the UK and parts of Europe, it has yet to find distribution in the United States.