I was so prepared to not like this sequel of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes reboot. The previous film, while continuing Robert Downey Jr's mercurial return to form, was a mostly plodding exercise, and - confession here - reading the early reviews of this instalment didn't leave a lot of room for encouragement.
So much for believing the herd. Its not that "Game of Shadows" is great (or even on a level with any of the fine BBC TV dramatizations on the famous sleuth), but it does manage to reproduce a fair amount of the crackling, edgy feel of Ritchie's now-revered crime capers ('Snatch" Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels").
It also liberally "borrows" from another, more established movie franchise - James Bond - though with mixed results. A harum-scarum opening sequence reunites the cocky but literate Holmes with his more modulated (but in this case, no less physical) sidekick, the soon-to-be-married Dr. Watson. The nuptials are barely concluded (consummated?) before Watson and his bride - with Holmes startling everyone in drag - are roughed up, shot at and violently separated (she is in fact thrown from a train).
The rest of the plot and action really needs no detailing, but the production is visibly better this time around, and the two leads have also improved markedly in terms of their interaction. They're more than ably supported by the likes of Stephen Fry (as Holmes' eccentric brother Mycroft) and Swedish breakout star Noomi Rapace, the original "'Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" as a gypsy fortune teller in search of her brother. In Jared Harris (son of acting legend Richard) the producers have found a more than capable villain as the megalomaniac math professor with a penchant for classical music.
As hitherto mentioned, the film follows the Bond mode of outlandish action sequences, but Ritchie does sweep the viewer along quite handily, particularly in a running battle/chase scene through a dense German forest. The plot unravels as expected with a clever bit of symmetry surrounding an allegory from one of Schubert's pieces.
By film's end - with the obligatory opening for a forthcoming third, instalment, we - check that, I - get the sense that things are beginning to gel for this movie property in a way that can hopefully satisfy both the audiences and the studio honchos alike.
Showing posts with label trains. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trains. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Like all good magic, romance builds slow: Hugo
This is definitely one of those cases where your patience will be rewarded.
Martin Scorcese's "departure form Gangland" doesn't seem like much for the first 30 minutes or so. Till that time, the easily grasped plot and sub-plots are stretched almost beyond tolerance; having lost his clockmaker father (Jude Law, making the most of his limited minutes), a boy in 1930s Paris ends up in the train station winding the clocks that direct the trains around which revolve the lives of the extraordinary and the also-rans.
But, he has something else. Hidden away in his gear-filled home is an automaton (wind-up man) bequeathed to him by his father, but in need of repair, in particular the insertion of a heart-shaped wind-up key. This particular metaphor preety much becomes a motif for the entire film, which is considerably enlivened by the presence of Sasha Baron Cohen as the autocratic yet insecure station inspector (rounding up other orphans and hotly pursuing Hugo); Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley in the role of the crotchety real-life cinema pioneer George Mellies, ruined by WWI and largely forgotten, and most of all, the luminescent Chloe Grace Moretz as Mellies' ward (thus also an orphan) and Hugo's "love interest" in the film - at least as far as pre-teen characters are allowed to have love interests.
The real love letter is revealed though, through a stirring collection of clips, to be Scorcese's, directed at the cinema itself. Through the play of the story, we see George Lloyd's famous "clock-hanging" scene (further recreated by Hugo himself), the Lumiere Brothers early clips, including the train arriving at the station (the train becomes a metaphor in another, more harrowing way, but watch the film for that) and recreations of Mellies famed glass studio and his own pieces.
It looks and feels like magic, but of course, its partly borrowed, and it may come a little too late amid all the chases and the hand-holding to satisfy some viewers. There's no denying however, that like the wind-up man, the picture turns a few neat little tricks when set on its own.
Martin Scorcese's "departure form Gangland" doesn't seem like much for the first 30 minutes or so. Till that time, the easily grasped plot and sub-plots are stretched almost beyond tolerance; having lost his clockmaker father (Jude Law, making the most of his limited minutes), a boy in 1930s Paris ends up in the train station winding the clocks that direct the trains around which revolve the lives of the extraordinary and the also-rans.
But, he has something else. Hidden away in his gear-filled home is an automaton (wind-up man) bequeathed to him by his father, but in need of repair, in particular the insertion of a heart-shaped wind-up key. This particular metaphor preety much becomes a motif for the entire film, which is considerably enlivened by the presence of Sasha Baron Cohen as the autocratic yet insecure station inspector (rounding up other orphans and hotly pursuing Hugo); Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley in the role of the crotchety real-life cinema pioneer George Mellies, ruined by WWI and largely forgotten, and most of all, the luminescent Chloe Grace Moretz as Mellies' ward (thus also an orphan) and Hugo's "love interest" in the film - at least as far as pre-teen characters are allowed to have love interests.
The real love letter is revealed though, through a stirring collection of clips, to be Scorcese's, directed at the cinema itself. Through the play of the story, we see George Lloyd's famous "clock-hanging" scene (further recreated by Hugo himself), the Lumiere Brothers early clips, including the train arriving at the station (the train becomes a metaphor in another, more harrowing way, but watch the film for that) and recreations of Mellies famed glass studio and his own pieces.
It looks and feels like magic, but of course, its partly borrowed, and it may come a little too late amid all the chases and the hand-holding to satisfy some viewers. There's no denying however, that like the wind-up man, the picture turns a few neat little tricks when set on its own.
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