By @RogerCrow Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Takeshi Kitano Directed by Kinji Fukasaku
You might not know the name Koushun Takami but chances are you’ve heard of The Hunger Games. Those YA dystopian novels were of course essential reading for teens and many adults. When the blockbuster films came along, the Jennifer Lawrence-led saga only sent sales of Suzanne Collins’ page-turners through the roof. And when sublime black comedy thriller The Hunt was released, it also gave a new spin to a well-worn story. Okay, The Most Dangerous Game had covered similar ground decades earlier, but whether by coincidence or design, there’s no denying that Koushun Takami’s own vision paved the way for one of the bleakest sci-fi sagas of recent years. The BR novel centred on junior high school students forced to fight each other in a programme run by the (fictional) Republic of Greater East Asia.
Unsurprisingly it proved controversial from the off. However, when it was published in 1999, it touched a chord with many and became a surprise bestseller. A year later the comic book version (penned by Takami) and this (re-released) feature film poured fuel on the BR bonfire. Battle Royale centres on the kids of Third Year Class-B Shiroiwa Junior High School, who fight to the death in a gripping, disturbing and compelling yarn brilliantly helmed by Kinji Fukasaku (his final film). Obviously seen now, years after the dust from The Hunger Games novels and films have settled, it’s hard not to compare the two.
BR is a weird mix of teenage soap opera and ultra brutal thriller. Many of the deaths are hugely disturbing, as is the premise. Yes, it’s a jet black comedy at times; the bouncy instructional videos giving much needed exposition is a terrifying counterpoint to the miffed boss (Takeshi Kitano) at the heart of the drama and the horrors that unfold.
It’s bleak on an epic scale, but has so much energy and class, I’m not surprised it inspired a sequel, and the odd copycat flick. The score is splendid, and the latest high-def version looks terrific. It has more gory, blood soaked whistles and bells than you can throw a white board eraser at. Not an easy watch, but brilliantly put together and a must for fans of cult cinema.
Credibility is everything with period adventures. If the outfits look like they were bought off the peg at ’Period Costumes R Us’, that’s the battle lost already. And even if a costume looks like it was made in that era, it also needs to look lived in. So kudos to Jordan Downey, whose atmospheric medieval horror ticks all of those boxes. His world feels gritty, dangerous and lived in.
It obviously helps that his minimal cast don’t carry a lot of baggage from previous projects. Christopher Rygh is a fabulous lead who looks like a man who lived in that time, and not just because he sports a lockdown beard you could lose a kitten in.
The plot is simple: a mediaeval warrior’s gruesome collection of severed heads is missing only one – the monster that killed his daughter years ago. So it’s a quest and revenge movie in one, the staples for many a good yarn. No complex plot. Just a lean, mean adventure, with the added bonus of a gizmo that sharpens stakes. All these years of whittling wood to a fine point in period adventures when troops just needed the equivalent of a massive pencil sharpener. Genius.
The landscapes are often stunning, the art direction is splendid, and that final few minutes is sadly inevitable, and yet it still feels like a well rounded tale. It looks fabulous on Blu-ray, especially those epic vistas and gritty textures. At a mere 72 minutes, it’s just the right length, though I’d love to see Jordan Downey work on a bigger project in the same world. He’s no doubt been offered fantasy epics for major studios. It would be a crime if he hadn’t.
If you’re fascinated by how the filmmakers crafted such a gritty, gripping yarn on a modest budget, then two commentaries from the crew and a ‘making of’ featurette should leave you more than satisfied.
If this leaves you hungry for a similar adventure, track down Pathfinder, a phenomenal 1987 adventure from Nils Gaup (but give the Hollywood remake a wide berth). And if you’re a gamer, then the similar Skyrim should also appeal. If a film version of the latter is made, Jordan would be a perfect director to orchestrate the carnage.
Starring Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry, Toby Stephens Directed by Lee Tamahori Certificate 12A By @RogerCrow
Madonna goes to her local salon to get her roots done but it’s shut. “I guess I’ll dye another day,” she sighs. And that awful gag is better than the lyrics to her stunningly contentious 007 theme. Wordsmiths like Don Black and Anthony Newley crafted diamonds of Bond themes; multi-faceted gems which linger forever in the mind. “Sigmund Freud. Analyze this”. It doesn’t have a lot to do with Bond does it? In fact I wonder if Madge had seen any of DAD, or any Bond movie, when she crafted that dance floor oddity. But let’s not linger on such matters. Instead let’s consider Pierce Brosnan’s final turn as 007, a movie which at times feels more like a sci-fi film than a Bond flick. It opens with Bond surfing to work, which seems exhausting and rather odd. He’s on a mission. Colonel Tan-Sun Moon is illegally trading weapons for African conflict diamonds, so Bond tries to stop him. That segues into a not bad hovercraft chase, also a first for the franchise. I don’t remember anyone craving such a chase in 2002, but it was different if nothing else.
James’s mission is scuppered when he is betrayed. Bond is captured by the enemy, and during those opening titles, he is tortured, grows a big bushy beard, puts on weight, and loses the ability to button up his shirt. Eventually, after 14 months, our hero is traded and goes through a detox in a hi-tech lab. Naturally M (Judi Dench) is miffed with him, because that’s her default setting with Bond. As a side note, a doctor is played by Paul Darrow, the much missed Blake’s Seven star. Just a shame he’s barely in the movie. 007 escapes from MI6 custody, swims a vast distance (apparently, not that we see any of it because the camera cuts to him emerging from the drink) and checks into a Hong Kong hotel without buttoning his shirt up. Fourteen months of imprisonment will do that to an agent. Eventually Bond gets a tip-off that he needs to go to Cuba (actually Cadiz, where I spent a wonderful day a couple of years ago just because of this movie).
The big bad this time is Toby Stephens’s Gustav Graves, a super annoying businessman who free-falls to a Press conference while The Clash’s London Calling sets my teeth on edge. Not because it’s a bad track, but because it’s the default tune for film and ad makers who want to inject some energy into a London-based scene. Graves is like a cross between 1990s Richard Branson and one of those annoying Apprentice contestants who spits out sound bites like “Sleep is for wimps”, and incurs the wrath of Alan Sugar on day one. Bond crosses paths with Jinx (Halle Berry), an NSA agent who emerges from the Cuban surf like Ursula Andress in Dr No and relishes a double entendre. As Bond has the libido on an 18 year old, it’s mere moments before he and Jinx are steaming up the lens like rampant honeymooners.
However, as this is 007, he also beds MI6 agent Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike), who winds up at an impressive ice palace and (spoiler alert) turns out to be the obligatory femme fatale. John Cleese returns for his second and final turn as Q, and he’s rather excellent as gadget dispenser. Just a shame the ’invisible car’ is so laughable. The tech is perfectly fine; stick a load of cameras reflecting what they see on the hull of anything and it sort of becomes invisible. Sort of. But this being Bond, it’s tech from 50 years in the future. Madonna pops up in a cameo as a fencing instructor, and remarkably isn’t dreadful. There’s a rather good duelling scene between Graves and Bond, but sadly very little rapier-like wit. The script throughout is good, not great.
As this was released to mark the 40th anniversary year of 007, the movie is littered with nods to the franchise, including some of the props from years gone by. Anyway, Graves shows off his ice palace, and his orbiting weapon Icarus, a solar-powered laser capable of mass destruction. It’s a shame that Die Another Day features one of the best action scenes of the saga (a car chase across a glacier), and easily the worst. The moment when Bond paraglides against a CG backdrop is one of those when you wonder what the reaction was at Eon productions. I’m guessing it was like that scene in This is Spinal Tap when a model of Stonehenge is believed to be a mock-up of a stage set, and turns out to be the actual prop because Nigel Tufnel couldn’t get his measurements right. The CG scene in DAD looks like an animatic (one of those animated storyboards that gives film makers an idea of how the final scene will look). Except this IS the finished scene. And it looks atrocious, like a cut scene from a video game circa 1992. For the most part, DAD looks fabulous. If you ignore the CG atrocities. Halle Berry’s dive off a cliff is awful, though she and Ms Pike are superb, and there’s a great fight on a plane reminiscent of that stunning finale in The Living Daylights.
Michael Madsen turns up as American official Damian Falco, but looks like he’s wandered in from another movie, and has absolutely nothing to do. And Rick Yune’s Zao is an okay villain, who could have been a character from a Paul Simon song. ’People say he’s crazy, he’s got diamonds embedded in his face.’ That finale on a plane is straight out of a comic book as Graves, aka Colonel Moon, clashes with Bond while wearing a hi-tech suit. There’s a fine comical scene when Moneypenny (Samantha Bond in her final 007 movie) finally gets to kiss Bond, but it’s all a VR gag. And it’s that devotion to effects which really lets the side down. The physical stunts are what made Bond great over the years. Real people risking life and limb to bring that magic to screen, whether it’s the ski jump/parachute moment from Spy Who Loved Me, or the dam jump from Goldeneye. Nobody ever gasped because Pierce was obviously hanging around in front of a green screen.
For all its faults there are some good moments here, and while CG and Bond were a bad mix, this stands up to repeat viewings just because of how bad some of those moments are. So long Pierce. You deserved better.
Gerry Anderson, in case you didn’t know it, was a genius. In a world where every TV Western and spy angle had been exploited, and sci-fi sagas were two-a-penny, Anderson’s USP was to tell gripping stories… with puppets. Yes, the likes of Supercar, Fireball XL5 and Four Feather Falls were primitive, but those vintage TV classics would eventually pave the way for some of the best TV ever made.
Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, and Joe 90 were all beautifully crafted. And yes they were ripe for lampooning, with every satirist of the 1960s sending up the likes of the Thunderbirds crew, Lady Penelope and Parker. Not all of Anderson’s shows worked. Stanley Unwin vehicle The Secret Sevice was cancelled after a few episodes because producer Lew Grade thought the American audiences would have no clue about Unwin’s gobbledegook dialogue. That was perhaps the least of the show’s problems. It was just an incredibly odd mix of live action and animation, as I was reminded of during a recent screening.
But thankfully there were more hits than misses. And that solid gold collection of tunes, including the bombastic Thunderbirds theme, pop classic Captain Scarlet, and the ever wondrous Joe 90, fast tracks me back to my youth every time. Take a bow Barry Gray.
By the 1970s, Anderson moved into live action, with assorted projects including the film Doppelgänger, and TV series UFO. The latter is still loved by millions, while the Dinky toy merch goes for quite a sum if in mint condition and the box of course.
When an ambitious second season was scrapped, Anderson used the sets and props for Space: 1999, a glorious, at times melancholic saga of a lunar base in the eponymous year blown out of Earth’s orbit. Made in the wake of 2001: A Space Odyssey, there were times it spent too much time being cerebral rather than sexy, though watching it again, many of the series one episodes are a fascinating study of existential angst. That cast list is to die for. Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Ian McShane, Brian Blessed and countless other famous faces pop up in guest appearances. And the effects are still out of this world, with geniuses like Brian Johnson flexing their creative muscles before working on genre classics Alien and The Empire Strikes Back.
Season two was a different beast, with a funky theme tune, and sexy shape-shifting alien Maya (the dreamy Catherine Schell) joining the cast. Gerry also crafted spy saga The Protectors with future 1999 star Tony Anholt, and Robert Vaughn. The stories were hit and miss, and a Vaughn-directed episode ranks as one of the worst, but that killer theme Avenues and Alleyways sung by Tony Christie, and occasional repeats have given it an extended lifespan. That and the fact it’s also heaving with great guest stars, including Eartha Kitt, John Thaw, and James Bolam.
By the 1980s, Anderson invested a fortune on Terrahawks, an often bizarre series which boasted Windsor Davies’s vocals as the leader of military robot spheres, the Zeroids. Oh, and a cast of wire-free puppets. Though often fascinating, it was a pale imitation of Thunderbirds. And cheap and cheerful robot detective series Dick Spanner was also an intriguing curio which filled a gap during the maverick Channel 4 days of Network 7.
In 2004, a live action Thunderbirds movie failed to take off, largely because it sidelined most of the key characters. Without Anderson’s touch, it lacked a much needed magic. I had a great chat with Gerry when a CG revamp of Captain Scarlet graced Saturday morning ITV in the mid-noughties. He wasn’t happy the series hadn’t been shown prime time, and little wonder. It was terrific stuff that was usually split into two halves during Ministry of Mayhem, while rising star Holly Willoughby kept the kids entertained.
When he died in 2012, the showbiz world lost one of its brightest stars. However, Anderson’s legacy continued when super fan Peter Jackson backed an impressive CG reboot of Thunderbirds. I’m thrilled that Network Distributing is honouring the great man’s birthday with a streaming ‘watchalong’ from 7pm on the first Gerry Anderson Day, April 14. It’s a long overdue tribute to one of Blighty’s brightest stars, so a FAB night should be had by all.
Director Neil Marshall has helmed some of the best loved films and TV shows of recent years. He talks to @RogerCrow about his new movie The Reckoning, and projects such as Dog Soldiers, The Descent, Game of Thrones and the TV remake of Lost in Space.
Hi Neil. Your new movie is rather impresive. How did you get involved in The Reckoning?
It came to me through an old friend of mine, Edward Evers-Swindell. A few years ago I worked on one of his films, Dark Signal. He’d been developing this idea with a friend of his about witch hunts in the same period, but it deviated into a more sort of Carrie-esque vibe to it of: “I’m not a witch… I’m not a witch. Hey, I’m a witch!” And then zaps everybody with lightning bolts from her eyeballs. It was at that point my interest waned a little bit. I was really into this concept of the witch hunts, so I said, ’Let me and (actress/writer) Charlotte (Kirk) take it and we’ll run with it a bit’. And we did a lot of research about the period and witch hunts. And the more we got into it the more interested we became.
I wanted to make another horror film and another genre piece in the vein as Dog Soldiers, and The Descent and things like that. And this was an opportunity to do that. But I also wanted to make something that had something to say. The more I looked into the witch hunts, the more I thought, ’This is really relevant to today, even though it’s a period piece’. It’s so striking the comparisons. I’m not talking about the plague here. We made it in 2019, so there was no plague. We wrote it in 2018; shot it in 2019. It was primarily to do with the witch hunts and the misogyny all that kind of stuff which seemed very relevant. We live in an age now where witch hunts still exist. They’ve just taken on a different form; Cancel Culture and stuff like that. And I thought, ’This has got something to say’, but it was also, ‘I haven’t seen this world for a long time; post-Civil War England’. It’s rarely touched upon, with the odd exception like Witchfinder General and A Field in England. So many more medieval things are done than this kind of period. So it evolved from there really. I was trying to tell a story based on true events, but not specifically a real person.
Charlotte Kirk gives a fabulous performance. You really put her through her paces.
Absolutely. Thank you for saying that. In some respects it was like, “Well, she only had herself to blame”. (Laughs). It was really tough; she was virtually in every scene; a very intense shoot. She spent a lot of time strapped to various torture devices, so yeah it was tough, but she was up for it.
Take us back to your movie breakthrough. How tough was it getting Dog Soldiers made?
Once it was made it became a hell of a lot easier. It took six years from script to screen. And during that six years there was a lot of ups and downs. Back then the market was not swamped with horror films. There were very few horror films being made, and certainly in the UK… the response I received very quickly was everybody turned their noses up at it. Nobody wanted to do horror films. It was like “If it’s not Jane Austen, we’re not going to make it.” Everybody said it was way too ambitious for a first feature. But I stuck to my guns and I thought, ’I can do this; It’ll pay off somehow’, and it eventually did. Once we got it made and Pathe came on board, it kind of took off from there.
It’s always great to see Sean Pertwee in projects such as Dog Soldiers and now The Reckoning.
Yeah, he’s like a lucky charm. It’s just such a joy to work with him. And he brings so much energy and life. He loves what he does, and he brings that enthusiasm to the set. I love what I do, so it’s a good meeting (of minds). And it’s nice to do something different with him. Dog Soldiers was one character. Doomsday was something different again. This is something very different again. He’s playing a villain for the first time, but playing a villain that has different dimensions to him. He’s a very interesting character and Sean enjoyed diving head-first into that. It was like a week’s filming in Hungary. I think he’d been a bit spoilt doing a comfortable three or four years on a US TV series… and to be thrown neck-deep into a British independent film… a genre film was a bit of a wake-up call, but he loved it. So it was very refreshing.
When you worked on Game of Thrones, did you have any idea how big that would be?
Not on season two. By season four it was starting to become part of the zeitgeist, but in season two when I did the Battle of Blackwater, it was really just finding its feet. And maybe Battle of Blackwater helped it do that. It took it to the next level and really gave the fans what they wanted. But what an incredible project to have been a part of. Even to be a small cog in that machine. And it was such a pleasurable kind of ’machine’ as well. Such a lovely bunch of people involved in it all the way through, from beginning to end, and made it a joy to work on.
One of the things I like about your projects is the gritty realism. Is that a key thing, to have that authenticity?
If I’m making a project from history I like it to be dirty and gritty and real. And to be honest where I got that from is watching Monty Python movies. What (Terry) Gilliam brought to the look and feel of those Python movies was dirt and mud and smoke and fire and things like that. That really is a massive inspiration to me. I treat period stuff the same way I would any sci fi or fantasy genre. It’s just as much of an alien world to most of us if it was on an alien planet. So you want to make it feel as real as you can, and people buy into that. Messy, muddy… and all the costumes are tattered and worn. Yeah, I love all that stuff.
I loved your take on Lost in Space. Some of the scenes with the robot were especially moving.
I’m really, really pleased you feel that way. It was great to a) do a science fiction thing. ’We had our own spaceship to play with!’ Things like that. The robot was a key part of that. And I fought tooth and nail to make sure we did it practically. We had an actor in a suit on the set acting with all the actors, and it takes it to the next level having that interaction, and giving that robot personality. I wanted to do a thing where the robot would do double takes. I managed to get a few of them in but they got cut out.
I’m a big fan of Hellboy. Was the reboot a dream to work on?
No, quite the opposite. It was an absolute nightmare to work on. It was a classic case of interference from the highest level. I sold my soul a little bit to do a big movie and have all the bells and whistles. But the price that you pay for that was… I don’t really feel it was my movie in any shape or form. It’s part of the reason why I wanted to do something like The Reckoning. It was like, ’No money, but full creative control’, and I can invest myself 100%, whereas I couldn’t do that with Hellboy.
The Descent is one of the scariest films I’ve seen. Did you get a feeling you were working on something special when you made that?
I think so. Things just fell into place just right on that, you know? From the writing of it, through to the casting of it, the shooting… it felt good all the way through. What we were creating was something terrifying. But things worked out just perfectly.
When you watch it does that terror come across, or are you too close to it?
I don’t get the same vibes that other people get from it because I remember being there on the set and how we shot things. I try and disassociate myself from my own films to try and enjoy them. That’s part of the reason I made them in the first place. Because they’re movies that I wanted to watch. But you can never really enjoy your own movies on the same level. It’s still a buzz. I still enjoy watching films like Doomsday and things like that for the excitement of it all. But I can’t feel the same way about it as audiences do.
What are you working on next?
I’m just about to start prep on a new movie called The Lair, which again is in the horror genre. A bit more in the vein of The Descent, Dog Soldiers. It’s monsters. It’s set in Afghanistan and yeah, it’s going to be very intense. Horror, gore, blood, guts. The works.
Thanks for your time, and I look forward to your next projects.
Thank you.
* The Reckoning is in cinemas and on digital platforms from 16th April.
Starring Pierce Brosnan, Michelle Yeoh, Jonathan Pryce Directed by Roger Spottiswoode
By @RogerCrow
If I had to pick one 007 pre-credits scene to watch every day for the rest of my life, this would be it. A perfect mix of cast, stunts, effects, editing and score slotting together like elements of a beautifully crafted puzzle. From the opening shot of a terrorist arms bazaar and MI6 agent Robinson’s (Colin Salmon) brilliant exposition dump, what follows is testament to Vic Armstrong’s skills as an action director, and David Arnold slotting perfectly into the Grand Canyon-sized gap left by John Barry. The likes of Marvin Hamlisch, George Martin and Michael Kamen all did a good job on scoring duties, but Arnold is THE natural successor to Barry. ’White Knight’ is in my top 10 of all-time highs in 007 orchestral cues, along with To Hell with Blofeld, African Rundown, Bond Lured to Pyramid and Bond 77.
We already know Brosnan is a super cool Bond, but the joy of this intro is setting the scene without him before all hell breaks loose. It’s all the more poignant since the magnificent Geoffrey Palmer left us. His Admiral Roebuck is a reminder of what a showbiz legend he was. “Can your men cope with that kind of ’fahr pahr’?” he asks Crossroads veteran Terence Rigby, a Russian dignitary.
When Robeuck decides to “take the Naval option” and send a missile to the area and wipe out all manner of bad guys, they don’t realise a nuke is on site which will “make Chernobyl look like picnic”. Thankfully ’White Knight’ is on site, and proceeds to hit, punch and shoot anything with a pulse. At this point I’m like a kid on Christmas morning as Armstrong, Arnold, Brosnan, Judi Dench, Salmon, Palmer and all those other unsung geniuses craft one of the most exciting things you’ll ever see. It’s a symphony of chaos orchestrated by those Mozarts of action cinema, and if the whole film were this good, I’d be bouncing around like Tigger. But once Bond steals the nuke plane, escapes a lethal explosion, and then fends off the groggy enemy pilot sat behind him, things shift gear. I never tire of the wry smiles of Dench and Salmon as Bond asks where they’d like the nukes putting after pulling off feats of jaw-dropping bravery.
Sheryl Crow (no relation) does a great job with the title song. The credits are splendid, and the film makers get something absolutely right: exposition on the move. In previous 007 offerings, most briefings took place in M’s office, at a sort of leisurely pace like they had all the time in the world. When things are urgent, and the world’s fate is on the line, you don’t hang around in an office telling your best agent what’s going on. Samantha Bond also has one of Moneypenny’s best ever lines as sex pest Bond carves another notch on his bedpost. “You always were a cunning linguist”. (If Moneypenny had a mic, she could have happily dropped it, years before it was a thing).
After the stratospheric highs of those pre-credits, the rest of TND struggles to even come close. Teri Hatcher is splendid as the sexy sacrificial pawn, Paris, wife of Jonathan Pryce’s psycho newspaper man Elliot Carver, who basically massacres sailors on the HMS Devonshire so he can create headlines. Once Bond plays catch up with Mrs Carver, she winds up dead, and the scene is set for one of the funniest moments in any 007 movie. Dr Kaufman (brilliantly played by Ghost veteran Vincent Schiavelli) is a professional assassin who killed Paris, and is about to bump off you know who. Problem is his associates can’t get a gizmo from Bond’s car, so he makes the fatal error of using James’s phone. Bad mistake, and before long he’s an ex assassin. Which paves the way for the second best action scene as Bond jumps into the back seat of his Beamer and operates it via his phone.
With a thumping track by David Arnold and Propellerheads (Backseat Driver), the chase round a German car park (actually Brent Cross shopping centre) is splendid stuff. A wondrous mix of snappy editing, terrific score and a wordless Brosnan reacting to the carnage. The moment that Bond theme kicks in as the Beamer emblem buzz saw cuts through a high tension wire is cinematic nirvana. And that shot of the driverless car slamming into a rental shop window is the perfect end as Bond chuckles his way to the next scene.
And that, may as well be that. But we’re about half way through a film which just peaked, and what follows is just good, not great. There is one laugh out loud funny line when Bond propels a villain into a newspaper press, generating a wash of red. “They’ll print anything these days,” made me laugh in 1997, and is still as brilliant today. Joe Don Baker returns as 007 ally Wade, but has very little to do as we’re introduced to the HALO jump which would later be re-engineered for Mission Impossible: Fallout. Michelle Yeoh’s Wai Lin is a terrific heroine, and her martial arts skills are quite the sight. A shame she shares little charisma with Pierce, but it hardly matters.
Jonathan Pryce is always good value for money, but he’s just too nice to be the psychopathic villain. “I’m having fun with my headlines” is pure ham, but at least he has more depth than some one-note bad guys. The obligatory Aryan henchman, Stamper (Gotz Otto), adds menace, but lacks the certain something that Robert Shaw brought to a similar role in From Russia with Love decades earlier. There’s a fun chase on a motorbike, though that line “Trapped!”… “Never”, should have been left on the cutting room floor. And that finale on a stealth ship feels so generic and a little cheap compared to the peerless The Spy Who Loved Me 20 years earlier.
The shadow of genius production designer Ken Adam looms large over the series. Though TND looks great, without the HUGE scale of Adam’s sets, this can’t compete. And that third act feels rushed, ending with such an abrupt cut off, I feel like I’m watching a pre-record that stopped prematurely. On the plus side, there’s no cringeworthy For Yor Eyes Only-style epilogue involving a parrot and a comedian impersonating then-PM Tony Blair, so that’s a bonus. If you like star spotting, Julian Fellowes, Hugh Bonneville, Julian Rhind Tutt, Jason Watkins and Gerard Butler all pop up at some point, and it’s great to see ’James Bond island’ again from The Man With the Golden Gun.
So while Tomorrow Never Dies is uneven, with a first half that totally eclipses the second, it’s still terrific entertainment with THAT score. I don’t recommend playing White Knight while driving as it might lead to a spot of heavy footed 007 emulation, but if you’re a gamer, it’s a splendid accompaniment to any action video game. Pierce’s tenure as Bond obeyed the law of dimishing returns, and though it may have its faults, TND is a masterpiece compared to what followed.
Starring Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke, Paul Raci Directed by Darius Marder Certificate 15
By @RogerCrow
Two of the greatest films about drumming have yet to be made. One is the story of Def Leppard standing by fellow musician Rick Allen after a crash claimed his arm. The other is documented in Phil Collins’s (brilliant) autobiography about his problems after taking injections to ensure he could carry on drumming, despite his body telling him not to.
With Sound of Metal, Riz Ahmed has been deservedly Oscar nominated for his turn as Ruben, a bleached blond, ripped, tattooed drummer whose commitment to his craft is covered in the opening minutes. His touring shows with girlfriend Lou have taken their toll, and one day he loses his hearing. Ruben is an addict whose personal demons have already threatened to destroy him. His new deafness is the thing which could push him over the edge. But when a consultant advises him of his options, he thinks an implant is the solution to his problems. And it might well be, but they don’t come cheap, so when he is taken in by Joe, the big cheese at a rural deaf retreat, Ruben comes to terms with his lack of hearing. But that inner peace he really needs still eludes him as he tries to get enough cash for his implant operation.
From the minute he burst onto the scene with Chris Morris’s phenomenal Four Lions, Ahmed proved he was a force to be reckoned with. Little wonder he was snapped up for big budget projects like Rogue One and Jason Bourne. Here he steals every scene he’s in, with a committed, powerful and affecting performance which should touch a chord with many. The footage of him teaching hearing-impaired kids is often touching and naturalistic, and there’s rarely a false note in the entire movie.
Equally as brilliant is Olivia Cooke as Lou, one of those actresses who effortlessly blends into her roles, whether in indie dramas like Me, Earl and the Dying Girl, or Spielberg’s superb effects fest Ready Player One. The fact I had no idea it was her until after the movie was over tells you a lot.
Writer/director Darius Marder does an excellent job of sustaining the attention throughout. And as for Paul Raci? Just give him a shelf full of awards now, because his turn as Ruben’s zen-like mentor Joe is simply outstanding. Some might pigeonhole this as “Whiplash meets Children of a Lesser God”, but forget whichever convenient label is attached to SOM. Yes, it’s pure Oscar and Bafta bait, but it’s beautifully made, inspired, and with those outstanding turns by Ahmed, Cooke and Raci, it could be THE one to watch come awards night.
Cast 9 Direction 8 Script 9 Editing 8.5
SOUND OF METAL will be released in UK cinemas from 17th May, after being made available on Amazon Prime Video in the UK from 12th April.
Directed by Yūdai Yamaguchi, Jun’ichi Yamamoto Starring Issei Takahashi, Aoba Kawai, Kenichi Kawasaki Certificate 18 By @RogerCrow
Ah romance. The staple of countless movies since those first flickering images graced the big screen. And this Manga-inflected fantasy offering is just your everyday tale of boy meets girl. But their romance is interrupted by alien parasites invading the Earth and turning people into cyborg fighters.
Meatball Machine is far from subtle, and at times it’s hugely disturbing. But no more so than genre classics such as Akira and the Tetsuo movies. I’ve no doubt Tetsuo II: Bodyhammer was a major influence on this icky, gruesome adventure. And yet as stomach churning as it is, the biomechanoid armour has such an amateur feel, the movie looks like a prosthetics craftsperson’s showreel. Thrashing tentacles and creepy alien parasites under flickering lights is all style and no substance. But while the script may leave a lot to be desired, full marks for effort. The hero is Yōji, a young factory worker who falls for an equally lonely girl co-worker, Sachiko, but can’t confess his feelings.
After being assaulted in a movie theatre by a crossdresser, Yōji finds what looks like an alien insect and hides it in his room. Sachiko is eventually attacked by the alien object turns her into a bio-mechanical monster, a NecroBorg. As someone who has spent decades soaking up the phenomenal ideas of anime epics, this doesn’t add a huge amount of freshness to the genre. But there’s load of energy, and the sight of the young hero transforming into a biomechanoid gun is quite an experience. Definitely not for all tastes, or for those of a nervous disposition, but if splatter films are your cup of tea, then you’re in for a ’treat’.
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