Movie review - "Taken" (2008) ***

An unexpected box office monster, in part because it is so effective on a primordial level - a lonely single middle aged man who only lives for his teenage daughter listens as that daughter is kidnapped and sets about getting her back. The set up is familiar to a 1986 film, Targets, where Gene Hackman was revealed to be a kick arse killed. Hackman had to rescue his wife and was helped by son Matt Dillon. Here Neeson has to act mostly on his own, although he does have the benefit of some old associates he can draw upon.

There's a lot in this movie that people will find offensive - basically the notion of daughters as property, all the dick measuring, the constant fear of foreigners (Paris, Albanians, Arabs), the fact the daughter gets to live because she's a virgin but not the slutty best friend. On a craft level it's frustrating the movie doesn't really develop - it's like a video game with Liam Neeson moving from one level to the next. There's not even the one villain - new ones keep coming along (the good looking Peter, the guy Liam speaks to on the phone, a smarmy American, a dodgy Arab). 

I kept expecting to see a character like Jeffrey Hunter in The Searchers to flesh out Liam's character and provide more complexity but it never happened. Indeed, the story was disappointingly linear, the only real twist being the betrayal from Liam's old mate - I kept expecting say some relationship between Liam and that girl he rescued, or to use the step father character more (all he does is lend Liam a plane when really he could've got a normal flight), or the wife more.

Still, it is extremely stylish with some excellent action sequences and Liam proves to be an ideal hero - battered, smart, soulful, haunted.

Movie review – “The Spanish Apartment” (2002) ***

Euro-pudding version of Friends or This Life – some Gen X’s ers sharing an apartment in Barcelona. I admit I have an instinctive prejudice against these films – expats are annoying creatures, their problems so low. But I guess that’s jealousy. This takes too long for the hero to get to the apartment – indeed, half an hour could have been cut out – and I wasn’t wild about some of the casting (eg the lead looked funny in some shots) but it’s got plenty of high spirits and life. 

 

The subplots all feel real: an affair with a neglected wife, the visit of a boorish brother, much bed hopping, the reveal of adultery, struggling to adapt to a new city. It’s a spinout to watch a film about the French in Spain.

 

It’s a shame some of the other flatmates weren’t fleshed out more – they could have taken up some of the two hour running time devoted to the lead. And did he have to decide to become a writer at the end? Can’t writers come up with anything else non-conformist for their liberated characters to do?

Movie review - "A Trip to the Moon" (1902) ***

The rating really is irrelevant - what's more important is the influence this film had. One of the first science fiction films, it really showed what you could do with the new medium of cinema. Heavily influenced by stage, but a crucial evolution from the Lumieres – the Lumieres photographed nature, Melies offered audiences a reconstructed life. The sets remain impressive and it's still good fun. The film was hugely successful, but not as profitable as it should have been because it was frequently illegally pirated.

Melies continued to produce films, but his filmmaking style did not progress much past the groundbreaking work of 1899 to 1902. His films began to seem old fashioned compared to the work done by other filmmakers such as Edwin S Porter and D W Griffith. (They would compose scenes out of separate shots rather than just one shot, change the camera's point of view, employ a close-up in addition to medium and long shots.)

Movie review - "A Very Long Engagement' (2004) ***1/2

Jodie Foster pops up in this French movie speaking the lingo fluently which is a lovely surprise. The title is perhaps not the best in the world (anything with "a very long" in it is asking for trouble). This looks terrific and is full of interesting little scenes and "bits" - eg lighting a match while seducing someone - and anything to do with World War One makes you angry and furious at the loss of life even if done only half-well, and this is much better than that. 

Occasionally the main drama gets lost with all the peripheral characters (though I understand why - they were aiming more for a novel-type kaleidoscope). The "clever bits" nature of the piece also adds to this.