The Sixth Sense

Year: 1999

Running time: 107 minutes

Certificate: 15

Language: English

Screenplay: M. Night Shyamalan

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Starring: Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams, Donnie Wahlberg

Cole Sear: Even frightened of dead pencils.

M. Night Shyamalan was once considered to be the stylistic heir of both Spielberg and Hitchcock, and that reputation was built, mostly, on the back of a single film; The Sixth Sense. While it’s largely considered he’s made every film since then in an effort to undermine that reputation, I consider Unbreakable, Signs and, to a lesser extent The Village to be somewhat more than mere failed attempts to repeat the trick of The Sixth Sense. Much is made of the twist (and indeed, the subsequently less impressive twists in the following films) but Shyamalan, and The Sixth Sense in particular, is much more than a big finale.

Bruce Willis is Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist who is shot by bitter ex-patient Vincent Grey (Donnie Wahlberg), whom he once failed to help. At some undisclosed later date, he begins to work with Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), a rather troubled boy being brought up by his single mother Lynne (Toni Collette). It seems that young Cole can see ghosts. All the time. He is constantly terrified, always distracted and cannot even begin to explain his problems to anybody else. Little by little, Crowe convinces him to open up, and even comes to believe him.

The mood established by Shyamalan is very effective – there is a real sense of simmering terror, Cole's life presented as just one nerve-wracking wait between frightening encounters. One thing I tend to really appreciate in films is slow pacing, and I think I may be in the minority here. The oft-levelled criticism ‘It starts a bit slow’ will make me want to see a film more, not less. I think this is why I held out for Shyamalan for a good deal longer than others (although even I have trouble defending anything following The Village). The Sixth Sense is fairly steadily paced, with the impressively scary set pieces feeling like bursts of dizzying energy between slow-burning character development. Unbreakable and Signs are slower still and The Village is positively glacial. The camera moves steadily in Shyamalan’s films – little or no handheld jerkiness here. I love being able to lose myself in the details, appreciating the often beautifully and precisely constructed scenes.

The scenes in which Cole sees the ghosts are well done, and it’s easy to see where the Spielberg and Hitchcock comparisons came from. The change of colour scheme (where there are ghosts, there is red) is a nice touch, and the scenes are good deal more frightening than expected, thanks to both Shyamalan’s grasp of mood and tension and Osment’s impressive acting.

Cole and Malcolm develop an unlikely bond.

Also impressive is Willis in a role that deprived him of his trademark smirk and showed beyond doubt that he can act when he has a mind to. When the twist hits, and the realisation of what Cole has known all along comes, Willis manages to nail the right tone of heartbroken disbelief followed by relieved acceptance with ease. The twist itself is a blinder, and I remember that I got it at a very odd moment – during a shot of Cole playing with a wooden sword near a window. When it dawned on me I felt a great deal of admiration for the way in which it was put together and watching it back it really does do a great job of allowing the viewer to mislead themselves by misunderstanding the clues left throughout and doesn’t genuinely deceive, although on second viewing I did wonder why I didn't see it coming from a mile away. Twists of that nature are much more satisfying when compared to the twist in, say Ocean’s 12, which makes the viewer feel cheated as though they were one of Danny Ocean’s gullible marks. As mentioned however, the film is more than its twist and would’ve still been a decent watch without it.

An impressively creepy effort that Shyamalan has been unable to match with subsequent films; it’s a shame such promise seems to have gone to waste.

Score: 8/10

The Sixth Sense is slated in this interesting review by James at Reelviews while John at Movie Gurus rates it higher than I do.

Public Enemies

Year: 2009
Running time: 140 minutes
Certificate: 15
Language: English
Screenplay: Ronan Bennett, Michael Mann, Ann Biderman
Director: Michael Mann
Starring: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard

John Dillinger: Confident audacity.

Michael Mann’s Public Enemies, the tale of legendary bank robber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) and Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), the FBI agent given the task of taking him down is awash with authenticity. Clothes, architecture, cars, accents, everything is meticulously recreated to precisely ape 1933. Even the rat-a-tat-tat of the gunfire is accurately replicated in exact detail. For some reason I find difficult to pin down, it left me a little cold, despite its carefully crafted authenticity.

There is plenty here to like. Johnny Depp is on his usual fine form as Dillinger, playing the charismatic criminal with style to spare, entirely believably sweeping Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) off her feet with a couple of lines: "I was raised on a farm in Moooresville, Indiana. My mama ran out on us when I was three, my daddy beat the hell out of me cause he didn't know no better way to raise me. I like baseball, movies, good clothes, fast cars, whiskey, and you... what else you need to know?" Christian Bale also impresses as Purvis, the FBI agent placed on Dillinger’s trail by Bureau founder J. Edgar Hoover himself (Billy Crudup). Even though Dillinger is supposedly the villain, it’s the cold-blooded Purvis who disturbs, tracking Dillinger with a relentless single-minded intensity, caring little for anyone caught in the crossfire of the ferocious gun battles. Dillinger is actually a far more likable character, Depp capturing the confidence and sheer audacity of the fast living bank robber beautifully, never more so than in the scene where he visits a police station to peruse the investigation into his own manhunt while the officers are all absorbed in a ball game.

Keeping an eye out for the Feds.

Mann films the action using cutting edge high quality digital cameras, and I wonder whether this is one of the things that turns me off. While the imagery is undeniably crystal clear and the soundtrack wonderfully sharp, it feels at times like you’re watching a very well made amateur production using handheld digital cameras. This is a little unfair of me to be honest (it is Michael Mann after all, not amateur by any stretch of the imagination), but it is honestly how it strikes me. While the intention would appear to have been to place the viewer in the thick of the action like never before, for me it lost something, something that makes film feel cinematic.

While Public Enemies is undeniably high quality, for some reason it failed to set my world alight. Still worth a watch though.

Score: 6/10

Ian at Empire rather over-rates it in my opinion, as does Roger Ebert.

Up

Year: 2009
Running time: 96 minutes
Certificate: U
Language: English
Screenplay: Bob Peterson, Pete Docter
Director: Pete Docter
Starring (voices): Ed Asner, Jordan Nagai, Christopher Plummer

Carl and Russell travel to South America in style.

Up opens with ten quietly heartbreaking minutes which left me emotionally devastated on first viewing. Impressionable and enthusiastic youths Carl Fredricksen (Jeremy Leary) and Ellie (Elie Docter) meet and bond over their mutual love of adventure. Growing up together, they find themselves unable to realise their most precious dream of starting a family (although you have to question why they decorated a nursery before finding this out). Ultimately they grow old together and finally the surviving Carl (Ed Asner) struggles on in a lonely existence seemingly bereft of all meaning. The largely dialogue free sequence genuinely has the power to leave you a weeping wreck. The rest of the film, while wonderful, never quite manages to match this perfect opening.

Carl is an old man living this lonely existence when the main plot begins; we find him struggling to prevent developers re-homing him in order to demolish his house and build whatever it is they intend to build. It is true this seems rather clichéd, as is the introduction of our second main character, the young boy-scout Russell (Jordan Nagai) who is clearly going to show the old man there is life after loss. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating Pixar, however. On the morning he’s about to be moved to the retirement home to wait for death, he reveals how he has tied a huge wad of balloons to his house and uses them to drag him and his house away to pastures new. Outlandish, clearly, but the scene is beautifully handled and a joy to watch. Unfortunately, he has taken Russell along for the ride by mistake. The two of them go off on an adventure to place the house on the top of Paradise Falls in South America.

The relationship between the two leads is a slightly unconventional take on the well-established buddy formula (something Pixar is certainly an expert on, having used the idea in different ways in Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Cars and Ratatouille), and has plenty of room for comedic and emotional elements – when Russell talks about his absent dad in quietly subdued tones, it is almost as upsetting as the opening. There are a few offbeat but engaging and funny plot developments as the pair meet a huge bird who the kid names ‘Kevin’ without realising it is female, and a dog named Dug (Bob Peterson) with an electronic collar which allows him to talk.

Dug introduces himself.

The choice of lead character is inspired brilliance (par for the course for Pixar), because following a man whose life, for all intents and purposes, appears to be over learning how to care for things other than the memory of his dead wife manages to temper the very silly plot points (dogs that fly planes?) with an emotional anchor that allows you to care.

The villain is slightly weak for a Pixar film, but it doesn’t even come close to spoiling the movie, and, thanks to the trademark glorious animation, the moment when the deranged ex-adventurer Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer) falls to his death from his blimp gives you a queasy moment of vertigo.

Yet another superb addition to Pixar’s CV, Up will devastate you in the first ten minutes and spend the remaining running time lifting your spirits, leaving you smiling again.

Score: 8/10

Matt at NJ.com largely agrees, but Gunther at Madmind's review is clear evidence that not everybody is such a fan.

Battle Royale

Year: 2000
Running time: 114 minutes
Certificate: 18
Language: Japanese
Screenplay: Kenta Fukasaku
Director: Kinji Fukasaku
Starring: Beat Takeshi, Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Tarô Yamamoto

Shuya and Noriko face the horrifying truth.

Nothing can prepare you for the first time you see this film. It is astonishing. In a future Japan where the economy is broken and kids run riot, a new piece of legislation, the Battle Royale Act, is passed and a randomly selected class of out of control school children get transported to a remote island and are given three days to kill each other off until there is only one survivor, or they all die. Unsurprisingly controversial, it is based on an equally controversial novel by Koushun Takami. The director Kinji Fukasaku was 70 at the time of making, and sadly died three years later, apparently one day into filming (the supposedly awful, although I've not seen it) Battle Royale II: Requiem, which was eventually directed by his son Kenta Fukasaku, who wrote the scripts of both films. Fukasaku claimed he made it in order to warn children not to trust grown-ups. It certainly manages that and then some, but there is more to it than that.

There is little time for character development or back story, but seeing as we've got to get through over forty kids in the running time, most of them would be dead before the back story could get started. Instead of being violence for the sake of violence, there is a fierce intelligence behind the film, which combines elements of love, friendship, paranoia and mistrust, bravery and fear as each classmate makes a decision to either kill themselves, fight for survival or work together. Much like Lord of the Flies (as adapted by Dario Argento), you find yourself wondering what you might do if you were ever forced into such a situation. Would you be the kid who flies into a panic and attempts to kill everyone for fear of dying yourself? Would you form or join a resistance and attempt to overthrow the architects of the game? Would you allow paranoia to cripple you and murder your best friend?

A tight-knit friendship ends badly.

We come to focus on two students in particular, Shuya (Tatsuya Fujiwara) and Noriko (Aki Maeda), who attempt to work together to find some way to survive. While they try desperately to stay alive, classmates all around them die in horrific, twisted, shocking and sometimes uncomfortably funny ways. The only character to really get any kind of back story is teacher Kitano (played to wearied perfection by Beat Takeshi), and as we come to learn a little about his home life and his feelings for a particular student he becomes more than a one-dimensional bad guy, more than simply an unfeeling child murderer. He's more like a lonely man who has lost his faith in the system he works for. And a child murderer.

As we rattle towards the climax and the body count rises the viewer soon finds that they cannot tear their eyes from the screen, continuing to stare in disbelief and beginning to route for their favourite student. Spellbinding.

Score: 8/10

There is a lot of love out there for Battle Royale, including these reviews by Chris at Sound on Sight and on Shade.ca's website.

Scrooged

Year: 1988
Running time: 101 minutes
Certificate: PG
Language: English
Screenplay: Mitch Glazer, Michael O'Donoghue
Director: Richard Donner
Starring: Bill Murray, Karen Allen, John Forsythe, John Glover, Robert Mitchum, Alfre Woodard, Bobcat Goldthwait, David Johansen, Carol Kane

His terrible dandruff problem had ruined another outfit.

Bill Murray brings his own unique style of comic brilliance to Dickens' age-old story of changing your ways before it’s too late, A Christmas Carol. What results is a cracking film about Murray’s mean TV producer Frank Cross, who gets to relive his life and see how his future will turn out if he doesn’t start being nicer to people. There are more ‘classic’ versions of the story available, but for a comedy take this is up there with The Muppet Christmas Carol.

Murray's Cross is one of the most greed-driven highly-pressured misers ever dreamed up and he is a huge amount of fun to watch. Setting a classic tale in a modern-day setting is not exactly an original idea, but it is rarely executed this well. Written by Michael O'Donoghue, who, other than Scrooged, is mainly credited with work on live comedy show Saturday Night Live, and his insight into the inner workings of live television allow for some authenticity to be sprinkled through the movie, as Frank struggles to produce a live retelling of Dickens' novel.

To save his future, Frank Cross has to relive his past.

There are more great spins on things, the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present (David Johansen and Carol Kane) being prime examples, the former a loudmouth time-travelling cabbie, the latter a sweet little fairy with a penchant for violence. The beating heart beneath the cynical comedy is the sweet relationship that develops between Cross and Karen Allen's Claire, and as with any version of A Christmas Carol, it is the palpable sense of helpless regret as Scrooge, or, in this case, Frank, is forced to watch past mistakes while unable to change them that strikes the biggest emotional chord.

As with any version of A Christmas Carol, you know the ending before it starts, and Murray, unfortunately, cannot quite pull off the complete and utter change of heart entirely convincingly - he's much more fun when he's trying to staple antlers onto mice. Even so, it is still a lot of fun and worth re-watching every year.

Score: 7/10

Scrooged is well-liked out there, as you can see by having a look at these reviews by Gary at the Movie Gazette and Phil at Collider.

Elf

Year: 2003
Running time: 97 minutes
Certificate: PG
Language: English
Screenplay: David Berenbaum
Director: Jon Favreau
Starring: Will Ferrell, James Caan, Zooey Deschanel, Bob Newhart, Ed Asner, Mary Steenburgen, Peter Dinklage


Every meal tastes better with sweets.

Most of people's favourite Christmas movies were made a number of years ago – when they were kids. These films, such as Scrooge, It's A Wonderful Life, the animated Snowman and the god-awful Santa Claus: The Movie, remain our favourites because of the nostalgia attached to them, and any Christmas film that comes along nowadays is (usually correctly) considered to be inferior. While it is unlikely to fully buck this trend in the general consciousness, Elf does feel more like one of our childhood favourites, despite being fairly recent.

Will Ferrell exudes a likable innocence as Buddy, the elf that is literally too big for his boots. When his size prevents him from fitting in any longer at the North Pole, his adoptive father Papa Elf (Bob Newhart) reluctantly confirms that Buddy is human. The scene is set for a trip to the real world, particularly New York, to find his human father (James Caan), who (shock horror) is on the naughty list. There follows a not entirely original tale of the outsider struggling to fit it while making some friends and changing some lives along the way. The lack of originality is more than made up for by the well executed and perfectly timed series of jokes and set pieces, as well as a cast on fine form. Ferrell handles the lead role well, and a character that could have been frustrating is a cheerfully manic delight. The support cast are equal to Ferrell's performance - Hollywood great James Caan is clearly having a whale of a time playing the grump who learns the true meaning of Christmas (registered trademark of Moviecheese Industries, Inc.), and Peter Dinklage steals a stand out scene as a hot shot writer furious with Buddy's wide-eyed innocence as he's mistaken for an elf.

Most of the time Elf is pretty good, but when the criminally under-used Zooey Deschanel is onscreen as Jovie, Buddy's cynical love interest, it comes alive. The decision to focus on the relationship between Buddy and his father at the expense of time spent with Jovie is a misstep which costs the film the chance to be a fully fledged Christmas classic. Deschanel makes the prospect of seeing anything more interesting, and along with Maggie Gyllenhaal and Nathan Fillion is a paid up member of the 27%er club.

Jovie: One sassy, cynical elf.

The climax is, as you might expect, a very happy ending; when Santa's sleigh crashes in Buddy's new neighbourhood, the man-elf saves the day along with Jovie, who leads a mass singalong to increase belief in Santa Claus to help power his sleigh. It is complete cheese, but what did you expect from a Christmas movie?

Elf may feel like one of our beloved children's classics because there are clear similarities with Big (surely a favourite of everyone’s inner child) – a fully grown adult steadfastly refusing to act his age, and in so doing proving that the joyful innocence of a child’s point of view may be the very thing the cynical adult soul needs – sickeningly sweet, but feel good all the same.

Score: 7/10

Critically, Elf seems to have done rather well, as evidenced by this positive review by Kate at The Guardian and it even pleasantly surprised Mr. "Your Movie Sucks" Ebert.

The Terminator

Year: 1984 (Terminator), 1991 (T2), 2003 (Terminator 3), 2009 (Salvation)
Running time: 107 minutes (Terminator), 137 minutes (T2), 109 minutes (Terminator 3), 115 minutes (Salvation)
Certificate: 15 (Terminator), (T2), 12 (Terminator 3), (Salvation)
Language: English
Screenplay: James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd (Terminator), James Cameron, William Wisher Jr. (T2), John Brancato, Michael Ferris (Terminator 3), (Salvation)
Director: James Cameron (Terminator), (T2), Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3), McG (Salvation)
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, Paul Winfield, Lance Henriksen, Earl Boen, Dick Miller, Bill Paxton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick, Joe Morton, Nick Stahl, Claire Danes, Kristanna Loken, Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Moon Bloodgood, Helena Bonham Carter, Anton Yelchin, Bryce Dallas Howard


"Absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."

It’s a tough decision choosing a favourite between James Cameron’s early high water marks. I still switch between Aliens and Terminator & T2 depending on mood. It’s possible the Terminator films win out as unlike Aliens, which is a sequel set in an already somewhat established universe, they were conceived and developed by Cameron from the early stages of their inception. In a future war between killer machines and a remnant of the human race, John Connor is the human who is key to mankind's eventual victory. In an attempt to put an end to Connor, Skynet (the name of the sentient neural net-based artificial intelligence system running the machines) sends a terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) back through time to kill Connor's mother Sarah (Linda Hamilton) before she can give birth to him. The human resistance succeeds in sending a protector for Sarah in Kyle Reece (Michael Biehn).

The plot of The Terminator is complex yet simple; all of the time-travelling brain-bending shenanigans are stripped down to a simple race between the machine and the human. The cast are convincing enough, with surprisingly the big man himself coming out on top – possibly something to do with playing a character that’s completely unemotional, therefore not being required to emote. Having said that, Biehn has the best line, Reece's monologue ending with “...will not stop, ever, until you are dead” trumping “I’ll be back” and sending a genuine shiver down your spine, as both the viewer and Connor are confronted with the magnitude of her situation and the true nature of her hunter. Unfortunately Cameron favourite Bill Paxton takes an early bath in this one, and every film is poorer for losing Bill Paxton.

Cameron has a much lower budget to work with than he would become used to, but makes every cent count ensuring the film looks great, although it is getting on a bit now so the effects aren’t quite as dazzling. Having said that, seeing Arnie cutting himself up to perform maintenance on his arm and eye was an astonishing thing to see and even now has a certain charm. The same cannot be said for Connor's dreadful 80s hair.


Sarah Connor: on a mission to terminate Miles Dyson.

Every beat is masterfully filmed, from the murder of Sarah's friends and the tense nightclub shootout filled with great uses of slow motion, to the iconic slaughter set in a police station, with the big man blowing cops apart left, right and centre while cutting an image that burned itself indelibly into cinema history. Although with Cameron, remarkably-filmed action is pretty much a given. Considering that this climaxes with a truck chase and the killing machine chasing our heroine through a hydraulic press despite already being blown apart, it’s truly saying something that next to the sequel the first film feels a little low key.

T2: Judgement Day pushed the boundaries of filming action beyond any previously imagined limits. Even by today’s standards, it is utterly breathless, and as mental as Connor has become. After failing in the Sarah Connor assassination attempt, Skynet tries again, sending a new and improved T-1000 terminator (Robert Patrick) to take out a teenage John Connor (Edward Furlong). It has a lighter tone, evidenced by Arnie’s comedic arrival, but the dramatic beats are still hard hitting; Sarah’s molestation at the hands of a perverted orderly and the vision of a playground full of children exposed to a nuclear blast among the most stay-with-you disturbing. It is packed full of fabulously choreographed insanity – pick almost any scene – Sarah coming face to face with a terminator again takes your breath away, the ridiculous truck chase with a motorcycle-riding Arnie reloading his shotgun one handed, the attempted assassination of Miles Dyson (Joe Morton), the fact that the T-1000 is liquid frickin’ metal, the helicopter chase, the explosion at Cyberdyne Systems seemingly big enough to blow up the world, it just keeps coming. As before, the cast are fine, but the standout here is Linda Hamilton; militant, hard as nails, and batshit insane. She is a one-woman force of nature, with the potential to be as iconic as Ripley ever was. The terminator being tamed by the young John Connor worked okay mostly, but the ending goes too far – “I know now why you cry, but it is something I can never do” and the thumbs up are cringe-
worthy, but considering the sheer tour de force that has preceded it, you find yourself easily forgiving Cameron.

The most impressive new feature of the T-X: doing stunts
in those heels.

Like all great and successful movie franchises, they always make too many. Terminator 3 is unnecessary, underwhelming and a bit of a shame. The ‘sending a killer and a protector back through time’ is a plot device stretched too thin, and the action, while fine taken on its own merits (the truck chase (hey, a theme!) being a stand out), is limp beside the phenomenal T2. John Connor is in his 20s (Nick Stahl) and has to stop judgement day being triggered by another new terminator. Kristanna Loken as the T-X, able to control other machines is nowhere near as effective as Schwarzenegger's original killer or Patrick's T-1000, and you'll always watch it wondering why you’re not watching one of the first two. Still, it does score points for the surprisingly downbeat ending – I’m pretty sure this was the first time a big summer action tent-pole blockbuster ended with the nuclear annihilation of the world - a bold and brave move. It’s just a shame the movie that comes before is a bit, well, dull.

John Connor doesn't have much to smile about.

And years later, like a once-heavyweight champion coming back for one more shot at the title, the series is back with Terminator Salvation. Written by the same guys who penned Terminator 3 and directed by the man who made the Charlie's Angels films (so you know straight away you're in for a treat). The nightmarish visions that formed some of the most memorable parts of the first two films become the setting for the fourth. Mankind is on the brink, barely held together by an ineffective resistance. Christian Bale (stay out of his eye-line) is now John Connor, a soldier of the resistance, using his mother’s recordings to help fight back any way he can. Sam Worthington is Marcus Wright, a man without a memory, at least not after the point he remembers being executed, struggling to make sense of anything. A young Kyle Reece (Anton Yelchin) is struggling to survive, listening in awe to Connor’s radio broadcasts. Following that set up the plot is very predictable - the three of them go through some action beats before the mystery of Marcus is revealed (can you guess? Yawn.) and they come together to rescue a now captured Reece and give those evil machines what for.

It’s not quite as bad as all that – some of the set pieces are remarkable (the in-cockpit helicopter crash, the gas station blown up by the massive building-sized terminator), and the new machines are a nice touch, but it just doesn’t come close to the first two, and I doubt it’s anything like Cameron would have come up with had he decided to make more. He didn’t, and to be honest, they shouldn’t have either.

Score:

The Terminator: 9/10

Terminator 2: Judgement Day: 9/10

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines: 5/10

Terminator Salvation: 5/10

As you might expect, the first two films are treasured in most reviews, such as this review of The Terminator written by Bill and this one of T2, by John. Parts three and four get a rather more mixed reaction - Bill at Movie Gurus in my opinion rather over-rates the third film and Peter at The Guardian is perhaps a little harsh on Salvation.