The Martian

Year: 2015
Running time: 144 minutes
Certificate: 12
Language: English
Screenplay: Drew Goddard
Director: Ridley Scott
Starring: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña, Sean Bean, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Mackenzie Davis, Donald Glover

All alone.

When the book The Martian was released in 2011, written by Andy Weir, it made a big splash. Weir's grasp of astronomy, orbital mechanics and human spaceflight made for an enjoyable, sometimes riveting story as the world united in an attempt to rescue and bring home Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon in the film), stranded alone on Mars after a dust-storm-related accident. What made it interesting was seeing how Watney used his knowledge and grasp of science to survive, and the same focus on science and smarts to solve pressing problems is true for Artemis, Weir's 2017 follow up set on the moon. I'm a sucker for competence, so I enjoyed them a lot. They were, however, a little derivative, with both stories applying new dressing to several well-worn story tropes.

It didn't take long for the rights to The Martian to be sold and adapted into a movie screenplay. We know this type of story can be hugely popular - see Apollo 13, and Matt Damon can be as much of a draw in a lead role as Tom Hanks, so it seems the success of The Martian was likely secured. Whether it would be any good, was another matter, but Ridley Scott is nothing if not a safe pair of hands, and he succeeded in making the science exciting and a planet that is little more than red rock look absolutely stunning.

Mark's crewmates discover that he's still alive on the way home, as well as details of an extremely risky move that might allow them to swing back round to Mars and pick Mark up, putting them all in jeopardy. But of course, they do it - all for one, right? So while his crew are coming back for him, Mark has to make his way across Mars to the landing site of the next expedition and work out how to rendezvous with his crew-mates. And all the way it's very clever people using their smarts to help and it's science and maths solving problems for a good cause and cheesy as it may be, I am all for it. It's not easy to carry a movie mostly by yourself and while there are quite a few characters in significant supporting roles, it's mostly Damon by himself, and like Bruce Willis in Die Hard and the aforementioned Tom Hanks in Cast Away, he acquits himself well here.

Home sweet home away from home.

It's one of those stories that can make you feel positive about what our species can actually achieve if working together for a common cause and the joy is in seeing just how these seemingly impossible problems can be overcome using science, ingenuity and teamwork. It's just fun and a little bit of a tonic in these times of hate and division. And it was a hoot seeing Sean Bean take part in another Council of Elrond.

It's not something that's going to set the world alight, but it is an injection of hope that can go some way to lightening dark times.

Score: 7/10

Most, if not all, reviews tend to be quite positive - this one from Peter at Rolling Stone was very impressed, but this one from Aaron at The Hollywood Outsider was much less so.

Minority Report

Year: 2002
Running time: 145 minutes
Certificate: 15
Language: English
Screenplay: Scott Frank, Jon Cohen
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Tom Cruise, Samantha Morton, Colin Farrell, Max von Sydow, Steve Harris, Neal McDonough, Daniel London, Lois Smith, Tim Blake Nelson, Peter Stormare, Mike Binder, Arye Gross, Ashley Crow

Along with A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Catch Me If You Can, Minority Report kicked off Steven Spielberg's later career. Watching any of these three, but this one in particular, you get the feeling that, having proved himself one of the masters of cinema alongside Kurosawa, Coppola and Scorsese (Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan) and also a master of popcorn event cinema up there with Cameron, Lucas and Jackson (Jaws, Indiana Jones), he's now having a little more fun, legacy forever secured. As a result, Minority Report feels fresh even though Spielberg is no stranger to science fiction, blending the cinematic maestro Spielberg with the blockbusting crowd-pleaser version.

Anderton at work.

Thanks to the psychic gifts of three precognitive humans ('precogs'), led by Agatha (Samantha Morton), who have the ability to foresee murder, John Anderton (Tom Cruise) heads up Washington D.C.'s precrime division, arresting people for murder before the murder has actually taken place. The success of precrime is obvious, with the state being murder-free since the division was established. Pre-determined murder is non-existent, with only sudden 'crimes of passion' giving Anderton and co any work to do.

In a bravura early set-piece the workings of precrime are established; the pre-cogs 'see' the murder and these visions are projected onto a screen from their minds and captured for the precrime team to work with. The names of the perpetrator and victim are also given. Using innovative touch-screen tech that looked futuristic back in 2002, but certainly not too far outside the realms of possibility nowadays, Anderton searches through the images for clues as to the means, method and location of the murder. Once they find enough clues to establish what's going to happen and where, they rush to the scene to arrest the person before they commit the crime, for 'future murder'.

Emboldened by the success, director of precrime Lamar Burgess (Max von Sydow) is pushing to extend the division beyond Washington D.C., taking it 'national'. This has triggered an investigation into the suitability of precrime by the Justice Department, headed by Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell). There is plenty of scope for moral complexity with this set up (the film is inspired, as so much great science fiction is, by a story by Philip K. Dick), and that's before we even fill in some of Anderton's back story.

Anderton is a grieving father, his young son abducted from a busy public swimming pool leading to the collapse of his marriage and Anderton becoming dependent on drugs to get through the day, while at night he re-watches home videos of his wife and son over and over. When Witwer agrees the system works perfectly and the flaw is human, this is precisely what he means.

Two things happen to bring Anderton's world crashing down around him; firstly, Witwer discovers his drug habit, but secondly, and more crucially, the latest murder seen by the precogs shows Anderton himself murdering a man named Leo Crow (Mike Binder). Anderton has no choice but to run ("Everybody runs", goes the repeated refrain) and find a way prove his innocence in the light of the damning evidence that has been used by the precrime team to catch and convict so many others.

On the run for a murder he's not (yet) committed.

Minority Report is a blend of sci-fi actioner and noir thriller, as slowly Anderton and Witwer uncover a conspiracy involving the fallibility of the precogs' visions and murder to silence a grieving mother. It's wonderful stuff; Spielberg blends the two styles beautifully, investing in character, story and weaving the mystery around the astoundingly-staged action, the visuals, while incredible, always in service to the story and plot, building the future D.C. around the events onscreen.

Music and camerawork complement each other perfectly, particularly around a nail biting sequence involving little robotic spiders scanning eyes to ID everyone in a building, the camera moving over the top of the action in a scene that feels downright European in it's construction, in spite of the American-ness of everything else. One of the best things Spielberg ever did was team up with the extraordinary cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, and the blue-tinged, slightly washed-out look of the future of Minority Report is incredibly effective, giving the film a look that is unique to it.

The bravura set pieces and extraordinary look of the film sit alongside a Maltese Falcon-type layered, noir-ish story that is faultlessly executed and satisfyingly told.

Score: 8/10

I had assumed I'd overrated Minority Report when looking at other reviews (I sometimes seem to score Spielberg higher than others), but it seems I'm right on the money when considering these reviews from Roger Ebert and Kirk at The Hollywood Reporter.

Magnolia

Year: 1999
Running time: 188 minutes
Certificate: 18
Language: English
Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Tom Cruise, Jason Robards, Jeremy Blackman, Melora Walters, Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, Phillip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Melinda Dillon, Michael Bowen, Henry Gibson, Ricky Jay, Alfred Molina

Frank says goodbye to his father.

I'd already seen Boogie Nights and was blown away by it. Something in addition to that wonderful multiple-story-strands-intersecting type of film that I've always been a bit of a sucker for. I think it was the editing. Watching Boogie Nights felt so kinetic, like the camera didn't seem to stay still for a second, moving from one scene to another relentlessly. This was the impression the film gave, and I think the camerawork combined with the editing gave it that feel. With Magnolia, Paul Thomas Anderson honed and perfected a style he tried out in Boogie Nights and so it has that feel of restless movement again, but this time the director improved these aspects in every way.

Multiple characters and story strands overlap during the course of 24-hours in San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles, brought briefly together by chance and unusual weather. TV producer Earl Partridge (Jason Robards) is dying of cancer. Old, and living entirely in bed, he has nothing to do but rest, think and ruminate on the past. He is married to Linda Partridge (Julianne Moore), who constantly appears to be in the middle of a meltdown. He is being looked after by nurse Phil Parma (Philip Seymour Hoffman). After listening to Earl talk about his estranged son, he attempts to make contact in the hope of reconciling them. Earl's son is Frank T. J. Mackey (Tom Cruise). Frank is a successful misogynist, making a living running stage shows / workshops for lonely men wanting to pick up women.

Jimmy Gator (Phillip Baker Hall) is a TV personality, hosting a quiz show featuring child contestants. Like Earl, Jimmy is also dying of cancer - he has about 2 months left. He is estranged from his daughter Claudia (Melora Walters), who hates him for some reason - we later learn the reason, which then causes his wife Rose (Melinda Dillon) to walk out on him. Jimmy feels suicidal. On Jimmy's show an extremely bright young boy named Stanley Spector (Jeremy Blackman) is on a winning streak, while ex-extremely bright child quiz show star "Quiz Kid" Donnie Smith (William H. Macy) has grown up and is now watching Stanley on TV while sitting in a bar lamenting unrequited love.

Conscientious police officer Jim Kurring (John C. Reilly) is called to investigate reports of a disturbance at Claudia Gator's house and finds himself falling for her while spending the rest of his day dealing with a homicide and losing his gun in the process.

Jim and Claudia make tentative first steps.

The way Anderson weaves these characters around each other during the course of the film works wonderfully, and some scenes are hugely emotional. There is a theme throughout the film, which focuses on regret, and the long-reaching consequences our actions have on others - Linda Partridge regrets cheating on Earl throughout their relationship now that he is close to death, while he, on his deathbed, regrets cheating on a previous wife. Jimmy Gator regrets his actions that caused his daughter to hate him so. Even Frank, when he catches up to his dying father, whom he hated so much, crumbles, the regret now that it's too late to do anything plain on his anguished face. It's astonishingly powerful, and might still, 20 years on, be the best acting of Tom Cruise's career.

The film also makes reference to strange coincidences and unusual events that cause one event to unexpectedly cross paths with another. During the final hour, an event takes place that cause the hitherto unrelated strands to interact with each other, but this is only what Magnolia is about on the surface - there is much depth beneath. Frogs rain down on L.A. in an apparent biblical condemnation of these lost souls, but it's hard to read it like that - we've spent a long time in the company of these characters, and we know them a little. We know they're just alone, struggling with their past, desperate for love.

There are some left turns that could have gone very wrong, but Anderson makes them work beautifully. Aimee Mann provides the entire soundtrack and there is a moment in the film where the entire cast join in and sing along with the song Wise Up. It could have been so weird. It's wonderful.

But the absolute best thing about Magnolia is the ending. Focused on regret, death and some of the most difficult parts of human relationships, one of the more depressing moments is when Claudia, having agreed to go to dinner with a besotted Jim, loses her courage and runs out. The final scene of the film is just beautiful, where Jim arrives at Claudia's apartment and starts to explain how he wants to be there for her and to help her, his voice fades out and the camera focuses on her, and just before we cut to credits, she smiles and Mann's Save Me kicks off. It's such a poignantly joyful note to go out on, that you're uplifted in spite of the difficult subject matter that dominates the film's 3-hour running time.

Score: 9/10

Roger Ebert thought Magnolia was a great film - he even reviewed it twice. This is his second review, 9 years after its release and Nathan at The Dissolve compares it to Boogie Nights to examine Anderson's emerging film-making style.

Miss Potter

Year: 2006
Running time: 92 minutes
Certificate: PG
Language: English
Screenplay: Richard Maltby Jr.
Director: Chris Noonan
Starring: Renée Zellweger, Ewan McGregor, Emily Watson, Barbara Flynn, Bill Paterson, Lloyd Owen, Anton Lesser, David Bamber

The real star of Miss Potter: The Lake District.

No, this is not a film about Harry’s sister, but instead centres on another famous Potter; Beatrix (Renée Zellweger), creator of some of the most beloved children’s books the world has ever seen - Peter Rabbit & Friends. Set firstly around her struggle to free herself from the marriage designs of her mother Helen (Barbara Flynn) then to get her books (written off by her mother and passed over by most prospective publishers) published, and then her wish to marry a mere ‘tradesman’, Norman Warne (Ewan McGregor) when her parents would have her marry someone of more suitable repute. Warne is the younger brother in a family-run publishers who is given Potter's books because his older siblings are so convinced of their limited potential. It’s a pleasant enough tale that keeps the viewer engaged, just, throughout.

Renée Zellweger is every bit as wonderful as you’d expect her to be (it would be a real shame if her turn as Bridget Jones became her most memorable role, because she is capable of so much more), and Ewan McGregor does just fine as the inexperienced publisher willing to take a chance on her books. There is happiness (the books are popular! Yay!), romance, tragedy and moving on (Potter eventually becomes an effective conservationist). It's all delivered with that stereotypical twee Englishness that's the filmic equivilant of having tea and cake under a parasol.

She pretended to consider the artwork, but couldn't take her
mind off that mustache.

However, as easy to watch as Zellweger and McGregor are, they both pale in comparison to a much grander star, and that is the stunning scenery of the UK countryside on offer – it suits the style of the film perfectly and is really a joy to behold. The world that inspired her creations and later her conservation efforts is right there onscreen and it can be genuinely breath-taking.

It doesn’t exactly set the world alight, but fills 90 minutes well enough. If you're bored.

Score: 5/10

Two opposing viewpoints show that opinion is not exactly unanimous on Miss Potter; this review by Lexi declares it to be a movie both adults and children can enjoy. Conversely, Phillip at the Observer  thinks it will appeal to neither children nor adults. I find myself somewhere between the two.

The Muppet Christmas Carol

Year: 1992
Running time: 85 minutes
Certificate: U
Language: English
Screenplay: Jerry Juhl
Director: Brian Henson
Starring: Michael Caine, Steven Mackintosh, Meredith Braun, Raymond Coulthard, (voices) Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire, Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson

"Marley & Marley".

I was never really a big fan of The Muppets when I was a kid; I always found it kind of boring. When I got a little older I started to have an appreciation for the characters, the cameos and the comedy, which mixed broad strokes of madcap zany slapstick for kids, but retained a tongue-in-cheek knowing wink, helping to make it accessible for all. However mixed my feelings for the show in general, I will always love this film.

Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843, and it is a testament to its brilliance that even now it remains a staple of the traditional Christmas period. It taps into that feeling that is particular to this time of year, that of goodwill and kindness stepping to the forefront. No matter how despicable Scrooge is in the beginning, he is a character to root for - you really want him to come to the realisation that acting like Donald Trump is really no way to live your life. The message, that one should take this feeling and keep it the year round is a powerful one that too many people ignore.

Gonzo as Dickens as narrator.

There is a huge number of adaptations of A Christmas Carol, so in order to standout from the crowd, new twists must be employed (like Scrooged, which successfully transplanted the story into a contemporary setting, turned it into a comedy and had the stroke of genius that was casting Bill Murray as Scrooge). The Muppet Christmas Carol certainly does that - while there have been musical versions and comedy versions before, using the Muppets to make a musical comedy version is one of those perfect ideas that is so obvious with hindsight, it is amazing it wasn't thought of before 1992. It has some outstanding casting ideas - Gonzo was, apparently, born to play Dickens, brilliantly funny writing (“Light the lamp, not the rat, light the lamp, not the rat!”), good musical numbers, in particular the song sung by the ghost of Christmas present (voiced by Jerry Nelson), which reiterates the lesson to keep the way you feel at Christmas throughout the year in the line "It's true wherever you find love it feels like Christmas".

The masterstroke is the casting of Michael Caine to fill the slippers of the famous old grouch - despite being in a musical comedy version aimed mostly at children, Caine's Scrooge is one of the most affecting - he does a fine job of bringing out the heart of Dickens' story, despite acting mostly opposite felt.

The best muppet movie and up there with the best versions of A Christmas Carol.

Score: 8/10

As you might expect, those who don't fall for this heart-warming adaptation are few and far between, as shown by these reviews by Matt at The Movie Buff and Groucho Reviews.

The Matrix

Year: 1999 (Matrix), 2003 (Matrix Reloaded), (Matrix Revolutions)
Running time: 136 minutes (Matrix), 138 minutes (Matrix Reloaded), 129 minutes (Matrix Revolutions)
Certificate: 15
Language: English
Screenplay: The Wachowskis
Directors: The Wachowskis
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Joe Pantoliano, Marcus Chong, Julian Arahanga, Matt Doran, Belinda McClory, Anthony Ray Parker, Gloria Foster, Lambert Wilson, Monica Bellucci, Helmut Bakaitis, Ian Bliss, Collin Chou, Randall Duk Kim, Jada Pinkett Smith, Nathaniel Lees, Harry Lennix, Harold Perrineau, Clayton Watson, Anthony Zerbe, Adrian Rayment, Neil Rayment, Mary Alice, Bruce Spence


Neo and Agent Smith go head to head.

The Matrix was a film that literally came out of nowhere in 1999. Everyone was anticipating the first of the Star Wars prequels, and a month or two before The Phantom Menace landed, this film came out and blew everybody’s socks off. More than ten years later, and everything from the concept, through the ground-breaking effects and cinematography, to the sound and music is still astonishing.

Keanu Reeves is Thomas Anderson, an entirely normal person, if a little empty. Mr. Anderson is not empty simply because he is being played by Reeves, who is not known for his emoting (although I've never found him to be as dreadful as many others seem to), but because he has an alter-ego in the virtual world, where he goes by the name of Neo. Neo has a feeling that something isn't quite right with the world, a feeling many people in our own real world share. Neo is searching the online world for an answer, an answer which finds him and blows his mind, as well as ours.


Agents in green.

Neo's world, it turns out, isn't real. Sometime in the past, humanity has lost a war against machines, machines that now control us completely, using us as a source of power while placing us in a virtual reality to blind us to the desolate truth. Neo is 'rescued' from this charade by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), a kind of Yoda of the human resistance and made a member of his crew. Morpheus informs Neo that he believes him to be the savior of humanity and trains him to be a digital superhero. Neo must learn to defeat Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving), an unstoppable man in black out to stamp out the humans wherever they hack into the Matrix. Smith is one of the best things about the film, with Weaving's delivery of a speech which, possibly quite correctly, equates humans to a cancer infecting the planet, genuinely unsettling. 

The action set-pieces are amazing, culminating in both the shoot-out in the lobby set to the Propellerheads and the all-out punch-up in the underground train station, which has a bit of a spaghetti western feeling about it. It is, however, the designing and creating of an entirely new effect, called ‘bullet-time’ that really raised the bar for visual effects. Nowadays, the effect has been copied poorly by so many other things, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Deuce Bigalow and Shrek, that some of the shine has worn off, but the first time I saw the camera swoop around and underneath Neo as the bullets fly past in slow motion I, like everyone else in the cinema, was gobsmacked.


Bullet-time: gobsmacking.

The blending of a futuristic kung-fu movie with a deeply cerebral philosophical idea for the premise is something that makes The Matrix unique among its contemporaries. There are a number of people I know who cannot stand the film because they are unable to grasp the ideas regarding the potentially unstable nature of reality which every individual may well perceive differently. It can, however, still be enjoyed on a simpler level – a cracking action movie.

Then, of course, there are the sequels. Anticipation for The Matrix Reloaded was at a fever pitch, which meant it would inevitably disappoint. On my first watching, I must admit I fell for it and loved it utterly, declaring it to be better than the original. Time and common sense has since caused me to re-evaluate that opinion.

The one.  Or one of them, at least.

Neo is under pressure to get to grips with his new powers to enable him to save humanity from a machine horde advancing on the real world human stronghold of Zion. Agent Smith is now a rogue virus replicating himself and infecting the Matrix.

All the ingredients are in the right place; the vamped-up special effects (the whole middle section, from the mega-brawl in which Neo takes on hundreds of Agent Smiths, through the fight against the Merovingian's (Lambert Wilson) henchman, to the phenomenal highway chase is action-movie heaven), the expanding of the universe, and the same blend of action and philosophy (although the philosophy is not half as profound as in the first film with the Merovingian prattling on about cause and effect while giving some woman an orgasm with a cake). The fact that the finale is an extremely technical and complicated conversation with an old man doesn't really help matters, but even here, you need to respect the Wachowskis and their ballsy decision to go in this direction with their multi million dollar sequel, which although against all logical rules of big-budget film making, kind of fits, and the revelation that Neo is by no means the first 'one' is a cool twist. The Wachowskis had told us that this was the story they had always wanted to tell, and that the first movie was just an origin story to help us understand what was going on, meaning this was no shameless cash-in. Also, the idea of the rogue programs hiding out within the Matrix like outlaws, refusing to report for deletion, was a smart one. The reason it crashed and burned is down to the difference between allegory and applicability, as J.R.R. Tolkien would well know. Allow me to explain.

Trinity, blowing shit up.

In the introduction to The Fellowship of the Ring in recently published versions, there is a piece written by Tolkien denying that the War of the Ring in his epic story was about World War 2. It is an obvious comparison to make; it was written at about the same time. However, Tolkien argued that writing a story allegorically, so that it was actually about a specific thing, meant that it would soon be irrelevant. Writing a story that is applicable, like The Lord of the Rings, means it will forever be in our hearts and minds. Basically, everyone can relate to Frodo and his quest, because everyone has, at some time in their life felt like the young hobbit. Obviously, this doesn’t mean we’ve taken a cursed ring to a volcano. What it means is that we have all been daunted by something that we need to overcome. We’ve all lost hope at some point, because whatever we are trying to do, wherever we are trying to get to is just so far away as to be impossible, but all we can do is continue, one step at a time. Ask my wife about her 57-hour labour, and you might get some idea. We are able to apply the way Frodo feels to our own experiences, and therefore, his quest has a meaning that is personal to all of us. This, above all other things, is why The Lord of the Rings is so loved.


Neo and Agent Smith go head to head, again.

Now apply that theory to The Matrix trilogy. Neo is a regular person, like anyone. We have all experienced what Neo feels in The Matrix. Again, not literally – the world isn’t a virtual version of itself run by machines (at least, I don’t think so, but really, how would we know if it was?) – but we have all had our perception of the world turned upside-down, forcing us to re-evaluate everything we thought was truth – in storytelling they call it paradigm shift. When it happens in reality it is on a small scale, not like it happens to Neo, but some kind of awakening that makes us view the world in a new light; maybe having your first baby, or falling in love for the first time. We can relate to Neo when he is struggling to adjust, to rewire his thinking, we can apply our own experiences to him and know how he feels. Just like Frodo, Neo’s experience takes on a personal meaning to us. When we come back for the sequel, we are unable to relate to Neo anymore. We don’t know what it’s like to feel the pressure of being the saviour of the world, or to have super powers. Neo has evolved beyond us and there is nothing in our own lives that we can apply to make Neo’s journey mean anything to us. Yes, it is still cerebral and philosophical, yes, there are still amazing effects and lots of action, but without the deeper relatable undertone it will not feel the same to us.

Swarming sentinels.

So, taking The Matrix Reloaded on face value, forgetting about how the original made us feel, it’s really a pretty good kung-fu sci-fi movie, with added philosophical musings on the nature of the universe, humanity and love. And action set-pieces that are among the most impressive ever put on film.

The Matrix Revolutions, however, while not utterly dreadful, is certainly the most mediocre of the three. Acting was never the strong point in these films, but the performances in the final part are downright diabolical. Neo and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) never did have much chemistry, but by the third film the lack of spark between the two ‘lovers’ is embarrassing. Maybe no-one can understand the philosophy-heavy dialogue anymore, so they don’t know how to deliver their lines convincingly.

The good news is the effects are as astonishing as ever, and the scenes of the sentinels swarming throughout Zion are jaw-dropping. The final showdown between Neo and Agent Smith is huge and Jesus (sorry, I mean Neo) is finally able to save his species by sacrificing himself to take out Smith, who is just as much a threat to the machines as he is to the humans.

Try to remember The Matrix as something really special, and try not to let the sequels, particularly the third movie, ruin that memory.

Score:

The Matrix: 9/10

The Matrix Reloaded: 6/10

The Matrix Revolutions: 5/10

There is a lot of mixed opinion about these films out there, for example Jennie at Eye for Film couldn't stand The Matrix, while Ian at Empire is more on my wavelength. The Matrix Reloaded is actually better thought of than I expected, as illustrated by both Rodney at Fernby Films' and Colin at Empire's reviews. While the final part generally does less well, evidenced by Rodney at Fernby Films again, it still has its fans, such as SFAM at Cyberpunk Reviews.

Monsters, Inc.

Year: 2001

Running time: 92 minutes

Certificate: U

Language: English

Screenplay: Andrew Stanton, Daniel Gerson

Director: Pete Docter

Starring (voices): John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Steve Buscemi, Mary Gibbs, James Coburn, Jennifer Tilly

Dave.

So far, Pixar have done no wrong. It doesn't matter which one of their films you see, it is brimming over with a sharp wit, wonderful originality and some of the finest animation ever seen. The person that came up with the idea that monsters scare kids because the screams power their city is touched by brilliance, but that wonderful central story idea is just the start. Monsters, Inc. is the power company responsible for collecting the screams, and it is where our heroes James P. Sullivan aka 'Sulley' (John Goodman) and Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) work. Using some ingenious monster technology, they have a huge network of doors to bedrooms all over the world where Sulley creeps in to scare the kids and Mike collects the screams on the factory floor.

Mike and Sulley head to work.

However, the brightly coloured Monstropolis is not without trouble. There is a looming scream shortage, on account of kids growing up sooner and being less frightened. When Sulley notices a young girl (a human child, the most toxic thing there is) entering the monster world he embarks on a quest to firstly, save himself, then save his and Mike's careers, and finally save Boo (the girl, voiced convincingly by the then 5 year-old Mary Gibbs) from a dastardly plot involving kidnapping children and attaching them to a frighteningly huge machine built to extract screams more efficiently.

Like every Pixar film Monsters, Inc. works perfectly and effortlessly on a number of levels - there is bright slapstick comedy for kids (the best example of which is Randall Boggs (Steve Buscemi) and his end at the hands of a trailer park mom with a shovel), but there is layer upon layer of in-jokes for children of all ages, such as the restaurant Harryhausen's, named after the effects wizard who first portrayed monsters onscreen using cutting edge stop-motion animation techniques. Although all Pixar films have lots of comedy, Monsters, Inc. is so far the most relentlessly funny by some margin, thanks largely to the remarkable performance given by Billy Crystal, who invests Mike Wazowski with an irresistibly charming mix of naive gullibility and think-on-your-feet cunning. Sulley is clearly Pixar's best achievement in animation in this film, but it's Mike who steals the show.

The climax is one of Pixar's most thrilling, a real roller-coaster ride following Sulley and Mike as they race to get Boo safely back to her bedroom. The imagination and ingenuity that has gone into the design of the door-storage part of the factory is staggering and provides all kinds of opportunities for laughs and action as the chase continues through doors to different bedrooms the world over.

It's not just played for laughs or thrills, however - no Pixar film would dare be so shallow. There are moments that resonate emotionally too, tapping in to that all-too-familiar fear of the dark and what might be hiding in it, and when Mike shows Sulley Boo's door near the end, reassembled piece by painstaking piece, don't be surprised to find yourself with a lump in your throat and your eyes filling up. And when the the door opens, and you hear Boo's voice off screen: "Kitty!" it's enough to soften the hardest of hearts, and a perfect ending.

It doesn't quite reach the giddy heights of the Toy Story trilogy, but it's fabulous nonetheless.

Score: 8/10

Rachel.

Sulley comes face-to-face with his biggest fear; a human child.

A film to have kids for! Complementing what Dave has said in his review, a Pixar film gives you confidence that it will be enjoyable for all ages. Monsters, Inc. is full of unforgettable characters, hilarious jokes that work on a number of levels and introduces the romantic notion for kids that monsters are just as scared of you as you are of them.

On a more technical note, one of the best scenes is where Sulley and Mike have been banished to Tibet and thousands of separately animated strands of the big blue monster's fur are blowing in the wind - fantastic animation.

All round classic family entertainment!

Score: 8/10

Unsurprisingly, there isn't much in the way of negative criticism out there for Monsters, Inc. These reviews from Ram and Roger Ebert are largely in agreement.