Film

The Creator

30/09/2

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Director Gareth Edwards made an impressive feature debut with Monsters in 2010, but followed it with a lacklustre Godzilla reboot and, in 2016, an underrated Star Wars standalone, Rogue One. The Creator marks a significant step up for him. This epic sci-fi adventure is set on a war-torn planet Earth in the year 2070 and its story – about the struggle between humans and AIs – could hardly be more topical, particularly as Edwards (who co-write the screenplay with Chris Weitz) takes it in an entirely unexpected direction. Who are the bad guys in this story? Wait and see.

Twenty-six years after a nuclear explosion has ravaged Los Angeles, Joshua (John David Washington) is an American Army operative, working under deep cover amidst AI forces, who are based in New Asia. He’s fallen in love with and is married to enemy scientist, Maya (Gemma Chan), which is complicated to say the very least, particularly as she’s now pregnant by him. But when the mission goes badly awry, Maya is caught in the crossfire and Joshua only just manages to escape with his life.

Some time later, he’s approached by Colonel Howell (Alison Janney), who has compelling evidence that Maya is still alive and wants Joshua to join a new mission to hunt her down. What’s more, she assures him, Maya is deeply involved in the creation of a new AI ‘super weapon’, something that American forces are desperate to eradicate. Sensing an opportunity to be reunited with his wife, Joshua agrees to the mission – but when he comes face to face with the new weapon, he is understandably bewildered. Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voiles) is a child, possibly the most adorable-looking creature in the universe – and she may even contain Joshua’s own DNA.

What ensues is a fabulous slice of world-building, a series of breathless action sequences set against majestic eastern landscapes. There may be a little too much gunplay here for some – and the 12A certificate means that punches are occasionally pulled to try and constrain all that violence – but it’s impossible not to be swept up in the steadily rising suspense, as Joshua desperately tries to get Alphie to safety.

The Creator looks like a big expensive project but Edwards has brought the film in for a comparatively miserly eighty million dollars (it sounds like a lot but is a third of what these sci-fi extravaganzas usually cost). What’s more, the story, which sounds like broad strokes on paper, is considerably more nuanced than most sci-fi adventures and I find myself constantly impressed by the film’s invention, the grubby reality of the AI creations that populate this imagined world. Edward’s script fearlessly challenges our expectations about America. The usual Hollywood message is completely subverted and the age-old macho-saviour complex revealed as a toxic sham.

John David Washington makes a compelling hero (and, after Tenet, he must be relieved to star in a film that viewers can actually understand), while Madeleine Yuna Voiles is quite simply mesmerising as Alphie. If you like action and you like sci-fi, chances are you’ll enjoy The Creator. And happily, you won’t have to pay fifty million dollars to see it.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

The Lesson

24/09/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

The Lesson is one of those films that’s hugely enjoyable while you’re watching it, but falls apart when you try to analyse it – a bit like the airport novels its antihero, JM Sinclair, so witheringly disparages.

Sinclair (Richard E Grant) is a novelist of some renown – indeed, he is the subject of Oxford graduate Liam (Daryl McCormack)’s PhD thesis – but it’s been five years since he published anything. Since the death of his elder son, Felix, JM has been struggling; he writes daily, late into the night, but he just can’t finish his latest book. Meanwhile, his wife, Hélène (Julie Delpy), is determined that their younger son, Bertie (Stephen McMillan), should get into Oxford to study English literature, a feat which – despite his expensive schooling and obvious intelligence – can apparently only be accomplished by hiring a private tutor.

Enter Liam.

At first, the job seems like a dream come true. The Sinclairs live in the lap of luxury, their large country home filled with impressive artwork and attentive staff. Liam lodges in the guest house, swims in the lake, eats dinner with his idol and gets on well with Bertie; he even has time to finish his own first novel. But JM turns out to be a bruising presence and the family bristles with unhappy secrets; it doesn’t take long for the idyll to sour.

McCormack is a mesmerising screen presence (he surely has a big career ahead of him) and Grant, of course, is never less than interesting. Delpy imbues Hélène with an unsettlingly dispassionate and watchful air, while McMillan plays the innocent very convincingly – so that, no matter what chicanery is exposed, there’s someone we want to see being saved.

Director Alice Troughton does a good job of building the suspense: there’s a genuine sense of threat and the character dynamics are nicely drawn. The script, by Alex MacKeith, has some excellent moments, but also throws up some problems, not least the improbability of Liam’s ability to remember every word he’s ever read, on which the plot hinges. What’s more, although there are some genuine surprises, the main reveal is obvious from very early on, and there are several other details that just don’t ring true.

All in all, although The Lesson has its moments, it doesn’t quite live up to the movie it could be.

3.1 stars

Susan Singfield

Dead Man’s Shoes

16/09/23

Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh

Two men stride purposefully across a picturesque stretch of moorland near Matlock, Derbyshire. They are former soldier, Richard (Paddy Considine), and his younger brother, Anthony (Toby Kebbell), who has learning disabilities. As they walk, gentle music plays and we’re given glimpses of them playing together as toddlers. But what we’re about to see is far from gentle. It’s a harsh and unremitting tale of revenge.

Anthony has been wronged and Richard has returned to his hometown to put things right.

Meadows shows us a run-down rural community that is dominated by local kingpin, Sonny (Gary Stretch), and his sorry henchmen, a bunch of hapless deadbeats who drive around in (of all things) a battered Citroen 2CV. They make easy money selling drugs to the hardscrabble locals and treat anyone who opposes them with contempt. They are the big fish in this tiny pond, simultaneously pathetic yet somehow powerful. It’s clear that Gary and his crew wouldn’t last five minutes in the city but here, they see themselves as players.

But Richard has them squarely in his sights. He begins by confronting them, telling them exactly what he thinks of them and they are instantly dismayed. Nobody ever talks to them like that! Richard knows what they have done to his brother and he will make them pay. As he tightens the screws, he begins to expose them for what they are and they begin to understand the true meaning of fear…

Originally released in 2004, Dead Man’s Shoes is a collaboration between writer/actor Considine and director Shane Meadows and it’s now making a welcome return to UK cinema screens.

Part crime-thriller, part horror story, Dead Man’s Shoes brilliantly utilises Meadows’ flair for eliciting naturalistic performances and improvised dialogue, while Considine displays the hard-edged acting chops that soon launched him into the mainstream. Six years later, he directed the extraordinary Tyrannosaur, which in turn provided Olivia Colman with a star-making vehicle. It’s fascinating to contemplate how much has changed since this film’s release. It seems like a world away.

If you haven’t seen Dead Man’s Shoes, here’s your opportunity to correct the situation. It’s an extraordinary, low-budget gem, that still shines brightly nearly twenty years after its first outing.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

A Haunting in Venice

15/09/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Kenneth Branagh’s third attempt to bring Agatha Christie’s most celebrated detective back to cinema stardom initially feels like every James Wan movie you’ve ever seen: a series of elaborate jump scares designed to unnerve viewers and open them up to the possibility of supernatural goings on.

But it isn’t long before we encounter Poirot, recently retired to – well, the clue’s in the title – and apparently finished with the world of sleuthing, happier to fill his spare time with gardening. He’s even hired ex-police officer, Vitale Portfoglio (Riccardo Scarmacio), to act as his bodyguard, ensuring that anybody who comes looking for the services of a sleuth is treated to a quick push off the edge of a canal. But one person does manage to get through. She’s author Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), who thinks she’s responsible for Poirot’s fame in the first place by featuring a thinly-disguised version of him in one of her early novels. Now she wants to enlist him to investigate the notorious medium, Mrs Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh), who – Oliver claims – seems to be ‘the real McCoy’.

Staunch non-believer Poirot agrees to go along to a Hallowe’en event in a crumbling palazzo, said to be haunted by the ghosts of many lost children. The current owner, Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly), is keen to contact the ghost of her daughter, Alicia (Rowan Robinson), who committed suicide. Rowena has hired Mrs Reynolds to contact her and find out exactly why she did it.

Poirot is soon happily exposing Mrs Reynolds as a fraud but things take a nasty turn when the medium falls to her death from a high window (bet she didn’t see that coming). And naturally, the killings are not going to end there. A large group of mid-listers find themselves marooned by a violent storm in a building that – conveniently – can only be accessed by boat.

The main problem with A Haunting in Venice is that it’s neither fish nor fowl. The ghost story/horror elements fail to convince, while the plot (if I can call it that) is so risible and convoluted that it’s hard to take any of it seriously. Amidst a sea of familiar faces, the only ones that really connect are a re-teaming of Belfast father and son duo, Jamie Dornan, as a doctor haunted by his experiences in the Second World War and Jude Hill as his somewhat creepy son (who, unfortunately, is a dead ringer for a young Michael Gove). But sadly, they’re not enough to make this turkey fly.

In the latter reaches of the film, some of the sequences are so murky and labyrinthine that I’m occasionally left wondering what is happening to who and where. Screenwriter Michael Green (who has based this farrago on a 60s Christie novel entitled Hallowe’en Party), somehow manages to have his cake and eat it by suggesting that not every supernatural element has been faked. But the intellectual flexing required to solve the case suggests that, by its conclusion, Poirot is back in the game.

After suffering through A Haunting in Venice, I seriously doubt I’ll be back to see the next in the series.

2.4 stars

Philip Caveney

Past Lives

10/09/2

Cineworld, Edinburgh

It’s hard to believe that Past Lives is only the debut film of Korean-Canadian playwright, Celine Song. Here she has created a narrative so assured, so brilliantly handled, it’s little wonder that critics around the world have fallen for its charms. And I am swooning along with them.

When we first see the three main protagonists, they are chatting together in a bar, while a couple of unidentified voices speculate about what their relationship might be. We learn further down the line that they are playwright, Nora (Greta Lee), her novelist husband, Arthur (John Magaro), and Korean engineer, Jung Hae (Teo Yoo). Their relationship is complicated to say the very least, and the film takes its time unravelling an explanation. But relax, there’s no great hurry.

First we must backtrack twenty-six years to see young Nora (or Na-Young, as she was called then) and Jung Hae, at school together in Korea. They are already inseparable, so much so that their respective mothers take the two of them out on a first ‘date’. But huge changes are looming. Nora’s parents are keen to emigrate to Canada, so that their respective artistic careers can prosper. To help her adapt to her new home, Na-Young adopts the name ‘Nora,’ and is obliged to say goodbye to Jung Hae, but twelve years later, the two of them reconnect online and begin a series of soulful conversations.

Jung Hae tells Nora that he still thinks about her all the time. Sadly, work commitments get in the way and once again the two of them drift apart.

Then, at a writer’s retreat in Montauk, Nora meets Arthur and, almost before they know what’s happening, a decade or so has slipped by and the two of them are happily married and living in a tiny apartment in New York.

And then, Jung Hae travels thousands of miles to visit them…

In clumsier hands the stakes at this point. Nora and Jung-Hae would doubtless realise that they’ve always been meant for each other and Arthur merely an obstacle to be overcome, by force if necessary. But Song’s beautiful and lyrical approach to the story displays a generosity of spirit that takes in all those conflicting emotions and accepts that it’s okay for them to exist – that the three protagonists are all on the same journey through life and can co-exist, without recourse to anger or brutality. Song’s perceptive screenplay makes her characters act and talk like real people actually do.

Shabier Kirchner’s cinematography captures the cities of Seoul and New York in vivid detail and the plaintive music by Christopher Bear and Daniel Rossen is perfectly matched to the film’s languorous, sedate pacing. By the third act I am, quite frankly, spellbound by the story, which is sweet and yearning and deeply affecting, particularly when Jung Hae confesses to Nora that he didn’t realise that liking Arthur would cause him so much pain. The conclusion is so adeptly handled I want to applaud.

If this is Song’s debut, I can only wonder about what she might achieve further down the line. Meanwhile, Past Lives is truly impressive. Miss it and weep… or see it and weep. The choice is yours.

5 stars

Philip Caveney

The Equalizer 3

03/09/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Denzel Washington famously resists doing sequels, but this is his third outing as everybody’s favourite vigilante, Robert McCall, and his fifth film with Antoine Fuqua, with whom he won his second Oscar for 2001’s Training Day. (If you’re wondering, the duo’s other collaboration is the much underrated remake of The Magnificent Seven. You’re welcome.)

TE3 takes McCall away from his familiar beat and sets him down in Italy, where he’s exacting his usual unflinching version of comeuppance to an elderly farmer, who is not quite the innocent he appears to be – though what he’s actually done to deserve such retribution is kept a secret until the end. On first appearance, McCall has an almost sepulchral look, as though his endless diet of shooting and punching bad people has taken a terrible toll on him.

On his way out, McCall makes an uncharacteristic mistake and winds up with a bullet in his back, but luck is with him and he winds up being taken care of by Enzo (Remo Girone), a charming small-town doctor who doesn’t ask too many questions and who offers McCall a place to lay his head. Filmed in the impossibly picturesque town of Amalfi, it’s hardly surprising that McCall soon starts thinking that he’s finally found himself a home.

But even impossibly picturesque Italian towns have their crosses to bear and here it’s in the form of Mafia thug Vincent Quaranta (Andrea Scarducio), who has his own heinous plans to transform the sleepy little harbour into a convenient place for shipping off regular consignments of illegal drugs. It soon becomes clear that McCall has some more trash to take out before he can happily retire…

Washington is a fabulous actor, with enough gravitas to elevate material like this and take it to another level – and Fuqua too is a skilled director, who never makes the mistake of allowing the violence in his films to look ‘cool’. The physical exchanges between McCall and those who are foolish enough to underestimate him are unflinchingly visceral and (quite literally) pull no punches.

You could argue that the people McCall comes up against are almost cartoonishly evil and that much of the pleasure in watching these films comes from seeing such creatures given the same rough treatment they’re happy to hand out. But I’d be the first to admit that I enjoy TE3 enormously and, on a giant IMAX screen, Washington’s performance looks even more towering than usual.

There’s also a labyrinthine quality to the plotting here, including a through-line that brings in Dakota Fanning as CIA operative Emma Collins as a key part of the story – and there are brief glimpses (blink and you’ll miss ’em) of characters from the previous instalments. Stay in your seat till the end and all will become clear.

Will there be a TE4? Probably not. It’s unusual for a franchise to make it to a third outing without jumping the shark, so maybe Washington and Fuqua should quit now, while they’re still ahead. Then again, Robert McCall does seem to have an uncanny knack of moving to locations that need his unequivocal style of rough justice. If one arrives, I’ll be there for it.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Scrapper

29/08/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Georgie (Lola Campbell) is just thirteen years old and, since the recent death of her mother, she’s managing to fend for herself in a council flat somewhere in London, all on her own. The neighbours know of her situation but turn a blind eye to it, not wanting to see her engulfed and spat out by the system. Meanwhile, with her best friend, Ali (Alin Uzan), Georgie is making ends meet by stealing second-hand bikes and selling them on to local shopkeeper, Zeph (Ambreen Razia).

Georgie is determinedly self-sufficient and precocious beyond her years, even able to smoothly talk her way out of trouble when a woman finds her trying to remove her bike-lock. But then one day, Jason (Harris Dickinson) climbs over the garden fence and introduces himself to Georgie as the father she’s never met. He’s been over in Spain working as a ticket tout, but has returned with the intention of getting to know his daughter. Georgie is initially suspicious of him, not allowing him to sweet-talk her, the way he’s already doing with Ali – but, bit by bit, her defences begin to crumble…

This is the feature debut of young writer/director Charlotte Regan and it’s been compared to Aftersun, with which it does perhaps share some DNA – though that’s perhaps unfair, because Scrapper is its own beast.

Steadfastly refusing to play to the usual poverty porn clichés, Scrapper depicts the estate where Georgie lives in bright, primal colours and offers us short, direct-to-camera comments from some of the other local inhabitants – even the spiders in Geogie’s house manage to have their say! Campbell’s performance is extraordinary, while Dickinson is totally convincing as Jason, a man who has never really matured but is doing the best he can to meet the demands of fatherhood.

I like too the scenes that are shown from Georgie’s own POV – the weird assemblage of bicycle parts she has constructed in the spare room, which in her mind’s eye assumes gigantic proportions: a dizzy ladder climbing to heaven, where she hopes her mother is waiting for her.

Sweetly sad and often affecting, Scrapper is a delightful low-budget gem from a young director with plenty of potential.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Luck

16/07/23

Apple TV

After experiencing some er… issues at his old outfit, former head honcho of Pixar John Lasseter has formed his own studio, Skydance Animation, along with a whole bunch of other producers. Their first release, Luck, an Apple original, has all the visual hallmarks of a Pixar production, though directors Peggy Holmes and Javier Abad – and writers Kiel Murray and Jonathan Aibel – don’t seem able to negotiate the fine line between emotion and mawkishness quite as skilfully as Pixar do.

The film starts confidently enough with orphan Sam (Eva Noblezada) turning eighteen and accepting that the ‘forever family’ she’s always longed for simply isn’t going to happen. She must strike out on her own, find a job and learn to fend for herself. It’s refreshing to see an older protagonist at the centre of an animated story and, when we learn that Sam’s always been cursed with bad luck, the point is skilfully demonstrated by a series of beautifully-timed slapstick routines.

But Sam’s luck changes dramatically for the better when she shares a snack with a talking black cat called Bob (entertainingly voiced by Simon Pegg in a dodgy Scottish accent. Don’t worry, it’s explained later…). Bob leaves behind a lucky penny, which Sam picks up – whereupon, her own luck changes for the better. If she drops a slice of toast now, it lands jam side up! But Sam vows to give that penny to a little girl at the orphanage, who Sam knows is hoping to be adopted.

When she inadvertently drops the penny down a toilet, Bob comes back in search of it – and, before she quite knows what’s happening, Sam is accompanying Bob to the legendary ‘Land of Luck’ in search of a replacement…

Luck is a bit of a mixed bag. The early sections, set in the real world, work just fine and hit the chuckle buttons, promising a thoroughly enjoyable experience – but, once in the fantasy world, everything becomes a bit too complicated for its own good and, as a result, it feels less assured. The story galumphs along at full steam expecting us to take a lot in our stride: a tribe of penny-polishing leprechauns with awful accents (no excuses offered this time); a Queen dragon voiced by Jane Fonda; a leprechaun captain (Whoopi Goldberg); and a camp moustachioed unicorn called Geoff (Flula Borg), who is fond of a workout down the gym.

But then it turns out there’s also a Land of Bad Luck and, when Geoff’s complicated machinery (it keeps the two opposing forces balanced) goes a bit haywire, we’re told there’s a danger of all the good luck in the world disappearing, a possibility that unfortunately generates no jeopardy whatsoever.

Not awful then, by any stretch of the imagination, but frankly not in the same league as some of Pixar’s big-hitters – though, truth be told, even they are struggling to reach their former heights. Why would that be I wonder? Bad stories? Bad management decisions ? Or just bad luck?

You decide.

3.4 stars

Philip Caveney

My Imaginary Country

11/07/23

The Cameo, Edinburgh

The young people at the heart of this documentary are genuinely awe-inspiring. Prior to watching this, I’ll admit that I was almost entirely ignorant of the situation in Chile, and certainly unaware of what this impressive grass-roots protest had achieved.

Sparked by – of all things – an increase in the price of subway tickets, the ensuing estallido soon expanded into a general call for equality and justice, a demand for a new way of living. Hundreds of thousands of people – primarily young women – stood up for the cause, persisting in the face of tear gas and military oppression. And they won, eventually forcing a change of government.

Patricio Guzmán is a seasoned documentary maker, and it shows. My Imaginary Country offers us a tentative celebration, combining a justifiable sense of pride and triumph with a note of caution about what could still go wrong. After all, Chileans are all too aware that their hard-won democracy can be plucked from them in an instant.

Nonetheless, the footage captured here is mesmerising. Drones reveal an apparently endless sea of people, the scope of their demands seemingly as inexhaustible as their number. They don’t confine themselves to a single issue. Instead, they want it all: increased pensions for the old, equal rights for LGBTQ+, better job prospects, free education, decent health care for all. In short, they want society to function properly, the way it’s meant to. They want politicians to live up to their promises.

Governments around the world should take note. Today’s youth knows how to mobilise; they know how to take matters into their own capable hands. And they’re tired of being ignored.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One

10/07/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Most long-running movie franchises start strong and steadily run out of steam. The Mission Impossible series, however, seems to be running in reverse. It kicked off way back in 1996 (inspired by Bruce Gellar’s groundbreaking 1960s TV series). Even with seasoned director Brian De Palma at the helm, the results were sort of so-so. Each successive film tried a new director with similar results and it wasn’t until Christopher McQuarrie came aboard for 2015’s Rogue Nation that the gears finally began to mesh. Indeed, 2018’s Fallout was an adrenalin-fuelled, five-star smash and I really didn’t see how McQuarrie and everybody’s favourite Sandi Toksvig-lookalike, Tom Cruise, could ever hope to reach such stratospheric heights again.

My doubts are reinforced when it’s revealed that Dead Reckoning is only Part One of a story. While I understand that films continually strive for ‘bigger’, if a tale cannot be fully encapsulated within the confines of a 163 minute running-time, then surely something is amiss?

But I’m happy to report that I’m wrong on this score. The latest instalment might not be the perfectly-crafted beast that was its predecessor, but it nonetheless runs a pretty close second.

This time around, the antagonist is not a person so much as a thing: an AI creation known as The Entity. (Brilliant timing on this, I have to say, with everyone and his dog looking at ChatGPT and predicting imminent doom.) When we first witness The Entity’s powers, it is taking out a Soviet nuclear submarine and pushing the world to the brink of destruction, so it’s pretty clear that Ethan Hunt and his merry crew are going to have their work cut out to bring this mission to a satisfactory conclusion.

Said merry crew includes old hands, Luther (Ving James), Benji (Simon Pegg) and Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson), and there’s also new recruit, Grace (Hayley Atwell), a talented pickpocket but – as it transpires – a pretty average driver. The boo-hiss brigade features the return of The White Witch (Vanessa Kirby), who is as smirkingly horrible as ever. The McGuffin this time around is a pair of interlocking keys, which have somehow become separated from each other. When combined, they will grant the possessor access to the sunken submarine where The Entity is currently housed. But the AI has a human ambassador called Gabriel (Esai Morales), who is accompanied everywhere by his enigmatic hit-woman, Paris (Pom Klementieff, without her Guardians of the Galaxy antennae). This formidable duo will go to any lengths to thwart Ethan.

Meanwhile, Hunt’s employer, Kittridge (Henry Czerny), continues to be as fiendish and unpredictable as the villains he’s supposedly trying to defeat. Which side is he on, anyway? I’m still not entirely sure.

As ever, the extremely complex plot is mostly an excuse to link together a whole smorgasbord of action set-pieces, which somehow manage to feel fresh and innovative, no matter how mundane they sound when listed: car chases and countdowns, punch-ups and explosions, mix-ups and murders – and, of course, Tom Cruise running across a variety of landscapes like Mo Farrah on poppers. All the usual suspects are here for your delectation and, it must be said, they are brilliantly executed. A final confrontation aboard an out-of-control Orient Express racks up the tension to such an unbearable degree, I’m virtually chewing my own fingers off.

And then…. Lalo Schifrin’s immortal theme music kicks in, the credits roll and, against all expectations, I find I’m still up for another instalment. Honestly, I can’t wait. Except I’ll have to. Dead Reckoning Part Two is currently scheduled for June 2024 and I’ll be one of the first in the queue – assuming AI hasn’t taken over mankind by then and turned us all into human kitty litter.

Just saying.

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney