Pan

From F*** Magazine

PAN

Director : Joe Wright
Cast : Levi Miller, Garrett Hedlund, Hugh Jackman, Rooney Mara, Amanda Seyfried, Leni Zieglmeier, Adeel Akhtar, Cara Delevingne, Jack Charles, Na Tae Joo, Nonso Anozie, Kathy Burke, Kurt Egyiawan, Lewis MacDougall
Genre : Adventure/Fantasy
Run Time : 112 mins
Opens : 8 October 2015
Rating : PG (Some Frightening Scenes and Violence)

The boy who would never grow old is also apparently the well that would never run dry, as here we are with yet another return to Neverland, this time to see how Peter Pan began. Peter (Miller) is an orphan in World War II-era England, who alongside his best friend Nibs (Lewis McDougall) bedevils the strict nuns who run the orphanage, holding out hope that his mother will one day return for him. One night, Peter gets spirited away via flying pirate ship to the magical realm of Neverland, where he is forced to work in the mines run by the flamboyant, tyrannical Blackbeard (Jackman). Peter befriends fellow miner James Hook (Hedlund) and along with Smee (Akhtar), they escape the mines. They run into Tiger Lily (Mara), princess of the Piccaninny tribe, who helps Peter discover his destiny and unveils the mysterious truth about Peter’s mother. With Blackbeard closing in, Peter must overcome his doubts and embrace his place as Neverland’s saviour.

Since Peter Pan’s creation by author J.M. Barrie in 1902, the character and the mythos has been adapted and reinterpreted innumerable times for the stage and screen. Pan hops aboard the “revisionist fairy-tale” bandwagon, recounting Peter’s secret origins. “This isn’t the story you’ve heard before,” the opening voiceover by Peter’s mother Mary (Seyfried) proudly proclaims. The thing is, the embellishments add very little to the story as we know it, with allusions to events that will unfold later on coming off less as knowing winks and more as on-the-nose insertions. Peter Pan’s early days as an orphan give the story a Dickensian spin and the visual of a flying pirate ship taking on RAF and Luftwaffe fighter planes during the Blitz is fun, but ultimately relatively pointless. That’s a good way to sum up Pan – “fun, but ultimately relatively pointless.”

Director Joe Wright set out to craft a family-friendly live-action fantasy adventure, and it turns out there aren’t that many of those in theatres these days. It is a positive sign that Pan avoids being dark and grim and embraces the joy that has become associated with Peter Pan. Visually, it is pretty to look at, production designer Aline Bonetto crafting some dazzling mini-worlds. However, it isn’t anything radically inventive, the look of Neverland’s various environs owing a lot to previous versions of the story and other fantasy films. Complaining about computer-generated imagery has become tiresome in and of itself, but the synthetic feel of the settings and creatures undercuts the whimsy and wonder the film is aiming for. There is a frustrating lack of soul behind the visuals, and this reviewer found himself switching off at times because there wasn’t anything to, pardon the pun, hook on to. The most egregious offenders are the skeletal Neverbirds, which look like rejects from The Nightmare Before Christmas and are straight-up cartoony in appearance, never seeming like they convincingly inhabit the landscape.

There are things about the film that work, chief of which is the title character. Australian child actor Miller is a revelation as Peter, fearlessly holding his own opposite Jackman and the other adult cast-members. There’s a fine blend of confidence, impishness and vulnerability in his performance which made this reviewer never question that he was the right choice to play Peter Pan. Miller also has enough personality such that he doesn’t come across as a too-cutesy production line Disney Channel moppet. There’s a messiah element to this interpretation of Peter – his mother is even named “Mary” – but that symbolism isn’t very meaningfully explored. Wait, Mary Darling was the mother of Wendy, John and Michael…it can’t be the same Mary, can it? This is confusing.

Jackman appears to have been paid in scenery, which he wolfs down with gusto, going the full Tim Curry as Blackbeard. He’s clearly having the time of his life, rocking the over-the-top Jacqueline Durran-designed costumes. He even gets to lead a chorus of miners in singing Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit - a delightfully bizarre anachronism that effectively highlights the “outside of time” nature of Neverland. There was never any question as to whether or not he would be entertaining and Jackman’s sinister glee papers over some of the cracks in the well-worn story.

Captain Hook is reimagined as a charming rogue very firmly in the Han Solo mould, with Hedlund drawling and smirking his way through the part. Hedlund is pretty bland, lacking the dangerous charisma that should hint at Hook’s destiny as Peter’s arch-nemesis. The “friend-turned-enemies” plot device is kind of tired and is yet another example of an attempt to put a spin on things that is only semi-successful at best.

Mara is also quite stiff as Tiger Lily, the Princess Leia to Hook’s Han, even though she does get to partake in the action. There was a degree of controversy surrounding the casting of a, well, lily-white actress in the part, seeing as the Piccaninny Tribe are analogous to Native Americans. In the film, the tribe is composed of various ethnicities and we even get Korean actor Na Tae-joo as martial arts fighter Kwahu, who seems awfully reminiscent of Hook’s iconic Rufio. It’s a shame that the role was whitewashed, since there really is no justification for Tiger Lily not being played by a person of colour, especially given the dearth of roles in Hollywood for actors of Native American origin. On the other hand, the typically-white Mr. Smee is played by Adeel Akhtar, a British actor of Pakistani origin. Akhtar displays solid comedic chops, his Smee doing a fair amount of the expected bumbling about.

Under the guise of reinventing the story of Peter Pan, Pan walks a well-trodden path, presenting a bog-standard hero’s journey/chosen one plot that just happens to be set in a fantastical location. There are entertaining sequences, a few genuinely creative sparks and good performances, but the CGI-heavy visuals are insufficiently enchanting and screenwriter Jason Fuchs doesn’t make many worthwhile additions to the mythology. “To live will be an awfully big adventure,” Barrie famously wrote. We guess a medium-sized adventure will have to suffice.

Summary: A middling fantasy adventure that never quite takes flight, Pan is another revisionist fairy-tale that doesn’t fully justify its existence, but should be fun enough for the tykes in the audience.

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Her

For F*** Magazine

HER

Director: Spike Jonze
Cast:  Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Pratt, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Spike Jonze, Sam Jaeger, Katherine Boecher, Rachel Ann Mullins, David Azar
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Run Time: 126 mins
Opens: 16 January 2014
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scene)

A good forty-ish years ago, few imagined that a sizeable portion of the world’s population would have a personal computer on their desk at home, let alone one in their purse or pocket. And yet here we are, with cell phones that also function as cameras, day planners, maps, compasses, media players and any number of other things. There’s even an “intelligent personal assistant” in the form of Apple Inc.’s Siri (who is aware of the existence of this film, and is not entirely fond of its portrayal of artificial intelligence, in case you were wondering). Writer-director Spike Jonze asks the question “Could you fall in love with Siri?” Okay, that doesn’t do this justice, so read on.

It is the not-too-distant future and Theodore Twombly (Phoenix) is a writer living and working in Los Angeles. He is employed at BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com, where he helps clients express their feelings and emotions for someone in the form of computer-generated letters designed to look like the genuine article. Going through the final stages of divorce with his wife Catherine (Mara), Theodore is morose and lonely and gets himself the O.S. 1 – “It’s not just an operating system, it’s a consciousness”. The O.S. is configured into Samantha (Johansson): friendly, chirpy, helpful, efficient…one might almost forget she’s not a real person. Over time, this strange and wonderful relationship blossoms, and Theodore finds himself falling for his operating system and stops to consider the myriad implications of that possibility.



Like Jonze’s earlier works Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, Her is destined to be analysed, dissected and keenly examined by many a curious film student. Movies that fit this description tend to be impenetrable and inaccessible, functioning as examples of that maxim “true art is incomprehensible”. With Her, Jonze has crafted a film that doesn’t come across as lofty and high-falutin’. He has managed to marry a heartfelt tenderness with keen, astute social commentary, all wrapped up in a beautifully-photographed sci-fi package.

There are a flurry of thematic elements and ideas presented in Her. Has increased connectivity resulted in a lack of human connection? What constitutes a relationship? Can one enter into a romance with an intangible entity? Why do we need physical intimacy and does it matter from where it’s derived? Why do we try to emulate artifacts of a bygone era with the technology of today? Must we really conform to the roles society expects us to? Jonze doesn’t merely list them as this writer just has, he orders these thoughts elegantly, framing them within a well-realised near-future milieu created by production designer K. K. Barrett, costume designer Casey Storm, art director Austin Gorg and other crew members. It’s certainly more Shanghai than it is L.A., but there are delightful little design touches that ensure it’s “just futuristic enough”.

Praise has been lavished upon the performances in Her and it is well-deserved. Phoenix has gained a reputation as a capable, serious, extraordinarily intense and unpredictable performer, not your garden-variety movie star, as evidenced by incidences like his I’m Still Here social experiment/bizarre performance art piece. Here, Phoenix plays an everyman, Jonze refusing to turn Theodore into a stereotypical “loser” the way many other directors might. He is sweet, sympathetic, unsure of himself and still very wounded from the dissolution of his marriage. A lot of screen time is dedicated to close-ups of Phoenix’s face and seemingly inconsequential moments like a casual expression of being slightly disturbed during an off-kilter phone sex session are carefully realised by the actor. Theodore is not as unstable and discombobulated as the protagonists of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, both artists like Theodore, but in Phoenix’s hands, he is by no means less interesting.

Johansson goes from being Black Widow to an amorous J.A.R.V.I.S., replacing the actress initially cast as Samantha, Samantha Morton. Johansson is known for her sexy voice, husky yet distinctly feminine, and with that voice and that voice alone, she gives one of the greatest performances of her career. Samantha comes across as cheerful, curious about the world, cheeky and playful, opening Theodore up to the simple joys of his existence, a ‘manic pixel dream girl’ if you will. However, Jonze in his writing and Johansson in her portrayal make Samantha far more than your average example of that trope, approaching “What is this thing you call love?” in the most compelling of ways and eventually subverting what might be an eye-roll-worthy character type. Show us a movie where Zooey Deschanel tangles with metaphysical transcendence.



The discussion of her eligibility come awards season can be seen as an extension of one of the themes in the film: does a voice-only performance qualify for an award as much any other type of performance?  Can an artificial construct ace the Turing test to the point where it’s indistinguishable from a person? There’s a crucial scene in the movie in which this idea is cleverly played with. The screen goes black, and for that brief period, it seems as if Samantha is physically interacting with Theodore as we can only hear both their voices and the chemistry they generate together is through the roof.

The rest of the cast is good too, Amy Adams playing the diametric opposite of her American Hustle role, largely make-up-free and recalling Cameron Diaz in Being John Malkovich. Chris Pratt is gently funny as Theodore’s colleague at BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com and Mara is suitably frosty as his soon-to-be ex-wife, short flashbacks showing how rosy things were to start with. Olivia Wilde is only really in one scene but she is effective as Theodore’s blind date. Jonze himself gets a small role, entertainingly voicing a foul-mouthed alien child in a video game Theodore plays, quite possibly a spoof of many a Seth MacFarlane-style character. Listen out for vocal cameos from the likes of Kristin Wiig and Brian Cox, too.



Her has been compared to largely-forgotten 80s comedy Electric Dreams but perhaps it’s more like S1m0ne (also largely-forgotten), in which a desperate film director fabricates an A.I. actress that he tries to pass off as the real deal. Her handles the idea with far more wit and sophistication, delving far past the surface of its high-concept premise, and yet admirably avoids coming off as smug. Jonze’s screenplay is, on the surface, a less-complex affair than any of the scripts written by oft-collaborator Charlie Kaufman, but it is by no means poorly-written and Jonze’s command of character, emotion, tone and subtext is nothing short of masterful. Her is an “examination of” and a “meditation on” increasingly pertinent issues in the way we lead our lives in today’s “smart”, hyper-connected world, but it is far from clinical and sterile – as that description might suggest.

SUMMARY: Spike Jonze brings a deft intelligence and a disarmingly personal warmth and vulnerability to one of the best cinematic romances in recent memory, if not ever.

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

The Social Network

Just caught this film on DVD, having missed it while it was in theatres.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK

2010

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Armie Hammer, Josh Pence

Directed by: David Fincher

Relativity Media/Trigger Street Productions, Dist. Columbia Pictures

When news that this film would be made was first released, the internet was aflutter - but mainly with skepticism. The names seemed solid enough - David Fincher as director, Aaron Sorkin as the scribe, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross scoring - but, understandably, everyone asked "how would one make a movie about Facebook? Who's going to watch that?"

The thing is, The Social Network is not about Facebook. It's perhaps like saying Raiders of the Lost Ark was about the Ark of the Convenant. We all know "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was about Indiana Jones, Marion Ravenwood, Belloq, Thot...but lest I digress, the genesis the success of this movie is in deciding the route to take.

The film is based upon the book "The Accidental Billionaires", by Ben Mezrich. Mezrich has had another of his books turned into a film before, and that film was the awful 21. That's the thing - when I heard of 21, I desperately wanted it to be something like The Social Network turned out to be.

Spurned by his ex-girlfriend (Rooney Mara), gifted but very unlikable Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg (Eisenberg) spitefully creates “facemash”, a website to rate the appearance of the campus femmes. And so begins his rollercoaster journey to becoming Time magazine’s 2010 Person of the Year and the second-youngest billionaire alive (Dustin Mokowitz, the first programmer and coder for Facebook, is eight days older than Zuckerberg) His best friend Eduardo Saverin (Garfield), the affluent and influential twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss (Armie Hammer, Josh Pence as stand-in) and freewheeling and charismatic Napster founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) all become chess pieces in the grandmaster's game – and pieces will fall off the board.

David Fincher is known for being able to spin engaging yarns that affect on a psychological level, and pull audiences along for the ride. The Social Network is no different. From the get-go, it's a kinetic, mile-a-minute experience, akin to watching a high-quality action film - only that there's not one explosion in The Social Network. With a screenplay like Aaron Sorkin's, it doesn't need any at all.

"The Social Network" is slick and a complete filmgoing experience - it feels like a great amount of effort was put into every aspect of production. Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield carry the film ably, natch, and have immediately become hot commodities in Hollywood - the former nominated for a Best Actor Oscar (up against the likes of Colin Firth and Jeff Bridges), the latter the new Spider-Man. Indeed, Garfield gave off a strong Peter Parker-type vibe, changing my early opinions about The Amazing Spider-Man (after seeing that horrid costume).

Stylistically and aesthetically, the film is pretty much perfect, glamourous and sexy – Director of Photography and Fincher alum (from Fight Club) Jeff Cronenweth’s cinematography is smooth and cool, the film fashioning itself as an exclusive inside look behind the scenes, giving us hoi polloi a peek at the world of sex, drugs and money surrounding Facebook’s genesis. However, that’s the thing – it looks too pretty to feel like it’s based on a true story. Indeed, most of the film does feel like conjecture, but it doesn’t matter because it tells a good story. The Social Network probably didn’t set out to be a documentary anyway.

I feel that Jesse Eisenberg’s Mark Zuckerberg turns out to be one of the greatest screen villains of all time, in the company of the likes of Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter, Heath Ledger’s Joker, and Malcolm McDowell’s Alex. I'm in no position to say if the real-life Zuckerberg is indeed anything like this portrayal, but either way Eisenberg did an astounding job. When characters who display traits of Asperger’s Syndrome feature in movies, they’re usually very nice deep down, or quirky and odd but likable. Zuckerberg as portrayed here is anything but – ruthless, cold, incredibly intelligent and with barely a shred of sympathetic quality until the very end of the film and Eisenberg nails all these qualities in this intense and absorbing turn.

The way the film presents it, the only true “good guy” swimming in the sea of sharks is Eduardo Saverin, as played by Garfield – probably because the real-life Saverin was the only member of the Facebook team who served as consultant to author Ben Mezrich. Still, Garfield is charming, real and puts his game face on to tackle the screenplay, and wins.

The supporting cast is strong, including Justin Timberlake’s suave, self-assured turn as Napster founder Sean Parker. Timberlake is a better actor than given credit for, but he can only play one type of role well. Good thing then that Sean Parker is exactly that kind of role.

However, I do question the decision to have Armie Hammer portray both Winklevoss twins, his visage digitally pasted onto body double Josh Pence to achieve the effect. Sure the CGI looks almost flawless, but it does sometimes (blasphemous as it sounds) remind one of any of the awful Eddie Murphy comedies where he insists on playing both characters. Hammer is a decent actor, but try as he might he was unable to sell the idea of two separate characters who look and sound alike but are otherwise individuals.

Aaron Sorkin, master of the “walk-and-talk” genre as displayed in The West Wing, gives us a “run-and-talk” instead, his screenplay demonstrating incredibly brisk and astute pacing, throwing in the right amount of technobabble so we can tenuously believe the computer know-how that went into creating the website, and also developing compelling, complex characters that you just can’t look away from.

Ultimately, the film is much like a modern-day retelling of Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein” – of how a brilliant, misunderstood and possibly evil genius created a monster, a monster that escaped his control, granting him fame and fortune by way of invading the lives of 600 million people around the world – and for so effectively getting such a frightening reality to take strong roots in the minds of such a mass audience, The Social Network is exceedingly praiseworthy.

RATING: 4/5 STARS

Jedd Jong