Film Reviews by Alphaville

An interesting film but lacking in drama. It’s slow-paced with too many repetitive scenes of men in grey suits talking in monotones in colourless rooms. The narrative stalls in places and the unconvincing ending comes out of nowhere. But the well-presented premise, together with occasional striking scenes, will certainly keep you watching.

Well, whadya know? Despite other reviews on this site (check IMDB), this is one teen film worth catching. It takes 30 minutes to get going, the music soundtrack is awful and it’s not as good as the Swedish original (Den Osynlige), but… Our hero’s body has been left for dead, hidden in a forest. His spirit, invisible to everyone onscreen, roams free to try to inform someone before he dies. The mechanics of his attempts to affect people are fascinating, even if some of them are puzzling, and it’s beautifully directed. Single-take shots, hand-held shots, the colour scheme – all have their place, as discussed on the director’s unusually revealing DVD commentary. Sure, it’s no masterpiece, but even in its failings film buffs will find it an unexpected treat.

Two men meet – one a bank robber, the other a retired schoolteacher – and discover that each envies the other’s life. That’s about it, really. This 2002 film was well received at the time, but it would have made a better play than a movie. It has nowhere to go and basically just marks time.

In this 2003 French drama the spark has gone out of the marriage of Fanny Ardant and Gérard Depardieu and Gérard is having affairs. So Fanny pays prostitute Emanuelle Béart to seduce him and report back in explicit – very explicit – detail. It’s an enthralling erotic drama as only the French can make: thought-provoking, gloriously free of moralising, full of romantic melancholy and with mysterious Hitchcockian overtones. You’ll want to know what happens.

NB Misleading title. We follow Tuppence Middleton as she recovers her memory after a fire. There’s a twist plot point after half an hour, but not enough to save the film. It’s just not a very interesting tale and this underwhelming treatment adds nothing to it. Even at 86 minutes it drags. Some scenes seem contrived simply to show Tuppence topless.

The first half-hour is a spectacular futuristic special effects battle between some people and some other people. It’s a visual spectacle, but what the heck is it all about? After that we have another 2½ hours mostly of politicking and Chinese propaganda, with poor acting and a pseudo-science plot that makes no sense. Hard to care, hard to sit through.

Fascinating to see Gerard and Isabelle before they became big stars, but the film itself is a mess that does them no service. You may need to check the DVD sleeve notes to find out what’s going on. Scenes lack focus, acting and dialogue are poor and the director just doesn’t seem to have a handle on it. A waste of all the talents involved.

After the wokist travesty of Pride and Prejudice, at least this over-hyped Greta Gerwig kids’ movie is an improvement. I know, it had to be. Still, let’s give it a charitable two stars instead of one. Unless you’re an uncritical young girl, it’s still surely a pain to sit through, with its embarrassingly simplistic brain-dead message shoved down our throats to a cheery muzak score (except for the obligatory plinky-plonk piano during the cringe-worthy maudlin bits). There’s so little going on here besides the bubblegum message that it has to run out of steam and does so with impressive tawdriness by filling screen-time with barrel-scraping musical numbers.

“Just tell me what you want, what you really really want.” You might as well listen to the Spice Girls as watch this movie. That would save time, have more intellectual heft and, hard to believe, be less annoying.

Manic sequel to the joyous original misfires completely. It aims to be madcap, but it lacks the surprise value of the original and the shouty, pantomime humour just grates.

Gritty, score-free, kitchen-sink rendering of a Mexican kidnap story. It even begins in a kitchen. It’s the kind of film that features over-long static takes of head-shots, whether talking or not talking. Any action usually takes place off camera while we watch someone react to it. Naturally it’s been championed by arthouses and shown at Cannes, but it’s achingly slow and dull.

Together or apart, Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin were fascinating people and cultural icons. Named after their notorious hit single, this unbelievable and typically outrageous 1976 film he made of her – a waitress falling for a homosexual garbage man – is little more than an excuse to show her naked. Ironically, the fact that it pushes boundaries while being at the same time amateurishly bad makes it fascinating to watch, so two stars for sheer effrontery.

After a static opening with Florence Pugh emoting in close-up on the phone for ages, it remains a stagey talkfest until the main characters move to Sweden after a long half-hour. At least we have some sunny outdoor scenes now, but it remains soooo slow. The plot, minimal though it is, gets sillier and sillier until it turns into The Wicker Man. If you liked that similarly over-rated film, you might find something to keep you awake here, otherwise don’t waste your time.

Hard to believe this sort of propaganda film is still being made in the 2020s. Even if you’re on the Chinese side, surely it must seem ridiculous. The snowy battle scenes are lavishly filmed by acclaimed director Tsui Hark, but the heroic Chinese soldiers are hammy cardboard cut-outs and the wooden American soldiers, obviously poorly directed, are a joke. There’s plenty of repetitive explosive action, but have pyrotechnics ever been so boring?

So over-stylised and irritating it’s impossible to watch. Visuals, dialogue, acting… unreal characters droning boring speeches to camera… nothing of interest happening… Couldn’t last more than fifteen minutes before hitting FF. How can anyone give this boring Emperor’s Clothes of a film five stars? One star for the Spanish set’s nice colours.

Terrific balletic wirework fight scenes with a supercool heroine, an intense floppy-haired baddie and a nerdy hero. Shame about the hero, who is hammy and off-putting. This makes the overlong between-action scenes boring, even childishly knockabout to begin with, but the character does evolve. In any case it’s the fight scenes that make the film worth the price of admission. Beautifully choreographed and directed, the climactic rumble lasts a whole 20 minutes.