ParaNorman (2012)

Dir: Chris Butler, Sam Fell

Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Anna Kendrick, Christopher Mintz-Plasse

                From the people who brought you Coraline comes a story of an outsider and the living dead.

                Norman (Kodi Smit-Mcphee) is a misunderstood kid, bullied because he claims he can see and talk to ghosts. His parents and sister don’t understand him, especially since he claims his dead Grandmother is sitting in their living room. Norman becomes friends with fellow outcast Neil (Tucker Albrizzi) who believes in Norman’s gift. Norman and Neil team up with their siblings and school bully to stop zombies rising because of a witches curse.

                ParaNorman is a film for children, that doesn’t treat them like children. It has a good line in dark humour and can even be a little scary at times. It contains plenty of in jokes and references to horror films which will go far over the heads of the young ones. The film is made by people with a love for the genre, people who like Norman, watched horror films as a child.

                The film, as you would expect, looks great with a blend of stop motion animation and CGI. The voice acting is good and the soundtrack, particularly when any zombies are on screen, has synth references to George A Romero zombie films and other horror films of the 70’s and 80’s.

                ParaNorman is often funny but unfortunately it is never hilarious. The characters and references create chuckles but I was hoping for more hilarity throughout.  It does however, build to a very good climax. At turns beautiful and scary it is a brave ending for a film mostly aimed at children, with a message about prejudice and acceptance.

                Very well made and a lot of fun, ParaNorman is a film for both kids and adults. I just wish it had been even funnier.

4 Out of 5 Buttons

Lawless (2012)

Dir: John Hillcoat

Starring: Tom Hardy, Shia LeBeouf, Guy Pearce

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2pjH_dQQDg

                John Hillcoat teams up with Nick Cave on writing duty for the first time since the brilliant The Proposition for a based on a true story tale of a prohibition family.

                 Jack Bondurant (Shia LeBeouf) is the youngest of the three Bondurant brothers, a bootlegging family in depression era Franklin County. Forrest Bondurant (Tom Hardy) is the formidable patriarchal figure of the family keeping them together and Howard Bondurant (Jason Clarke) is the troubled muscle of the three. Trouble comes in the form of Officer Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce) who has come to town to stamp down on bootlegging.

                Hillcoat has assembled a great cast with everyone working their best. Guy Pearce is great as a hugely unlikable bad guy with the right amount of sliminess and barely covered brutal violence. Gary Oldman, Jessica Chastain and Mia Wasikowska do their best in their unfortunately underused roles. If you’re worried about Shia LeBeouf’s acting ability judged on his previous efforts in multiple blockbuster hits then you need not worry as he plays Jack well. He conveys the naive arrogance of thinking he can play at being one of the big boys and feels young and inexperienced enough to be downtrodden when the big boys fight back. Tom Hardy again impresses as Forrest, the Bondurant brother trying to keep it all together, a man of who can be gentle and fatherly yet also violent and brutal. The period details and setting are all great and creates an interesting community.

                Lawless has enough to keep you interested and there are some interesting scenes of revenge and of character drama but the film doesn’t have the thrust that it should. It tries to give us a drama about a family and a crime story at the same time but they don’t work together as a cohesive whole. Some of the family story should have been trimmed down to give the Guy Pearce storyline more thrust and weight. As such it meanders a little. Also the Subplot with Gary Oldman’s criminal leader Floyd Banner is introduced and crops up again occasionally but is never resolved and never really leads to anything. It only serves to show Jack Bondurant’s attempts to work his way dangerously into the business and is a waste of a potentially good plot thread and the great acting of Gary Oldman.

                Entertaining enough with some good acting and interesting parts but overall Lawless isn’t as interesting as you hope it will be. A disappointment but let’s hope Hillcoat and Cave continue working together as they still have so much more to give.

3 Out of 5 Buttons

Dredd 3D (2012)

Dir: Pete Travis

Starring: Karl Urban, Olivia Thrilby, Lena Headey

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbCfqGsXu3M

                2000 A.D’s most famous lawman returns in a welcome reboot, written by Alex Garland.

                Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) is Judge, Jury and Executioner on the crime ridden streets of Mega City One. He is given the job of testing Psychic Judge Anderson in her final exam to become a Judge. They respond to a murder at the Peach Trees tower block which houses the manufacture and base of operations for new drug, Slo-Mo, and violent drug dealer Ma-Ma (Lena Headey). She locks down the building and puts out a death order on the judges and it’s left to Dredd and Anderson to fight their way out.

                Dredd is a lot of fun. It has plenty of action and gore to satisfy the paying Action movie and comic book crowds. The insides of the Peach Tree’s building look suitably grimy and stained giving a real feeling of a packed dangerous apartment block.  The criminals and Judge’s are as violent and aggressive as they should be in Mega City One and the violence stays to true the comic book. Karl Urban has the chin and grimace to make a good Dredd, Olivia Thrilby is fine as the inexperienced rookie thrown into the thick of things and Lea Headey convinces as the unforgiving and violent Ma-Ma.

The film does fall foul of some cliché’s. It unfortunately shares exactly the same story as The Raid which was released earlier this year, and it’s good guys trapped behind enemy lines has been storyline which has been seen several times before.

                The film may not be hugely original but it does manage to stick in some good ideas. One particularly good scene sees Judge Anderson using her psychic powers to find out information from a suspect through a battle of sickening thoughts. It also manages to use 3D in an interesting way. The Slo-Mo sections are bathed in golden colour and are beautiful despite some of the gory images on screen. Glittering glass falls around you, water slowly flies through the air, all to the sound of Ethereal voices. It is the best use of 3D that I have seen since the form has become popular.

                Dredd deserves a bigger budget and unfortunately its low cost does show through. Mega City One doesn’t look as futuristic as it should do; it just looks like Johannesburg, where it was actually filmed, with a bit of CGI plumping. The Judges’ bikes just look like normal motorbikes with a bit of metal stuck to the front. It would be good for them to be handed a bigger budget so we can get out of one setting and find out a bit more about Mega City One and the world Dredd inhabits.

                A fun and entertaining action film that does something interesting with 3D. A sequel will be something to look forward to.

3 and a half Buttons out of 5

Berberian Sound Studio (2012)

Dir: Peter Strickland

Starring: Toby Jones, Cosimo Fusco, Susanna Cappellaro

                Gilderoy (Toby Jones) is a sheltered English sound engineer who is brought over to Italy to work on a horror film. He arrives into the hostile environment of the sound studio and slowly becomes affected by the violent images of the film, The Equestrian Vortex.

                Berberian Sound Studio isn’t your usual horror film. It features no violent or gory images but still manages to create an unsettling atmosphere. It uses sound to create this. Gilderoy is working on the sound effects and sound track for a typically violent and gory Italian Giallo film. Though we don’t see them, we hear all the sounds, the screams, the squelch and mash of vegetables being chopped to recreate the sound of bodies, of the violent images in the film they are sound tracking. Instead of bodily gore we get close up shots of the mashed and rotting vegetables in the studio. We don’t see anyone get killed but we get close up shots of the actor’s faces and eyes as they recreate the screams of their characters in the soundbooth for the soundtrack to the fake film. We see the images through Gilderoy’s disturbed facial expressions. It’s left to us to imagine what’s happening on screen. Berberian Sound Studio deserves the Oscar for best sound which unfortunately it will never win.

                Gilderoy is our guide through the film. We are as confused about the Italian characters around him as he is. They are hostile towards him without clear reason and it’s only slowly through the film do we understand the difficulties and tensions surrounding the creation of The Equestrian Vortex. Toby Jones gives a great performance, brilliantly conveying the sheltered Gilderoy slowly changing whilst having to watch violence over and over.

                Though it’s at heart a horror film, Berberian Sound Studio is also partly a documentary of a Foley studio, one of the most important yet mostly overlooked and misunderstood aspects of film making. Set almost entirely in the fake sound studio of the film’s title, in the 70’s, it gives you an interesting insight into what went in to creating the right sounds for a film and also makes for an interesting and original setting.

                Unfortunately the film never quite does anything with the unsettling atmosphere and the tension it builds. Its third act goes a bit too far, folding in on itself. This doesn’t spoil your experience of the film; it just doesn’t push it to the next level.

                Part documentary, part historical horror film, Berberian Sound Studio is an unusual, original and very unsettling film with some great performances. The antidote to over the top gore horror.

4 out of 5 Buttons