Film reviews – by Adam Vaughan
Film of the Week:
Other Films:
What To Expect When You Are Expecting
Rating key – ◊ Total turkey | ♥ Drooping hotdog | ♥♥ Pick n Mix | ♥♥♥ Bit of fizz | ♥♥♥♥ Popcorn-tastic | ♥♥♥♥♥ Not to be missed
Moonrise Kingdom (12A) ♥♥♥♥
If Wes Anderson ever made a film starring Zooey Deschanel, I think my head would explode. Such is the kookiness of their direction and acting respectively that it may be too much to bear.
Luckily, his latest, Moonrise Kingdomwhich opened Cannes 2012, does not live or die by its off-centric oddness. And it doesn’t star Deschanel. Phew.
Moonrise Kingdom
Instead, it centres on two young lovers living on New Penzance Island. Sam (Jared Gilman) is an orphan, rejected by his foster parents, and a member of Camp Ivanhoe’s scout group. He falls in love with Suzy. She has three brothers and dysfunctional parents, Bill Murray and Frances McDormand who converse by way of a megaphone.
One day, she receives a letter from Sam, who has “flown the coup” of the scouts camp, instructing her to meet him so that they can run away together. Suzy’s parents subsequently organise a search party which includes local police chief, Captain Sharp (Bruce Willis) and Scout Master Ward (Ed Norton).
But this isn’t your typical Wes Anderson quirk-fest. Sure, some very odd dancing and Camp Ivanhoe, with its roll call of bloodthirsty scouts adds strangeness to proceedings. However, at the heart of Moonrise Kingdom is a sweet coming-of-age romcom with lovely performances from the two leads.
There’s no denying that Anderson is one of cinema’s most distinctive aesthetes working at the moment, his stringently designed frames of retro surrealism belying a deeper sadness. However, unlike previous efforts Rushmore, The Royal Tennenbaums and Fantastic Mr Fox, here he manages to blend these constituent parts into an amusingly absurd treat.
Men In Black 3 (PG) ♥♥♥
Just about enjoyably silly enough to warrant a sequel ten years on from the last, Men in Black 3 also features one of the most inspired pieces of casting in recent memory.
It’s necessitated by MIB3’s time travel reboot tactic. Following a lunar prison breakout, Agent J (Will Smith) and Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) must track down Boris the Animal (Flight of the Conchord’s Jermaine Clement). He’s a (rather ugly) face from K’s past and the alien plans to go back in time to kill K and instigate an invasion to Earth.
Men In Black 3
J must go back to 1969 and intercept Boris. This also means meeting a young Agent K (Josh Brolin). Turns out he’s just as crabby and mono-emotional and Brolin puts in an extraordinary performance that goes further than mere impersonation. Down to the smallest tic and movement of gait, Brolin captures Jones’s southern drawl and downtrodden demeanour perfectly.
Smith and Brolin really spark off one another and mention should also be made to Emma Thompson for being a good sport as the new MIB CEO and Michael Stuhlbarg as an interesting character who can see multiple futures.
Even if the rest of the action is amicably daft and feels somewhat dated, MIB3 is worth a watch if only for Brolin’s dead ringer.
What To Expect When You Are Expecting (12A) ♥♥
On the face of it, What to Expect belongs to the Valentine’s Day/ New Year’s Eve method of get a bunch of stars together and interconnect them with queasy character arcs where they systematically – and laboriously – ‘find themselves and each other’. In What to Expect, these ditties centre on expectant couples.
So we follow Cameron Diaz as a no-nonsense fitness coach from a ‘Biggest Loser’-style reality show who does a stint on a ‘Strictly’-style dance competition (original, eh?). She falls for her dance partner, Glee’s Matthew Morrison. But can she balance the prospect of motherhood with her strenuous celebrity activities?
What To Expect When You Are Expecting
Elsewhere, Jennifer Lopez and Rodrigo Santoro star as a couple planning to adopt. Lopez checks her partner in to daddy rehab by organising meetings with a group of stay-at-home fathers, led by Chris Rock, to help ease him in to the role. The problem is that the pram-pushing gang all bitch and moan about fatherhood. Will J-Lo’s beau commit as a dad?
There are others; Twilight’s Anna Kendrick has a one night stand with Chace Crawford that ends with…Yep, you guessed it. And Elisabeth Banks plays an uptight mom-to-be who is in constant competition with her father-in-law’s (Dennis Quaid) ditsy wife.
In fact, her character’s onstage meltdown at a baby expo in the final act is perhaps the funniest part of the film. She describes her emotional turmoil, aches and pains and how she craves to punch her partner in the face. It oddly complements my feelings towards the film. Granted, these characters aren’t as sickeningly self-involved as those from Valentine’s Day or New Year’s Eve, but this is sickly-sweet entertainment.