Winter’s Tale

Its Valentine’s Day (or it was yesterday :-p) and one had to expect a slew of either RomComs or Romance movies.  Surprisingly, Akiva Goldsman’s adaptation of the 1983 Mark Helprin novel, A Winter’s Tale is the only Valentine’s release that is truly targeted at all those couples who are very much in love (read louv).

Saving Mr. Banks

John Lee Hancock is a very choosy person.  How did I deduce that? Well, in 54 years, Hancock has made 7 movies and written 9 screenplays.  Of these 16 pieces of work, 4 overlap leaving us with a total of 12 assignments.  In a career spanning over 20 years, that’s being choosy.  But that’s also being a stickler for perfection – The Rookie, Alamo and The Blind Side are 3 of Hancock’s recent works.

Epic

Those familiar with my writing, would know that I have the softest of spots for this genre of cinema.  It takes a lot to make a quality animation movie.  And the least obvious aspect is probably the quality of animation.  I say that because in this day and age, with the amount of technology that one has access to, anyone can come up with animation of reasonable quality.

Total Recall (2012)

When was the last time you saw Kate Beckinsale in a negative role? The word you would be looking for maybe “Never”. And I would love to be informed about an instance if it ever happened in the past. Just another piece of useless info that I may find useful sometime . Having said that, even if this is a first of its kind, I strongly believe that she should not stop picking up such roles. In the nearly 2 hours that you will stay in the hall, she is probably the only reason you will have to actually stay in your seat.

Scenes without Beckinsale, pale in comparison to the rest of the movie. Especially because you have 2 of THE most over rated actors in Hollywood hogging a big chunk of the screen time. An Irish man called Colin Farrell and a Latina looking hottie called Jessica Biel. Both of them are fine human specimens and worth ogling at. But unfortunately, that’s where it ends.

Very rarely has Colin Farrell shown signs of being a good actor. Maybe in The Recruit and Phone Booth. Total Recall doesn’t do much to change it. Most scenes are splattered with the registered Trade Mark constipated, weight of the world on my shoulders look. And the lesser said of Ms. Biel, the better – only in the acting department. Actually, in this one she slips to an all time low I think. Unfortunately, with only 3 key characters hogging the screen time, it gets really difficult.

Total Recall (2012) is almost identical to the 1990 movie of the same name which starred the Austrian born, ex-governor of the great state of California (USA). It is based on the book by famed SciFi writer, Philip Dick. The book is titled “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”. Credit to the makers of this version that they actually call it out as “Based on the movie – Total Recall (1990)”.

While a lot of the paraphernalia and the breaks in the story line have been removed in this version, the overall concept continues to remain the same. Chemical warfare has got the world to almost an end. There are 2 places left to stay in – The United Federation of Britain (UFB) which is erstwhile Europe & The Colony which is esrstwhile Australia. Both are connected by a mode of transportation called “The Fall” which is a high velocity automobile that goes straight through Mother Earth passing the core on the way.

Douglas Quaid (Farrell), a citizen of The Colony, is a man who is bored of his job that doesn’t seem to be making a difference to anyone’s life. In an attempt to add spice to his life, he goes to a local agency called “Rekall” (yes it is with a K and not C) which promises great memories without changing your life in general. Quaid is married to Lori (Beckinsale) and is troubled with some dreams which shows him trying to escape soldiers of the UFB and saving a girl (Biel) whose name he doesn’t know. At Rekall, he signs up for a memory of a “spy” and as they would say – the roller coaster begins.

Total Recall – this version – is again not upto the mark that it could have reached. Len Wiseman is a strong SciFi director and makes up for the lack of intensity with SFX that are quite good. But after all of that, he only had his Underworld star to bank on and doesn’t really come up with a block buster. Not a must watch. 5 on 10.

Watch the trailer on http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi297444633/

The Way Back

Based on a true story on which a book has been written, The Way Back, is the story of a few mad men (that’s the only way I can describe them) who would have rather died free in the cold of Siberia than in a prison camp where they were being held. Not many (in fact I cant think of any) movies have been made on the not so fair calls taken by Stalin in the build up to the World War. Maybe it would be fair to say that Josep found himself on the right side of Roosevelt. The book used for the screenplay was called The Long Walk (you bet it was long!!!! – 4000 miles long!!!) by Sławomir Rawicz. But no one said that when you make a movie from a book with the word Long in the title, you have the right to get the movie to associate with the same adjective. Director Peter Weir (Truman Show, Master and Commander) seems to have got it wrong this time around with clichés such as unnecessary long shots of 6 people walking down the desert and arid plains of Mongolia or with his complete lack of continuity between several shots. Unless of course the print that was sent across to India wasn’t the final cut.


Nevertheless, getting on with it. The Way Back is the story of 8 people who are locked up by Stalin in a prison camp in Siberia. Its around 1939 and Hitler has occupied one part of Poland and Stalin the other. The Polish are however stuck right in the middle and are obviously not too pleased with it. This is when Janusz (Jim Sturgess) gets imprisoned for anti Stalin activities. Here he meets an American who has gone as cold as the weather in Siberia and goes by the name of Smith (Ed Harris) and a first name of Mister. He also gets acquainted with five other men – Valka (Colin Farrell) a hardened Russian Criminal, Tomasz (Alexandru Potocean) an artist who survives at the camp by making erotic sketches, Kazik (Sebastian Urzendowsky) a young boy who suffers from night blindness, Voss (Gustaf Skarsgård) a Latvian Priest and Zoran (Dragos Bucur) an accountant from the erstwhile Yugoslavia. And then there is an actor, Khabarov (Mark Strong) whose only way of surviving in the madness of the prison is to weave fantasies about how it is possible to escape from the camp. But then he meets Janusz who takes the concept too seriously and when he finds an opportunity, the 8 of them decide to take advantage of a blizzard to escape. And so begins the long long walk which they plan to take from Siberia to Mongolia. Along the way, they also pick up Irena (Saoirse Ronan) who claims to have run away from another camp after her parents were murdered by Russians.

The Way Back is an extremely poignant and slow tale of how 9 human beings challenge their limits and walk through Siberia, along Lake Baikal onto the plains of Russia, Mongolia, Tibet and eventually into India. Most of the scenes are of course not shot on location with Bulgaria and Morocco taking up most of the shooting with a small portion towards the end being shot in India. Not that I am taking away any points from the team for choice of location but most of the build up didn’t seem to be finished too well. For e.g., towards the end of the movie, the accents start dropping distinctly and most of the actors of different nationalities start moving towards their natural accents. I was also surprised to learn that the movie had been nominated for an Oscar for Make Up. It was good alright but good enough for an Oscar nomination? Debatable. Or maybe I need to really take that movie appreciation course that I have been putting off for a long long time. The performances by most of the cast are however quite strong with Ed Harris leading the way as the reserved Mr. Smith. Saoirse (pronounced Seer Sha) Ronan stands out again and she is only helped along the way by being the only woman in the group of nine. On the whole, you can watch it if you are fine with watching an extremely slow tear jerker. I give this 6 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1465030937/