MALEFICENT - FILM REVIEW

MALEFICENT

Release Date: 28 May 2014 (UK)
Director: Robert Stromberg
Running Time: 97 Minutes
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Sharlto Copley, Elle Fanning, Imelda Staunton, Lesley Manville, Juno Temple
Screening Reviewed: London Press Screening

Reviewed by Kyle Pedley

The biggest fallacy that must be quashed immediately when addressing Disney’s live action Maleficent is that it is somehow an alternative take upon the events of their 1959 animated classic Sleeping Beauty. This is not, as the studio has gone to pains in an attempt to paint out via it’s marketing and pre-release hype, a film which seeks to flesh out it’s characters and shift perspective on how and why the titular character fell to villainy, but rather an entirely different story made piecemeal by dint of a few familiar scenes, a handful of shared characters and the deliberately vague narration that attempts to dismiss the original film as a distorted version of the actuality it goes on to supposedly portray. The problem is, Maleficent doesn’t so much fill in the gaps and paper over the cracks of Sleeping Beauty as much as it wallpapers over the whole thing with an altogether different and at times completely juxtaposing series of events and characters.

FROZEN - BLU-RAY REVIEW

FROZEN - HOME RELEASE (BLU-RAY)

Release Date: Out Now (Monday 31 March 2014)

Director: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee

Starring: Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad, Jonathan Groff, Santino Fontana, Alan Tudyk (voices)

Reviewed by Kyle Pedley

THE FILM:

Disney are riding high on the (admittedly deserved) success of Frozen, having last month added two Academy Awards (Best Animated Feature, Best Original Song) to it’s now sizable mantle of gongs and plaudits, a Broadway musical adaptation confirmed as being in the works and just today having been announced as officially the most successful animated film of all time, surpassing previous record holder Toy Story 3. Arriving on DVD, Blu-Ray and Digital HD this week is no doubt only going to add to the cultural behemoth that the film has become.

FROZEN - FILM REVIEW

FROZEN

Release Date: 6 December 2013
Director: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee
Running Time: 108 Minutes
Starring: Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, Santino Fontana, Alan Tudyk (voices)
Screening Reviewed: London Press Screening

Reviewed by Kyle Pedley

Make no qualms about it, Disney’s animation department are undoubtedly bathing in the deserved success and glow of a second renaissance period following on from the recent critical, box office and artistic successes of Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph and now the beautiful and vintage Frozen. Picking up the reigns from their creative partners at Pixar, whose output has been a touch more inconsistent recently with the disappointing and muddled Cars 2 and Brave, the house of Mouse has masterfully managed to strike the zeitgeist with  their latest release, harmonising elements of classical Disney Princess convention with some of Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph’s vim and sass and proudly crafting the tale as a big, Broadway-beating musical to boot, as old Uncle Walt himself would have wanted it.

THE LONE RANGER - FILM REVIEW

THE LONE RANGER

Release Date: 9 August 2013
Director: Gore Verbinski
Running Time: 149 Minutes
Starring: Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, Tom Wilkinson, William Fichtner, Ruth Wilson, Helena Bonham Carter
Screening Reviewed: London Press Screening

Reviewed by Kyle Pedley

When is a Pirates of the Caribbean movie not a Pirates of the Caribbean movie?

The answer, it seems, is when the same creatives and talent come back together to give the same tired routine a fresh coat of paint and pass it off as something else - bastardising another, albeit admittedly mostly-forgotten, franchise from yesteryear in the process. 

A cynical overview that may perhaps be, and in fairness The Lone Ranger team certainly do a stellar job in grounding their usual narrative tropes and visual excesses through a wholly convincing Wild West filter. However, there is just far too much repetition of what has come before and a complete failure or dogged refusal to learn from mistakes such as the over-indulgence and tonal mess of the Pirates sequels in particular. Much of the fault has to be leveled at writers Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, whose screenplay and storytelling for Lone Ranger seems stuck firmly on Pirates autopilot. It isn’t the finest film critique practice to review one movie almost exclusively by comparison to another, but here the similarities are so overt and overbearing it’s almost impossible not to. Remember that old chestnut of having multiple characters pointing guns at one another and shifting allegiances at the drop of a hat? Prepare to welcome it back in The Lone Ranger. How about the finale of Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End with two ships crashing and colliding with one another as characters leap from one to another and cross-engage in increasingly silly and heightened action set pieces? Replace them with runaway mine trains and you’ve got your ending here. And do I really need to go anywhere near the bleedingly obvious Jack Sparrow/Tonto analogies? Regardless, on top of a whole swathe of Pirates paste jobs, Lone Ranger also compounds its’ uninspired casting laziness by shoehorning in the fantastic Helena Bonham Carter, Depp’s proudest alumnus from his ‘make it big playing the same character for a decade’ school, but at least sees fit to bump up the ridiculousness of her character by giving her a wooden leg-cum-shotgun. 

MONSTERS UNIVERSITY - FILM REVIEW

MONSTERS UNIVERSITY

Release Date: 12 July 2013
Director: Dan Scanlon
Running Time: 110 Minutes
Starring: Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Helen Mirren (voices)
Screening Reviewed: London Press Screening

Reviewed by Kyle Pedley

Ah, Disney-Pixar. Never again shall I doubt the partnership of the house of mouse and jumping desklamp as arbiters of the movie sequel. My initial trepidation at the very concept and essence of Monsters University combined with a general nonchalance for prequels as a whole meant I was more than prepared for this latest offering to be a passable but altogether unremarkable affair that would surely pale in comparison to its brilliant, charming and imaginative predecessor. In fairness, these concerns were not altogether unfounded - Pixar's output of late has been a little hit and miss to say the least (Brave, anyone?) and their most recent sequel took an already below-standard franchise and elevated it to new levels of stagnancy with Cars 2 just two short years ago. And yet thankfully Monsters University washes away any bitter aftertaste of oil, grime or haggis (forgive the Celtic stereotyping) and presents a vibrant, gleeful and irrepressibly charismatic romp that is every bit as enjoyable, hilarious and entertaining as Monsters Inc. before it.

THE LION KING - THEATRE REVIEW

THE LION KING AT THE BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME

Theatre Run: Friday 28 June - Saturday 28 September 2013

Performance Reviewed: Friday 28 June (Opening Night)

Reviewed by Kyle Pedley

Film to stage adaptations can be quite the challenge to get right. It may seem an obvious point that theatre and cinema are two wildly different mediums and creative forms, but it’s often overlooked in the hopes that merely replicating the images that we watched on-screen onto the stage will rekindle the same emotions, impact and fire in an audience. The opposite is a far easier and more liberating experience - the scope and breadth of film, the luxury of the edit and the canvas of cinematography can often open up a previously stage-bound tale to new sights and heights, yet so often film-to-theatre is a much bumpier process. Slavishly loyal adaptations fail to explore and utilise the unique strengths and opportunities of the medium or, sometimes worse, do so in horribly egregious and detrimental ways (see the recent Broadway failure of The Little Mermaid, another Disney offering). 

WRECK-IT RALPH - FILM REVIEW

WRECK-IT RALPH

Release Date: 8 February 2013 (UK)
Director: Rich Moore
Running Time: 108 Minutes
Starring: John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, John Tudyk (voices)
Screening Reviewed: London Press Screening

Reviewed by Kyle Pedley

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Walt Disney Animation Studios and their friends over at Pixar may have thrown one another’s projects at each other of late, so role reversing have been their outputs in Wreck-It Ralph and Brave this past year. Whereas Brave was a passable but pedestrian Princess fable more in keeping with the House of Mouses tradition back catalogue, Ralph is a wonderfully original and inventive post-modern delight bursting with the kind of charisma, charm and self-assuredness that is usually associated with the braver and more audacious outings of Pixar.

STAR WARS EPISODES 7 - 9 ANNOUNCED! - A Great Disturbance in the Force?

With the shock announcement today that Disney has acquired LucasFilm and are set to release Star Wars Episodes 7 - 9 from 2015 onwards, Kyle takes a look at what this could mean for the saga, and whether or not there seems cause for concern...

For the original story and more specifics on the announcement, please see the Digital Spy article HERE.

By Kyle Pedley, Editor-in-Chief of (A)musings

It’s rare for film industry announcements to completely blindside me in the way this particular story has done so. As an enormous fan of the Star Wars franchise, I’ve often pondered the possibility of another trilogy in the series, bolstered by inconsistent testimony that it was part of Lucas’s original outline back in the 70’s and the wealth of potential plot material that can be mined from the enormous ‘extended universe’ that has perpetuated through the countless post-Return of the Jedi comics, novels, videogames etc. Lucas himself has said on occasion that a particular fan-favourite storyline that dealt with the characters and stories after the ending of episode 6 would be the most suitable and likely candidate for an episode 7 onward adaptation, but alas it all seemed mere pipe dreams, and with Lucas’ recent announcement that he was retiring from filmmaking in a directorial capacity, the saga seemed destined to remain complete and final as it was. Shocked am I then, to say the least, that the elusive 'sequel trilogy' has not only been announced, but with Lucas no longer involved in their production whatsoever.

LONDON FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: FRANKENWEENIE

FRANKENWEENIE
Release Date: 17 October 2012 (UK)
Director: Tim Burton
Running Time: 87 Minutes
Starring: Catherine O'Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau, Winona Ryder, Charlie Tahan (Voices)
Screening Reviewed: European Premiere/London Film Festival Opening Gala

Reviewed by Kyle Pedley

It's difficult to have not felt repeatedly disappointed with the output of Tim Burton of late - in particular his most recent releases Dark Shadows and Alice in Wonderland seemed to have lost much of his original edge and flair in favour of more generic, CG-fuelled franchise fare. There was imagination, to be sure, but nothing that felt inspired, personal or quintessentially Burton-esque. They seemed products of a director no longer so sure of his own creativity and ideas, a bowing to a more commercially driven and stereotypical ideology. And as celebrated as some of his pairings with Johnny Depp have been, and the given versatility of Depp as an actor, it was all threatening to become a bit formulaic and stale.

BRAVE: MOVIE REVIEW

BRAVE

Release Date: 17th August (UK)*

Director: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman, Steve Purcell

Running Time: 100 Minutes

Starring: Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connolly, Emma Thompson, Julie Walters and Robbie Coltrane (Voices)

Screening Reviewed: US Theatrical Release

Reviewed by Kyle Pedley

For a Studio so proudly determined in developing consistently original and unique cinematic outings over the course of it’s highly successful existence, Brave seems to represent the first time originality and purely self-contained storytelling have fallen by the wayside for animation giants Pixar. Whilst this may not deliberately have been the case, it is difficult to ignore the fact that their latest feature length outing, which depicts the story of feisty Scottish princess Merida, is their most pedestrian, by-the-numbers offering since 2006’s Cars (ignoring that films risible 2011 sequel). 

At a time when Katniss Everdeen has given ‘girl power’ its latest shot in the arm (likewise with bow in hand) and other releases such as Snow White and the Huntsman have similarly empowered their princess leads, so much of what Brave seems set on telling and showing us with its central protagonist seems a little old hat and unremarkable to say the least. Little time is wasted on establishing Merida as an independent and headstrong yet fortunately quite likeable young woman, daughter to Billy Connolly’s bawdy King Fergus and Emma Thompson’s resolute yet overbearing Queen Elinor, and within the first few opening scenes the tension and dynamics between the royal family are very effectively laid out. Merida feels stifled by royal protocol and the way of life expected of her whilst Elinor is the atypical over-zealous parent who is firm out of necessity yet distanced and detached as a result.