Movie Reviews - new films reviewed

King Philip ll of Spain (Jordi Mollà) wants the throne of England for his daughter Isabella and conspires with a group of Jesuits to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England (Cate Blanchett). Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots (Samantha Morton) is also involved in the “English Enterprise”.
Queen Elizabeth meanwhile is busy with rejecting potential husbands and flirting with Sir Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen), who fascinates the Virgin Queen with his tales from the New World and the oceans - and with his honesty and straightforwardness.
The assassination plot fails, and Elizabeth has no other choice than to agree to Mary Stuart’s beheading because of high treason, and that’s Philip’s raison de la guerre. Sacrificing the woods of Spain, Philip has ordered to build a fleet of war ships for an invasion of England - the Spanish Armada.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age is less a historic epic (actually it’s historically quite inaccurate) than a medieval soap-opera, concentrating more on the (fictitious) relationship between Queen Elizabeth and the pirate Sir Walter Raleigh, with Elizabeth Throckmorton (Abbie Cornish) completing a love triangle, than on the conflict between Catholics and Protestants and Spain and England. Costume and production designs are as well worth seeing as the always great Cate Blanchett, and Clive Owen is a convincingly charming and dashing pirate, but unfortunately, their Elizabeth and Raleigh are virtually the only normal people in this movie, while most other characters (especially the evil ones) are hardly more than caricatures.
Lush production values and flashes of brilliant performances are regrettably not enough to outweigh a poor script, so Elizabeth: The Golden Age is watchable and even enjoyable due to Cate Blanchett and the elaborate custome and set design, but that alone doesn’t make a great film.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age movie trailer

In the possessions of a young Russian girl who dies in childbirth, midwife Anna (Naomi Watts), herself the daughter of Russian immigrants, finds a diary written in Russian. Determined to find the next of kin of the baby, she asks her uncle Stepan (Jerzy Skolimowski) to translate the diary. The business card of a Russian restaurant in the diary leads her to restaurant owner Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), where she also meets his son Kirill (Vincent Cassel) and Kirill’s driver Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen). What Anna doesn’t know is that the friendly old Semyon is the head of a Russian mafia clan, and that the handsome but menacing Nikolai is much more than a mere driver.
Uncle Stepan, after translating the diary, begs Anna to forget about the diary and the family of the baby - the diary reveals the young mother of the baby girl was lured to London with false promises of a well-paid job as a singer, then raped by Semyon, hooked to heroin and forced to work as a prostitute. But Anna has already handed over photocopies of the diary to Semyon, who has promised to help look for the girl’s relatives, and now Semyon knows about the diary that contains evidence against him and the Russian mafia.

David Cronenberg doesn’t so much tell a story, but lets Anna/Naomi Watts and the audience take a brief glimpse into another world - the dangerous and violent world of the (Russian) mafia, where a strict code is being followed - and the punishment for breaking the code is death. In a world of crime, drugs, prostitution and rivaling clans, loyalty is much in demand, but no guarantee for a long life - a loyal henchman will be sacrificed as unscrupulously as any outsider threatening the safety of the mafia, and the subaltern is probably already scheming to take over the position of his boss. These are not people the average person is - or should be - in contact with, and Nikolai himself gives Anna the good advice “Stay away from people like me”.
And of course Cronenberg doesn’t shy away from showing the ugly side of this world and it’s violence - briefly, like in A History Of Violence, but shockingly intense and effective, as you would expect from the master of body horror.
The instantly classic fight sequence - Viggo Mortensen, nude in the bathhause, battles two armed killers - tops the Bourne-fights and is sure to set a new standard for action films.

The Performances by Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl and Vincent Cassel are top-notch, and even small supporting roles (notably Jerzy Skolimowski as Uncle Stepan) are casted nothing less than superb, but Eastern Promises is definitly Viggo Mortensen’s film, arguably with a career-best performance as menacing driver/undertaker with a hidden agenda.

Eastern Promises Movie Trailer

Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards) is an orphan in a parallel world where the human “soul” - or dæmon - is accompanying people in the form of an animal, the Magisterium which won’t bear any truth except their own truth rules and where dirigibles and witches rule the skies. Lyra is a disobedient, wild girl but loyal to her best friend Roger (Ben Walker), and she saves her uncle Asriel’s (Daniel Craig) life when she watches a representative of the Magisterium poisoning his wine during one of her forbidden tours. And she hears about “Dust”, a mysterious substance influencing people and probably all worlds, a substance whose existence the Magisterium denies and whose exploration is banned by the Magisterium.
Lord Asriel goes to the North to learn about the Dust nonetheless and leaves her an alethiometer, a device thought lost that resembles a golden compass and tells the truth. Roger is kidnapped by the mysterious Gobblers and also brought to the North, and the mysterious Marisa Coulter (Nicole Kidman) invites Lyra to come to the North with her, but Lyra discovers Marisa Coulter is the chief of the General Oblation Board - the “Gobblers” - and escapes.
She needs all the help she can get to rescue Roger and find Lord Asriel, and she does get help - from Serafina Pekkala (Eva Green), queen of the witches, the gyptians (a kind of seafaring gypsies), an aeronaut (Sam Elliott) and Iorek Byrnison, an armored polar bear and exiled prince.

After The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia, here is the next Fantasy film based on a popular book series - Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy.
The Golden Compass suffers a bit from the Part-I-Syndrome - a whole new complex universe has to be established and half a dozen main characters must be introduced, and there is an extensive story to be told. Chris Weitz masters all of that and finds enough time for a couple of excellent fight and action sequences.
The special effects are of mixed quality - The Golden Compass is basically one big special effect, and the dæmons are not only the souls of the people in this universe, but also the soul of the movie, and they are adorable, and so is the Panserbjørn Iorek Byrnison - at least most of the time. But occasionally, the effects with Iorek are plainly embarassing (i cringed when Iorek carried Lyra through the icy northern landscapes).
The Golden Compass is suitable for kids (Rated PG-13 for sequences of fantasy violence in the USA) but will also please adults - which is kind of the main problem of the film: it seems nobody ever decided if it should be for kids or for adults and so the movie meanders between kiddie-friendly and made for serious fantasy aficionados quite frequently and uncomfortably, failing to fully score in either category.
And the end comes rather abrupt, almost brutal - but then, the audience is spared a soppy-happy ending - definitly a good thing. Looking forward to Part II!

His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass Movie Trailer

Eric O’Neill (Ryan Phillippe) is a junior FBI employee who wants to be promoted to agent. Agent Kate Burroughs (Laura Linney) offers him a chance - he is assigned to work for Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper) but in fact shall observe Hanssen and find evidence for sexually deviant behavior. But this is just a cover story - the FBI is sure Hanssen is a spy who has sold US secrets to Russia since years, and they want to catch him in the act.
But Eric doesn’t find anything suspicious - Hanssen doesn’t drink, he goes to church every day and believes in faith, family and his country. He develops respect for Hanssen, who becomes kind of his mentor, but he feels uneasy when Hanssen invades his private life and his job - the secretiveness and constant lies - starts to interfere with his relationship to his wife Juliana (Caroline Dhavernas).

Breach is a spy-film but definitly not a spy-thriller, based on true events. While the real Robert Hanssen claimed he did it for money when he was caught, in the film money is at most a secondary motive. Hanssen is a man who feels his talents and work are not appreciated the way they should be, and despite seeing himself as a man of faith and integrity is willing to betray his country mainly for the satisfaction of proving to himself that he’s important after all. It’s thanks to Chris Cooper’s ace portrayal of a highly intelligent, deeply religious man who is so convinced of his own righteousness that he doesn’t recognize he behaves like a sullen child that Breach is worth watching - because despite a bit of hollywoodizing the facts there is not much going on in the movie, just two men watching each other while pretending to work together. And while Chris Cooper is fantastic and fascinating to watch, Ryan Phillippe is merely OK as the rookie who tries to earn his spurs but still has to find out if it’s worth the price.

Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) is a successful American entrepreneur in Harlem, New York. While American soldiers fight in Vietnam, he has set up a profitable family business with his younger brothers and cousins. He has cut out the middle-men, imports his uniquely high quality product directly from the manufacturer and sells his product to the end-user.
The product: Magic Blue - pure heroin.
The transport: Smuggled in the coffins of American soldiers killed in Vietnam.
The Risk: Low - U.S. Army soldiers, police officers, judges, prosecutors are on Lucas’ payroll.
The Profit: Enormous.
Denzel Washington shines as the always perfectly dressed Lucas who enjoys family life with his mother, brothers and cousins, marries Miss Puerto Rico (Lymari Nadal) while running his business with absolutely no qualms. This man is able to shoot a competitor in the head on a crowded street or to set a man on fire in cold blood, and his motto is “See, ya are what ya are in this world. That’s either one of two things: Either you’re somebody, or you ain’t nobody.” And every word Denzel Washington says and everything he does, Denzel is 100% credible and radiates class and danger - it’s without a doubt his best performance since he played a cop in Training Day.

Detective Richie Roberts (Russel Crowe) is one of very few honest cops in Essex County, New Jersey. His sense of duty is so strong he turns in one million dollars of drug money found in a car instead of keeping it for himself, making him the most hated detective of his force. Roberts stands alone in his job, spends evenings in law school, and his wife files a divorce and demands custody for their son.
Then he gets offered a new job - he leads a new task force of honest, hand-picked cops commissioned to stop drug trafficking in New Jersey and New York. His adversaries are gangsters, the mafia, and corrupt cops - and Frank Lucas, though it takes a long time and a lot of investigating before Roberts realizes - and convinces his team - that the black gangster from Harlem is actually more powerful than the Italian mafia families and responsible for flooding New York and New Jersey with cheap and high quality heroin.
Obsessed with duty and doing what’s “right” in his job, but neglecting his private and family life, Richie Roberts is the opposite of Frank Lucas. Frank is aggressive, ruthless, convinced he is destined for greatness, a family man, he lives the life of Riley, and he acts - Richie observes, is lonely and struggles with family problems, and while he also tries to make more out of his life, he strictly follows the rules and won’t take any shortcut that’s not strictly legal (like keeping confiscated drug-money for himself or accepting a generous bribe from the mafia).

The villain is often the better part for an actor, and that’s also true for American Gangster. Just like Richie Roberts is pale compared to the charismatic, dangerous gangster Frank Lucas, Russel Crowe is playing second fiddle to Denzel Washington in his criminally underwritten role as dutiful detective. But Ridley Scott’s movie is called American Gangster and not The Untouchables - it’s a Denzel Washington film with Russel Crowe in it, and that’s just fine.

American Gangster Movie Trailer