Evil is upon you, whether you like it or not...

Usually when you hear of something that sounds too good to be true – it isn’t.  So the day you see something that looks to good to be true, like a house made of candy,  best you keep your eyes open and watch out. Evil is upon you.  
 

In the feature film adaptation of the Grimms fairytale, ‘Hansel and Gretel’, we get to go back to the house that’s been haunting them for so many years, and while doing so, see them inflict pain and suffering onto their childhood tormentors of old: witches. In fact, killing witches is something the brother and sister have become quite apt at since the time when they harrowingly escaped death  from their candy house of horrors.

                                                                                                                         Now years later, they are witch-hunters for bounty, and in their neck-of-the-woods there’s always plenty of crooked creatures luring young children into their lairs that needs to be punished. Exactly the reason why each-and-every witch they find is going to die.   

  

 'The only good witch...

...is a DEAD witch.'

During the opening credits, real care is taken to establish the original Grimms children’s storybook feel with some authentic-looking illustrations. In between we get shown newspaper headlines informing us of the new roles Hansel and Gretel are fulfilling in an obviously witch-plagued society. 

The plot revolves around having to find some children before the dreaded ‘Blood Moon’ ceremony. During this ceremony, six boys and six girls will be killed for their hearts, the sixth girl however has to be a ‘Grand White Witch’. 

Concocting a potion from their victim’s hearts and drinking it, means the witches will become immune to fire, should one of them ever get caught and land up on the stake. In between searching for all the missing children, the siblings uncover their own mother’s true identity as a Grand White witch, and how this was the reason they had to flee into the woods the night they were captured - some rival witches wanted to drink her heart. 

 

Cast:

Jeremy Renner, who plays the character of ‘Hansel’ in this movie, fails to bring enough of his bad-boy charisma to the table and tends to make some lazy choices throughout his entire performance.

The chemistry between him and Gemma Arterton (Gretel) also appears to be an unholy business at times, and the sibling pair fails to impress as witch-hunters, especially ones that witches should fear.

Arterton’s character would probably have been better portrayed by Rachel Weisz, who most definitely would have given a more centered performance between being a striking feminine beauty and a vicious witch-hunter.  Here, Hollywood also seems to make a lazy choice, the amount of available cleavage clearly the deciding factor.

Making a character more ‘butch’ by having them swear has never served any lady all that well. Sigourney Weaver, during an emotionally charged scene of Aliens, must have been one of the few female leads to get us all on her side when she told the queen alien, ’Get away from her you bitch!” 

Arterton is no Weaver, and her attempts in coming across as ‘in charge’ fail to impress. Fortunately if a career in acting doesn’t work out, one as an underwear model might.

 

Famke Janssen (Jean Grey, X-Men) delivers a solid performance in her role as Muriel, the chief witch. 

Unfortunately, Hansel and Gretel is nothing more than a miserable witch-hunt. Trying to persuade its audience that there are also ‘good witches’ in this world, is like trying to convince people that there are versions of the truth.  

 

To those who would like to see Hell Boy, Blade, The Lord of the Rings and Twilight come together in one sitting, there might be some satisfaction in watching this movie. For the rest of us who are already occupied dealing with all the other evils of this world on a daily basis, inflicting such torment on yourself during your free time might just be too much to ask.

'When you lie to me, I hurt you...'

Lies are bad allies, period. If you weren’t taught this principle while growing up, then you most certainly will learn it very quickly during a CIA interrogation, especially if you are a terrorist. 

In her latest movie, director Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), gives a very surreal interpretation of the capturing of Osama Bin Laden. For 13 years the world has been following the cat-and-mouse game between America’s clandestine agencies and the leader of the extremist group – Al Qaeda. In ‘Zero Dark Thirty’, we get to witness his demise and the events that lead up to it.

Bigelow was actually set to start filming another movie when they received news of the raid on Bin Laden’s compound, and his subsequent death. They immediately altered course and started drafting a new script. Fortunately, much of the groundwork done for the first film came in handy and production for ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ could start right away. 

In the world of espionage, the greatest virtue any intelligence agency or agent can possess, is that of patience. Much of the film’s concept also revolves around this. 

Most of us, to our annoyance, are bound, often limited by time in our careers. When you work for the CIA, and are pursuing one of the most dangerous men on the face of the earth, extracting information from co-conspirators is given all the time necessary. That’s good news for the hunters, it's bad news for the terrorists.

‘Zero Dark Thirty’ manages to convey this message really well. America is in it for the long haul when it comes to bringing to justice those who inflict terror upon her citizens, and they will find you, no matter where you are in the world. The characters, for most of the time, also gave some exciting performances. Jessica Chastian, who plays ‘Maya’, is not only a pretty face in this movie, but also the face of a calculating operative that won’t become derailed in her attempts at succeeding in finding Bin Laden. 

Jason Clarke, who plays the character ‘Dan’, also manages to portray his character’s inner turmoil quite accurately. He knows he has a job to do, he knows there are plenty of lives at stake, including his own. But even suffering emotionally as a result of ‘seeing to many naked tortured men’, is simply part of the job description and the characters in this movie certainly knows that.  

In contrast to Clarke and Chastian, Jennifer Ehle and Mark Strong’s performances were slightly methodical, and it shows.   Ehle who plays Maya’s senior CIA analyst, at times delivered her dialogue with inflections and rhythms almost more accurate in style than Meryl Streep herself. Strong appears to have had some coaching from Al Pacino for his character, but comes across as being confused between just following his teaching and copying the master himself. 

With minor flaws like this, ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ still managed to be nominated for five Academy Awards, including: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay and won for Best Sound Editing.

It’s a gritty movie and will keep you entertained until the very end with its steady storyline. Bigelow really did succeed in sustaining the suspense throughout the entire film, and the shifts in momentum you'll encounter is superb. 

If there is one thing you'll take away with you from this movie then it's this: if you are a terrorist and get caught, redeem yourself and co-operate, because 'When you lie to me, I hurt you.’ 

A Bad Connection

What do ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, ‘Cast Away’, ’12 Monkeys’, and ‘The Matrix’ have in common? ‘Cloud Atlas’, that’s what. It’s a German Drama/Science Fiction film of sorts that got released recently. Well, 2012 recently. 

With a stellar cast ensemble such as this one, I was hoping to see something truly brilliant. My flame of hope however got extinguished very abruptly once I noticed that the plot clearly got lost somewhere between, uhm, the clouds. 

The lead cast of this movie are: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving, Hugh Grant, and Susan Sarandon, to name the more known actors. Then there are also, Jim Broadbent, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw, James D’Arcy, Keith David, Zhou Xun and David Gyasi.

There are moments of interpretative brightness coming from the actors when tapping into the psyches of their characters, but mostly it feels like an exercise in futility, and none of it really seems to - connect, not only them with each other, but with you the viewer too. 

Hugo Weaving appears to at times quite literally do a reinterpretation of a slightly more devilish Agent Smith, whereas Hanks appears to still be lost on an island, only this time, he's on quite a few. It’s all a bit out there, but, ‘Heil Zeitgeist’, I guess.  

It definitely seems to be far easier winning an Oscar with no clothes on rather than doing so wearing any, if you had to analyse Berry’s labored efforts. Less shouldn’t be more, not in the dropping-your-knickers-in-front-of-the-camera sense anyway. Apparently if you want to ride the gravy train of acting success, flashing your privates is all that will do. No wonder authentic performances in general are falling by the way side.

The big idea:

It all just seems like a bit of a repeat of the same old message: 'The powerful that exploits the weak for their own personal economical gain, the more connected you are, the more powerful. The more powerful, why, the skies the limit. The concept of ‘everything is connected’, also seems to get lost in the many sub-plots, including the watered down one of: ‘What was, will be, what is, already was’, and round-and-round we go.

Unfortunately, the world on this atlas seems to be spinning out of control in a manner that is just excessively farfetched, not allowing any real plot to thicken at all, least of all to communicate anything sound. It's a very extravagant, yet watered down attempt to portray re-incarnation, or saying that what we do now can have ripple effects in the future.

It just proofs once again that just because you are being different, doesn’t mean you are special, the one message ‘Cloud Atlas’ does succeed in communicating.    

Fortunately, the make-up for this movie was not half bad, but again, also reminiscent of Star Trek, and therefore - again, uninspiring.

What you can align yourself with in a more positive way, is the concept of love that metaphorically gets portrayed in the form of music, and that music is an unique universal language that we all seem to speak. This idea gets woven quite well into the film, and throughout it. Almost like a thread in a tapestry. I found it refreshing. 

If love is indeed the music that connects us all and everything else, then I believe it’s the only connection worth having.