Many fairy tales end with the line, “and they lived happily ever after,” but have you ever wondered exactly what that means? What happens after the happily ever after?
Does Cinderella grow up to blow her inheritance on Jimmy Choo glass slippers? Did Sleeping Beauty find a second career as an expert in sleep disorders?
A new take on the classic fairy tale suggests what the future might have held for two famous fairyland siblings.
The backstory of “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” is familiar. Dumped in the forest by their father, little Hansel and sister Gretel stumble across a welcoming looking gingerbread house. Inside, however, waits a cannibalistic witch with plans to lure them in and have them for dinner—literally. Luckily the clever duo outsmart, outwit and outplay her.
So far it sounds like the story Mrs. Rice read to us in kindergarten.
But here is where the fairy tale fractures. After the happily ever after of the original Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) become bounty hunters specializing in the tracking and extermination of witches. Immune to witch spells and curses, they are uniquely qualified for the job, but as the human sacrifice of the deadly Blood Moon approaches, Hansel and Gretel learn why their father abandoned them in the forest so many years ago.
If you watch the opening credits carefully you’ll notice the names Will Ferrell and Adam McKay—the team behind comedies like the upcoming “Bachelorette”—listed as producers. “Could this possibly be a comedy?,” you might ask. Well, no. It’s more a funny idea than a funny movie. There are some hints of humor sprinkled throughout, but it can’t rightfully be called a comedy. Or a horror movie. Or an action movie.
In fact, I’m not exactly sure what to call it. It contains elements of all those things and yet it doesn’t really work at being any of them. Sure, there is a cool looking troll named Edward, a giggle or two and some raucous fight scenes, but unlike “Zombieland,” which took a genre film and subverted it into something else entirely, “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” doesn’t really work.
Renner and Arterton are serviceable as seventeenth Bavarian bounty hunters who speak like they have there own A&E reality show. “The only good witch is a dead witch,” says Hansel in a line that feels paraphrased from the lips of the most famous bounty hunter of all, Duane “Dog” Chapman. All that’s missing is his ridiculous bleached hair and a can of mace.
“Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” is set up for a sequel, but somehow I doubt this will spawn a franchise. Now “Little Bo Peep: The Modern Prometheus,” that’s a story I’d pay to see for a movie or two.
Über producer Jerry Bruckheimer draws his inspiration from many places. He makes movies based on video games, amusement park rides, and toys. One day perhaps he’ll make one based on a bed spring, and you know what? It’ll be successful. The guy is genetically programmed to make movies that make money. His latest blockbuster-in-the-waiting is “The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,” the action-adventure that hopes to make Jake Gyllenhaal (and his finely sculpted abs) the next Steve Reeves.
Based on the video game, the action packed story starts when Dastan is still a parkour practicing preteen peasant who out smarts the king’s guards and earns himself a spot in the royal household. Cut to many years later. Dastan is now a full grown man who looks a lot like “Brokeback Mountain” star Jake Gyllenhaal. He’s a bit on the wild side, but when he uses ancient firebombing techniques and slo mo to defeat enemy forces his reward is to be treated like a traitor and sent into exile. With the help of Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) and a crafty ostrich jockey (Alfred Molina) he might be able to prove his innocence and prevent the mystical Dagger of Time—releasing sand from the hilt of the knife turns back time and turns Dastan into a cool looking special effect—from falling into the wrong hands. Along the way there are double crosses, much videogame action and, of course, a love match. That Princess Tamina. Jake just can’t quit her.
This is the movie I’m sure Gyllenhaal’s management hopes does for him what “Pirates of the Caribbean” did for Johnny Depp, that is, get Bruckheimerized. Like he did for Will Smith, Nic Cage and Depp, all actors best known for doing risky character parts, Bruckheimer’s magic may turn him into household (although still difficult to spell) name. Will it work? Probably. Maybe. Who knows? Gyllenhaal is already a respected actor, and does what he can to emerge from this sword and sandal showdown with as much dignity intact as possible, but the movie and his character don’t have the same kind of verve that, say, Johnny Depp showed in the first “PotC.” Dastan is a big action role but aside from the odd emotional moment Gyllenhaal never really makes the role his own, in the way that Depp made Captain Jack Sparrow into a character that sold Halloween costumes and inspired the guy at the desk next to yours to do bad pirate impressions for weeks after seeing the movie. Savvy?
What it does have is lots of action. The camera NEVER stops moving and when “Prince of Persia”—the character and the movie—is flip, flop and flying it is campy good fun. Gyllenhaal is literally crawling the walls in a display of physical prowess (and some pretty cool parkour) that’ll make your eyeballs dance, but when the story goes into the Sands of Time Mythology ™, or should that be mumbi jumbo, it’ll make your previously watusi-ing eyeballs glaze over. The crazy time shifting folklore and hopelessly silly solution to the sands situation slows the movie down to a shuffle and is only saved by Sir Ben Kingsley’s eye-rolling pantomime.
“The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” is typical Bruckheimer bombast. It’s a huge movie with big battle scenes, a love story, a few laughs (some intentional, some not) and even a flock of ostriches. It has everything you want from a summer blockbuster except really memorable characters or a noteworthy story.
This big screen adaptation of the Guardian comic strip Tamara Drewe sees director Stephen Frears return to the social satire of early work.
When Tamara Drewe (Gemma Arterton), once a shy and homely teen in the Dorset village of Ewedown, now a bombshell big city columnist, returns home to clear up her late mother’s estate, she instead turns the small town on its ear. An affair with a rock star (Dominic Cooper) earns the ire of his teenage fans while a hunky old flame (Luke Evans) tries to rekindle their teenage romance. The resulting entanglements—and more romantic intrigue from a philandering crime novelist—shine a light on the personal politics of nosy neighbors and gossip. In the end, however, it is also about leaving all the chitchat behind and getting on with your life.
“Tamara Drewe” is an amusing distraction with some winning performances—particularly from Arterton who makes the selfish Tamara likeable and Roger Allam as an arrogant novelist—but doesn’t pack the punch of some of Frears’s other films like “Dirty Pretty Things” and “My Beautiful Launderette.” It is, however, well cast and eager to please with a sharp, literate script.
Three characters, three, maybe four sets and one hundred minutes of unrelenting tension. That’s the best way to describe “The Disappearance of Alice Creed,” the feature film debut from British director J Blakeson. It’s a small, low budget thriller, but nonetheless is as thrilling as any movie we’ve seen this summer.
The risk with reviewing “The Disappearance of Alice Creed” is in giving you enough detail to whet your appetite but not enough to spoil the movie’s many unexpected twists and turns. I can tell you that Alice Creed (Gemma Arterton) is a woman kidnapped by ex-cons Vic and Danny (Eddie Marsan and Martin Compston) because her father is wealthy, she’s an only child and she’s, quote, slim enough to carry, unquote. After following a meticulously planned abduction they demand a ransom of two million pounds while Alice is trussed up in a soundproof room. Enter complications. End of synopsis.
Like “Shallow Grave,” another English suspense with more twists and turns than Piccadilly Circus, “The Disappearance of Alice Creed” in addition to the tightly written script, uses music and clever editing to create an atmosphere thick with tension. Its taut construction and claustrophobic feel are typical for the genre, but director Blakeson steps outside the conventions of kidnapping movies to add in elements that are truly surprising. For instance, and this isn’t a spoiler, when a stray shell casing can become the catalyst for not only humor but anxiety you know the movie is connecting. On the surface it feels like a 70s exploitation flick—the kind of thing Quentin Tarantino would rescue from drive-in obscurity to release on DVD—but there is much more here than schlock.
Beneath the movie’s sheen of tension and brutality is a story about how complicated kidnapping can turn out to be when feelings become involved. It is a psychological drama about trust, power and what happens when you deviate from the plan.
As the puffy-eyed Alice, Gemma Arterton proves there is more to her than just the pretty face we’ve seen in “The Prince of Persia,” “Quantum of Solace” and “Clash of the Titans.” Despite spending most of the film in chains with a bag over her head she manages, by times, to convincingly convey vulnerability, genuine fear and strength. It’s a complicated role that sees her go through a lot, both mentally and physically, and she pulls it off.
Equally strong are Eddie Marsan and Martin Compston as the kidnappers. Marsan’s Vic is an intriguing bad guy—controlling, unpredictable but also mannered and meticulous. Best known as Scott, the angry driving instructor in “Happy-Go-Lucky,” his presence supplies much of the movie’s feeling of unease. Compston’s Danny seems like a more standard criminal type, but reveals unexpected deeper dimensions to the character when the twists start flying. Is he a callous opportunist or a victim of the domineering Vic?
“The Disappearance of Alice Creed” is a nasty little piece of work. It is remorselessly bleak but carefully crafted enough to be intriguing.
Since 1904, London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) has almost single-handedly kept the British actors’ union flush with members. John Gielgud, Anthony Hopkins and Kenneth Branagh are just a fraction of the school’s famous alumni. More recently, Gemma Arterton, star of this weekend’s Tamara Drewe, studied there before becoming Britain’s latest “it girl.”
“I left RADA three years ago and never expected I would have a film career,” she says. “I always thought I would do theatre, and then it happened and I said, ‘Yes, yes, yes’ to every job without thinking about it.
“You are grateful that you’re being considered and don’t want to seem rude by turning them down. As a Brit, we tend to think like that.”
Among the roles Arterton said yes to are Quantum of Solace Bond girl Strawberry Fields and leads in green screen blockbusters Prince of Persia and Clash of the Titans. High profile for sure, but not exactly challenging for the recent graduate.
“This year I have been able to think about what I want,” she says. “I’ve always just wanted to act and do things that are interesting and exciting. So now I have learned that the only power I have as an actress is the power of choice.
“I’m taking my time and reading scripts thoroughly. It doesn’t matter if it is big or small, or whether I have a large part or a small part and that is serving me well. And those films that I did like Tamara Drewe and The Disappearance of Alice Creed have actually transformed my career from here on. It’s going to be much more eclectic, intriguing films rather than all out action movies.”
In that vein, she recently played the decidedly non-glamorous lead in Alice Creed and the manipulative Tamara Drewe, a successful columnist who stirs things up in her childhood village in rural Dorset.
“They are not particularly attractive roles, in that Tamara Drewe is kind of a sex symbol but underneath it all she is an ugly character and isn’t necessarily appealing or someone you’d want to be with,” she says. “For me, as an actor, that is exciting because I want to work out why people who aren’t me, do things.
“The same with Alice Creed. She’s full-on, visceral and dirty inside and that, to me, is very attractive when I’m looking for a role.”
Almost twenty years after dressing up Brad Pitt as an undead marionette, “Interview with a Vampire” director Neil Jordan is back at it with “Byzantium,” a gothic tale of secrets and blood sucking.
Based on a play by Moira Buffini, “Byzantium” gives a new spin to the Dracula mythology. Clara (Gemma Arterton) and Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan) are two-hundred-year-old vampire mother and daughter trying to survive in modern day England. Setting up shop in a British seaside town, Clara goes into business as a Madame, turning the dilapidated Byzantium Hotel into a brothel, while Eleanor, frozen in time at age sixteen, befriends a local hemophiliac boy named Frank (Caleb Landry Jones). Their lifestyle choices—prostitution, sanguinary pursuits and general melancholy—soon bring unwanted attention from the townsfolk and an ancient brotherhood.
Like “Interview with a Vampire,” this movie centers around an account of the past. Eleanor, a melancholy child tired of the burden of her family secret, pens a story outlining the lurid origins of their immortality. “It’s like Edgar Alen Poe and Mary Shelley had a very strange child,” says her teacher. As the story passes hands, the movie flits back-and-forth between modern day and 1804, slowly unfolding the bloody tale.
Atmospheric and gothic, “Byzantium” is a vampire tale that will leave “True Blood” fans wanting more. With no fangs—these succubae pierce their victims with pointed thumbnails before draining them dry—coffins or capes—although Clara does wear a bustier emblazoned with he word SUCK—in sight, these vamps are unlike anything we’ve seen before.
The revisionist horror history is engaging enough, but seems a little lifeless, even for a movie about vampires. Lacking any real dramatic tension, it meanders through time—past and present—failing to work up any real momentum. It’s slow and contemplative in Eleanor’s scenes, more rapid fire in Clara’s, who is a bit more enthusiastic about the wet work.
All in all “Byzantium” is an elegant, if slightly dull film, that tries to bring something new to the “Twilightized” vampire genre, but staked by flawed storytelling.
