Their Finest

Writing Wrongs

Their Finest
UK 2017 Directed by Lone Scherfig
Lionsgate Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Mild spoilers

Their Finest is a movie I missed when it was released into cinemas earlier in the year due, mostly, to an overabundance of product competing for my attention at the cinema (to a certain extent). I wasn’t overstruck on seeing the movie anyway but I knew, judging from the trailer, that it would be one my mum would want to see at some point so it was one of the movies I bought her for Christmas this year, although I wasn’t expecting to have to watch it myself. However, it was plonked on this Boxing Day and so I finally got to see the film after all. Which meant, frankly, that for the last twenty minutes of the movie I was a blubbery, tear stained mess in front of my parents. Which is perhaps something best avoided, to be honest.

Based on the novel Their Finest Hour And A Half by Lissa Evans, Lone Scherfig’s film follows a few months in the life of main protagonist Catrin Cole, played by actress extraordinaire Gemma Arterton, as she is based in London during the Second World War. In dire need of money, a newspaper strip she had to write due to a lack of writing staff in the newspaper she works for catches the eye of one of a number of screenwriters working on films for the Ministry of Propaganda (I think) and she is hired into a male dominant environment to adapt and write the screenplay of the ‘true’ story of a pair of twin sisters who drove their ship to Dunkirk to bring back stranded soldiers.

While she is working for the Ministry’s film division she becomes a shining beacon of her craft, gets her heart broken twice, saves the day endless times with her knack for fashioning plot development and her skill at turning a good phrase and basically goes through her own personal hell waging a stealth war against the male dominated milieu she finds herself in. Not to mention becoming the motivating force behind diva-like, ageing actor Ambrose Hilliard, played wonderfully here by Bill Nighy.

The film is not particularly overtly ostentatious in terms of the way the shots are designed but it does have some nice compositions and it was way more controlled than the last film I saw at the cinema by this director, the 2000 production Italian For Beginners, which complied fairly rigidly with Lars Von Trier’s Dogme 95 rules for making movies at the time. So, obviously, that was a million miles away from this kind of film, which is obviously less naturalistic and more ‘studio stylised’ than the former (although, my one take away from Italian For Beginners when I saw it at cinemas 17 years ago was that it was an amazing film and I really should see it again... I guess I need to get around to doing that again now I write this blog).

The film is fairly pitch perfect, though, in the way it manipulates audience emotion and there are many accomplished elements to marvel at.

Arterton’s almost deadpan, emotionally confounding mask is quite hypnotic here, as she plays the role of a woman of the era in which this is set with the required amount of emotional neutrality shown to the outside world that summarises the British spirit of ‘make do and mend’ in a totally brilliant way. I’ve admired this actress since I first saw her as a Bond girl in Quantum Of Solace in 2008 and it seems to me she’s one of those people who can just knock it out of the park without trying every time I see her take on a role. I was very impressed, also, with her Welsh accent here.

Another interesting thing about the film is that it, in some ways, manages to have its cake and eat it by both romanticising the period and historical events depicted here without going as bleak and raw as you would expect but still managing to make the ugliness and futility of the situation even more potent by using it in a poetically visual way in contrast to the ‘1940s movie time’ it sometimes seems to take its cue from. For instance, there’s a lovely sequence where Arterton is trapped in the streets during an air raid in the Blitz. A bomb lands on a building behind her and she is thrown to the floor by the explosion. As she stands, dirt covered after the initial blast, she sees the dead bodies of people around he and reacts in horror. As she looks closer she realises that they are all mannequins from a shop window which was caught in the blast and starts laughing at her foolishness. This is then counterpointed by her turning the corner and coming across the mangled body of a real woman who was killed in the blast. And it’s little gems of moments like this one that make this movie one to take a look at.

Also, the chemistry between her and actors like the aforementioned Nighy and Sam Caflin is another thing which kept me hooked throughout the movie.

There’s a lot of humour too and one stand out moment for me was when the crew are shooting a Dunkirk beach scene and Bill Nighy comes rushing into the shot standing behind the glass matte painting which has been situated a few feet in front of the camera to add in all the people... completely ruining the effect but, at the same time, showing audience members who are unfamiliar with this technique the reality of one of the more effective of the non-CGI techniques which were being used in many films of the 20th Century (something that director Mario Bava was an absolute master of, by the way... he used to paint a lot of those matte shots in both his own and other director’s films himself).

The film is also blessed with a score by Rachel Portman which manages to capture and enhance the range of emotions from the broad comedy, through the subtle romantic beats and the underlying tragedies of the main protagonist’s life during this period. Which is useful because, although the film does tend to lull you into what you think might be a formulaic ride... the finished product proves to be anything but. There are some things I really didn’t see coming and that includes some sequences which kept the tear ducts flowing, it has to be said.

Not much else to say on this one other than, yeah, it’s one of those wonderful, historical pieces that British productions seem to do best. Their Finest is a film which tugs at the heart strings and... you know... insert your own, less jaded ‘emotional roller coaster ride’ metaphor here. Its glamorous facade does nothing to diminish the poignant, emotional punch it manages to deliver by the juxtaposition of sudden tragedy striking at the same time as some of the film’s more uplifting moments and it’s certainly one I’d recommend. One of the more interesting of recent films set in this period, I think and, as far as I’m concerned, a more engaging one than a certain other movie that depicted events at Dunkirk in the cinema this year.

The Limehouse Golem

To The Victorian, The Spoils

The Limehouse Golem
2016/17 UK Directed by Juan Carlos Medina
UK cinema release print.

The Limehouse Golem is another one of those movies where I looked at the trailer and thought... "Yeah, not quite grabbing me. Not sure about this." However, I then saw that the film was getting some good feeback on Twitter so I thought I’d give it a go after all and... yeah... I quite liked this one. It’s based on a novel by Peter Akroyd called Dan Leno And The Limehouse Golem. The usual caveats apply here as I’ve not read the novel and so can’t be a good judge of how sound an adaptation it is. I can judge it as a movie though so... here goes.     

Dan Leno was a famous music hall performer and the film, set in the 1890s, tells of a ‘Jack The Ripper-like’ murderer, nicknamed The Golem by the press and it mixes real life characters and events in a fictional story. It follows the path of Inspector John Kildare, played by Bill Nighy, who has been assigned to the monstrous ‘Golem’ murders because his superior steps down to scapegoat Kildare since it’s a case which is very much in the press and he doesn’t want to be seen to be failing the investigation (Kildare was originally earmarked for Alan Rickman before he passed on). So Kildare and his new assistant, Constable George Flood, played by the always excellent Daniel Mays, get to work investigating this series of gruesome deaths, a case which soon crosses into another investigation where the other main protagonist of the film, an ex-music hall star called Lizzie Cree, played by Olivia Cooke, is held in prison accused with the murder of her husband. Her late husband is now a suspect in the Golem case and Kildare is so taken with Lizzie that he slants his investigation towards her husband in the hopes that finding out the truth of the matter will be a way to beat the hangman’s noose at the inevitable end of her trial.

Simultaneous to the investigation we are constantly, through eye witness accounts and flashbacks, privy to the path from Lizzie’s tragic childhood background to her rise in the music hall, first assisting and then writing/working with Dan Leno (played amazingly well by Douglas Booth) and the path which leads to her retirement from the stage and into a sexless marriage with her husband.

And it’s all very well done and holds the interest. Especially when each of the various witnesses at certain times throughout the movie are asked to provide a sample of handwriting to compare to a book filled with the writing of the killer. As each of the witnesses, including both Dan Leno himself and the famous Karl Marx, are dictated to by Kildare, we see each of the suspects in turn narrating and participating in one of the gruesome murders (well, not that gruesome, to be sure but perhaps a little more bloody than you might get in a non-horror movie like this one).

And it’s in these kinds of intrusions into the narrative and the way the format of the film is played with via the editing and various transitions to and from the flashbacks of Lizzie’s rise to fame and the various murders in the Golem case that the film really holds the interest, even as it tries to pull the wool over the eyes of the audience in terms of who the actual killer is, in this case.

Now, I have to admit, I thought the killer in this movie was obvious from the start and I have to wonder if it’s less easier to detect in the original written form than it is in a screen presentation. However, well done to the director for at least leading me up the garden path towards the end when a different person to the one I’d thought it was is seen to be guilty. They actually had me thinking I’d got it all wrong for a moment until a ‘not so surprising’ revelation moment brought things straight  back to the person I’d suspected all along. Which, in a way is a shame but, at the same time, I’m glad it wasn’t the person they originally said it was because that would have been a real clunky ending. That being said, I would have preferred to be surprised by the identity of the killer at the end but, alas, it just wasn’t to be.

However, because the whole film itself is in some ways framed as a theatrical production in terms of the way the narrative is injected into the story, it makes up for the obvious ending with a certain poignancy and it doesn’t seem to be short changing the audience in terms of the emotional impact on the part of the surviving characters that actually make it to the film’s finish without being slaughtered.

As well as the names I’ve already mentioned, you also have the impeccable Eddie Marsan as the ‘Uncle’ of the close knit group of actors and Sam Reid as the recently deceased husband of Lizzie Cree. All the actors in this film carry a lot of weight and it’s always a pleasure to see professionals of this magnitude sharing screen time to weave a tale as well executed as this. Henry Goodman is also pretty good in his short scenes as Karl Marx but, for some reason, I can’t find this famous character listed on the IMDB in relation to this movie and nor, it seems, is the actor who plays him (at the time of writing this article) visible at the IMDB either. So I’ve no idea what’s going on there.

Johan Söderqvist, who did the score for Let The Right One In (reviewed by me here in a much shorter review from my early days of writing this blog) does a fantastic job at both mirroring and enhancing the atmosphere in this one... it even reminded me a little of Jerry Goldsmith’s landmark score to ALIEN at some points, in terms of its orchestration on the percussion. Alas, it’s fallen prey to the usual travesty/crime against filmanity which seems to have become more common over the last few years in that the wonderful score is not available on CD at the time of writing and only available as a wretched electronic download. Why that is would be anybody’s guess but I’d much rather have the music released in a proper format than all this stupid electronic shenanigans, which I probably won’t have room to download onto my computer anyway. This silly download practice has got to stop (along with vinyl, 8-track cartridges, cylinders and 78 RPMs).

All in all, though, The Limehouse Golem is an enjoyable film for those of you who like watching Victoriana detective fiction portrayed, as it often is in British cinema, as authentically or, at the very least, atmospherically appropriate a way as possible. Not one for those members of the audience who are easily squeamish, perhaps, although it is only a 15 certificate and it certainly wouldn’t warrant an 18, to be fair. Perfect for those who like to spend their cinematic evening out in the company of a serial killer and an entertaining couple of hours at the very least, for most people. A sly wink of a recommendation from me if you don’t have anything better to go and see on your night out at the pictures.

Atomic Blonde

Fact Is Satchel

Atomic Blonde
2017 USA Directed by David Leitch
UK cinema release print.

Atomic Blonde is a new film directed by former stuntman David Leitch, whose only previous feature length movie directing was some uncredited scenes on John Wick (reviewed here). He is also currently helming the second Deadpool movie and he directed the mini Deadpool teaser earlier in the year. Atomic Blonde is based on the graphic novel The Coldest City by Antony Johnston and, for once, the Hollywood “based on a” machine got it right... it really is based on a graphic novel and not a comic book being mistakenly confused for one.

After a brief prologue putting the story into political context in the 1980s with the imminent fall of the Berlin Wall, the film starts off with a punchy sequence in which a man is running from some unspecified ‘bad guys’ but winds up dead with, amongst other things, a bullet in his skull, all set to the strains of the New Order song Blue Monday (although I’m not entirely sure whether the version used in the film is actually the New Order version). We then sweep into another sequence as we see the main protagonist, British Intelligence Operative Lorraine Broughton (for the purposes of this review) played by Charlize Theron, in the aftermath of the mission which we will see in the ensuing film. We start off with her in a bathtub, filled with ice, to help her badly swollen and bruised body.

We then see her putting up some make-up in the mirror as David Bowie’s song for Paul Schrader’s remake of Cat People, Putting Out The Fire, plays on the soundtrack in a somewhat stolen moment, it seems to me, from Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds... in which it's used for a very similar sequence (this film also has another connection with Inglourious Basterds in the fact that popular German actor Til Schweiger turns up in a few scenes). Following this, Lorraine goes to her debriefing in London, sat in a room in the company of Toby Jones and John Goodman as she tells the tale of her recent, disastrous mission in Berlin. The majority of the rest of the film is all flashing back from there (with occasional jumps back to that reference frame) as she goes on a mission to find a microfilm list of all the intelligence agents operating in the world... the very list which the gentleman at the start of the movie was killed for. She is also told to look out for a traitorous ‘double agent’ who goes by the name of Satchel, in order to unmask Satchel and probably terminate with extreme prejudice.

And so she goes to Berlin and, before she can meet her main and thoroughly ambiguous contact David Percival (played by James McAvoy) she is already ‘made’ by the ‘opposition’ and gets herself into trouble which she handles in a most spectacularly violent fashion and then... the film goes on like this for pretty much the rest of the running time. And it’s really not a bad movie, to be honest. A quite tough action piece, nicely framed and well edited so that it’s not going to lose the audience and with the kind of brutal edged comic book violence in it that we’ve seen in, for example, the John Wick films.

Now, there’s a lot going on here in terms of ‘story smoke’ in this one and, ultimately, because it’s the kind of film that delves into the murky underworld of spy fiction, where you never know who is telling the truth and who is working for who, the plot is somehow best left ignored, in my opinion. If this was a Bond or Jason Bourne film, people would be complaining about the simplicity of the plot but, because it’s a different beast, the story doesn’t mean too much, to be honest. The identity of Satchel is treated almost like the identity of the killer in a giallo movie, in that there’s so many people it could be that it’s almost impossible to tell which one it is... and it also doesn’t matter, as it happens. The plot is really, more so than many movies, just a framework to hang the stupendously cool action sequences from and to focus on the ice cold personae projected by Charlize Theron, who does wonderfully well in this role. Indeed, she had eight trainers for this movie and was training alongside Keanu Reeves while he was preparing for John Wick - Chapter 2 (reviewed here) but she still managed to crack two teeth while filming, by all accounts. You can tell by her performance here that she really threw herself into the physicality of the role.

So, yeah, the fight scenes are quite brutal in some places and, rather than being the ‘hit someone, kill someone else before killing the other person you just hit - stop - repeat’ style of combat used in the John Wick movies (which is effective enough and I love those films), the intensity of the fight scenes in this are perhaps even more interesting in that they are more intimate with people taking a long, long time to become incapacitated or die. So, less body count (although it is pretty high) and more the strife and struggle of a well choreographed series of set pieces, in this movie. One of the things I liked about it, regarding this, is the way that both heroine and bad guys are shown to be so damaged and exhausted from their fights that they both have trouble getting up to carry on the combat. There’s one sequence in particular, where Theron’s Atomic Blonde is trying to get a character called Spyglass, who has memorised the troublesome list and who is played by Eddie Marsan, out of the country but she goes on the offensive and enters a multi-story building with him to attack some snipers. In the long, drawn out and chaotic fight scenes which take place here, it was great to see Theron’s character getting punch drunk and falling about all over the place rather than just be the 100% killing machine a lot of these kinds of heroes normally are in these sorts of action spectacles.

My one slight problem with the film was the casting of Sofia Boutella as another agent who becomes Lorraine’s lesbian lover during the course of the story (no spoilers here... it’s in the trailers, people). Toward the end of the movie, Boutella’s character comes under some extreme duress from a third party and it was in these moments that I realised that this actress is going to be typecast if she’s not careful because, the baggage she brings to the role via other movies doesn’t help the credibility of her character here. After all, the agent she is playing is quite vulnerable, almost to the point of naiveté but, the roles I associate her with are the killer blade-legged lady from Kingsman - The Secret Service (reviewed here) and The Mummy in the recent version of... um... The Mummy (reviewed here) . So she really should be able to take care of herself in any situation, is what my brain was telling me. I know that’s wrong and it’s maybe just me but I had a similar ‘unwanted baggage’ problem with Uma Thurman in Paycheck. I’d fairly recently seen her kicking all kinds of backside in Tarantino’s Kill Bill movies so I wasn’t prepared, in that particular case, for her to play a character who wasn’t able to take on anything less than a gazillion bad guys and come out on top. So, yeah, just a slight problem with Boutella’s character here too but... like I said, that could be just unique to me.

The end reveal of the Satchel character comes a lot after you are expecting it to be revealed, assuming you’re not taking anything you see and hear at face value and after a few fake endings. I’m delighted to say I completely guessed the identity of Satchel wrong, so that made me smile a little. That being said, since that identity really could have been anyone, the cleverness of the reveal comes not from the who but from the ‘what’ and ‘ why’ of the character than anything else. Sorry if that seems a little cryptic but I’m trying to keep this review as spoiler free as possible. Either way, the film doesn’t end when you think it’s going to end and there are a couple of little twists which, while seeming fairly unimportant after the violent carnage of the rest of the story, still give the film a nice little end play to add a little more depth to the tale.

Other than that though, a nice piece of modern, kinetic cinema with a strong soundtrack of 1980s songs (plus covers), some cool performances all around and a few striking visual touches here and there. Watch out near the end, for example, in a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ moment where the blood spray of someone’s brains being blown from their head adds a beautiful splash of red punctuation to the artwork on the wall behind, putting a bloody orifice/red set of lips in the mouth of the subject of the painting (I don’t know if that was serendipitous or planned but it looked really great). There’s also a great pseudo-eighties graphic design style to the way the expository typography is used on screen (with the accompanying swooshing sound of a spray paint can) and even a moment where the moviemakers nearly break the fourth wall when the director uses the flashback format to legitimately have the film you are watching burn up in an imaginary projector, so to speak. So, some nice moments here. I was a bit disappointed, given the setting of the film and the title, that the Blondie song Atomic was not used once in the movie, given that its minimalistic vocals and pounding instrumental could have been put to good use here (not to mention the content of those few lyrics) but, that niggle aside, it’s a really cool flick and if you are a fan of action cinema, pretty much unmissable as far as I’m concerned. I don’t know if this movie was anything like the graphic novel it was based on but, as a film, Atomic Blonde is a great night out at the pictures so... give this one a go, if hard edged action is your kind of thing.

Jonathan Strange And Mr. Norrell

Raven Mad

Jonathan Strange And Mr. Norrell
UK Airdate: 17th May - 28th June 2015
BBC 1

It's been a number of years since I first read Susanna Clarke's literary debut, the masterpiece Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell... a couple of years after it was first published in 2004, I believe. I had a girlfriend living in Ipswich at the time and so my Friday and Sunday evenings were all about devouring books to pass the long train journeys to and from my ultimate destination.

I remember, at the time, marvelling at the blend of fact and fiction in a tale where the author had veiled her characters, the narrowly focussed Mr. Norrell and the younger, heroic Jonathan Strange (whose name I took at the time, and still do believe to be, a less than veiled reference to Steve Ditko and Stan Lee’s 1960s super hero sorcerer Dr. Strange), with an air of realism by cloaking their fantastic deeds with four very vital ingredients that helped to give them an air of credibility...

Firstly there was the almost archaic tinge to the language. While not nearly as "old worlde" in style as the writings of one of my favourite writers, Jules Verne (and he certainly had an excuse), there was still a lack of haste in the writing style and a clarity of detail which I appreciated from the writer.

Secondly, and possibly as a natural offshoot of the decision to go with this writing style, perhaps, there was a certain amount of slowed pacing. There is no rush, especially at the opening of the book, to tumble quickly into constant feats of fantastical magic in an attempt to entice the reader in at speed. Instead she skillfully used her storytelling talents to treat the incidents of magic with a certain gravitas that pulls the reader in slowly and surely, rendering each magical act a little narrative event at first, building speed slowly from zero to a hundred until, in time, the acts of magic are accepted by the reader as background incidents to the fiction, while still somehow not losing the sense of magnificence as they occur.

Thirdly, she quietly mixes her fiction with the historical fact of the times the tale takes place in, with the Duke Of Wellington leading his armies into victory, giving her characters a context and then using them and their magnificent deeds to remould and retell history. This gives the story the context of an alternate universe which, once the reader can relate to it through the comparison of the historical basis (or our best approximation of that), helps to give the characters a weight of their own in their interaction with the events of their time... again rendering a very believable reality for the reader.

And fourthly, of course, their was the constant amount of footnotes which the writer used to add "fact" (or perhaps a better word for it would be "fict?”) to the circumstances and history of the magic in the books. There are over a hundred and fifty of them throughout the novel, providing little annotations regarding the legacy from which the use and existence of the magic practiced by both of the title characters begins. As any reader who has read this wonderfully enchanting tale will remember, the footnotes are of varied lengths but there is a lot of detail in them... some of them going on for a few pages of small text at a time, if memory serves.

I was completely blown away and delighted by the book at the time and knew that, someday, somebody would want the film rights (something which has already happened, by all accounts). I, however, was always keen to insist to anyone who would listen, most of whom had not read the novel, that the sheer size of the volume would surely lend itself better to a TV miniseries, given the breadth of the story and the amount of detail in it.

Imagine my surprise when I learned, towards the end of last year, that the BBC were co-producing a short series, totalling seven episodes of an hour each, of an adaptation of this much loved tale. Perhaps something that allowed for that much screen time would actually be able to do some justice to the source material? My enthusiasm was tempered somewhat when I saw the two actors who had been cast in the lead roles. Eddie Marsan is a great actor and I've seen him in a number of things over the years... but he seemed just a little young to be playing Mr. Norrell, in all honesty. Similarly, I seem to remember Jonathan Strange as being the dashing young hero type and the, unknown to me, actor they had cast, Bertie Carvel, seemed to me to be just a little too old for the part. I must admit that, until recently, the only person I would have thought absolutely perfect for doing justice to the role of Strange would have been Johnny Depp... someone who is, admittedly, probably out of the reach of a BBC budget. So, despite the obvious fact that the BBC tends to populate its dramas with brilliant performers, I was quite worried about the casting.

As it happens, my concerns were unfounded and I was soon to learn that even if the casting doesn't at first seem right, great actors who are more concerned with breathing life into their characters as opposed to letting their own personality dominate to the extent that it harms the production, are just as good as the serendipity of perfect casting, when it happens. Both Marsan and Carvel are brilliant in their respective roles, as are all the other actors and actresses in this version. These include Alice Englert as Lady Pole, Charlotte Riley as Strange's wife Arabella, Enzo Cilenti as Childermass and Marc Warren in the role of ‘Thistledown’, who is kinda the villain of the piece here (referred to as the gentleman).

Now I suspect, and I can't quite remember because I must have read at least a couple of hundred books since this one, that the writer of this adaptation has changed the order of certain events... or at least altered the structure a little to make it easier to digest for a TV audience. I seem to remember Jonathan Strange being around more in the early parts of the book for instance... but the character doesn’t have a great deal of screen time in the first episode. Also, a character who is a prophet, of a kind (and without giving you any spoilers) for an important but rarely glimpsed character called The Raven King, seems to be more prominent in this version. And again, ‘Thistledown’, who is admittedly an important character, also seems to be much more prominent in this version of the tale. Now, as I say, my memory may be at fault here or, perhaps, the art of the adaptation to naturally render the more visual aspects of the story and cut away at the various judgements and dalliances of the wordage automatically brings more prominence to parts of the novel which were less overt, in contrast, in the original format. I certainly can't, with any confidence, say either way... but that's a good thing, actually, as it gives me an excuse to go back and re-read it sometime in the future.

Another thought was that the production brings a very personal interpretation to some of the magical events in the tale and throw their own versions of enchanting spells into the mix from time to time. However, as I've said many times on this site in the past, good adaptation is not necessarily about doggedly sticking to all the details of the source material... it's more about creating something which follows the intent, spirit and style of the original work and, I have to say, the BBC have come up with an amazing version here which does credit to Clarke's original work and will hopefully inspire more people to go out and read it. It's easily the best contemporarily written book I've read in a very long time.

I was also somewhat impressed and pleased that the production doesn't shy away from some of the darker passages in the book... and this includes the fact that they didn't try and give the tale a more optimistic or audience mollifying ending. The way the characters are left in the book is a little bleaker than readers might, at first, hope for and with a little less positive closure than is comfortable for an audience who has grown to love and empathise with these creations over the course of the novel. The adaptation as it stands leaves the ending as it is in the novel and, because we go through so much with Strange and Norrell, it's not the most crowd pleasing conclusion in the world... but it is a totally appropriate one and well done to all involved for not tampering too much with Clarke's original ending.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is a good example of what British television does best... producing a strong period drama to a very high standard. That they've also picked on source material that reshapes that period and remakes it from the viewpoint of an England where magic returns to the kingdom to deliver the twists and turns of the more fantastical aspects with all the enthusiasm and invention that they lavish on their flagship show, Doctor Who, is to be applauded and encouraged.  A truly entertaining adaptation which retains the spirit of the original work with the deft touch of a cast and crew that know exactly how to make the illusion work. I hope that the BBC will seek out more material of this nature to bring us in future. Might I humbly suggest that a serial based on Gordon Dahlquist’s The Glass Books Of The Dream Eaters may be a good place to start?

The World’s End

Kind Hearts And Cornettos

The Worlds End
2013 UK
Directed by Edgar Wright
Playing at cinemas now.

So here we have what has been loosely termed by it’s creators, depending on your source, as either the “blood and ice cream” trilogy or, making more sense after having seen the third one, “the Cornetto trilogy”... in much the same way that Sergio Leone’s first three totally unrelated spaghetti westerns were dubbed “the Dollars trilogy” when they promoted those films in the US, perhaps.

Now I seem to have a track record with products written by the director Edgar Wright and actor Simon Pegg in that, I usually “quite like” them the first time around but, when seeing them for the second time, I usually get more into it and embrace the thing wholeheartedly. This was the case of, in the order I watched them in, Shaun Of The Dead, Spaced (the TV show which ran for two series’ and pre-dated Shaun Of The Dead) and Hot Fuzz. I have to say that, given this puzzling relationship with their past work, I was a little trepidatious about seeing this one for the first time... although, of course, I knew I’d probably love it the second time around.

Well, I have to say, that pattern has finally been broken by their new movie, The Worlds End. While I’m sure I’ll still love it the second time around, I am happy to say that I was also was quite fond of it the first time around too, and had a thoroughly good time with it at the cinema last night... although I didn’t bring it flowers or take it to dinner before it manifested itself before my eyes in my local flea pit, to be sure.

The Worlds End tells the story of a larger than life character, Gary King, played by Simon Pegg, who gets his old school buddies together for a reunion 20 years or so later, to have another crack at “the golden mile”... the epic crawl of 12 pubs culminating in the final one, The World’s End... a task at which they’d failed at miserably “back in the day”. Unfortunately, Gary’s comrades in arms, played by Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan and Paddy Considine respectively... with the added touch of glam and sprinkle from Rosamund Pike as the film’s leading lady... are not exactly big supporters of Gary anymore. But, as you know they will, they go with Gary to start their epic journey and, as it turns out, instead find themselves in jeopardy fighting most of the town who have been replaced with alien simulucra.

What can I say? Wright and Pegg basically take the classic plot of Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers, add in a classic British obsession (pubbing) and riff on the collision of these two ingredients throughout the whole movie while not forgetting that all important element that makes you feel and root for all the characters... a touch of heart.

And not only that... they don’t really drop the ball throughout the whole thing and they do it all very smartly.

It maybe takes a little while to get going on the set up but only because the characters are slightly more complex than usual for these writers and you want to understand how they’ll come to work together (which is why I suspect my second viewing will be even more enjoyable), but all the way through the wittiness of the dialogue is crisp and even (if not always especially deep*) and although my main comedy enjoyment usually comes, almost exclusively, from either The Marx Brothers or Woody Allen, I have to say that when you get Wright and Pegg together, they continue that kind of cool cleverness with syntax and terminology that lights my fire when it comes to this kind of word play.

There are also some good fights in it.

No joke, there’s some great set-piece, full-on, blue-blooded alien gore, pub brawls in this which will knock your socks off. And with blue being the colour of the blood on the menu, they manage to do it all behind the censor’s backs, as it were, who must have been too conditioned to looking for signs of crimson to notice the huge amounts of violence contained within a 15 rated movie... but that’s okay by me. Although I was disappointed that Wright and Pegg didn’t put a paraphrase of one of their famous Shaun Of The Dead recurring jokes in it... I was just waiting for the line... “You’ve got blue on you” but, unless I missed it somewhere, it didn’t happen. And like their last collaboration, Hot Fuzz, it’s even got an unexpected, for me at least, Bond villain... and I mean, Bond/villain. You’ll see what I mean.

My one real complaint though is, after finishing the film off with an almost perfect ending with Nick Frost’s character telling the tale of what happened next (which also includes this film’s nod to Cornetto), they elected to put one final scene in with one of the main characters which, while it was okay as a set up for something else, could have left a much stronger ending without it. But that might not have been commercially the best ending, especially in other countries, so I can understand why they did this.

So that’s all I got to say then, I think. Other than the sound design and choice of music is incredible (and relevant to the on screen shenanigans in a rather integral manner at one point near the end) and it was also nice to see modern art getting some legs on it, which I’m not going to spoil for you here, you’ll just have to live with my mundane attempt at being cryptic and go and see the thing for yourself. All in all, a good night at the movies and certainly a lot more fun, I suspect, than attempting to get through “the golden mile” in real life. Go drink your celluloid fill.

* I hate the word deep, but it was the only way I could make my lame pun work and still convey my exact meaning... so cut me some slack, okay?