Bridget Jones - Mad About The Boy

Keeping Up
With The Joneses

Bridget Jones -
Mad About The Boy
Directed by Michael Morris
UK/France/USA 2025
Universal

Warning: Some character spoilers from the outset.

So once again, after a substantial break in the franchise, Renée Zellweger returns to the role which really put her on the map, at least internationally. Bridget Jones - Mad About The Boy is the fourth of the Bridget Jones films and, to be honest, after the last couple I really wasn’t expecting all that much from it. I’m happy to say I was wrong but, more on that later.

It’s interesting in that, while most of the important regular actors from previous installments are back for this fourth time round the merry-go-round that is Bridget Jones’ life… some of the characters are no longer with us at the start of this one. So we get a brief new scene in this featuring Jim Broadbent as her father, in a scene reminding us how important he was to Bridget before it’s revealed that, alas, his character has now passed on between films. Similarly and also very importantly to the title character, Colin Firth’s Mark Darcy character has also been tragically killed between movies, leaving Bridget alone to cope with their young son and daughter on her own. This doesn’t, however, stop Firth from turning up every now and again as a kind of memory ghost when Bridget needs him to.

One important character who is back was absent from the last movie, that of Hugh Grant as Daniel Cleaver. He’d spent the last go round missing presumed dead until it was revealed at the end that he had been found… he’s here now as a much more mellow, vulnerable and toned down version of the character and, as usual, Grant does it amazingly well, as a true friend and baby sitter to Bridget.

And, as Bridget decides to go back to her old job, she Tinders herself into a tryst with a new toy-boy suitor played by Leo Woodall and also gets interested in her kids new science teacher Mr. Wallaker, played by the always brilliant Chiwetel Ejiofor (who I shall eventually forgive for trying to kill Captain Mal in the Firefly movie Serenity). So it’s business as usual for Miss Jones (aka Mrs. Darcy) and all the usual shenanigans apply as she tries to engage with various different, sometimes overwhelming jigsaw puzzle pieces of her life at once… taking on Brazilian lip serum and negotiating the prospect of labial adhesion midst the minefield of problems life throws in her way.

Now I loved the original Bridget Jones’ Diary (don’t worry, I’m not going to make the same grammatical mistake as the people who marketed the first movie) but found the two sequels - Bridget Jones - The Edge Of Reason and Bridget Jones’ Baby to be much less interesting or even entertaining movies. So I’m very pleased to say that this last entry in the series is a much more satisfying film (despite a more linear structure than I was expecting in terms of the new relationships she has to juggle) and easily the best of the sequels, for my money. Not only that but, it also gets very emotional and, all I’m saying is there may have been tears for this audience member. Most of the jokes don’t fall flat and the actors are all absolutely great… it’s also nice to see James Callis back as the ‘one hit wonder’ millionaire who is still very much ‘in the money’ after his song is used in a viral video of a dog doing mathematics.

It was also great seeing actress Josette Simon, who I remember playing Dayna in Blake’s Seven when I was a teenager, added to the cast of characters. Glad these people are still working.

Another thing is, the film is true to the original characters quite a bit, with Zellwegger perhaps looking slightly more streamlined in the face but absolutely on point playing Bridget once more. This whole film seems like a non-starter after all this time but it’s actually a lovely way to conclude the series (although, I do see how they could maybe do one more if they wait another ten or so years, I think). So as far as I’m concerned, Bridget Jones - Mad About The Boy is an absolutely lovely film and a big recommendation from me. As I said earlier, easily the best of the sequels.

Heretic

Die Agnostic
Evaluation

Heretic
Directed by Scott Beck
and Bryan Woods
USA/Canada 2024
A24
UK Cinema Release Print.

There are a couple of things that bother me about the new movie Heretic and I’m going to mention those first to stop them getting in the way of what should be a, mostly, very positive review.

Firstly, well... regular readers will probably remember I have quite rigid ideas about what makes a horror genre movie and so... I don’t appreciate going out on Halloween night to see a preview of a new horror movie (I would be at FrightFest for the next two days so it was the only day I could fit it in) only to find out by the end that it wasn’t a horror movie at all... just a thriller (albeit a very good one).

Secondly, the title is a bit of a nonsense because a ‘heretic’ is, by dictionary definition, somebody who disagrees with beliefs that are generally accepted, in this case religion but, honestly, the beliefs of the main antagonist, played brilliantly by Hugh Grant, do not define him as a heretic because, well, I think a large amount of people on the planet would probably have come to the same conclusion about just what organised religion is from an early age. And to just underline my own conclusion of these things, which pretty much mirrors Grant’s in the movie but I won’t reveal what his ‘one true religion’ is in case it’s a spoiler... I’ll just acknowledge that, religion doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the belief in God (whatever that is for you), it’s something else very much man made... so it’s possible to believe in God without being in any way religious, I suspect.

Anyway, other than those two points... Heretic is a mostly cracking movie with, perhaps, just a little of a disappointing denouement but it was still an okay enough ending. It’s not, as I said, really a horror movie, although various genre trappings are brought into play because, right from the offset, the directors certainly seem to want you to think it is.

It opens strongly with two mormons, Sister Paxton (played by Chloe East) and Sister Barnes (played by Sophie Thatcher, who was so good as the young version of Juliette Lewis’ character in Yellowjackets) talking about an amateur porn film. Around them... and this is the best part of the film for me... is some superb typography showing the title, cast and crew etc, creeping around the edges of the frame as the two talk. They then go on with their chores which involves checking their list and going around town, knocking on the doors of people who have expressed an interest in joining their religion and trying to convert them. The last stop on their journey tonight is the house of Mr. Reed, played by Hugh Grant.

Once they’re inside his home, however, it soon becomes clear that he’s a religious scholar and that he has them there for a purpose... he’s not letting them go anytime soon. And the majority of the film is fairly slow paced but that’s okay, it’s pretty riveting dialogue and the discussions around religions and Reed’s metaphors likening the various religions as a series of boards games is all pretty great (and I seriously have to check up on the origins of Monopoly now... that’s just so wrong). As the girls are taken down a winding, conversational path, it isn’t too long before they find themselves in the first of a series of lower levels to the house, as they try and find a way out of their situation (I’m pretty sure something important about the layout of this area may have been cut which was in one of the original trailers but I think I’ll need to revisit those trailers again to make sure).

And that’s where I’m leaving the story dangling... like I said, I don’t want to get into any spoilers past what you know from the trailer. But I will say that the movie is less like the horror film it’s trying to fool the audience into thinking it is and much more like one of those small scale, two hander plays/movies such as Sleuth and Deathtrap, albeit this involves a few more characters at various stages. Now, the cinematography is great and I’ve mentioned the strong, typographically excellent opening (which feels more like something Wes Anderson might use). There are also some outstanding shots such as the way the directors play with the syntax of the visual language by, at one point, showing one of the girls running through a scale model of the house from above in a room as a short hand metaphor and, when she reaches that specific room with the model in it, the camera just pans up to show her arriving in that room.

However, the film’s power comes from a well written script and the powerful performances of the three central characters, all of whom work really well together. Especially Grant... I’ve seen him playing comic villains before such as in films like Dungeons And Dragons - Honour Among Thieves (reviewed here) but he really does have a chance here to remind the audience about just how good an actor he can be and he certainly seizes the opportunity.

Now, the ending, which I will try and discuss but not spoil, does seem to me like it’s totally not horror but, it has to be said, there is more than a hint that something supernatural does occur by the movie’s end but, it’s more of a choice on the behalf of the particular viewer, I believe... and could be interpreted a number of ways. It could be argued, for example, that a certain ‘deus ex machina’ moment in the movie is just exactly that, in the literal translation of the phrase but, I personally didn’t necessarily plump for this ‘is it or isn’t it a miracle?’ moment myself... especially considering the aftermath of the moment. But it doesn’t matter because, I’m sure some people will take certain things as a positive message about religious faith and others will, I suspect, not even realise that it’s built into the DNA of the movie as a possible ingredient.

Either way, although I felt the ending was a little lacking I certainly enjoyed the journey and, despite it not really being a horror movie, I think fans of that genre will still certainly get a kick out of Heretic. So, yeah, I’d happily recommend this one to people although, I’m not sure I’d buy it on Blu Ray because I don’t know if I could sit through it a second time. Very good movie though.

Wonka

J Arthur

Wonka
Directed by Paul King
USA/UKCanada 2023
Warner Brothers Blu Ray Zone B

As I write these words, Wonka is still just about in the UK top ten cinema attractions, even though I watched it on its official Blu Ray release. Which is no mean feat after over three months in the charts... it would be fair to say that the film has somewhat surpassed any expectations the studio had of it, I should think.

Now, I hated the film Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory and didn’t think much better of Tim Burton’s Charlie And The Chocolate Factory either, for that matter (although the score was nice on that one). The reason being that I loved both of Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka books as a kid... Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator (which carries on directly from the end of the first book, where Wonka, Charlie and the others burst through the roof of the factory in the elevator and go into adventures in outer space).

Now, I bought Wonka, sight unseen, because I thought it would be a nice family movie to watch over Easter, what with its implied chocolaty theme and, truth be told, I didn’t hate it. True, the moustached and bearded Wonka of the books is still, bizarrely, clean shaven in this film but, at least the film-makers had an excuse for that this time around, seeing as it is a prequel to the original story and Wonka is a much younger chap. I think I am forgiving it a lot because I don’t have to compare it to the original literature on this one. However, buying it for Easter was a mistake because, as it turns out, I was the only one in the household who didn’t think it was pretty terrible.

Now, there are things wrong with it and I think the real problem is nothing to do with the actors... Timothée Chalamet, Olivia Colman, Calah Lane, Sally Hawkins and co are all great but I think the writing, in terms of the story, is possibly at fault here. To explain... the characterisation of a young Wonka seems to me, certainly in terms of his dialogue and thought processes, absolutely spot on. But, the story seems to kind of let things down and we have a film which, to my mind, starts off strong with some good ideas and some acceptably agreeable musical numbers... which then kind of gets weaker and weaker until it kind of fizzles out, for the most part, towards the end.

Chalamet and Hugh Grant (as one of... and indeed all of... the Oompa Loompas) are great, they carry the movie somewhat in places (even though Grant is barely in it) and the songs and score by Joby Talbot (of pop group The Divine Comedy... who I remember seeing as an unknown support act to the great Voice Of The Beehive in Kentish Town in the 1980s) is pretty good. It’s ‘blended’ both in scoring and the flat out restaging of two of the songs from the Gene Wilder film... Imagination and the Oompa Loompa Song but, that actually works quite well and gives certain sections of the movie a charming lift.

But there were times in the whole thing where I did, I confess, find myself quite bored and certainly wondering how it could be making anything like the staggering box office it has because, I would never have guessed children would have sat still for this for large amounts of time.

It looks nice though with some impressively ornate set pieces and a sense of scale which, I suspect, comes off rather better in the cinema than it does for home viewing (which, ironically, is always going to be how the film is remembered). So, yeah, there was much head scratching in this household as to why it’s been so successful but, it’s definitely a big hit with people and so I guess yet another version of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, by way of a sequel (and thus rendering the references to the Gene Wilder movie redundant), can’t be far away. Wonka is not a big hit with me but, I am glad that it’s doing so well, for sure, because it’s obviously found it audience. So that’s alright then... I don’t have to ever watch it again.

Dungeons And Dragons - Honour Among Thieves

Gelatinous Expectations

Dungeons And Dragons -
Honour Among Thieves
Directed by John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein
United States/Canada/United Kingdom
/Iceland/Ireland/Australia  
2023 Paramount
UK cinema release print

Warning: Minor sequence spoilers.

I wasn’t going to bother with Dungeons And Dragons - Honour Among Thieves, initially. Primarily because I used to love the game when I was a kid and didn’t see how a movie could do that kind of experience justice (yeah... still can’t actually). I remember my dad getting this game somewhere between the early to late 1970s and I used to love reading the various descriptions and images... pretty much none of which I can now remember except the one creature that always intrigued me... the gelatinous cube which slowly digests you if you get caught inside it. So I’m really glad, actually, that the gelatinous cube has made it into this movie incarnation... that’s a big plus in its favour. But, that being said, I’d have to say that I don’t have a clue about all the many obvious in-jokes in the film although, I did notice a vaguely familiar band of adventurers in a cameo during a sequence at the end, where everyone is trying to get through a giant maze.

However, the trailer to the film is really fun (although some of the line deliveries and dialogue are, I think, from different takes than used in the final cut of the movie) and, honestly, I haven’t seen a bad word about the film in any review... even from those from people who are not RPGers (which is the camp I would consider myself in now... it’s probably been nearly four decades since I played). So I thought I’d give it a go and, the first thing which surprised me about the film is that it’s... drum roll... based on a property from Hasbro! Seriously? When did this happen? I remember the set we used to have (and probably still have somewhere) was branded up as TSR Games. Did they sell it?

Anyway, this is going to be a very short review I think because, I can tell you right away that I’m not as enthusiastic about the film as all the other people I‘ve seen talking about it. It is, however, a fairly entertaining romp of an adventure, to be sure. Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez play thieves Edgin and Holga (my favourite class of D&D character... the one I always used to pick to play) who escape from their prison at the start of the movie and go on a quest to try and regain Edgin’s daughter (Chloe Coleman) from the clutches of traitorous former partner Forge (played by Hugh Grant). To do this they have to go on a quest for a legendary artefact and band together with a few other characters played by Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis and, in what amounts to a very good extended cameo section, Regé-Jean Page.

And all of the actors I just mentioned in this are absolutely wonderful performers and they all have great chemistry. So I’m not quite sure why my personal reception of the movie was somewhat diminished because I can tell you for sure that the movie is certainly pacey, has plenty of fantasy action and has a lot of humour with a script that walks a delicate tightrope between peril and humour with ease. And, to boot, the dialogue isn’t bad either... I suspect I would like this a heck of a lot more if I watched it a second time, now that my head has processed the entire experience. Some movie just hit me like that and I get so much more out of them on subsequent rewatches (such as The Mummy Returns, La La Land and Knives Out, for example).

The highlight sequence, for me, asides from the appearance of the gelatinous cube, would be the sequence with all five heroes in a cave being chased by what has become, the fattest, roly poly dragon I’ve ever seen in a movie. This sequence is a real testament to how easily the film can play with your expectations, throw up a ludicrous concept... because that huge, fat dragon sure looks silly not being able to fly, falling over and rolling around almost crushing our heroes... and still present it as a credible and quite threatening enemy to the other characters. There’s also a great sequence where our heroes are using an incantation to wake one of the dead to ask an alloted five questions and that becomes an extended sequence of wasted, ‘I didn’t mean that as one of the questions’ moments and continued digging up of dead bodies, until the characters finally get the information they want.

So, yeah, I didn’t quite gell with the movie but I certainly don’t have a bad thing to say about it either. For me, Dungeons And Dragons - Honour Among Thieves was an okay time at the cinema with a movie which entertained but didn’t bowl me over completely. As someone who hasn’t played in almost forty years, I still found it quite accessible and I don’t think you have to be a hardcore RPGer to enjoy the movie. I would certainly recommend it to experienced players who are going to have a lot richer experience than I did, due to understanding a lot more of the references and jokes but, yeah, I think a lot of people will find this one entertaining and have a good time with it.

The Lair Of The White Worm

The Great British Snake Off

The Lair Of The White Worm
UK 1988 Directed by Ken Russell
Vestron Video  Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Spoilers... because the silliness
is too good leave without commenting on it.

Well this is absolutely bonkers.

I somehow never got around to seeing much loved director Ken Russell’s The Lair Of The White Worm on its original cinema release but I’ve kept it in mind to catch up to over the years and I thought October, the month culminating in Halloween, might be a good excuse to watch the newish Vestron Blu Ray release of the film. So there I was expecting a spine tingling horror romp.

Well I certainly got a romp.

It’s gone on record that Ken Russell regards this and certain other films he’s made as comedies... well that’s something which the audience could be forgiven for misinterpreting here I suspect. Sure, there are loads of laughs to be had in this fun packed film but I was certainly not aware, as I was chewing over this entertaining morsel, that the laughs here were anything but unintentional.

The film concerns the antics of a Scottish, student archaeologist called Angus, played by a young Peter Capaldi... and his brand new about to be’ girlfriend called Mary, who runs the lodgings he’s staying at, played by Sammi Davis. After digging up a huge and puzzling skull in Mary’a garden as part of a Roman excavation, he goes with her when the local police constable, played by prolific British character actor Paul Brooke, brings a pocket watch to Mary which belonged to her father. Her father and mother disappeared a number of years ago and so Angus and Mary join in the search for the missing couple near the caves in which said pocket watch was found.

We also have Mary’s sister Eve, played by a real life daughter of a princess, Catherine Oxenberg and her boyfriend, Lord James D'Ampton played by a young Hugh Grant.

Meanwhile, Amanda Donohoe, playing the decidedly dodgy and saucily aristocratic Lady Sylvia Marsh, returns to the other bit of land near D’Ampton’s manor and, after getting wind of Angus’ find, steals said skull while they are absent and, when she sees a crucifixion cross on the wall, spits venom at it from her suddenly, hugely fanged mouth. That’s because she is a cross between some kind of vampiric snake demon and a vampire who keeps a big worm beast in a pit in her cellar and who wants to sacrifice Eve to the skull of the Snake God to... I dunno, I kinda missed the part where they explained why she is doing this. Either the explanation was left a bit vague or I was so distracted by the content of the movie that I kind of lost the plot a bit.

What I can tell you is that absolutely bizarre shenanigans ensue as the four young protagonists do battle with Lady Marsh.

The film itself is an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel of the same name but, having read a summary of that novel and with the main action of the film taking place in Derbyshire, I’d have to say it’s more inspired by the novel rather than sticking to anything verbatim. Surely it’s equally inspired by the English mythical beast The Lampton Worm (as was Stoker’s novel) as anything else. Here though, the titular beast is actually the D’Ampton Worm, named after the trouble it caused in days gone by on the grounds of Lord D’Ampton’s domain.

The film starts off really well, it has to be said, with a long slow zoom of a piece of mountainous scenery and the cave which is made much of in the main story. Wind blows on the soundtrack as the credits roll over this image. Then, any pretence that this is going to be a proper ‘horror movie’ in anything but the presence of genre elements, flies out the window as we meet Angus and Mary and the ears are assaulted by a cacophony of fast talking characters dealing in dodgy accents and delivering a not so great script in a truly enthusiastic, if not particularly well acted, manner. To be fair, the acting may, after reading something Donohoe said of the film, have been a specific direction from the director so his approach to the material is possibly more to blame if you feel the film is tonally at fault in terms of the performances.

When we first meet Lady Marsh she is wearing, more or less, a white highwayman’s outfit but this is just a number of outrageous and over the top costumes she bravely wears (and strips out of) throughout the movie. She has some truly silly scenes in this such as when she picks up an 18 year old (at least, I hope he was 18) boy scout and takes him to her home as it’s raining. After slipping him out of his wet clothes and playing Snakes And Ladders with him, he whips out a mouth organ and starts playing Rimsy-Korsakov’s Scheherezade, which of course causes her to dance like a snake. She then starts washing him down in her bath and goes to give him some oral sex. However, she instead brings her fangs into play and, uses them to inject snake venom into his cock, which paralyses him and, when she is interrupted by Hugh Grant’s character knocking on her door, she just pushes him under the water to drown. She reminded me, just a a little, of Jacqueline Pearce's turn in Hammer's The Reptile here.

And if you think that’s smiler-rific, then the next two hander with Hugh Grant, where they trade quips, is even sillier. At one point in this, after pretending a fear of snakes, she throws the Snakes And Ladders board into the fire. Watching it burn she utters ‘Rosebud’, bringing us the complete non-sequitur of a Citizen Kane reference into all this madness. I was reminded a little of Michael Moorcock’s Miss Brunner character from the Jerry Cornelius novels in the way Donohoe plays the role. Scenes where she is strangling an air hostess in a scissor hold between her suspender adorned legs or rising snake-like out of an urn really give the film a kind of ludicrous, fun element which wouldn’t be out of place in one of those Cornelius chronicles.

As in other Ken Russel movies, he shows an interest in dream sequences such as the aforementioned ‘flight’ scene or a sequence where sexy nuns are pillaged by Romans as Christ is crushed on the cross by a big snake monster at ‘snake-Donohoe’s’ instruction. This also includes a blink and you’ll miss it, possibly less than two seconds, cameo by British glamour actress and author Linzi Drew as one of the nuns (I reviewed one of her latest novels here).

More shenanigans follow as Hugh Grant fights a vampiric underling of Lady Marsh, who he has lured to his mansion by playing a 78rpm recording of a snake charmer. Actually, this scene has what was, for me, the only genuine jump scare in the movie where, a little while after Hugh has cut his foe in two with his big sword (almost as big as the pointy, antique dildo Lady Marsh threatens Eve with later), the top half of the lady in question’s divided body makes a grab for Hugh’s ankle.

Later on, Angus gets his ‘kilt on’ and his bag pipes out in an attempt to lure the lady out of the house in which she has imprisoned Mary and Eve. Alas, he mostly just gets the attention of the police officer from earlier, who has been vampired up by Lady Marsh. Luckily, Angus is able to direct his bag pipes into an aggressive cacophony and forces Paul Brooke backwards as he trips and impales his head on a sundial... his left eyeball popping out the front in a none too convincing but deliriously funny moment of gore. That leaves Angus free to try and tackle the main snake lady and her ravenous pet himself, as he tries to rescue the fair maidens while Lord D’Ampton is trying to flush said snake monster out of the pit by piping gas through there. And... it all ends in a terrible set of loose ends involving mixed up antidotes which kind of don’t add up and with the character of Angus secretly a vampire, awaiting his turn to gobble down on his next victim.

And it’s brilliant. Terrible, clichéd, with silly acting, some nice cinematography and just a sense, aesthetically, of being written and performed while everyone was stoned out of their head. I loved it, just in case you were wondering and I’m sure that won’t be my last viewing. Would I recommend The Lair Of The White Worm to others? Yeah, I’d be happy to inflict this madness on various friends if I could find anyone but me who’s not actually seen this masterpiece of lunacy before. Very happy I’m finally catching up to this and I think I need to check out a couple of others of Russell’s oeuvre that I’ve not seen before. Really pleased I’ve finally discovered this one.

Paddington 2

Bear Behind Bars

Paddington 2
UK/France/USA 2017
Directed by Paul King
Studio Canal Blu Ray Zone B

Late to the party again, as I was with the first installment in this extraordinarily entertaining and well made film series based on the much loved English character created by the, now sadly deceased, Michael Bond. Paddington 2 continues the adventures of everyone’s favourite marmalade sandwich eating bear from Darkest Peru as he continues to live with the Brown family and enrich the lives of his London community.

The film starts with a bit more of Paddington’s back story, depicting his first meeting with his ‘Aunt Lucy’. Now, I hate to say the film is obvious as to where it’s going but... well it’s not hard to work out what the last scene in this movie is going to be after seeing this pre-credit sequence. However... that didn’t stop me crying my eyes out at the ending due to the soppy nature of said denouement and, frankly, by the time you take the journey to the end of the film, no other ending would have done... so no problems there then.

Now, I probably didn’t enjoy Paddington 2 quite as much as the first one (which I reviewed here) but it’s certainly almost as entertaining and it has a mighty fast pace to it. All the usual slapstick applies and director Paul King, who also returns for this sequel, seems to have a good eye for creating great compositions with the obvious CGI elements added into the frames. Much of the film is predictable but it also homages the Britishness of the character... such as a bucket and ladder sequence when Paddington decides to become a window cleaner.

Why is he a window cleaner?

Well, I’m glad you asked. He needs to find a present for his Aunt Lucy’s 100th birthday to send to Darkest Peru and he finds the perfect thing in his local antique shop... a wonderful and, as it turns out, very rare pop-up book of London. So rare that there’s no way Paddington can afford it... even with the 50 pence piece Mrs. Bird (once again played by Julie Walters) found in his ear earlier in the movie. So to raise the money, after a false start where he completely wrecks his chances at being a barber’s assistant, he embarks on a job doing everybody’s windows and... he does it pretty well too. Unfortunately, he also accidentally alerts this film’s ‘bad guy' Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant), an out of work actor forced to do dog food commercials, to the whereabouts of the pop-up book which, unbeknownst to most people apart from the villain of the piece, contains clues scattered around various London landmarks, leading to a famous fortune in trinkets gifted to a deceased trapeze artist.

So, the evening before Paddington finally has enough money for the book, he notices Buchanan in the act of thieving said tome from the store and gives chase in a nicely put together pursuit sequence where he rides the neighbourhood dog he has befriended. Alas, the police don’t see Buchanan exiting, pursued by a bear... they just see our furry hero so, when Buchanan gives Paddington the slip, it’s our favourite bear himself who finds himself thrown into prison. A really nice, bizarrely idealised version of prison, to be honest but, you know... ‘tis a family film.

More adventures continue as the Browns attempt to prove Paddington’s innocence while the bear of the moment and his new prison friends, played by such notable guest stars as Noah Taylor and Brendan Gleeson (as the prison cook, Knuckles McGinty) have a daring escape plan to get Paddington back on the outside to clear his name.

And, yeah, it’s a great little movie.

It’s also filled with some very inventive and lovely set pieces on the visuals...

Such as a wonderful sequence when Paddington is first shown the pop-up book and his imagination projects himself and Aunt Lucy through the cardboard cutout pages on an exploration of London. It’s a beautiful scene and it’s also, presumably deliberately, reminiscent of the old and much loved Paddington TV show of the 1970s where everyone else except Paddington was represented by cardboard cut outs.

And, after accidentally turning all the prison uniforms pink in a ‘washing incident’, many of the jail sequences seem directly inspired by the relevant sequences in The Grand Budapest Hotel (reviewed by me here), if I’m not very much mistaken and even Dario Marinielli’s, pretty grooving score for the movie seems to follow suit for some of those ‘Desplat moments’ on the soundtrack.

The performances are lovely too, with a whole load of cameos from famous actors such as Peter Capaldi, Tom Conti, Ben Miller and, seriously, so many I can’t possibly mention them all here. And, of course, along with Q branch’s very own Ben Whishaw reprising voice duties for Paddington, we have Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins back as Mr and Mrs Brown.

Both are a delight, of course and Hawkins tells the story of flying to England straight after her Oscar nominated turn in The Shape Of Water (reviewed here), only to find herself shooting more underwater scenes for Paddington 2. Now that I know the content of that underwater sequence, I have to say it’s one of those moments where Hawkin’s and a CG character absolutely pull off one of the most potentially devastating scenes you could think of in a family film. You know what you’re watching can’t possibly do what you think it’s going to do but both Sally and the CGI Paddington wordlessly convey a whole world of emotion in this part. Seriously, it really wipes me out now just thinking about it.

Of course, it’s a family film so all comes right in the end and, you know, while it has the much expected finish with a set up from the pre-credits sequence, stick around for the end credits look at Paddington’s scrapbook for a chance to see what happens to all the other characters in the film (plus an extra musical song and dance number from Hugh Grant).

And that’s all I’m saying about this one again because I’m getting all teary eyed just thinking about it, to be honest. Not as good as the first film in the franchise but a strong movie which in no way, shape or form lets down the memory of its predecessor. Paddington 2 gets two paws up from me!

The Man From UNCLE

A Few Of My Waverly Things

The Man From UNCLE
2015 USA
Directed by Guy Ritchie
UK cinema release print.

Hmmm... okay, so this is one of those films that make reviewing these things both interesting and, frankly, extremely frustrating. I saw the trailers for this and the tone looked somehow wrong and, well... it certainly is but there’s a lot of good stuff here too.

I used to watch The Man From U.N.C.L.E as a kid on TV, mostly in the many movie incarnations... some of which were just edited versions of compiled episodes and others which were original stories (if memory serves me correctly). It’s been a long time since I saw any of those projected onto a big screen... I think I saw one or two around about the early to late seventies, on screenings at holiday camps etc when I was a kid. I remember the biggest factors in me getting into these things, as it always seemed to be, were the musical scores on these. Although the original The Man From UNCLE theme by Jerry Goldsmith is what most purists will probably cite as the best, I personally prefer the reworkings and scores by other composers such as Gerald Fried and Richard Shores... once the unusual time signature of maestro Jerry’s had been changed to something more usual (which I really don’t mind in this particular instance... not nearly as much as the original composer did) and made more typically jazzier. I used to hum this stuff all the time as a kid.

Now I don’t know much about Guy Ritchie but I saw his excellent Sherlock Holmes film and his not that bad but, not great, sequel to it some years ago. I can see that he’s a great talent and has some nice, possibly even innovative stuff, going on in his films. As such, I was expecting at least a half watchable movie from this and The Man From UNCLE is certainly more than that. However, the film at no time seems like either and extension or a reboot which is faithful in any way, shape or form to the original series or movies... and it really seems to make no attempt to be that, it has to be said.

For me, the movie needed to have at least two things in it besides characters who were like the originals... that was a variation of the original Jerry Goldsmith melody line plus baseline to give it a musical identity and, of course, those signature scene changes which sent the camera fast panning off to the left or right with a jumble of “incomprehensible to the eye” image movement which snapped you into the next location. I thought that the studio would at least retain these things but, alas, it really didn’t and I think this hurts the film tremendously in terms of being an addition to The Man From UNCLE universe.

As far as the characters are concerned, the movie puts too much history into the characters and this means they have been severely changed from their earlier counterparts. Bond author Ian Fleming originally created the Napoleon Solo character for TV before being pulled off of the project due to contractual conflicts with the Bond series of films (again, if my memory serves me correctly). However, the character name, at least, made it into the book of Goldfinger (and the movie version, reviewed here, although in the film he’s just referred to as Solo), so that’s kind of interesting in terms of development times. The character name was used in the book five years before the show aired so I’m not sure if that was a long development time or just a case of Fleming using an old name he liked... he also contributed the character April Dancer, who would later be played by Stefanie Powers in the TV show The Girl From UNCLE. 

In this updated version, Solo has somehow become an ex-thief and Ilya Kuryakin is a big gorilla of a Russian who suffers from psychotic episodes. This is a far cry from the original characters and it really puts the final nail in the coffin as far as continuity with the originals goes.

That being said, Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer are both absolutely great playing this movie’s versions of Solo and Kuryakin... the audience just has to accept they are playing different characters. They are ably supported by Alicia Vikander and Elizabeth Debicki playing both ally and villain in this although, it has to be said that Debicki seems a little underused as the main antagonist. One wonders if there was a much larger film, much of which was left on the cutting room floor for this one. Certainly the visual absence of a pay off scene involving Kuryakin and Count Lippi, in a nice reference to Ian Fleming’s Count Lippe character in Thunderball (reviewed here) and the use of montages which promise larger action sequences than were revealed, perhaps, may indicate that this movie has been heavily trimmed... probably by the director I should imagine. All that being said, the film is a joy to watch once you can get over the fact that the only character who is remotely like his original source is Hugh Grant channeling a younger version of Leo G. Carrol’s Mr. Waverly character.

The film is set in the 1960s and that’s certainly good. The director seems to enjoy playing with a kind of hyper real version of the sixties which is not a million miles away from the style employed through various espionage films over the years... just not really The Man From UNCLE franchise. One of the things he does is employ split screen techniques such as those popularised in movies like the original version of The Thomas Crown Affair and he has a great slant on this at the end of the first sequence he does in this manner, where the vertical split from two separate, parallel displayed shots is pulled away revealing that you are actually seeing a single shot which is split by a vertical in the composition already. He does this less successfully later in the movie but the first time he does that here it’s a nice little reveal.

Another interesting thing he does is to take the old horror cliché of having something important happening in the background of a shot which the main characters are unaware of, the audience witnessing what’s going on before the characters realise it. He uses it for comic effect and, certainly, the first time he does this it works quite well. However, I have to say that it becomes something of a signature flourish throughout the film and, by the third time he relies on this technique, I was getting a little tired of it, to be completely truthful.

However, asides from all these little moans, it’s actually a great little 1960s style homage movie with bright colours, nice dialogue, great performances and a very freestyle shooting methodology - Ritchie seems to use every kind of different camera move and trick in the book and it’s really to his credit, and the editor’s, that he manages to make it all work so well without ever once jarring the viewer. There is a certain positive chemistry between all the lead actors and actresses too, which really helps the film, even though these are not the characters you are familiar with from the original show.

Daniel Pemberton’s percussion heavy score is the icing on the cake. Ritchie uses a number of songs, many of them put to surprisingly good use on the soundtrack, but Pemberton’s sixties style spy score is absolutely brilliant and this soundtrack was an instant purchase for me on CD. My one regret, as I stated earlier, was that the powers that be had decided not to use the original theme tune, which would have greatly lifted the movie more into UNCLE territory and I would have really liked to have heard what Pemberton would have come up with  for this. I was already a fan of his score for The Awakening (movie reviewed here) and it was a blast to hear him having the opportunity to do something this flamboyant in a modern film score... hopefully he will become a bit more well known in the industry after this because, Goldsmith cues or not, it’s a pretty cool score.

And that’s about all I have to say about The Man From UNCLE: The Guy Ritchie Affair. It’s not the best version of the source material it could have been. In fact, it couldn’t be much further from it even if the director had tried to update it chronologically to modern times. However, it is a great little gem of a movie and if you are not someone going in with any expectations that it needs to live up to the original, then you should have a lot of fun with it. Like the 1960s Modesty Blaise movie, this film is an absolutely appalling adaptation... but it’s a really fun film. Go see it.