Source Code: Quantum Leap on Groundhog Day

This is proper sci fi, not a war movie with robots instead of terrorists, not a love story with an alien attack subplot, proper sci fi.  With talk of quantum mechanics and alternative time lines and ideas of inner space the main plot is well thought out, given a few minutes thought it would tie your brain up in knots.  Fortunately though, some very good writing convinces you that you get it long enough for you to stop thinking about it.  Very impressed.

The film begins with the score (and the shot) hitting you like Vertigo,  director Duncan Jones has either  been inspired by the infamous Mr. Hitchcock or Hanna Barbara cartoons (pure sensibility makes me suggest the prior).  The setting too is clearly an homage to Hitcock's Strangers on a Train, although these aren't the only influences to be noticed.  I am reminded one of my favourite writers, Phillip K. Dick who incidentally penned The Adjustment Bureau, released recently; obviously Quantum Leap with a deeper sense of morality and urgency; Groundhog Day;  The Outer Limits; anything that has ever touched on time travel.  This is hardly an original plot but it delivers it very well.

Jake Gyllenhaal is great, bringing the confused, higher sense of being of Donnie Darko to meet the "be all that you can be" of Jar Head.  You believe his confusion, supported by clever camera angles, his perplexed look is reminiscent of a young Dennis Quaid.  His dynamic with Michelle Monaghan is electric, I get the feeling that the two of them had a lot of fun making this movie.  She is comfortable on screen and I'm in no doubt that this film will land her many more great roles.  The same applies to Vera Farmiga who manages to convey emotion while preserving her military cold front.

Source Code delivers what so few films do these days, everything.  There's life and death, ethical dilemma, action, philosophy, romance, explosions, paternal angst, social commentary and even art.  Yes that's right, art, if you search the 6outof10 blog you'll find a happy little article I've written about Anish Kapoor.  The very same appears quite heavily in the film, his bean sculpture in Chicago being used as a metaphor for transforming the world from one state of affairs to another, brilliant.  All this and it manages also to be quite a light film, it will never be a chore to watch, which is good because it is almost certainly a film that will develop with multiple viewings.

I'm a fan 8/10

Limitless: Limited

The title makes it sound like I didn't like the film, not so, I really enjoyed it.  But it could have been so much more.

It plays like a superbly complex book, which is no problem.  But when converting complex text to film, a decision has to be made; do you make the film long or episodic or do you chop bits and pieces out of the storyline.  This is a big decision and Neil Burger (The Illusionist) made it badly, or maybe not.  Mistakes could have been in the writing, direction or editing, but it's his name on the poster so I'm blaming him.  The problems I have are two fold:  Firstly, a very dramatic (like, the biggest kind of drama) subplot is started but not concluded.  And secondly, super good comic-bookesque scenes demonstrating newly found abilities wet your appetite for a meal that never arrives.

Problems aside though, the film is fast paced and frantic, you can't take your eye off the screen.  There is some very good cinematography showing the streets of Manhattan as you've never seen them before.  Rober De Niro is in it... awesome.  Bradley Cooper proves himself as a proper actor, believable performances on both sides of his super intelligent almost super human/down and out, slobby, hack writer personality.  Very good.

It will undoubtedly keep you talking all the way home.  If this were a a critique rather than a review I could go on for pages and pages, one very true thing about this story, is that the possibilities are Limitless.

6/10.  Bad decisions can't go unpunished.

A slap dash review this time, but I have a film to watch.  Let me know your thoughts, this is a conversation I could have over and over.

Trilogies, tetralogies, pentalogies plus. The world of the sequel.

I’ve watched a lot of sequels in preparation for this, and by and large they start well, some even end well, but let’s face it, most are poor quality money-spinners.  Some are episodic, some ignore the initial plot, and some are simply more of the same (remakes in one or two cases).  But what makes a good sequel?  Does the saga need to be one flowing story?  Does the lead character need to be the same?  Can a sequel trump the original?  And do particular genres lend themselves better to sequels?  I've had a look at the best and worst film series in modern cinema (there are quite a few), but do any maintain greatness throughout?

Alien covers the most bases in one series, so here’s my brief synopsis on the highs and lows of the cult series:

Alien (1979).  Ridley Scott, in only his second major film release and amid a Star Wars frenzy delivered a very different science fiction; Sci. Fi. Horror.  “In space, no one can hear you scream”.  It was ground breaking, Scott pioneered modern film psychology.  Extreme wide, dark and lingering shots, give the feeling of solitude.  A lack of outside perspective gives an understanding of their distance from home.  Eerie tones and creepy silences leave you on the edge of your seat.  The film is scary, but it doesn’t rely on gore or shock, instead embracing cinematography and direction.  This isn’t about one film though, it’s about four films (soon to be five). 

Aliens (1986), James Cameron directing this time.  With recent success on The Terminator two years prior, this film had Cameron’s signature all over it.  Aliens is an action film more than a horror, it is full of one liners and big guns, it is not intelligent film making, it is exciting film making.  This point along with the presence of Bill Paxton makes it possible to see this as a dumbed down version of the original (sorry Bill, I still love you in Club Dread).  Don’t get me wrong, I love the film, one of the greatest action films and one of the best sequels too.  Overall, a triumph.  But you can switch off your brain.  Oh and I wasn’t a fan of the fluffy ending.  Anyhow, on we go.

Alien³ (1992), David Fincher.  I like Fincher a lot, but this really had its flaws.  He obviously didn’t like the soft end to the second film either as he killed off two of the survivors in the opening sequence.  He’s trying to bring back the horror factor that made the first film so good, so the ship crashes into a space prison full of sex-starved murderers and rapists.  Not the kind of characters that you grow to love or are even a bit bothered about when they inevitably kick the bucket.  Ripley makes uncharacteristic decisions; this is the woman who was so insistent on quarantine in the original, now sitting down to eat with the worst criminals in the system, one of which she decides to bump uglies with.  All this odd stuff, just makes it impossible to relate to the characters or respect their decisions.  Add in some poor graphics and (some) bewildering shot composition (the shot when Ripley jumps into the lead, seriously, what the hell?) and you have a pretty rubbish sequel.

Alien: Resurrection (1997).  Jean-Pierre Jeunet, unrecognizable from his later triumphs in Amelie and A Very Long Engagement.  With Ripley good and dead at the end of the third in the series, resurrection is the only way to go to cash in on the brand (by this point even the worst Alien orientated films would be guaranteed profit makers on their opening weekend alone).  So 200 years after her death some bright spark decides to clone Ripley to get at the Alien inside her.  After seven failed attempts, Ripley’s back… sort of.  The design of the film is like a Terry Gilliam vision of the future meets a Frank Miller version of the original films, I love the mad scientist outfits.  But that’s where the love stops.  The script seems like it’s been revised and revised and revised.  Its cheesy lines cheapen the rare poignant scenes.  Winona Ryder appears to have been cast merely to help ensure the box office, and the rest of the cast is forgettable, only Hell Boy’s comic sexism sticks in mind.

So, there we have it.  Sequels can be great, they can be bad and they can be awful, all in the same series.  Hopefully they can return to greatness too, and with Ridley Scott back on board for the 5^th in the series hopefully Alien will do just that.  All pointers about the film make it look interesting to say the least.  Ripley has been laid to rest which as it’s a prequel is probably best.  The Space Jockey seen on the ship found in Alien is thought to be the focus, maybe as a race who engineered the aliens themselves?  What this makes me think is that maybe this episode titled Prometheus (the titan who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mankind) will be that holy grail of the sequel… Original.

Not all series are the same though.  The Harry Potter heptalogy gets better as you work through them, the first being dire (re-watch it if you disagree, you’ll surprise yourselves) and although not my particular bag, the later ones are quite enjoyable.  The Lord of the Rings trilogy is basically one massive film, so one film can’t exist without the others.  Evil Dead 2 is a ground breaking awesome horror film that is simply Evil Dead with a budget.  Evil Dead 3 is a random sequel to say the least but continues the greatness.  James Bond with its 22 (soon to be 23) films and six incarnations are all so different to each other that you judge them each on different merits.  Often modern sequels (especially comic book adaptations) use the first film to introduce all the characters and so miss the mark on the story line, for example X-men 2 massively trumps X-men.  Some sequels only hint at their nature as a follow up, Enemy of the State is widely regarded as a sequel to The Conversation, even though officially it is not and the only common character (Gene Hackman) has a different name, he is clearly the same character and the later film even includes a still shot of him in the original.

Horror appears to be the genre of choice for the sequel, but lets not convince ourselves that they are all good.  Even great horror institutions like Friday the 13^th can be butchered, Jason X sees Jason Voorhees way in the future, in space being made even stronger and more death proof with the accidental use of nanobots (his mother would be proud!), in short, it’s proper pants.   But what this particular genre has on its side against all others it the way it makes money.  They don’t rely on the box office, they rely on purchases, first VHS now DVD.  This makes less money but horror has a committed following, so if you keep giving them material to purchase they will keep buying it.

The horror sequel almost exclusively needs to have a familiar character.  Jigsaw, Freddy Krueger, Critters, Candy Man, Pin Head, the list goes on and on and on.  In this fact though, horror is not alone.  Buzz and Woody, John Maclane, Connor MacLeod, Shrek, Marty McFly, Indiana Jones, almost every successful sequel franchise has common characters.

As for what makes a good series, it seems to be that there are no particular rules that say that a sequel must be in keeping with the original directorially, however changes in actor especially when the character remains the same are difficult to accept (a recent example is the character of Rachael being played by both Katie Holmes and Maggie Gyllenhaal in the new Batman franchise).  Changes in genre too are OK as long as you don’t go too far.  Horror to action is clearly OK, suspense-thriller to rom-com might not work so well.  Above all, there needs to be good films in there, it doesn’t really matter where in the order they come, as long as they are there.  With all this in mind here are a few of my choices to inspire you:

The best action film series has got to be Die Hard, every film in the saga has its fans and its critics, importantly the later films are strong.

Family trilogies are difficult but in my humble opinion is Back to the Future beats all others, it’s a close call between this and Indiana Jones, but Huey Lewis gives it the edge.

The best epic production, even with the sacrilegious prequels Star Wars will always beat the likes of Lord of the Rings & Harry Potter.

The best comedy is clearly the Naked Gun trilogy, no two ways about it, and don’t even think of arguing with me!

Horror is difficult, but I’m going for Evil Dead, they’re ground breaking, cult films that are responsible for so much.  That & I really want Bruce Campbell to like me.

OK, so that’s that, I've said my peice.  I like sequels, and wether you like them or not, they're here to stay.  Let's just hope that in years to come we won't feel the need to cringe everytime we hear about a re-hash of an old favourite.

Your thoughts?

Anish Kapoor: Flashback

I rarely review art or exhibitions, it is a very difficult thing to do without alienating a section of (or even all of) the potential audience.

Art is often an inapproachable, difficult subject.  Particularly with modern art in mind it can also be very elitist, if you don't understand it, then you don't deserve to understand it.  Bullshit.  Art is for all, and with that in mind, we need accessible art.  By which I mean that sometimes interactive, sometimes pretty, impressive or interesting works are important in their own right.  That is not to say that art should be simple, no one wants, or needs to be patronised but sometimes blurring the line between the meta-physical and physical making a comment on the place of the archetypal alpha male in modern society communicated via the language of alternative dance can even for the best of us, be just a little contrived.  But great modern art can convert, it can be awesome, a little contrived, deep, beautiful and interesting, it can embrace the viewer.  Rothko made modern art accessible for me, by forcing me to be immersed in his work, by standing where he would have been.  I think Kapoor would have too, he was just beaten to the punch.

Anish Kapoor (CBE) is a Turner prize winning sculptor who has lived in London since the early 70's.  I don't like all of Kapoors work, piles of pigment don't really do it for me.  I do quite like his wax/wood or metal sculpture but purely on an aesthetic level.  But what really does it for me, and what I think will impress the dubious, the nervous and the unbelievers out there is his chrome sculptures.  Examples of these can be found currently in Manchester Art Gallery, his plates.  As you walk into the room it is a simple hall of mirrors.  As you move they do, picking up details in light and physical form, whispers from the other side of the room are clearly audible.  Stand a foot in front and you are immersed, your peripheral vision is full, you enjoy a total experience where slight movements change the art before you.  As you back away, the images you see drop away to leave the concave surface transformed, it is now a full view of the work behind you.  It is a personal experience, one that no two people will experience identically.

My co-conspirator, my five month old son, Felix, in this room had a smile from ear to ear, his eyes wide, occasional squeaks and giggles letting other patrons know he was impressed.  Getting down to his level, I saw glimpses of him in the top of the plates, a lava lamp melting pot of light fittings and building detail in the rest, not to mention the odd lanky figure.  Felix has no pompous notions of art, he is incapable, but he knows when something is fun, and he lets us know.

So if nothing else, if you're in Manchester and find yourself with a bit of time to spare, listen to Felix and go have some fun...

Flashback is on until the 5th of June and is free to enter.  

Go to http://www.manchestergalleries.org for details

N.B. don't just Google him, go to the gallery, you need to experience the scale or it just won't work.

Catfish... don't watch the trailer

This is just great:  One of the most surprising Documentaries I've seen.

I can't go into much without giving the game away but here's what I can say:  It's a doc about an eight year old girl who paints a copy of a new york photographers picture hundreds of miles away.  He becomes friends with her family on Facebook and we see the relationship grow.  

It made me laugh out loud, it made me squirm in my seat and it is surprisingly poignant.  The guys who made it, Nev Schulman (who is also the photographer), his brother Ariel and friend Henry Joost, have a great chemistry.  They handle everything they come across in much the same way as I hope I would in the same situation.

I can't say much more without spoiling the adventure, give it a go, you wont regret it.

7 out of 10,  and seriously, I mean it, don't watch the trailer.

Battle: Los Angeles... Refreshingly generic

I like alien films, I also like army films.  This alien/army film, oh the joy!

I try to never put spoilers in my reviews, and this review is no different.  However if I was to say that Battle L.A. is Black Hawk Down meets Independence day, I've kind of given the game away.  But seriously, if you've seen the trailer then you've pretty much seen the film anyway.

The film has cliche after cliche.  It's actually quite funny how many are in there, even down to the fact that our hero; Staff Sergeant Nantz (Aaron Eckhardt) is on his very last day before retirement when alien invasion ensues, what rotten luck.  I'd like to tell you all about each and every generic back story and super obvious plot development but you can check it out yourselves and we can all share later, for now just know that they don't ruin the film.

Not many alien invasion films are original, the President is always wrestling with his conscience, our hero always manages to survive against enormous odds (as does his girlfriend and the dog) and America always finds a way through the attackers defenses.  With regard to alien films; Battle: L.A. manages to divert from the traditional, we start with our platoon and we stick with them; how we fight the aliens is explained and makes sense; nothing is mentioned of the soldiers lives outside the platoon; the girlfriend and the dog are not given pointless screen time, we are left to assume their fate.  It does however stick to the formula when it comes to army films, high fives and hoo ra's every time an enemy minion is taken down; bad ass girl with a gun; going beyond the call of duty; hollow characters with a lack of development (barring Nantz).  As an army film it is kind of obvious.

I kind of liked it, I went to the cinema with my baby boy in tow who seemed to get a kick from all the noise.  And what noise, the sound is fantastic, gunshots sound real and countered by the often immediate silences or 'ringing in your ears' effect gives an feeling that when teamed with the first person (shaky) camera puts you as 'on edge' as the characters themselves.  The special effects are great too.  The aliens appear to wear a sort of reverse scuba suit so that they can breath our air, they are believably conceived enemy soldiers and they move and interact like sentient beings.  Their technology appears to have had thought put into it too, individual ships break away and fit to each other like jigsaw pieces and side arms are surgically attached.  Nice.

Whether you see this (like many reviews that I have read) as yet another film to enhance the American populations fear of the foreigner or as I do, just a good honest extra-terrestrial war film, it was always going to be a no brainer.  It did deliver more than I was expecting, though it clearly could have been better.  The writing let it down, and it didn't have to, the flaws are obvious and plenty and should have been weeded out early on.

Oh and Ne-Yo is in it, weird.

5/10

True Grit... It was too short!

Many highly regarded films have gone Oscarless, in that, True Grit sits along side the likes of Vertigo, Apocalypse Now and 2001: A Space Odyssey.  That it gets to join this club of forgotten greats I'm sure is of no consolation, the Coen brothers have a list of films that gain little accolade from The Academy.  Their only production to get best picture has been No Country For Old Men in 2008 with only Fargo 11 years prior, being recognised at all (that being for the screen play).

The only reason for not getting the best film Oscar should be that there was a better film made that year, and this year was a bumper year for contenders.  So should True Grit have won? Was it the best film of the year?  Well... I'm not the right man to ask, there are people out there who are much more qualified than me to make such decisions.  What I can say though is that True Grit is brilliant, the Joel and Ethan hit the mark again with some fantastic cinema.  What I like most about these siblings is that although they have their regular traits in film making, for example they try to have no heroes in their films, they make decisions with what's best for the film in mind rather than what's best for the "Coen" franchise.

The most surprising thing that I found about the film was the duration, at 110 minutes it is by no means short, but it does feel like it.  It seems to end abruptly.  We have only just met Tom Chaney played by Josh Brolin, his character hasn't had chance to develop, although maybe that can be forgiven as what he means to other characters is significantly more important than the character himself.  Matt Damon's character (LaBoeuf) too is a bit of a mystery, we seem to have only scratched through a proud, misunderstood veneer when we say our last goodbye.  Here too I find myself leaping to the defence of the directors; it is not always a mistake to leave the audience wanting more, LaBoeuf's last moments on screen are pivotal in defining his character, so when better to bid farewell.

Second most surprising thing about the film, even after the whole world harping on about it for weeks... Hailee Steinfeld's performance.  Just amazing, why she wasn't nominated for best actress I have no idea, she nailed it, the film could not be without her.  She was supposedly a "supporting actress", yet she appeared in near every scene and talks a damn sight more than anyone else too.  The support, I would say, comes from a near indecipherable Jeff Bridges.  I love drunks on film, and not since Blazing Saddles has one made me smile so much.  The genius behind Bridges' drunken Cogburn is that as much as he often seems to be overdoing it, the story requires it to oppose Damon's straight laced honorability.  Bridges plays some great roles, and to go from Tron, playing an almost Buddhist zen character, a god like creator, to the best, most sadistic drunk I've seen for some time shows what could only be described as, well... true grit.

I very, very much enjoyed this film, I wanted more.

8/10 by a whisker, just too short.

Avril Lavigne, Goodbye Lullaby: Buy yourself an advert

The album starts with a short intro track called "Black Star", which is OK until you find out that her perfume is also named "Black Star", this track is also the very track used to flog it.  Fair enough, the girl's got to make money but am I the only one that thinks this is a bit shameless?

I'm listening to Goodby Lullaby right now, barely getting over the contrived use of the word "shit" seemingly to punctuate her pop punk persona, and the not very poetic repetition of "I wish you were here" in track three titled (obviously enough) "Wish You Were Here".  I find myself groaning every few minutes at the bizarrely, shallow, 12 year old girl lyrics, "you know that I'm a crazy bitch, I do what I want when I feel like it".  We've moved on to "smile" now where she appears to be very happy about not remembering getting a tattoo the night before, fair enough again, she and her super cool boyfriend did get each others names tattooed on themselves after being together for a matter of weeks.  And as her demographic is clearly prepubescent girls, this is definitely dumb ass behavior that she should be promoting.

As the album continues it's more of the same repetition and poorly put together tracks, one sounds like a Katy Perry track, and on checking out the video to "What the Hell" that's a bit Katy Perry also.  The thing that's not very Katy Perry is that Avril, even for all her poncing about in her knickers and getting her downtrodden boyfriend to pay for stuff, doesn't appear to want to be there.  Her expressions are hollow and her eyes look vacant, I really think she's be better doing angry chick stuff.  It's also a shameless advert for Sony products, I was seriously shocked, so shocked in fact that I immediately had to go relax and play stuff on my Sony PlayStation.  If it manages to get to the TV I can imagine one or two complaints to the ITC.  Clearly the girl knows how to scrape every penny out of an album that's possible, fine on her part, but do you really want to buy an advert?

"Everybody Hurts" "4 Real" and "Darlin" (what's with the text speak? Can you BBM tracks now LOL?) could seriously be done by any recording artist on the planet, they're OK but enough to redeem the pain that she's put me through so far, I don't think so.

By track 12 we're in an emotional stupor, we're talking about "feelings running out the door" and other lines that end in "more" and "drawer", penultimately we have "Goodbye" where the strings and piano would be quite lovely if it weren't for the high pitch wailing of the track name.  This track ends with a full minute of silence before the last, supposedly hidden, track "Alice", which was the soundtrack to "Alice in Wonderland" this might actually be pretty good, but the fake ending to the album makes me begrudge the tracks existence, I don't care if it's good.  I want to turn it off.

2/10, I'd give it more as it's obviously kind of OK for its particular audience it it wasn't for the in your face advertising.

Unknown: Taken 2?

I was pretty excited about this film, I'm love Liam Neeson doing action, it's like a "proper" actor kicking ass.

Taken was an action film tour de force and on seeing the trailer for Unknown I was thinking of it as kind of a Taken 2.  It is set in Europe, there are car chases and explosions, Neeson even indulges in a little fisticuffs.  But don't be mistaken, Taken is a very well written film that it is based on some guy saving his daughter in the still original setting of human trafficking (only really comparable to Eastern Promises from the previous year).   It puts this narrative into an action driven yet superbly acted package.  Conversely Unknown takes an unoriginal plot, it's no spoiler to say that it's an amnesia film, which keeps you guessing in an OK whodunit kind of way.  It's a predictable flimsy actor driven action thriller.

The fact that it is actor driven is the problem, mainly because most of the actors are really pretty rubbish.  Don't get me wrong I still love Neeson, like a good chutney he gets better as he gets older, he carries the film, I can't think of anyone who would do a better job.  January Jones though, who plays his wife, is just terrible, I can't even get started on why, she's bland, boring and unbelievable, completely miscast.  Diane Kruger (mostly in my mind for being Helen in Troy) does well.  There are a couple of bad guys in there which are OK too, but Neeson's main adversary Aiden Quinn is soft, his sad puppy eyes just got irritating.  Bruno Ganz who plays an unapologetic ex-East German spy is good, as is Frank Langella (who I will only ever be able to think of as Richard Nixon).  If they'd have held out for stronger actors for one or two of the supporting (but very important) roles the film could have been really very good, but they didn't so it's OK, just OK.


A disappointing 6/10

Tangled 3D: Let down your... guard

Disney...  I'm not really a fan.  Or at least not a fan of their recent animations.  The new stuff is very difficult to figure out, for a good few years now they've either been losing the fight with Pixar or trying to be them.  Notable recent pictures include Bolt which I really enjoyed the first five minutes of but the rest was forgettable and Up, which is fantastic but is clearly a Pixar film which Disney merely 'presented' meaning that they stumped up cash to get their name on it.

The problem is that with the advent of 3D animation technology, they lost their identity.  When you look at Mickey Mouse, Belle, The Beast, Dumbo, Snow White, Happy, Grumpy, Sleepy, Sneezy, Dopey, Bashful and Doc they are clearly Disney.  You don't need the opening credits to tell you, you just know.  It's more than this too, it is the way they move, the colours and the dialogue.  Disney films weren't all cotton wool and smiles either.  Two of the scariest scenes I can think of in film are the dream sequence from Dumbo and the donkey scene in Pinocchio.  Samuel Armstrong directed many of these early films and he achieved a balance of sentimentality, drama and comedy perfectly to ensure entertainment for all ages.  The juxtaposition of harsh, scolding wicked stepmothers with the funny, cute friends of our heroes and heroins ensure that it is never too serious for delicate little ones and not too cutesy for us big hard men.

Anyway, I was not looking forward to Tangled, I put off going to see it for a couple of weeks just because I couldn't be bothered.  I went to a midday showing on a cold Monday afternoon with nothing better to do.  And it was great.

Everything that I like about the old films is there, but it's shiny and new, they've not gone back to the old times, they've brought themselves up to date.  Rapunzel (Mandy Moore; I have no idea who she is) is great, she is an up to date princess, strong yet vulnerable, pretty and intelligent.  Flynn (the male lead, Zachary Levi) is again a move forward for the Disney male, he is flawed but ultimately honorable, the chiseled jaw is not so chiseled and has a shade of boy band stubble.  Mother Gothel (Donna Murphy) is a menacing captor, scary and funny, I'm also pretty sure she's modeled on Cher, which is nice.  Like the old films, the animals do not talk, Pascal the chameleon and Maximillion the horse are excellent supporting cast and comic relief, anthropomorphism is not over used and is effective.  

If you've ever read the Grimm fairytale you'll be in for a few surprises, this is largely an original plot with only the bare bones being true to the classic story.  The writing is funny, I laughed out loud at least once, N.B. keep an eye out for a scene where Pascal wakes Flynn up, I was willing it to happen but never thought it would.  The music is full production with an early sequence reminiscent of 'A Chorus Line'.  The animation is smooth and flowing, the hair technology particularly is put to very good use.  Even the 3D, which it is no secret that I think is over used to the point of insulting, doesn't get in the way too much, though the film clearly doesn't need it.  The much talked about paper lantern scene, which definitely benefits from cinema viewing, could still live without it.  I'm very happy I saw it, and like with most films, very happy I saw it on the big screen.

If you like Beauty and the Beast, Snow White or any classic Disney you'll like this.  If you like modern 3D animation you like this too.  If you only like films with car chases and explosions, maybe give it a miss.  Show it to the kids, watch it yourself, it's a good film. 


7/10.