Film
FAMILY/ROMANCECOMEC / ENCHANTED (PG) 107min u
Like all large conurbations New YOrk City can be a frightening place.
EspeCially if you have )ust fallen out of an animated Disney fairytale world that resembles every cartoon feature made
by the dream factory Since 1937's
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Such a catastrophe has befallen
Giselle (Amy Adams) who has been
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Alvin and the Chipmunks (U) 91 min 0.. lJt‘ it‘ie pn' school comedy featuring .t bunch of pint sized pop stars and the” long-suttering human. guardian (Jder‘ Leer waai‘ 'o/iusu t'itrn
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(12A) 85min ... St Trinians (tbc) tbcmin .hr. . long gestating (“lilt'lkt‘ t the
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pushed out of her all-singing all- danCing 2D world by wicked Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon). Alone and
; terrified Giselle befriends moody With this freewheeling adaptation of Blake Nelson’s young adult novel, Gus popular Sidney 3illiat l rank
: Widowed divorce lawyer Robert Van Sant returns to the territory he mined successfully in 2003’s Elephant. Laundei girl boarding «chool (Patrick Dempsey) and his daughter Where that film examined teenage behaviour through the extreme event of comedies ot the 505‘» and 608 Morgan (Rachel Covey). They give her high school shootings reminiscent of the Columbine massacre, Paranoid was Still unavailable to revmw at
time of going to press Word is that they are still editing it. so let's
shelter and naturally she starts to fall Park attempts something similar via the fictional story of a skate kid who for the lumpen Cynic. but her animated accidentally kills.
beau Prince Edward is on his way to As was the case with Elephant, the new film follows its teenage subjects see if it gets released by the due
i save her. Meanwhile, the Queen's at a distance, suggesting today’s kids are unknowable to adults and vice date. The film boasts an enviable Wicked henchman Nathaniel (Timothy versa. But where the earlier film tracked a number of protagonists, cast, including Rupert Evemtt. Spall) is trying to find her and Robert is Paranoid Park focuses on one, Alex (Gabe Nevins), a quiet, passive kid who Colin Firth, Mischa Barton. getting married again . . . Oh what a to allows himself to be led around - and astray - by, variously, his girlfriend, Russell Brand. Lily Cole and do! his skater pal and the older kids at the local skate park that gives the film Stephen Fry The List will review it
Enchanted is one of the nastiest. its title. Van Sant takes his investigation of teen behaviour further by next ISSue. Ge'iera/ re/mse from
most insidious children‘s films adults approximating the point of view of the distracted, disconnected and Fri 27 Dec. will have the displeasure of seeing this disaffected Alex with a chopped up, non-linear narrative, slow motion, I Am Legend (15) 121mm year (or any year). Chock full of shaky and static camerawork using multiple film stocks, under- and over- 00. Really solid adaptation of pseudo~Christian ideas, WASPish i exposed (courtesy of ace cinematographer Chris Doyle, who takes a Richard MatheSOh'S much filmed imperialism, product placement and ; cameo as the boy’s uncle), and discordant sound effects coupled with an novel about the 0088'th tHSt that) celebrations of consumer culture this ? anachronistic soundtrack. on earth (Will Smith) and his
is about as bad as Disney gets (on the attempts to tthd 8 CU“? tor the surface anyway). That said, for all its forced sub Les Visiteurs zaniness. bad effects. bad songs and cheesy
dialogue. rising star Amy Adams
All of this certainly looks and sounds quite lovely, but Van Sant takes it a bit too far, even working into the film incongruous homages to Hitchcock mahmade bacterial WUS that haS films The Birds and Psycho. The cumulative effect of all this stylistic kitted ever/Che 8'88 Ott hat a tQW playfulness eventually becomes tedious. Such cinematic indulgence might mutant vampires DIFGCted by i have been more acceptable had the film had more to say about its subject FrahCIS Christa/7008 LaWFGhCU. / works hard to keep things as matter. The rather trite conclusion, however, merely suggests kids just Am Legehd '8 SUchS'hQI)’ 900d appealing as possible. Leave your don't really care about the adult world, and clumsily underscores that thin and can 8'80 he Seeh Ih the NM critical faCulties. reason and humanity notion by equating Alex’s lack of guilt about killing a man with his format. Gene/<7" “3/9838 "Om Wed at the door. (Paul Dale) disinterest in the war in Iraq. And? (Miles Fielder) 25 090 I General release from Fri 74 Dec. I Cameo, Edinburgh and selected release from Fri 28 Dec.
WAR/ROMANCE‘DRAMA
CLOSING THE RING
(12A) 117min O
God bless Sir Richard Attenborough. Bless him for all his charity work and his renowned philanthropic spirit in an industry of Brutuses. Bless him for his long and varied acting career which includes unfOrgettable perfOrmances in Brighton Rock, The Angry Silence and Seance on a Wet Afternoon. Bless him for directing Oh What a Lovely Warl, A Bridge Too Far and Chandi. Attenborough is and ShOuid be an aged and beloved Symbol of our once burgeoning film industry. Sadly. his new film. a tomb period weepy played Out between WWII Belfast and North Carolina in 1991 is complete tosh.
Happy Ethel Ann (Mischa Barton) loves her new husband Teddy (Stephen Amell), but when his plane crashes near Belfast in 1944 she withdraws from society. Fifty years later, redemption fOr the now aged Ethel (played by Shirley MacLaine) comes in the shape of her husband's best friend Jack (Christopher Plummer) and an excnable Irish boy called Jimmy Reilly (Martin McCann).
This turgid mOund of exposition. terrible dialogue. appalling sc0re and incomparable plot twists must on paper have seemed like a winning geriatrzc- friendly tearjerker. a tuSiOh of Arenement and A Matter of Life and Death, Cr: celluloid it's an interminable abomination. For a much more interesting take On a very similar st0ry seek out Nicholas Renton and William Ivory's 2002 BBC TV series Night Flight (also starring Plummer). (Paul Dale)
I General release from Fri 28 Dec.
54 THE LIST 13 Dec 2007-4 Jan 2008