EIFF 2011

EIFF 2011: The Last Circus Movie Review 0 592

Bizzare. Weird. Unique. Bold. All words that could be used to describe Álex de la Iglesia’s wonderfully wacky The Last Circus. An obvious cult film right from the outset (i.e. one which is not going to find much of an audience outside of the festival circuit) it is a hell of a lot of fun if you can buy into the jet black style of humour and macabre atmosphere.

The film follows a man, Javier, who decides to become a clown in memory of his father (also a clown) who died at the hands of an evil general during the Spanish Civil War 35 years earlier. He joins a circus which contains all the bizarre acts you’d expect and soon becomes involved with Natalia who, unfortunately for Javier, is the head clown’s wife. An intense battle for her affection ensues between the two clowns.

That plot is probably the only clichéd thing about The Last Circus (that last part is particularly close to the plot for Water for Elephants). From the opening scene – which sees a clown performing to a group of children interrupted by a group of soldiers who force all the adults to fight alongside them – it’s impossible to guess which direction the film is going to go. Along with the sheer strangeness of it all the unpredictability is what makes the film so much damn enjoyable.

This is a surprisingly violent film, with more brutal brawling, machete chopping, and fatal gunshot wounds than you might expect from a film about two clowns vying for the love of a woman. It could be construed as being needlessly vicious and sadistic, but it’s all so bizarre and over-the-top that you take the violence as part of the silly fun as opposed to it causing much offence.

One of the great things about film festivals is that you can sit down to watch a film knowing next to nothing about it and be completely surprised by it. The Last Circus is most definitely one of those films. Its inherent strangeness only adds to the fun instead of being distraction, a difficult feat which Iglesia pulls off with aplomb.

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I'm a freelance film reviewer and blogger with over 10 years of experience writing for various different reputable online and print publications. In addition to my running, editing and writing for Thoughts On Film, I am also the film critic for The National, the newspaper that supports an independent Scotland, covering the weekly film releases, film festivals and film-related features. I have a passion for all types of cinema, and have a particular love for foreign language film, especially South Korean and Japanese cinema. Favourite films include The Big Lebowski, Pulp Fiction and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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The Muppets (2011) Movie Review 0 910

The Muppets movie review

It’s been more than a decade since The Muppets last appeared on the big-screen. Enough time that they’re not at the forefront of people’s minds but not too long that people have completely forgotten about them.

The brilliant set-up for the new movie, co-written by and starring Jason Segel, is that The Muppets aren’t actually together anymore and the world has moved on from their old, wholesome family entertainment style that once saw them globally popular. With the help of Walter, a huge fan of them, his “brother” Gary (Segel), and Gary’s girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams), they attempt to reunite the whole gang in order to save their old iconic theatre from destruction by an oil tycoon (Chris Cooper).

The Muppets does a couple of things quite brilliantly. First off, it does a great job of appealing to those people who (fondly) remember them from years past, infusing every scene with plenty of love and most importantly nostalgia for the characters and the overall happy vibe they give off. But at the same time it is fully aware that there will be people out there who either don’t have any idea who The Muppets are or barely remember them (whether it was before their time or they just weren’t exposed to them etc.). In the same way as J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot, it keeps the original fans in mind while still making it appealing to a fresh audience. No mean feat – they pull it off with admirable aplomb.

The other thing this modern-day Muppets tale does is it appeals to audiences of all ages. Several generations of one family could all go and all laugh at the same scene. It has the silly slapstick stuff, the toilet humour and, of course, the funny-looking main characters themselves that will appeal to kids (and adults, for that matter!) but there’s also plenty of knowing and self-reflective humour that the adults can appreciate too. So whether it’s Fozzie Bear wearing “fart shoes” or Jason Segel making a knowing comment about travelling to another location “by map,” there’s something in there for everyone to laugh at.

A special mention must go to the music. Overseen by Bret McKenzie from Flight of the Conchords, there is a plethora of hilarious, catchy, and often flat-out genius songs that expands on that mix of joyfulness and astute humour found elsewhere in the film. While you’re bobbing your head and tapping your toes to the songs – from “Life’s a Happy Song” to “Man or Muppet” – if you listen specifically to the lyrics there’s some very clever stuff going on. Often the music is done in a similar style to Flight of the Conchords, where it would almost seem made up on the spot by the characters at hand if it weren’t so polished.

Judging The Muppets as an overall film narrative it may not hang together as well as it should, and there’s never really any unpredictability to be found as far as the actual plot goes. But when there’s such a feeling of love, happiness and pure joy oozing from every seam it’s hard to care about any of the cracks. Charming and genuinely funny, with well cast human characters (including a wealth of surprise cameos), and many-an-awesome song, The Muppets is an utter delight to sit through. You’d have to be pretty hard-hearted not to fall for it.

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This review was previously published at Blog Critics.

Man on a Ledge Movie Review 0 750

Man on a Ledge movie review

With a title as blunt and, quite frankly, stupid as Asger Leth’s Man on a Ledge, it’s right not to expect all that much. I wasn’t looking for an awards-worthy thriller with great acting or insanely witty dialogue. But I also wasn’t expecting it to mess up its quite brilliantly simple premise.

The film at least starts off well enough, delivering a premise that while outlandish is not totally unbelievable. We have a mysterious man (Sam Worthington) who appears to want to kill himself by jumping off a building. However, as we can easily guess, there’s more to the story than meets the eye.

We have a man… on a ledge… who is he? why does he want to kill himself? Why does he appear to be stalling for time?… The trouble with Man on a Ledge is it starts well, at a competently intelligent level but as the thread is pulled more and more and the real story behind the false front is revealed it becomes increasingly ridiculous until any semblance of believability or relatability is thrown out the window (so to speak…). And the way it attempts to weasel its way into being an emotional story with a purpose makes it all the worse.

The film fails to merge together two duel, related storylines into an enjoyable complete package. The stuff with Worthington on the ledge, with Elizabeth Banks as the negotiator, is far more interesting and engaging than the Ocean’s Eleven wannabe antics happening elsewhere.

A cast of talented actors including Worthington, Banks, Jamie Bell, Ed Harris, Anthony Mackie, Kyra Sedgwick and Titus Welliver is practically wasted here on half-hearted characterization, preposterous plot twists and trite, cliché-ridden character motivations. All this distracts from the already overly convoluted plot to the point where it’s hard to really care about anyone, even the guy who’s threatening to jump. Like the spectators below, I almost wished he would just do it and get it over with!

Minute-by-minute you can practically see the film’s IQ drop lower and lower until it finally descends into one of the most absurd, nonsensical endings to hit the screen in quite some time. And to add insult to injury it ultimately ties everything up far too conveniently for its own good, fumbling and stumbling on its way there, leaving an aftertaste of smugness in spite of its stupidity.

As a whole Man on a Ledge is not entirely devoid of entertainment as it at least keeps you guessing, even if one answer is as ridiculous as the last. Those willing to completely shut their brain off might get some dumb enjoyment out of it. But when you set everything up with an intriguing premise like this it’s all the more disappointing to see it turn out as dumb as you feared.

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This review was previously published at Blog Critics.