“Amy Adams is in The Muppets?”
“Let’s not tell her. She seems like a nice lady”

Earlier this week, the Emmys took place in the US, which gave prizes to lots of people in posh clothes. But, in the words of Leslie Nielsen, “that’s not important right now”.

What’s far more interesting is that it meant a brand new promo for The Muppets was rolled out at the same time.

It’s only a 30 second TV spot, granted, but it’s got one or two little bits in here that we’ve not seen before. Which is good. Take a look below…

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Arriving around Christmas, there's clearly no more perfect festive fare than a Hollywood adaptation of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

David Fincher's take on the Stieg Larsson novel stars Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig, and a new trailer has popped up for the film, which you can see below these very words. It's quite a long one, as trailers go, too...

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Heading into UK cinemas right now are a pair of action films that have managed to misfire in very different ways. Killer Elite (review here) should have been a shoo-in, but it relegates the action to the sidelines for long periods, replacing explosive spectacle with ponderous, dull conversations.

Abduction, meanwhile (review here), seems to believe that Taylor Lautner is the future of action cinema, when he very clearly isn’t. Both films, though, are the tip of a proverbial iceberg. Because action cinema has a bit of an identity crisis. What trend should it follow? What kind of action movies should be made? What kind of action do people want to see?

Here are some of our answers to those questions...

The Editing

A massive, massive bugbear, although hopefully, we’ve seen the worst excesses of action movie editing by now. Back at the end of 2008, I wrote an open letter to action movie editors and directors, practically begging them to edit their films in a manner that allowed me to see what was going on. The worst, for me, was the opening of Quantum Of Solace, and it still is.

Appreciating that a director wants to get across mayhem, franticness and intensity in their editing, what Quantum Of Solace gave us was a car chase that we weren’t allowed to see.

It was choppy to the point of making it unwatchable. Contrast that with how Paul Greengrass put his Bourne movies together. He used such editing to effect, just about (but not always) balancing it, so that we got the rawness of the sequences, without stopping us seeing what was going on. 

In recent times, things seem to have relaxed a little, although the problem is still there. And this remains a major challenge for action cinema. The genre, more often than not, relies on quick, interspersed cuts, but more than ever, it needs a fresh pair of eyes in the editing suite, willing to call bullshit when something doesn’t work. 

Following The Leader

We’ve just touched on the Bourne franchise, and it seems appropriate to chat about it again here. The problem, which isn’t unique to the action genre, is that when something succeeds, everyone rushes to follow. As such, the current trend in Hollywood remains to try and recapture the style and approach of the Bourne movies.

So, that involves a slightly unconventional leading man, handheld cameras, and throw in a bit of amnesia if you want.  The pitch meetings for the past few years appear to have been some variant of ‘Bourne meets...’, and you can really tell. Just look at John Singleton’s Abduction. This follows a similar template, and the problem is, it never generates an identity of its own as a result. 

Even the next Mission: Impossible movie, from what we’ve seen so far, looks like it’s been prepared with some Jason Bourne DNA on board.

Remember, too, the impact of The Matrix, and the explosion of wire-fu that followed? Yet the action movies that really break through, the ones that come out of nowhere, are the ones with something of their own in the tank. Think back to Speed. It was high concept, certainly, but well made, didn’t have a major star (Keanu Reeves wasn’t at the time), and broke through because it was exciting.

Now? If it didn’t have a conflicted central character in it, who was struggling to find his identity, I wonder if it would be made at all.

Money

The thing about action cinema is that it doesn’t have to be expensive to be impressive. Two blokes having a fight costs next to nothing to film, and even modestly-budgeted television shows are showing real strength in cutting together an interesting action sequence.

Blockbuster movies, though, seem to have too much money to spend on action sequences, and I can’t help but feel that many such scenes are being made with the trailer in mind, rather than the finished film itself. I blame The Perfect Storm, amongst others, for this. That’s not an action movie, but it was a film sold around just one single special effect, that of a boat riding up a massive wave. I fell for it. I bought a ticket off the back of that.

By the time that moment appeared in the film, I’d gone beyond boredom, and was 500 words into a thesis on just how long arm hair could grow, if properly cultivated. Even Independence Day sold us more than one shot in its trailer, even if that’s not how many people remember it.

The thing is, a good action sequence should just work, and fit the film. It’s a simple, idealistic approach, certainly. It doesn’t always require the need for posh computers, for massive stunts, and for inappropriate camerawork.

And when there is money to spend, have a look at the train crash sequence in Super 8, which proves it’s possible to do genuine spectacle, and retain human beings at the heart of it. Again, Super 8 isn’t an action movie per se, but it’s teaching a couple of lessons that action cinema as a whole could be reminded of.

Straight To DVD Isn’t As Good As Straight To VHS

The straight-to-video boom of the 80s led to an explosion in cheap, often gleefully enjoyable action movies, that wore their hearts on their proverbial sleeves. Sleeves that were bursting under the pressure of the ripping muscles underneath, of course. I’d argue that this was massively helpful for the genre, too.

Granted, the level of dross was quite extraordinary at times. But straight to video releases also explored ideas, gave people breaks, and relied on an ingenuity that should be applauded. Do we get that, though, with straight to DVD? Because there really seems to be something a gulf there.

On the one hand, we’re getting premium straight-to-DVD releases, such as the Death Race sequel, which bring in better than expected production values, names you recognise, and a decent marketing push. But where’s the next level down? Where are the video store shelves creaking under the weight of two or three new straight-to-DVD action movies every week?

They’re just not there, or as obvious and it’s because DVD appears, ironically, to have taken away a major distribution channel. It’s one that’s not being comfortably filled by digital downloads, either, which is the obvious place to plug the gap.

And while there are some smashing shorts appearing on YouTube, where’s the kind of film that would have attracted Brian ‘The Boz’ Bosworth? Where’s the market that can find us the next Cynthia Rothrock? Where’s the place to find an action film that’s been made in a cheap and cheerful manner, partly for the sheer fun of it?

Straight to DVD has presented unexpected barriers to entry, with arguably too much cash spent on the wrong films. Heck, even the days of the crappy VHS cover appear to have been consigned to the graveyard, too. And that, friends, is a tragedy,

Not Enough New Heroes

One of the reasons behind the enthusiasm for The Expendables sequel casting announcements is it harks back to a different time. In the 80s and early 90s, we had Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Dolph Lundgren, Jean Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Mel Gibson and Jackie Chan, all primed and ready to lead a movie.

Even on their off days, they were believable where it mattered. They looked like they could win a fight, and while some of them struggled with acting, they regularly turned up in roles tailored very well to them. Furthermore, there was a subset of further, less high profile talent, but nonetheless a collection of individuals who could happily kick ass. Step forward Carl Weathers, Cynthia Rothrock, Christopher Lambert, Chuck Norris and Michael Dudikoff.

We then had splutters of a resurgence in the later 90s, when it looked like Nicolas Cage, Keanu Reeves, Will Smith and John Travolta might be picking up the mantle to varying degrees. But modern action cinema, nonetheless, has a real shortage of bona fide, proper action heroes. Who is there? Matt Damon is more an actor in action movies than anything else. The same too for Daniel Craig, and for Jeremy Renner. In fact, for most headliners in action movies.

The Rock seemed to turn his back on action for a while, although Fast Five was promising in that regard. Vin Diesel? It depends what decisions he makes. But when it boils down to it, there are perhaps two solid action stars right now, who are committed to the genre: Jason Statham and Milla Jovovich. The case for Statham is obvious. He’s a magnetic action force, whose films consistently entertain. Jovovich? Her film choices are regularly geared towards action, and she’s an underrated force in the genre. She could use some better films, though.

We might, actually, squeeze Liam Neeson in here, too, as a possible torch-bearer for modern action cinema. But few others spring to mind. The absence of new heroes in the mould of the 80s stars, and even before them the likes of Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, Bruce Lee and Charles Bronson, means that actors who shouldn’t be let anywhere near the genre are being encouraged to give it a try.

Abduction is a film that might just about hang together with a younger Jason Statham at the core. But Taylor Lautner? Sheesh. No.

The Lack Of On-Set Action

You’ll find this argument in many guises across this site, so I’ll keep it as succinct as possible here. In action cinema, CG is no substitute for a stunt or effect caught in the lens of a camera.

You want proof? Whether you like the film or not, how about the audacity of some of the work in Fast Five? What about those Batman Begins and The Dark Knight action sequences where the CG is kept to a bare minimum? How about the old-fashioned vehicle chase in Terminator 3 (again, not a great film)? Those are all sequences that, whilst bonkers in some cases, at least feel tangible.

Throw in some of the work in Crank and Shoot ‘Em Up, too, if you want further examples.

Now contrast that with an action sequence put together primarily on a computer, where it’s CG effects that are presenting you with much of the spectacle. Occasionally, they work. More often than not, it simply feels like there’s something missing.

Few things in action movies beat a well-executed, planned on-set sequence, and the temptation to let the computer do the heavy lifting surely should be avoided at all costs. Go and watch a Transformers movie if you don’t believe us.

Where’s The Fun Gone?

One further ramification of the Bourne movies is that they were major contributors in turning action cinema so serious. That they had to be fused by a tragedy, or something deep, or something that means the leading star has to do some earnest acting. This isn’t a bad thing, of course. But surely it doesn’t mean that we can’t have some fun, too?

The A-Team movie was much maligned in certain quarters, and I’d happily argue that it takes 30 to 40 minutes to get anywhere near shifting into gear. But there’s a wonderful sense of the over-the-top in its action work, that realism has long since gone out of the window in favour of entertainment.

I’ll happily take that trade off far more than it’s offered, and while The A-Team let itself down with some CG problems, the core of the action was an absolute blast. It was also willing to construct a bit of action around comedy, too. The 3D cinema moment caused the audience I was with to erupt with laughter, and rightly so.

Action movies are often switch-off fun, and The A-Team played right to the heart of that ethos. And while it’s tempting to be snobby about that, and seek out something more substantive instead, there’s a lot to be said for two hours of good, solid entertainment. That used to be okay with people in the 80s. Can we start telling Hollywood film executives that it’s okay again now, please?

Too Much Worrying About The Sequel, Too Early

The action movie template for a sequel used to be that you got one when you’d earned it, and not before. The action movie template now has to have the sequel built in before the cameras roll for the first time. I don’t have a massive problem with the mapping out of a franchise, and it’s often helpful to do that work early. But when it’s overt, and obvious that this is the master plan, then the alarm bells start to sound.

Certainly, in superhero-driven action movies, there’s been a tangible, fair accusation that a first film is holding back, and getting things set up for the second. But it shouldn’t be like that. The first film should throw as much as is appropriate and necessary at the screen. If it works, then you can worry about doing a follow-up. 

Where Have The Bad Guys Gone?

We’ve talked about the heroes, but we can’t neglect the fact that the villains appear to be disappearing, too. At one stage, you could choose from a carousel of British thesps for your villain of choice. The beauty of this was that action movies were tempered, so that you had a beefcake protagonist, and a villain who could act. It always seemed like a winning combination.

But now? When was the last time you saw an action movie that had a villain worthy of the fuss? The last one I can remember was Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Mission: Impossible III, a massively promising foe, who was utterly pissed away by the end of the film. Yet at the start of that film? I bought the fact that he was a nasty character, wanting to do wrong. I could understand why Tom Cruise’s character would not warm to him.

Remember Castor Troy in Face/Off, too. That’s the standard we’re after.

We used to celebrate actors such as Alan Rickman, Dennis Hopper, assorted Bond stars, Robert Patrick, Gary Busey, Ronny Cox, Michael Ironside, Gary Oldman, John Lithgow, Kurtwood Smith and Paul Reiser, who lent a believability to a villain role. Sitting through the last Die Hard movie, though, did you feel that Timothy Olyphant could hold a torch to Bruce Willis’ John McClane (Maggie Q was arguably the far worthier foe in that film)?

In fact, when can you remember the last action movie villain who made any kind of impression on you?  Right now, I’d happily take Art Malik in True Lies, and let’s face it, that’s not a role you see in many top ten lists. For action movies to rediscover themselves, they need to find foes, rather than circumstances or events, to fight against. That present a challenge. That’s not really happening right now, sadly.

The Expendables

I hate to say it, as I’m one of those who really enjoyed the film, but The Expendables might just be part of the problem. As much fun as it was to bring together a who’s who of action cinema, and put it together in a gloriously old-fashioned way, it makes it all something of a sideshow. That it makes a novelty out of going back to something that’s got more to it than it’s given credit for.

It allows for a snobbishness towards the action genre, and for it to be treated as a guilty pleasure. It’s interesting looking down the cast list for the film, too, as the names there encapsulate much of what’s gone wrong. Schwarzenegger and Stallone, for starters, broke out into one-joke comedies, sending up their action persona. To do that once works. To repeat the formula? Just criminal.

All of a sudden, action cinema started to feel like the thing they fell back on when their other career ideas weren’t working out as planned (see also: Vin Diesel). That it was a last, rather than first, resort. And that can’t be healthy. The Expendables, ultimately, is an important step for old school action movies, but it shouldn’t be the new bandwagon for Hollywood to hop on. Let it prove that action is a broad church, certainly. But, rather than hunt down new mash-ups, what I’d prefer Hollywood to do is hunt down, and give a chance to, new and interesting action movie actors and directors.

A New Hope?

I want to end on a positive note, as there are real signs of life again in the action genre. Justin Lin, for instance, is now a major movie director, who’s made his mark off the back of fun action movies. Fast Five blasted to the top of the box office off the back of its not-serious-but-bloody-good-fun marriage of stunts and testosterone, proving that there’s space and appetite for that in the market.

Furthermore, the dedication of Jason Statham is to be applauded, and the innovations that the likes of Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldine fused into the Crank movies should be applauded (appreciating that there are all sorts of problems with the Crank movies). My hope is that the snobbishness towards action films dissipates, as more and more talented people get drawn back to the genre. And I hope that The Expendables 2 is both a massive success, and a strong film.

Appreciating what I’ve said above about it being part of the problem, it’s also, conversely, part of the answer, too. I love, too, the intelligence that pervades action cinema, and would hate the pendulum to swing one way or the other completely. The Bourne movies are great, and the ideal is that there’s space for a dumb, fun actioner alongside something deeper. 

Action cinema always needs to evolve, and move on. But it should never be afraid of re-exploring its many, many roots.

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The arrival of Warrior in cinemas gives audiences a fresh chance to appreciate the awe-inspiring Tom Hardy. In my humble opinion, he deserves to be hailed as one of the most exciting actors currently working. He’s not really a household name yet, but soon will be, no doubt, which is fitting for someone who’s something of a modern day equivalent to Robert De Niro.

Warrior is intriguing for several reasons, not least because it comes highly acclaimed and promises to be a gritty drama about family issues, conflict, personal demons and fighting for a future in spite of the past. It also, in spite of a 12A certificate, offers some adrenaline pumping mixed martial arts action and cage fighting sequences. At the very least, it’s going to be a bit like The Fighter, except instead of Christian Bale playing a goofy punch-drunk junkie, we’ll have Hardy and Aussie actor Joel Edgerton thrashing it out in a cage.

I’ve hopes that Warrior is going to rise above the standard, and become more than just another “I could’a been a contender” sport story matter. I believe in the leading trio of Hardy, Edgerton and Nick Nolte (playing the fighting brothers’ alcoholic father) and expect them to provide impact and character, and the plot synopsis resonates more strongly than an archetypal narrative that simply regurgitates the Rocky formula.

What’s more, Hardy as an actor never fails to impress, both in his performance and in his physicality, and this flick gives him a big stage (or rather, a big open ring enclosed in a cage) to showcase his ability as a main attraction to wider audiences. This will only be the case if Warrior gets seen, though, and that may require Hardy himself showing up at multiplexes to crack his knuckles at cinemagoers who were veering towards a rerelease screening of The Lion King in 3D instead.

It’s his commitment to roles, and the way that he really gets under the skin of his characters that makes me admire Tom Hardy. Every performance is intense, yet he always manages to retain a certain charm and sense of guile that draws you in no matter how big his part is.

Even in a star-studded ensemble he’s a compelling presence, as was the case in Inception where he played Eames, one member of Leo DiCaprio’s subconscious cracking team. The same is true of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in which he appears as Ricki Tarr, one of the most human elements in a movie that’s all about the Cold War and cold, detached style.

Hardy’s protagonists are always relatable no matter how ugly or unappealing they are, and he never fails to make an impression, even in pictures dominated by screen icons, special effects or ultra-complex plots. When he gets to actually lead a film, as he did in Bronson, he’s an all-out acting tour-de-force.

As “Britain’s Most Dangerous Criminal” he alternated between cheeky comedian and violent psychopath, and recalling his portrayal of Charles Bronson (the British prisoner, not the Death Wish actor), I’m eager to see how he handles the Mad Max reboot, and what he’s bringing to Bane for The Dark Knight Rises.

His deft ability to switch between touching humanity and horrific brutality makes him the perfect successor to Mel Gibson for Max, and might make Bane a more interesting figure than the goon in Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin. This is the character that, in comics lore, “broke the Bat”, and I think it’s fair to say that the world deserves better than the juiced-up gimp the 1997 film served up. I demand that Batman’s spine be broken by a convincing villain, not by a cartoon vision who looks and acts like a silly amateur wrestler.

Just as Christopher Nolan’s retakes swept away the stench of the 90s Bat-flicks, I expect Hardy’s Bane will bash away all the bad memories of the Batman & Robin henchman-thing. Warrior will provide an indication of the guy’s fighting form and, visually, give audiences a chance to check out his physical condition. It’s undeniably impressive, and aside from the acting skills, Hardy’s dedication to honing his body for whatever project he’s taking on is another feature that marks him as an outstanding performer.

I admire actors who fully throw themselves into becoming a character, but those that go beyond prosthetics and mo-cap, and physically transform themselves, get extra credit as dramatic craftsmen. Not only does it give the finished film an edge of authenticity, but you feel like the actor in question has worked hard, and really cares about the product they are pushing out to cinemagoers.

In a way, I appreciate the effort that the individual has gone to in order to make the experience more entertaining and immersive. In an ideal world, lazy thesps would be relegated to daytime TV, and Hollywood’s casting agents would only hire those who put their heart, soul and entire body into absolutely everything.

Tom Hardy is one of those guys, like Robert De Niro of the old days (Raging Bull Bobby), Viggo Mortensen and Christian Bale, to name a few. Actors that go method amaze me, most of all when they have get into shape for a role in order to truly deliver the goods. I personally find it fascinating to read about the ordeals and extreme training that actors do to achieve the right physique, if only so I have a fleeting moment of thinking “Hey! I could follow in Chris Hemsworth’s footsteps and look like Thor!”

There’s still hope for me, and every other weakling movie nerd, that I could muscle up and look like a Thunder God or beefcake boxer. The results are there to see on screen, and if cushy Hollywood types can do it then so, potentially, can you. Stick a photo of Hemsworth as Thor, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine or the cast of 300 next to your workout space and believe.

Through a regimen of cardio, Muay Thai, jiu-jitsu, boxing and probably a whole lot of other hard exercise and focused dietary work, Tom Hardy gained 30lbs of muscle for Warrior and The Dark Knight Rises. This is the sort of remarkable commitment that characterises the actor, should be commended, and make other actors take note. Natalie Portman deservedly got an Oscar for her dedicated emotional and physical preparation for Black Swan. If there’s any justice, Hardy will one day have another role like Bronson and taste similar glory.

James' previous column can be found here.

You can reach James on his Twitter feed here, see his film cartoons here and more sketches here.

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Jason Statham is an actor who gets a lot of love around these parts, and quite rightly so. Since his debut in Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, he’s carved out a reputation as one of cinema’s leading hard men, through a series of great film choices and an incredible work ethic.

Blitz is one of several films featuring the Stath in UK cinemas this year, and finds the great man playing maverick police sergeant Tom Brant. But how does it fare?

Statham’s Brant is a one-man justice machine, dishing out what he determines to be appropriate punishments for crimes committed. This would be all well and good if, say, his superiors and the press shared his vision, but sadly, that’s not the case. Brant’s reputation as a maverick lawman means he attracts a considerable amount of attention, and the slightest incident of beating people with sticks makes the front pages of the tabloids (specifically the Sun).

When Barry Weiss (Aidan Gillen) starts calling himself Blitz, and decides to start killing police officers, the rough-around-the-edges wildcard Brant is teamed up with the straight-laced Sergeant Porter Nash (Paddy Considine) to track down the killer.

First off, Blitz is a hell of a lot of fun, and it’s a film that treads a fine line between amazing and ridiculously clichéd, without ever toppling over fully into either. In fairness, it’s a film that’s carried by its three leads, but when they’re as good as Statham, Considine and Gillen, this is hardly surprising.

Gillen is the obvious stand out here, as he has by far the best part; a captivating screen villain with a crazy wardrobe to match, he becomes ever more intriguing as the film progresses. Gillen may not seem the ideal choice for a villain in a film such as this – in terms of physical stature, he’s little match for Statham’s Brant, but given that he’s not constricted by procedure and protocol, and is capable of killing cops without remorse, he’s more than a worthy foe. 

Statham does what you’d expect him to do in this sort of film: he grunts, drinks, punches and kicks at it, before hitting it with crowbar for good measure. This may be Statham by numbers, but it’s still a hell of a lot better than other recent action films.

Despite enjoying Blitz as much as I did, I did have a few problems with it. The pacing can be a little all over the place, and the credits sequence, with its up-tempo music, gives the impression that you’re about to watch a UK-based Crank, but that’s not the case. The film settles into a fairly standard police procedural plot, that aside from the key stars, is populated with characters that aren’t all that interesting. 

It’s when the film chooses to focus on these characters that it loses its way a bit, such as when we spend time with a colleague Sgt Brant’s, WPC Elizabeth Falls (Zawe Ashton). This aspect may have fared better in the source novel, but on screen, it effectively applies the brakes.

It’s frustrating that this aspect of the story is given more attention than the relationship between Brant and Porter Nash, although I suppose the odd couple police partnership may have been done to death, which could have been a contributing factor to it being played down here. I also feel the failure to include Body Count’s Cop Killer lets the film down. 

Blitz, then, has its flaws, but the way it flaunts rather than hides its clichés is quite admirable. It’s not original, and not particularly clever, but there’s still plenty of good stuff here for Stath fans to enjoy.

Disc

Other than a considerable amount of trailers (most of which featured 50 Cent), there were no extras of note on the DVD.

Film:
Disc:

You can rent or buy Blitz at Blockbuster.co.uk.

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If examined in any kind of detail, most modern heroes are maniacs. Take away their capes, witty one-liners or police badges, and they’re actually just cold-blooded killers with a malfunctioning moral compass.

The rampaging cop of 1971’s Dirty Harry is a case in point: a self-appointed judge, jury and executioner, his right-leaning attitudes are abhorrent, at least to someone with my leftie ideals. And yet, in spite of this, Dirty Harry remains among my all-time favourite thrillers. Besides, there’s something so shrill and absurdly over-the-top about the film’s notions that it quickly tips into unintentionally amusing self-parody.

Dirty Harry’s plot reads like a 70s right-winger’s worst nightmare - or darkest fantasy. In a San Francisco presided over by maverick cop Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood), a deranged killer called Scorpio is murdering and kidnapping residents apparently at random. With casualties mounting up, and the city’s mayor more interested in paying Scorpio off with ransom money than putting a stop to his murderous exploits, Callahan ultimately concludes that bullets are the best solution to the problem.

Scorpio is modelled on a real-life series of killings that occurred in the late 60s; the Zodiac, as newspapers dubbed him, was never caught, and would later become the subject of David Fincher’s film of the same name. Zodiac was well known for his habit of sending taunting letters to the police, and in one of these, Zodiac threatened to hijack a school bus - something Scorpio eventually acts out in Dirty Harry. (“Come on, sing everyone!” Scorpio shrieks to a group of terrified school kids, in one of the film’s blackly comic moments. “Sing or I'll go home and kill all your mommies!”)

Andrew Robinson’s performance as Scorpio - his feature debut - is extraordinary, and a major reason why Dirty Harry remains a surprisingly dynamic film, even 40 years later. He’s the tittering antithesis of Clint Eastwood’s glowering, laconic cop, a toxic hippy whose crackpot nihilism allows him to kill without remorse.

Interestingly, Callahan displays similarly sociopathic facilities himself - in an early scene, he points his gigantic .44 Magnum in a stricken criminal’s face, and responds to his fear with the now legendary “Do I feel lucky?” monologue. Later, Callahan tortures Scorpio until he divulges one of his kidnapped victims’ whereabouts - are we supposed to applaud this act of cruelty, or find his brutality disquieting? The answer, perhaps, is both.

The symmetry between Callahan and Scorpio is strikingly similar to the mirror-like kinship between Batman and his arch enemy, the Joker. This is probably why Dirty Harry is the best of all the movies that followed, and why both 1989’s Batman and Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight are the best films in that franchise.

Don Siegel directs with assurance, cutting together a sharp opening scene to the funky beats of Lalo Schifrin’s classic soundtrack, as Scorpio aims a sniper rifle at an unsuspecting bather floating in a rooftop swimming pool. It’s telling, perhaps, that Siegel chooses to open the movie not on Harry, but on Scorpio - Callahan may be the nominal protagonist of the piece, but Scorpio’s the driving force. In the face of the mop-haired sociopath’s killing spree, Callahan can only react with largely impotent violence.

Dirty Harry changed many times before it finally arrived in cinemas in 1971. Several actors were approached for the lead role, and the script was rewritten numerous times. John Milius wrote a draft, and he was responsible for the legendary “Do I feel lucky” line mentioned earlier. The auteur Terrence Malick even wrote a draft, in which the killer targeted wealthy criminals – a plot that would be altered and used in the Dirty Harry sequel, Magnum Force.

It’s hard to imagine anyone else in the lead role now, but the part of Harry was originally intended as a vehicle for Frank Sinatra. When he dropped out, it was offered to John Wayne (who objected to its violence, among other things), Paul Newman (who hated its politics) and just about every other macho, popular actor kicking around Hollywood studios at the time.

As for Scorpio, it was Eastwood himself who recommended the relatively unknown Andrew Robinson for the part. Eastwood had seen Robinson performing in a stage play, and concluded that the young actor (he was just 29 at the time) had the perfect, cherubic face for the role of Scorpio.

Eastwood was absolutely correct. Robinson’s performance in Dirty Harry is nothing short of outstanding. He’s a twitching, sweaty embodiment of everything an older generation fears about the younger - he’s sadistic, amoral, and prepared to kill anyone in his quest for self-gratification.

Dirty Harry is a logical extension of the westerns that were Eastwood’s previous stock in trade. Callahan is essentially a marshal of the old West, swept up and dumped into early-70s San Francisco. Seen against a contemporary backdrop, though, his attitude to law and justice becomes more troubling.

Eastwood once said that he saw Dirty Harry as a comment on the rights of victims, and how they can become lost in the political clamour to protect criminals from police brutality. Eastwood’s character rebuffs these concerns in the film with the line, “I’m all broken up over that man’s rights” – a line meant as a reference to his earlier maltreatment of Scorpio, but one that could also sum up the film’s attitude to criminals in general.

Dirty Harry’s right-leaning underpinnings didn’t chime particularly well with everyone, even though the movie was a big box office hit. Roger Ebert said of the film, “If anybody is writing a book about the rise of fascism in America, they ought to have a look at Dirty Harry”. At the Academy Awards, protesters lined up outside with placards stating, “Dirty Harry is a fascist pig.”

Ironically, Dirty Harry falls victim to its own attitudes. It’s extremely easy to pick gloatingly at the film’s leaps of logic, such as the bizarre plot point that sees Scorpio released from custody because of Callahan’s violent assault. As the TV Tropes website points out, Scorpio could have easily been convicted for attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, possession of an automatic firearm, and kidnapping – all offences mysteriously overlooked by the film’s district attorney.

What’s interesting is that, although Dirty Harry is about a cop who’s willing to ignore legal boundaries in order to protect the innocent, the film lacks the triumphant air you might expect. Rather than concluding with a bare-chested, macho fight in which Callahan proves himself to be the superior male (as we'd later see in Sly Stallone's hilarious Dirty Harry clone, Cobra), it ends with an oddly muted encounter in a desolate quarry. This setting was another of Eastwood’s choices, and it gives these final scenes a gloomy, downbeat tone.

The face-off between Callahan and Scorpio, in which the former gets to reprise his “Do I feel lucky?” line, plays out like a depressing retread of the quick-draw showdowns of Eastwood’s earlier westerns - and naturally, Eastwood wins. And as Scorpio’s lifeless body sinks into a murky creek, Callahan pitches his badge into the water after him, apparently in disgust.

The success of Dirty Harry ensured that sequels inevitably followed. The film also set the template for several decades of Hollywood cop movies thereafter, and echoes of it can be seen in such films as 48Hrs, Red Heat and Lethal Weapon (the latter even borrowed, in slightly amended form, a scene from Dirty Harry involving a hysterical chap threatening to jump off a municipal building).

Judge Dredd and RoboCop could also be seen as left-wing parodies of an infamously right-wing character, and one stand-out Dirty Harry exchange was deliciously skewered in The Naked Gun ("That was a Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar, you moron! You killed five actors! Good ones!")

Almost exactly 40 years after Dirty Harry set the trigger-happy cop template, along comes Elliott Lester’s Brit-cop flick, Blitz. Although set on the mean streets of London rather than San Francisco, it presents an almost identical scenario to Don Siegel’s 1971 film.

A maverick cop (Jason Statham) goes up against a mop-haired sociopath (Aiden Gillen), and in the face of a legal process that appears to fall on the side of the criminal rather than the victim, decides that extreme measures are called for. Statham brings his usual caustic charisma to the film, but Aiden Gillen’s the real revelation here, turning in a memorably eccentric performance in his purple shell suit and green plastic shades.

Like Dirty Harry, the underlying politics of Blitz are exceedingly unpleasant if they’re subjected to any kind of scrutiny. But at the same time, both films are a manifestation of a peculiarly male fantasy about the kind of no-nonsense, self-reliant hero who’s more interested in stopping bad guys than obeying the letter of the law.

The thought of police officers like Harry Callahan or Blitz’s Tom Brant running around cities in real life is a horrifying one. The alternate world of action movies, on the other hand, simply wouldn't be the same without them.

See more of our Looking Back articles here.

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Drive is without a doubt one of our favourite films of the year so far. So we were quite excited, therefore, to get the opportunity to sit down with director Nicolas Winding Refn about his outstanding piece of work. And as we soon found out, Mr Refn is every bit as icy cool as Drive’s anonymous protagonist, played by Ryan Gosling - though the toothpick and claw hammer were thankfully absent.

Here, then, is the result of our chat about Drive, in which Mr Refn talks about Grimm’s Fairytales, telekinesis, and his forthcoming take on Logan’s Run…

Drive’s one of the few films I’ve seen in recent years that uses violence and action as a way of telling you something about the characters. Was this what interested you in making it?

No, because I was just interested in making a movie with Ryan [Gosling]. The rest came by itself.

So how did you arrive at the overall tone and pace of the film? Was that something that was quite organic in the way it came together?

Well, I can only make the movies I make, and I try not to analyse why I make them. And knowing that Ryan was a great collaborator, and also the leading man, was beneficial, because the two of us going off and making a movie in Hollywood, which is very famous for having a lot of people around you that have opinions.

But on this particular film, it was just the two of us, and we got to make the film we wanted to make, which was great. Particularly when I left Hollywood and went to Cannes, I was just, “Wow, I love Hollywood.” It was a great experience.

You managed to avoid any outside interference, then. You were given the autonomy to make the film you wanted to make…

Absolutely. And I knew Ryan would protect me if I had any problems, because he was the star. It was a wonderful situation for me. It was a bit like when John Boorman was brought to Hollywood to do Point Blank with Lee Marvin.

Were those 70s thrillers an influence – Boorman, Friedkin, Walter Hill?

No, no. But Point Blank is an interesting film – the whole existential journey his character goes through, which is similar to what the Driver goes through. He transforms himself into a superhero. There was always Grimm’s Fairytales, which I was more or less obsessed with. That was always in my mind when structuring the script with Hoss [Hossein Amini], when we were adapting it – he was a wonderful partner as well, a fellow European.

The film gives a very distinct flavour of Los Angeles; do you think it takes an outsider to reveal these different layers of America?

I don’t really know. It’s hard to tell. I can only do it as I see it. I don’t know the difference. Maybe it’s good not knowing the difference, because then you’re not inhibited by doing what you do. You essentially make the movie you want to make.

I’ve heard it mentioned before that you intended Drive to be a fairytale, a masculine fairytale, I suppose. Would you say there’s also a male nightmare element to it, as well, where the central character’s protectiveness brings out a dangerous, uncontrollable side to him?

Definitely. The elevator scene was something I came up with while we were shooting, because I couldn’t make something else work, and I couldn’t figure out why until I came up with a different alteration to it, where the sex and violence basically mirror each other.

I think that the film’s very feminine. I’m a very feminine man, I like feminine things. I like don’t like guys, I like girls. And it’s about a man who transforms himself, which is a very feminine thing to acknowledge, of being a human being becoming a superhero.

The superhero accoutrements, if you like – the toothpick and the gloves – that could have so easily tipped over into quite cheesy territory, yet it somehow works. Where did those come in?

It just naturally flows through the channels of creativity.

But were they things you spoke about together, you and Gosling?

Oh, we’re telekinetic. We don’t even have to talk. We just looked at each other and things came about. Ideas. And that was it. Like we were the same person.

The scorpion on Ryan Gosling’s jacket, could you tell me what that represents?

That’s the superhero he formed himself into. That’s who he is – that’s his mark. It’s like a superhero has an identity, in a metaphorical sense, and for him it’s the scorpion. With that on his back, he knows who he is and how he becomes it.

The script, I understand, was quite pared back as you went through shooting. What sort of things did you choose to take out?

It wasn’t so much what I lost, it was more that I wanted to do something different with it. And that was all the way from the beginning to the end.

The music was something else I wanted to touch upon. How far along were you when you chose what music you wanted to cut it to?

Very far along in the editing process. I cut the movie very quick, and I cut all the scenes to the music, and hoped we could get the rights, which we were able to do afterwards. I cut it to the sound of these pop songs, which became the score of the film.

One project that I’m really interested in is Logan’s Run. Where does that fit into your busy schedule?

Well, right now, we’re doing Only God Forgives at Christmas, so we’ll see about Logan’s Run afterwards. But I really want to do Logan’s Run, it’s something I’m highly prioritising, but I’m still working on the script, so we’ll have to take it one step at a time. And when you’re dealing with such a big movie, a lot of people need to be involved later on, so you just go with it and hope it’ll work out.

That’s likely to be a big-budget movie for you, then.

It’s a huge franchise, and Warner Brothers only make huge franchises. We’re in the big league with a film like this.

So you wouldn’t necessarily try to, perhaps, reduce the scale of the film to a more intimate level, like Drive?

It wouldn’t benefit from it. It would only benefit from going all the way.

And Only God Forgives, what can we expect from that? Does it explore similar things to Drive?

That’s for me to know and you to find out.

I understand you’re making a movie with Carey Mulligan, too.

Carey and I have talked about making a movie together, and we’ve agreed to making a movie together.

Would that fit in after Logan’s Run?

That’s for me to know and you to find out.

Nicolas Winding Refn, thank you very much.

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It’s fitting, I suppose, that no matter how overused zombies seem to be, they keep moaning and shuffling their way back onto our screens.

Yet, despite videogame zombies embodying over saturation, I find myself completely unable to criticise developers for continuing to reach for such a classic horror staple. This latest title from Call Of Juarez developer, Techland, proves that it’s still fun to cut your way through endless hordes of brain-chomping undead.

Dead Island is absolutely crammed full of the bastards. You can’t turn around without some moaning idiot trying to eat your liver. I’m sure the overuse of zombies was a constant source of debate in the Techland offices, but the studio’s done an excellent job of capturing the simple pleasure of morality-free pretend violence that makes zombies the perfect videogame baddies.

In many ways, Dead Island displays a very derivative approach to game design. The endless crush of stumbling corpses naturally draws comparisons with Dead Rising, and the lush island of Banoi bears a similarity to the expansive open world of Just Cause. In combat, planting your boot into an approaching enemy recalls Duke Nukem, via innovative shooter Bulletstorm.

This is not an accusation of plagiarism. Not least because every element is formed into something that improves the overall experience. You rarely explore Dead Island’s open world unbidden, but moving through it with the knowledge that you could veer off course at any time makes the experience feel much more real. The hordes of zombies are a lot sparser than in Dead Rising, but evoke a similar sense of never-ending bad guys to kill.

Techland has done an excellent job making its zombies fun to kill, but in the process have forgotten to introduce any element of fear. To take just one example: your own life is so worthless that it’s sometimes beneficial to let yourself be eaten alive.

Respawning is instant, and erases none of your progress. If you’ve half beaten that large angry monster when you die, he’ll remain half beaten when you return to life with full health. In some specific cases, I found that dying in combat teleported me beyond the section I was struggling with. Dying quickly becomes literally the easiest way out of a tricky situation.

Other non-zombies are no better at bringing home the terrors of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Numerous survivors have useful things they’d like your adventurer to help them with, and although they sound desperate, they lack the forcefulness required to properly evoke terror.

This has a lot do with how their requests are conveyed. The population of Dead Island are almost totally sedentary, delivering every ounce of their exposition through dialogue. This is a lot cheaper than actually building unique animations, but it’s a bar to narrative immersion that is prevalent throughout the game.

Think of the finest, most engaging videogames, and you’ll often discover characters that use movement and words to express themselves. Speech alone cannot convey realistic emotion if the speaker’s body stands motionless.

The occasional cut scenes do no better at providing horrific narrative impetus. To begin with, catering for co-op play presents some issues. No matter how many players you have wandering about with you at any one time, each video section features the full compliment of four characters.

This odd dissonance is the first in a huge list of problems I have with these dramatic interludes. Games have had an easy road for too long in this department. The medium has advanced to the point where cut scenes should be critiqued on a equal plain with every other narrative medium and, in this context, they are abysmal.

A handful of voice actors give admirable emotion to the game’s quest-givers, but utterly fail to make the lead characters sound anywhere close to convincing. The writing is equally at fault. At one point, a pivotal bad guy shouts “Son of a bitch!” at a woman he has just shot. If you’re going to recycle stock invectives, at least find one that applies to the right gender.

Dead Island makes frequent attempts to pluck at our heart strings, but fails completely every time. During one notable moment, the possibility of a key NPC having been raped is hinted at. It’s a valiant attempt to evoke feelings of true horror, but it feels as if the developers dare not do anything more than gently prod at the possibility. The idea that adults can withstand 30 hours of gore, but couldn’t possibly cope with the statement of off-camera sexual violence is an extremely skewed idea.

These terrible interludes, coupled with incredibly forgiving death mechanics, lead to total narrative apathy. The joy of Dead Island game is in killing zombies, gaining levels, and finding loot. As soon as the pleasure of that repetition runs dry, the game is essentially over. (There is, of course, the usual co-op caveat. Messing around with your friends can be great fun in a game of any quality, and the semi-open world structure of Dead Island is well suited to dicking about.)

You can rent or buy Dead Island at Blockbuster.co.uk.

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Horror movie send-ups are nothing new. From classics like Shaun Of The Dead and Zombieland, to less inspiring efforts like Lesbian Vampire Killers, such spoofs have become a genre in their own right, and are prone to the same pitfalls as any other type of film.

Tucker & Dale Vs Evil is an affectionate tribute to woodland hillbilly scares, and somehow manages to hit every note along the way. The true test of films such as this is whether they could belong on the shelf alongside those treasured properties they're taking inspiration from, and unusually, Tucker & Dale Vs Evil actually does.

Tucker and Dale are two best friends who find themselves in trouble when a group of college kids mistake them for kidnapping murderers. As each of the young visitors start dying in increasingly horrific accidents, Tucker and Dale soon have to start defending themselves from attack.

It's an ingenious plot twist that highlights the prejudices still found in modern America, but it's also a hilariously fun ride that succeeds as a horror and a comedy, often at the same time. There's plenty of well-executed gore to keep horror fans happy, but the characters are fleshed out well before any deaths start to occur.

The college kids, like the hillbillies before them, are predominantly portrayed as heartless psychos or mindless cannon fodder, but the genius behind Tucker & Dale is its titular characters. Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine are recognisable to fans of TV's Reaper or Firefly, but you quickly forget that you're not watching real friends on screen.

So natural are they in their roles, and so sympathetic are their performances, the film would fall apart without their involvement. Both are gifted comedy actors, but neither gets in the audience’s face as much as they could, keeping in character amidst the mayhem that ensues.

As mentioned earlier, the movie possesses a clever twist on an overly-familiar plot, but you believe that the actors are buying into it completely, a vital ingredient for a film that straddles opposing genres. Still, because Tudyk and Labine are so good, the parts of the film that you spend with other characters drag a little.

The most fun comes in the various deaths and how the friends decide to deal with them, something it shares with many a low-budget gore-fest. However, the deaths are so stylised, and the comedy so out-there, you're certain nothing is to be taken seriously. One of the most successful early gags comes from Dale approaching a girl he likes while holding a scythe – not a joke you'd find in a Judd Apatow comedy or Wrong Turn sequel.

After a strong start, however, the last-third flounders a little, as the plot tries to wrap matters up in the least jarring way possible. You get the impression that everyone involved was having too much fun to spare much thought for the loose ends, and this thoroughly unique effort finishes on a slightly obvious note. But the power of the movie comes from its heart, and its affection for its leads, their relationship, and the genre they inhabit is evident from beginning to end.

It's rare for a hack-and-slash fest to invest so much in its characters, but you'll be more interested in whether the two hillbillies with hearts of gold make it out all right.

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Along with Star Wars, Ridley Scott’s Alien is possibly the most influential science fiction movie of the past 50 years. Scott’s other classic genre entry, Blade Runner, may have informed the look of legion videogames and films, but Alien sparked a lucrative film franchise, numerous low-budget clones, as well as spin-off comics, videogames and merchandise.

The success of Alien is entirely due to Scott, the artists who collaborated with him, and their refusal to give in to the film’s B-movie underpinnings. The framework of Alien is straight out of 50s genre fare such as It! The Terror From Beyond Space – Dan O’Bannon’s original script was called Starbeast, which is a fair indication of the sort of creature-of-the-week picture it could have been.

Instead, Scott’s attention to detail, and the extraordinary art and production design came together to create a far more resonant, disturbing and downright unforgettable movie than anyone could have reasonably anticipated.

In spite of Alien’s lasting importance in the canon of big-screen sci-fi, relatively little has been written about it, at least in printed form. A quick browse of Amazon will reveal an entire library of books about Star Wars lore, and the making of the 1977 original and its sequels.

A definitive document about the making of Alien, however, is less easy to find – there's Giger’s Alien, which details the Swiss artist’s vital part making in the movie, and The Book Of Alien, a much earlier account that is now out of print.

It’s taken more than 30 years to arrive, but a book dedicated to the making of Alien has finally been published. By Empire writer Ian Nathan, Alien Vault: The Definitive Story Behind The Film is the most complete document an Alien fan could hope for.

First, there’s the luxurious construction of the thing: housed in a sturdy slipcase, Alien Vault is an inch-thick casket of nightmarish treasures. Its pages are lavishly illustrated with stills and behind-the-scenes photos, all beautifully reproduced. But the biggest surprise comes housed in five semi-translucent wallets, bound in among the book’s 175 leaves. Within each wallet you’ll find reproductions of Scott’s extraordinarily detailed storyboard illustrations (fondly dubbed Ridleygrams), blue prints of the Nostromo, Giger artwork, poster art, and most charming of all, a Weylan-Yutani sticker.

And when the initial joy of stumbling across all these artefacts begins to fade, there’s still the story of Alien’s production to read through. Ian Nathan’s thorough account of the film’s evolution, from when it was little more than a nightmare in writer Dan O’Bannon’s mind, via the script’s progress from its early possible fate as a swiftly-made Roger Corman flick, to its final resting place in the hands of Fox and Ridley Scott, is fascinating stuff.

True Alien fans will have no doubt collated much of the film’s history from various director’s commentaries and magazine articles over the years, but Nathan’s gathered it all together exceptionally well, and written a potentially dry chronology of its production process with infectious enthusiasm.

Nathan’s also managed to score some great reviews with seemingly everyone majorly involved in Alien’s birth; Ridley Scott provides a wry commentary of its progress, explaining how, with his artistic flair and powers of persuasion, he managed to pry vital added funds from Fox executives. Giger describes how his unforgettably hideous creature was built out of rubber and condoms. Sigourney Weaver and co-stars describe the film’s labyrinthine set, difficult working conditions, and Scott’s relentless perfectionism.

Alien Vault makes one thing abundantly clear: the film’s path to the big screen wasn’t a straight one, and at any turn, could have wound up as a vastly different beast from the one that wound up in cinemas. But somehow, the right combination of actors, writers and filmmakers all came together at just the right time, during the right movie making climate, to create one of sci-fi cinema’s unholy masterpieces.

That Alien is still talked and written about in awe and reverence, and movies are still being made within the universe it established, is proof of its brilliance. Alien was a film that functioned as an exceptionally scary sci-fi movie, but also as a carefully-wrought piece of art and design.

And now, at long last, there’s a fitting document of its conception, and it’s one that any Alien fan should be proud to place on their shelf.

Alien Vault: The Definitive Story Behind The Film is out now and available from the Den Of Geek Store.

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Director Roger Donaldson has moved between genres several times in his career, and his resume is not short of interesting films (check out Thirteen Days, for example).

Now, he’s been brought together with Nicolas Cage and Guy Pearce in Justice. This is the film that was previously known as The Hungry Rabbit Jumps. Or, as one of our Twitter chums put it earlier this week, Put The Bunny Back In The Box.

Anyway, there’s a trailer for Justice that’s appeared now. This is a film that was shot in 2009, and has been lingering on the shelf for a while. It’s finally getting a cinema release in the UK this November, and while there’s nothing utterly compelling about this promo, the film looks like it might comfortably fill a couple of hours.

Here’s the trailer…

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We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Marvel is as bold as any firm making blockbusters with some of its director choices. We’ve currently got Shane Black attached to Iron Man 3, Kenneth Branagh scored a big success with Thor, and now we’ve got the identity of the likely director of Thor 2.

The identity of said director? Patty Jenkins.

She’s best known for directing Charlize Theron to an Oscar with the film Monster, and she also helmed the pilot episode of the US take on The Killing. According to Deadline, Marvel is closing in on Jenkins as its director of choice for the Thor sequel.

The film, which is likely to bring Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins back, as well as Chris Hemsworth, has a release date of July 26th 2013, and it’s got a bit of a job on its hands to match the original. The first Thor hits DVD and Blu-ray next week.

Deadline

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It looks like there’s to be a bit of wait for the second Captain America movie. Talking to The Playlist on the promotional rounds for his latest movies, Chris Evans revealed that “They may wait until 2014 until they release the next Cap”.

The actor continued, saying “Marvel has a lot of balls in the air. They aren’t going to cannibalise their films”.

This would make sense.

Marvel already has two films lined up for 2013, which would be the quickest it could get a Captain America sequel turned around. Thus, it’s not going to want to place Captain America 2 into a summer where it’s already got Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 lined up.

Given that the studio has already announced it has two films coming out in 2014, on May 16th and June 27th, it’s fair to assume that one of those is going to be the Captain America sequel. The Avengers sequel was expected to be the other. Whether that’ll be the case if Evans is filming a Captain America sequel at the same time remains to be seen.

You can read more on this over at The Playlist, here.

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“Take me to your leader”.

There’s always a mixture of joy and sadness when we post anything about The Sarah Jane Adventures. Take this new trailer for the fifth and last series of the show, with the final work of the irreplaceable Elisabeth Sladen. We sat watching it, thinking she’s just brilliant, but heck, it’s desperately sad that she’s gone.

The trailer gives a flavour of who and what to expect to see across the remain three stories of the show. And you can see it right here…

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This review contains spoilers.

4.10 Salud

The Breaking Bad showrunners know how to stage a setpiece, that’s for sure. The finale of Salud was epic even by this show’s lofty standards: Gus, Mike, and an unsuspecting Poor Jesse, walking into the lion’s den – the cartel HQ AKA Don Elario’s drug pad – and taking down the entirety of the cartel senior management with a poisonous scheme ripped straight from The Princess Bride.

If that wasn’t enough, the episode culminated with Mike and Gus, both mortally wounded (Mike by gunshot, Gus by whatever hideous potion he used to dispatch the cartel), with their lives in the hands of Jesse, someone who’s spent the last few episodes trying and failing to kill Gus.
Phew, eh? But Breaking Bad’s ability to pull off big set pieces has never been in question, really.

What makes it so good is how it uses them to pay off its story strands in unpredictable yet satisfying ways, and the way it weaves the violence and action in amongst the brilliantly observed, quietly brilliant character moments.

There’s been much debate over this series of Breaking Bad over whether it has been as purely exciting as the ones that have preceded it. This is because the first half of the fourth series has lacked some of the more outlandish moments that everybody remembers from seasons past – the Hitchcockian visit to Tio’s shack in early season two, Hank’s trailer showdown with Walt and Jesse in early season three, and of course Hank’s car park battle with the cousins, also in season three.

What season four has done, though, is totally master the slow burning narrative, while at the same time refining the show’s ability to pull off organic plot development. In this sense, it’s been the best season of Breaking Bad yet – each episode has built on the foundations of the one before it in a way that has felt completely natural, yet without ever succumbing to predictability. That’s what made the grand poisoning so effective – it had to happen. There was no other place for the story to go, yet none of us realized it until it was actually happening.

Gus was in an impossible predicament with the cartel. His choices were to either sign half his business away, or see everything he has worked for ritually destroyed in front of him. As a result, he had to resort – to borrow some jocky sports parlance – “to go big or go home”, something Mike alluded to in as many words when he promised Jesse that either all of them would be returning from Mexico, or none of them. He also might not have made such a huge power play if the significant danger of Sherlock Hank wasn’t looming on the horizon, and let’s not forget what was probably his prime motivation: revenge for his murdered business partner.

Similarly, let’s consider the end of the episode – Jesse, responsible for saving the lives of Gus and Mike. It’s a sign of how much of a paradigm shift we’ve undergone in terms of our allegiances and sympathies that it takes a while to even register that Jesse could kill both of them and solve Walt’s problems in seconds. After Walt’s spectacularly ill-judged hissy fit and subsequent beatdown, he’s blown his chance; if he’d hung tight, not let his paranoia and ego dictate his behaviour, and let Jesse go to Mexico, Gus and Mike would almost certainly be dead by the next episode.

As it stands, the water is a lot muddier – both Gus and Mike have recently displayed genuine trust in Jesse, and have both even gone so far as to save his life (Mike by dragging him away from a bullet, Gus by confiscating Jesse’s shot of poison).

Then again, we’ve seen a harder, more pragmatic side to Jesse recently – his impressive verbal smackdown on the cartel chemist (played, in a neat bit of casting, by Carlo Rota, AKA the brilliant but annoying Morris from 24)  being just the most recent example. What if he took this opportunity to take out Gus and Mike, cut out Walt, and assume control of the empire himself, using the necklace as proof that he took down the baddest gangster in Mexico? Could it be the end of Poor Jesse, and the beginning of Fuck Yeah, Jesse? This could conceivably happen. I hope it doesn’t for now, because Mike and Gus are such wonderful characters, but it could. The foundations have all been laid.

This is what I meant when I talked about establishing plausibility last week. Yes, the events in the show are often outlandish, but the internal logic of the world and the chracters is watertight, so much so that you often end up slapping your head  - of course that’s what should have happened. What makes the writing so astonishing is that you never really see any of the machinery – the plot moves into place organically, without you ever seeing where or why the writers are making the decisions they do, until it actually happens.

That’s great, great writing, but for all the exceptionally clever plot machinations and bombastic violence, sometimes Breaking Bad’s at its most powerful when it just sits down and lets the characters talk. Has there been a more harrowing scene in the show than Walt’s breakdown in front of Walt Jr in this episode?

Walt has been cutting a pathetic figure all season, but rarely has he or anyone looked as sorry as he did here - sobbing, dribbling, staggering around in his underpants, drunk and stoned on prescription painkillers, his face swollen and bleeding, pouring his heart out about his (contrived) indiscretions in front of his horrified son.

No one wants to see their father like that, it’s true, and Walt apologises to his son in a monologue that actually proved to be pretty expository on some of his own behaviour. He describes his own sick father with a noticeable degree of loathing and disgust, describing him as small, twisted, ugly, unfeeling, and memorably, like a paint can with something loose rattling around inside.

We’ve seen that the fear of appearing weak is a huge motivator in Walt’s life – it’s pretty much been driving the show from the beginning – so for Walt to think that his son has seen him as a weak, pathetic man crushes him. But Walt Jnr’s rejoinder is perfect – he may have looked weak, but at least he was being honest: at least it was real.

It’s the same mistake he made with Jesse, and never has the parental bond between Walt and Jesse been made more explicit than here, when he mistakenly calls Walt Jnr Jesse as he leaves the room. But as with Walt Jnr, Walt could have appeased Jesse by simply being honest with him. He could admitted that he didn’t have a plan, he didn’t know what to do next, and that we has frightened, and it would have been fine.

At least they would have been in it together. But instead, he had to be controlling, and paranoid, and boisterously overbearing. Now Walt’s on his own, and, as we see him provoked by one of Mike’s flunkies, he’s got to get back to work. The question is – who for?

It’s impossible to predict what’ll happen next. Except for this: Ted is dead. I mean, he has to be. Right…?

Read our review of the last episode, Bug, here.

Follow Paul Martinovic on Twitter, or for more babble check out his blog.

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An arthouse take on the 50s B-movie When Worlds Collide, Melancholia is like a filmic embodiment of that irritating platitude, “Cheer up - it’s not the end of the world!” For Kirsten Dunst’s chronically depressed Justine, the destruction of Earth is an imminent possibility.

After a strange, spectacular and faintly amusing sequence of images – birds tumbling down behind Dunst’s sullen face, a collapsing horse, a recreation of Millais’ painting, Ophelia – Melancholia opens on what should be the happiest day of Justine’s life.

Having just married, Justine and new husband Michael (Alexander Skarsgård) head for a lavish reception at a huge, baroque mansion belonging to her sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and her brother-in-law, the unfeasibly wealthy amateur astronomer, John (Kiefer Sutherland).

Among the guests waiting in the luxurious dining room are Justine’s shambling father Dexter (John Hurt), her embittered mother, Gaby (Charlotte Rampling), and her ruthless advertising agency boss, Jack (Stellan Skarsgård). As the requisite speeches are made and the wine flows, cracks soon begin to appear; barbed comments are made, and Justine’s initial happiness gradually gives way to creeping melancholy.

Von Trier’s assembled a quite glorious cast of actors here, and while their roles are small, they each get a brief moment to shine; look out for the great Udo Kier as a petulant wedding planner, John Hurt’s delicious little spoon robbery scene, and a line from Stellan Skarsgård that will have public relations people everywhere chortling good-naturedly or bristling with irritation.

Given Von Trier’s reputation as a heavyweight filmmaker, it’s surprising just how funny Melancholia often is. There are little rays of humour here and there that punctuate this otherwise black film like pinpoints of light. Kiefer Sutherland’s a rather left-field choice to play an astronomy-obsessed millionaire, but he’s grouchily charismatic as a husband who quietly resents his sister-in-law, and refuses to empathise with her crippling depressive states.

Ultimately, though, Melancholia is an unvarnished, unsentimental look at the nature of depression, and Kirsten Dunst emotionally and physically lays herself bare in an immaculate performance. If anyone deserves some best actress nods during the next awards season, it’s her. And while we’re at it, Charlotte Gainsbourg deserves a supporting actress gong for yet another humane, honest performance.

Shortly after the wedding reception shudders to its disastrous climax, and various emotionally wounded guests shuffle off into the night, the film leaves us alone with Justine and Claire. And in this next chapter, which begins with Justine at the absolute nadir of her despair, we learn what was hinted at during the film’s surreal opening sequence: that a blue planet from beyond our Sun - aptly dubbed Melancholia - appears to be heading directly towards Earth.

As the planet draws ever nearer, the mood among the main players gradually shifts; John, once confident and gleeful in his scientific fascination, grows fractious and irritable; Claire, once the pillar of support for Justine, becomes lachrymose and confused. In this changing climate, it’s Justine who finds inner strength.

Von Trier states his message plainly: only those who’ve lived with depression can truly know how profoundly limiting and oppressive it is. To everyone else, it’s merely a black cloud that will pass, a funny turn that will fade in time. Only with the arrival of the blue planet can the characters around Justine learn the true nature of melancholy, and all the horrible, selfish and self-destructive ways it manifests itself.

Some critics have scoffed at Melancholia’s strange and sometimes obvious symbolism, with The Guardian unfairly, in my view, dismissing it as “tiresome and facetious”. Although it’s true that Melancholia’s tone and duration will test the patience of some, this shouldn’t overshadow what Von Trier has achieved.

As writer and director, he’s created a quite lovely collection of characters, and sealed them up in an engaging psychodrama that appears to take place on its own island: society’s broader reaction to its impending doom is never even touched upon, and the narrative unfolds in a vacuum, sealed off from wider concerns. (It’s even implied, in more than one scene, that an invisible barrier prevents the characters from leaving their luxurious prison.)

Melancholia is an overlong yet bravely individual piece of filmmaking, and yet another recent example of sci-fi used as a method of interrogating a specific subject matter. Gareth Edwards’ Monsters was an examination of class and relationships set against a Mexico devastated by creatures from outer space, and Mike Cahill’s debut, Another Earth, is a meditation on guilt and forgiveness.

By the same token, Melancholia uses an apocalyptic theme to explore the sensations of despair, acceptance, and impending disaster. In the process, Von Trier’s created a provocative, engaging, grand opera, one that builds to a deafening and moving crescendo.

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Taking a break from his Resident Evil series, director Paul W S Anderson brings his restless filmmaking style to bear on Alexandre Dumas’ rollicking yarn, The Three Musketeers. The result is a CG-heavy, anachronistic re-imagining along the lines of Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes – an action fantasy of heaving bosoms, fanciful machinery, and jolly swordfights, it's a sexier Three Musketeers for the Assassin’s Creed generation.

Anderson’s assembled an impressive cast for his 17th century confection, which includes Matthew Macfadyen, Ray Stevenson and Luke Evans as the musketeers (respectively, Arthos, Porthos and Aramis), Christoph Waltz as the conniving Cardinal Richelieu, Orlando Bloom as the Duke of Buckingham, and Milla Jovovich as Milady De Winter. At the forefront stands Logan Lerman as D’Artagnan, a cocky young parvenu who’s handy with a sword.

For what it’s worth, here’s the plot: it’s the 17th century, and France teeters on the brink of war with England. King Louis XIII (Freddie Fox) is little more than a puppet whose strings are pulled by the duplicitous Cardinal, who secretly plots to light the tinderbox of war against England in a bid for power.

The musketeers, a group of elite warriors who fight for the king, are disillusioned and gloomy following a botched mission in Venice. “The Cardinal rules in all but name,” opines a miserable Arthos, “we may as well drink to him.” The arrival of perky young upstart D’Artagnan, however, forces the musketeers out of their glum funk. Within minutes of setting foot in Paris, D’Artagnan fought and beaten a detachment of the Cardinal’s guard in combat, and earned the attention of the queen’s lady in waiting, Constance (Gabriella Wilde).

While D’Artagnan’s prowess earns him the respect of the musketeers, there’s intrigue in the palace; the Cardinal and Milady De Winter steal the queen’s jewels and spirit them away to the Tower of London. By making it appear as though Queen Anne (Juno Temple, who talks like Officer Hooks out of Police Academy) has been having an affair with the dashing Duke of Buckingham, Richelieu and De Winter hope to goad King Louis into resuming the war with England.

Queen Anne, aware of the plotting going on around her, despatches the three musketeers, along with new recruit D’Artagnan, on a daring mission to England to retrieve her jewellery and prevent a diplomatic crisis.

In basic outline, the plot hews closely to Dumas’ novel, while introducing steampunk flying zeppelins, slow-mo wire-fu combat, and Errol Flynn heroics. It’s all unrelentingly daft, but then again, it’s also extremely good-natured. There’s a pleasant sense of camaraderie between Macfadyen, Stevenson and Evans as the three musketeers, though Macfadyen has a disquieting tendency to boom out his wisdom like a young Brian Blessed.

If the film has one glaring problem, it’s Logan Lerman’s performance as D’Artagnan. It takes a particular kind of actor to pull off the deceptively difficult archetype of the plucky young upstart, and Lerman doesn’t manage it. He’s able to wield a sword, but comes across as presumptuous and unsympathetic whenever he's required to open his mouth. At one point, Constance describes him as a “clumsy country boy,” which I’d initially misheard as something far too offensive for a film aimed at a young audience.

On the topic of young audiences, the gaggle of school kids who crowded into the screening seemed to love much of the film, and tittered and chortled along appreciatively to the various moments of comic relief. To a jaded adult’s eyes, not all of these come off – James Cordon’s put upon manservant, Planchet, is variously defecated on by seagulls and repeatedly told to shut up by the rest of the cast – but younger audience members seemed to love it.

The real comic revelation, though, is Freddie Fox as King Louis. He’s fantastic as an effete monarch more concerned with the colour of his tights than the prospect of war, and he lights up every scene he’s in. In fact, some of these courtly scenes are so good that I almost wish that Anderson had concentrated on making a camp period comedy instead.

Instead, Anderson ploughs his usual furrow of computer-generated hi-jinx and balletic action. It’s all perfectly pleasant, in a frictionless, inconsequential sort of way, and while The Three Musketeers isn’t a particularly great film, its playful sense of fun makes it an infinitely more entertaining way of spending 110 minutes than the more serious and rather boring Resident Evil: Afterlife. Even the 3D, which was distracting and overused in Afterlife, is less intrusively employed here.

Anyone expecting a historically accurate rendering of the book (which, let’s face it, was never going to happen in any case) will probably want to remove a star from the rating below. But even to a sour-faced curmudgeon such as myself, The Three Musketeers is a harmless, wilfully daft bit of family fluff that springs to life whenever the action pauses long enough to let Christoph Waltz and Freddie Fox speak.

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This review contains spoilers.

6.12 Closing Time

The thing about Doctor Who series six is that it’s been really, really good. A simple statement, granted, but for me, an absolutely correct one. It’s had an abundance of quite excellent episodes, with Neil Gaiman’s still-stunning The Doctor’s Wife standing proud at the top of a very high quality list. It's hard to find anything that can hold a torch to it at the moment.

The downside to this is that when an episode comes along that’s notably below the strength of some of those other adventures that we’ve enjoyed this year, then it’s going to get judged really quite harshly. And I suspect that’s the fate that’s going to befall Closing Time.

Because Closing Time has some problems. The biggest, and most disappointing, is that it manages to completely throw away the Cybermen. Granted, there’s only so much you can do with a classic villain that’s been beaten time and time again, but here, the iconic men of steel had not one iota of threat about them (with the very, very slight exception of the welcome return of the Cybermat). In fact, they’d been isolated in this instance, not totally unlike the small collection of Daleks back in series three of the revived Who.

Thus, you had a small collection of Cybermen, brought back to life by the laying of power lines. And they were trying to gather together enough further power and recruits to rebuild themselves 

That’s not a bad basis for a story, and in the early stages, Closing Time had a lot of fun with it. We got a shopping centre, chatty characters, a dodgy lift, parenting advice, underwear, and some nice direction (some really nice direction in places), for starters.

We’ve seen flickering lights and disappearing people before, in a collection of good horror films, as well as Doctor Who, and the build up here suggested a real sense of menace. But when the Cybermen appeared, we learn that they’re weak. More than that, they appear to pose no obvious threat whatsoever.

Even at their weakest, I’d expect Cybermen to be deadly, but there was no sense of that coming across (even appreciating what they'd been up to). "You know that is enough", they told the Doctor of the fact there were just six of them. The way they were here, thousands of them wouldn't help them in their latest wheeze.

Also, at no stage was there a ‘how are they going to get out of that’ moment, and by the time James Corden escaped by virtue of hearing his character’s baby crying, the Cybermen were suddenly giving the impression of being one of the weakest foes the Doctor has ever faced.

Now granted, this appearance by the Cybermen might be all about saving up narrative touchpoints for later down the line. But Steven Moffat showed us that just one bit of a Cyberman could be scary in the finale last year. Here, they just got in the way of the best bits of the episode.

And the best bits, although I’d imagine this isn’t a common consensus, involved the return of James Corden’s Craig. Returning from last year’s The Lodger, Craig now has a new home and a baby, and he’s been left by himself to look after both. The Doctor, without Rory and Amy by his side, turns up at his door as part of his farewell tour before his death, and immediately starts noticing problems.

I liked this, too. That the Doctor was desperately trying to resist getting involved, but couldn’t stop himself. I liked, too, the ghosts in the fridge line (a nod to Ghostbusters, surely), and the sending up overpriced toys in the toy shop (I wanted Gizmo from Gremlins to drive by). Many parents would surely be nodding sagely at that, while eyeing up a toy Tardis for themselves.

There wasn’t any ramification of Craig being let into the Doctor’s head from last time, which was disappointing, but Smith and Corden’s double act was great fun. It made for a lighter episode, certainly, but in the light of the intensity of weeks gone by, I can understand the logic in the tonal change, ahead of the big finale.

Not that there wasn’t an undercurrent of doom about Closing Time. This is a Doctor walking to his doom, after all, and more and more it felt like his world was closing in on him. The mixed emotions, when he briefly saw Amy and Rory, was a good example of that, but also the constant nods to the fact that he only had a day to live.

Taken as a standalone episode, though, which Closing Time felt like for the most part, it was a decent, solid piece of work, albeit one that’s well down the list of this series’ finest.

But then the ending happened, which tied it into the broader series narrative. It all felt a bit tacked on this bit, for me, and how impactful it was for you depends on how much you’d guessed as to what was going to happen. It’s a bit like A Good Man Goes To War in that respect. If you’re sorted out before the ending of that episode that River Song was Amy’s baby, then none of the revelations would resonate that strongly.

I wonder, then, how many people by now hadn’t worked out that it was River Song in the astronaut suit back in The Impossible Astronaut. That it was River Song that seemingly killed the Doctor. And that Madame Kovarian would be back, with the Silence in tow.

I appreciate that there’s still room for a rug pull, and that this ending wasn’t necessarily about a massive cliffhanger, rather sliding things into place for next week. But, for a change this series, it seemed a little more obvious than we’ve been used to.

Which all makes Closing Time a bit of a mixed bag. It was good fun in places (Stormageddon is a great name for a kid), but by turns frustrating and wasteful. And while it’s not the worst we’ve seen of Doctor Who this year, it’s a slightly quieter episode to lead in to the series finale than we’ve been used to seeing.

One last thing. I don't know about you, but even appreciating that toys need to be sold, I’d be quite happy if the Cybermen joined the Daleks in the prop cupboard for a bit of a longer rest now. Doctor Who has proven these past two years that it needs neither to generate its finest episodes, and biggest jumps. And, even though Closing Time had its moments, I can't help but feel that the men of steel did it no favours at all.

The Wedding Of River Song next week, then. Count me as one of the many who really can't wait to see what final treat series six of Doctor Who has in store...

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Everything is nicely poised for next week's Doctor Who series 6 finale, The Wedding Of River Song. But if you need your appetite whetting any further, then the BBC has released a special prequel to it.

And you can see it right here...

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