AGE OF STUPIDITY

By Brian Hannan

ALIENS never learn. Every year, round about this time, they invade Planet Earth.

Sometimes, they rise up from within, having buried themselves deep within the earth millions of years ago, waiting for an alarm clock to ring from outer space.

They used to focus on the United States, but now, clearly conscious of how important the overseas market has become to Hollywood, they have an air of interplanetary tourists, and might decide that instead of blowing up the White House, they should take in the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben or (as inTransformers: Age of Extinction) the Great Wall of China.

In this film, aliens have gone decidedly upmarket and in the middle of one battle the camera freezes so that we can register skyscraper-high posters advertising Vogue magazine or Tom Ford clothing. A Victoria’s Secret bus is inexplicably caught up in the carnage.

In the past, aliens could be seen off by giving them a dose of the cold or its modern equivalent, a computer virus, or by an ordinary bloke who is just too clever for them. But, these days, we are more likely to enlist the help of other aliens, such as here, headed by Optimus Prime and his gang of Dirty Dozen sound-alikes.

Curiously, at the start of this Transformers movie, the good aliens, as a result of shenanigans so ridiculous I won’t waste space explaining them, are actually bad aliens.

Mark Wahlberg is the said ordinary bloke, though, after years of deceptively convincing acting, he has reverted to his previous shouty persona. There’s a sultry teenager (Nicola Peltz), her make-up done by a girl of ten, and, shades of Armageddon, a boyfriend Wahlberg intensely dislikes but has to work with.

And there’s a ship. There’s always a big ship in this kind of blockbuster, often dragged along the ground like a Neanderthal knuckle as a weapon by the warring combatants.

In movies like this, Hollywood generally gets away with the “bigger is better” argument, but I think we have to draw the line at “longer is better.”

This is an epic two-and-three-quarter hours (the same running time as The Dark Knight Rises) but with all the gravity of a meringue.

I have a sneaky feeling that in the past Hollywood used to employ the Logic Police. But when franchises get this long past their sell-by date, it is clear there is no point employing any logic.

Screenwriter Ehren Kruger was educated at the Jefferson High School for Science and Technology where, presumably, he was taught to baffle people with science.

The plot, such as it is, involves Stanley Tucci. He’s paid double for looking both stern and smug, (never mind that, Kelsey Grammar, another bad guy, thinks acting is growing a beard and not twitching) as a billionaire bad guy who sees the error of his ways and is then forced to drag around a “seed” that is the equivalent to an atomic bomb (work that one out).

Without logic to get in the way, our ordinary bloke is able to penetrate a top-secret, most highly-guarded factory and also to loiter uninterrupted on the enemy spacecraft.

Mostly, people run, or shout, or in the case of the Peltz, look doll-faced. Aliens run and shout, but luckily, so far, we have not been treated to any female aliens. Maybe next time. Perhaps Victoria’s Secret was the hint.

KEVIN COSTNER CONTINUES TO CONFUSE

By Brian Hannan

DYING divorced middle-aged guy (Kevin Costner) returns to Paris to attempt a reconciliation with his estranged teenage daughter (Hailee Steinfield).

 

He has been away for so long his flat is occupied by squatters, whom the law says he cannot eject till Easter.

 

He buys his daughter a purple bike only to discover that was her favourite colour when she was little. To overcome her resistance he enlists the help of the owner of a taxi firm, who has two teenage daughters.

 

The ice is broken when, shades of The Bodyguard, he rescues her from being molested at a club. He teaches her to ride the bike. An Italian associate obliges said daughter with a pasta recipe.

 

One of the squatters is pregnant and Costner attends the birth, aware he was absent at his daughter’s birth. Best of all, he finds a drug that prevents the spread of his cancer and reconciles with his ex-wife (Connie Neilson). Having been told he would never see Xmas, the movie ends with him under the Xmas tree.

 

The trailer for Three Days to Kill was a bit remiss in explaining the family complications. Costner is also a CIA assassin. His boss (Amber Heard) looks like she’s auditioning for Sin City, all sleek lipstick and bustling cleavage, with a part-time job managing a strip club.

 

She has diverted him from full-on daughter reconciliation by promising him an experimental drug to stop the onset of his cancer, but every now and then, usually (and inconveniently) when he is about to shoot the enemy, he collapses.

 

She is whip-smart. ‘You’re not my type,” says Costner. She replies:  ‘I’m everybody’s type.’ Why she needs him is anybody’s guess because she’s pretty good with a gun. His daughter’s boyfriend’s dad turns out to be a big bad guy.

 

The main villain is called The Wolf and his henchman The Albino, even though he is bald and otherwise lacks that condition’s physical prerequisites.

 

The taxi owner is a semi-bad guy, whom Costner kidnaps when he wants help with his daughter. The recipe-spouting Italian is another kidnappee. A bottle of vodka is required to combat the side-effects of the drug. The plot, should your brain still be in one piece after absorbing the above, concerns Costner tracking down The Wolf who sells dirty bombs.

 

There is enough gunfire and explosions – an opening shootout in Sofia, a set-piece in the middle of the Paris traffic and a finale in a deluxe rooftop apartment – to just about qualify for an action picture.

 

But the movie just cannot make up its mind what it wants to be. The reconciliation is touching enough and Costner steers his lost soul with some conviction.

 

Steinfield, memorable in the remake of True Grit (2010) is a cliché away from every movie teenager. There are enough oddball characters - the taxi owner and the head squatter - to give it some flavour, although the Paris backdrop is too upfront - the Eiffel Tower, bateaux mouches on the Seine, and bike-riding sequence taking place at Sacre Coeur.

 

But the two movies just don’t mesh. Costner has long since lost the box office cachet that made the Oscar-winning Dances with Wolves (1990), Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (1991), JFK (1991) and The Bodyguard (1992) such big hits.

 

Too many flops (Wyatt Earp) and odd choices (The Postman) damaged his status. His last starring role was in 2008. You probably last saw him in supporting roles in Man of Steel (2013), playing Clark Kent’s dad, or Shadow Recruit (2014), the miserable attempt at rebooting the Jack Ryan franchise.

 

He even turned to television – Hatfield and the McCoys. Hollywood has a poor record in looking after its senior citizens (50 is old these days for a male star - unless your name is Clint Eastwood - and Costner is 49). There are so many washed-up old stars you could name a tsunami after them.

 

But if you’re looking for reinvention, France is the place to go. Luc Besson’s company Europa was behind Taken, the action movie that turned Liam Neeson into an international action star.

 

Besson is an accomplished director in his own right – The Big Blue (1988) was a huge success in France and a cult hit in the States, ditto Leon (1994) and The Fifth Element (1997), which starred Bruce Willis. So it’s not hard to guess that Costner thought he could follow suit, only the film would have to be tweaked a bit to provide more of an emotional core.

 

Besson is most famous in France as the writer-producer of the three record-breaking Taxi films featuring quirky characters and car chases. He wrote and produced the two Transporter films that specialised in car chases and shootouts.

 

Taken, you might remember, is also based on daughter-reconciliation. The big difference between Liam Neeson and Kevin Costner in the action stakes is that you would not want to cross the former.

 

Costner’s movie persona is a cross between Gary Cooper and James Stewart, the decent guy who won’t give up. Neeson always possessed a dangerous air, so the transition to out-and-out tough guy was no stretch but Costner is less believable.

 

Next up for Costner, though, are two sports-based movies and with memories of Bull Durham(1988), Field of Dreams (1989) and Tin Cup (1996) – three of my favourite movies –  he might just get back to winning ways.

 

On the other hand, I spent more time in the last decade being disappointed by Kevin Costner films than any other actor. I loved Taken (and have a fondness for Unknown) but Three Days to Kill, far from being a hole-in-one, is more like long shank into the bushes.

THE FIRTH OF NOWHERE

by Brian Hannan

COLIN FIRTH and Reese Witherspoon are billed as the stars of The Devil’s Knot. This is Atom Egoyan’s documentary-style account of the trial of the teenage West Memphis Three, accused of the diabolical murders of three eight-year-old boys in 1993.

The movie is involving, but people on these shores may struggle to keep up as the director assumes a familiarity with the notorious case, and his dispassionate style verges on sedation.

A small town, riven by grief, fear and hysteria (the murders are thought to be the work of a Satanic cult), is well drawn. The police are more human than normal, the shock on their faces at discovering the bodies testament to that.

The movie takes some liberties with the facts; for instance, in reality, the bodies were discovered the next day, but since movies require more tension, the hunt lasts days.

But with so many characters bobbing around, Firth and Witherspoon were clearly parachuted in to lend the movie some focus.

Perhaps Firth was attracted to the name of his character – Ron Lax – or owed someone a favour. Firth has been struggling to follow up his Oscar-winning turn in The King’s Speech (2010). Hollywood had him pegged for comedy (as Hugh Grant’s slightly smarter brother, perhaps) but Gambit with Cameron Diaz was a flop.

Firth prefers serious work, but few people were attracted to The Railway Man or Arthur Newman or Main Street (bonus points if you have heard of the latter) and he was in the supporting cast (albeit in a pivotal role) ofTinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

It’s hard for a British actor (apart from Daniel Day-Lewis) to be taken seriously in Hollywood. Liam Neeson’s rebirth as an action hero is courtesy of the French. Otherwise, the cream of British acting talent normally surfaces as a villain.

Blame floppy-haired Hugh Grant for changing perceptions of the capabilities of British actors. The hard-edged performances of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O’Toole and Michael Caine are now a distant mirage.

Firth has coped by turning himself into an American, as he does here, with a fine head of hair and a passion for antiques (he is introduced at an auction bidding thousands of dollars).

In one sense, he has the central role, as an investigator giving his services to the accused for free. And that would be great, if the director let him play the crusading private eye.

Instead, Egoyan is as interested in the impact of the murders on the community and on the police and the accused and their parents and the victims’ families and the judge and…you get the idea.

The title is apt. It’s the very devil finding space for Firth and Witherspoon. They end up being a distraction. Stars are meant to get more time onscreen.

To make sure we don’t forget they are there, the director resorts to showing them exchanging glances (for no meaningful reason) in the courtroom, or for Firth to loll about at the back of the court (of a rather officious judge, would you believe).

Ron Lax did uncover important evidence, but since the climax of the movie takes place in a courtroom, where an investigator has no place, the movie struggles to include him.

Worthy projects have a nasty habit of turning into career cul de sacs.

Firth is next up in Woody Allen’s Magic by Moonlight, where he plays second fiddle to Emma Stone, and Before I Go to Sleep (second fiddle to Nicole Kidman). To keep his career on track he has wisely pulled out of the role of the voice of Paddington Bear.

Witherspoon is in the same boat, both movie-wise and career-wise. After winning an Oscar for Walk the Line (2005), Hollywood stuck her in romantic comedies. Mud, her last serious turn, attracted good reviews but little box office.

Here, as a victim’s mother at least she gets to emote and, in another creative liberty, turns amateur sleuth. One last point, this has a 15 certificate, but contains one of the most shocking images of children I have ever seen.

WHY HOLLYWOOD LOVES A DEATH STORY

By Brian Hannan

AT least you know the ending! The three-hanky weepie The Fault in Our Stars was a big hit in America, outgrossing Tom Cruise blockbuster The Edge of Tomorrow on its opening weekend.

Getting audiences to cry is no mean feat, especially in these cynical days when cinemagoers tend to be a lot more savvy about movies manipulating their feelings.

When I tell you the characters meet at a cancer support group, you might be already reaching for the sick bucket. But fear ye not! Based on a bestseller (natch) by young adult author John Green, the movie does not go down the soppy route, using a combination of acerbic wit and unconventional characters to win over hearts, minds and credit cards.

Bearing in mind how Hollywood has played the crying game in the past, the movie makers need not have worked so hard at trying at keeping the movie fresh. Even so, this movie does employ some well-known tricks.

Love Story, the king (queen?) of the soppy stories worked because neither Ali McGraw nor Ryan O’Neal had achieved stardom. They had not acquired annoying tics, nor had we pored endlessly over their love lives.

Hence, they appeared more real. Both were real cute. Heaven-sent looks, though, do help the heaven-bound as Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort can testify in The Fault in our Stars.

It was all a far cry from socialite Bette Davis in Dark Victory in 1939, which started off the whole rollercoaster of lucrative sorrow.

Davis was not first choice - Greta Garbo chose Anna Karenina instead. But Davis provided the sharp-tongued template.

Sweet November got made twice – in 1968 with Sandy Dennis and 2001 with Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves – unfortunately, it was not Reeves who died, although sometimes his acting was so stiff you could not tell.

Leo McCarey liked his 1939 Love Affair, starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer, so much he remade it 18 years later as An Affair To Remember with Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant.

Sometimes the box office bell rang so loud the audience just switched it off – Julia Roberts was riding very high when she came down to earth with a bang in Dying Young (1991).

Men are good at dying, too. Tough guy James Caan (The Godfather) got his big break in a made-for-tv movie Brian’s Song (1971) as a football player on the way out. Robert DeNiro did the baseball version in Bang The Drum Slowly (1973).

Of course, some guys can never take dying seriously. Think of Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman in The Bucket List (2008). Or the Pythons in Life of Brian – taught from an early age that if they get strung up on a crucifix to burst into song.

Even John Wayne (himself dying of cancer) got into the act in The Shootist (1976), but audiences stayed away, preferring the big man to go suddenly like he did in Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and The Cowboys (1972). Hollywood preferred the first – giving Duke an Oscar nomination.

Like any other genre, you have to shake it around a bit, so the twist in The Doctor (1991) was having William Hurt as an icy example of the species warming up a bit when he became a patient.

In My Sister’s Keeper (2009), the protagonist realised she has been born to keep alive her afflicted sister and decided (greedily) she wanted to keep all her organs to herself, thanks very much.

Sometimes all you had to do is put two charismatic stars in a film and keep the audience guessing which one was under a dark cloud; witness Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey in Beaches (1988), confusing the audience as to who was in the premature departure lounge by having Midler sing the theme tune.

The twist in Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru (1952) was that the candidate for the hereafter was an ordinary bureaucrat who had already had every ounce of charisma surgically removed.

But death might yet do us all a good turn. Hollywood is always one trend away from financial stability, and the success of The Fault in Our Stars might spell the end of super-heroes and lowest-common-denominator comedies.

Who knows? We might get a decent drama.

A DAY TOO FAR: HOW THE HUBRIS OF HOLLYWOOD BURNED FINGERS

TODAY, No Grey Areas introduces another important signing -  one to excite film buffs everywhere.  Brian Hannan is author of The Making of Lawrence of Arabia, The Making of The Guns of Navarone, Hitchcock’s Hollywood Hell, Hitchcock at the Box Office –  all of which are available in print from Amazon and Kindle. In his timely opening blog, he reminds us of how things can go wrong, even for the most famous of Hollywood executives.

IMPORTANT anniversaries have been usurped by marketers.

Accompanying last week’s 70th anniversary remembrance of the D-Day landings was a wide scale revival of The Longest Day, featuring an all-star cast including John Wayne, Robert Mitchum and Sean Connery.

A Glasgow company, Park Circus Films, which is behind all those occasional big-screen showings of old favourites, has been promoting Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan and Samuel Fuller’s The Big Red One, starring Lee Marvin.

More cynically, a 50th anniversary showing of Zulu has been shifted from January (when the film originally premiered in the UK) to June 9 to take advantage of the sentiment surrounding soldiering.

War is partly to blame for what appears now like an incessant rash of movie anniversaries. The first movie to take major advantage of the celebration of a historic military event was Gone With the Wind.

In 1961, to mark the centenary of the beginning of the American Civil War, MGM reissued the Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh classic.

It wasn’t the first time the movie had been reissued. It was the fourth. It had already been re-released in the US in1942, 1947 and 1954, each time sending the public back to the box office in droves.

The gap between showings was based on a Hollywood notion that a new generation of filmgoers popped up once every seven years. The film was a much bigger hit than anyone expected, one of the top ten films of the year at the box office.

Hollywood being that kind of place, everyone wanted to jump onto the reissue bandwagon with exceedingly mixed results. The idea – prevalent nowadays - that a film being ten, 25 or 50 years old was sufficient reason for a box-office rematch lacked marketing heft back in the 1960s.

But there was one significant historical event that could generate exceptional hype – D-Day. The 20th anniversary of D-Day would take place in 1964. There was only one problem. The Darryl F. Zanuck picture The Longest Day had just been released in October 1962.

It was the number three film of the year in America in 1963 and was so successful there, held over so long in the bigger cinemas, it still had not played in hundreds of small theatres.

But Zanuck thought the anniversary too good an opportunity to miss. So he curtailed the film’s release, cancelling contracts for future showings, withdrawing it from cinemas in February 1964.It had been shown in 4,400 cinemas, less than half of the expected final number.

He was not the only one to sniff the lucrative potential of the summer anniversary. One of the three main television networks offered a record $4m for the movie if it could premiere it on June 6.

Zanuck reckoned his movie was worth more and started a massive build-up to anniversary celebrations climaxing in a special showing on June 6 to a select audience of military and civilian leaders as a large-scale reissue got underway.

It was set for major cinemas in New York and Los Angeles. Nearly 500 cinemas, some of which had shown it on initial release, backed Zanuck’s judgement.

The public, it turned out, was not waiting with bated breath. Zanuck had gone a “day too far.” In all his arrogance, he had overlooked three things.

Firstly, a different perspective had been cast on war by Carl Foreman’s grittier The Victors, starring George Peppard and Albert Finney. Secondly, it went head-to-head with another reissue – David Lean’s multi-Oscar-winning Bridge on the River Kwai, which pummelled it at the box office.

Thirdly, the American public saw the tub-thumping for what it was – marketing hype. In one of Hollywood’s most catastrophic misjudgements – file under “hubris” – a film that was racing ahead of the box office pack trailed home with its tail between its legs.

The reissue barely grossed $2m, half of the box office of The Victors and Bridge on the River Kwai.

Strangely enough, that did not stop Fox taking another punt at a reissue in 1969, the 25th anniversary of D-Day, where, even more curiously, it brought in far better returns.