The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)

This film version of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ is of course based on Alexander Dumas’s classic tale. My partner says it’s one of the best books she’s ever read. So it’s sure to be a rubbish film then and consequently she hated it. So I thought I best do my research as I haven’t read the book, although I may now have to. To be fair, it’s a complex book that clocks in at 50 hours and 47 minutes on audiobook, which could probably never be perfectly transposed into a two hour film but... they probably didn’t try very hard. I guess the director and scriptwriter assumed most people have never actually read the book and they’d probably be right.

Edmond Dantes (James Caviezel) is a sailor for a shipping company and is engaged to a beautiful girl with the rather racy name of Mercédès (Dagmara Dominczyk), who rather appropriately everyone is quite keen to take out for a spin.



Dantes is set up by his friend Fernand Mondego (Guy Pearce), who is narked at Dantes being named the captain of one of their company’s ships but also sees the opportunity to acquire the keys to his Mercédès. Dantes is unjustly accused of treason, imprisoned and confined to life in Château d'If, a prison on a remote island.



Once there his cell is tunnelled into by none other than Dumbledore (Richard Harris), well actually an old chap called Abbe Faria. Faria is trying to escape and they attempt to dig their way out together. They never manage it but Faria teaches Dantes many things and then on his deathbed fourteen years later tells him the whereabouts of a great treasure, which enables Dantes later to transform himself into the wealthy Count of Monte Cristo. Faria’s death also gives Dantes the means to escape.



Once free, he clashes with the crew of a pirate ship and acquires the help of one of the pirates whose life he spared. Together they make plans to take vengeance on the men who were responsible for destroying Dantes life.



Fernand and Mercédès are now husband and wife, part of Parisian highlife and have a son. Dantes rescues their son from a fake kidnapping that he himself set up, in order to endear himself to their household.

Dantes gets his revenge on everyone; Hollywood manages to fit in a few swashbuckling sword fights before our romantic adventure film ends with the traditional made up happy ending. Dantes gets his girl and even gains a son, which will be news to Dumas. Someone ought to dig him up and tell him.

This was the tenth adaptation of the book and perhaps there are better ones. Thing is, bad or not, this adaptation has made me want to read the book, so it can't all be bad.

The movie is entertaining, more so if you discard the title. I guess like most adaptations, avoid if you’ve read the book.

The Way Back

‘The Way Back’ is the story of a group of men who were imprisoned in one of Stalin’s Siberian gulags but escape and walk to safety. That’s just a mere four thousand miles over a couple of mountain ranges and across a desert.

It is based on the international bestseller, ‘The Long Walk’, which is in effect the memoirs of Slavomit Racuwicz, a Polish army officer, who himself was a prisoner in the gulag. Although since his death it has come to light that, and I’m trying not to say that he made it up but, it appears he didn’t make that journey himself and apparently based it on stories he had heard. However director Peter Weir claims to have done his research, so presumably he thinks such a journey would be possible. I’m not so sure but it makes for a captivating couple of hours cinema.

The film starts by introducing us to some of the characters inside the prison and the harsh reality of life there. The inmates are warned that the gulag itself is only part of their prison and should they feel the need to escape, nature will take its toll upon them. This prospect doesn't however put them off plotting an escape.

Key among the escapees is Janusz (Jim Sturgess), a pole who has been imprisoned for allegedly being a spy. The evidence paraded before him was his weeping wife, Janusz is convinced must have been tortured, who betrays him to his face.

The escape itself bursts out of almost nothing and the men break out into a blizzard. Among the motley band of escapees are the knife wielding psycho Valka (Colin Farrell) and a grizzled American who wishes to be referred to only as Mr Smith (Ed Harris).



The men head out across the hostile terrain, scavenging for food and water, towards Mongolia, only to discover when they get there that it too is under Soviet rule and they have to rethink their final destination.



Directorial licence also adds some female interest to an otherwise all male story. Not sure why Weir felt it needed it but I suppose Saoirse Ronan does break up the bickering between the escapees who have to make their uneasy alliance work just to survive.



A few do fall by the wayside and the ones that don’t endure a perilous journey to freedom, which continues out of Mongolia across the seemingly endless Gobi Desert where they struggle against the blazing heat and sand storms as well as a distinct lack of food and water.

They finally reach Tibet where they are faced with crossing the Himalayas in order to reach English run India. A final trek that is rushed compared with the rest of the film.



It’s a long film but thoroughly engrossing, one that has you captivated the entire time. A story of human endurance and the stark struggle for freedom. Though it’s a bit repetitive at times. You know: - mountain, desert, mountain, desert, etc but it’s all beautifully filmed and does drive home the vastness of their task but also the implausibility of it.

Then once he’s achieved his aim Janusz has to wait almost half a century for the fall of communism so that he can be reunited with his wife. Life’s a bitch.

The Kids Are All Right

'The Kids Are All Right' is written, directed and I think most other things by Lisa Cholodenko. Who apparently writes from personal experience, so it’s kind of semi-biographical.

Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) are an 'old' married couple but, and the clue is in their abbreviated Christian names, a lesbian couple. They also each have a teenage child produced with the aid of the same anonymous sperm donor. The test tube version one assumes. In many ways it’s an ordinary family with the kids constantly embarrassed and annoyed by their parents.



The eldest, Joni (Mia Wasikowska), named after Joni Mitchell, is now eighteen and legally able to track down her biological father without her Mother’s permission. She isn’t that bothered but is convinced to do so by her younger brother (Josh Hutcherson). Though we don’t get given any background to why the kids feel differently about it and why her brother is so keen. The man they trace is an easygoing restaurateur and organic farmer called Paul (Mark Ruffalo).

The brother by the way is a fifteen year old called Laser... 'Cool name' says his new found Dad. Errr no. Well maybe for a dog. Then again, no not even for a dog.



Paul begins to regularly meet with the kids and is taken by surprise by the fact he starts to feel very paternal towards them. He seems to have a positive influence on them and it starts to change him a bit as a person.

As for the mums. Jules is intrigued by this man who is undeniably part of her kids make up, yet also a complete stranger and she agrees to design and construct a garden for him. While control freak Nic is suspicious and jealous of someone she sees as an interloper in their cosy family set up.

There is a side plot about Joni trying to discover herself sexually and about Laser, well there’s not much about Laser actually, other than him stopping a friend of his inexplicably peeing on a dog...

Nic and Jules’s relationship has obviously gone a bit stale and one night we get a comedic, well cringe inducing, scene where they attempt to spice things up by watching male gay porn complete with leather clad hunks. An odd choice, that they then have to attempt to explain, unconvincingly, to Joni when she overhears them.

The result is more old spice that hot ‘n’ spicy, so it's no wonder that Jules decides to get her next sperm donation the old fashioned way and throws herself into Paul's leather clad arms the next chance she gets. A turn of events that will no doubt annoy lesbians in their droves. Who knows if a girl can be turned that quickly and that easily but it’s a male fantasy that Paul can now cross off his things to do before I die list.



Consequently Jules spends more time getting athletic in Paul’s bedroom than digging his garden. Cue several gratuitous graphic love scenes, although we’d already had one earlier with Paul and his attractive female assistant. Jules will be pleased to know that he seemed to repeat the exact same repertoire in the exact same order with her.

One of the strongest moments of the film is when Nic has a scene with Paul at the dinner table, watched by the whole family, where she finally seems to come around to Paul's easy going charm, almost to the point of seduction. Jules looks mightily jealous and concerned. Then Nic discovers her partner’s hair in Paul’s bathroom and subsequently, when she snoops, in his bed... Hang on. A question if I may? Would you recognise your partner’s hair in the plug hole? I wouldn't. Long brown hair is long brown hair. You would have to be a mega suspicious person to jump to the same conclusion that Nic did and if your partner wasn’t even supposed to be into that gender, totally paranoid too.

This unsatisfactory discovery of their affair leads us to a very unsatisfactory ending. Well actually it’s a complete cop out. The film had created some interesting situations that were well worth exploring but then it all ended in such an illogical way.



Jules grovels to the rest of the family, apologizes for her actions and assures Nic that she’s still an All American lesbian despite showing more than a few traits of being a rampant bisexual. So Jules rejects Paul, despite the fact he confesses he’s fallen in love with her. As do the kids, the kids that Paul has now realised mean everything to him. Enabling Nic to triumphantly tell Paul to go and find his own family, when he comes to their house to make his own apology.

So in the end the film never goes anywhere and everyone appears to end up back where they started, resuming their previous lives as if nothing has happened. Which is something I really hate to see in films.

It also caught me off guard. I’d thought all the way through I was supposed to be rooting for Paul, who after all didn’t ask for any of this and it was the kids who initiated the contact with him, but all along it was a film about two lesbians staying together in the face of adversity.

It’s an entertaining film but one that fails, frustratingly, to fulfil its potential.

I imagine in the end both kids went on to maintain contact with Paul, Joni did takes his hat that he gave her to college with her, meanwhile Jules presumably left Nic, anything else just wouldn't be realistic.

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

It’s a Wonderful Life was originally released in 1946 and now has one of those tags as an ‘enduring classic’. It was nominated for five Academy Awards but won none in a year the board was swept by `The Best Years of Our Lives'.

George Bailey (James Stewart) is a man with big ideas. He wants to leave his home town of Bedford Falls, go to college, travel the world and make something of his life but it never happens for him. Life throws up situation after situation for George but each time he puts others and the well being of his town before himself. Which means that he ends up never leaving the town.



The bonus here should be that he is stalked, albeit laid back 1940’s style stalking, by the lovely Mary (Donna Reed). Frolicking naked in a bush, we know your game Mary. That was no accident was it? George proves to be a hard man to snare but Mary is a patient girl who waits around for the penny to drop and for George to realize that he loves her.



The film tells us all this in flashback because George has had enough of being a failure and is ready to end his miserable life by throwing himself off a bridge and would have done so if it hadn’t been for Angel Second Class Clarence (Henry Travers), a man yet to win his angel wings, who is sent to save him.

First though Clarence is given the story of George Bailey's life which is how we find out that as a child George saved his brother’s life, a brother who went on to be a war hero and he also persuaded his chemist boss Mr Gower that he had unwittingly prescribed poison to a child. Then when he was older and his father died he took on his father’s loans business. It was his father’s dream to build affordable houses despite the greedy Mr Potter's (Lionel Barrymore) influence on the town and the loan company being probably the only business that Potter doesn’t own. There follows many situation where George puts the town folk or his family before himself.

Then on Christmas Eve, George's absent-minded Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) misplaces a large sum of the business’s money. Potter finds the money and keeps it. George realizes that he will be held responsible and probably jailed, finally allowing Potter to take control of his company.



After arguing with his wife and family, George gets drunk at a local bar and comes to the conclusion that he should never have been born. Broken and suicidal he heads for the bridge, where Clarence’s grants him his wish. Clarence shows George what life would have been like had he never existed and what would have became of the people he knew. It’s a nightmarish vision of Pottersville, a town mired in sleaze where all George’s friends and family are either dead, ruined, or miserable. Most horrific of all Mary has become a librarian and a spinster.

The film appears to say that we are all inextricably linked to each other’s lives and we each play an important part in one another's existence. True but not necessarily to the good. George was one in a million. No one else in the town had the back bone to stand up to Potter and as for Potter. What would have been Clarence’s spiel had it been Potter on that bridge? Or would he have even bothered getting out of bed for that one. Erasing his existence would have had a positive effect on everyone or at least you would think.



Perhaps the true message is one of sacrifice for the greater good. George sees the influence he’s had on friends and family and finally realises just what a wonderful life he's really had. He is restored to the present, gets down off the bridge and goes home. Where everyone is dredging up their life savings to raise the money to save George. It’s all heart warming stuff. Even I was a bit touched.

Of course theft is theft and George would be jailed anyway, as Potter never does seem to get his comeuppance, but that just wouldn't be Christmas.

Rare Exports

Tonight we take in a Christmas film, although admittedly a slightly offbeat one, which is quite different from the usual cheesy Christmas fodder. How refreshing. Kind of.

‘Rare Exports’ is actually a prequel to two short films that the same director made a few years ago and I mean short. ‘Rare Exports Inc.’ is eight minutes long and ‘Rare Exports Inc: Official Safety Instructions’ is ten minutes long. The premise of these is that Santa isn't the nice rotund gentleman dressed in red that we've come to know but is actually something far more sinister.

A few days before Christmas, somewhere in Finland, some faceless corporation are excavating something from one of the mountains. Meanwhile in the valley below, the local residents are getting ready for the annual reindeer round up, only to discover they’re all dead. They blame the excavation team but when they go to confront them no one is there and they appear to have left in a hurry.



A young boy called Pietari reckons he has, with the aid of a bit of dedicated research, discovered what they were digging up. Santa. Buried there centuries ago because he was an evil guy who punished naughty children in horrible ways. Now they’ve dug him up and suddenly being naughty or nice becomes a life or death decision. When Pietari sees footprints on the roof outside his window, he assumes Santa is coming to get him.



The next day, Pietari and his father discover an old man who has fallen into their wolf trap. Pietari is convinced it’s the main man himself and eventually persuades his father, who together with some friends attempt to sell Santa back to the corporation that organised the excavation but they tell him it’s not Santa Claus but just a mere elf.



Then suddenly dozens of naked old men with long white beards appear out of the shadows, elves galore. The man from the corporation gets an axe in the back of the head and his helicopter pilot is dragged away and killed. They all run for cover into a nearby aircraft hanger but inside there is another surprise. The elves have been busy collecting all the naughty children. They’ve bagged them all up in potato sacks and taken them to meet Santa or rather the large ice cube with horns that is still being defrosted by dozens of heating appliances that the elves have pinched. A total 'elf and safety nightmare.



The smart kid, Pietari, of course, saves the day. After only a few ‘the grown-ups won’t listen to me’ moments, he comes up with a cunning plan and the film descends momentarily into action movie mode with a quite improbable situation of dozens of kids in potato sacks being airlifted to safety by helicopter. Then again, what’s probable about burying Santa under a mountain? It's just a shame we didn't get to see the evil Santa before they blew him up.



It’s a very original storyline, creepy in places but all done with a very dark sense of humour and the lad who plays Pietari is simply superb. The elves also deserve an honourable mention. Just how did they get all those old men to stand naked in the snow for hours on end? Ok, so may have been fake snow.

The daring rescue of the kids and the destruction of Santa just leaves them with one small problem. Well quite a large problem actually, 198 naked elves, who now without their master seem to have become quite docile. Can they domesticate them, make them like all the kids and perhaps become nice friendly Santas. Of course they can.

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest

So the late Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy comes to its conclusion with ‘The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest’ or to give it its Swedish title ‘Luftslottet Som Sprängdes’ which translates literally and badly as ‘The Air Castle That Was Blown Up’. It seems that in Swedish an ‘Air Castle’ is what we would call a ‘Pipe Dream’. With that info the title starts to make more sense.

The film picks up exactly from where the second one left off and because of that it’s kind of important to have seen that film. Preferably you need to have read the books because again there’s quite a lot of unexplained stuff going on.

Our heroine Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) has somehow survived being shot in the head, as well as in the hip, and is now in hospital. Just down the corridor is another patient, the man who tried to kill her, her father Alexander Zalachenko. He’s having an axe removed from his skull, which is where she left it. Amazingly neither of them has a police guard. So it’s not difficult for the clandestine group inside the secret police, which we now know as ‘The Section’, to attempt to assassinate them both. They manage with Zalachenko but by more chance than anything they fail to get to Salander.



The film then follows Salander's rehabilitation process and also the preparation for her impending trail where she will charged with attempted murder. The same powers that be, who locked her in a psychiatric institution at the age of twelve, are hell bent on returning her there.



Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) meanwhile is preparing a special issue of ‘Millennium’ magazine exposing the whole shady lot of them and in the process hoping to exonerate Salander.



What follows is a complex web of intricate plot lines and characters, which is why you need the background story. Many people muck in together to help her; her friendly doctor is on side, as is Blomkvist’s sister Annika Giannini, an attorney, who is to defend Lisbeth. Her fellow computer hacker Plague even rides in on his white horse to assist. The old men of ‘The Section’ however, have no boundaries and are prepared to do whatever is necessary to silence everyone, prevent exposure of their group and bury their secret forever.



Finally though Salander and Giannini have their moment in court, outsmarting the prosecution and turning the tables on their key witness Lisbeth’s former psychiatric doctor, Dr. Teleborian. That’s quite fun to watch.



Unlike part two, which was all action at the expense of a more meaningful plot, this film is the other way around and most of the action comes towards the end as Salander explores an old factory left to her in her father’s will. That said the suspense of the scene is diluted by knowing that her psychotic half brother is lurking there. The action with the nail gun doesn't disappoint though.

For a film that still sprawls itself over two and a half hours, it is still lacking in detail and I can’t imagine it makes much sense to the casual viewer. Obviously a lot of material had to be cut from each of the books, which are huge tombs, but they have made some odd calls about what to leave in and out. There are also superfluous additions. Scenes added of Neiderman and an unnecessary sub-plot concerning Millennium boss Erika Berger and a stalker that was altered from the book but still left needlessly in the film. It achieved nothing and if the minutes were so valuable, why waste them?

Both of the last two films had a badly cut feel about them and when I dig deeper I find out possibly the reason why. All three films were intended as a six part mini-series but were then cut down to a reasonable film length. With that information, it begins to make sense why it doesn't make sense. I look forward to seeing the DVD's of the full versions sometime.

Neither this film nor 'The Girl Who Played With Fire, were as compelling as ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ but it's not bad. Overall the series has been a little disappointing and for once I'm actually looking forward to seeing Hollywood’s take on these. Not all car chases I hope. However Hollywood’s Salander, Rooney Mara, has a lot to live up to. The films may have been a bit messy but Noomi Rapace has been outstanding throughout.

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows (Part One)

I booked tickets for Harry Potter 17 tonight or is it Harry Potter 7? I’m not sure, I lost track at number three. Apparently though this is the last book, so it’s the last film... though actually it’s not because they’re releasing another one next year. Confused.com? I am but that’s my usual state with Mr P. Still I’m willing to give this one a go, if only to complete (or, as it turns out, nearly complete the set).

The cinema is packed but no one complains about the endless stream of pilgrimages to the toilet, which seems higher than usual tonight. Is it boring some people? Or have they not read the books and have simply gone to Google 'Regulus Arcturus Black' and the like, on the sly? Some folk are less underhand and openly have Wikipedia open and running on their smartphone (that's me) in an effort to keep up with the plot.

The headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, is dead. On the surface that should not matter much to our now ex-students who have taken a year out, presumably at the taxpayers’ expense and are bumming their way round the UK. Yep, rather than go interrailing like normal teenagers, they have gone off on foot with a tent they found at the bottom of Hermione’s handbag.

Hermione is the first woman on earth ever to pull something useful out of her handbag. She also has a complete wardrobe in there, not only for herself but for Harry and Ron as well, presumably right down to their underwear. Though this isn’t confirmed. Of course the boys would have happily worn the same outfit throughout, so the clothes weren’t essential but the tent, yeah, that was useful. Welcome to Harry Potter - The Road Movie.

I’m getting ahead of myself though. Their trek has a purpose. Voldemort has installed a new regime at the Ministry of Magic, no coalitions there, this is an outright takeover and they’re painting Harry as a wizard with a price on his head, complete with stylish ‘wanted’ posters. When Bill Nighy tells you ‘these are dark times’, you better believe it.

Hermione waves her wand and erases herself from the photos on her parent’s mantelpiece. A move that isn’t just teenage vanity. She completely wipes herself from their memory, so that she can join Harry as he’s escorted from Privet Drive by his allies, dressed up as at least half a dozen decoy Harry Potters.



Yet they are met with an attack from the Death Eaters. Hagrid drives their air born motorcycle and sidecar the wrong way up the Dartford Tunnel in an attempt to lose them. Use the bridge Robbie it’s far quicker.

The safety of the Weasleys’ Burrow is achieved but at the cost of Mad-Eye Moody and that owl thing (Hedwig?) which bites the dust early doors. Then what do they do? Lie low? Nope. They hold a wedding there, which predictably also comes under attack. From which the three escape and set off on their camping trip across the English countryside in the absence of any form of coherent plan.

Harry’s mission is still to find and destroy the remaining horcruxes that contain fragments of Voldemort's soul. Harry accompanied by his trusty sidekicks infiltrate the Ministry of Magic to steal one of the horcruxes which is in the form of a locket. By the way, to gain entry to the ministry you have to flush yourself down the toilet. All grown up stuff this.

Having achieved this they find the locket to be indestructible and take turns in wearing it to dilute its powers, as whoever wears it experiences deeply negative thoughts.

At this point the film starts to feel very unlike a Harry Potter movie and a world away from the first film which was undoubtedly a kid’s film. The pace is slower in this film, perhaps too slow for some. They’re not veering off on some subplot every five minutes and making the whole thing feel cluttered. There’s also less time devoted to the special effects, though it has its moments. The music is also less intrusive, the more senior actors and actresses are kept mostly on the sidelines and there’s less overall action, which means less for the kids to enjoy I suppose. It's a more mature, much less cheesy and dare I even say grittier film. This is not your everyday blockbuster and it’s all the better for it.



There’s plenty of air in this film, space that could easily have been compressed to make the two parts into one but it is kind of good that they haven't and not just for their bank balances. By doing this they have succeeded in making a film that mere muggles like I can follow.

For the first time a Harry Potter film is character driven. It's a film about the friendship between its three principal figures, who, to be honest, all act their socks off. Any notion that they ditched the 3D version in case Daniel Radcliffe was exposed as a cardboard cut-out can be dispensed with.

The film takes a few risks, gets emotional and is at times as moody as its teenage cast. Full of long silences, meaningful glances and tension that you could cut with a blunt wand.



They all throw their toys out of the pram at one point or another of course. Ron reckons Hermione has fluttered her eyelids at Harry once too often and storms off in a huff. Bad call mate. Whilst he’s gone, left alone in the tent together, feeling all sad, lonely and disillusioned, the pair bond and cheer each other up, by dancing to Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds who are playing on the radio. For a moment Harry seems to contemplate renegotiating their ‘just good friends’ contract but if he did, they cut that bit out.

Still the pair of them pitch camp atop Malham Cove. Which is a nice romantic spot, when it isn’t raining or when there aren’t Death Eaters after you, just don’t tell the National Trust.



Though they didn't even pop down to the Buck Inn for an Old Peculiar and that's just not realistic but then again, if this is fantasy, perhaps it's not supposed to be.

Then comes the most ‘chilling’ moment of the whole film. I could actually see my partner shaking next to me as Harry strips off to dive through the ice to retrieve the sword of Gryffindor. Brrr. That must have been cold, particularly as the locket tried to drown him. Ron’s reappearance rescues him and then when it falls to Ron to finally destroy the locket with the sword, ‘poor’ Harry’s naked again. Though this time he’s being warmed by an equally naked Hermione. The locket is playing on Ron’s paranoia and throwing up a hallucination (unless someone filmed them on their mobile) of Harry enjoying a prolonged rally of tongue tennis with a topless Hermione, who’s been kinkily sprayed silver. That’s one for the Emma Watson aficionados.

If that was racy then the return of Dobby was, well, sad.



His last ever scene was possibly the most poignant ever performed by a CGI elf, and I ask is one allowed to get misty eyed over such matters? Hope so.

Then there was the excellent animated sequence about the origins of the Deathly Hallows, which was very clever and the ending... well I can't really spoil that for you because this ones to be continued.

Overall I didn't have great expectations but I was pleasantly surprised with the latest from Mr P. I might even be coerced into the next one.