Chicken Run

The Great Escape, with chickens! For Aardman’s first feature length picture, Nick Park and his team borrowed heavily from a British classic, with the Hilts-esque Ginger (Julia Sawalha) and her Scottish accomplice Mac (thankfully not shot up against the fences) leading a brood of chickens to freedom after their tyrannical farmers make a switch from eggs to chicken pies. The parallels run deep, from the multiple escape attempts using homemade and stolen tools to a heavy American influence courtesy of Mel Gibson’s circus cockerel Rocky Rhodes, although I very much doubt that this was based on a true story. Other elements, from a Flight of the Phoenix inspired mechanical plane to a Raiders style hat gag (by law, every film featuring a vertically closing door must feature the hero sliding under it to safety, before reaching back to retrieve their fallen hat) all add to the fun, but I was annoyed at the farmers complete lack of concern that, not only were their hens wearing hats and scarves, but one of them was wearing glasses. Timothy Spall and Phil Daniel’s east end spiv rats were excellent additions too.

Choose film 7/10

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Seriously? Potter? On the list? We live in a world where a Harry Potter film is voted onto a top 500 list and Hitchcock’s masterful Dial M For Murder isn’t? This is considered more essential viewing than Eastwood’s Mystic River? Doug Jones’ Moon? Adaptation? Motorcycle Diaries? Planes, Trains and Automobiles? No? Anybody? Fine.

Not that I’m against the Potter-verse, I own all the books and have seen all the films, some of them at the cinema, and I’m quite looking forward to part 7ii, if only so this bloody franchise will cease and desist. Hell, I even queued up outside Morrison’s on the day book 7 was released (unintentionally, I thought they opened earlier), but I couldn’t say what happens at the end of it though, other than I think a ruddy great battle, and one of the twins dies (I know, only one?).

So why is number 3 on the list instead of the others? If I had to pick, I’d have gone for number 4, the Goblet of Fire, purely because it’s my preferred of the books and has dragons in it, but 3 seems to have received far greater critical acclaim. The power of three it would seem is in its tone, as new director Alfonso Cuaron (replacing Chris Columbus, to be replaced by Mike Newell for part 4 and David Yates for the rest of the saga) darkens the cosy, comforting feel of the first two, but not so much as becomes commonplace for the latter half of the series. He does deal with some tricky topics though, encountering betrayal, execution, wrongful imprisonment, a man living as a rat for 12 years and an inflatable Pam Ferris (one of the least popular sex dolls in existence I assume).

The main flaw of the Potter franchise is its leads, with the understandably inexperienced child actors thrust front and centre they cannot hide behind more professional adult stars, but the cream of British acting and comedy do their best to fill in the surrounding cracks. Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Richard Griffiths, Gary Oldman, Timothy Spall, Alan Rickman, Robbie Coltrane, David Thewlis, Emma Thompson, Dawn French, Lenny Henry, Julie Walters, Mark Williams and Warwick Davis all do their bit, but whenever the story is left purely to the kids the quality is severely diminished.

Choose life 6/10

Sweeney Todd

Who could resist a film featuring Alan Rickman singing about marrying his adopted daughter! Me, it turns out. Many have criticised the picture for being too gory, although its hard to see how Tim Burton could have avoided the flood of viscera required to depict the story of Sweeney Todd, a barber who murders his clientele by slitting their throats in a specially designed barber’s chair (That I must say did appeal to the mechanical engineer in me), only for their innards to be baked into pies served in the shop below the barber’s. So, instead of toning down the gore, Burton embraces it, commencing the show following a trickle of blood, luminous red against an almost monochrome London, as it drips, seeps and oozes through cracks, down gutters and into the sewers. It is clear from this opening that those of a weaker disposition should stick to a more family-friendly film, such as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

But the gore isn’t the problem. I can take most horror films, with only Hostel so far causing any undue distress (I can’t take the bit with the eye). No, my problem you see, is the singing. For yes, Sweeney Todd has retained its original music-hall trappings as being a musical, with all of the principle cast, including Rickman’s villainous Judge Turpin, his menacing sidekick Timothy Spall and leads Helena Bonham-Carter as Mrs. Lovett and Johnny Depp as the eponymous Todd at some point or another spontaneously bursting into song. To start with this is fine, with Depp’s husky Bowie-esque warbling complementing the tone of the film, but when plot points are hidden deep inside the occasionally indistinguishable lyrics, and conversations begin to dip in and out of verse as the tune permits it gets a bit tiresome. To be fair, I’m not normally one for musicals, but the subject matter doesn’t seem to lend itself to the medium, and I think if they took out the songs there’s not really enough plot to fill a film. That said, Sacha Baron Cohen steals the show as Pirelli, a showboating rival barber, and there is some impressive camerawork, probably to justify relocating the story from the stage to the screen, but overall I’d give it a miss. Also, why does Anthony Head cameo? He’s onscreen for all of two seconds, and you spend the rest of the film wondering when he’s coming back, yet he never does. The scene’s not even important. And why is Judge Turpin so shocked to see he has stubble on his face? Has he just reached puberty? Is that literally the first time he hasn’t shaved for more than three days?

Choose life 5/10