Starring: Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman and Glenn Close.
Directed by: Wolfgang Peterson
DVD Review - ****
So the script conference went like this. Ahem. Done Die Hard in a skyscraper... airport... boat (twice)... what about a plane! Die Hard on a plane with everyone running up and down shooting each other and that! Ah, but they'll all get sucked out through a window with the first gunshot. Short movie. Okay, so it's bullet-proof glass! What plane has bullet-proof glass for heaven's sake? The President of the USA's plane, that's what! Perfect! Bruce Willis IS The President in a string vest! No, wait! Harrison Ford! He can wear a suit and still kick ass, he'll love it!
Three months later, and Air Force One is finished, and, you know, it's pretty damn good. The scam is that an initially Clintoesque president delivers a tough uncompromising speech on terrorism, boards the plane with a Clintonesque Hilliary and Chelsea, and is as surprised as the next icon when a Ruskie documentary camera crew, led by Oldman, lay waste half the passengers with the help of a - duh, duh. duh - insider.
The next section is the best, once disbelief has been well and truly shot to ribbons (along with the passengers) after an utterly absurd almost landing. Clinton - now dropping the "-on" part of his name - has to stay alive, understand complex avionics, save the rest of the passengers, fly the plane ("he's a fully decorated Vietnam veteran!") and stop his wife and kid having their brains pebble-dash the plush interior. It's all fabulous stuff. Oldman, the now standard issue movie bad guy, is fifty times better than in the dire Fifth Element, Peterson turns up the tension extremely well and this is, as the scriptwriters guessed, the perfect vehicle (ahem) for Ford.
It all starts to go pear shaped at the end when the computer visual effects - ropey throughout - are required to finish the movie on their own, and do so with all the finesse of a Sinclair Spectrum. But at least the American jingoism is at its peak here to distract you with some teriffic laugh out loud hack sentiment. All in all then, wonderful in-flight entertainment - a double bill with Con Air on the next flight to Washington D.C..
Starring: Sigourney Weaver & Winona Ryder
Directed by: Jean Pierre Jeneut
After the debacle of Alien 3, that seemed to be that. Ripley is very dead and thus goes the series - and quite frankly by now, good riddance.
Then some bright spark (Joss Whedon, actually) came up with an idea - if you can get whole dinosaurs from old DNA, couldn't you get a whole Ripley too? Or, as it turns out, a Ripley with a smattering of alien thrown in for good measure. And so newly cloned, we're off again, with this trip's victims being a group of miltary biology experimenters, a terrorsist (Ryder) and few other assorted naer-do-wells.
Set-up gimmickary apart, so far so ho-hum, and up to the half way mark things threaten to become very boring indeed with people - great gosh-a-mighty - running down endless corridors and aliens falling out of ceilings and that. Then as if by magic, a collective sense of imagination takes hold and prasie be, interesting things start to happen...
It never reaches the giddy heights of the first two films, but it is at least a great deal better than number 3, with a couple of terrific set-pieces from Delicatessan director Jeneut, and some neat twists and turns from co-Toy Story scribe Whedon. If Ryder looks badly miscast in the early stages, at least Weaver seems to enjoy coming to terms with her Ripley-clone's rather acute identity crisis.
If there is a fifth installment, I beg Fox that a pre-condition is to set it somewhere where there are no metal-mesh corridors ANYWHERE. Be that is it may, in the final analysis, Alien Resursction is less of a great film - just a relief that is wasn't much worse.
Starring: Michael Douglas, Annette Benning, Michael J Fox and Martin Sheen
Directed by: Rob Reiner
Andy Shepherd is your basic nice regular widower - he raises his darling daughter well, works hard and oh, yes, is the most powerful man on earth. Having won by a mile in the last US election due to the public's sympathy vote, the President (Douglas) is fine-tweaking the crime and environment bills when - hold on to you ballot boxes - lurve strikes in the shape of feisty antagonistic environmental lobbiest Benning.
Knowing his popularity could take a knock if spotted by the media having too good a time, he cheerfully steams ahead and has a good time anyway. "My private life is my private life" he argues, to the disbelef of his advisors, and the dirty tricks of the bad guys - Republicans - swing into full effect.
As happy-jolly romantic comedies go, this nails its political colours very firmly to the mast, rampaging against gun ownership and, more predictably, environmentally unsound policies. Fortunatley, Douglas seems to be enjoying himself, and Benning is a delight - her "strong woman" turn at odds with her giggly star-struck alter-ego.
Indeed, the strongest scenes are when the absurd dilema of their situation is milked to the max. Director Reiner does not have quite the tight hold of Aaron Sorkin's script that he had of, say, the equivelent in A Few Good Men, and overall the inevitable comparisons with the recent "Dave" reveal a much more credible, but also dramatically less satisfying and uneven film. An added problem for non-Americans is the embarrasment of parochial initials and buzz-words, causing a degree of brow-furrowdness.
Fundamentally, though, this works, if you can believe that an American President could ever be so darned nice. And if not... well, we can always hope that life sometimes does imitate art.
Starring: Rachel Weisz, Ian McKellen, Joss Ackland & Kathy Bates
Directed by: Bebe Kidron
This film is based on a short story. If it were a short film basing itself on a short story, maybe we'd have something, but as it is, things are just a tad overwrought.
Set many moons ago in windswept Cornwall, local doc McKellen tends to the feverish Bates as they row over local wierd girl Weisz. McKellen clearly dislikes her, and for the benefit of the audience at home tells her why as we enter Flashbackland. Kind of obsessed by the sea, the servant farm-girl falls in love with the only survivor of a shipwreck, a Russian on his way to America. Since she is percieved as bonkers, and he even more so - a foreigner, imagine - they don't win any most popular couple contests.
This is handled with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, as the film spreadeagles itself in a most ungainly manner over the 110 minute running time. The story itself is sweet and tragic enough, but there really is so little to it. A singular lack of humour also adds a degree of pomposity to the proceedings, and a few unintentional laughs begin to creep out.
The cast are attractive, and veterens such as McKellen and Ackland could do this sort of thing in their sleep. Which, sadly, is where some of the audience may well end up.
Starring: Charlie Talbert, George C Scott, Ariana Richards, Chris Owen & Kathy Bates
Directed by: Patrick Read Johnson
Big boned, sweaty and - yikes! - intelligent, Talbert is no cassanova. Total humiliation beckons when he has to dance with unrequited love and school babe Richards, following a backfired prank.
Perhaps not always as funny as it could be, this does score high on charm factor and its likeable - and unusual - leads. Hip soundrack, featuring Green Day et al, helps.
Featuring the voices of: Woody Allen, Sylvester Stallone, Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman & Christopher Walken
Directed by: Eric Darnell & Tim Johnson
What is it with these people? Could Dreamworks and Pixar not have resolved their differences somehow? As it is, we get Antz now, and Pixar's A Bug's Life in a couple of months time - both computer animations, and both the same story.
That rant over... this is a cracking movie.
Woody Allen is Woody Allen, a neurotic misfit always jabbering to his analyst, and is this time consigned to a miserable existence as a one-of-a-million ant worker in a colony. He falls for the ant princess (Stone) when she comes to the bar in disguise scoping for a bit of rough, and accidentally becomes a war hero in a misguided effort to gain her attention.
There are some splendid one liners, the characters and voices are great, and the animation is also very good (especially in the facial expressions). What is less expected is the film's dark underbelly - one sequence of an ant vs termite massacre leads to some truly Saving Private Ryan images. In fact, Antz contains an anti-war message every bit as effective and clever as Speilberg's blood-soaked death-fest. And hey, it's a lot shorter.
While the overall production design is impressive withough being attractive, reducing the cute kiddie appeal, this is a superior movie held together by a strong script and performances. And in the final analysis, what more do you want from a movie? Or two?
Starring: Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon, Ed Harris, Gary Sinise and Kathleen Quinlan
Directed by: Ron Howard
DVD Review *****
If an historical movie about spaceships isn't sign of the times, then nothing is. The true story of the most notorious of moon missions has surprisingly quickly passed into dim and distant memory, possibly because the bare facts seem... well, a little dull actually. After all, a crew of three went up to the moon, failed to land on it and came back again. Easy to forget, no?
Not if you had anything to do with it, it wasn't. For here we meet that old cliche - truth is stranger than fiction. On the thirteenth of the month, the thirteenth Apollo mission - having blasted off at thirteen minutes past thirteen - has gone all pear shaped. Following an explosion in an oxygen tank during a routine procedure, the ship's power and life support systems are irretrievably crippled. Commander Lovell (Hanks) and two crew mates (Paxton and Bacon) are joined by a sleepless team in Houston headed by Ed Harris, as they have to quite literally do the impossible and defy Scotty of the Starship Enterprise by apparently changing the laws of physics, captain. Suddenly a previously ambivalent world wakes up and takes an interest, and watches in obscene fascination at both events in space and those on Earth round Lovell's house, where his wife (Quinlan) desperately tries to hold it together.
Given that the eventual outcome is known, director Howard here achieves an amazing feat by producing almost unbearable tension, firmly shaking off the lumbering melodramatics that have dogged his recent offerings. Not one frame of vintage NASA footage was used, but both the real weightlessness scenes filmed in a test plane and an incredible eye-popping launch - featuring perspectives that you'll never see elsewhere - more than deliver the goods in the authenticity stakes. The entire cast are superb, with Ed Harris as the tyrannical leader driven by his own conscience and sense of responsibility standing out, and Hanks yet again displays his talent for picking blockbusting movies that were by no means dead certs.
Despite all the clever effects and strong performances, these artistic achievements are dwarfed by the truly awe-inspiring story, brought to life by screenwriters William Boyles jr and Al Reinert. So many people went so far beyond what any person could be expected to achieve in the realms of physical, mental and intellectual endurance, the moment of splashdown in the ocean is an emotional experience indeed. Hell, if I was an American, even I'd be proud to be one after watching this. A gem.
Starring: Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thornton, Steve Buscemi & Liv Tyler
Directed by: Michael Bay
For the earth to be hit by one apocalyptic meteor this year could be considered unfortunate - to be hit by two seems cosmic carelessness. After Deep Impact bored the world rigid by having us watch the TV news for 135 minutes, along comes the even longer Armageddon. But, unlike the tracked trajectory of the rock in question, this time things just fly by.
The only part of the plot that seems worth repeating is that this time our crew is made up of colourful redneck oil riggers. "Of course it is", you cry. The scam is that these cowboys, brought in by a desperate NASA with only 18 days to go, are supposed to land on the rock, drill 800 feet, drop a nuclear bomb, light the blue touchpaper and retreat to a safe distance. Willis, a modern day Red Adair, thus has his time equally split between literally saving the planet and, less literally, his daughter (Tyler)'s virtue, as she bores down on reckless-yet-sweet Affleck.
The first hour of all this is absolutely stupendous. Bay directs this like he did The Rock - no shot lasts more than a second and a half, and the script is stuffed full of full-on-fun macho types. The inherent joy of Armageddon is that while the set up may be hopelessly implausible (although actually less so than the embarrassing Deep Impact), it is the characters - played by an unusually strong cast - out for the ultimate rodeo that make this the enjoyable romp that it is. The effects, it's worth adding, also are far more effective and memorable than the competition.
As it all goes on, the pace doesn't flag as such, but they can't resist the temptation to begin to believe their own hype and take it seriously. Eventually we're weighed down by endless "it's gonna blow"s, unintentionally funny Tearful Baring Of The Souls and at least 37 crisis to many, but at least Buscemi is kept alive to pepper things with his usual comic schtick.
For a while there, it looked like Armageddon was going to be an all-out comic adrenaline rush classic (the New York sequence is astonishing, and in 5 minutes tops anything in Godzilla). As it is, Armageddon is slightly flabby, a tad uneven but still a hugely enjoyable romp that makes the rest of 1998's mayhem making blockbusters look the damp squibs they really are.
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt & Greg Kinnear
Directed by: James L Brooks
DVD Review ****
Giving a film the title of As Good As It Gets is really pushing it. Predictably it can't quite live up to the moniker, but it's not too far off, and it does give us a refreshingly unusual take on the old feel-good romantic comedy genre.
Melvin (Nicholson) is an unlikely movie hero - racist, misogynistic, homophobic and astonishingly offensive to just about everyone. Part of the explanation for this is that, although a hugely succesful romantic novelist, he is clearly not firing on all cylinders and is medically diagnosed as having an obsessive compulsive disorder. Part of his freakish daily routine is breakfast at a cafe, where waitress and single mum Helen Hunt tolerates conversation with him, but only just. Of course Melvin is in love, but it takes looking after a neighbour (Kinear)'s dog to start to reveal chinks in the sadistic armour.
Jack is totally on form here, for the first time in ages as a lead. Greg Kinnear, as the wounded neighbour, is strong too, but it is Helen Hunt who really excels. Best known to US audiences from the harmless sitcom Mad About You and UK ones as the lead from Twister(!), she here proves an astonishing naturalness and range for which Academy Awards were invented.
The screenplay is peppered with laugh-out-loud one liners which genuinely surprise in their audacity, but suffers a little from an uncomfortable jump for Helen Hunt's character at one point. But it is perhaps the direction from veteren Brooks which stops this film truly acheiving greatness. This is long and, despite its many merits, feels long. A minor point, but occasionaly the camera also seems uncomfortably intrusive.
Up for Oscar's Best Picture, the film occupies the role taken last year by Jerry Maguire (Cuba Gooding Jr almost reprieses his role in this, by the way, but with predictabaly less charm). Although perhaps not in the same class as the Cruise classic, it is nice to see such an refreshingly un-PC, risk-taking yet enjoyable film so finely rewarded.
Starring Sylvester Stallone, Antonio Banderas & Julianne Moore
Directed by Richard Donner
DVD Review ***
Tedious look into the lives of two professional killers - one bad, one much badder - is redeemed only by unintentional laughs. Banderas pulls off the remarkable feat of actually turning in a worse performance than Stallone, and the ever-reliable Moore can't rise above the hopeless script, alarmingly penned by the Wachowski Brothers (Bound). Any film that relies on chess metaphors and contains the line "Bishop takes pawn is a powerful move..." is headed straight for the movie dustbin. Next.
Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery **
Starring: Mike Myers and Elizabeth Hurley
Directed by: Jay Roach
DVD Review ****
I'm not sure how the character of Austin Powers came to be, but he comes off here as a bit of a misfire. An ugly, irritating, shag-anything-that-moves type Bond is frozen in the sixties to be unfrozen in the nineties, with all his sensibilities (if not his marbles) in tact. His mission? To destroy the evil, er, Dr Evil.
So it's a time-warp comedy but, unlike the spot-on Brady Bunch series, misses the mark nine times out of ten being variously tired, obvious and bewilderingly redundant. Spoofs of Bond have always been tricky, because the series had such a strong sense of self-parody, and this is less successful than most.
There are a smattering of good lines, scenes and characters (a small oriental killer called Random Task, Bond fans?) where Myers comic talent can finally be evidenced. But it's a long old haul, and we can only hope that the next proper Bond has a few more laughs than this. A nice kitch title sequence, though. Yeah, wait for it to come on TV, watch that then turn over for the footie or something.
All reviews / articles copyright Guy Rowland (1998).