The Reluctant Fundamentalist

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star-Times, 19th May 2013

You may think we’d be tired of 9/11 stories by now, but this adaptation of the novel by Mohsin Hamid is a worthy addition to the genre. Director Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding, Vanity Fair) combines an earthy realism with the bright lights of a big city in a tale that turns out to be an engaging character study as well as a well-crafted meditation on prejudice.  

Changez is a young Pakistani man who wins a scholarship to study at Princeton University. Like many foreigners coming to the West, he has his eye on scaling lofty towers towards achievement of the American dream. Hired as a financial analyst with a top firm, he rises through the ranks under the pupillage of Kiefer Sutherland’s impressed boss, and swiftly adopts a flash New York lifestyle. But when the twin towers suddenly fall, his adopted country turns on him overnight because of his provenance.  

British actor Riz Ahmed is in danger of perennial typecasting as a suspected Muslim terrorist, having appeared as such in Michael Winterbottom’s The Road to Guantanamo several years before playing the good-looking daft one from Four Lions.  

But here he’s all gravitas, endlessly charismatic but with that rare charm that feels completely captivating without a hint of sleaze. Ahmed is terrifically believable as both the Westernised, capitalist, money-maker with an all-American girlfriend, and as the doting Pakistani son. He proves the film’s main strength, keeping us as much in the dark about his character’s true motivation as is the man interviewing him (a paunchy Liev Schreiber from the Scream movies. I won’t mention his role in Salt because that film doesn’t do him justice).  

It’s Ahmed’s spot-on portrayal of restrained outrage that keeps us hooked, while Kate Hudson (turned a serious brunette but still with a twinkle in her eye) does a reasonable turn as the love-struck artist who mishandles the balance of fearing for her own country while dating the purported enemy.  

The filmmakers built in a slightly thrilling sub-plot to act as the mechanism by which Changez’s story is told, and this mostly succeeds. Those who have read the book may be frustrated that the film takes many liberties with the original plot, but as a standalone text the movie works well enough to engender engagement and discussion around the grey areas of cultural identification in a post-9/11 context.  

The Pakistan scenes look suitably other-worldly compared with NYC, thanks to Nair’s characteristic flair for colour and flamboyance. It’s an interesting juxtaposition, nicely bound together by Ahmed’s performance and solid handling of a curious tale.

War Witch (Rebelle)

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star-Times, 12 May 2013

This Oscar-nominated film dramatises the plight of child soldiers in sub-Saharan Africa, as 14-year old Komona recounts the harrowing story to her unborn child of how she came to be stained by bloodshed.

The opening shots are documentary-like in their impassivity before Komona is swiftly kidnapped from her village, orphaned and trained to kill (the rebel commander tells his young recruits that the gun is now their “mother and father”). On entering the forests where her new family massacres the government soldiers, Komona finds her calling as a prescient witch, a skill that provides protection and importance in the eyes of the head rebel, Great Tiger.

Novice teenage actress Rachel Mwanza deservedly won the Best Actress prize at the Berlin Film Festival for her phenomenal performance – stunning in its restraint and yet all the more amazing given that when the filmmakers discovered her she was an illiterate street kid in the Congo. In a gentle, thoughtful voiceover Komona’s dulcet French tones belie the horror she experiences and is forced to perpetuate.

Thankfully, beautifully realised mysticism and an underlying love story help to lighten the mood slightly, with the children even finding time to play kung fu and watch generator-driven Van Damme movies.

The sound design is impeccable, in certain scenes mercifully dullened (which only mildly lessens the trauma) and the characters seem like real people caught on camera in the course of daily life. Though the premise won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, this exquisite film is an example of flawless filmmaking.

GAMBIT

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star-Times, 12 May 2013

Don’t be fooled. This art heist movie is neither Trance nor The Thomas Crown Affair, and just because it’s written by the Coen Brothers doesn’t mean a thing.

The premise isn’t even particularly Coenesque. Colin Firth and Tom Courtenay (enjoying a new lease on life following Quartet) concoct a plan to rob Firth’s diabolical boss (Alan Rickman) of millions of pounds by selling him a fake Monet. Courtenay’s avuncular voiceover calls it “a bit of a thieving”, which is quite charming and for a moment you think this crime caper might be fun. Until Cameron Diaz opens up a Texan accent and Firth’s drippy art historian gets punched in the nose. For the third time.

Reminiscent instead of the Pink Panther movies but without that charm or any pretence of originality – from the animated opening titles to the farce within, the film buckles under the weight of phoned-in performances and unfunny gags – it feels like something from a bygone era, except those bygones knew how to make a decent movie.

If I’m being harsh, it’s because of the crushing disappointment that the combination of Firth (channelling his Single Man without the sangfroid), Rickman and the Coens’ usually witty scripting doesn’t work at all. Even Diaz (whom I love) is awful, not just in southern accent but delivery of lines. Plus, something has gone very wrong with her face. Perhaps the two problems are related.

The script relies on double-entendres and people losing their trousers in hotel hallways to deliver a softcore version of Hangover-type idiocy (there are even monkeys riding dogs). It’s a limp, unfunny mess.

SNITCH

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star-Times, 12 May 2013

Dwayne Johnson hasn’t traditionally been one of my favourite movie stars (I’m more of an Edward Norton girl) but I’ll be adding “The Rock” to my list of Must-Sees on the strength of this action-thriller.

Johnson – I just can’t call him Dwayne, no matter how talented or rugged he is – stars as John Matthews, an ordinary guy whose banal name belies the awesomeness with which he leaps to his son’s aid and goes undercover to hunt down a drug-dealer.

Playing slightly against type, Johnson isn’t a gun-toting mercenary but a hard-working business owner who gives ex-cons a second chance and just wants a better relationship with his child. When the son is implicated in a crime with huge repercussions, dad approaches the hard-nosed District Attorney – an excellent Susan Sarandon, off the ropes after that dreadful turn in Arbitrage – to propose a deal: he’ll bring down the crims if his boy can come home.

The film is directed by Ric Roman Waugh, whose nearly 50 films as a stuntman preceded his foray into writing/directing, notably 2008′s Felon, which trod the similar path of an ordinary man forced into a criminal situation in the protection of his family. Impressively, the high production values and Fuqua-esque (Training Day) aesthetic are matched by solid performances from Benjamin Bratt and Barry Pepper (immediate redemption delivered after the deplorable Broken City). There is even a cameo by a favourite actor from The Wire, just to prove this movie’s got street-cred.

Moreover, the moral dilemma at the film’s heart sees not one but two men forced into a predicament that threatens to destroy the life each has built on the right side of the law. It’s brash, unsubtle but nonetheless thrillingly played.

Just add guns: Objections to SPRING BREAKERS

Herewith, not a review – but a long, frustrated, critical piece about the latest offspring from enfant terrible, Harmony Korine

Harmony Korine (writer of Kids, which affected me greatly back in its day, and director of Gummo which I am sure I have seen but don’t remember) has clearly taken heed of Godard’s edict that all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun.

In fairly typical Korinian fashion he has, of course, upped the ante to four girls and a sh*tload of weaponry, adding a gold-toothed, rapping James Franco, plenty of shaking booty and an appropriately brain-jangling soundtrack.

The story goes: Four lovely young ladies head off with the rest of their college-attending peers for the Spring Break holiday, a pilgrimage of sorts which consists of partying hard, escaping reality and maybe even “finding oneself” amidst the frat-boy drinking, bong-smoking and soft-porn fraternising that typifies this apparent staple of the American university experience.

The problem is the girls don’t have enough money initially, so within moments of the film’s opening our purported heroines are committing armed robbery (it still counts as “armed” even if the guns are fake) with a great deal of shouting and posturing. “Just act like you’re in a movie and don’t be scared” they tell one another, in a voiceover that echoes throughout the scene. (Echoed VOs are a motif of this film – whether to constantly remind the audience of the irony we’re watching or just for effect, it’s not clear.)

Soon the universally slim, bronzed and long-haired femmes fatales are lolling about their beachside condo, riding scooters to the liquor store in nothing but bikinis and hi-top sneakers, and warbling Britney Spears songs into the darkness. No sooner do they fall foul of the law than they encounter Franco’s immensely entertaining white boy gangsta monikered ‘Alien’, his character surely modelled on Gary Oldman’s star turn in True Romance: accent, corn-rows and metallic grin all present and accounted for.

Nevermind the plot. It’s moderately engrossing but mainly just there to provide something on which to hang the wild, desperate grotesquerie that is Korine’s latest piece of “shock”.

What’s interesting about Spring Breakers (and not all in a positive way, though there are some marvellously cinematic bits slotted in around clips of beer-drenched breasts and gurning youths) is imagining what Korine’s point was in creating it, and how far we can say “It’s soft-porn, but that’s OK because it’s just showing how Spring Break really is” rather than “Even so, isn’t having four young women (and the countless others who appear in allegedly documentary footage of real Spring Break shenanigans) appearing in various states of bikini-ness in every scene nonetheless exploitative?”.

My gut reaction is that the film is one of the purest examples of the objectification of women I’ve seen in a long time. You may argue that every Hollywood rom-com does the same, and given all the mainstream stars are svelte, tanned beauties, there is some truth in this. Perhaps you will say that Korine’s integrity is that he doesn’t pretend to be coy or respectful – he gives it to us full-frontal, so to speak, and tells it like it is. (But I don’t buy that there is any “truth” to wearing bikinis to court, let alone to the county jail.)

However, please do not tell me that because the girls exert all the control in the story (shooting, shouting, enticing then denying male sexual advances) that they are not at the same time being gazed upon as sexual creatures throughout the two hour running time.

The male gaze is the elephant on this film set, and because of the blatant ogling that is invited, it serves to undermine any higher purpose the story might have.

For starters: even when the girls are hanging out on their own, they smoke bong hits and behave like girls do when boys are watching, which is to say, simultaneously overtly sexual and coquettish. There are myriad scenes reminiscent of soft-porn, from the dialogue (“Seeing all this money makes my pussy wet” one groans – to her friend) to the underwater camerawork in the threesome pool scenes. You could easily shoot the exterior of a swimming pool with three intertwined bodies embracing, and we’d know what was going on. But here the photography gets up close in a pervy way, dipping under and above the waves, both in bikini-clad scenes of wistful chat (of the “I wish we could stay here forever” variety) and later when Alien can’t believe how lucky he is to have these sexy, confident blondes in his world. (Wanting to orally rape him with a loaded gun, no less. Sheesh – modern love…)

Despite being aesthetically artful, the film is at the same time a try-hard melange of body fetishisation, male fantasy (a fellow critic likened it to the game Grand Theft Auto) and the disingenuous empowerment of women. The fact that two of the young actresses, Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez, have made their names in the tween sphere seems to suggest an overt desire to corrupt or have them “grow up” (notaby, Gomez’s good little Christian girl, unimaginatively named Faith, leaves the story before things get really hardcore. Ironically, considering the film mocks Christianity in that really unoriginal way that many 90s films did, she turns out to be the only one with any strength of character).

But hey, putting aside one’s feminist objections, it’s not all bad. Where Korine shows real auteurist flair is in much of the scenic photography, the depiction of the parties (say what you like about the morality of the goings-on, the fun is palpable and almost infectious) and in a couple of scenes that meld pop music with ludicrous action. A stand-out moment which almost redeems the whole film has Alien at his white grand piano out by the pool, gazing across the ocean as he plays Britney Spears’ (rather lovely) downbeat song “Everytime” (you know – the one with Stephen Dorff in the video) while the girls dance and twirl around in swimsuits and balaclavas, waving AK-47s. It is completely ridiculous, irresponsible and even clichéd, and yet rather beautiful (if you like that song, which I do).

It’s an invidious task to speculate about what such a filmmaker is trying to prove, but there are a few clues. It’s been said that Spring Breakers eschews judgement, just as Kids portrayed very young people doing drugs and having sex without feeling like a moralistic story. Korine himself has said the idea for Spring Breakers was borne of a vision of young bikini-clad women wearing ski masks and robbing fat tourists on a beach. From there he added a gold-toothed rapper and more guns.

it’s possible, however, he is making a scathing statement about the Spring Break institution, and if so this is where analysis of his film moves from outrage to something more like curiosity.

Consider the enticing trailer. Consider the target audience (complete with R18 rating – a red rag to any young bull). Consider the use of Skrillex’s music as the soundtrack to young lives (oh, so that’s what dub-step is). The kids who flock to this movie (or download it illegally) will be as titillated as any audience (titillation is an inevitable offshoot of the movie’s soft-porn qualities). And then they’ll hear the repetitive voiceover — Franco’s slightly southern twang saying “Spring break…spring break forever”; they’ll hear the girls talking about “finding ourselves” and working out who they’re going to be, and then going on to not really find themselves at all (except in big trouble). The audience will be bombarded time and again by jiggling asses and slippery bosoms (note: the male physique is not offered up thus). The violence gets well and truly silly, but no one seems to learn any great lessons, except that at the end you get to drive home the sports car.

Will they realise this is a mockery? Is it Spring Break that is being damned? Or should we extend the judgement to director/writer/visionary Korine for perpetuating everything that’s distasteful about the event?

Usually it’s easy to say when a film is deplorable and advise against seeing it. Here, however, everyone must be their own judge.

Maori Boy Genius

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star-Times, 5 May 2013

Every now and then I see a documentary whose message seems so important I feel I want the world to see it. Or in this case, at least, everyone in New Zealand. Because Pietra Brettkelly’s latest subject – the story of a young Maori lad from a country town who makes his way to study at Yale university – is as eye-opening as it is delightful.

Ngaa Rauuira Pumanawawhiti is the oldest of six children blessed with devoted, supportive parents who always knew their son would be special. But what is really special about Ngaa Rauuira is that he just seems like an incredibly gracious, mature and good hearted teenager – if a little more intellectually able than most 16-year olds. The pile of books by his bed says it all – of The Politics of Aristotle he enthuses “That’s pretty mean!”.

Having gained a university diploma at 13 but then been forced back into high school because of restrictions in the education system, Ngaa Rauuira applies for summer school at one of the great American universities and heads off to fill his brain with philosophy and politics of the highest order.

Your heart swells with pride that any of our number should go to Yale, but most especially a driven 16-year old from a modest family, whose straightforward belief in their son and commitment to Maori culture and traditions form a beautiful backdrop to the tale. But Ngaa Rauuira’s humility underpins it all – he rejects the “genius” label, putting his aptitude down to good memory retention that comes from Maori being borne of an oral tradition with no written language. It’s a fascinating point, but there is no doubting this kid has something else going for him.

Song for Marion

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star-Times, 5 May 2013

Song for Marion is such an unfair movie. Yes, it made me cry, and yes, I laughed out loud (just once or twice). But on the whole it’s so dreadful it even had my mother – the film’s target demographic, no less – damning it as “totally unnecessary!” as we left the cinema.

This British coming-of-age (by which I mean, growing old and dying) drama has moments of comedy but attempts broadly to be meaningful and poignant. Check out Vanessa Redgrave’s scarf-clad head on the poster – she’s Marion who, despite ailing health, spends her days singing sunnily in a pensioners’ choir with a bunch of quirky, supportive friends. They are chivvied along by a chirpy and patronising Gemma Arterton (Tamara Drewe). Less encouraging is Marion’s curmudgeonly husband since forever, Arthur, played by the glorious Terence Stamp. Arthur hates the singing, he hates the world, and he hates that Marion is slowly leaving him. She merrily snuggles up to him and plays the sunshine to his thunder.

The conceit is fine, and with stars like Redgrave and Stamp, plus fine support from Christopher Eccleston as their son, you’d think this film would be a dream. Even forgiving its blatant rip-off of the superb documentary Young @ Heart (the real-life tale of an OAP choir which sings modern pop and rock songs), the themes are universal and affecting, and the poignant bits are sensitively handled.

However, somehow it just doesn’t gel. The film means well, but the execution is clunky and condescending, from the nudge nudge of old people singing about sex to Arterton’s tacked-on backstory and consistently grating manner. You anticipate the plot’s every move, yet it makes you cry anyway. Disappointingly, definitively, not the sum of its parts.

Star Trek Into Darkness – the review

This review first appeared in the Sunday Star-Times, 5 May 2013

When J.J. Abrams (then best-known as creator of Alias and Lost, and with one Mission Impossible film under his belt) helmed the 2009 Star Trek movie, his nerves were swiftly soothed by critical acclaim and box office success.

The origin story, soon a must-have for all comicbook/sci-fi franchises, delighted audiences as it brought together an eclectic bunch of misfits to form the crew many knew so well. Even non-Trekkies grew up knowing about Captain Kirk and Mr Spock, and most childhood games involved doing the Vulcan salute as we vied to wear the mustard-coloured tunic. Director Abrams hit the jackpot with his fresh and individual take on the franchise, and novices and fanboys alike went home from the cinema happy.

However, the original thrill of seeing the young Spock (a perfectly cast Zachary Quinto), New Zealander Karl Urban as Dr “Bones” McCoy, and meeting the swaggering ladies man that is James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine) can’t be created twice. Now we need to be wowed by something completely new. Happily, four years on Abrams has got the band back together to put on another display of intelligent, innovative blockbusting.

Given Star Trek‘s history, its devoted following, and the intensity of speculation around this latest rendition of the Starship Enterprise‘s adventures into outer space, it’s best to keep this a spoiler-free zone. Let’s face it – a brief plot summary won’t help you decide whether to see this film – so let’s just say there is conflict, both interpersonal and martial, lives are thrown into jeopardy, grown men cry, laser guns zap, cities crumble, there is nerve-wracking teleportation and a lot of travelling at warp-speed, and the whole thing looks incredible.

As to be hoped from the chap who’s about to reprise the Star Wars behemoth, the alien worlds and life aboard the Enterprise are beautifully rendered, from the precision of the crew’s slightly square uniforms (who irons the crease into those trousers??) to the sensational heat-deflecting jumpsuits. Abrams’ trademark lens flares mark nearly every scene, immersing you in the fantasy.

It’s not, however, all about the aesthetic. Abrams and his regular screenwriters put heart into the first film, and care just as much about connecting with their human audience here. So it is exciting to drop down to planet Earth, where the depiction of a futuristic London (retaining much of the city’s historical beauty in a fascinating juxtaposition of then and now) brings the “reality” of deep space home to a world that is familiar to us.

Pine, Quinto and their gang reprise roles from the earlier film, some of them given little more than a metaphor to spout or a grumpy girlfriend to personify. However, the leads’ bromance has deepened since 2009, and much of the pathos comes from trying to get the half-human Vulcan to express emotion (though Spock’s unintended wit is undiminished: when Admiral Pike admonishes “Are you giving me attitude?” Spock replies: “I’m expressing multiple attitudes simultaneously. To which are you referring?”).

It’s the new faces who bring a thrill. RoboCop himself (Peter Weller) plays Admiral Marcus, while Sherlock‘s Benedict Cumberbatch brings his own special brand of purse-mouthed, British villainy to the role of interloper John Harrison, blindingly superb as something of a New-Romantic goth who requires only charisma and That Voice to invoke menace. Even the inexplicably dull casting of Alice Eve (nice hair, though) doesn’t detract from what’s great.

While possibly not as heartstring-tugging as Abrams purports, Star Trek Into Darkness is nonetheless a rollercoaster ride of laughs and gasps, spectacle and pathos. One can’t help but feel his next big project is in very safe hands – may the force be with him.

There’s something on the starboard bow (STAR TREK interview)

This interview first appeared in the Sunday Star-Times, 5 May 2013

It’s a hive of activity at the press junket for the new Star Trek Into Darkness movie, as publicists brandishing clipboards and stop-watches bustle about a plush hotel on Sydney’s waterfront. We print journos get the after-lunch slot, so by the time Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine enter the business suite, they’ve been performing for a full morning of filmed interviews. Zachary apologises for being sick (a cold caught on the plane from LA a few days prior) while Chris, more handsome in real life but less light-hearted than his character, perches on his seat with a slightly furrowed brow.

Compared with the rather low-key actors, director J.J. Abrams is a bundle of energy, gracious to a fault. “Thankyou, thank you so much, I really appreciate it” he says when I tell him that on the strength of what I’d seen in Into Darkness, his next project seems to be in safe hands. (Abrams is set to direct the latest Star Wars, amongst similarly high expectations from a zealous fanbase.)

We’re at the beginning of the Star Trek Into Darkness world tour, and in a few hours the talent will be attending the Australasian premiere before heading off to Russia, Germany, LA and ultimately London for the biggest shindig. More of the stars will jump aboard as the tour circumnavigates the globe, but Abrams, Quinto and Pine (along with New Zealander Karl Urban) are in it for the long haul.

Star Trek Into Darkness takes us to a time when Star Fleet is under terrorist threat, and the crew of the Starship Enterprise must set off on a voyage to right some wrongs. Pine reprises the role of ladies man Captain Jim Kirk, with Quinto returning as his right-hand man/Vulcan, Mr Spock. (At this point it is probably worth mentioning that while Pine looks just like his onscreen persona, Quinto is mercifully unrecognisable without the pointy ears and thick glossy fringe. I decide not to tell him though.)

Portraying characters who have been around for decades and are protected and revered by particularly fervent devotees takes some guts. How fine a line had to be walked between doing impersonations and creating one’s own take on the genre?

Abrams’ commitment to maintaining the essence of a legendary franchise is evident. “The approach to everything – look, design, casting, props – was to take the spirit of what was done nearly 50 years ago and do our version, but be true not to the letter but to the spirit,” he explains. In casting younger versions of such seminal characters, he gave his actors free reign. “I tried to cast people who were in the realm, but then say to them ‘This is yours – do not try to copy what he or she did, do your thing’.” Abrams compliments Pine’s ability to combine his “natural, wonderful swagger” with an appreciation of “the [William] Shatner vibe”. “It was a very careful tightrope walk but they all did it beautifully”, he says proudly.

Pine agrees that the freedom to interpret their roles provided a great sense of fun. “Because it [is] this alternate, other-dimensional universe, prequel situation, there were fantastic opportunities to nod and wink, to give especially the long term fans of the franchise these moments of connection and resonance and ‘Oh my God, I can see Shatner there, DeForest Kelley there’ – and I think that’s the fun of it.”

In the 2009 film Quinto’s role was all the more challenging for his having to act alongside his predecessor, Leonard Nimoy. Far from being intimidating, however, he says it actually helped. “We spent a lot of time together, and subsequently became incredibly close. He is such a magnanimous person that I only ever felt supported”. Acknowledging that Nimoy had consultation rights on the casting of the younger Spock, Quinto adds “It was comforting and reassuring to know I could use him as a resource that none of the other actors necessarily [had].” Then, sounding like his onscreen persona: “But there are certain qualities of the character that cannot be ignored or denied”. He says it was a challenge bringing his own experience and perspective to the role, helped by J.J’s clear mandate that this should be a fresh interpretation.

Both leading men are full of praise for their great leader, but you can’t help believing that someone with Abrams’ guileless enthusiasm really would be great to work with. Quinto describes him as “one of the foremost directors of our time. I think people will look back at him as a filmmaker who helped shape the direction of storytelling in this particular era, which is a unique convergence of technology and expectation of audiences, so to balance those two things requires a very talented and uniquely possessed individual”.

Indeed, Abrams comes across as the typical movie-struck lad who came to work in Hollywood and is making the most of every opportunity. However, Star Trek may seem an unusual offering to someone who didn’t grow up a fan. “With all respect to Trek” he admits, “I never really connected with it as a kid, and part of that might have been that I wasn’t sophisticated enough – I had friends who were very smart who loved it… There was something very talky and boring, frankly, for me”. However, in being given the project he was adamant he still wanted “scenes of real conflict and debate, so we have that in the movie but I didn’t want to do a drawing-room film in space”. He doesn’t see his renditions as a sci-fi project, but as a “movie about people who made me laugh, who I connected with, who happened to be on this crazy journey, this massive adventure”. He is therefore creating an experience as much for the ordinary filmgoer as the fanboys.

Despite his embrace of the technological and aesthetic opportunities of modern-day filmmaking, at the heart of all Abrams’ work is a yearning for connection – between his characters and with his audiences. Into Darkness sees people thrown into emotional turmoil, and the archetypally unemotional, such as Spock, forced to confront real human feeling. I note that at one point in the film Spock seems to give all men an “out” for not expressing themselves when he says “You are assuming that because I choose not to feel, I do not care”. Quinto says playing such a character, for whom emotion has to be pared down, presented both a challenge and a gifts. “Spock’s choice [not to feel] is reinforced by his genetic history and his culture and civilisation, and unfortunately human men don’t have the same shield to hide behind.” But there are various “triggers” in the story that bring about a need for Spock to confront aspects of himself he would have previous avoided. Certainly, these make for some of the more amusing, honest and touching moments in the film.

With all this touchy-feely stuff going on, viewers may be relieved to know there are still a few baddies to keep things dark. Notably, Benedict Cumberbatch, star of TV, stage and silver screen, appears as the (inevitably?) British-voiced villain, John Harrison. Cumberbatch would be a revelation if we didn’t already know he is incredible in everything he does, but it seems Abrams came late to the BC fan club, having a tape of Sherlock sent to him by his producer. Once he had watched it, however, the director knew he’d seen a star. “He’s off the charts”, Abrams enthuses. “He is so talented, and his work ethic I respect so much…His being around, everyone just had a slightly straighter back – it was amazing, you feel it, he’s like an alpha thespian, he comes in and you’re like “whoa”. He elevated every moment”.

Far from Hollywood-speak hyperbole, Abrams is right – Cumberbatch is utterly captivating, delivering a punch to what is already a terrific blockbuster adventure of the highest order. J. J. Abrams clearly takes his work seriously, and we can be glad he knows how to follow-up a hit with a wallop.

EPILOGUE:
At the end of our interview, Quinto apologised yet again for being snuffly so to put him at ease I told them both about Brandon Cronenberg’s new movie Antiviral, where in a not-too-distant future celebrity culture has gone so mad that fans purchase and are willingly infected with a celebrity’s illness. Both livened up on hearing this, and found it a fascinating conceit. I felt pretty chuffed to be able to tell people in the film industry about a movie they should see.

Nearly two weeks later, I’m still battling a cold.

Jurassic Park 3D

20 years after its initial release, some little capitalist up in Hollywood has thought to put Jurassic Park (the first one – the best one) into 3D, and yes, it’s totally worth seeing.

Good old Steven Spielberg. I rather think it’s a tribute to him and his decades of filmmaking prowess that this film doesn’t feel very dated, that the dinosaurs – part animatronic, part-SFX – are still genuinely frightening, and that you aren’t too distracted by remembering that, once upon a time, people thought Sam Neill was not only leading man material, but plausible as hot Laura Dern’s love interest.

A nostalgic wobble down memory lane is worth this two hours in the cinema, less because of the 3D (which is mostly fine, but debatably unnecessary) but more because of the delight to be had in seeing a lesser-known Samuel L. Jackson spouting lines like “Hold onto your butts” with one fag after another dangling from his lips. There’s Newman from Seinfeld causing all the trouble. The aforementioned Dern looking unbelievably young, commercialised and attractive with her bandy colt legs bookended by khaki shorts and tramping boots.

And of course there’s Jeff. Once upon a time Goldblum was very much the hunk, the ladies man, and here he is relieved of running-away-from-dinosaurs duty by getting injured early on and spending the rest of the movie lolling about with his shirt undone. Being tended to by a wizened old Dickie Attenborough. (Try as I might, I couldn’t quite see the young lad from Brighton Rock in the British actor’s face, but there is something satisfying about knowing the cinematic legend has such range.)

Probably my favourite revelation as a *cough* slightly more mature audience member, is that Bob Peck (who NONE of you will know unless you watched the old TV series Edge of Darkness yonks ago) has THE sexiest male legs I’ve seen in literally decades. Phwoar. Whatever became of Bob?

Of course, the one thing that has dated is the technology – my audience was rolling in the aisles as the young lass enthused over “the interactive CD-ROM!!” and the computer system that governs Jurassic Park, and thus its downfall, is inevitably hopelessly jurassic itself.

But overall, a revisit to the park that spawned a thousand theme-park rides is well worth the indignity of admitting you are old enough to have seen it in the cinema the first time round.