Thoughts on... A Town Called Panic (2009)

A Town Called Panic (French: Panique au village), 2009.

Directed by Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar.
Featuring the voice talents of Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar, Jeanne Balibar, Bouli Lanners and Benoît Poelvoorde.


SYNOPSIS:

A trio of plastic toys embark on a series of surreal adventures.


Due to the predictability and unoriginality of a large proportion of cinema releases these days, it’s often not particularly difficult to predict the entire plot of a film having only seen its title and viewed its trailer. If a film’s advertising does manage to retain enough ambiguity regarding what Jennifer Aniston is going to do about her romantic predicament by the end of the movie, or whether or not Will Smith will be able to save the world from giant, man-eating, robotic, flying dinosaurs; it’s still safe to say that you’ll probably still have a relatively good understanding of a film’s concept before you head off to Cineworld to see it.

My viewing of A Town Called Panic, however, was one of those rare occasions where this was definitely not the case. I had literally no idea what to expect from the French/Belgian/Luxembourgian/ British stop-motion animation that apparently starred cheap toy figurines and looked quite a lot like the Cravendale milk adverts. I was none the wiser after viewing the intriguing, but slightly baffling trailer. Even watching a couple of the five minute episodes of the TV series on which the film is based just confused me further as much as I enjoyed them, I wasn’t sure that the adventures of the miniature, plastic characters could be efficiently stretched out to a full length feature film.

As usual, however, I was wrong. A Town Called Panic turned out to be unique, vibrant, funny and completely bonkers. It focuses on a cowboy, an Indian and a horse that share a house together in a small but chaotic village. One morning, Cowboy and Indian wake up to discover they’ve forgotten Horse’s birthday. In an attempt to make up for neglecting their friend’s special day they decide to build him a barbeque - which subsequently leads to them completely destroying their house before pursuing some thieving aqua-monsters to an underwater parallel universe, journeying across the arctic and travelling to the centre of the Earth. Horse, however, spends the entire adventure trying to deal with the more pressing issue of getting back to the village in time for a piano lesson with his particularly enticing music teacher.

Inevitably, the film is a bit relentless with regards to the amount of adventure that continuously hurtles towards the audience. On a number of occasions I found myself completely immersed in some ridiculous situation that the trio had got themselves into, but completely forgetting how they had managed to get there or what had been happening in the previous scene. You pretty much have to give into the fact that you have to take the film moment by moment as you watch the chaos unfold, and, considering that the characters get themselves into a number of scrapes and always emerge unscathed, that you’re witnessing a world where action and consequence don’t necessarily always come hand in hand.

This definitely isn’t a bad thing though and there is enough humour, charm, and visual wit to keep this rolling for seventy five minutes. Considering that we live in an age where computer animation is so advanced that you could convey all the complexity of any human emotion on an animated piece of cling film if you so desired, it’s pretty impressive that the relatively static and expressionless stop-motion figurines of A Town Called Panic can seem so vivacious. They all have individual personalities with their own, unique quirks which is testament to the voice actors’ and animators’ talents who bring these characters to life so vividly.

In terms of both style and content, A Town Called Panic is probably one of the most imaginative films you’ll see at the cinema for a while. It’s sharp, clever and proof that Pixar aren’t the only ones that can tell a good ol’ ‘toy story.’

Amy Flinders

Movie Review Archive

Thoughts on... Inception (2010)

Inception, 2010.

Directed by Christopher Nolan.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, Marion Cotillard and Michael Caine.


SYNOPSIS:

In a world where technology exists to enter the human mind a single idea can be the most dangerous weapon or the most valuable asset.


Corporate thief Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an expert in stealing information from where it is most unattainable, the inner-most depths of the human subconscious. Highly skilled in the practice of extraction, the process of entering an individual’s dream to steal their thoughts and secrets, Cobb’s life has become completely dominated by his intricate and dangerous career. Wanted by the police and unable to return home to his children, Cobb takes on one last job for wealthy business man Saito (Ken Watanabe), who promises to make it possible for Cobb to travel home should he and his team complete the mission successfully. However, Saito does not want to steal an idea from an individual’s mind, he wants to plant one. Cobb and his team believe this process, known as inception, to be near impossible; but driven by the desire to escape his life bound by a world of dreams and haunted by the guilt surrounding a past personal tragedy, Cobb delves into the target's subconscious in the hope he can finally return to reality.

Observing a group of fast-talking dream thieves as they wander in and out of each other’s subconscious minds whilst appearing in what seems to be reality in one moment, and then in an horizon-bending dream world the next, obviously involves mustering up more concentration than you normally would during an average trip to the movies. And this is ultimately a good thing. It’s refreshing to watch a contemporary action/sci-fi movie where you actually need to rub your brain cells together to really get to grips with the narrative.

Few would dispute that Nolan is a master of intellectually and laboriously piecing together unique, high concept narratives and forming visually stunning worlds in which he can play out his original ideas. Memento and The Prestige are testimony to this and Inception acts as further proof. However, ideas and spectacle (and a spectacle it surely is – we’re presented with weightless bodies fighting in a zero-gravity hotel corridor, cliffs crashing into the ocean and Paris folding in on itself) seem to be the driving force of the film, and so much effort is required from the audience to keep track of the barrage of new concepts being hurled at them, that initially it’s difficult to engage with the film on anything other than surface level.

Leonardo DiCaprio is relatively convincing as the intense, intellectual criminal whose strength is faltering under the unmanageable guilt he suffers after his world-class skills in extraction cost him the most important thing in his life. However, at first I found it difficult to devote much sympathy to Cobb’s plight, as any essence of feeling evoked by the characters seemed completely dwarfed by the enormity of the plot and the huge number of technicalities there were to keep track of.

Cobb has an assorted crew at his aid which faces the challenge of inserting an idea into the mind of Saito’s new business rival Robert Fischer Jnr (Cillian Murphy) that will subsequently lead to the failure of his family-owned company. His team include his right hand man Arthur, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who occasionally contributes to some of the more comic moments, but generally comes across as annoyingly and laughably smug . There’s Eames, a forger who can shape shift once inside a dream, an enjoyable performance by Tom Hardy that provides some much needed humour to lighten the generally solemn tone of the movie. Ellen Page plays Ariadne, the astutely eager, yet slightly naive young architect that Cobb hires to build the dream landscapes in which the team’s mission will take place. As the newest member of the squad, Ariadne’s function is essentially to stand alongside the audience, to have every elaborate detail of ‘inception’ explained to her via a number of arduous tutorials from Cobb which inevitably leads to some necessary, but quite clunky dialogue.

Surprisingly, the films length, a running time of nearly 150 minutes, actually works in its favour, as it gives you the time to digest what you’ve just seen and begin to build an appreciation for it. I think this is what essentially turns the film around and rescues it from being a flat, two dimensional effects-fest that’s too concerned with pummelling the audience with new ideas and facts, instead of investing in any kind of depth and sentiment. Of course, there can be nothing wrong in a good old flat, two-dimensional effects-fest if that’s all a film claims to be, but Inception gives the impression that it’s really trying to be about something more profound, about the real human reactions to this unreal, fantastical concept.

At first, I was too busy trying to stop my cerebral cortex from catching alight whilst keeping up with the narrative to detect any of this, and having an endless parade of information passing before me just left me feeling that the film was quite shallow. However, once Cobb’s lectures had fizzled out and the crew embarked on the mission inside Fischer’s subconscious, the narrative advanced into more of an intriguing story as opposed to a set of instructions that the audience were required to follow. After a while I found myself settling into the world of Inception, and it felt easier to emotionally engage with the characters and their personal plights. I wasn’t completely blown away by it, but what essentially started out as just a clever idea expressed against a backdrop of slow-mo explosions and cool bendy buildings eventually grew into something a little more meaningful, even if it did take the entire two and a half hours to get there.

Amy Flinders

Movie Review Archive

Related:

Theatre of the Mind: A Christopher Nolan Profile
Short Film Showcase - Doodlebug (1997)
Movies... For Free! Following (1998)

Thoughts on... Cop Out (2010)

Cop Out, 2010.

Directed by Kevin Smith.
Starring Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan, Sean William-Scott and Adam Brody.


SYNOPSIS:

When a veteran NYPD cop's rare baseball card - his only hope to pay for his daughter's upcoming wedding - is stolen, he recruits his partner to track down the thief, a memorabilia-obsessed gangster.


Two buddies and long-term cop partners Jimmy (Willis) and Paul (Morgan) get suspended without pay from a case after proving that their policing skills are perhaps a little too maverick for their own good. This throws Jimmy into a dilemma as he has promised to pay for his daughter’s upcoming wedding and needs to raise the money through other means before his daughters smug, cash-flashing step-father (Jason Lee) finances the wedding himself. He decides to sell a rare baseball card but his plan is immediately thwarted after the card is stolen by a loud-mouth mugger (William-Scott) and sold to a notorious Mexican gangster with a penchant for baseball memorabilia. Jimmy and Paul set out on a mission to retrieve the baseball card whilst simultaneously entangling themselves within the messy world of the gangsters they are trying to track down.

Kevin Smith usually exercises a talent of being able to combine gross out humour with funny, likeable characters and a plot that usually has some point, or at least some heart to it. Unfortunately, Cop Out seems largely devoid of any such talent. It’s the first film that Smith has directed but not written, and I think this might be the main, even if it’s not the only problem with the movie. It boisterously crashes through its storyline without giving much time for any of the events to actually mean a great deal. I’m not saying that each audience member should be desperately longing with all their heart and soul for Jimmy to get his baseball card back, but in Smith’s other films – for example his last effort Zack and Miri Make a Porno – the leads are easy to warm to and you usually find yourself rooting for them pretty quickly.

I think the absence of this in Cop Out is not only down to the heavy handed plot and largely poor dialogue but also due to the fact that the actors just aren’t doing a particularly good job, or perhaps just haven’t been directed that well. Some of the characters are cartoonish and exaggerated to a point that’s beyond humorously appropriate and just becomes irritating. It doesn't take long before you find yourself wishing that Tracy Morgan’s wacky, screechy, wise-cracking Paul was bound and gagged in a padded cell and on a heavy dose of Ritalin, instead of still bull-dozing around on the screen in front of you. And it seems as though Jason Lee only needs to have a long black moustache to twiddle between his fingers to complete his relatively unconvincing performance as the uber-conceited step-father. Other actors swing in the opposite direction and spend the film teetering on the edge of the persona they are trying to take on. Bruce Willis is supposed, I think, to be playing the slightly cooler, more cynical, but still fairly incompetent, one of the pair – but ends up impersonating a wardrobe that can occasionally fire a gun.

Despite what I’ve said so far, the film isn’t all that bad. It’s still vaguely entertaining in parts and there are one or two laughs to be had, although they aren’t exactly rib-cracking moments that will stay with you long after you’ve left the cinema. There were several occasions in the film that had the potential to be funny but were let down by lazy writing. For example; at the very beginning of the film Paul interrogates a suspect using various famous lines from well-known movies, a scene that could have been quite amusing if it weren’t for the awkward and clunky cuts to Jimmy watching behind the dark glass, who helpfully names each film for us like an IMDB robot. Later on in the film, Paul rambles on to Jimmy for a while about his bowel movements – a speech that Smith may have been able to bring some humour to if he had written it himself – but essentially just comes across as an annoying man talking annoyingly about his annoying poo.

If you literally just want to have something in front of face that fills an hour and a half then perhaps Cop Out would fit the bill, as regardless of what I’ve said I can’t really accuse it of being boring - there’s so much going on it actually manages to be fairly engaging even if only on a superficial level. However I believe that there will probably be quite a few Kevin Smith fans out there that are going to be disappointed. Hopefully next time he’ll stick to telling his own stories instead of other people's.

Amy Flinders

Movie Review Archive