Film Reviews

NEVER really having gained credibility beyond the box office for his two signature characters, Rocky and Rambo, Sylvester Stallone has been reprising both. It's testimony to the man that, either side of 60, he could still step into the ring for last year's Rocky Balboa and into the jungle for Rambo. Whether we want him to is another matter.

It's business as usual for John Rambo, though that business has always been complex. His first outing, First Blood, was actually a decent film with a commentary on the ill-treatment of Vietnam vets, in which Rambo harmed only those who provoked him first. But the subsequent killing sprees of the two Reagan-era sequels were accompanied by similarly high-minded scenarios that didn't wash - the sole reason people were going in droves was to see the bandana-clad Sly single-handedly take out armies of hundreds. Such visceral, one-man-against-the-world wish-fulfilment sets the pulse racing, however deeply reactionary it is.

The context of Rambo is the Burmese military dictatorship's very real ethnic cleansing of the Karen people, shown at the outset via some distressing newsreel footage. Human rights campaigners have praised Stallone for drawing attention to these atrocities. But, once the context is established, it's action and slaughter as usual, with the overriding message that the only way to end such bloodshed is through bloodshed.

The tone is set by a hilarious early exchange between Rambo, who has dropped out in Thailand and spends his time catching poisonous snakes, and meeteing missionaries who want him to take them up-river to Burma. "Are you taking any weapons?" asks the taciturn boatman. "Of course not," is the reply. "Then you're not changing anything."

Later, after the villainous soldiers have fed half of the missionaries to the pigs (literally) and Rambo is saving the rest, the missionary leader smashes the skull of one of his captors, before giving our hero a deeply disturbing nod of acknowledgement. By that time, we've seen the most diabolically graphic violence. You can argue that showing the killing of women and children makes a political point; but showing numerous "baddies" having their heads blown off by high-calibre rifles undermines it. Watching this film with a large audience is an odd experience, with people hollering their approval of ceaseless slaughter. I can only hope they were being ironic.

Be Kind Rewind is the name of a sweetly anachronistic video store in New Jersey, where DVDs only exist in whispers and customers are thin on the ground. With the bailiffs at the door, the owner (Danny Glover) takes a trip out of town, leaving the store in the hands of his assistant, Mike (Mos Def). And a new style of movie rental is born.

The catalyst is Mike's barking mad pal Jerry (Jack Black), who has been magnetised after a botched attempt to sabotage the local power plant: this time, when Mike browses the store, he toasts the videos. So when a customer demands to see Ghostbusters, Mike and Jerry decide to make their own version of the film, using a video camera, themselves as actors and whatever props they can find - hoping the old lady won't notice. Whether she does or not, the home-made mess is a hit. Driving Miss Daisy, King Kong and Men In Black all follow.

Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, The Science Of Sleep) taps into the Final Cut Pro/YouTube generation's desire to make their own films (and tinker with other people's) to produce an immensely charming film about both film-making and film-watching. Ironically, its nostalgia is not only for the movies, but for the sort of bricks and mortar community that this same globalised and techno-savvy age is fast leaving behind.

In his first English language film, director Wong Kar-Wai, the great Hong Kong-based director of such stylish and piquant romances as Chungking Express and In The Mood For Love, loses his voice entirely. My Blueberry Nights retains Wong's visual sheen, but so vapid is the script that, for the first time, there is no rapport between the images and the content. Thus the agile, sumptuous camerawork, reduced to mere show, just adds to one's irritation.

It doesn't help that singer Norah Jones lacks the acting chops to overcome her enervating lead character, a listless young woman whose answer to being dumped is to go on the road and passively observe barflies and losers; or that Jude Law, continuing his endless run of duds, kicks the film off with a terrible Mancunian accent from which it never recovers.

The film has nothing to say about its primary theme - loneliness - each scene involving little more than silence or self-pity. But two performers do, briefly, lift it out of the doldrums - Rachel Weisz, whose sultry, damaged alcoholic is right out of Tennessee Williams; and Nathalie Portman, as a fabulously feisty card shark. If only My Blueberry Nights was about one of them.

So many films make Australia seem like the most dangerous place in the world for a holiday. Usually it's outback serial killers who provide the tourist warning. In Black Water it's a crocodile, whose first appearance evokes the recently deceased Roy Scheider's great line from Jaws: "You're gonna need a bigger boat."

This isn't on the scale and accomplishment of Jaws. But, like the more recent shark movie, Open Water, it's based on a true story and is focused and effective. Three holidaymakers take a river tour into the mangrove swamps of Northern Australia. No sooner has their boatman broken out the beers than the boat is overturned, one of their number disappears and the others clamber into the trees that emerge out of the water - with no land in sight. Having whetted its appetite, the croc lies hidden below, waiting.

Apparently real crocs were used in the action. If that's the case, when the critter loses patience and jumps clean out of the water for a bite, what we see is all the more impressive and terrifying. Most of the time I couldn't watch.

These days, writes Alan Morrison, what most people think of as "independent" cinema - Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, Margot At The Wedding - only comes to a cinema near you thanks to a studio-assisted, multi-million dollar marketing budget that could finance the entire Scottish film industry for a decade. So it's encouraging and downright entertaining to see Gamerz, a true independent by any definition, share space in local multiplexes with Oscar contenders and effects-heavy blockbusters. That our home-grown talent doesn't embarrass itself in such stellar company is a wee cause for celebration in itself.

Written and directed by Glasgow-born Robbie Fraser, the film combines nerdy charm, playground humour and technical polish in a way that should make Hollywood executives choke on their stale slices of American Pie. University student Ralph (Ross Finbow) is more interested in Dungeons and Dragons role-playing than his science course, particularly when he meets goth beauty and elf wannabe Marlyn (Danielle Stewart). But when housing scheme bully Lennie (James Young), a young man who would rather have an Asbo than an O-Grade, elbows into the action, Ralph risks losing the girl and his game-keeper status.

Gamerz is like Lord Of The Rings remade for Chewin' The Fat, with recognisable Glasgow locations and a supporting cast of bams, neds and fannies. The semi-computerised fantasy game sequences, with silhouette figures set against black and white illustrations, wouldn't be out of place in a piece of Czech animation. It drags a bit in the second half, when the spurned romance plot line takes over but, crucially, the film understands when to sympathise with its lead character and when to gently mock. Finbow's performance fits perfectly. With a nose that would make Adrien Brody blush (those fish-eye lens close-ups deliberately don't do him any favours), this is one geek who will inherit the earth.

U2 3D, writes Barry Didcock, is a film that really does do what it says on the tin: rock band U2 in three dimensions, a concert film shot using nine pairs of 3D cameras at the River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires on the band's 2005 Vertigo tour. You still have to wear special glasses to watch it, but they're plastic instead of paper and look like Ray-Bans instead of something that fell out of a Christmas cracker. Even better, both eyes are the same colour. Accordingly the effect is startling, whether it's the end of Adam Clayton's bass that's swinging towards you or Bono's outstretched hand.

It's ironic, however, that these rock aristocrats should employ a cinematic technique that effectively democratises an event that at times resembles an evangelical prayer meeting. Viewed in 3D, Bono and crew are made to look utterly normal, four middle-aged men playing instruments and singing. Even better, the 3D means you concentrate on whatever is in the foreground, often the back of an audience member's head or a mike stand. In that sense, the film really does replicate the concert experience. As for the real stars, they are (in order of appearance) Larry Mullen Jr's drum kit - whether shot from above or from the front, the cameras make of it a spiky nest of chrome and copper - and the animated end credits. The songs aren't bad either, of course - and you don't need glasses to hear them.