Reviews
SCI-Fl HORROR
(15) 94 min 00
For the uninitiated. Doom is a hugely popular videogame pitching the player against an endless swarm of hideous beasts. It was revolutionary and helped the ‘first person shooter' genre become a staple for gamers.
Taking Doom 3 as its loose basis. this film has dark and bloody events taking place on Mars. so a heavily armed rapid response team is sent to investigate. Led by Sarge (Dwayne ‘the Rock' Johnson). they head to Mars. where John Grimm ‘Reaper' (Karl Urban) meets up with his sister (Rosamund Pike) and members of the team are picked off by a series of massively deformed genetic mutations.
The action interspersed with gooey gore never quite makes up for the over-editing and scientific psychobabble that drives the story. But its biggest failing is taking itself too seriously, desperately crying out for a dash of humour. The much-heralded FPS sequence captures the essence of the source material. lifting the closing moments to new levels of adrenaline pumping cheap thrills while the Rock and Urban make likeable heroes even if no real empathy is ever established. (Henry Nonhmore)
I General release from 2 Dec, see Play, page 7 09, for feature.
BLACK COMEDY KEEPING MUM (15) 110min O.
Maggie Smith as a deranged killer. Kristin Scott Thomas as the philandering wife of a parish vicar. Patrick Swayze as her voyeuristic golf- pro lover . . . if nothing else. writer/director Niall White Noise Johnson's comedy Keeping Mum should win a prize for original casting. Of course. Johnson — who co-wrote this offbeat oddity with Richard Russo — goes and spoils it all by casting Rowan Atkinson as the cuckolded man of the cloth. a role he could play in his sleep (and. in fact. seems to here).
It is set in the idyllic hamlet of Little Wallop and this is exactly the impact the film makes in what is an uncomfortable mix of family values and black comedy. The film focuses on
WILDLIFE DOCUMENTARY
MARCH OF THE PENGUINS
(U) 85min 0..
The film that has left rival Hollywood executives scratching their heads - while those at distributor Warner Brothers must be in pain from all the mutual back slapping - March of the Penguins has been the success story of the year. It’s something of a mystery that this wildlife documentary has raked in so much cash: it has already taken $75 million in the US. After all, as good as it is, it’s nothing you haven’t seen on the
Discovery Channel before.
Maybe it’s the chance to hear the soothing tones of narrator Morgan Freeman as he fleshes out this story of the Emperor Penguins’ annual attempt to bring new life into the freezing climes of the Antarctica. It might just be his finest performance yet. As his words cocoon you in cotton wool, Freeman manages to convey the sentimental Jordan Roberts-penned narration (‘This is a love story,’ he intones) without bursting out laughing. By all accounts, though, the English version is a darn sight better than French director Luc Jaquet’s original screenplay, which had the penguins’ internal thoughts vocalised by the likes of Charles Berling and Romane Bohringer.
Of course, it’s the footage that counts in a film of this nature, and March of the Penguins - shot under some of the most extreme conditions in the
world - doesn’t disappoint. From the creatures sliding across the ice on their stomachs to the sight of them passing the newly-laid egg from female to male as part of a complex tag-team operation designed to
keep their unborn young alive, Jaquet’s film is there at every stage of this
torturous reproduction cycle. In the end, it’s the spirit of these creatures - blindly trudging through the worst conditions imaginable to perpetuate their species - which leaves you on a high. (James Mottram).
I General release from Fri 9 Dec.
housekeeper Grace (Smith). who has previously been convicted of a crime of passion. Unwittingly hired by vicar's wife Gloria Goodfellow (Scott Thomas). who has been driven to her affair by an asexual husband more concerned with writing a speech titled ‘God's Mysterious Ways' than satisfying her. Grace sets out to help the fractured family in ways that aren't strictly law-abiding. Clearly Johnson and Russo would dearly love Keeping Mum to be an Ealing Comedy for the 21 st century — The Lady Killer if you like — but their film possesses neither the guile nor the guts.
(James Mottram)
I General release from Fri 2 Dec.
DRAMA TICKETS (15) 115min 0000
On a train journey from central Europe to Rome an old businessman (Carlo Delle Penne) contemplates a new love and the weight of commitment. and a young man (Filippo Trojano) tolerates the burdensome and testy general's wife (Silvana De Santis) he is chaperoning. On the same train are three Celtic Supporters (Martin Compston. William Ruane and Gary
Maitland) on the way to a match. who are forced to realise that there really are more important in life things than football.
Asking veteran filmmakers to contribute to a feature made up of many short films is hardly the most original idea and. as New York Stories and the Ten Minutes Older films have shown us. it can be a risky. patchy venture. That is not. however. what is going on here. Thankfully the brief that Iran's Abbas Kiarostami. the UK's Ken Loach and Italy's Ermanno Olmi are working to on Tickets is to work together on each other's films in order to make a cohesive movie comprising three converging storylines. The result is something of consistently high quality while being reflective of these artists' cinematic style and thematic concerns.
Though consistently watchable and
Name Abbas Kiarostami Born Tehran. Iran, 1940
Background Worked as a graphic designer after graduating from university with a Fine Arts degree. He then went to work at the Centre for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, where he started a film section. Finally in 1970 he made his first short film and has been a pivotal figure in world cinema ever since. He is loved by everyone, especially fellow filmmakers Martin Scorsese and JeaneLuc Godard (‘Cinema began with DW Griffith and ends with Kiarostami,’ Godard has said). In 1997 he was awarded the UNESCO Fellini-Medal in Gold for his achievements in film, freedom. peace and tolerance. He now lives in Paris where he is a professor at filmmaking mecca La Femis.
What’s he up to now?
Directing one of the three stories in Tickets with our own Ken Loach and Italy's Ermanno Olmi. Away from the camera he is subjecting himself to questions from Werner Herzog biographer Paul Cronin for Kiarostami on Kiarostami (out next yeah.
What he says about his mother ‘I have always been surrounded by energetic women. for example my mother is an energetic woman. In Western countries you often think Persian women are not so. but that is not true. Of course it is also the fault of Iranian directors to show women as such weak personalities, which is not true. At least. all the women I know are very strong. especially my mother.‘ Interesting fact The first time he tried to get into the art college he failed the entrance exam and spent the next year working as a traffic cop while taking night classes in painting.
I Tickets is at GFT, Glasgow, Fri 2— Thu 8 Dec only and Fi/mhouse. Edinburgh, Fri 9—Thu 75 Dec only. See review, left.
intriguing. it is the Paul Laverty- scripted final strand (Kiarostami and Olmi wrote their own sections) that really lingers in the mind. for the simple reason that compaSSIon humanity and travelling British football fans are combinations that should not work but really do here. An impressive unity from three of the greatest. (Paul Dalel I GET. Glasgow from Fri 2— Thu 9 Dec. Fi/rnhouse. Edinburgh fro/n Fri
9— Thu 75 Dec. See profile. above.
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