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Film REVIEWS
ANIMATION DR SEUSS’ THE LORAX (U) 86min ●●●●●
The latest adaptation to be plucked from Dr Seuss’ enduring oeuvre comes from the makers of Despicable Me, and it’s a visual delight; all beautifully-designed 3D animation, detailed sight gags and unique characters shaped in Seuss’ immediately recognisable style. If only similar care and attention had been paid to the story, which buries Dr Suess’ sharp and environmentally-conscious tale in a broad mish- mash of satire and sentiment. The film begins with an amusing introduction from the
Lorax himself. Perfectly voiced by Danny DeVito, he’s a little orange creature with a big yellow moustache who, so he tells us, ‘speaks for the trees’. The curtain then opens on Thneedville, a fantastical town where there are no real trees, and citizens gleefully pollute the environment while buying canned air from billionaire tycoon Mr O’Hare (Rob Riggle).
This scenario turns out to be a clunky way of padding out the real substance of the film, which emerges when youngster Ted (Zac Efron) ventures out of the town’s boundary walls in search of the brilliantly-named Once- ler, who is rumoured to know what happened to the trees. This Once-ler (Ed Helms), a typically Seussian character, retells his sorry past, how he met the Lorax but ignored his warnings and caused grave harm to the environment through his own greed.
It’s a convoluted tale, and it powers along at a punishingly intense pace, zipping so fast from one big moment to the next that the story is never given time to breathe or naturally develop. Even given that the film is aimed at younger viewers, a little more of a subtle approach would have gone a long way; as it is, everything from the satire to the songs is pounded home in sledgehammer style. It retains the unique oddness that makes Dr Seuss stories special, but only just. (Paul Gallagher) General release from Fri 27 Jul.
PRISON DRAMA KING OF DEVIL’S ISLAND (15) 116min ●●●●●
DOCUMENTARY NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT (12A) 90min ●●●●● DRAMA THE MAN INSIDE (TBC) TBC ●●●●●
There is a steely Dickensian sweep to King Of Devil’s Island, a grimly compelling dramatisation of true events from 1915. The notorious correctional facility for ‘maladjusted’ boys on Bastoy Island belongs to the pages of Oliver Twist. The desolate, wintry location off the coast of Norway is as atmospheric as the marshlands where Pip first encounters Magwitch in Great Expectations. Rank injustice, rebellion and the celebration of an indominatable human spirit are also the kind of themes that Dickens might have admired. It may sound old-fashioned but director Marius
Holst lends a fresh conviction to the familiar cliches of the prison melodrama. Seventeen-year-old Erling (Benjamin Helstad) arrives at Bastoy trailing rumours that he has killed a man. He quickly realises that he is trapped in a hell on earth where weary governor Hakon (Stellan Skarsgaard) maintains an unwavering belief in hard manual labour. Erling’s determination to escape and to rouse his fellow inmates into defiance makes him the hero of a slow-burning but satisfying drama that persuasively blends elements of Scum and Papillon. (Allan Hunter) ■ Selected release from Fri 27 Jul.
Still best known for the monumental 70s work The Battle of Chile, Patricio Guzman returns to the subject of his masterpiece. As the earlier film concentrated on the government of Allende and the Pinochet coup, so here Guzman goes to the Atacama desert and looks at both the astronomers exploring the galaxy at an observatory there, and also the families of those who lost loved ones who had been imprisoned in the former accommodation quarters of a disused mine, used during the Pinochet years as a camp. Sensitively drawing comparisons between the astrologers looking at the impossibilities of time through the telescope, and the families searching archeaologically through the past, this is a marvellously intelligent work of historical feeling and cosmic enquiry. Their discoveries, after all, are unequivocal delights. The discoveries of those searching for traces of their brothers or sisters, rather more troublesome. As one woman explains, she found part of her brother’s leg, the familiar shoe she could identify him by still attached to it. (Tony McKibbin) ■ GFT, Glasgow, Fri 20–Sun 22 Jul.
Filmmaker Dan Turner cut his teeth as an editor before graduating to writer/director status on last year’s little-seen horror film Stormhouse. Here, Turner has assembled an impressive supporting cast, including Peter Mullan, Michelle Ryan and Homeland’s David Harewood for this worthy but dull drama, mistakenly advertising itself as a thriller. Ashley ‘Bashy’ Thomas plays Clayton Murdoch, a young boxer living in a predictably grim Newcastle. His relationship with dour local goth Alexia (Ryan) doesn’t meet the approval of her father, Gordon (Mullan), who runs the local gym. Clayton’s murderous father Eugene (Harewood) is currently residing in jail, but the gangster lifestyle comes back to haunt Clayton when his brother is stabbed, and Clayton finds the desire for revenge hard to resist.
Cut from the same worn cloth as the equally forgettable Best Laid Plans, Turner’s film attempts to emulate the social concerns featured in the Boyz n The Hood genre, but merely comes off as po-faced and self-important; strong British independent cinema deserves an audience, but The Man Inside never lands a punch. (Eddie Harrison) ■ Selected release from Fri 27 Jul.
19 Jul–2 Aug 2012 THE LIST 57