No. 357 : Wonka (2023)

 

Wonka at the IMDb

 

The original ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’, is the same age as me, having been released in 1971, as was I. We have both endured well and become well established favourites, with Willy possibly having more memes than myself.

I aways liked the film and even had time for the Tim Burton remake, but I wasn’t in any rush to catch up on this prequel which I felt, based on the marketing, seemed a bit slight and sanitised compared to the original. I did however dive into the figurative chocolate river when it was offered up as Christmas viewing on Sky at a family gathering.

 

I sat through the whole thing and have to say it was better than I thought. Not great by any standard, but a mild distraction or passable confection, if you will.

 

The film opens with Wonka, already in his trademark hat, with a few coins to his name which he manages to piss away in the forgettable opening song. He gains lodgings at Olivia Colman’s guest house – huge mistake- and soon finds himself in indebted servitude with some fellow guests including Jim Carter out of ‘Drunk in Time’.

 

Wonka has ambitions to open a sweet shop but is thwarted at every turn by three chocolate factory owners played in part by Matt Lucas and Johnston off ‘Peep Show’ who is clearly trying to execute ‘Project Zeus’ on the unsuspecting townsfolk. They are aided by a bribeable police man who gets fatter in every scene he’s in due to his chocolate addiction.

 

There are a couple of side quests including the origins of Wonka’s sassy sidekick and a mysterious present gifted to Wonka by his now dead mother which he’s never been able to open. With this being a prequel, the end result is never really in doubt but there are a few decent moments to make the ride to the destination worthwhile.

 

I would say that the songs are instantly forgettable, which was a shame as I had higher hopes when I saw Neil Hannon of The Devine Comedy was the songwriter. I think the film suffered by including a couple of songs from the original which put the new ones in the shade.

 

I did like Hugh Grant’s turn as an Oompa Loompa although the CGI was his scenes was obvious and distracting. Indeed, the use of CGI in general was poor with Wonka firing chocolates and sweets out of his hat at every turn – I get that the film is a fantasy but it just looked fake and a pale shadow of the practical effects from its predecessor.

 

Timothee Chalamet was decent as Wonka, but he didn’t have much of a singing voice nor the presence of someone like Gene Wilder to make the role memorable. There were recognisable faces down the cast list which is always fun, and there were plenty of call backs and sight gags to keep you on your toes. I liked the suggestion of from where the golden tickets idea came from, and the scenes with the late mother were sweet. Pro-tip though – if your dying mother leaves you a gift, just open the bloody thing! Pay attention Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 1 – this applies to you too!

Wonka is a decent family offering but I’d be surprised if it has half the legs of its predecessor, although I can see further instalments coming in the franchise – hopefully ‘Grampa Joe: Dole Cheat’ is up next! 

 

Best Bit:  Opening the long-held gift

 

‘W’ Rating 14/23

No.349 : Welcome to Marwen (2018)

 

Welcome to Marwen at the IMDb

It’s strange how you don’t review any films about a person living a fantasy life and then two come along at once.  Our previous effort ‘Who You Think I Am’ concerned a woman inventing an online personality, this one is about a man who invents a whole world so that he can escape his demons.

I was surprised when this film was offered up on Netflix as I’d never heard of it before despite being a fan of its star, Steve Carell. It’s also directed by ‘Back to the Future’ helmer Robert Zemeckis so it seemed strange that it wasn’t better known, by me at least.

Having seen the film it’s easy to see why the film sunk without trace at the box office. There is a lot to like, but tonally it’s a mess and there are long scenes that are difficult to watch through embarrassment, awkwardness or just plain boredom.

The film is based on a true story of an artist named Mark who was severely beaten by a gang of yobbos who didn’t like his proclivity of wearing hi-heels. He loses his memory and ability to draw and relies on friends and a carer to get through the day. He also retreats into a fantasy world where he becomes his action figure ‘Hogie’ and fights the Nazis in his own model town of Marwen.

The film goes into complete ‘Toy Story’ mode to show Hogie’s adventures which mirror the events of Mark’s own life. His attackers are the Nazis and his troupe of lady resistance fighters are his friends and a favourite porn star.

Mark’s attackers are due to be sentenced and Mark has to speak at their sentencing hearing to ensure the impact they caused on his life is recognised and they receive the appropriate jail time. He also has an upcoming show for the photos he takes of his models, with both events adding to his stress. Things look up however  when a new neighbour, Nicol, moves in and takes an interest in Mark’s hobby.

Will he find peace and love and can Hogie defeat both the Nazis and the Belgian witch who haunts his endeavours?

This was a worthy film that showed the bravery of the main character in surmounting the obstacles placed before him. I can’t say I enjoyed it though. The narrative device of having the toys acting out World War 2 scenes that ran parallel with Mark’s own life was misjudged and took you in and out of the real story with monotonous regularity.

The animation was excellent, with the real cast being morphed into their action figure avatars. I liked how things like the buttons and  zips being too big for the tiny clothes were shown along with their articulated joints. The toys scenes went on too long for me, with a time travel episode lasting ten minutes during which my attention waned. I think you need to have either a kids’ film or a moving redemption drama - to have both squeezed into one film made it a hard watch.

Carell was good, not ‘Foxcatcher’ good, but he did well with difficult material. He must have thought another Oscar nomination was in the offing when he got the script for a brain damaged transvestite, but unfortunately his turn wasn’t enough to keep all the plates spinning. For your money you also get a single scene with ‘Russian carer’ Brienne of Tarth who was dreadful, and the chubby nurse off ‘Nurse Jackie’ who was the chubby friend.

There were good sequences in the film and it was a triumph of the human spirit that deserved to be told. Some scenes were very difficult to endure however, like when Mark had his breakdowns or proposed marriage and there was constant yelling and screaming to endure.

It must have been a hard film to market with the opening animated sequence having a couple of swears so that we knew that this wasn’t for the kids. I’m not sure who it was for really, as it covers a few genres but doesn’t really succeed in any.

A brave effort, but not something I’d recommend or consider as entertainment.

Best Bit :  Trial Speech ‘W’ Rating 10/23

No.344 : West of Hell (2018)

West of Hell at the IMDb

 

All aboard Rick & Morty’s Story Train for this trip to Disappointment with stops at Nonsensical Parkway, Confusion Central and bypassing Narrative Structure and Illumination Broadway.

We set off on a midnight train to Atlanta. At first it seems like a regular train with a bunch of murderous and mysterious characters, but there is more afoot that initially meets the eye. The train carriages themselves are set up like well appointed drawing rooms so that’s probably your first clue that things are not what they seem - there are no discarded copies of ‘Metro’ lying around and Baz hasn’t tagged the entire carriage.

We meet Jericho, who in another life was ‘Candyman’. He’s an ex-slave on a mission to kill all former slave owners and their first born children. One such child who is on-board is Annie, who has engaged the bodyguard services of ex-civil war soldier Roland. Candyman and Ro-land come to blows early on, but retreat to different carriages when things don’t go to plan - bullets don’t seem to be working for some reason.

We meet some other passengers, such as one chap who has a penchant for strangling prostitutes and another lady who has her ex-slave employed as her maid. They all have a past to hide but secrets are slowly revealed when they are joined by a shape shifter. As you have probably guessed things moved away from a conventional western when this chap appears, and employs ropey special effects to become each of our character’s dark secret.

After their pasts are laid bare the gang decide that the train they are on is on its way to Hell. Is there anything they can do to save their souls? Well, Lance Henriksen is in the last carriage and given he’s the Devil there may be some deals to be done…

This wasn’t a terrible film but it doesn’t have much to recommend it either. The production values were pretty low despite a couple of familiar faces such as the ‘jump to conclusions’ guy out of ‘Office Space’ making a brief appearance complete with unconvincing diabolical laughter. The lighting was poor in places with it hard to make out the action, and one character, who has a bag over his head, is virtually unintelligible. 

From the start I thought the twist was that they were on the road (tracks) to Hell and this proved correct - to be fair they didn’t really dress it up as anything else, so it wasn’t even a surprise never mind a twist. Lance was a pretty laid back Devil and offered little in the way of menace. As is standard, he offered the characters deals to get out of their predicament - terrible, lop sided deals! We did get a chance to see some of our characters in flashback and were able to decide for ourselves who was worthy of the visit to the flames and who was a victim of circumstance. Some were evil and went down that path whilst others made noble sacrifices having come to terms with their crimes. There were no real surprises in anyone’s arc with redemption liberally sprinkled about whilst the real baddies got their just desserts.

There were a couple of decent ideas in play, but the film was limited by its scope and budget. The Devil must have better things to do with his time as did Lance who clearly only spared half a day for the production.

The film only lasts about 80 minutes and the story would have been better used as an episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’ or the like rather than a half baked full feature.

You will see a lot worse and there was enough to garner half marks although that hooded guy, whose dialogue I couldn’t make out a word of,  cost them a chunk on his own. Overall it’s not a train to catch but if you find yourself on-board, you may as well stay on for the predictable and undemanding conclusion.

Best Bit : What’s this noose doing here?  'W' Rating 12/23

No.339 : Wildling (2018)

 

Wildling at the IMDb

Here’s a film that flirts with a few genres but ultimately is a bit unsatisfying and undefined.

Tiny tot Anna lives in a cabin in the woods. ‘Daddy’ brings her food but she’s not allowed to leave lest ‘the wildlings’ get her. They are described as children eating savages and Anna has to make do with peeking out her window throughout her childhood. As she enters puberty and has her first period ‘Daddy’ starts to give her injections that make her sick. Eventually she begs to be allowed to go to ‘the better place’ and ‘Daddy brings in his gun. He’s not up to the task and decides to shoot his own head off instead.

The now teen Anna is discovered and coaxed back to civilisation by Liv Tyler’s policewoman character, who’s more of a social worker than a cop. Strangely the social services let Liv take Anna home where she meets Liv’s brother, Ray.

The film then shifts from what appeared to be a kidnap and abuse story to one of someone trying to integrate into society having never experienced it before - a bit like ‘Encino Man’. We get the usual bitchy girls and school bullies and soon Anna blossoms and goes to a cool party with Ray where she gets a bit of kissy face - but wait! Her teeth start falling out and when she runs off to the woods she rips the throat out of a would be rapist.

It’s soon clear that we are in the realms of the supernatural with Anna being one of the wildlings that she was once taught to fear. As she slowly transforms she has to deal with hunters, her admirer and ‘Daddy’ who it turns out is as good at suicide as he was at parenting.

I liked the first hour of this film but it lost it’s way in a haze of ropey CGI effects and confused character development. It reminded me of the TV show ‘Grimm’ with supernatural goings on running parallel with everyday life. The town has a man with a wolf’s head hat walking about with no issues as well as a well armed posse of wildling hunters who seem to have a free rein to shoot up and burn anything they like. No wonder as sheriff Liv Tyler is as effective as an umbrella in a hurricane.

Bel Powley was pretty good in the main role of Anna, with her bulbous eyes and bewildered looks selling the character’s introduction into the real world. She was let down with the transformation effects which gave her a hairy back and a bad manicure. Later on she went full wolf, and it looked more animated than Wile E Coyote.

There were probably three films boiled into one here, with the first of the locked up girl being the most interesting although somewhat reminiscent of ‘Room’. Later on the high school element was a bit overly familiar with the transformation and hunt portion being faintly daft.

All in all it was a decent and entertaining offering with a few wrong foots sprinkled about to keep you guessing.

Best Bit : Opening 20 minutes ‘W’ Rating 14/23

No.178 : Wrath of the Titans (2012)

Wrath of the Titans at the IMDb

 Off to the olden days now as we take a look at this sequel to the remake of ‘Clash of the Titans’ - they don’t make them like that any more - oh wait they do. I haven’t seen the original remake probably due to it’s lack of Harry Hamelin or indeed a ‘W’ initial.

We don’t get much in the way of a recap, but it seems 10 years have passed since that film when Perseus slayed the Kraken and saved the day. He is now a widower and father to a young son. Despite being the son of Zeus he is living the simple life of a fisherman, so we are in for a dull film. But wait! Stuff is happening!

Zeus, played by a disinterested Liam Neeson, pops by to see the grandson and warn of bad omens. It seems that people have wised up and stopped praying to the Gods lessening their powers. The bad guys are taking advantage of this and plan to destroy the world. After getting the brush off from his idiot son, Zeus heads off to the underworld to have a chat with his brother Hades, played by an even more disinterested Ralph Fiennes. Bad mistake! Hades has his own plans and takes Zeus prisoner at the behest of their father Chronos - it’s like the Jeremy Kyle Show in that family.

The ominous portents prove truthful when, with their added Zeus powers, the bad guys unleash the titans - basically a pile of CGI monsters. These attack Perseus’ village and he soon has to don the leather chaps that signify he’s off to battle - or The Blue Oyster Club - it’s not made clear. The rest of the film is basically a quest as he gathers some support from the lovely Rosamund Pike, a poor man’s Russell Brand (if such a thing is possible) and Bill Nighy who hams it up horribly.

Soon our heroes are in the underworld and ready to free Zeus who has been connected to a Santa making machine that’s given him a long white beard. Can the siblings get together and gang up on Dad before no one believes in them anymore and condemns them to a dusty fate? Will Perseus remain at his nets with his son or will the passing of the thunderbolt tell him there is more to life than haddock?

This was a very much by the numbers swords and sandals epic and although it had a raft of stars and some decent action the whole thing was far less than the sum of its parts. Sam Worthington, late of ‘Avatar’, didn’t hack it as Perseus for me with his Aussie accent most jarring in the ancient world. He didn’t impress as the reluctant hero and his character’s arc where he went from fisherman to action hero to reluctant heir didn’t convince.

Liam and Ralph were obviously just in it for the pay cheques and you could sense their embarrassment as they apologetically delivered their laughable dialogue. Better was Rosamund, who although miscast as an Amazon warrior queen, did look most fetching in her leather mini skirt.

The bests bits were the action sequences with the opening and closing battles good fun. Both were totally pointless in the course of the film but you can’t see enough eight legged monsters getting a stick in the eye as far as I’m concerned. Despite a seemingly massive budget some bits were decidedly shoddy with a totally unconvincing flying horse only beaten in the crappy stakes by some fake looking Cyclops giants and some ropy wire work.

I’m not sure of the market this film was aimed at - there were long passages of dull chat with occasional CGI battles thrown in to keep the tempo up. The violence was cartoon at best and apart from Rosamund’s skirt there wasn’t any sexiness either.

Overall ‘Wrath of the Titans’ had a few watchable moments but ultimately it was a pointless exercise, unless you have ‘O’ level classics on Monday.

Best Bit : Oh me skirt keeps flapping up.
‘W’ Score 13/23

No. 156 : Willard (2003)

Willard (2003) at the IMDb

For a special treat, seeing as you’ve been good, the ‘W’ Movie Reviews will feature the same title for two days running. Aren’t you glad you weren’t bad now? I’d seen ‘Willard’ around the time of it’s release in 2003 but had no idea it was a remake. But it is following from the original which came out in 1971, a bit like myself. The two reviews will show the differences between the two films and declare the winner in the all comers Willard championship.

This film (and possibly the other I haven’t watched it yet) concerns the lonely Willard Stiles who lives alone with his elderly mother following the death of his father (in a nice touch all the pictures of the dead Dad show the actor Bruce Davison who played Willard in the original). He works for his father’s former business partner Mr Martin (played by the great R Lee Emery - the drill sergeant out of ‘Full Metal Jacket’) and doesn’t get along well with his boss who’d have him out if it weren’t for an agreement with his dead dad.

One night Willard’s mother hears scurrying in the basement and dispatches her boy to buy traps. The rats are too smart for the traps but the following night one gets stuck on a glue patch. As he’s about to kill it Willard feels an attachment to the rat and names it ‘Socrates’. Word gets around the rat community and pretty soon Willard’s basement is knee deep in rodents, including the massive Ben. The rats are more obedient than you’d expect and soon Willard has them trained to do his bidding. An early attack on his bosses car gives him a new will to live but that’s short-lived when his mother dies and he starts getting hassle from Ben who challenges his authority.

Added to his woes is the loss of his job and after contemplating suicide he decides he’s be better off paying his boss a visit with a few thousands of his pals. With the boss suitably chewed Willard panics and tries to kill off his former friends but the rats are legion and won’t go quietly. Willard has a small chance at a normal life with his one female friend from the office but it may be that he’s already gone too far down the road of madness.

I really like this film, with it’s creepy overtones and malevolent rats. Crispin Glover (George McFly in ‘Back To the Future’) give a cracking performance in the lead role and I doubt anyone else could have pulled it off as well. A lot of his screen time is spent talking to rats and he does it so well that you start to buy into the different personalities that he confers upon the rodents. His interaction with people is like his wimpy McFly role and it’s only towards the end that he really lets rip.

The boss played by R lee Emery is a great character although his demise was poorly timed - let the man look at his smutty web sites in peace. The rats themselves do wonders with them seeming really friendly and appealing one miniute and the next they’re a peeling the skin off someone’s face!

The general mood of the film is dark and gothic and if it weren’t for the absence of an annoying Danny Elfman score you’d swear it was a Tim Burton film. That said it’s hard to see how you can do a film about a loner who trains killer rats to be anything other than dark.

There are plenty of light moments however and there is enough to keep your interest throughout. I wasn’t really convinced by Willard’s change of heart that saw him gassing a lot of his pals but I guess if you buy an unhinged character you’ve got to go with it.

All in all this is a real gem of a movie that the original will have to do well to match. It does have Ernest Borgnine as the boss so that’s a good start. See you next time for more ratty fun.

Best Bit : Boss reaches For Mouse
‘W’ : Rating 20/23

No. 135 : Wizards of the Demon Sword (1991)

Wizards of the Demon Sword at the IMDb

Some people will tell you that a film can be so bad that it’s good. These people, let’s call them wankers, say that if you watch with a sense of ironic detachment a great time can be had laughing at crappy special effects and funny costumes. Not surprisingly I don’t subscribe to this school of thought and if something is a pile of crap that’s as far as it goes from me.

With this introduction I’m sure it will come as no surprise when I say that ‘Wizards of the Demon Sword’ is the poorest effort I’ve seen in some time. The film comes from Troma studios who pride themselves on low budget, offbeat titles such as ‘The Toxic Avenger’ and ‘The Class of Nuke ‘Em High’ but for my money they are better suited to frat style comedies such as ‘The First Turn On’ where their low budgets are less obvious.

This film opens with a warrior saving a busty wench from some bandits. After hearing her sob story and viewing her cleavage our hero agrees to help her in her quest. The titular sword is in the hands of some bad guys and if they figure out how to use it humanity will be enslaved or something. We also follow the trials of a young slave girl who may hold the key to unlocking the sword’s mystical powers.

The plot here is pretty much your standard sword and sorcery quest. The bare narrative is fleshed out with occasional tussles all of which are very poorly choreographed - that 'sword under the arm' death always looks so fake. To lend the film some epic scale dinosaurs are also involved but not in any way that involves interaction with the actors. For example the hero shouts ‘Look over there’ and we cut to some ropey footage of some plastic monsters eating each other. The film stock and back grounds are so different that it’s obvious that old footage is being used which could be OK if the monsters didn't look so poor in the first place.

The acting is terrible throughout with fluffed and stuttered lines kept in. The lead is as wooden as a cricket bat and although better, the lead female struggled uttering her dialogue which to be fair is awful. The only name actor in sight is Lawrence Tierney who played Nice Guy Eddie’s father in ‘Reservoir Dogs’. His part as a slave trader is OK and played for laughs but his delivery is poor and clearly he has no gift for comedy.

The dark realm where the film is set looks suspiciously like that desert outside LA which doubles as every planet in the universe in Star Trek. The sets are terrible too with the bad guy’s castle needing only the ‘Lego’ trademark to complete the look. I was also annoyed by the shrieking, jangly score and the clearly glued on beard sported by the wise man.

Of course it’s cheap and has the look of an amateurish student film, but the lack of a budget shouldn't excuse some of the worst acting, script and costumes you’ll ever see. A real 100%, 24 carat dud.

Beast Bit : Slave Girl’s Selling Points Revealed
‘W’ score : 2/23

No.99 : What Dreams May Come (1998)

What Dreams May Come at the IMDb

Robin Williams stars in this ambitious and somewhat sentimental drama about a man searching the realms of heaven and hell for his lost wife.

The film opens with Williams, laughably youthed up with a floppy wig, boating on Lake Geneva. He bumps paddles and later uglies with the lovely Annabella Sciorra, and the pair marry before the opening credits have finished. They soon produce two boys but their idyllic life is shattered when the two lads die in an off screen car accident. Williams devotes himself to his medical work but is himself killed by a crashing car five years later.

His spirit is at first lost, visiting his family and own funeral, but he is soon guided to the afterlife by Cuba Gooding Jnr who is the youthful form of an aged doctor who had mentored Williams in his formative years. At first Heaven is great and he is reunited with his sons and family dog in a realised painting done by his wife. Things sour however when he learns that his grief stricken wife has killed herself and has been cast into Hell.

Not taking this lying down Williams seeks out Max Von Sydow who knows the way to Hell and offers to pitch in. The task is seemingly pointless however as memories are wiped in Hell and unless he can convince her to leave they both must live in the devilish realm for all eternity.

This was a really interesting film chock full of great ideas and stunning visuals and only a sentimentality overload prevented it from attaining ‘great’ status. The best part of the film is easily the visions of Heaven and Hell. It is quickly established that heaven is whatever you want it to be and transport is simply a matter of closing your eyes. With these two rules locked down the director has free rein to create lavish and stunning worlds, a task he completes with some relish. Williams initial Heaven , a living painting, was captured to great effect with puddles of paint lying around and painted houses becoming fully interactive three dimensional places.

His later journeys had a more ’classic’ Heaven vibe with people flying around and not a lump of dog shit to be seen. The best parts were however reserved for Hell with a cracking sea of white bodies dragging down their ship followed by a field of heads as far as you could see all begging for assistance and denying the crimes that had cast them there.

The plot was pretty straight forward although there were more changing faces than the first ‘Mission Impossible’ film to keep you guessing. Heaven allows you to take whatever form you wish and the message of ‘it’s what underneath that counts’ is certainly hammered home as our preconceptions are dashed as soon as they’re formed, almost every time.

The performances weren’t great with the always sentimental and blubbery Williams on standard form as was Von Sydow who was still doing his Chief Judge Fargo from ‘Judge Dredd’. Some of the love dripping dialogue was a bit hard to take with the love lasting for all eternity message the main theme for the film. At nearly two hours it is a big ask of the audience to put up with the sobbing Williams for that long, but the cracking sets and effects more than compensate.

I imagine this film with its idealised visions of the afterlife will offer a lot of comfort to the bereaved and it did well to stay away from a religious tone. It didn’t give me the shivers in the way a film like ‘Ghost’ did at the end but, although predictable, the happy ending was no less welcome for that.

Best Bit : Good Crop of Heads This Year

‘W’ Score : 15/23

No.98 : Willow (1998)

Willow at the IMDb

‘Willow’ was one of the few George Lucas films that I hadn’t seen on release as I had a preconceived notion that it would be a bit cutesy pie and dull. And you know what they say about prejudging things? Yes, sometimes you’ll be right!

Lucas in fact only gets a story credit for the film with the always pedestrian Ron Howard on directing duties. The film is a Hobbit like fantasy yarn that Lucas no doubt came up with after reading some Tolkein and indeed The Bible.

Willow is a family man dwarf who lives with his similarly sized people in a wood. Things are going OK for him but elsewhere the wicked Queen, who is lifted straight from ‘Snow White’, is plotting to scupper a prophesy that predicts her downfall. A baby destined to take her throne is snatched from her mother but before she can be killed the tot is placed in a raft and sent down the river. As chance would have it lands by Willow’s village and is found by his kids. Willow tries to act as if he doesn’t want the baby but we know this is just poor performing from Warwick Davis and he’s up for extra daddy duties soon after.

When some bad guys show up looking for the chosen child Willow has to go on a predictable quest to allow the baby to fulfil its destiny. Along the way they meet lovable rogue Val Kilmer, who agrees to assist him, and various other peoples of the world including some tiny folk nicked wholesale from ‘Gulliver’s Travels’. Meanwhile the dastardly Queen sends her minions out to find our party including the unfeasibly lovely Joanne Whaley, who if she’s really bad then I’m a Dutchman.

The quest takes a predictable path with the requisite number of shots of the cast marching through the snow attained early on. As they head towards Mordor, sorry, the Queen’s Castle, they have an epic battle with a rubbish two headed plastic monster before the final showdown. Can Willow save the day and defeat the wicked Queen and still make it home to show off his new magic tricks? Probably.

I didn’t really like this film from the off and the game of ‘spot the rip off’ can only be enjoyed for so long. The set up with the lost baby was so clichéd I’m surprised that God didn’t sue for copyright. Once we have the characters and quest established you have a pretty unbroken and predictable two hour journey to the inevitable climax. You have to wonder why you bothered and I for one wish I hadn’t.

It is obviously a fantasy movie aimed at kids but films like ‘The Princess Bride’ manage to work with similar material and at least work in a few laughs for the adults and nod towards the predictability of the genre. I did quite like the Lilliputian like tiny folk but the special effects were too ropey to make them seem realistic. That and the plastic monsters suggest that Lucas failed to pony up a ‘Star Wars’ type budget and frankly it shows.

Of the cast Val and Joanne are best with a real chemistry that spilled over into real life. Kilmer especially seems to be having a good time as the lovable and hapless rogue and is almost a Jack Sparrow prototype. Warwick Davis is less good in the title role and never convinces at all. It’s certainly a tough ask of him to carry the movie and it’s one that he falls short of. To be fair the material is poor and hackneyed and some of the dialogue would have the best thesps in the world gasping for air.

‘Willow’ could have been a fun romp but instead it’s a dull retread of every fantasy film you’ve ever seen. It offers poor dialogue, rubbish special effects and a plot as straight as a pool cue. You may enjoy some of the film but those periods are as short as most of the cast.

Best Bit : Wagon chase

‘W’ Score : 11/23

No.62 : Witch Hunt (1994)

Witch Hunt at the IMDb

This 1994, made for cable company HBO, movie is a follow up to 1991’s ‘Cast A Deadly Spell’, which I haven’t seen nor intend to given its lack of a ‘W’ first initial. The scenario and characters appear to have been retained from the original although the lead, H. Phillip Lovecraft is now played by Dennis Hopper instead of Fred Ward.

The film is set in 1940’s Los Angeles in a reality where magic is common place and used by most to assist their daily lives. One exception is Hopper, whose private eye does things the old fashioned way without recourse to the supernatural. He is given a case by a Hollywood starlet who thinks her husband is playing around. When he promptly dies the woman is a suspect and our man’s brief changes to proving her innocence.

While the investigation progresses we witness a backdrop of political intrigue which sees an ambitious senator try to out law magic as ‘anti American’. Hopper manages to progress his case with the help of a licensed witch but is troubled when she’s sentenced to burn for her witchy habits. The senator clearly has skeletons in the closet but can Dennis solve the case, save the witch and avoid the zombies in time?

Although this film has the unmistakable cheap look of a TV movie I enjoyed the first half hour. The set up is a bit clumsy with the actors looking faintly embarrassed, talking about magic as if it’s a fact of life. Once you buy in there is a lot to like with some funny scenes such as the executive shrinking to the size of a doggy toy to the obvious delight of his Dobermans. I also like the witch’s spell turning into physical words as she spoke them and the idea of her retrieving great writers such as Shakespeare and Twain from the past so that they could work on some screenplays.

Things quickly deteriorated however and by the end I was looking for a spell to get my two hours back. The obvious device of substituting ‘magic’ for ‘free speech or expression’ was overdone and laborious. Why the baddie senator wasn’t simply called 'McCarthy', to be sure I don’t know. The same point was hammered home so relentlessly it got to the stage you were willing the bad guy along so that you wouldn’t be exposed to some more liberal outpourings.

Dennis Hopper is always worth watching but his part here was a sub-par Marlowe, complete with portentous voice over. You also get a happily underused Julian Sands and Eric Bogosian (Talk Radio) as the really annoying senator.

It’s a shame this film drifted off down a dull avenue named preachy liberal clap trap as the premise and set up were good. TV movies aren’t necessarily bad but I’m afraid this one certainly was.


Best Bit : Will Shakespeare fails to pep up the screenplay.
‘W’ Score : 12/23