Don’t make Daniel Craig’s James Bond angry, you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry. And he’s angry for most of this, Craig’s third go at Bondage after the splendid Casino Royale and the disappointing Quantum Of Solace, which was hit by the writer’s strike.

What makes him angry is when Judi Dench’s M is under direct threat, but what makes him really angry is when the baddies target not only her but his precious Aston Martin DB5. Yes, the classic car from Sean Connery days makes a comeback, one of many nods to the past director Sam Mendes decides to insert.

What is refreshing in Skyfall is how out of shape Bond is, with hints that his position is becoming extinct. Dench’s M herself is under threat after a leaked file containing 50 NATO spies, and her insistence that Bond be called in puts her under real pressure from pompous politician Mallory (Ralph Fiennes). However, after a tense opening sequence and chase, Bond goes AWOL, apparently happier to soak up some rays, and plenty of booze, on an island.

The result is he’s slovenly, his aim has gone through shaky hands and his psychological profile is wayward to say the least. If he’s going to get the missing file back he is going to need some help.

Such is Mendes’ confidence with his material that he keeps his baddie off screen for a good hour of the film. When Javier Bardem does finally make an entrance it’s memorable in many ways, not least for the set – an abandoned island from where he is planning to bring down the world. Bardem has to be the campest Bond villain yet, with awful bleached blond hair and a fondness for stroking faces, but underneath there is real threat and he is clearly relishing getting his false teeth into the role.

In many ways it’s a very straightforward, old-school film, with the classic plot – madman wants to take over the world, Bond stops him, but as Albert Finney’s character says later on, ‘Sometimes the old ways are the best’.

What is not a success is the film’s treatment of Berenice Marlohe’s Bond girl Severine. At first it appears she is going to be as strong as Eva Green’s Vesper – sexy, sassy, independent, clever – but her dialogue peters out after one speech and she ends up as a classic Bond victim. It’s a shame because she certainly makes an impact, first seen unveiling a priceless Modigliani painting to a millionaire before coolly witnessing his murder.

The other women in the story fare rather better. Naomie Harris is involved in the opening chase sequence and pops up at the end, suggesting she might have a far bigger, and more important, role to play in the future – and not just as Bond’s eye candy. Dench is even better though. Without wanting to give away any plot spoilers, M is placed in peril and she and Bond have to stick together until the final showdown in Bond’s homestead – yep, we’re back in bonnie Scotland.

Dench is simply superb – strong, vulnerable, cool under pressure and desperately trying to keep her department together. It’s quite a physical performance for once, but laced with the same icy put-downs of Bond to keep him in his place. The script is, generally, free of silly one-liners, save for a really dud joke uttered by a passenger on the London Tube.

Perhaps Mendes’ greatest achievement is to hire his Revolutionary Road photographer, the great Roger Deakins. With such credits as No Country For Old Men and The Assassination of Jesse James you might be forgiven for thinking Deakins was from the deep south, but actually he’s from Torquay. His very British sensibility, coupled with an exquisite eye, makes this arguably the best-looking Bond so far.

There’s a lot more to admire – Wishaw’s understated Q with one lovely scene in the National Gallery, Rory Kinnear’s admirable Tanner, the great use of locations, the lively pace, but it all adds up to a real sense of threat and of an ageing Bond trying to keep pace with modern terrorism. As he says when given a gun and a radio: ‘Not exactly Christmas is it’.

Overall verdict: After the misfire of Quantum Of Solace Bond is most definitely back, perhaps sadder, definitely older but with his jaw set against the modern world. While it never quite packs the punch of Casino Royale it’s still a cracking, rollicking addition to the franchise.

Reviewer: Mike Martin

Jack Kerouac’s iconic beatnik tale of road trips, sex, booze and living with your mum finally sees the light of the day thanks to The Motor Cycle Diaries director, Walter Salles.

It’s 1947, and Sal (Sam Riley), a chain-smoking aspiring young writer who lives at home with his mother, is looking for inspiration. When his poet friend, Carlo introduces him to Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund), Sal finds the inspiration he’s been looking for.

Encouraged by Dean’s insatiable hunger for adventure (of the sexual, musical and narcotics kind), Sal ups and leaves his relatively cosy existence and embarks on a three-year odyssey with his new pal, where the duo, accompanied by Dean’s lover Marylou (Stewart), flit back and forth across America on a voyage of self-discovery.

Another in a long list of ‘un-filmable’ novels that have made it to the screen (Kerouac’s Beatnik brothers’ Naked Lunch and Howl included), On the Road’s stratospherically cool reputation very much precedes it. But it’s debatable whether Kerouac’s hipster trip down the highways of America really resonates with anyone these days (apart from gap year kids trekking across Thailand on daddy’s credit card perhaps).

Cynical critics certainly won’t be buying the freewheeling spirit of Salles’ fairly faithful adaptation of Kerouac’s novel, and those casual passers by looking for a road trip movie starring their favourite vampire-lover, Kristen Stewart, will be sorely disappointed.

The thing is, it’s all about structure, or the lack of. Sticking close to the relatively plot-less source novel, Salles’ On the Road is little more than a string of random occurrences. We watch Sal’s admiration/fascination/infatuation of Dean blossom and wane with no real narrative drive, and so, like the book, the film just kind of drifts along for a couple of hours until an abrupt coda brings things to a close.

However, with an exceptional cast, Salles still manages to craft an entertaining romp through a more romantic time.

While Riley provides an endearing and brooding Kerouac, it’s really Hedlund who hits it home with an outstanding performance. Infectiously enthused and wired, Hedlund’s memorable Moriarty provides the heart and guts to Salles’ biopic and manages to unleash the true beatnik spirit contained within Kerouac’s pages.

Despite his flaws, you’ll be glad you knew Dean Moriarty.

Overall Verdict: Salles’ freewheeling romp through beatnik America captures the spirit of Kerouac’s novel thanks to some terrific performances.

Reviewer: Lee Griffiths

Remember how much fun The Road was? Well, this story, set in our own world rather than a post-apocalyptic one, has the same relentless feel to it and, despite some powerful moments and great acting, never really comes alive as a story.

Set in the Bayou region south of the levees, it centres around nine-year-old girl Hushpuppy and her father Wink. They live in what is basically a camp, scavenging for food, killing anything that threatens them like the many gators and hogs, and sleeping in a makeshift shelter. Wink hears on the radio of a great storm that threatens them all, and builds a raft to keep himself and hushpuppy alive.

The storm sequence is well done, and admirably brief, and the film then turns into what is basically a road movie, with the couple slowly making their way to dry land, encountering various characters on the way. There’s an underlying eco-friendly theme, as the local teacher convinces everyone to survive they must get together and share the workload, planting vegetables and catching fish.

Wink though seems increasingly angry with his daughter’s lack of survival skills, insisting she demolish a crab with her bare hands in front of the group and shouting at her for not pulling her weight. It transpires he is holding a dark secret, and Hushpuppy has a lot to come to terms with for a nine-year-old girl.

It’s a pretty raw film, with just a few images to keep the momentum going. One remarkable sequence sees the travellers turn up at what appears to be a floating brothel and the ladies dancing with the children.

Overall verdict: Worthy attempt at a fresh look at what was clearly based on the New Orleans disaster with some powerful moments but not enough engagement in the story or the characters. Wallis is clearly one for the future though.

Reviewer: Mike Martin

 

Pretentious, moi? Sally Potter, whose ego is so huge she once made a film about her own love of tango, starring herself, has decided to follow the advice ‘write what you know’. She has written and directed a movie clearly based on her experiences as a teenager, and produced possibly the most indulgent, tedious, dull and frankly boring film of the year. She’s also done this with money from the BBC – our cash, in other words, but maybe that’s an argument for a different time.

What is remarkable is that she’s gathered together some of the finest actors in the land to star in this A-level essay of a film. They all give their best, but with a script that seems to have been written by a pouty teenager with too many hormones and a crush on TS Eliot.

Set in the early 1960s it centres around two teenage best friends, Ginger and Rosa, who have the usual vices of discovering fags, booze and boys. Ginger has hopes of being a poet, but is also terrified of The Bomb, and becomes involved in CND. Rosa seems less political or arty, and her only interest appears to be in Ginger’s dad, an artist who was imprisoned during the War for being a conscientious objector. He’s such a sensitive soul he cries whenever Schubert comes on the radio.

The two friends seem to pull away from each other, as Ginger spends more time with her two – yes, two – godfathers, who are both also involved in CND. Her mum (Christina Hendricks) meanwhile seems to suspect that hubby is more interested in teenage girls than herself.

There’s a horrible moment about halfway through when a realisation dawns that Potter wants us to think these characters are actually working class. They couldn’t be more self-indulgently pretentiously middle-class if they tried, and Potter’s ludicrous script only makes things worse. Hendricks is the world’s most unlikely nagging wife, her husband is a massive drip of water, and Timothy Spall, Oliver Platt and Annette Bening try their hardest to be sympathetic as the godparents. The two girls do their best, and May is tragically under-used in a small role, though maybe she suspected her talents were wasted on this guff.

One more moan: if I see one more pouting, angst-ridden girl writing poetry on a bed with Miles Davis on the sounstrack I’ll probably be banned from screening rooms for ever. Potter should be put in a room and made to watch Singin’ In The Rain 3,000 times in a row until she gets it – films are supposed to be a shared experience, not your personal therapy sessions for the rest of us to suffer through. Get over yourself.

Overall verdict: Teenage angst at its worst.

Reviewer: Mike Martin

There are times during Tim Burton’s stop-mation animation when he seems to me more intent in squeezing in references to horror movies than actually telling his own story. The result is a frustrating mixture – at times delightful, warm and witty, occasionally very funny and sometimes a little dull.

It all starts so promisingly too. The opening sequence, like Toy Story, sees a child’s toys being used in his imagination to tell a tale. Here though the child in question is clearly Burton himself, in his alter-ego Victor, a lonely boy who spends more time in the attic making short films than playing outside. He shows his short film to his loving parents, and it’s a brilliantly realised monster movie using some of the toys featured in Toy Story, especially the green plastic soldiers. He uses special effects to create a showdown, and his only actor is his pet dog, Sparky, who is the hero of his film.

It’s a lovely homage to Burton’s own childhood and a great set-up for what follows. Victor is the clear favourite to win his school’s science project, but tragedy strikes when Sparky is run over chasing a baseball. Victor, inspired by his gloriously mad science teacher’s theories about lightning bringing life, decides to hook Sparky up during a storm and, well, guess what happens.

All the great horror films of the 20th century are here – obviously Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, but also Nosferatu, M, and the Godzilla features. Victor’s parents settle down in front of the TV to watch Dracula while he reanimates his dead dog. It also looks lovely, set in the world of Edward Scissorhands, here called ‘New Holland’, and the sets and design are exemplary as ever with Burton – this time in black and white. The voices are superb too, especially O’Hara as Victor’s lovely mum and also a weird girl in class, who thinks her cat can tell the future. Martin Landau though takes the honours as the fantastically gothic science teacher Mr Rzykruski, who tries to inspire the kids to think for themselves.

The real problem is a lack of pacing and it all feels strangely soulless. The final sequence where all of Victor’s classmates get wind of his idea, wire up their dead pets and unleash hell, is an overdone tribute to monster movies which is technically brilliant as it is predictable. Danny Elfman’s score is at times too intrusive and windy, and Burton’s screenplay plays the sentimental card once too often. Victor’s relationship with neighbour Elsa Van Helsing never amounts to anything, although Winona Ryder’s voicing is great, and her song at the end, sung to the townsfolk, genuinely hilarious – one line celebrates ‘modest homes at modest prices’.

Overall verdict: It’s certainly more cohesive than Burton’s Dark Shadows, and at times is a joy to behold, but ultimately Frankenweenie is little more than a tribute to the horror movies of the past which, let’s face it, have had enough references in other movies. Fun but slight.

Reviewer: Mike Martin

Director and writer Jacques Audiard has been responsible for some of the most thrilling French movies of the past decade – the marvellous A Prophet, the brilliant Beat That My Heart Skipped, the criminally under-rated Read My Lips – but somehow this never quite hits those heights.

The main problem is that it never quite decides what sort of film it is – classic Hollywood-style disabled drama? Crime thriller? Odd-couple romance? It’s all of these but the result is bitty.

Marion Cotillard plays Stephanie, a whale-trainer who loses her lower legs after a terrible accident. She mopes around her flat feeling sorry for herself, until she decides to ring the kindly bouncer at a nightclub who gave her a lift home after a fight. He, Ali (Schoenaerts), is a troubled man, seemingly drifting from one job to another with his young son in tow, uneducated but handy with his fists and a lover of kickboxing – and has no problem carrying her down to the beach.

The two form an unlikely friendship – he is uncomplicated, physically strong but emotionally retarded, but happy to carry Stephanie to the Cannes beach for some swimming and sun – and maybe more. She however is more complex, refusing to let friends console her, and with mixed feelings about the whale park in which she lost her legs and about her apparent loss of sex drive.

The performances are terrific – Cotillard gives Stephanie dignity without ever resorting to the obvious emotional pulls, and the film never pulls its punches – she is often seen dragging herself across the floor trying to reach the loo.

Schoenaerts gives a tremendous performance, physical, strong, but with a child-like sense of humour and utterly oblivious to the emotional effect he is having on Stephanie and his own fragile son.

Halfway through the film though the plot takes a turn, with a coincidence that is pretty hard to take, and it loses focus. Cotillard’s character is off-screen for much of the time, and when she reappears there are repeated sex scenes which are unnecessary. Also there are lingering shots of her naked flesh which, even years after her character loses her legs, is beautifully toned.

In the end the film settles on melodrama and some rather obvious heart-tugging, which is a shame, as it promised so much more. A couple of scenes do pack a big punch, but as a whole it never quite hangs together and there are too many longeurs. If you can swallow Cotillard as an organiser of gypsy boxing matches you might have no problems with it, but for most it’s a stretch.

Overall verdict: Patchy drama which wanders around coming to no great conclusion, despite two enjoyable central performances. One of Audiard’s lesser works and something of a come-down after the wonderful A Prophet.

Reviewer: Mike Martin