One of the most visually thrilling, baffling and technically marvellous films in cinema’s long history gets the ‘director’s cut’ treatment 35 years after Lang died. The reason is a discovery in a small museum in Buenos Aires of 25 minutes of footage long thought to be lost after the original print was butchered by Paramount for the US release. The lost footage has been re-inserted – it is dotted throughout the film rather than one sequence – and as a result some of the visuals are grainier than others.

The other additional feature for this release is the new recording of the original score by Gottfried Huppertz, and newly-translated subtitles which are much clearer than before. It’s a long way from the ghastly release in 1984 which had a Giorgio Moroder score with Bonnie Tyler and Adam Ant, and with the film itself colourised – sacrilege.

All of this adds up to a simply thrilling release, which still marvels on every viewing. Lang’s film is set in a nightmarish future world in which worker drones drive huge, seemingly pointless steam machines while an elite live in beautiful art deco apartments and enjoy decadent lives of leisure. The industrialist Joh Fredersen seems to run the show, but when his son Freder meets a mysterious woman the facade cracks. Freder, a dandy if ever there was one, follows Maria down into the bowels of the machine-driven city and, shocked by the repetitive, soul-sapping labour he sees, starts what is basically a worker’s revolution. When Fredersen gets wind of this he orders a mad inventor to turn his robot into a vision of Maria – the famous transformation scene.

It’s amazing how influential the film has become over the years. Lang’s cityscape, with trains and cars zooming across a giant, glass-fronted tower of Babel, still takes the breath away, as does all of the interior design. Fredersen’s office is a state of the art Art Deco classic and, if his desk still exists, it should be in the Design Museum. Then there’s the robot – has a sexier metal beast ever been seen in the cinema? The opening montage, of the worker drones being replaced, marching heads down along prison-like corridors, is much-imitated but never bettered – this was 1927, for goodness’ sake. Freder’s cry, after taking the place of a drone, of “has 10 hours ever passed so slowly” has been echoed by every factory worker since.

The only criticisms are the corny ending, but that has been generally aimed at Lang’s wife Thea von Harbou for her insistence on a slightly too neat compromise – he divorced her in unhappy circumstances a few years later (presumably not because of the end of Metropolis though). The only other real piece of mud slung at the film was it was one of Hitler’s favourite films. Joseph Goebbels, hugely impressed by Lang’s technical genius, offered him the post of head of film in Germany. Lang said he fled to Paris overnight, but this has been disputed – what is certain is that Lang never took up the role and did eventually flee to America, where he made several classic film noirs. Superb though some of these were, it is perhaps Metropolis that he will always be associated with. Now, with its additional 25 minutes, it makes a lot more sense storywise, and so is as near to Lang’s vision as we are ever likely to get.

Overall Verdict: The definitive version of Lang’s tale, which looks as marvellous and mind-boggling as it must have looked in 1927. An absolute classic.

Reviewer: Mike Martin

In 1995 Richard Linklater wrote and directed the delightful Before Sunrise, a film consisting of little more than a man and woman wandering around Vienna discussing the meaning of life and love. Nine years later its star Julie Delpy wrote a powerful, surprisingly profound sequel, Before Sunset, with her and Ethan Hawke walking the streets of Paris this time. That was pretty much the full stop on talkie films with a couple wandering around a pretty location wondering what it all means – until now, with Kiarostami’s variation on the theme.

The picturesque setting is Tuscany, the couple are Binoche’s Elle and Shimell’s James Miller, and the set-up is slightly different. Instead of them meeting as strangers, Elle goes to hear Miller’s lecture on the book he has just had published, a book that we learn was not well received in England. Basically its idea – and the idea of the film, it turns out – is that copies of precious artworks, like the statues on Florence of David, are just as valuable as the real thing. The original idea is a thing of the past.

Elle’s son twigs why she is so enthralled by Miller’s presentation, he claims she wants to fall in love with him and he apparently is bang on, when Elle offers to take Miller out for a Sunday drive through lovely Tuscany. They debate his book, its ideas, and she flirts with him endlessly while he remains passive, aloof. They wander around a tiny village, drink coffee, have an argument in a restaurant over a bottle of wine, meet a charming French couple, witness a wedding and end up in a hotel room. But all is not as it seems – beware the unreliable narrator.

Without wanting to give away too much, the film’s basic theme is something of a cheat – it has an inconsistency in its internal logic that is clearly meant to be mysterious and twisty but may leave many viewers frustrated. Put simply it doesn’t play fair, but if you can swallow the huge leap of faith there is much to debate and discuss.

Binoche won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival and it’s easy to see why. She runs through the whole gamut of emotions, from coy fan to upset mother to frustrated lover to possible divorcee. At one point there is a hint of mental illness, but like many things in the film it never resolves itself satisfactorily. The director is clearly determined to get his money’s worth from her, lingering on her face for minutes at a time, and giving her cleavage a good workout as well. Shimell is an opera star who had never made a film before, and frankly at times it shows. His performance as a crusty Englishman is stiff and wooden, and overdoes the coldness the character requires. We need to be given a reason why Binoche’s character would fall for him so completely, and there is not much there. In the restaurant scene he tips over into melodrama far too quickly, and his boiling rage over a corked bottle of wine is simply bizarre.

Sometimes the words “Cannes winner” and “world cinema” send people running for the hills, and all too often that is unfair. This however is just the sort of over-enigmatic, talky piece that gives these films that reputation. Some will love entering its world, others will see it as pretentious and irritating.

Overall verdict: Slightly corny, over-written and under-plotted mood piece that will divide viewers, with a huge central performance from Binoche and little else to enjoy.

Reviewer: Mike Martin

While a little rough around the edges, Wah Do Dem is the sort of film that makes you wonder why more micro-budget movies can’t be like this. By all rights it shouldn’t work, as not a huge amount seems to happen and it’s all very mumblecore, but the film has a real immediacy and is helped enormously by the unaffected performance of the lead character, played by Sean Bones.

Bones plays young New York musician Max, who’s pretty much drifting through life when he wins a cruise to Jamaica. Originally planning to take a girl along with him (Norah Jones in a tiny cameo), she dumps him two days before they’re supposed to go, leaving him alone on the big boat, surrounded by old people. Things don’t get much better when he reaches the Caribbean, as after befriending a local, his possessions get stolen and without a passport or transport, he can’t get back to the boat before it sails. This results in a bit of a slacker odyssey (and the parallels to Homer aren’t accidental), where Max, with only a pair of shorts to his name, must get across the island to the embassy in Kingston, meeting various people along the way, and trying to deal with the inevitable culture clash.

The movie came about because co-director Ben Chace did indeed win a cruise to Jamaica, so decided to take collaborator Sam Fleishner with him, as well as buy two more tickets, one for the lead actor Bones, and another for sound recordist/actor Kevin Brewersdorf (who has one of the most interesting roles, as a gay man who comes onto Max on the ship, resulting is some scenes that would actually have made the basis of a fairly interesting film on their own), so they could make a movie along the way.

Admittedly the plot is sometimes contrived and Max is occasionally naive to the point of stupidity, but Sean Bones gives him a lovable loser vibe that works very well. It’s also good that the movie has a sense of humour, as if it had taken itself too seriously it would undoubtedly have gone downhill fast. Equally its episodic nature, where Max meets one group of people before moving onto the next, does sometime result in dull patches, but luckily these are few and far between. Nevertheless Wah Do Dem works as a slacker character study, about a young man who seems unaware of who he is, or why he’s doing anything, but who is looking for some sort of connection (admittedly that’s mumblecore 101, so it’s not exactly original, but it works).

Max is undoubtedly naive, but that seems to come from needing to trust people because he hopes they’re going to give him some sense of belonging, whether that’s just an evening of fun and drinking, or weird mystical advice. Sometimes it works out for him, sometimes it doesn’t, but the sense of him trying to find a way out of his slacker isolation – even if he has no idea how – is nicely played (even if a scene involving him dropping his mobile phone down the toilet, is perhaps the world’s least subtle metaphor for his communication troubles).

Wah Do Dem is a movie that at first feels rather slight, but I have to say I kept thinking about it for days afterwards. The filmmakers have a lot of interesting ideas, whether it’s the underlying theme of Max taking a trip to the underworld in order to find his way home, or that every character Max meets must be a mix of light a dark, both welcoming and menacing in equal measure. Although it could perhaps have done with a little more direction and focus to really bring these things out (because like I say, at a first glance it’s just a rather naive guy wandering around for 75 minutes), if you’re willing to go with it and dig a little deeper, Wah Do Dem is far more rewarding, interesting and funny than it first appears.

Overall Verdict: Not for everyone, but this slacker’s odyssey has plenty of humour, interesting ideas and a great performance from Sean Bones, which ensures it’s far better than a glance at the surface would suggest.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

If life, as it appears in Scott Pilgrim’s world, was like a video game, imagine how happy we’d all be. Extra lives floating around in case of an accident, enormous floating text to signify our achievements. Hell, you could level up, World of Warcraft style, just by completing everyday tasks. “ALEX TOOK OUT THE BINS! +3 Stamina!” The underlying concept though would be that even the skinniest nerd in town could dish out painful justice to wrong-doers in unfeasibly cool set-pieces. Being of the slightly underfed, geeky persuasion myself, it’s not difficult to see why I find the idea of Scott Pilgrim so instantly appealing.

The Scott Pilgrim saga is the brainchild of Canadian writer Bryan Lee O’Malley. Presented with snappy North American dialogue, but with an artistic style that borrowed heavily from Japanese manga, it tells a story of love and loss, coming of age and fighting to get what you want. The first volume was released in 2004 and continued to be a minor hit all the way up to its conclusion this year.  Edgar Wright, director of Shaun of the Dead , Hot Fuzz and Certified Best British Sit-Com of the Last Twenty Years: Spaced (to give it its full name) became a fan whilst making Fuzz, and thanks to his apparent mastery of creating cult hits out of almost nothing, was given backing by Universal to make a movie.

Scott (Michael Cera) is a loveable slacker, unemployed and hoping to form a meaningful musical career with his band Sex Bob-omb. After massive heartbreak a year earlier, Scott is lost and trapped in a shallow relationship with well meaning but clueless high-school girl Knives Chau (Ellen Wong). When Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), the literal girl from his dreams, arrives in town Scott immediately pursues her, but finds that to win her forever he must fight and defeat a gang of Ramona’s evil exes, led by the nefarious Gideon Graves (Jason Shwartzman), as well as come to terms with the ups and downs of his own life.

Eyebrows were raised at the casting of Cera in the lead role, and although his performance reaches a high level at certain points, some of the criticism is justified. His chemistry with Mary Elizabeth Winstead is adequate, without being spectacular and, frustratingly, he just can’t seem to drag himself away from the Michael Cera we saw in Juno, Superbad, Youth in Revolt et al. It’s not a major drag on the film, but one can’t help but wonder if perhaps Cera might have been cast to pull in a certain audience rather than on the merits of his ability.

Although Cera has top billing, this has very much the feel of an ensemble piece, and equal screen time is afforded to a mostly excellent supporting cast. Allison Pill and Mark Webber are good foils for both Cera and each other as Scott’s long suffering bandmates and Kieran Culkin’s laid back performance as Scott’s gay roommate Wallace Wells is a vitally important calming influence when the action threatens to spill too far into the realms of epilepsy inducing mayhem. The real highlight though is Ellen Wong. The newcomer is superb as the slightly unhinged Knives, her strong development from meek high-schooler to ass kicking hipster chick excellently mirroring Scott’s journey and very definitely upstaging Winstead’s occasionally flat Ramona.

Fans of the graphic novel will probably have an easier time getting to grips with SPvsTW’s frenetic pace. The plot whips along without really stopping for breath and the uninitiated may find the opening act a little overwhelming. Once it settles into a rhythm though – around the time the evil exes make their appearance – this pace actually suits the style and delivery of the film and Wright’s fine comic style and innovative directing take hold. In Spaced, Wright has already shown that he is a master of encapsulating that feeling of directionless that occurs in our mid-twenties and balancing it with absurdist humour and outlandish set pieces. Here he works the same magic, with Scott and Ramona’s trial of a relationship, whilst filled with bizarre characters and deeply strange twists, never becoming too difficult to relate to or too abstract for its own good.

Another aspect that Wright excels in is the seamless weaving of pop-culture references into the piece, little moments that let you know that this is a project crafted with love and attention. From the opening Universal logo presented in a pleasing 8-bit motif, to incidental music samples that will only be recognisable to hardcore game fans, Wright has clearly gone out of his way to make sure that the film doesn’t leave anyone wanting. The fight scenes too pay homage to everything from Street Fighter to Tekken to Soul Caliber, beautifully presented, high octane fun with enough good ideas worked in to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. Only once does this formula go awry. Scott’s penultimate fight against two fellow musicians is a mess of over-indulgent special effects that is so jarring that it almost seems like a scene from a different movie.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World is probably not for everybody, but it certainly has a broader appeal than meets the eye. Yes, its loud, colourful and moves constantly at a hundred miles an hour, but contained beyond its nerdy, flashy exterior beats the heart of a very honest coming-of-age-romance that should resonate with anyone who’s ever struggled for acceptance.

Overall Verdict: Not perfect, but fantastically entertaining. Scott Pilgrim vs the World just about gets the balance right between madcap action comedy and sensitive romance. It doesn’t let up, but by the time you realise that, you won’t want it to.

Reviewer: Alex Hall

Mother is perhaps a slightly surprising move for Bong Joon-Ho, the South Korean director who broke records in his home country and attracted the attention of Hollywood with his monster movie, The Host, in 2006 (indeed he’s rumoured to currently be working on an English-language film that will be produced by JJ Abrams). Mother is almost the opposite of a monster movie, a relatively small scale drama/thriller/murder-mystery/character study, concentrating on a middle-aged woman.

The premise is fairly simple. A mother (who is never named) lives with her slightly mentally handicapped son, Do-joon, and dotes on him, even if she doesn’t like the fact he hangs around the dodgy Jin-tae. After a teenage girl is found murdered, pressure is put on the police to find the killer. They arrest Do-joon on circumstantial evidence, which utterly devastates his mother, who cannot even contemplate the idea that he’s guilty.  With events initially seeming to conspire to ensure Do-joon will be locked away forever, his mother sets off on a quest to prove his innocence, uncovering salacious details about the girl’s life, and isolating herself from those around her in her implacable belief in her son.

However, while that’s the basic set-up, Mother is less about plot (indeed, some of the actual story is a little too convenient, although it has some interesting twists) and more about character and incident. As it goes along, it reveals itself as a murder mystery that isn’t really about discovering the truth, but about the lengths we will go to in order to try and maintain what we consider to be the certainties and central beliefs or our lives, especially when they’re about to be destroyed.

It’s a film filled with wonderful moments, where Bong Joon-ho plays with the audience’s expectations and takes you inside the character’s experience of the world.  Whether it’s an excellent make-you-jump moment at the beginning, where you’re so drawn into what you think is going to happen that when something else occurs it’s actually quite shocking, or a shot of someone’s toes literally curling when they’re  find themselves trapped and having to watch two people having sex, it’s all beautifully and carefully put together. The result is that by the end, when the movie diverts from what you’d expect from a typical murder mystery, you may not agree with what happens but it’s all completely understandable and wonderfully realised.

It’s also an incredibly good-looking movie, with great care taken over camera placement, colour and shot composition. Not letting the side down are the actors, with Kim Hye-ja putting in a truly astonishing performance as the mother. A vast range of emotions flit across her face as she goes about her mission, turning what could have been a slightly one-dimensional, melodramatic role into something far more complex and interesting. Her excellent acting merges with the director’s clever use of montage to create something truly memorable, where you really feel for her, even when things are revealed to be more complicated than they initially appear. Won Bin as Do-joon is also very good, departing massively from the heartthrob image he’s previously been known for in Asia.

Mother is certainly an unusual film, but it’s a very good one. It’s a movie that’s part family drama, part thriller and part murder mystery, which has lots of unexpected moments of comedy, occasionally verges on the surreal, and has a visual style which is so dense that it almost feels like a period drama (even if that period is now). However perhaps its greatest achievement is that even when it takes a twist towards the extreme, it still feels very personal, focussing its gaze intently on human nature itself. The tension and unnerving sensation Mother generates comes more from what it suggest about all of us than the usual tricks directors deploy to affect the audience. That alone is no small feat, and ensures Mother is well worth seeking out.

Overall Verdict: A wonderful character study that works and both drama and murder mystery, and truly deserves the often over-used adjective, Hitchcockian.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

The great Jacques Tati’s last script has finally been brought to life by the creator of the marvellous Belleville Rendez-Vous, surely a marriage made in heaven. Well, not quite actually. Chomet’s animated version brings back some of Tati’s charm and magic, but the story never quite takes off and is too downbeat to really be as warm as it needs to be.

As anyone who has seen a Tati film will know, the word ‘script’ is somewhat misleading, as his films are virtually dialogue-free, consisting instead of sight gags and mime. That is the case here, as we see Tati’s magician struggling to hold his bored audience in Paris. Despite the old favourites – pulling a rabbit out of a hat, turning a pack of cards into flowers, his audience seem distracted and longing for the miracle of television.

He gets an offer to go to London, where he has a hard act to follow – a band who bare a close resemblance to the Beatles. They leave the auditorium humming with female hormones, so when Tati’s gentle act comes on it’s a disaster.

From foggy rainy London he then heads to the Scottish highlands, where his act is greeted as a miracle by the locals. There he meets a sweet chamber maid, and they bond despite not speaking each others’ language – it is never clear exactly what language she is speaking. He buys her some red shoes – a nod to Powell and Pressburger maybe? After a successful trip Tati then goes to Edinburgh for a lengthy run, and to his surprise his friend comes along with him. Together they tackle the foreign culture and strange ways of Edinburgh, until fate intervenes.

The film looks absolutely ravishing, the animated Paris and Edinburgh look good enough to eat, and the attention to detail is astonishing. The animated Tati is a triumph, capturing perfectly his body language, with the bent back, huge hands and nodding head. It is never quite made clear whether his magic act is supposed to be dated and cheesy or just charmingly old-fashioned, but they look lovely.

The problem is not with the visual style, which is impeccable, it’s with the tone. Tati’s travels across Britain are gloomy and downbeat, and although we are on his side his motives are never made clear, especially with the girl. Towards the end of the film he slips into an Edinburgh cinema and sees Mon Oncle on the screen, the real-life Tati. It’s a reminder of how his films were so witty and full of life, which is in stark contrast to proceedings here, which remain determinedly gloomy throughout.

Belleville Rendez-Vous had its share of sadness too, but here it seems laid on a bit thick, with only the occasional sight gag to lighten the mood. A shame, because it’s obviously been painstakingly put together by real Tati fans.

Overall verdict: Doomy version of a Tati film, with wonderful animation and music but a resolutely grim mood.

Reviewer: Mike Martin