Tag: Clive Owen

Review: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Luc Besson’s career has been building towards VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS for decades. It’s not just the 7 years he spent developing the script either, but in the leapfrog advances the filmmaker has made in visually led futurescapes from Le Dernier Combat through to the beloved The Fifth Element.

Based on the long-running and highly influential French comic Valérian and Laureline, Besson’s striking opening leaves little doubt to the aesthetic influences of his film. The peaceful planet of Mül has its idyllic sci-fi environment shattered by ships careening into their world, introducing the MacGuffin of the “converter,” a small race of creatures that can replicate any material in infinite amounts.

The action picks up with space-and-time-traveling agents Valerian (Dean DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) tasked with retrieving the converter. Their mission sends them deep into uncharted locales, ultimately questioning everything that their military-industrial complex (led by Clive Owen as Arün Filitt) stands for.

The world of VALERIAN is a complete entity, and there really is nothing else like it on the cinematic landscape. From the Escher-esque experience of the planet Alpha to the inter-dimensional heist sequence, there is no doubting the sheer scope of the world Besson has built here. We may not see or understand all of it, but we get the feeling Besson does, and that sense of a lived-in environment translates quite readily to audience.

The flip side of this is that Besson relies on an episodic structure to navigate it all, arguably a necessity of fitting 21 volumes of the bandes dessinées into a singular entity. Besson is like a kid in a candy store, finally having all the cash he wants to buy something from every shelf but unable to restrain himself to just his favourites. The relationship between the leads, for example, remains ambiguous and underdeveloped until the very end, with character sacrificed in the pursuit of the next shiny thing.

Compounding this episodic approach is the fact that neither of the leads is particularly well cast in this enterprise. DeHaan comes across as a parody of an action hero, filtered through a voice borrowed from Keanu Reeves. Delevingne, on the other hand, just conveys wooden discomfort most of the time, and she has to carry long stretches of the film. Then again, Besson’s reputation for supporting strong female leads got thrown out as soon as he dropped “Laureline” from the title of the film.

Unsubstantiated plot threads culminate in the hi-tech equivalent of the wire dilemma trope, and a ‘love is the answer’ wrap-up that mirrors the far more emotionally satisfying The Fifth Element. In this moment it becomes patently clear that Besson has already made his white whale before, and in a much more cohesive fashion. Nevertheless, VALERIAN remains a remarkable advancement in special effects storytelling, and an indicator of the possibilities of the format.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2017 | France, US | DIR: Luc Besson | WRITERS: Luc Besson | CAST: Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Rihanna, Ethan Hawke, Herbie Hancock, Kris Wu, Rutger Hauer | DISTRIBUTOR: eOne (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 137 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 19 August 2017 (AUS)[/stextbox]

August 8, 2017
First teaser trailer for Luc Besson’s ‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets’

eOne has released the first international trailer for VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS, the highly anticipated new film from Luc Besson. Starring Cara Delevingne, Dane DeHaan, Clive Owen, Ethan Hawke and Rihanna, it is due out in the US on 21 July 2017, with the Australian date yet to be scheduled.

The film is an adaptation of the French comic Valérian and Laureline by Pierre Christin and artist Jean-Claude Mézières, which Besson will write and direct. The film’s title is similar to the second volume in the Valérian and Laureline series, The Empire of a Thousand Planets. Valérian and Laureline was first created in 1967 in Pilote magazine, and ran through until 2010. The sci-fi comic’s influence has been seen most directly in the original Star Wars series, as illustrated in our original post on the film’s production. The synopsis for the film and the teaser trailer/image follows:

Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevinge) are special operatives for the government of the human territories charged with maintaining order throughout the universe. Valerian has more in mind than a professional relationship with his partner – blatantly chasing after her with propositions of romance. But his extensive history with women, and her traditional values, drive Laureline to continuously rebuff him.

Under directive from their Commander (Clive Owen), Valerian and Laureline embark on a mission to the breathtaking intergalactic city of Alpha, an ever-expanding metropolis comprised of thousands of different species from all four corners of the universe. Alpha’s seventeen million inhabitants have converged over time, uniting their talents, technology and resources for the betterment of all. Unfortunately, not everyone on Alpha shares in these same objectives; in fact, unseen forces are at work, placing our race in great danger.

November 11, 2016
Review: Shadow Dancer

A reminder of the impact of terror and violence on people everywhere, this thriller takes us inside the world of the IRA in the 1990s.

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Shadow Dancer (2012)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: James Marsh

Writer: Tom Bradby

Runtime: 101 minutes

Starring: Andrea Riseborough, Clive Owen, Gillian Anderson, David Wilmot

Distributor: Potential Films

Country: UK

Rating (?): Better Than Average Bear (★★★½)

More info

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In a post-9/11 world, it is often easy to forget that terrorism is something that existed prior to the toppling of the Twin Towers. Not to diminish the impact of that event on the lives of people around the world, but violence and the threat of terror is something that people everywhere have been experiencing for eons. The political separation of Northern Ireland from the rest of the country in the early part of the 20th century divided factions into a war over home rule, something that reignited with renewed violence in the 1960s. “The Troubles”, which roughly encompass the period between the 1968/1969 riots in Londonderry and Belfast and the 1990s, accounted for the deaths of thousands of British and Irish troops and civilians, before the lengthy peace process began in the mid part of that decade.

Based on his own novel, Tom Bradby’s screenplay is set in that tumultuous period in the early 1990s. Opening with a minimum of dialogue, a 12-year-old Colette McVeigh is asked to buy cigarettes for her father. Preoccupied by her craft exercise, she instead sends her younger brother, who is killed in the crossfire of a clash in Belfast. Flash forward two decades to 1993, and the now adult Colette (Andrea Riseborough) is caught after dropping a suitcase in the London underground. She is set upon by two men who escort her to a hotel, where she is handed over to a MI5 agent who only identifies himself as “Mac” (Clive Owen). He blackmails her into spying on her family for him, rather than go to jail and lose her son. She returns home amidst suspicion to her mother (the excellent Brid Brennan), and her two brothers, Gerry (Aidan Gillen) and Connor (Domhnall Gleeson). Both men are dominant by the ruthless IRA Kevin Mulville (David Wilmot), who doesn’t take to those who betray him kindly.

Director James Marsh is best known for his documentaries Project Nim and Man on Wire, but also for the highly regarded Red Riding: 1980, the middle chapter of the British TV mini-series. For his latest feature, Marsh takes a leaf out of post-War Hitchcock and creates a multi-layered thriller in which fear is a way of life. After shocking the senses with an explosive opening sequence, impressive for its silent tension, Bradby and Marsh spend the remaining time building a slow-burning narrative that rewards patience. If his documentary work has been to find the story within the fact, exposing the truth to the harsh light of day, then Shadow Dancer in many ways takes the opposite approach, deliberately obfuscating its meaning until its final knuckle-whitening moments.

Sharing much with last year’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, including the same deliberately desaturated slate to create the same sense of clinical objectivity, raising reasonable arguments for both sides of the war. Gillian Anderson, now fully committed to her English accent, is present to keep the MI5 side on track, tempering “Mac’s” emotions, ones that occasionally push the film into melodrama. Wilmot may represent the extremes of IRA fundamentalism, but the fragility of Gleeson’s Connor – and more importantly the stoic matronly portrayal by Brennan – show that the culture of fear was just as much a way of life in 1993 as it is post-2001.

Shadow Dancer may favour minimalism, including Riseborough’s lost soul and Owen’s taciturn agent, but delivers a great deal in its quick run through the Troubles. For a film that features long (and gorgeous) shots of simple human interactions, it remains surprisingly gripping for the duration. Yet even the final surprising moments are downplayed by Marsh as par for the course, making this one of the most understated, albeit no less dramatic, thrillers of recent memory.

Shadow Dancer is released in Australia on 11 October 2012 from Potential Films.

October 10, 2012
Potential Films to Release Shadow Dancer and God Bless America

Australian independent film distributor Potential Films has announced that it will release James Marsh’s Shadow Dancer and Bobcat Goldthwait’s God Bless America to Australian cinemas in October and November respectively.

Dates will be announced soon, but details and trailers are below. Always great to see more indie films hitting Australian cinemas.

Shadow Dancer (M)
Dir. James Marsh, UK/Ireland, 2012. 101m Trailer | October 2012

Single mother Collette McVeigh is a Republican living in Belfast with her mother and hardliner IRA brothers. When she is arrested for her part in an aborted IRA bomb plot in London, an M15 officer, Mac, offers her a choice: lose everything and go to prison for 25 years or return to Belfast to spy on her own family. With her son’s life in her hands, Collette chooses to place her trust in Mac and return home. But when her brothers’ secret operation is ambushed, suspicions of an informant are raised and Collette finds herself and her family in grave danger. A taut thriller from James Marsh (Man on Wire, Project Nim, The King) with brilliant performances by Clive Owen, Andrea Riseborough (Brighton Rock, W.E.) and Gillian Anderson.

God Bless America (MA)
Dir. Bobcat Goldthwait, USA, 2011. 104m Trailer | November 2012

Frank has had enough of the downward spiral of American culture. Divorced, recently fired, and possibly terminally ill, Frank truly has nothing left to live for. But instead of taking his own life, he buys a gun and decides to take out his frustration on the cruelest, stupidest, most intolerant people he can imagine – starting with some particularly odious reality television stars. Frank finds an unusual accomplice in a high-school student, Roxy, who shares his sense of rage and disenfranchisement. Together they embark on a nationwide assault on our country’s most irritating celebrities.

Written and Directed by taboo-busting filmmaker and comedian Bobcat Goldthwait (World’s Greatest Dad, Sleeping Dogs Lie), God Bless America is a truly dark and very funny comedy for anyone who’s had enough of the dumbing down of our society. Starring Joel Murray (Mad Men) and Tara Lynne Barr.

July 9, 2012
Review: Killer Elite

The ultimate combination of Jason Statham, Robert De Niro and Clive Owen accounts for the elite, but the end result is less than killer.

[stextbox id=”grey” caption=”Killer Elite (2011)” float=”true” align=”right” width=”200″]

Director: Gary McKendry

Writer(s): Matt Sherring

Runtime: 116 minutes

Starring: Jason Statham, Clive Owen, Robert De Niro, Dominic Purcell, Lachy Hulme, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

Distributor: Disney

Country: UK/Australia

Rating: Rental for Sure (?)

More info

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Based on Sir Ranulph Fiennes’ novel, The Feather Men, and not the 1975 film of the same name, Killer Elite enters a crowded market of spy flicks and secret ops that are covertly beating each other up in cinemas around the world. Fiennes’ book caused a stir when it was released in the early 1990s, as it was purportedly based on “real life” examples of a secret squad of British SAS assassins. In the wake of a decade of post-9/11 spy dramas and thrillers, this Australian co-production goes back to the heyday of the 1980s, where the good guys were good, and the bad guys had beards.

It’s 1980, and mercenary Danny Bryce (Jason Statham) is ready to leave the killing business after a job goes wrong in Mexico. Returning to Australia with his girlfriend, Danny is summoned to Oman a year later when his colleague Hunter (Robert De Niro) has been held captive. Mission facilitator Agent (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) lets him know Hunter accepted a $6 million job and couldn’t finish it, and now he is being held captive by Sheikh Amr, who wants the three SAS agents who killed his eldest sons terminated. In order to save Hunter, Danny has to get back in the game and not only convince all three agents to confess, but to make their deaths look like accidents. Plus, he must also contend with Logan (Clive Owen), the head enforcer of the Feathermen, a society that protects their own agents.

Academy Award nominated short film director Gary McKendry makes his feature debut with Killer Elite, and he has done so by throwing most of his kitchen utensils at the task. Shot almost entirely in Australia, this is an awkward fit, presumably only done to appease the local financing gods. Yet with a few trips to the UK and Morocco, McKendry attempts to give the film a bit of a globetrotting flavour in the style of the Bourne films. However, the slate-grey and über-serious way the film treats the material sucks any of the potential fun out of the mash-up of these three distinct superstars in their own right. Killer Elite is a very no frills affair, and even with explosions, car chases and gunplay galore, none of it is done with a sense of entertainment, or seemingly with a sense of purpose.

Killer Elite lurches from one scene to the next, as if carrying the weight of the action tropes it know that it must live up to. You can almost see the action movie checklist hovering over the side of the screen during this overlong movie. The usually reliable Statham takes no pleasure in the methodically presented bone-crunching action, and Owen seems to have phoned in much of his performance. Supporting cast members Dominic Purcell and the great Lachy Hulme provide a bit of liveliness in quiet moments, but only De Niro, who holds the smallest amount of screen time of all the players, truly impresses with one of his more solid performances in recent years.

Matt Sherring‘s script hints at the possibility of a sequel, although he and director McKendry will next be seen working together on Joseph and the Girl, a remake of the French film Joseph et la Fille. If that sequel does come along, Killer Elite has all of the basic building blocks to make a solid action film, it just needs to tighten them all up to truly live up to its title.

[stextbox id=”custom”]Killer Elite is neither part of the action elite, and nor is it killer, meandering from one scene to the next as if searching for its own purpose. [/stextbox]

Killer Elite was released in Australia on 23 February 2012 from Disney.

February 25, 2012
Official Australian trailer for Killer Elite

Disney has sent over the official Australian trailer for Killer Elite. De Niro and Statham, together at last!

Inspired by true events, Killer Elite is an action adventure spy film following Danny (Statham), one of the world’s most skilled special-ops agents. Lured out of self-imposed exile to execute a near-impossible feat of retribution and personal salvation, Danny reassembles his old team of operatives to help rescue his former mentor and partner Hunter (De Niro). Together they must penetrate the highly feared and respected military unit, the British Special Air Service (SAS) to take down a rogue cell of solider assassins before their actions create a global crisis..

Killer Elite’s whirlwind journey of action crosses the globe: from Mexico to Australia, from Paris and Lodon to Oman…and Wales! The story is based on Sir Ranulph Fiennes’ controversial non-fiction novel “The Feather Men.”

Killer Elite is release in Australia on 23 February 2012 from Disney.

January 12, 2012