Why Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters Will be the Best Fairy Tale Movie Adaptation So Far

As we know, there is a trend of bringing fairy tales to the big screen at the minute. So far there have been Little Red Riding Hood, Mirror Mirror and Snow White & The Huntsman. There is a Beauty & the Beast film in the pipeline but here we have Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, which is not by the same people as Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, although it sounds as though it could well be. When this update of the classic fairy tale was first announced it did worry me a little as the title sounded a little corny and the set photos didn’t inspire much confidence. However, now that the trailer has been released I have changed my mind completely.

The casting for Hansel & Gretel does look very good, despite the big age difference between the actors playing the title characters even though they are both shown to be around the same age but we can overlook that. Jeremy Renner is the ‘it’ man around Hollywood right now and has recently given a restart to both the Mission: Impossible franchise and the Bourne franchise (I think he was a great replacement for Matt Damon) and he also played fan favourite Hawkeye in Marvel’s The Avengers. Alongside Renner as Hansel there is one of my favourite British actresses Gemma Arterton playing Gretel. Arterton has shown over the years how incredibly versatile she is and just how wonderful an actress she can be. Now we finally get a chance to see her kicking ass and in real fight scenes which is good news.

Unlike the previous adaptations of fairy tales what we have in Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is not a retelling of the original story. This is why I think it could be better than all other fairy tale films that have been recently. Whereas both Mirror Mirror and Snow White & the Huntsman both told the origin story of Snow White so people knew what was coming, however Hansel & Gretel takes place 15 years after the fairy tale, fifteen years on from when Hansel & Gretel were almost killed by an evil witch. This means that there is a lot of space to play with as there is no specific end in mind as there are with other fairy tale stories.

The trailer has filled me with excitement about this film. There is a voice over from Jeremy Renner which isn’t your ordinary emotionless narration that you often get in trailers. The whole film looks like it really has got it’s genre nailed on, the scenery looks fantastic and it visually is a treat for the eyes. The trailer is action packed and you can clearly tell how the event fifteen years prior to the film affected Hansel and Gretel and it is fantastic to get a taste of the fight scenes that will appear in Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.

 

 

How well Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters will do when it is released in January is difficult to estimate. I think that it could go either way but if marketed correctly it could go well, especially with Renner and Arterton in the main roles. Hopefully it will pick up the teenage audience which it appears to be aiming for but I know that I will be looking forward to it. I just hope it is as good as I want it to be!

The Bourne Legacy Review

Aaron Cross is the new hero of the Bourne franchise.

Ten years ago, in 2002, Jason Bourne discovered went looking for his Identity, in 2004 Bourne appeared once again to unleash his Supremacy and in 2007 he never actually delivered an Ultimatum but this was the title of the film nonetheless. Now, the year is 2012 and a new leading agent, Aaron Cross, is dealing with the aftermath of Bourne’s actions, the Legacy that has been left behind.

The Bourne Legacy was always going to be a difficult task. The original trilogy of Bourne films are critically acclaimed and even more loved by fans, it is one of the most successful and greatest trilogies of all time without a bad film in the franchise. Now, minus Matt Damon in the lead role and Paul Greengrass in the director’s chair the task becomes even harder. A good move by the studio was to hire Tony Gilroy to write the fourth film, which would turn into a sequel/reboot/paraquel, since he wrote the original trilogy as well. And what started out as simply writing the first draft turned into a full writing and directing job for Gilroy meaning that they had someone in control who could capture the essence of the original films and was already involved in the Bourne universe rather than bringing in a stranger.

It doesn’t get much cooler than this.

Legacy does a fantastic job of both establishing a new character, story and opening up the story as well as coupling these events with the actions that take place within The Bourne Ultimatum. The opening scene pretty much does this immediately with Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) beginning the film in the same way Jason Bourne left it: lying motionless in the water before suddenly moving into action. The occasional mention of Jason Bourne help to keep the film in the same universe without relying on it too much to continue the story.

Action scenes have always been vital in the Bourne franchise and these have been lauded by fans over and over again because they are perfectly choreographed and have a proper gritty sense of realism. There are worries at the beginning that this may not be the case with The Bourne Legacy as it takes a while for some big fight scenes to take place. Instead we have to settle for Aaron Cross finding his way through some mountains, shooting a few things with a rifle and bonding with some other random agent in a log cabin in the snow. There is a little taster of what’s to come when Cross takes on a wolf but then the action gets so much better when Cross tracks down and saves Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), killing four people in the process using everything from the ordinary (a gun) to the unexpected that Bourne is known for (a table, fire extinguisher). The stunts and fight scenes are just as good, if not better in my opinion, as the original trilogy’s.

Renner and Weisz prove a winning combination on screen.

The performances from everyone in the cast are very solid. Jeremy Renner, continuing his great year following Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and The Avengers, is brilliant in the lead role and has fantastic chemistry with Rachel Weisz which really helps in the believability of their relationship towards one another as it builds through the film. Weisz herself is actually very good as well. Ed Norton doesn’t have much to do unfortunately but I anticipate a bigger role for him in the sequel which The Bourne Legacy certainly leaves itself open to and I wouldn’t be surprised if a script was already being written as I write this.

The Bourne Legacy does exactly what it needs to. It does a great job of exploring the world that we know Bourne lives in and gives insight to how his actions have affected people’s lives that were never given a second thought to before. With Matt Damon leaving this was a great direction to go. It doesn’t quite live up to the original trilogy but what it does is leave itself open for it’s own franchise to be headed by Jeremy Renner and hopefully Tony Gilroy will stay on writing duties even if he steps down from directing. Fans of the first three films should enjoy The Bourne Legacy but it is a hard place to jump in to what is already a pretty complicated series of films.

My Rating: 7/10.

Whatever Happened to the Action Genre?

The three biggest action stars in the world… ever.

During the eighties and nineties the action genre was the place to be and many action stars were born. Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steven Seagal and Dolph Lundgren all made careers out of being action heroes. Their films were, most of the time, nothing more than a simple storyline where a hero just got to kick ass and the audience would have fun cheering the hero on while he did so, eg. Die Hard, Rambo. Nowadays you won’t really find that among the big Hollywood films, the genre has evolved over time and action films seemed to get more serious, genres started to merge and the days of the real action genre and action heroes are behind us, I think.

While people like the actors mentioned above are still making films I do believe that the only real action hero we have left is the English born Jason Statham. He is most famous for the Transporter trilogy and his films continue to get a cinema release whereas the likes of Lundgren, Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme do not, so why is this? I think it is because Statham does have a real talent for acting whereas a lot of action heroes are just there because of their size and physique; Statham has shown before he can manage the acting as well as the action, he seems like a really nice guy which audiences always like and he is still relatively new in his career, having only started out in 1998. It’s been 14 years sure, but actors these days go for a lot longer than that!

The Expendables 2 is coming out later this year and back in 2010 we saw a return to the sole action genre with the original film directed and written by Sylvester Stallone himself. The idea was to bring together a great ensemble cast of action heroes to bring the genre back to the forefront of blockbuster cinema. The cast included Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren as well as a scene that features three stars synonymous with the action genre: Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Willis. The sequel retains this cast and expands with Van Damme and Chuck Norris. The idea to revive the big action block buster was a good one in theory and went down well with fans as the film opened to huge commercial success across the globe but critics were less favourable as the film received mixed to negative reviews. Despite this, a third film is rumoured to happen and Steven Seagal says he has been offered a part. But it does seem as though the only way to get a big action film back on the big screen is to bring together an ensemble, otherwise audiences are not going to be grabbed.

Asian cinema still features a lot of action films and the very successful The Raid (originally titled Serbuan Maut) was even released in British cinemas earlier this year and went down very well with critics so maybe it is just Hollywood that can’t get it right? I suppose that the nearest thing we have to a pure action film these days is the Fast & Furious franchise but you could hardly say that Paul Walker is an action hero or that even Vin Diesel is (come on, he was in The Pacifier) no matter how much he really likes to think he is himself. The Bourne films are marketed as action films and I guess they could be described as such but this is still an evolution from real action films as it features more in crime and even political genres, however the action does feature a lot. And Matt Damon would not consider himself an action hero I don’t think. Liam Neeson isn’t particularly an action hero yet his film Taken is probably the most successful action movie of recent times and is the only really really good one that I can think of right now.

I would argue that the nearest thing we have to real action films now are the superhero movies. The action heroes have been replaced with those of the comic book world as they appear on the big screen and clearly define the theme of good versus evil and the hero goes on to kick some ass very much like Rambo, John McClane or Frank Martin would do. All the time, trying to keep it fun for audiences.

Over time all genres do evolve as audiences crave something new, something that will break boundaries or challenge them to put the pieces together themselves but I, for one, would like to see more old school action films being made. But none of these rubbish straight to DVD films, I want real action blockbusters with real action heroes in them. All it will take is for one new action hero to step out of the shadows and then a flurry of them will follow as it did for he superhero movies and for the fairy tale films too. So whoever he is, he better step up quick.

Exciting Movie News: Bourne, Van Helsing and Black Panther!

Some weeks go by when there is not a single thing happening in the movie world that I am bothered about and then all of a sudden three things come along at once:

 

First up, there is a new Van Helsing film in development! Before you question why this is good news, you first have to know that this will not be a sequel to the awful Hugh Jackman interpretation of the character back in 2004, this will be a complete reboot. The reboot is to be written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, a writing pair that can boast hits such as Star Trek, Fringe, Alias, The Legend of Zorro, Mission: Impossible III, Transformers and, to a lesser extent, Cowboys and Aliens. Kurtzman has said that the reboot will be ‘grounded in reality’ and has high aims as he wants to ‘do for Van Helsing what [Christopher] Nolan has done for Batman’. The other piece of exciting news surrounding this project is who is attached to star as the title character: Tom Cruise. His career seems to have had its own little reboot in the last couple of years and he is being lined up to appear in everything, not that I’m complaining, I think he is a great person to watch and has a fantastic on screen persona. Van Helsing has no set release date yet with Cruise’s hectic schedule but a release of 2014/15 may be realistic.

 

Next up, Bourne! The Bourne trilogy is one of my favourites of all time, I think Matt Damon’s portrayal of super spy Jason Bourne is a character to rival any other and the storyline, the directing and the supporting cast are all fantastic. So when I heard that Damon and director Paul Greengrass would not be returning for fourth film The Bourne Legacy I was understandably disappointed. Then my disappointment faded with the announcement of Jeremy Renner becoming the lead role and playing Aaron Cross in what has been dubbed a ‘paraquel’ (the events take place simultaneously with the original Bourne trilogy). Frank Marshall, the producer of The Bourne Legacy has now said that it is his ‘dream’ to see Matt and Jeremy team up in the fifth installment. Of course, this is just a dream at the minute and Damon has fierce loyalty to director Greengrass and recently had a falling out with writer and new director Tony Gilroy but money talks and a huge payday for Damon could be in line if he was to return to the franchise which would be incredible!

Here is the incredible trailer for Renner’s The Bourne Legacy: 

And finally…

 

Marvel are riding high on the waves of success at the minute and a few months ago announced the line up for their next few films. among the regulars of Iron Man 3, Thor 2, Captain America 2 there were a couple of surprises with Marvel announcing two secret films. Immediately there was speculation that the 2014 secret movie would be a Black Panther origin story. Black Panther is one of my favourite characters in the Marvel universe and really does deserve a film and in the past week or so there has been no shortage of actors saying that they would love to be a part of the film. Anthony Mackie (The Hurt Locker, Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter) said that he hoped to be a part of The Incredible Hulk but wasn’t and would sign on to Black Panther today; Brian J. White (Cabin in the Woods, Brick) has also said he would love to work with Marvel when he was linked with the role but I don’t think that he looks the part so I would count him out straight away; Aldis Hodge (Leverage) seems to be the current fan favourite out of people who have confirmed their interest in the role and just by looking at him you have to say that he does seem to be the perfect fit. I would still hope that Djimon Hounsou got the part but maybe Marvel will go for a lesser known and cheaper actor for the part.

(left to right) Fan favourite Aldis Hodge; Marvel superhero Black Panther; my pick Djimon Hounsou.

Why I Love… 10 Things I Hate About You

10 Things I Hate About You was the first film that I really fell in love with, after being forced to watch it while I was in school. Directed by Gil Junger, 10 Things I Hate About You is a modern interpretation of William Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew set in an American high school. I am quite a fan of Shakespeare’s works so this is one of the little reasons I like the film.

Released in 1999 it comes as no surprise that 10 Things I Hate About You is incredibly 90s. It’s not just set in the 90s it is incredibly over the top 90s that you can’t watch it without feeling nostalgic. But because of this, the film is visually great; its vibrant, its colourful, bright and, at times, majorly over the top but it’s just so fun that it gets away with it. That’s reason one, the visuals.

The next reason is the brilliant soundtrack. All around, 10 Things I Hate About You is a really fun film and with the addition of “chicks who can’t play their instruments”, in the words of Patrick Verona, the film really comes alive. There is plenty of 90s chick rock playing over the top of the film and whilst this plays a small part in the story of the film it really adds to the audience’s enjoyment.

The cast is made up of young actors, obviously as its set in a high school; a few of them would go on to great things. Joseph Gordon-Levitt has become one of the best actors of his generation, Julia Stiles has starred in a lot of big films (including the Bourne franchise) and the late Heath Ledger who needs no description, his talent was undeniable and David Krumholtz became the lead in hit television series Numb3rs. They are all really good actors in their own rights and even back in 1999 their talent was plain to see. Heath Ledger in particular is impressive in 10 Things I Hate About You as the bad guy turned good. The supporting cast (Larry Miller, Daryl Mitchell, Allison Janney) all have turns in the film that provide fantastic comedic moments and with this brilliant cast the film remains light hearted and thoroughly enjoyable throughout.

With the cast being so good, it is obvious that another huge reason to love this film is because of the characters. From the English teacher who just wants kids to “read a book written by a black man” right up to the ‘shrew’ Kat Stratford the characters are connectable and the way they are played and written allows the audience to easily connect. You connect with Cameron and understand his motivations even though Bianca is clearly not good enough for him (at the beginning of the film) and you connect with Kat and understand why she is like she is and you instantly dislike the cocky Joey Donner and await his comeuppance with a little bit of enjoyment. Kat, Bianca and Patrick’s journey and development as the film goes on is clear and fantastic, it is part of what makes the film really good, these characters change because of each other and all end up arguably better people than they were when the film began.

This leads me to my next reason. The themes of friendship and love that overwhelm 10 Things I Hate About You are played out very well. Cameron and Michael become good friends and I like to think that Cameron and Patrick have some sort of friendship especially after Patrick’s words of encouragement at the party. The family relationships in the Stratford household really come along well, from the arguing sisters, Kat and Bianca, to their relationship with their over protective father. And then of course, the relationships between Bianca and Cameron and then Patrick and Kat; Bianca’s relationship with Cameron is the main object of the film, really, and whilst at times it seems this won’t work out it I Patrick’s relationship with Kat that really intrigues audiences. At the beginning Patrick is in it for the money, but as he gets to know Kat he falls in love with her but things get in the way and it is really really satisfying to see that they end up together, happy.

The final, huge reason why I love 10 Things I Hate About You is this:

Heath Ledger’s smile:

Has Hollywood run dry of ideas?

This week it was announced that Transformers 4 had been given the go ahead. It is not yet clear for certain whether this is a sequel or a reboot but either way it will certainly be something we have seen before. This can be said for other films hitting the screens this summer: The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, G.I. Joe and at the end of last year we had Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and Mission Impossible 4. In the pipeline we have more Bond, a reboot of The Fantastic Four and the two sequels to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. So many of Hollywood’s products nowadays comes from comic books, novels or foreign films that it seems like Hollywood has lost it’s originality.

Sure, everyone loves a sequel to one of their favourite films, getting to see their favourite characters on another adventure (if it is done correctly) and there is no doubt that the big wigs in Hollywood know this. But don’t we, as paying members of the audience, deserve something new and refreshing for a change? Okay, so not every film being brought out is based on something else but the big ones that are really pushed by studios are and at the minute the trend seems to be comic book films.

You could argue that turning a novel or a comic book into a film really opens up the audience for that product, but it is not original! If someone has come up with the original story for the novel in question then why is it so difficult for a writer hired by some big Hollywood studio to come up with an equally original idea? And why remake films that have already been made? There has recently been a rise of international films being remade in Hollywood that only saw release a couple of years before: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Internal Affairs (which Hollywood turned into The Departed) are a couple of examples. Yes, both of these films turned out to be huge successes but was there really any need for them? Have movie audiences really become too lazy to deal with subtitles?

Maybe it is not a case of Hollywood running out of ideas, though. It could be that Hollywood studios are just happy to cash in on products they KNOW will earn money. It has become clear to studio executives that if something contains the name ‘X-Men’, ‘Bourne’ or ‘Bond’ that audiences will go and see that film, they would argue they are giving the public what they want. But with the ever increasing amount of movies being made based on other works, is originality dying out?

Let’s hope not.

The Bourne Legacy (Minus Bourne) Gets A Trailer

“Jason Bourne was the tip of the iceberg.”

Here is the first glimpse of the latest installment in the Bourne franchise, albeit minus Jason Bourne. A lot of fans online have complained about the continuation of the series without Matt Damon playing the super skilled assassin that audiences have come to know and love.

Damon’s replacement is Jeremy Renner, a man quietly taking Hollywood by storm. And he seems to suit the role perfectly in the trailer. The trailer opens with a scene very similar to that of Bourne registering with Treadstone. It may be because of the way it has been presented, with only small segments of the screen visible to the audience, but this half of the trailer didn’t impress me unfortunately. Luckily, what came next is what we expect from the Bourne films. We have Renner’s character, Aaron Cross, using fire extinguishers to blow up buildings, he is taking out helicopters with a gun and he is jumping out of trees; action fueled scenes which Bourne has done so well in the previous movies.

It seems as though there is a lot here for fans of the series to get their teeth into. Whether it will attract new fans to the franchise remains to be seen, but it looks to me as though the Bourne franchise can continue without Matt Damon at the helm, although there is always the possibility he could return so fingers crossed!