Reviews

Anyone who has studied history, and that's just about everyone, will find something to enjoy in Bill, a big screen leap for the popular TV team that expands the scope of the show without letting go of the good humour and wit beloved by millions.

Taking a cue from Shakespeare in Love, but playing the idea of the Bard's formative years in a very different way, Bill features Mathew Bayton as the young playwright, seeking his fortune in London and falling under the wing of Christopher Marlowe (Jim Howick). The historical aspect is brought to the fore as King Phillip II (Ben Willbond) concocts a scheme to eliminate Queen Elizabeth I (Helen McCrory) by gunpowder, with Bill's first play giving him a pretext to carry out his plan. Bill's excitement about seeing his work brought to the stage is tempered by a dawning realisation that he's only a pawn in a bigger political game.

Bill might well work for worldwide audiences as a cheerful parody of Shakespeare in Love, but has its own sense of comic invention. It's refreshing to see a British film with such spirited performances, with Willbond sporting several moustaches at once and his co-writer Laurence Rickard superbly deadpan as the violently anti-Catholic Walsingham. Bill never dumbs down history, but reflects it through amusingly modern updates; the castle security go to Code Woad when the believe there's a high risk of attack, and Phillip's men are subject to a search by a decidedly modern customs officer. Damien Lewis has a brief but amusing cameo, and all the performers are on point; you can tell that they've got confidence in the material, and they wring every possible laugh from it. Sneaking into cinemas with barely a breath of publicity, Bill should find a wide and appreciative audience once it finds a home on the small screen; carefully plotted and with genuine wit behind the gags, it's the best British comedy of the year. That may not be saying much, given that big-screen comedy is seemingly a lost art, but Bill is just the thing to put a rare smile on the faces of adults and children alike.

Aviation has always been a key element of the Studio Ghibli films; from the flying broomstick in Kiki's Delivery Service to the airborne armies in Howl's Moving Castle. So for Hayao Miyazaki's reported swan-song to focus on the development of aeroplane design is no surprise. A fictionalised biopic of designer Jiro Horikoshi, The Wind Rises is a stunning achievement, an animated film that uses the medium to tell a compelling, highly emotional story that has appeal for children and adults alike. Horikoshi's designs were used during World War 2, and that detail may make The Wind Rises unpalatable to some. But Miyazaki's films have never focused on battle-lines, but on the personal stories involved, and The Wind Rises gains power from the balancing of the beauty of the designs against the knowledge that the purpose for which the designs will be used leads to death and unhappiness. It's a bitter-sweet paradox, and one that many directors would sweep under the carpet. Instead, Miyazaki puts Horikoshi's dilemma centre-stage, and depicts the designer's angst as he finds himself immersed in industrial and international intrigue while he attempts to keep his own thinking pure. A subplot, invented for the film, relates how Horikoshi's work life is informed by his chaste romance with Naoko, a woman with tuberculosis who won't marry until she recovers. Horikoshi's dreams take flight while his day-to-day reality struggles to leave the ground behind. The Wind Rises stirs up sensational aerial dream sequences, but also captures the bleakness of life on the ground, as Tokyo recovers from a devastating earthquake. Horikoshi and Naoko journey to the Magic Mountain resort in an effort to address her physical malaise, and their interaction with a mysterious German spy, beautifully voiced by Werner Herzog, sketches out the sinister world of warmongering that forms the backdrop to their romance. Studio Ghibli films have always been beautiful to watch, and The Wind Rises excels in every frame. But the overriding message, about the role of a gifted individual to overcome the constraints of society, is just as beautifully wrought; The Wind Rises is required viewing for anyone who wants to have their spirits lifted and soar like the wind for two blissful hours.

Need for Speed

The death of Fast and Furious star Paul Walker casts an eerie light over Dreamworks racing movie Need for Speed: early on, when one of his friends is burned to death in a high-powered sports car, high-flying street-racer Tobey (Aaron Paul) is brought back down to earth, but only for a few moments. In Need For Speed, road traffic fatalities are just plot- points, quickly glossed over before the next set of brightly colored obstacles come into view. It's a formula that worked well in the Fast and Furious films, but after the genuine shock of Walker's tragic death in a car accident, such jollity in the face of death may sit uneasily with the public.

Now that the Fast and Furious films have shifted gears from street racing to international heists, there's clearly a gap left in the market for a street racing film: Need for Speed attempts to have it both ways by having Tobey get out of jail and leave the police far behind as he takes part in an illegal cross-country race to get to an illegal cross-country race. 'A race before the race, I love it,' exclaims organizer Monarch (Michael Keaton), but audiences may feel differently; the stakes for each race are just the same, and the action is so similar that one race blends into another.

Scott Waugh's film borrows the high-seriousness and epic tone on the Fast and Furious films as Tobey and his posh girlfriend Julia attempt to get to Monarch's race. Tobey knows that Dino (Dominic Cooper) was responsible for his friend's death through dangerous driving, and has charged himself to teach Dino a lesson by driving even more dangerously. This numbskull quest is devoid of any real point: finger-pointing Tobey accuses Dino of being irresponsible, but no-one in the film ever questions whether taking part in illegal street-racing such is a good idea in the first place.

It's just one of a series of idiocies, not the deftly enjoyable ones featured in the Fast and Furious ones, but ones that leave you wondering what's going on. If Tobey's car is twice as fast as the police, why can't he outrun them easily ? If he's such a good driver, why does he need rescued by helicopter? Why does Tobey plan to refuel his car from an airborne pump, but need Julia to climb outside the car to plug the nozzle in? And if he's in such a rush that he simply cannot stop, why does the next scene see him pulling into a gas station?

The laws of physics have also taken a battering in the Fast and Furious Films, but Need for Speed doesn't have the same testosterone charm: when a sports car drives directly at a humvee and the humvee swerves to avoid the crash, then any credibility has gone out the window. Like Keaton's obnoxious commentator, Need For Speed is far too full of itself: aside from a few well-staged crashed, the weak plotting and clichéd characters mean that there's nothing much to see here. Grand Theft Zero.

FILM AUTHORITY REVIEWS 300: Rise of an Empire

A rare sequel that matches up to the original film, 300: Rise of an Empire is a brisk romp through the history books, filtered through the comic book imagination of Frank Miller and the bloody cinematic CGI heavy vision of Zack Snyder. Interestingly, the events depicted in Noah Munro's film wrap around the battle seen in the first film; the Spartans are seen heading off the Hot Gates 20 minutes in, and news of their sacrifice is received around the hour mark. The focus is wider, and begins with the birth of Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro). Popping out of the pool at 12 feet tall, the mortal turned god is mainly a peripheral figure as the Greeks, led by Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton) ramp up for a sea-battle with the Persians. The Persian forces are under the control of Artemesia (Eva Green), whose backstory is fully explained through a graphic scene in which she watches her family raped and murdered. Trained as a warrior, she's a worthy adversary for Themistokles, and they even get it on romantically, although the sex is anything but gentle. With Snyder co-writing and producing, 300: Rise of an Empire is very much more of the same in terms of bare-chested speeches and heavy bouts of narration, but the epic sea battles are freshly presented, and the spectacle is huge throughout. Green and Stapleton both fill out their roles with venom, and gouts of gore spray over decks, extras and the camera lens; the promise of a 'tide of blood' is delivered on, including a choice decapitation. 300; Rise of an Empire is a rattling good watch for those who enjoyed the first film. With plenty of plot-lines left hanging, there's plenty of scope for the franchise to continue after this solid, impressively handled entry. The Film Authority

John Michael McDonagh is a skilled writer/director whose career has somewhat been overshadowed by his brother Martin. While Martin's canon features belters like In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, John Michael's debut with The Guard seemed like a pale imitation; his latest film, Calvary features the same star as The Guard in Brendan Gleeson, and attempts the same mix of blackly comic patter, violent incident and philosophical ruminations that has been the hallmark of the brothers' work. In Calvary, Gleeson plays Father James, an easy-going, likable priest who is given a death sentence in the confessional by an unseen voice in his confessional. James has a week to get himself together, with a rendezvous with his assassin planned for a lonely beach on the following Sunday. James is split between preparing for a struggle (buying a gun and bullets) and making his peace with the world, notably reconciliation with his daughter (Kelly Reilly). But there's also the tricky business of working out who his potential assassin might be; the voice claimed to belong to a man abused by priests, and James sets out to interview a number of potential candidates, including Dylan Moran, Chris O'Dowd and Aiden Gillen, all of whom have potential motives… McDonagh deserves some credit for tackling issues to do with hidden abuse by the church head on; a telling scene sees Father James chatting to a little girl, only for her suspicious father to pull up in a car and whisk her away. The role of the church in a small community is under examination, and McDonagh pits Father James's likability and affable nature against local distrust of the church. As with the guard, Gleeson is a great center for a film like this, and his performance holds Calvary together. Unfortunately, McDonagh does not have his brother's gift of the gab when it comes to dialogue. Knowing dialogue (That's a great opening line,' "what a third act revelation') suggests that Father James has been swallowing screen writing manuals, or that McDonagh can't resist showing off. The scenes with James's daughter are heavy-handed when they need to be caustic, and there's too much knockabout whimsy, albeit peppered with swearing. A bleak ending sits uneasily with the whimsy; whereas Martin is deft in his gear-changes, John Michael's control of the dialogue is clumsy and childish in comparison. Calvary is a thematically interesting and modern film, but it fails to hit the targets it aims for. The Film Authority.

Dreamworks delve into the Rocky and Bullwinkle universe with Mr Peabody and Mr Sherman, a lighthearted romp for kids about a time-traveling dog (Mr Peabody) and his adopted son Sherman. One look at the character designs tells you that the overall intent is to be lovable, and while Peabody and Sherman's adventures are easy to watch, they lack the post-modern gusto of The Lego Movie. Peabody may be a simple canine, but he's also a genius, and his mastery of science and particularly time travel are established early on. The intricacies of parenting are a different matter, and Sherman has abandonment issues when he starts school. Sherman breaks his father's golden rules by showing off their time machine to pretty schoolmate Penny, and a chase through history results taking in Troy, ancient Rome, the American revolution and more. One adult double entendre aside, Mr Peabody and Sherman is a Bill and Ted-style romp through the history books, with enough references to stop adults getting bored and plenty of slapstick for kids. Penny, however, is an unlikable character, and her early aggression to Sherman is unjustified as she rapidly becomes a member of the time-traveling team. Her presence is a bum-note in an otherwise streamlined adventure; while not as good as The Croods or How To Train Your Dragon, Mr Peabody and Sherman is decent enough fare to keep the little-ones amused. The Film Authority

The Film Authority reviews The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson's eclectic films have sometimes seemed burdened by the cinema of the past; The Royal Tennenbaums recalls John Irving's The Hotel New Hampshire, while The Darjeeling Limited references Indian cinema. By looking back to the writings of Austrian humorist Stefan Zweig, whose The World of Yesterday is suffused by nostalgia, Anderson finds a common soul to work with, and the result is a complex, over-stuffed but frequently delightful film, at odds with modern fashions. Ralph Fiennes plays Gustave H, a concierge at a glamorous eastern-European hotel who takes an interest in a lobby-boy Zero (Tony Revolori). Gustave has a secret passion for the elderly Madame D (Tilda Swinton), but when she dies, an act of art-theft sets himself up as her killer, and Gustave and Zero break out of jail to attempt to clear his name. Told through flashbacks between an older Zero (F Murray Abraham) and an interested writer (Jude Law), The Grand Budapest Hotel is busy even by Anderson's standards, with cameos from Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, Tom Wilkinson and a host of other familiar faces. The effect is charming, in that it evokes a past where character and style were omnipresent, contrasting nicely with the somewhat tatty setting of Zero's recollection. The Grand Budapest Hotel has lots of comic situations, and even if there are fewer laughs, the elaborate staging and cheerful air of anything-goes storytelling will ender it to a small but passionate group of cinema-goers. Fiennes wasn't first choice for the role, and he plays it with gusto, and the whole cast seem to be in on the joke, especially Harvey Keitel as a spry inmate of the jail. The Film Authority

Liam Neeson has become a happy center for many a genre thriller, including Taken 1 and 2, Unknown and now Non-Stop, a traditional suspense drama which loses its head somewhat after a taut first hour.

Neeson plays Bill Marks, a Belfast-born air Marshall whose trip from New York to London turns into a nightmare. A series of text messages from an unknown opponent promise to kill and passenger every twenty minutes until 150 million dollars are put into a secure account. With the help of fellow passenger Jen Summers (Julianne Moore), Bill tries to work out whereabouts on the plane the messages are coming from, questioning and occasionally beating up his fellow passengers as he races against time. Non-Stop's poster image, of Neeson firing his gun inside a diving plane, suggests much more action than Jaume Collet-Sera's thriller delivers, but the first couple of acts have plenty of tension in an old-fashioned who-dunnit style. Things get pretty silly once the mystery is solved, but Neeson and Moore both giving a convincing account of their characters. Non-Stop isn't a classic, but a reasonable time-passer for those who enjoy seeing a big movie star in a typically ludicrous scenario; when a newsreader mentions 'unbelievable plot twists', it's hard to imagine the audience not agreeing.

The Film Authority