LUCY
Luc Besson gleefully combines two of his favourite movie elements - fit women and wildly insane action - in this raucous guilty pleasure. It's almost as if he's trying to make his own version of Inception, but this is one of those films that only pretends to be brainy and existential. It's actually a slick, silly, improbable action romp. And it's a lot of fun.
The title refers both to the very first female and an American student (Scarlett Johansson) living in Taipei whose loser boyfriend (A Hijacking's Pilou Asbaek) ropes her into making a delivery to notoriously vicious crime boss Jang (Oldboy's Choi Min-sik). Grabbed by Jang's goons, she's forced to become a mule, with a kilo of experimental drugs implanted in her abdomen. When it bursts, the drug allows her to access much more than the 10 percent of the brain humans normally use. By the time she hits 20%, she can already control people and objects around her. And the percentage keeps climbing. So she heads to Paris to meet mental capacity expert Norman (Morgan Freeman) and figure out what to do. But Jang and his army of thugs are in hot pursuit, so she enlists a local cop (Syriana's Amr Waked) to help.
Besson doesn't like to hang around, so the film takes off like a shot, only barely pausing for breath in its brisk 89-minute running time. On-screen captions keep us updated on Lucy's brain capacity, and it's great fun seeing every advancement she makes on her way to 100%. This allows Besson to indulge in deliriously enjoyable mind-bending action sequences that play out like he's a kid with a giant set of very cool toys. Outrageous car chases, giant explosions and random epic shootouts fill the screen as Lucy expands her mind, begins to bend reality around her and transcends the limits of numbers and letters.
Johansson is terrific, throwing herself into the role as if it makes any sense at all. She somehow manages to keep a straight face even in the film's most absurdly ridiculous moments, and she's nicely balanced by Freeman's calm authority, Waked's frazzled disbelief and especially Choi's hilariously annoyed villain.
There isn't a single moment when we doubt how this will end, but in the absence of any genuine suspense Besson makes sure that we are entertained to within an inch of our lives. Scenes are packed with deliberately comical touches, from snappy dialogue to running gags and spurious details. And it's such brilliantly staged nonsense that we just sit back and hold on for the ride.
Watch the trailer..
There was a danger that the unprecedented level of anticipation and expectation around these shows could never be satisfied. More so this opening night, with no spoiler, no prior knowledge of what to expect for her first live show in 35 years.
In the foyer, the excitement was palpable, babbling chatter of how / when they got tickets, what had been leaked from the locked down full dress rehearsal here some 48hrs prior. And so to our seats some 25minutes, valiantly fought for drinks in hand, fearful that we might somehow miss the start if we delayed a moment longer.
The stage set offers no clues, leads you nowhere. The backdrop similarly…., it’s a conventional stage set. The lights drop, the music starts, the people stand and applaud wildly and a small procession of people snake across the stage, there, unassuming at the back is Kate.
The opening number, the gorgeous Lily from her Red Shoes album sees Kate padding around the stage, nervously, timidly, carefully choreographed moves for an opening section that sees Hounds Of Love, Running up That Hill and King of The Mountain performed to ever increasing delirium and grins so wide.. Kate looking genuinely touched, gets her thanks in early (before the real action it transpires), thanking her son Albert (Bertie) who at 16 years old takes his places as a quartet of backing singers. He, it seems gave her the confidence to get back on stage…
Act 2 sees a visualisation of the Ninth Wave. The Ninth Wave is the seven song suite based around the theme of a person thrown overboard, drifting, drowning alone in the sea at night, its dark, moody and at time sinister A screen covers the stage as a pre-recorded
element sets the scene.. When the screen clears we see the stage is reset within the shipwrecked hull of a boat and Kate is there with the fragile and beautiful And Dream Of Sheep “Little light shining / little light will guide them to me” and so the story is told, via
pickaxes, chainsaws, helicopters and search light, fish headed people and her husband (and bassist) Danny, together with their son Bertie discussing burnt sausages. If it all sounds a little mad then it is but the story is beautifully sung and spectacularly delivered by Kate to its conclusion… ”I’ll tell my mother / I’ll tell my father/…How much I love them.
The reaction is incredible, everyone immediately on their feet, thunderous applause, a genuine appreciation for an incredible performance, the likes of which will never have been seen before. For fans like myself who have heard the Ninth Wave hundreds of times and visualised it, this was amazing and shows why Kate Bush is one of this country’s most creative and imaginative individuals. And this was just the first half… stunned beyond belief by what we had saw, we contemplated where this could go after the interval, what heights could it scale.
Would the second half be a hits laden romp through her back catalogue? The clever money was soon on her Sky of Honey 8 song suite from 2005s’ album Aerial. A Sky Of Honey follows the progress of the hours from just before dawn, through the day and falling ofevening until the subsequent morning. And so it was. Less intense and less dramatic but the perfect antidote to the dark Ninth Wave. This is more celebratory, more euphoric. Bertie is cast at the painter who sits in the field painting the scenery – this role was originally played and sung by Rolf Harris on the album…… Elsewhere in ‘Honey’ we have odd wooden puppetry – who is told to piss off by Bertie / The Painter, huge paper aeroplanes and a flying Kate. Bertie even gets to sing a song, no claims of nepotism here.. as he tackles a new song, Tawny Moon. His voice is rich but to these ears lacks tone, hey ho.
Kates voice throughout is strong, crystal clear powerful yet delicate and emotive as ever, as she returned for an encore. She thanks everyone for ‘such a wonderful, warm and positive response’ before taking to the piano for what initially sounded like The Man With The Child In His Eyes but turned out to be the equally touching Among Angels and a final joyous full band take on Cloudbusting… I just know that something good is going to happen / just saying it could even make it happen.
Before the dawn is everything you could expect yet nothing you could ever imagine.
Set list:
Lily
Hounds of Love
Joanni
Top Of The City
Running Up That Hill
King Of The Mountain
The Ninth Wave:
And Dream Of Sheep
Under Ice
Waking The Witch
Watching You Without Me
Jig Of Life
Hello Earth
This Morning Fog
A Sky Of Honey:
Prelude
Prologue
An Architects Dream
The Painters Link
Sunset
Aerial Tal
Somewhere In Between
Tawny Moon (new song, sung by Bertie)
Nocturn
Aerial
Among Angels
Cloudbusting
It's taken nearly 10 years for filmmaker Robert Rodriguez and graphic novelist Frank Miller to get around to making this sequel, but it was worth the wait because the technical advancements make this second triptych of stories even more visually stunning, and the emotional resonance is even stronger. This is a lean, mean noir thriller that doesn't waste a single moment as it rips through three interlocking plots that centre on revenge for the events of the first movie.
Two people are out to get even with the ruthlessly nasty politician Roark (Powers Booth). Watched over by the hulking Marv (Mickey Rourke), gun-toting stripper Nancy (Jessica Alba) is still heartbroken after Roark killed her beloved Hartigan (Bruce Willis), who appears to her as a ghostly apparition. And Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is determined to bring Roark down by humiliating him at his own high-stakes poker game, even though merely having uncanny good luck might not be enough. But the main story centres on private eye Dwight (Josh Brolin), who is stopped in his tracks when he encounters his old flame Ava (Eva Green), a bombshell who has power over most men she meets. She asks for help with a domestic problem, and Dwight is powerless to walk away even though he knows something is fishy.
As before, these stories unfold exactly as they would in a graphic novel, with blunt dialogue and strikingly visual imagery black and white that's spotted with flashes of colour. Aside from Ava's blue coat, that colour is usually red: hair, nails, lips, but not blood, which splashes in glaring white. It looks fantastic in (ahem) eye-popping 3D. And it's fiercely violent as death hovers around the residents of Basin City, especially the lawless Old Town district. But there's just as much emphasis on surging passion, including some surprisingly graphic sexuality that plays up how helpless men are around a scantily clad woman. Indeed, it's rare to see an action film in which the women are so resolutely in charge.
The enormous cast of characters is sometimes rather confusing, but film is unfussy and straightforward, relentlessly entertaining as it piles on wry comedy and dark feeling. Green walks off with the movie as the staggeringly ruthless Ava, vamping through each scene without bothering to put on any clothing while revealing her own weaknesses along the way. Her scenes with Brolin are surprisingly involving emotionally, as is the desperation that pushes Alba's and Gordon-Levitt's characters, two tenacious young people trying to right the wrongs of their past, probably without any hope of success. Because this is a politician they're dealing with, and we all know how impossible it is to clean up a corrupt system.
Watch the trailer here:
The Expendables 3
Striking a tone somewhere between the po-faced original and the silly Part 2, this rampaging action nonsense is badly overcrowded and chaotic, but there's plenty of comedy and whizzy stuntwork to keep the audience entertained. It of course helps a lot that the film is packed to the rafters with iconic actors and lively newcomers. And their sassy dialogue helps make up for the idiotic plot.
It opens with a prison break, as Barney (Sylvester Stallone) and his team (Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture and Terry Crews) rescue their old cohort Doc (Wesley Snipes) then head off on a mysterious mission that turns out to involve their presumed-dead nemesis Stonebanks (Mel Gibson), who is targeting Barney's team. So Barney and his pal Bonaparte (Kelsey Grammer) set about finding four new commandoes (Kellan Lutz, Ronda Rousey, Glen Powell and Victor Ortiz) to take on Stonebanks, but of course nothing goes as plan. For the final face-off they're joined by the old team, CIA boss Drummer (Harrison Ford), former colleagues Trench and Yin (Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jet Li), and chatty newcomer Galgo (Antonio Banderas).
The ever-increasing cast means that some characters can't help but be pushed into the shadows (Crews and Li are barely in this film), while others hover around the edges of scenes injecting moments of sarcastic wit. Each of the characters gets his or her moment of eye-popping action, as the film lurches from set-piece to set-piece in a whirl of bombs, bullets and blades. All of this is fun because the actors are gleefully refusing to take any of this seriously. The scene-stealers this time are Gibson, terrific as the swaggering villain, and Banderas, who's hilarious as the only person who can string a sentence together.
The film's simplistic morality dictates that none of the Expendables will meet their maker; instead, anyone who dares to confront them must die, which in this case means hundreds of faceless soldiers whose violent deaths are treated as meaningless (and edited cynically to get a PG-13/12A rating that lets kids watch). But the action is so nonstop that it doesn't allow much time to think about these things, or to ponder the gaping holes in the plot. No, this is a movie that asks its audience to sit back and enjoy the carnage, gasp the insane stunts and admire the clunky digital effects that allow the ageing cast to indulge in so much physical mayhem. Not to mention the plastic surgery that almost makes them look like they belong in the middle of the fray instead of at home playing with their grandkids.
Watch the trailer here:
As we were stuck in London with The Expendables (more on that at the weekend but hanging around hotel rooms waiting is not fun) we sent our Assistant Ed Mel - whilst Karen completes her maternity leave - and her 11 year old son Tyler to see the irrepressible Ant And Dec at Leeds First Direct Arena..
Arriving to a packed arena, with the widest cross section of Yorkshire folk possible, the warm up guy had no trouble getting the audience ready to receive the dynamic duo. It was clear that audience participation, singing dancing and silly moves, were going to be the order of the evening and the audience-cam was capturing all the action. I confess I hadn’t quite loosened up enough and was slightly mortified to be captured mid sing song and appearing on the big screen but my son soon put me in my place.. Ant n Dec bounded down the stairs of the Leeds Arena, touching the flesh like some kind of evangelical types, no doubting they are slick entertainers who came across as warm and down to earth and the receptive audience were putty in their hands. Guest host, the bang tidy Keith Lemon, added an extra layer of comedy without taking anything away from the stars of the show during his I’m A Celebrity Get out Of My Ear section which could have been taken straight from his own Celebrity Juice..
My pre-teenage son's initial embarrassment of having to stand up and dance was replaced by an unstoppable need to join in with the activities and get down with the crowd. The 3 hour show consisted of a variety of acts and features from Ant and Dec's popular shows, pyrotechnics a plenty, dancers and jokes. A karaoke slot included a performance by has-been boy band, Blue and I managed to watch a stunning performance of River-dance, despite a long standing fear of Michael Flatley. Ashley Roberts assisted Ant n Dec with a challenge reminiscent of Raiders of the Lost Arc and performed her latest single but failed to add a great deal to the show apart from appealing to the males in the crowd. Looking round the Arena though, it was difficult to see one person who was not engaging in the lively atmosphere as everyone was up on their feet. Win the Ads saw a Leeds woman walk away with a new car and two gran holiday, not a bad result for a night out.
Even the most hardened party pooper would struggle to avoid being swept along by the shared frivolity and infectious sense of fun created by Ant n Dec. Yes, it could be described as a blow the budget Butlins cabaret but what would life by with a good old night of fun and laughter. Let yourself go and enjoy the ride. With a Let’s Get ready to Rhumble finale, how could you fail?
The tour continues...see here
