Video review: "Trainspotting 2"

It’s funny how the long-term cultural relevance of a film has such low correlation with its box office tally. “Trainspotting” earned only $16 million in 1996, but is arguably one of the most influential movies of the past quarter-century. Certainly, director Danny Boyle and star Ewan McGregor have become important figures.

Its sequel, “Trainspotting 2,” made more than double that -- but, I think, is destined to be largely forgotten in popular culture, in much the same way the “Wizard of Oz” sequel was.

(See? Bet you didn’t even know there was one.)

It’s a well-made film: entertaining, smart, sharp performances and plenty of nifty items out of Boyle’s bag of filmmaking tricks. In the end, though, we’re left wondering why this endeavor needed to happen.

We revisit the old gang of addict/criminals 20 years later, now middle-aged guys in various states of evolution, or not. Renton (McGregor), who ripped off his pals after a big drug score, turned to straight work in Amsterdam. Begbie (Robert Carlyle) has been serving hard time in prison ever since, dreaming of getting his hands around Renton’s throat.

Simon “Sick Boy” (Jonny Lee Miller) has taken over his family’s crumbling bar, and runs a little extortion racket on the side. Spud (Ewen Bremner), the gentle, somewhat dimwitted soul of the bunch, is very much the same -- working itinerantly in between getting high and visiting his wife and son.

After a health scare, Renton returns to look up his old friends -- well, not Begbie -- to see if there’s any way he can make amends. Spud is receptive, Sick boy less so. But they’re eventually back to their old ways, doing drugs and dreaming up cons to run. Begbie soon escapes from prison and comes seeking his own sort of reconciliation.

Renton’s old screeds about commercialism overtaking middle-class values are nicely updated for these streaming-and-Tweeting times. Maybe the real lesson of “T2” is the old saw about things staying the same the more they change.

Bonus features form a short list, but it’s pretty meaty stuff. Boyle and screenwriter John Hodge team up for a feature-length commentary track, there’s a making-of featurette with Boyle and his cast, plus deleted scenes.

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Review: "Trainspotting 2"

“So we all get old and then we can’t hack it anymore? Is that it?”
                --Mark Renton, “Trainspotting”

“You’re a tourist in your own youth.”
                --Simon aka “Sick Boy,” “Trainspotting 2”

File “Trainspotting 2” under Sequels We Never Thought We’d See. (Not to be confused with Sequels Nobody Wanted; e.g., “xXx: Return of Xander Cage.”)

“Trainspotting” from 1996, which followed a rough group of Scottish heroin addicts/thieves, launched star Ewan McGregor and director Danny Boyle, who have both gone on to major movie careers. Serious, Oscar-winning filmmakers tend to shy away from sequels because they’re seen as a generally unworthy endeavor.

But Boyle has long expressed interest in a sequel, though it took a while to round up the old gang. And it turns out that Irvine Welsh, the author of the book upon which the first movie was based, penned a follow-up novel that revisited the characters about 10 years later.

“Trainspotting 2” takes us even further out to 20 years. Our young anti-heroes -- Mark Renton (McGregor), Simon “Sick Boy” Williamson (Jonny Lee Miller), Danny “Spud” Murphy (Ewen Bremner) and Francis Begbie (Robert Caryle) -- are now middle-aged schlumps struggling to get on with meaningful lives.

The story (screenplay by John Hodge) brings the quartet back together to address old grudges, work out their individual disappointments and dream up some new schemes. It borrows heavily from the first movie, from particular shots to musical cues, including a reversal of the famous ending scene where Renton walks toward the camera with a cynical admonishment to “Choose life,” having just ripped off his mates following a big drug score.

I’ve seen the movie and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. Certainly, I liked it. Almost equally as certain, I don’t think it needed to be made.

Watching it is not unlike the experience of an estranged friend showing up on your doorstep after a long absence, a meeting filled with awkward pauses and mumbled apologies. When they leave a part of you is glad to have seen them again, while the other part wonders if some things are better left unsaid, some mysteries savored for remaining just so.

Renton has been living in Amsterdam working a straight job in accounting. He returns to Edinburgh after a couple of life-changing experiences, and to look up his old chums and see if forgiveness is a possibility. He finds Spud clean (albeit temporarily) but out of work, estranged from his wife and son.

A truly gentle soul, who seems to have gotten even more bird-like with the passing of years and the thinning of his plume-like shock of hair, Spud stands a bit apart from the story and acts as our eyes and ears.

Sick Boy is still addicted, though shifted to a more upscale cocaine habit. He runs his family’s run-down old pub, and has a side business setting up his prostitute girlfriend, Veronica (Anjela Nedyalkova), with well-to-do customers so he can film the antics and then blackmail them.

His reunion with Renton is less amicable than Spud’s, at least initially. Soon they’re back in cahoots, reminiscing about old times, running new scams and seeing who can be the first to betray the other.

Even less amenable is Begbie, the truly terrifying psychopath who seems to enjoy hurting others for its own sake. He’s been languishing in prison this whole time, and has Renton’s name on his lips in an unceasing litany for revenge. We know things are going to end grimy and bloody.

“Trainspotting” was an edgy, groundbreaking film because it provided us a funny, caustic window into the lowest dregs of society, then turned that glass around into a mirror that asked if everyday lives were really that much better. “Trainspotting 2” underlines many of the same themes without adding any meaningful postscript.

Video review: "Great Expectations"

I know, I know … you’re thinking to yourself, why should I care about the (seemingly) 3,074th version they’ve made of “Great Expectations” for film or television?

Short answer: because the new version that came out at the end of last year is one of the most emotionally engaging adaptations of a Charles Dickens’ novel I’ve ever seen.

You may not even be aware of this iteration, directed by Pete Newell (“Four Weddings and a Funeral”) and starring an impressive cast, including Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Jeremy Irvine, Robbie Coltrane and Holliday Grainger. It didn’t get much traction, barely making it into U.S. theaters.

But this may just be the best film of 2013 that nobody saw. Fiennes and Bonham Carter both deserved Oscar nominations for their fine, vibrant performances.

You know the story: a young penniless orphan (Irvine) is given an inheritance and an introduction into London society by an anonymous benefactor. He makes a mush of it, squandering his fortune and falling for a chilly, distant girl protected by her brittle ward, Miss Havisham (Bonham Carter).

Dickens himself felt that “Great Expectations” was his greatest work, but previous movie versions have tended to be stilted and unapproachable. Give this one a chance, and you won’t find yourself disappointed.

Extra features include deleted scenes, a making-of featurettes, photo gallery and more.

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Review: "Great Expectations"

Film adaptations of 19th century British and American literature have a tendency to be stiff and remote. The characters in those books were often more like archetypes than flesh-and-blood creatures. They spoke in lilted sentences adored in upper-class salons of the day, but which were unlikely to actually spill out of anyone’s mouth extemporaneously. Movie versions tend to translate this distance between author and audience.

At first I thought “Great Expectations” was falling into this fold, based on Charles Dickens’ classic tale of a blacksmith’s apprentice transformed into a young gentleman. The early section where we’re introduced to the main players and set the plot in motion drags rather badly. Pip is plucked out of obscurity and given a sizeable fortune by a mysterious benefactor.

But something happens along the way. The actors grow comfortable in their roles, director Mike Newell and screenwriter David Nicholls trim away some of the book’s extraneous subplots and characters, and the movie actually grows deeper and richer the further we travel along with it.

By the end, I was fully caught up in the emotional journey of Pip (Jeremy Irvine) and his long-estranged lady love, Estella (Holliday Grainger). Their on-again, off-again affair is somehow both restrained and ravishing.

The cast is just spectacular, with the characters really popping off the screen despite many of them having limited screen time. Jason Felmyng has sort of shy, proud grace as Joe, Pip’s brother-in-law and passive protector. Robbie Coltrone is a fearsome, fulsome presence as Jaggers, the mercenary lawyer put in charge of introducing Pip into society. Ewen Bremner, Sally Hawkins and Olly Alexander are spot-on as, respectively, Jaggers’ assistant Wemmick, Pip’s abusive older sister and best chum Herbert Pocket.

The real standouts are Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes, both of whom deserve consideration when the award season rolls in.

As Miss Havisham, the wealthy spinster who takes young Pip under her wing, Carter is an eerie presence, a victim and victimizer who has shut herself away from life. Abandoned at the altar by a conniving embezzler, she still wears her wedding dress, now reduced to ragged strips, while the mice make a feast on her never-served banquet dinner. She’s both vile and pitiable.

It’s no secret Fiennes can be utterly unnerving onscreen, so his early scenes as escaped convict Abel Magwitch are fraught with terror. Later, while never losing his hard edges -- he’s a willing murderer who sleeps with a blade in his hand -- Magwitch is also exposed as more human than we might have supposed.

Irvine is fine in the lead role, though it’s more of a reactive part where the actor is required to play off of the other, more interesting people around him. Grainger has a nice feel for the coldness inside the heart of Estella, Miss Havisham’s adoptive daughter.

She delivers perhaps the most memorable line of the book and movie: “I have been bent and broken, but -- I hope -- into a better shape.” This surprisingly touching version of “Great Expectations” certainly breaks the mold for this sort of literary adaptation, breathing life into those dusty pages.

Video review: "Jack the Giant Slayer"

Poor Nicholas Hoult. The young actor has the dis-privilege of starring in two of the year’s most underrated films.

First was the whimsical horror-romance “Warm Bodies,” which didn’t cause too much of a ruckus at the box office. And then came “Jack the Giant Slayer,” an action-heavy take on the classic beanstalk tale that bombed, despite lavish production values and a budget approaching $200 million.

It’s a shame, because “Jack” stands much taller as a piece of pure entertainment than similar movies like “Oz the Great and Powerful” or “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.”

Hoult plays Jack, a humble farm boy whose life goes on a wild ride after the magic beanstalk carries the beautiful princess into the clouds. It seems the giants were banished there eons ago by the humans, and their two-headed king has half a mind to seek his heaven on earth.

Stanley Tucci, Eleanor Tomlinson, Ewan McGregor and Ian McShane nicely fill out the cast as, respectively, the villain, the princess, the dashing knight and the gruff king.

But the real stars are the computer-generated giants – great, hairy burping beasts whose brutish manners and seeming lack of a feminine gender make their abode seem like the ultimate oversized frat house.

Director Bryan Singer, a veteran of the “X-Men” films, keeps the mood light and the action scenes coming at a furious pace. A great many men and animals get squished underfoot by the less-than-graceful giants, and the CGI captures the mayhem in all its glory.

“Jack the Giant Slayer” is a fun, goofy, giddy ride that never dares to take itself too seriously.

Unfortunately, the film’s lackluster performance in theaters may have contributed to a paucity of goodies for the video release. The DVD comes with a few deleted scenes and a gag reel. Upgrading to Blu-ray adds the “Become a Giant Slayer” interactive feature, and that’s it.

Too bad they didn’t go big for the video rollout.

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Review: "Jack the Giant Slayer"

Just a short review here today; Joe Shearer is handling the main review over at The Film Yap, so head there to get his complete write-up.

There sure is a trend lately of turning children's fairy tales into splashy CGI action spectacles. Last summer's "Snow White and the Huntsman" was the testosterone-ized counterpart to "Mirror, Mirror." Earlier this year we had "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters," a title that suggests how successful it would be. Now "Jack and the Giant Slayer."

All these movies have employed the same methodology: Take a well-known (and conveniently public domain) story, punch it up with huge action sequences, add scary boogums rendered with computer animation, and then slather it all with a dark-and-grimy look and mood.

"Jack" is easily the best of the lot, perhaps because it doesn't take it self quite so seriously. Yes, there are some profoundly silly moments, but the cast and crew seem to recognize and embrace them. Stanley Tucci as the titular villain is practically doing a stand-up routine in medieval garb.

Nicholas Hoult is by design the least interesting character in the picture as Jack, a pleasant, placid farmboy stand-in for the audience in this high-flying adventure. There's a beautiful princess -- of course! -- played by Eleanor Tomlinson who's in need of rescuing. Ewan McGregor has a nice supporting turn as the plucky captain of the guard, and Ian McShane is around to do that growly thing that McShane keeps getting called upon to do.

The giants are the real stars of the movie. Thirty feet tall, hairy, lumpy and barefoot, they stroll about their kingdom in the skies, having been banished there by a mythical human king who wielded a magic crown to command them. They spend their days eating sheep, picking their noses and issuing troubling sounds and smells from various parts of their bodies.

Basically, it's Big Bachelor Heaven.

Anyway, those pesky magic beans turn up, accidentally get dropped in some water and grow into a massive beanstalk. Unfortunately, the princess is trapped inside Jack's house at the time and gets carried into the sky. The beanstalk also provides a convenient mode of transport for the giants to come back down and wage destruction.

Bill Nighy does the voice of the giant general Fallon, who has a second head that is not quite as developed. The little one mimics the speech of the big one, but in slurred, halting words. It's almost like the giant king having his own jester permanently attached to him, whispering idiot nothings into his ear.

Director Bryan Singer stages clean, thrilling action scenes and encourages his cast to keep the mood light. And the CGI melee is decently gruesome in a PG-13 sort of way, with plenty of unfortunate extras getting squished underfoot by giants or become fodder for their craving for man-meat.

"Jack the Giant Slayer" is a big, goofy thrill ride that manages to metastasize its fairy tale legend without getting too full of itself.

3 stars out of four