A Field in England (2013)

Hadn't intended on celebrating my 100th post with a quickie, but having seen A Field in England, I'm not quite sure how to write about it within my usual idiom. This is what I get for seeking out an antidote to the likes of Quartet, I guess.

If you do want something energetically English but not in the least bit genteel, you could generally do worse than most of Ben Wheatley's oeuvre - I've only seen Sightseers, but I've heard good things about the rest of his work. A Field In England received a lot of good publicity when it was released, or at least, a lot of good publicity from serious British reviewers. I have to admit, I was never that enthused by a black and white horror story about a group of civil war deserters in a field full of magic mushrooms, but after Saturday's effort I really felt as though I needed something a little bit experimental.

To make it clear, then: A Field in England has only the fuzziest of narrative structures or characterisation. There's the deserters, there's Reece Shearsmith, and Michael Smiley plays a sinister alchemist. People talk and sing, and people die, and it's never entirely certain what's happening or has happened at any given moment. Only one thing is for sure: it's as creepy as fuck. In daylight and stone cold sober, I wasn't especially disturbed, however, I have the sneaking suspicion that this is one to watch whilst stoned in order to receive the experience of a lifetime - that or lasting psychological damage.

Quartet (2012)

So, I had Jupiter Ascending lined up to write about today. I landed up with more on my plate yesterday than planned, though, and by the time I sat down to watch it I found myself at that particularly awkward level of tired where I caught too much to want an immediate re-watch but not enough to have an informed opinion. It may have been visionary, it may have been dire - my suspicion is that it was probably a mix of the two. I'll take another look at some point and let you know.

In any case, this morning I found myself glancing over the iPlayer listings with Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut Quartet already in mind. Normally I wouldn't go for a comedy drama set in a retirement home for ageing performers, but the four headline cast members were Billy Connolly, Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins and Maggie Smith, all of whom have a stellar pedigree, not to mention career longevity. All of this meant I went in with certain expectations - gently beautiful cinematography, a restrained but tear-jerking soundtrack and one or two well-timed expletives, but no more than that.

There isn't really much of a story here - just the aforementioned bunch of luminaries playing elderly opera singers at the aforementioned retirement home. There's a concert on the horizon - a fundraiser, apparently to keep the place going for another year or two. Michael Gambon's Cedric (pronounced Ziedrich) is directing, and is determined not to let anybody forget. Cissy (Pauline Collins), meanwhile, forgets almost everything, but nobody really minds because she's so unutterably sweet; besides, she has her friends Wilf (Billy Connolly) and Reggie (Tom Courtenay) to look out for her. Once, many decades ago, the three of them brought the operatic world to its knees with their performance of the quartet from Rigoletto, so when the final member of their foursome takes up residence at the home, there's only one question on everybody's lips.

The answer, of course, is a no-brainer; if I were feeling uncharitable, I might say that so is the rest of the film. This is a movie that's been very carefully designed not only not to scare the horses, but not to overexcite them or emotionally agitate them in any but the very tamest of ways. And so we get to watch our elderly beautiful people wander gracefully around their stately home and its equally stately grounds, and we try not to wonder how many thousands of pounds a single ticket would have had to cost for the concert proceeds to keep the place going for more than a couple of weeks. It's that sort of piece, though, the sort where we're encouraged to see Cissy's worsening Alzheimer's as some sort of amusing personality quirk, and to cheerfully ignore the fact that Wilf is a sex pest who might actually benefit from a good hard kick to the bollocks.

Once again, I find myself wanting to guiltily explain that this isn't a bad film - it's easy on the eye, the acting is just fine and I love the fact that the home's residents are all former stage stars. It all just feels a little too smooth, though, as though it was funded by the UK tourist board, offering foreign buyers that sort of soft and easily-digestible blandness that plays well to people who want to see my country as some sort of island-sized theme park. I'm not denying that it's good to see older people taking centre stage, but wouldn't it be even better to see them playing characters rather than crowd-pleasing archetypes? There's any number of British films being made about disaffected youth struggling to get by despite grinding poverty, so what about our working class pensioners? Who's writing stories about them? The more I think about it, the more angry it makes me that this sort of patronising, witless pabulum is how the UK represents itself abroad.

...Okay, done now. If you like Downton Abbey, you'll probably like Quartet, too. For shame, you. For shame, Dustin Hoffman.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010)

My first reaction when I noticed The Sorcerer's Apprentice on the TV listings was one of cautious pleasure - it's a rare day when I'm not happy to settle down in front of a PG-rated fantasy effects fest. My second reaction, however, was resignation, because it's an equally rare day for me when movies like this don't disappoint or even disgust, and Disney have never really had the greatest track record when it comes to keeping me entertained - except for by my own frothing outrage, obviously. Still, I figured I'd either have a passably good time watching or by writing a full-on hatchet job afterwards - a win/win situation, really.

Despite the name, this one does fortunately amount to a little more than the Fantasia sequence with Mickey Mouse and the hyperactive brooms. Instead, we have Nicolas Cage as Balthazar, one of Merlin's semi-immortal apprentices, mentoring Jay Baruchel's nerdy Dave in order to help him defeat Morgan Le Fay (Alice Krige). Dave, however, is more interested in wooing childhood crush Becky Barnes, who fails to exit the film by falling dramatically out of view, thus disappointingly destroying the tantalising possibility of The Sorcerer's Apprentice 2: The Winter Love Interest. Not funny? Damn. It amused me.

Anyway, our antagonist here is Horvath, another Merlin apprentice who went across to the dark side when Veronica (Monica Bellucci), the third of the triumverate, fell for Balthazar. Horvath is seeking to release Le Fay from the doll in which Balthazar imprisoned her, thus enabling her to perform the rite of the Rising, returning her former acolytes from the dead and ushering in a new age of darkness across the world.

Put like that, it sounds like the setup for a low-budget horror movie. Instead, however, The Sorcerer's Apprentice is proof positive that you can buy quality, of a sort, if you throw enough money at a project. Hire a great cast and pull in some great special effects people, and all you need from your writing team (and make no mistake, it will be a team) is for them not to actually stink. By the time the film was over, I'd written about four lines in my notebook, and bitterly resented the lack of ad breaks when I needed to run to the bathroom. I was excited, occasionally amused and frequently enchanted by scenes with musical Tesla coils, and a Chrysler eagle coming to life.

Don't get me wrong, the film isn't a masterpiece - a lot of people have complained about the simplistic, predictable narrative arc and reliance on special effects. That said, I'd be happy to refute the second of these claims by asking the people who make them whether they feel Twelve Angry Men is overly reliant on dialogue. The visual flash is an end in and of itself here, and it really has been done awfully well.

Add this one to your list of things to watch instead of Ghostbusters.

Ghostbusters (1984)

It had to be done, I guess; I always feel guilty about dissing a film unless I've seen it within the past year or so and can actively remember why I disliked it. Don't get me wrong, I've never particularly disliked Ghostbusters, but neither have I ever held it in the same sort of rabid affection as most other people of my generation.

I blame it on my cousin, three or four years older than me and infinitely more urbane. He was always the cool one, the bad one, the one, not to put too fine a point on it, who wasn't shit-scared of everything. On one visit, shortly before the release of the movie, he gave me what I now realise was actually a pretty cool piece of movie memorabilia - an original ghost in a can. It was, of course, just a drinks can printed up with a bunch of logos and warnings, but as far as my seven-year-old self was concerned it was the most terrifying object in the known universe. I flat-out refused to keep it in my bedroom; my parents put it in the drinks cabinet. Occasionally, I wonder whether its presence there accounts for me having lived a largely teetotal life.

I'm actually not sure when I first saw the film, but I have to have been somewhere in my twenties, I think. I don't remember that much about it - only the bits that seeped into popular consciousness and took on a life of their own. Even now, I get the sneaking suspicion that yesterday may have been my first time watching (mostly) without my hands over my eyes.

Do you guys really not know what this one is about? There's a bunch of alleged scientists investigating paranormal activity. It's always been really minor stuff in the past; tremors and flutterings and nothing that couldn't easily be explained away, but when a mousy, frumpy librarian gets the fright of her life, it starts to become clear that shit just got real. I loved the library scenes, by the way. Index cards in those little wooden drawers. Must've been nice in the good old days when all a librarian had to worry about was stereotyping and enraged ghosts. Yeah.

Anyway, Bill Murray plays a sex pest dickhead, Harold Ramis plays a marginally charming geek, Ernie Hudson plays the token black guy and Dan Aykroyd plays the one who gets a spectral blow-job. Sigourney Weaver is wasted, Annie Potts is cute and Rick Moranis gets to play a guy who's been possessed by a latex dog. There's lots of bawdy humour for the grownups and lots of people getting drenched in slimy stuff for the kids - seriously, everyone wins here. 

If I'm sounding as though I hated it, I honestly didn't. Hatred would have required more attentive viewing than I was able to offer. Some of the translucent spooky effects looked pretty cool, and I actually really liked the Ghostbusters' car. True, most of the characters sounded as though they were on their first-ever readthrough of the script, but I think the aim at the time was to produce such stunning visuals nobody would notice things like the acting or the wafer-thin plot.

Would I recommend Ghostbusters? Absolutely, irrefutably not, because there simply wasn't enough there to enjoy. If it's bad movie night and you're looking for an effects-driven family fantasy, why not give Super Mario Bros a shot instead? It pushes a lot of the same buttons, but, implausible as it might seem, it genuinely does so with a whole lot more class.

Evolution (2001)

It's hard not to feel just a shade cynical about Ivan Reitman's Evolution. I mean, it's not as though Reitman was a one-hit wonder - the likes of Kindergarten Cop and Junior did just fine on the back of his reputation and that of Arnold Schwarzenegger, while Dave was actually sort of charming - but it must feel to him as though he's spent the majority of his directorial career trying to live up to the overwhelming success of 1984's Ghostbusters. 

Did I mention that I don't particularly like Ghostbusters?

For some people, directing one film that left an indelible mark on the public consciousness would be enough. And yet, seventeen years later, here comes Reitman with a tale of another ragtag bunch of misfits and misunderstood geniuses, who are spurned by the Powers that Be only to eventually triumph against an unearthly menace. It's a completely different movie, though, honest - these guys travel by fire engine!

It all starts with a nod to HG Wells, as aspiring firefighter Wayne (Seann William Scott) finds a night of private damsel-saving practice in the desert rudely interrupted when a meteorite lands on the shed he's just set alight. Rather than housing a fully-formed alien menace, however, this particular chunk of space rock seems completely and safely inert. A few hours later, though, when community college science tutors Ira Kane and Harry Block (David Duchovny and Orlando Jones respectively) take a trip out to investigate, they find that the meteorite hasn't only grown moss but is seeping a clear liquid. They take a sample, and before long they realize that what they have is alien DNA that's growing and evolving at a rate earthly life can only dream of.

Eschewing the sensible reaction of terrified screaming, Park and Banks' first reaction is to try and work out how to transmute their samples into a Nobel Prize. Eventually, however, even they work out that something more important might be at stake. They are hampered, of course, by the police and the military, but luckily there's a cute and klutzy army scientist (Allison, played by Julianne More) who's sufficiently taken by Block as to be prepared to defect at just the right moment. There's no time to waste, either, as the alien menace evolves from fungus to insects to fish, dinosaurs and eventually a yeti-like primate.

I actually didn't hate this film as much as I was exasperated by it. There were aspects that I really wanted to like - the original concept is fantastic, and I'd still be delighted and terrified to see something similar tricked out as sci-fi/horror rather than a comedy adventure. The creature design is appealing, too, and audience-appropriate, allowing space for a couple of quick jump scares but nothing to stop small people sleeping at night. I'm sure the production values on this one were staggering, and for once, it feels as though it might have been money well spent.

Unfortunately, what lets Evolution down is the human element. Give them their due, the cast are solid, producing more-or-less convincing work reacting to whatever it is actors have to react to when they're eventually going to look as though they're reacting to CGI beasties. 

Nope, the problem here is with the script. Like Paul, another comedy alien flick, Evolution is very much an ode to the superiority of the white male middle-class geek. The joke here seems to be on everyone except for David Duchovny. Let Julianne Moore take all the pratfalls, let Orlando Jones have a spiky alien insect removed from his rectum (as with Paul, rather too much of the humour here is related to sphincters and their various emissions) and let the overweight white trash come out with the stupidest lines; Duchovny's role in all this is to be sympathetic and to have every female in the film lusting after him. Okay, okay, this is Duchovny, it's what people do, but it still felt uncomfortable and just a tiny bit dull.  

Sunday afternoons aren't a time when I'm particularly picky about what I watch, and while it might be faint praise, Evolution does at least improve as it goes along. By the time it finished I did sort of feel as though I'd been entertained, without too much of the grubbiness I often get when watching mainstream comedies. In the end, though, this is a movie that will only ever be discussed in the same breath as Ghostbusters, and as an inferior sibling. As epitaphs go, it's a humiliating one but ultimately justified.

 

 

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

We Need to Talk About Kevin - it's what's on iPlayer. It crops up there two or three times a year, although I could swear I never see it on the schedules. My suspicion is that it isn't really primetime viewing, to be honest - I know I'm a cynic, but I don't honestly believe that we've quite sunk to the stage yet where films about school shootings are considered enjoyable popcorn flicks, even if the incident in question is entirely fictional.

I'm not entirely sure what it says about me that this one has somehow made it onto my comfort viewing list - it's unrelentingly bleak stuff, positively ruthless in its refusal to offer the audience or characters a glimpse of hope. 

For the benefit of the uninitiated, the film is an adaptation of Lionel Shriver's novel of the same name - I've never got round to reading it, so I can't comment on how faithful it might be. Our protagonist, however, is Eva Katchadourian (Tilda Swinton), a travel writer first glimpsed spattered with the fruity red faux gore of the Tomatina festival. Red is an important colour in the film, a not-so-subtle reminder of life and death, hypersaturated even within Eva's bleached-out world. Eva, you see, has never quite been able to connect with her eldest child Kevin even from when she was pregnant with him, and over the years, this has become mutual in a progressively overt fashion. Eva's husband Franklin (John C. Reilly) doesn't see the animosity between them, and while his ignorance might be due to flat-out stupidity, it seems more likely to be a way of preserving his sanity. 

Kevin is a film I find hard to like, but easy to love; it wears its intelligence on its sleeve, and doesn't try to court audience affection with compromise. Instead, the viewer is treated to a wildly non-linear narrative structure that while broadly possible to follow, actually makes progressively more sense on repeat viewings - I've seen it four or five times, and it was only during yesterday's viewing that the placement of a deadlock on a cupboard door allowed me to pinpoint the chronological positioning of certain scenes relative to others. It's this sort of level of attention to detail that I really relish - an almost clinical precision in the midst of all the repressed emotional mayhem.

And it is repressed, for the most part; Kevin himself is played by various actors at various stages in his life but much of the weight of him falls upon the shoulders of one Ezra Miller. Appropriately, Miller looks every bit as androgynous as Swinton but more voluptuously so; his lips are stars in their own right, conveying at least fifty shades of plausibly deniable disdain. Memorably, we see them in close-up, wrapping around the white body of a lychee as the breakfast table conversation turns to a family member who has recently lost an eye. It's unbelievably creepy, in spite or perhaps because of the fact the audience only ever gets the most oblique of glimpses at the havoc Kevin wreaks.

If I have one criticism of the film, it would probably be of John C. Reilly playing his standard role. He's the nice but dim father figure who tries hard to see the best in people - tries hard at everything, in fact, but is destined to be perpetually outwitted. He plays the same character in Guardians of the Galaxy, more or less, and I honestly can't decide whether that's sort of impressive or just sort of depressing.

In general, though, I'd be inclined to wholeheartedly recommend We Need To Talk About Kevin. It's a compulsively watchable slice of nastiness, and Swinton and Miller's performances combine with adroitly judged cinematography and soundwork to produce a thoughtful, almost meditative piece on the nature of motherhood and self-loathing.

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)

I have no idea what reminded me of the existence of the 1996 adaptation of HG Wells' novel The Island of Dr. Moreau; I was interested enough to hear about it back at the time of release, but it received a poor critical reception and even today, the IMDB seems to agree. It isn't even one of those titles I've always meant to get around to viewing, I just happened to remember it yesterday and decided I wanted to take a look before I forgot about it again.

I'm only vaguely familiar with the original story about a shipwrecked man who finds himself on an island populated by human/animal hybrids created by a mad doctor; in the film, however, our protagonist is UN envoy Edward Douglas (David Thewlis), rescued after a plane crash by friendly but mysterious neurologist Montgomery (Val Kilmer), who takes him back to the island where he works but cautions him to remain within the large central house. This movie, however, as with many others, would be a remarkably short one were it not for people doing stupid shit in the name of curiosity, and so of course Douglas escapes and finds out about Dr. Moreau (Marlon Brando) and his beautiful daughter, Aissa (Fairuza Balk). Douglas is less than delighted by this discovery (apart from Aissa, because beautiful women are welcome everywhere), and before long, things are going tits-up in spectacular style.

If all this sounds obstructively cynical, I'm maybe not being entirely fair. The timing of this one suggests it was designed to cash in on the buzz generated by Jurassic Park, with which it shares certain common themes. The Island of Dr. Moreau, however, is no Jurassic Park, and not just because of the dodgy special effects. It's also a far more thoughtful affair, though, as befits an adaptation of an HG Wells novel when compared to an adaptation of one by Michael Crichton, and one which does at least seem to aspire to something higher?

Does it succeed? Occasionally. The dialogue is certainly a cut above the running and screaming offered by the damned dinosaur movie, raising real ethical and philosophical questions and steering clear of pointing fingers and black and white morality. Moreau is insane, certainly, but he was once a Nobel Laureate and seems genuinely well-intentioned, if deluded; the beast people, meanwhile, are presented neither as monsters nor victims, but flawed individuals with their own motivations.

Unfortunately, the film lets itself down in a few areas, with Thewlis embarrassingly miscast in the everyman role - bluntly put, he lacks the necessary likeability to make us root for him. Brando and Kilmer, meanwhile, chew the scenery with gusto in a way that sometimes works but often doesn't, while the only cast member to emerge relatively unsullied is Balk, who has a natural charisma and plays Aissa with well-judged restraint. Tactfully put, the effects are, ah, era-appropriate, but only just, while the opening titles suggest a straight-to-video title from a full decade earlier.

Would I recommend The Island of Dr. Moreau? I think my answer would have to be a cautious yes; it's a far better and more meaningful movie than the DVD cover implies, but those without a taste or at least a tolerance for the trappings of schlock horror will likely find it quite hard to access. 

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

Anybody else here remember the good old days when Bond movies didn't strive for credibility? They'd show them by the handful every Christmas and Easter, solid two and a half hour lumps of bloodless violence and nudge-nudge-wink-wink sexuality interspersed with glamorous scenes that wanted you to know just how fucking great it was to be a spy.

Yes, they were undoubtedly dodgy, and yes, Daniel Craig is apparently a tremendously nice guy, but he has a face like an apple that's been lurking unwanted at the bottom of the fruit bowl for a week too long. Besides, while I don't have a problem with Bond having a conscience, in crowbarring a sense of social responsibility into the franchise, I feel as though the production team accidentally squeezed out most of the fun.

Damn, but Kingsman: The Secret Service feels like a breath of fresh air. Or, rather more accurately, it feels like a breath of much-missed stale air, like your bedroom after ill-advised sex with an ex, or last night's takeaway at breakfast time. Finally, somebody remembered that not all spy movies need to aspire to be serious thrillers - sometimes cheap thrills are the most satisfying kind.

I remember being cautiously intrigued by the trailers for this one at the cinema last year - a couple of  the action sequences looked absolutely gorgeous, and Samuel L Jackson looked far more interesting with a stoop and a baseball cap than he ever has as Nick Fury. Still, I had reservations; I was worried that using social class for a fish-out-of-water comedy could be an uncomfortable move, particularly as director Matthew Vaughn is best known for Kick-Ass, another accomplished comedic thrillride, but one which left me feeling grubby for weeks afterwards. In the end, this was the deciding factor in my leaving it so long before taking a look at Kingsman.

It was only after I'd made the decision to watch that I did some actual research and realized Vaughn was also behind Stardust and X-Men: First Class, two of my favourite entries within the fantasy and superhero genres respectively. Thus reassured, I settled down after work last night with high hopes of a good time.

Leaving my imaginary former self behind for a little while, here's the synopsis: In 1997, an agent belonging to an unnamed secret organization is killed during the storming of a Middle Eastern fortress as the result of a mistake by a colleague. Said colleague, one Harry Hart (Colin Firth), takes it upon himself to right the wrong as best he can, delivering the sad news to the agent's widow and offering the promise of a favour owed. Fast-forward seventeen years and her life is a relatively sad one, trapped on a London sink estate with an abusive partner and Eggsy (Taron Egerton), her gifted but unruly son who wasn't quite able to stick out his training with the Royal Marines. Eggsy's always been in and out of trouble, but one particularly dramatic joyriding incident leaves him facing a jail sentence. Luckily, he knows he has somebody he can call.

This is his introduction to Harry and to the world of the Kingsmen, a group of immaculately-dressed English secret agents with Arthurian codenames and an elegant but incredibly energetic approach to violence. Before long, Eggsy has been granted an interview under the supervision of sardonic Scot Merlin (Mark Strong) and is on an adventure that turns out to be bigger than he could ever have imagined.

Honestly? This one was bigger and more fun than I imagined, too, offering an homage to the classic spy flicks of decades past without ever trying to pastiche movies that were effectively pastiches themselves. Vaughn creates a coherent and highly appealing world that embraces both occasional absurdity and a surprising sense of moral decency - one scene features prominent placement and mention of McDonald's food, for instance, only to use this as playful shorthand for a character being, well, a bit of a dick.

I think the thing that made me love Kingsman the most, though, was watching Colin Firth as an action hero. After decades spent playing restrained, uptight types, here he finally gets the chance to cut loose in balletic, joyous action scenes reminiscent of Tarantino's Kill Bill Pt. 1, and all I could think of whilst watching was quite how much fun he must have been having. The rest of the casting is great, too - Mark Strong's Merlin was a particular joy, resembling nothing so much as Malcolm Tucker after having been given a litter of kittens to herd.

The usual caveats apply, of course - if you're not into movie violence, you'd be best off staying away. On a personal note, though, most action flicks bore the pants off me and I remained charmed and excited by this one throughout. Sometimes when I review a film I watch it twice to check up on details, sometimes through sheer disbelief; I'm thinking of re-watching this one today for the sheer joy of it. Oh, and the post-credits scene? An absolute delight.

Apparently plans have been announced for a sequel, and for once, I'm hoping this is a franchise that will run and run.

 

Small Soldiers (1998)

After the last entry, Small Soldiers seemed a natural follow-up - the narrative themes are very similar, or at least they seem so at first glance. Oh, and I came to both of these films late because at the time of their release, they both seemed too incredibly creepy to contemplate.

I'd love to say I remember those days fondly, the days when I was sufficiently sheltered that merely reading the reviews for a film was enough to thrill me, but that wouldn't be strictly true - in the case of Small Soldiers, the combination of one strong espresso-based beverage plus Roger Ebert's review was enough to stop me sleeping for days and swear me off caffeinated coffee for the better part of fifteen years. Naturally, I swore off the damned film, too, until a couple of years ago over a bored Christmas break when I caught a little of it whilst channel-hopping and it occurred to me that maybe I might have, y'know, grown up a bit.

I'm not sure director Joe Dante has ever quite got past his own adolescent phase, though, and I don't think I'd necessarily want him to, either. He's a Roger Corman alumnus and a Spielberg protegé, and in my (limited) experience this continues to inform his work, allowing him to produce a string of adventure flicks in which small-town life is turned upside down by various knee-high nasties. This time, the focus is on a bunch of action figures that an ambitious toy development executive has decided to kit out with hi-tech military chips that allow them to interact with not just one another but their human owners, too. Thus we have the Commando Elite, a bunch of square-jawed, cigar chomping military heroes, and their sworn enemies the Gorgonites, freakish animal people whose core directive is to hide, then lose.

This being classic Dante, we need an appropriate setting, and so we have The Inner Child, an old-school toyshop populated with lovingly-crafted wooden playthings. It's owned by Stuart Abernathy (Kevin Dunn), who's recently set himself up in a new town after having had some problems with his delinquent son Alan (Gregory Smith). Alan seems to be settling down now, but the store doesn't seem to be making money, so in an effort to make a success of things Stuart goes off to a seminar on making small businesses work. Left in charge, Alan sees an opportunity to bring in some quick cash when he sees some of the new action figures on a delivery truck. He begs the driver to let a few, um, fall off the back and into the store, promising to pay him later.

While Stuart (who refuses to stock war toys) is away, the new toys are put in pride of place in the shop window, soon attracting the attention of the little brother of girl next door Christy (Kirsten Dunst). With that, all the puzzle pieces are in place, and it only takes the activation of the first toy for the fun and games to commence...

The good

There's no other word for it: this one's an absolute blast. Sweet and nasty and funny and surprisingly smart, it's briskly anarchic fun for all but the very small and/or sensitive. Look: this is a film that pits the voices of the Dirty Dozen against the voices of Spinal Tap, and if that doesn't convince you, I don't think we'll ever see eye to eye. Add in then-teen queens Christina Ricci and Sarah Michelle Gellar to voice a troop of insectile mutant Barbie dolls, and you have some of the savviest casting in voice acting history.

The voices, however, are nothing without the visuals - in this case, a near-seamless mix of puppetry and CGI that even now, nearly twenty years on, remains almost entirely convincing. It's great work, and I think it's helped in no small part by the fact that the voice work and some sympathetic human backup are solid enough that I never particularly noticed I had any disbelief, much less had to work to suspend it. The good guys are unforcedly likeable and the bad guys are appealingly hissable, and in a movie like this, this is exactly the way things should be.

What about the horror elements, though? I won't deny it, this one's creepy. For a start, a movie that did to its human characters what Small Soldiers does to its toy ones would have trouble making it to the big screen these days - thinking about it, the closest analogue would probably be Starship Troopers, which is actually not thematically dissimilar, either. In any case, very bad things happen here to what are effectively sentient creatures, but it's generally within the context of established war movie tropes, which I for one think makes it all okay.

The bad

I seem to remember at the time that there was a lot of talk about parents mistaking this for another Toy Story. I can see how this would easily lead to tears at bedtime, and there's a motto here: film reviews are your friend (especially mine).

The verdict

Definitely the most fun you can have watching a bunch of creepy lifelike dolls making people scream. Unless you're a Directioner, obvs.