Kenneth Branagh

  • Artemis Fowl (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Disney Streaming, December 2021) There’s a point, not terribly far into Artemis Fowl, when I found myself openly wondering how a film with such over-the-top elements ended up being so incredibly and thoroughly boring. Prisoner of its own delusions, it’s a film so innately convinced that it’s awesome that it forgets to put in all of the work required to actually make it awesome. It really doesn’t help that the title character is introduced as an insufferable know-it-all with a penchant for provocation, and that little of what follows helps in making the character any more likable. (I suppose there’s a public for an aspirational Young Adult novel featuring a mastermind criminal, but what works on the page doesn’t always work on-screen.)  Drunk on Irish mythology and its own cleverness, the script fails to make an underground elven civilization any more interesting than countless other meaningless CGI extravaganzas. It’s rather amazing that such top talent as Kenneth Branagh (as director), Judi Dench (in a major role) or Colin Farrel (actually rather good in another small supporting role) are involved, because the entire thing is hollow from top to bottom — from a ludicrous screenplay to by-the-number execution, the film simply fails to achieve anything with what it has at its disposal. (Actually, Dench does have the film’s best line, although her delivery of “Top o’ the morning” is more a situational gag than anything worth a chuckle by itself.)  There’s a clearly a franchise-building intent here, but the execution is so inept that few will regret what looks like dead-on-arrival prospects for further instalments. Even by the standards of one-and-done aborted YA series, Artemis Fowl is particularly dreadful.

  • Dead Again (1991)

    Dead Again (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, April 2019) I’m not going to be such a milquetoast as to state that Dead Again is all that weird a movie—but it’s weird and unusual enough to be interesting even thirty years later, and that’s not too bad. While Kenneth Branagh has a Shakespearian motif as a director, his filmography is varied enough to include this neo-noir romantic thriller that delves into classic Hollywood, past-life regression, hypnosis and full-bore romance. It’s quite a lot, but this joyously off-beat mixture of reincarnation, crime mystery, decade-long grudges and romantic thrills is executed stylishly enough to keep our interest. It is somewhat enjoyable is you take it the right way, which is to say dismissing the film’s plotting as a big ball of nonsense in service of a romantic atmosphere. Branagh is not bad in front of the camera, and Emma Thompson is quite cute in her dual roles. Robin Williams also turns up in a small but predictably surprising turn. The twists and turns are enjoyable to watch, and some of the historical material is quite immersive—especially if you know about 1940s Los Angeles. Branagh’s filmography is expansive enough to include an MCU film, a Tom Clancy-inspired techno-thriller, a Disney live-action adaptation and two Agatha Christie murder mysteries, so I’m not sure we can credibly claim that Dead Again is too weird for him. But it still stands out as an oddity against other movies in general, so on that basis alone it’s worth a quick look.

  • Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

    Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2018) I know it’s de rigueur to dismiss remakes as being inferior to their original, but I had a great time watching this new version of Murder on the Orient Express, even as it indulges in contemporary tropes that, I suspect, may not be as much fun in a few more years. Director/star Kenneth Branagh seems to have fun repurposing the legendary Hercules Poirot as a modern Cumberbachian-Sherlockian Super-sleuth, with an action prologue clearly identifying his deduction and anticipatory skills. Once aboard the Orient Express, it’s an ensemble cast of great performances that awaits viewers, as we go through the familiar setup but with a great amount of style. Whether you’re familiar or not with the premise, Murder on the Orient Express is about interrogations in a confined location, each person interviewed in their own way with a multiplicity of motivations. Poirot is here played without the slightly ridiculous aspect of his 1973 adaptation, tough and keen to a more believable degree (although the moustache sleeping device does get a big laugh). Visually, the film is very strong—adept cinematography reinforces the icy confines of much of the story, while taking advantage of is fantastic cast. The last-supper climax shot is particularly striking, with Branagh in fine form as he tears through the summation of his investigation. Murder on the Orient Express is a joy to look at, and great good fun to watch—I couldn’t have wished for a more comfortable movie experience. There’s a bit of plot weirdness and thin characterization due to stuffing a large ensemble cast in the confines of a two-hour movie, but it’s not quite enough to overpower the lush period atmosphere or performances. [March 2019: … and after watching the 1973 film, I’m sticking to my heretical thesis: this is a remake that’s better than the original.]

  • Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014)

    Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, December 2015) As someone who pretty much gave up on Tom Clancy after Teeth of the Tiger, I certainly took my time in watching Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, an attempt to reboot Clancy’s best-known character for a younger generation.  Derived from an original script that had nothing to do with Ryan, Shadow Recruit nonetheless ends up being a serviceable piece of entertainment, and one that does share a passing similarity to Clancy’s work.  While the film remains an action thriller in which Ryan gets to run a bit and savagely beat down an opponent along the way, it does have a pretty good sequence in which Ryan proves his analytical creds as “the smartest guy in the room”, and the film does hint at the kind of geopolitical machinations so well-executed in Clancy’s thriller.  Chris Pine is very likable as Ryan, and the broad strokes of his character are indeed those that Clancy gave to Ryan back in the eighties, updated to a post-9/11 generation.  Director Kenneth Branagh gets to have some fun by playing the bad guy, while Kevin Costner is unremarkable in a mentor role.  Still, Shadow Recruit is a reasonably entertaining thriller, despite a rather long introduction and the overall silliness of the scheme at the heart of the film (hint; the US dollar is a reserve currency.  It can’t be brought down by simplistic financial manipulation, and any attempt to maintain otherwise will be met by laughter by Canadians watching their dollar sink relative the USD).  While the box-office results suggest that the Clancy franchise won’t be rebooted, Shadow Recruit isn’t too bad as a standalone thriller – there have been far worse examples of the form lately.