Chariots of DIRE
The Russian director Timur Bekmambetov was always on a hiding to nothing when he decided to remake William Wyler’s epic and, indeed, iconic 1959 masterpiece, Ben-Hur. Even so, it comes as a surprise to discover what an underwhelming job he’s made of it.
His Ben-Hur (12A) ★★ is dreadful to look at, so murky and dark at times, that it’s difficult to know whether to blame the weather, a duff conversion to 3D or Oliver Wood’s original cinematography. The 1959 Oscar-winning version (itself a remake of a silent film from 1925) by comparison still looks fabulous.
Of the two big set-pieces, the chariot race is better than the sea-battle that pitches Romans against Greeks, but Jack Huston – nephew of Anjelica, grandson of John – underwhelms as Judah Ben-Hur, the Jewish prince falsely condemned for treason and sentenced to life as a galley slave before returning to Jerusalem for revenge.
It’s there, of course, that his former adopted brother, Messala (Toby Kebbell), now an ambitious Roman tribune, awaits… with his chariot.
The story of the attempted assassination of SS General Reinhard Heydrich in Nazi-occupied Prague in 1942 has been made into one good film,
Operation Daybreak in 1975, and now it’s told again in Anthropoid (15A) ★★★.I didn’t care for the decision for Irish and British actors such as Cillian Murphy, Jamie Dornan and Toby Jones to use cod-Czech accents but the power of the story – especially its climax in a Prague cathedral – and the real-life bravery of those involved is compelling.
Hell Or High Water (15A) ★★★★★ is easily one of the best films I’ve seen all year. Set in run-down west Texas, it’s the story of the Howard brothers – Chris Pine and Ben Foster – who embark on a series of bank robberies, always hitting small branches of the same bank and always taking only small-denomination notes. Jeff Bridges is the soon-to-retire Texas ranger sent in to discover why.
Taylor Sheridan’s screenplay – which highlights the economic depression in this farming area – is word-perfect and the photography stunning.
With distant echoes of Butch Cassidy and Jesse James, and haunting music from
Nick Cave, this beautifully crafted film stays with you and should do great things for the career of its Scottish director, David Mackenzie.
Kubo And The Two Strings (PG) HHHHH, created using stop-motion (think Noggin
The Nog or Wallace And Gromit), is the latest offering from Laika, the Oregon studio that brought us Coraline and The
Boxtrolls. But this mystical, magical offering is its best yet.
It’s the story of Kubo, a young Japanese boy (right) with only one eye who, thanks to his magical mother, survives a great storm to grow up in a high cave above a remote fishing village.
By day he entertains the villagers with magical tales of a brave samurai warrior and his enemy, the Moon King. But by night, we soon learn, the Moon King’s wicked daughters come looking for Kubo. And they want his other eye. The animation is nearflawless, and the end result – at least for anyone who liked last year’s Song Of The Sea by Kilkenny’s Cartoon Saloon studio – unmissable. Captain Fantastic (15A) HHH has Viggo Mortensen (left) as Ben Cash, charismatic patriarch, survivalist and polymath who – with wife, Leslie – has raised six children in a meticulously run, selfsufficient woodland compound. But as the film begins, Leslie is absent and the family’s offgrid life is about to be challenged by the outside world. It has charm but it’s hard to believe in a man of such diverse talents (everything from rock-climbing to particle physics), while the laboured eccentricities (the family celebrate Noam Chomsky Day rather than Christmas) madden as much as entertain.