Children are our future
Ender’s Game
South African director Gavin Hood’s Tsotsi won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film; and he also directed the blockbuster X-Men Origins: Wolverine in 2009.
His latest is a sci-fi adventure set in 2086, after an alien species called the Formics has attacked Earth. It was a brutal and devastating battle and although the Formics have retreated, they are not defeated.
This story begins when Colonel Hyrum Graff (Harrison Ford, pictured above) and Major Gwen Anderson (Viola Davis) decide that they need a new style of warriors, chosen specifically to take on the Formics.
They recruit a group of children for training to form an elite squad.
Inevitably, there is an aggressive boy called Stilson (Caleb Thaggard), who bullies the other kids. His picking on Ender (Asa Butterfield) leads to a brutal fight, in which Ender is almost choked to death.
The assumption among the young recruits is that Ender will leave the squad but Graff and Anderson give him a strong position in the school — Graff realises that Ender’s skills are honest and brave but never reckless.
Ender then proceeds to guide his squad as they prepare for battle with the Formics.
Visually, the film is first-rate. The battles are impressive and the special effects are first-class.
What’s missing is a strong storyline. Apart from Butterfield, the rest of the young cast are somewhat amorphous, largely because they have no actual roles to play — they’re really just a step-up from being stuntmen in the battle scenes.
The film is not exactly a let-down, though, especially with Ford and Davis, two major Oscar winners, playing supporting roles. Its release is certainly well timed for the holidays as it’s aimed at a young audience.
Free Birds
This animated comedy is based on America’s Thanksgiving holiday, on which turkey is the traditional dish of the day. There is also a history of the “pardoned turkey”, picked by the president to live a full life.
Here the one special turkey is voiced by Owen Wilson. It’s a corny idea but funny enough — but then this “pardoned turkey” is placed in an egg-shaped time-machine and sent to the past. Once there, he realises it’s the year 1621 — the year of the first Thanksgiving feast. And by the look of the hungry settlers, this turkey isn’t going to get his pardon, after all.
The animation is pretty good, and there are some neat slapstick gags, but after 91 minutes of turkey angst, you might never want to see another piece of poultry again.
It may amuse Americans but it’s unlikely to make an impression here.
Mud
This odd but fascinating story is about people whose lives have gone catastrophically wrong. Mud (Matthew McConaughey, pictured right) is a reclusive man who lives on a deserted island in the Mississippi River. Two teenage boys, Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Jacob Loffland), discover him there and pry into his secret life, trying to work him out.
All he will tell them is that he is waiting for his girlfriend, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), a trashy blonde with tattoos on her hands.
There’s also Tom Blankenship (Sam Shepard), who knows something of Mud’s past. The acting is superb and the “Southern Gothic” locations are perfectly realised, but the film leaves you with far more questions than answers.
Black Nativity
This is the tale of a broken family, the unexpected aspect being that the film is filled with music. It’s not a typical musical, however — more a drama in which great, passionate stories are sung. It starts with Naima (Jennifer Hudson), who has lost her job and is about to lose her house so she sends her young son, Langston (Jacob Latimore), to live with his grandparents (Forrest Whitaker and Angela Basset) in New York. The boy is rebellious and angry, and he meets a range of New Yorkers who confuse him even more. By far the best feature of the film is the singing, but the actors are impressive and this dollop of Christmas schmaltz is likely to be a hit.