Chris At The Pictures

Cedric Nicolas-Troyan brings this Snow White and The Huntsman spin-off to the screen with twice the effects but half the fun. Narratively sandwiching Rupert Sanders’ film, it details the story of Chris Hemsworth’s Huntsman, Eric, in the events before and after the fall of the evil queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron). Taken from his family as a child, Eric is trained (alongside Jessica Chastain’s Sara) to serve Ravenna’s sister; embittered ice queen Freya (Emily Blunt). When emerging love is discovered between the two warriors they are cruelly separated, leaving Eric alone as the glowering grump we encountered back in 2012.

The film then makes an ungainly leapfrog of seven years, to the post-Ravenna era. Eric is instructed via an utterly wasted Sam Claflin to track down the mystical mirror, now stolen from Queen Snow White’s castle. Kristen Stewart’s Joan of Arc-style interpretation is apparently more interested in moping alone in a tower, her face unsubtly hidden from view in a fumbled attempt to cover up the Twilight star’s absence. Eric accepts his task, aided by dwarves Gryff and Nion (Rob Brydon and Nick Frost), but a re-appearance by Sara threatens the quest.

Somewhere in the depths of YouTube, there exists one of my earliest film reviews: a video appraisal of Snow White and the Huntsman. I’ll admit to some nostalgic interest in a sequel, but only to illustrate how misleading such nostalgia can be. If this is to be the sandwich to Snow White’s ample filling, the bread has long since gone stale: how any franchise can swap Kristen Stewart for Emily Bunt and Jessican Chastain only to decline in quality is baffling. 

To be fair, it’s not completely their fault: the script is a dog-eared, post-Lord of the Rings mish-mash of po-faced fantasy gobbledegook and Hobbity dwarf gags. Chastain is saddled with a ludicrous accent that resembles Scottish the same way that Christopher Lambert was ‘Scottish’ in Highlander. Blunt takes the role of ice queen a little too literally with a stiff gaze and shiver-laden delivery; effectively an evil Frozen’s Elsa with less life than said computer-drawn character. 

Hemsworth, his dwarven companions and Theron appear to be from another film entirely, but at least it’s one that might be cracking a smile here or there: the camera practically swoons when Eric is re-introduced, massive axe and playful grin in full swing. Sheridan Smith raises a laugh or two as a foul-mouthed female dwarf (no, I can’t believe I just typed that phrase, either), whilst Frost and Brydon have enough innate likeability to carry us through a mostly joyless journey.

As the climax approaches in a sea of blizzardy CG effects, even Theron’s delightfully savoured cackles can’t drown out the audience’s internal nit-picker, and glaring problems in formalism give way to confusion over sheer logistics: how do Freya’s horse-borne armies climb down the massive cliff in front of her castle? Why did Ravenna not call on her sister during the previous film? Why is Jessica Chastain’s outfit one sword swipe away from fetish wear? All these issues and more lend the final confrontation a distinct lack of tension, ending not on a bang or a whimper but rather a sigh, as Liam Neeson’s gravelly narrator returns to comfort us with the knowledge that it’s all mercifully over.

Third time’s the charm for director Ridley Scott as The Martian takes him back into the stratosphere. After messing up McCarthy with The Counsellor and making a mockery of Moses in Exodus, Scott’s latest adaptation (taken from the pages of Andy Weir’s hit novel) is a much-welcomed return to form.

Botanist Mark Watney (Matt Damon) sees red when his fellow astronauts are forced to abandon him on the surface of Mars. A freak storm jeopardises the mission and Watney is left alone to ‘science the shit’ out of his surroundings to survive until the next spacecraft arrives…in four years’ time.

Damon finally stops reminding me of a decade-old Team America gag and glows in the central role. Scott makes the best of massively promising source material by giving us a Mark Watney who is as witty, indefatigable and just plain fun to hang around with as we’d expect. Somehow this fusion of Gravity’s Ryan Stone and Mythbuster’s Adam Savage commands our full attention while still allowing the allure of beautiful landscapes and a shoe-tapping disco soundtrack to slip through.

When you’re armed with a supporting cast including no less than Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jessica Chastain, Sean Bean, Benedict Wong and Kristen Wiig, there’s not a lot that can harm you. Never does the film feel crowded or directionless, and everyone has just enough development to throw them clear of thumbnail sketches. It would be incredibly easy to make Jeff Daniel’s disapproving NASA executive a moustache-twirling villain, but the film is far above mistreating it’s characters in that way. Everyone’s clearly having the time of their life, and this is no more apparent than a sequence featuring David Bowie’s Starman playing over the cinematic equivalent of a high-five. 

The issue was always going to be how you make the journey of Watney and his would-be saviours entertaining once the initial hurdles of life on Mars have been conquered. One would imagine there’s not an awful lot to top a single man eking out a life on the fringe of existence, but whether it’s growing food on a dead planet, trying to get a single word to cross 140 million miles of void or facing the heart-stopping finale, the excitement (and the laughter) in this orange odyssey is green across the board.

The Martian bears the trappings of a young director in his creative prime. How much of this youthful energy emits purely from Weir’s novel or Goddard’s script is debatable, but for now I’m quite happy to put it down to the spirit of collaboration that permeates the whole piece. This is a joyous adventure against the odds, manned by a crew that fails to put a foot wrong.