The Matrix Reloaded was not worth the anticipation I have decided. Now, it was a very cool film, and I would recommend all my friends, enemies and acquaintances go see it, but I was anticipating something of the same calibre as the original Matrix movie, and that is harder to repeat than even the Wachowskis thought, I guess. If I ignore how good the first movie was and look at Reloaded without that base comparison in mind, then it’s a pretty good film, but not terribly much more special than many of the other blockbuster films that have come out over the past year or so. Being the sequel to such a great film gives it extra brownie points going in, which is an advantage, but in more ways a disadvantage because as I say, it didn’t live up to its predecessor.

The action was exciting, but nothing new or groundbreaking. I don’t know what the ‘equivalent to bullet-time innovation-wise’ thing was, I will have to see it again and have a closer look at some of the filming techniques. What set apart the initial Matrix action was that it was new and different, something not seen before. Reloaded didnt have that. The plot was interesting enough, but all plot developments came in one foul swoop in the scene between Neo and the architect. In the original Matrix film the plot was astounding and challenging from the very opening scene, and new things were being discovered the whole way. Reloaded was action based and had little plot advancements, other than the obvious ones coming in close to the end there. Obviously this close a comparison is an unfair thing to do to Reloaded as it should still have some stand-alone merit, and it does, but I have a few more beefs…

That whole ‘Trinity is going to die’ thing was pointless — the Wachowskis should have known better than to try and make a climax out of ‘Will Carrie-Ann Moss’ character die, even though the entire audience knows she shot Revolutions too’?? That it was made into such a big deal — Neo worrying about it the entire movie for example, not to mention the fact that it was the climactic end to the film just grated my cheese. In fact it kind of spoiled the film for me altogether. In Revolutions it would have worked a treat because there would have been that element of ‘Will she die, or won’t she?’, but not even a tingle of doubt for Reloaded. They should know better.

The first Matrix film shocked me. It went against what my brain said would happen next. Being versed in the language of the Hollywood action genre script my brain was sending the signals, “and now the hero is put in danger, and now he will triumph, and now he will get the girl and get out of the matrix and… what? He DIES?!?!” The element of unpredictability. So very rarely seen these days, so very, very rarely seen in movies of the action genre, and I was played for a fool for thinking that simply because the first film delivered the goods, the second one would too.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I loved it. How could I NOT love the sequel to The Matrix, I mean, come ON people!! But — the fact that in several points it looked like we were simply watching a well animated computer game kind of ruined it for me. I’d rather they have done less complicated shots, with real people on bluescreen. Or waited a few more years until the CGI technology has progressed a little more, enough to make figures look like actual people. It was Toy Story all over again.

I liked Reloaded but when comparing it to the effect the original had on me, I was disappointed. In the lead up to it opening all I could think about was my ‘HUH?!’ the first time I saw The Matrix after this superchick gets hits by a truck because she just had to answer some ringing phone booth, and then disappear rather than going KASPLAT like any other mortal would have. I love to be challenged. Not knowing what was going on was the biggest thrill. I want to be confused, dammit!

But, overall, it was a good film. I liked the fight scenes, though wish they hadn’t been the only thing the film was riding on. The start of the multi-agent-smith fight was very well done, perhaps because it began with real people. I still prefer real people who clearly are not Hugo Weaving doubles, than computer people.

The car chase was fairly astounding. Car chases can be easily overdone and yet despite the length of this one I think I am safe in saying it wasn’t overdone. Part of this is owing to the transition from car to bike to truck, with a dash of ‘chicken’ and only a splash of bad animation. I think the trucks compounding was Reloaded‘s answer to the helicopter crash. Another comparison… I’ll stop now.

Link deserves a mention, as he was such an entertaining character. If he entered the Matrix and was in a fight, I would worry. I would be on the edge of my seat and rooting for him like nothing else. And I suspect this may be yet to be seen in the later movie, owing to all the ‘I promise I’ll come home to you’ stuff. Someone slightly less stoic is exactly what the neber… neba… kan… ken… ezer? needed. And of course, my favourite line in the entire movie, I couldn’t stop laughing for about two minutes (which is a long time in movie-time, it was well into the next scene) — “Yes!!!!!” after Neo caught Morpheus and the very endearing keymaker.

When did Tank die?? Guess that big gashing wound he had after Cypher blew him to smytherines caused more damage than he let on. He left behind a cute sibling-in-law though, so I’m content.

My first and only theory on why Neo was able to manipulate the sentinels is that the ‘real’ world is another level of Matrix. Bear with me. The machines have figured out that they need to give humans the semblance of free will, a choice, otherwise they wouldn’t accept the programming. Why would they bother to actually let some of them out if they could merely release them into another Matrix? Here is one program for those who don’t need to feel they are making the choice, and here is the other Matrix (with the world of Zion and sentinels) for those that do need to feel they are making their own choices. Hence, we don’t spend any real effort on trying to kill these ones, its not like they’re a threat to us anyway. We can send matrix representations of machines to tunnel to Zion and ‘destroy’ them. If they think they are in ‘reality’ they won’t know the difference. And for six generations of ‘ones’ no one has figured out that they are still in the matrix. .. Oh wait, oh dear.. what is that guy doing? Oh no, he’s FIGURED IT OUT!!

Ok it’s a looooooooooong shot, and we will all laugh ourselves silly at Shannon in November when Revolutions comes out, but lets hear your explanations of controlling the sentinels, boys?? I’ll take you all on…

If I lost my boss’s soul, I’d expect to get fired. So surely the gang must be slightly nervous about bringing him back now. Considering how completely they’ve screwed everything up in his absence. Whether it’s Angel or Angelus talking inside the cage at the end — he’s absolutely right. But just because everyone’s doing things they’re not proud of doesn’t mean the episode’s bad, does it?

No sir. There’s some great stuff here. The fascinating triangle between Lilah, Wesley and Fred is wonderful to watch, after Angelus lets the cat out of the bag to Fred. The explaination of why only Fang-boy remembered the Beast is a clever and neat one too — quite a rarity in Joss Whedon shows, filled as they are with such memorable plot devices as “It’s Summers blood” and “The Prophecy was a fake”. Angelus is still as nasty and sex obsessed as he was last week, but this time he’s much funnier as well, which is better to see. I particularly liked the scene with him, Gunn, and the big flamethrower.

Luckily for the crew, this week they finally came up with a clever plan to get Angelus to tell them what he knows. The solution: be so incredibly crap that he just can’t stand to watch you stumble around in the dark. Don’t scoff — this works in real life too. I frequently used it at school camps to get Alistair White to put my tent up for me.

The ending, obviously, came as rather a shock. If Cordy’s been doing naughty things like this for a while, it might explain some things. Although quite frankly, if I had to choose which of Stephanie Romanov and Charisma Carpenter was going to remain with the cast… I wouldn’t have gone with the woman who has lost all ability to act in the last half year. Still. Interesting developments, and perhaps hope for more exciting things to come…

Ooooh, and isn’t Fred’s new hair nice?

Ah… the legendary Angelus. The last time he managed to loose his terrible power upon humankind… well, the last time, he didn’t even manage to bite a defenseless girl before he was overpowered — by the combined strength of… Cordy and Wesley. And that was Wesley back when he was tearfully grateful to Angel simply for hiring him. Not a terribly impressive resume is it?

So it’s lucky for Angelus that no one bothers to mention that brief run-in, and his rather more fearsome stint terrorising Sunnydale is remembered instead. Much scarier.

Of course there’s a few difficulties in interrogating someone who knows all your secrets, and furthermore is well aware of exactly which information you hope to get from him. Especially if you’re not going to offer to release him or anything in return. It seems no one has a cunning plan to get round this. Not even Cordy. She does however have a crummy plan that somehow manages to work. I wasn’t convinced. Perhaps she’s been studying hypnotism.

The episode managed to survive this rather key logical drawback on the strength of the characters involved. While Angelus proved a little more foul-mouthed and less witty than I remember him, it was a treat to see the other characters get wound up by him. Gunn and Wesley’s fight in particular was brilliant. And I found myself almost starting to enjoy Connor during his conversation with demon Dad.

Of course, it is yet another episode with no clear individual plot — merely ‘question the suspect; investigate nothing; return’. Not a particularly dynamic piece of writing in that respect. Interestingly, it was directed by Sean Astin (Sam Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings) and he does a fairly good job with an episode confined almost entirely to one room with a cage. It always seems fairly dynamic — especially during the nifty initial pan down to the basement at the beginning of the episode. Of course, it’s hard to precisely judge Angel‘s direction due to channel seven Australia’s decision to transmit it full screen, rather than the widescreen it was filmed for.

A moderately successful episode then, with not quite enough meat.

Things to ponder: The Beast once asked Angelus to work with him. Angelus remembers him, even though Angel did not. The Beast can be banished — just not the way they tried it in Long Day’s Journey. And I feel sure there’s some tricky foreshadowing going on with Cordelia’s breasts. They seem to have been mentioned almost every episode this season… perhaps they have a part to play in the apocalypse?

Alas, it looks like mid-season Buffy has once again fallen into a slump. There’s a lot of things wrong with this episode, making it one of the worst this season.

Often a new character freshens up the show and gives new angles to explore. Unfortunately, they’ve added a bunch of useless whingers in the form of potential slayers or just ‘potentials’. Currently their role seems to be to eat all of Buffy’s food. I’m surprised she can feed that many people with her salary. I guess Giles must pay for some stuff. It’d be amusing to have all my friends living at my house and spending all my money.[ftn] How could I possibly get sick of that? Bludgers.

The potentials’ worth can be easily explained with a little analogy. Potentials are much like leaf pikmin. They’re slow, weak, fall over often, are easily distracted and die by the hundreds. Losing Buffy is much like losing all your flower pikmin. Most of the potentials look very young and … what’s the word I’m thinking of … useless. You can still get the job done, it’s just going to take a damn lot more of them. As for the regular gang, they may be using the potentials as a plan B, but it’d be better if they had a plan A. Hopefully, the potentials will keep dying at this rate and we’ll be rid of them soon.

Matrix. Their one good point is their reaction to Buffy’s pep talks. They know she hasn’t got a plan and she’s just talking shit. Speaking of which, when does Buffy find the time to write her speeches? Unless she gets Willow to do them but perhaps Willow’s time would be better spent on thinking up plans. No wonder they rely on the Giles so much. Despite his brief absence, Buff still assumes that the others will find the answers and the bad guy’s weakness.

The plan to kill the vampire at the end was hardly a masterstroke. “How about I fight this vampire at someone else’s place so my stuff doesn’t get trashed and I think I’ll get the potentials to watch me so they can see my awe-inspiring fighting skills. Better get Willow to make up another speech. Those potentials really lap it up.” Not a skerrick on the actual killing part, which seemed to be the place that Buffy was having the most trouble with. She’d been badly beaten by the vamp previously yet was very confident that she’d win. I’ll stab him in the eye and cut his head off. Whoa, radical. Why didn’t you do that the first time.

It’s nice to see that Buffy’s fighting skills are as consistent as ever. The minions at the beginning were easily dealt with but she was badly beaten by the nasty vamp otherwise. Bus shelters are dangerous places. Go see the Matrix. It’s also nice to see Buffy making the most of her slayer healing powers. They seem to be pretty good, even if ‘the day after Buffy still had a bruise’. It’s not as if the vamp was tougher than anything else she’s fought, she just seemed afraid of it and it took her a couple of episodes to get over this fear. There didn’t appear to be any real source of her fear though unless she’s become too reliant on staking to solve a problem and when that didn’t work, she panicked. That sounded almost plausible. I’m getting the hang of this.

Since when could Buffy initiate telepathy? Or does Willow routinely scan everyone’s mind? She should check to make sure no-one’s keeping pointless secrets. Maybe Buffy gave her one of those ‘I want to talk to you telepathically’ looks.

Maybe I’m missing something but, what’s the danger from the first? It’s not directly causing any damage and it doesn’t seem to have any immediate plans. I wouldn’t worry about it yet. They’ve now killed its lackey so they can relax a bit. I’m sure it’s brewing something for the end of season but that’s eleven episodes away. There’s one thing easy thing that would foil most of its plans. A quick check to make sure everyone is corporeal. POKE! You’re real, let’s get on with this episode. Potential 1, poke not evil. Potential 2, poke — evil. Giles, poke — and so on. It’s not that hard.

This episode wasn’t a complete loss. There was some nice Anya character development. Sometimes she shows glimpses of being a better character. Andrew the nerd kept up his end with a few choice lines. He’s carrying the entire comic burden of the show with a little help from Xander.

Footnotes

1. Irony. Don’t take it as an invitation.

As a composer/musician/producer, I would imagine one of the most difficult things to do is to give your ideas the space they need to develop. Many great songs have been ruined by adding one part too many, rushing on to the next thought before the previous one has been fully realised, or adding a string section when a basic guitar/bass/drums line up would have conveyed the idea with much more raw power.

Thus the idea of minimalist/ambient music — stripping the music back to its bare essentials, leaving only what is absolutely necessary. In this set up, not a note is wasted, each being designed with a specific purpose in mind. The obvious problem is when you take this too far, leaving nothing but a bland whisper of sound in a vacuum of nothingness, devoid of emotions.

It is a fine line to tread but one which Labradford do beautifully. All six of their albums to date have been consistently brilliant but it was on their fourth, Mi Media Naranja, that they came closest to perfection.

That this is an album where absolutely nothing is wasted is evident even from the track titles, all consisting of single letters with the exception of track 3 which has the comparatively extravagant name of ‘WR’. The band is a trio — a guitarist, a keyboardist and a bass player — with occasional string accompaniment and with a few exceptions no drums or vocals.

The construction of the pieces is beguilingly simple. A simple short melody straight out of ‘Learning to Play Piano/Guitar, Book 1’ is repeated over and over on plucked guitar or keyboard until the listener is totally absorbed in it, completely at one with it. It is at that this point that you start to notice the other noises which were always there — the occasional high pitch squeals, almost too high to hear at all, the subtle drum machine, again only noticeable when you give the music your full concentration, the rumble of thunder so far over the horizon that you can’t be sure whether it was real or just in your imagination. And the harder you listen, the more you hear and the deeper into the music you are drawn. The occasional sample of a man or a child whose words are never entirely audible add to the sense of a whole world out there which no matter how attentive you are, you will only notice the tiniest part.

The music is mesmerising and in many ways is reminiscent of meditation, the simple melody serving as a mantra, repeated endlessly to clear the mind of the trivia which normally occupies it and providing a clean slate for more important, fundamental ideas to develop. Mi Media Naranja isn’t an album which will have you tapping your feet and dancing. It is a record which, if put on in the background, will pass by completely unnoticed seeming nothing more than easylistening ‘elevator music’. But every time I put it on and listen to it intently, trying to concentrate on every note as if it were the most important ever played, come the end of the CD I can’t help but feel relaxed and contented and a little bit amazed, facinated and bewildered with the incomprable world in which we live.

A bit dull, this episode.

Buffy’s still giving her inspirational speeches and the new girls aren’t impressed by things. Obviously not fans of constant danger, they’re also disappointed in the Slayer. She can’t defeat the vampire, she lets that other girl die, wants to rescue another vampire and gives pep talks like she has everything under control. These slayers-in- training keep wanting crazy things like plans and vampires dead.

All this saving the world must be going to her head. She’s going to defeat evil itself this season. That should make Sunnydale a safer place. She could seal up the Hellmouth while she’s at it. She’ll be bored next season when she’s got nothing left to fight. Maybe she can fight the principal then. He’s been looking pretty shifty and evil. I’d bet my reputation as reviewer on his evilness. Sneaking around basements, stealing bodies; these are the actions of evil people. Obviously has demonic powers, like being able to read computer screens from oblique angles, and sense when there’s a body in the basement.

A couple of better parts of this episode were the character relationships between Andrew and the rest of them and the comic relief. The shift of power in the conversation as they switch from their adult to their school roles is a nice touch. He’s doesn’t fit in and the others aren’t sure how to react to him. Joss has far too many geek jokes left to kill off Andrew, so he gets to be the comic relief for this season. I like the amount of new characters in the gang. It really sprukes things up.

When we were in English, Year Ten, we were specifically told not to finish stories with “… and it was all a dream.” And yet here are the Angel crew, flagrantly disregarding that. It is a bit of a risk to take. While it makes complete sense, in context, that the majority of the episode is cliched, cornball and soppy-sweet, your casual viewer may have turned off in disgust, or hurled their season one dvd boxed set through the television before they reach the clever conclusion.

What ‘Awakening’ really needs is to be watched again after you know what’s going on. What can we tell about Angel’s subconscious? He liked Raiders of the Lost Ark. He wants reconciliation with Wesley. He wants hot sweaty sex with Cordy (and Buffy it seems, if you listen to what he says at the end of the dream). He wonders what the Powers that Be are up to these days. He wants reconciliation with Connor. He wants Gunn and Wes to get along. He enjoys stripping asian men naked and examining their bodies. He likes solving problems with magical swords.

Amusingly, there are one or two times during the episode when Angel almost catches on. A magic sword to kill the beast hidden right under LA? That’s a bit implausible! Ah, it’s a mystical realm with many doorways, including one under LA. Fair enough, that’s sensible. Still, he’s a bit dense that he didn’t spot anything funny when the Beast just happened to walk in immediately after he found the sword, or when the moment they hit a tricky patch Cordy had a vision.

The trouble with a dream episode is that you feel on shaky ground criticising things, because it can just be claimed that that’s the way Angel’s mind works. Why did they all go through the insanely dangerous stake trap? Because Angel likes being with his friends. So I don’t have much to criticise. It still didn’t fit completely right with me that Angel would be dumb enough to sleep with Cordy. But I’ll make allowances and say that by that point, Wo-Pang’s spell was powerful enough to dull most of his instincts. Or possibly heighten other instincts.

All in all, an amusing way to have Angel lose his soul — but not terribly satisfying, simply because dreams never are. Hopefully we’ll all remember when we watch next week that everyone’s still paranoid and hates each other…

I’d just like to start out by commenting on my fellow reviewer’s top ten list. No doubt everyone everwhere is around water coolers debating this polemical list as we speak, and before you all condemn her for her heretical choices and her denial of the great earlier seasons, I would like to defend a few of her choices. The musical episode was really funny and action-packed at the same time yet I agree that the final shot prevents it from being numero uno. That asylum one was good too, from what I remember. I’d love to get the choice that Buffy gets.

As for the earlier seasons, they all kinda fade into one big mush in the background. Season 1? There was that one with the .. uh … nope. Season 2? I saw 7 hours worth in a marathon but I’ve repressed the memory for health reasons so nothing there either.

As for flashbacks… it is impossible to state how cool and exciting they are. Background info, memory refreshers; I barely remember what happens between ad breaks, let alone between episodes, so those at the start of the episodes are life savers for me. “What show is this? Buffy? hmm, Buffy. I’ve heard that name before somewhere. Oh yes, thanks to these handy flashbacks it’s all flashing back to me.”

Speaking of flashbacks, there was a distinct lack of them this week. Not a good start. It’s about time they moved the Buffy/Spike storyline on a bit. That’s been dragging on and it’s about time it was resolved. The whole Andrew part was great despite the fact that he’s a loser. Killing pigs, they want to kill him, people don’t know his name, good cop/bad cop, being used as a shield. I guess only diehard Buffy fans know the significance of Buffy’s dramatic statement about the First and the rest of us will have to wait until next week for the flashbacks to refresh our memories.

This First guy didn’t make an issue over where Jonathon’s body went so I can only assume that he and the principal are in cahoots.

Once upon a time, making a superhero movie was not considered a really cool idea, or a guaranteed money maker. Hard to imagine, I know, but you really only have to go back to before the release of Bryan Singer’s X-Men. And it’s easy to see why when watching it. From the grounding effect of the Auchwitz opening, to the comfortable suburbia of Rogue’s (Anna Paquin) introduction, the film slides itself neatly into reality, or some close approximation of it.[ftn] And this gives it a lot more power than if it had been in the same kind of ultra-cartoony universe that the later Spider-Man film used.

For X-Men is trying at least to invoke themes of tolerance, fear, prejudice and hatred, and it largely succeeds — particularly by having a villain with largely believable and consistent goals and aims, even if he is, as Wolverine later points out, “full of shit.” Ian McKellen’s Magneto is brillianltly played for the most part, and shines in particular when confronting Professor Xavier outside the station. It’s a pity he’s given a few dodgy lines of dialogue when introducing his henchpersons — “Toad has a wicked tongue, Senator”; “Mystique … takes so many shapes.”

Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, however, is the show stealer, with the then near-unknown actor turning in a performance that does for X-Men what Harrison Ford did for the original Star Wars. Namely, being someone who tells it like it is, and approaches the fantasy content with the same level of scepticism that the audience does. Moments like his “wheels” gag (ad libbed by Jackman) and his sparring with Cyclops (James Marsden) give the film that vital spark of life missing from The Phantom Menace, for example.

I haven’t got time to go through all the cast members, of course, but I particularly enjoyed Anna Paquin, Ray Park (Toad), and Bruce Davison (Senator Kelly). Oh, and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos (Mystique), of course. The direction is for the most part excellent also — a shot that still stands out in my mind is Wolverine being batted by Sabretooth (Tyler Mane) several metres away and landing in shot on the bonnet of his truck. The action is generally excellent too — Wolverine’s fights in particular being great fun.

Where the film falls down — if it does — is in the script department. There are a few clunkers, and one or two that didn’t have to be — such as Halle Berry’s (Storm) delivery of “What happens to a Toad when it’s struck by lightening.” Or perhaps I’m just a Joss Whedon apologist (the Buffy scribe was called in to tighten the script in places, and meant for the answer to that riddle to be delivered off hand, as she walked away). More fundamental problems lie in the decision to make Magneto’s Crazy Mutant Making Machine^TM lethal. Why? It undermines his precise character when he disregards Storm’s evidence — and surely his plan, even if working correctly, deserves to be foiled even if only to save Rogue? This rather odd bit of plotting strikes me as a fear that the audience wouldn’t get why the X-Men had to save the day unless LOTS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE WERE GOING TO DIE. Which is plain dumb.

As a whole, however, X-Men is not dumb, but a fun, occasionally worthy action film — with the potential for sequels to be so much more. Here’s hoping.

Footnotes

1. Minus, of course, the wildly improbable mutations, and crazy functioning of the Mutating Machine.

DVD Review

X-Men has been released three times in Australia. Each time the extras have improved, and this time they’re so close to perfect that I decided it was worth the risk purchasing it. The DVD is labelled X-Men 1.5, with the ability to play the DVD with extended scenes, and a second disc full of extra documentaries, galleries and trailers (as has become the norm). The opportunity to watch it with extended scenes thrilled me — accustomed as I was to the fantastic extended The Fellowship of the Ring DVD. Of course, if I’d used my noggin I’d have realised that that kind of detail was highly unlikely.

In fact, the ‘extended’ bit is the worst part of the DVD. If you choose to watch the feature with the extended scenes, then when you get to a scene that has an extended bit, the film suddenly stops and you’re switched to poor quality footage of the full scene, from beginning to end. Then you’re returned to the film, where you have to watch half of what you just saw again. Brilliant. Still, watching the scenes alone works alright, especially with the commentary track.

The commentary for the film is nicely done, although director Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects) has gotten some guy in to help him who only seems to have had tangential influence on the film. A member of the cast — preferably Hugh Jackman — would have been a lot more fun for the viewer. But Bryan and his mysterious friend do get on very well, which is always better for these things.

The documentaries are very good, especially the candid “Reflections on the X-Men”, as well as the documentary about costuming, design and make-up. One comes away with a deep feeling of sympathy for Rebecca Romijn-Stamos after that feature — being married to the loser from ‘Full House’ AND enduring six-hour makeup application must really suck. All in all, some good DVD material — it’s just a shame that we had to wait so long for it. I’d be severely annoyed if I’d bought one of the earlier DVDs.

Movies about violent, shy people with deep psychological issues are always fun. However, they’re usually about those people killing other people, and eventually being taken down by someone fairly good-looking and sensible. Red Dragon springs to mind. So it’s nice to see one that actually allows the disturbed person in question — Barry Egan (Adam Sandler) — to find a niche in the world for himself, and the love of someone who understands.

So it’s a happy film? Well, yes, mainly. It’s also a pretty convincing look at how incredibly screwed up you’d be if you grew up with nine domineering sisters. The scene with Barry at a family do was the one for me that convinced me, after a slow and peculiar start, that I was enjoying the film. Anyone who has ever been talked about at a family function will sympathise.

It’s also a film that explores paranoia, to an extent. Barry’s initial forays into seeking help are met with failure and then disaster, when a phone sex operator (the wonderfully sleazy Philip Seymour Hoffman — I wondered why I was thinking of Red Dragon) attempts to extort money from him by sending a bunch of thugs after him. But once he finds Lena (Emily Watson — dammit, this is a Red Dragon reunion) he knows he has something stronger in his life to support him.

I should really mention Adam Sandler at this point. I’ve never been a particular fan of his movies, but he’s always shown promise as an actor. This film allows him to play the kind of character that he’s often played before — but for real, and explore what that means. And he does it brilliantly. Emily Watson also shines as Lena. There’s been some criticism of their relationship — why does Lena love Barry? Well, this wasn’t a problem for me. This criticism stems from not empathising with Barry. Barry’s violence may turn some away, but I felt it was portrayed realistically and understandably enough to make you feel sorry for him rather than scorn him. And who hasn’t wanted to beat up a bathroom every now and again?

The music is quirky, unsettling, and perfect for the film. The direction is magnificent also — the early scenes with the piano organ on the road are incredible — if a little long. But certainly when Barry rushes through corridors, trying to find Lena’s door again, you know there’s something special going on behind the scenes.

This film may bore some, and unsettle others. It certainly isn’t one that you’ll just enjoy without questioning. But personally, I found it worthwhile — and incredibly truthful.