The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec (2010)
First of all, this is best described as "Amelie" meets "Raiders of the Lost Ark". Nevertheless, I think all viewers of this need to be prepared for the nearly alienating insanity of this movie.
Put it this way, within the early stages of the movie you will see a pterodactyl egg hatching. Sounds pretty cool right? Well then you'll discover that it's linked to a scientist whose research concerned the possibility of life after death. So what, it's a zombie pterodactyl? Well yeah, essentially. And yes, if you think about it you'll realise that there wouldn't be anything left of the pterodactyl to act as a zombie and it looks far too healthy considering its age. This is the sort of thing that is going to bug you for the entire runtime if you worry about it too much.
But don't be too concerned, the movie does eventually sort out some kind of internal logic. On a second watch the movie is improved because the audience has a better idea of how they ought to best approach the movie and thankfully the fun bits are still just as fun a second time around. You might then not be so concerned as to why a tomb would expect to have an entrance and an exit, why all animals seem to understand arabic or why a pterodactyl would become emotional over the eating of a chicken egg.
Another reason this movie benefits from a second watch is that it decides to introduce about seven different characters briskly and in quite a lot of detail, one after the other in the opening scene, before finally coming to introduce our eponymous protagonist. As we know from Tetris, that's pretty much as many different items as our brain is really going to manage and with a coach driver to worry about too, you are likely to find yourself forgetting many of the details. Fortunately the characters are all charismatic enough to make themselves quite well-known when they turn up properly a fair bit later on.
So, the movie is exciting, funny, pretty, sweet and just generally good fun. I've already read off pretty much all the negative points I can. (Well actually I could list more logic jumps but, as I said, that would be somewhat missing the point.) The lead actress is really sweet while also being a commanding and charismatic figure, like a female Sherlock Holmes.
I've been a big fan of Luc Besson for a while now and it's a big relief to find that he's returned to his old style. His latest movie prior to this was "Angel-A"; a very self-involved film with a contrived plot and a deus ex machina ending. That said, "Adele Blanc-Sec" isn't as dark as his movies in the past. "Leon" had Gary Oldman's ultra-malicious figure, "The Fifth Element" had a ball of pure evil and "Joan of Arc: The Messenger" had some ultra-ruthless English soldiers, the fickle French royalty and Joan of Arc's own personal demons embodied in the form of Dustin Hoffman. Luc Besson's perhaps most fondly remembered movie is "Nikita" which begins with a bunch of criminals, one of whom is casually dragging a dead body. So yes, this is a more happy and jolly movie than perhaps Besson's previous work was, but this isn't obviously a bad thing.
You'll laugh, you'll gasp and you'll often scratch your head, but one thing you most certainly won't be is bored. Apparently this was released in the cinema, but I can't say I saw it anywhere near me (which perhaps explains why the DVD is already available to rent). However, in a year filled with spectacular blockbusters, this manages to be that little bit more satisfying than most.
A- (Excellent, but possibly not quite the best)
Meek's Cutoff (2010)
Gorgeously shot. Always a bad sign when that's one of the main things to say about a movie. If you are admiring the scenery, the likelihood is that you are bored. "Lawrence of Arabia" isn't exactly fast-paced, but it still has a great deal more to focus on than the scenery.
The story is that a guide called "Meek" appears to be lost and the rest of those travelling with him are considering killing him because his guidance seems little better than guesswork they could do themselves. Part way through the journey they come across an Indian (i.e. native American) and questions are posed about what the Indian might want with them and how they should respond to him.
Not only is all of this ridiculously slow paced with little in the way of background music to keep the audience from falling asleep, but the camera often doesn't even bother to capture the face of the particular character who is mumbling their lines at any one point. As such, I found it quite hard to keep a track of who was saying what to whom, never mind what any of it actually meant.
Until the Indian turns up, the movie is deathly dull. When he turns up the movie starts to become somewhat watchable, but the pacing doesn't really quicken at that stage.
Oh and the image on the poster of a woman hefting a shotgun menacingly which gives the impression that this might be somewhat interesting comes about ten minutes before the end of the movie. It is probably the most interesting part of the whole movie, but the build-up is simply not worth it.
The ending of the movie feels abrupt, but this is mainly because so little actually happened during the movie's run-time. In a rather more engaging movie this might have been a really impressive ending, but in this movie I just felt like it hadn't done enough to earn it.
Y'know how some movies have a really bad ending that let's them down? Well this has a really bad start and middle which let's down an otherwise excellent ending.
D- (Not good and not at all entertaining)