Tag Archives: Adventure

Movie Night: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Year: 1954

Director: Richard Fleischer

Production Company: Walt Disney

Leads: Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Paul Lukas, Peter Lorre

Twenty_thousand_leagues_under_the_2Things got all Jules Verne-y a couple of weeks ago when Little Satis picked up an abridged children’s copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. We started talking about it, and then I started listening to an audiobook of the original on the way to work, and it wasn’t long before we naturally just had to watch this movie. (Incidentally, I’m very glad this is a movie that hasn’t been remade.)

This was another one of those films that I recalled vividly from my childhood, the kind that thrilled me, scared me, gave me nightmares, and fueled my young imagination (I remember endlessly drawing the Nautilus battling that giant squid). Equally, therefore, it was also a film that I was apprehensive about revisiting. What would I think about its special effects? What of the fifties overacting? Essentially, would it have stood the test of time?

I was happily relieved to discover that this favorite of my childhood not only was everything I had remembered it to be, but in some ways, even more. There are things that, as a young person, you don’t particularly notice, or take into account. The movie is life-size, breathing, and real. There is  no lie to the camera (there is no camera, in fact); that squid was simply real, and that’s all there was to it. And this leaves an influence; even when I read the original novel in high school, the vision in my mind of the Nautilus was Disney’s design. The film won two Academy Awards for set design and special effects, and the movie shows why: the interior of the submarine, the underwater diving scenes, even the opening drama of an unknown, luminous creature advancing upon a steam ship – all are tangible, and alive with reality.

And in revisiting it, I was struck at how strong the cast was. Kirk Douglas was the outrageous American, indignant and violent, yet ultimately with a good heart. Paul Lukas was suitably intrigued as a scientist by the wonders around him, and as a person by the unfathomed hate and pain of Captain Nemo. The inimitable Peter Lorre is simply wonderful as the under-spoken aide Conseille, keeping both Ned and the Professor in check with his quick wit.

But it is James Mason, as Captain Nemo, who completely steals the show. There could have been no one else. From the very first moment he appears on camera, he physically and emotionally embodies the very character Jules Verne created: noble, imposing, harsh, supremely confident, and utterly beyond all of mankind’s laws and morals. His impassiveness as he ambivalently sends the Professor – a person whom he professes to admire – to be cast off his ship early in the film is galling; the despair and rage in his eyes as he plays Bach’s Toccata and Fugue on his built-in organ is heart-wrenching.

All of this, combined with a lush (if occasionally twee) score, makes an unforgettable movie. It was a pleasure to watch it after so many years, and it was a pleasure to see Little Satis enjoy it as much now as I did then.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Movie Night: xXx

Year: 2002

Production Company: Revolution Studios

Leads: Vin Diesel, Asia Argento

It’s funny to think that xXx was released ten years ago; it feels like its been a lot longer. Perhaps it’s to do with the fact that I’ve consciously avoided this movie out of a small sense of shame for having liked it all the way back then. It’s not that it isn’t a good movie (it’s pretty average, in my opinion), but it’s such a ridiculously thoughtless, testosterone-fulled feel-good flick that it feels a simple admission of enjoyment would cause giant pecs to explode on my chest. It was also my introduction to Vin Diesel, who seems to have thrown away whatever potential acting career Saving Private Ryan might have spawned and spent the following fifteen years making movies about…Vin Diesel.

Anyway. It was certainly a romp; I recalled exactly why I liked the movie when it came out: the simple pleasure of seeing Rammstein blow shit up as a US spy gets killed by Russians. How very metal. This was novel to me (I hadn’t seen Ace Ventura: Pet Detective at that point, and was still blissfully unaware of the infamous Cannibal Corpse performance), and the idea of introducing metal to the mainstream was wonderful. It didn’t take me long to realize it for a bandwagon, but the simple trip of watching a movie scored my Rammstein, Drowning Pool, Queens of the Stone Age and Hatebreed was satisfying in its own reward.

xXx is a simple enough story; a straight-up James Bond rip-off, dirtied up and without the wit, Xander Cage (really?) is an anarchic criminal picked up by the NSA to become their newest secret agent. He is to infiltrate a crime gang in Prague, because they’re working on world-destroying biological weapons. Or something. There’s also a girl, who’s an ex-Russian agent who was abandoned and decided to hang around the bad guys for a bit, because there wasn’t anything else to do. Or something.

Basically, that’s all you really need to know; everything from there on in is lots and lots (and lots) of explosions. In fact, the stunts themselves are remarkable; the film won an award (it’s only win, it must be said) at the World Stunt Awards. Two scenes in particular: driving a Corvette off a bridge and then parachuting to safety (The Spy Who Loved Me, anyone? (incidentally, one of the best opening sequences of any movie, ever)), and the bit where he harpoons a speedboat and parasails behind it. Yep.

The James Bond shows through in plenty of places: the Russians, the mysterious head honcho, the gadgets and the car full of weapons and an ejecting roof. The most worrying thing about watching this movie was having to explain James Bond to Little Satis. Do you know I can’t find them on iTunes or Netflix? What’s wrong with the world these days?

There were quite a few more ‘sexy bits’ than I remember; particularly a scene where the bad guy wakes up draped in three stark naked women. Little Satis goes, “Boobies – eew!”. Had I recalled, I might have chosen a different film, but in hindsight, I remember being just as thrillingly scandalized at the scantily clad women and the gratuitous scenes in James Bond as a child, so I guess it all works out in the end.

Wait a minute…

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Movie Night: Swiss Family Robinson

Welcome to Movie Night: a chance to sit back, relax, and take in a new piece of cinematic wonder with Little Satis and I. This will (hopefully) be a once-weekly post about the movies we watch together, snuggled up in the dark with a cup of tea and a pack of M&Ms. Enjoy!

 

Year: 1960

Production Company: Walt Disney

Leads: John Mills, Dorothy McGuire

Little stands out in my memory from my childhood as well as Disney’s 1960 version of Swiss Family Robinson. Along with such swashbuckling epics such as Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe, its simple yet delightful tale of a (Swiss) family shipwrecked on a deserted island mesmerized me, and I lived and breathed the storms, the jungles, the fear and the smoke of the pirates’ attack. What young boy didn’t want to live in a treehouse with a monkey and an elephant?

This was something of a spectacle when it was released almost fifty-two years ago. A rare feat for Disney, it was filmed in epic widescreen, which allowed the luscious scenery of Trinidad and Tobago to sprawl across the screen. The opening scene, serving as a striking backdrop for the credits, shows a nineteenth-centry sailing vessel being battered to pieces in a savage storm. I marvel at this scene today; long before the age of terrible CGI sea storms, this looks, even now, stunningly realistic. The waves seem too large and detailed to be a miniature set, yet they clearly couldn’t have filmed it in an actual storm. My best bet is they made phenomenal use of the historic sets of Pinewood Studios.

Accompanying this dramatic opening is William Alwyn‘s beautiful, romantic-inspired score – strings, piccolos, timpani and haunting brass a musical match to the storm that could rival Wagner. Throughout the film, this score keeps pace, and though it occasionally descends into cartoonish cues, it provides a depth and drama to an otherwise amusing family adventure.

There are, of course, numerous instances that date the film, most notably the almost embarrassingly stereotyping of both women and races. There are only two females in the film – Mother Robinson and Roberta – and both are portrayed throughout as helpless and defenseless. I held a little hope when Roberta shows some skill at shooting, but she never ends up actually shooting any pirates – another terrible typecast. I’m pretty sure the oriental-ish pirates weren’t actually speaking any kind of language at all. Oh, for the sixties.

And of course, looking back on it now, how did I miss that the ‘Swiss’ family were all English and American? And why on earth did no one ever grow a beard? And for that matter, how did they build all that cool stuff? It’s sort of like someone had a sonic screwdriver to hand.

Either way, it’s a charming and lighthearted romp of an adventure, and Little Satis and I very much enjoyed it.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆