Despicable Me 2

Despicable Me was a bit of a sleeper hit, and while there was a lot to like about the film, in particular it was the minions took off like nobody's business (just look at the publicity campaign for the sequel, which featured only the minions in all but a single full length trailer, including a series of viral videos and a cinema spot borrowing the music from Friday the 13th.

So, anyway; Despicable Me 2. Technically it's out on Thursday, but there was a massive pre-release this weekend - far too widespread to count as 'previews' - and Hannah and I took the Biscuit to see it this afternoon.

Starting with the spoiler-free version: I liked it. I'm a bit of a Johnny come lately to the franchise, having caught the original on Lovefilm a few months back, so I hit this with that rather fresh in my mind, and it worked both as a film and as a sequel. It runs on slapstick a lot, and some of it is hit and miss, but at this rate of fire you can get away with a fairly low percentage.

The performances are spot on. Gru remains a charming curmudgeon, and the three girls are both adorable and somewhat convincing, albeit in the same slightly OTT fashion as the grown ups. New characters have the same quirky appeal, especially Lucy Wilde, a rookie agent paired up with Gru.

And now the more spoilery version. If you're playing along at home, look away now.

Seriously, stop reading.

You have been warned.

Okay; all gone?

Just the ones who've seen it?

Okay: So, the film follows on very nicely from the first, with Gru still a doting dad, aiming to make a living by selling jellies and jams produced by mad science. Instead of doing the reset (take the girls away, force him to be a villain again through blackmail, yadda yadda) he is instead offered a chance to be a hero - or at least and anti-villain - and, incidentally, a shot at love after a life fearing romance. This could be terrible, but it isn't. There's a real spark between Gru and Lucy, with the characters sharing a mix of serious competence and childlike glee in their work.

Similarly, the plot and the villain gadgets manage to be both nefarious and at the same time slightly whimsical, without sacrificing punch in either department.

All in all, a big success, and the minions are as awesome as ever.

Pete's Dragon

So, I suspect that I'll be watching a lot of old Disney films with Arya-Rose over the years. Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang, The Three Lives of Thomasina, Darby O'Gill and the Little People; you know, the terrifying ones.

Pete's Dragon is the tale of a yougn boy and his friendship with a magical dragon named Elliot, whose ability to become invisible makes most people assume he's imaginary. Pete and Elliot stumble into a quaint little town, where Pete is taken in by the lighthouse keeper and his daughter, while being pursued by the violent redneck family who in some means purchased him and wish to assert their ownership. Meanwhile, Dr Terminus is in town, a quack doctor looking to go 'legit' by selling remedies made from slicing up Elliot.

Both the child slavery angle and the violent dismemberment of a sentient being are, of course, discussed through the medium of jaunty, upbeat singing.

At the end, Pete has a family, and so Elliot goes off to help the next child in need, as magical friends in disney movies of the era were wont to do.

It's not terrifying like any of those others I mentioned, but it is weirdly dark given the tone of the songs, or possibly vice versa. In particular, We Got a Bill of Sale right here - and the fact that no one seems to question this on legal grounds, worries me. Hannah suggested that the bill was in fact adoption papers, but they certainly never refer to them as such.

70s Disney; it's its own brand of messed up.

Man of Steel

From the minimalist to the maximalist; the second cinema trip of the weekend was to see the Zack Snyder-helmed, Christopher Nolan-penned Superman reboot, Man of Steel.

Harking back to the Christopher Reeve days, we open with Superman's origins on the advanced, but nonetheless doomed planet Krypton, where scientific genius and all-around badass Jor-el struggles to save something of his planet in spite of the more violent and eugenic efforts of military commander General Zod.

We flash forward thirty years and more, then flash back through the interim to see how Kal-el, raised as Clark Kent, was taught to control and conceal his abilities, due to his Earth-father's fears that he would be rejected. Then, in short order, he finds a piece of his Kryptonian heritage, Lois Lane of the Daily Planet finds him and General Zod finds Earth.

And yes, that is the right order. In fact, in this film, Lois Lane identifies Kent as a mysterious hero who has cropped up around the world before he really dons the cape and becomes Superman (a name not used until the final third).

In many ways, it's a shame it's wrapped up so quickly, as this is in many ways the most interesting part of the film, with the final act being mostly a series of superpowered slugfests between our embryo Superman and Zod and his goon squads; impressive, but not as interesting. The scenes of Clark wandering the world, not yet aware of his true heritage, and struggling to reconcile the need to help others with the need to hide his powers.

Overall, however, it was a film that I enjoyed, albeit that some of the action scenes were a little hard to follow - Supes' new look is dark enough to sometimes be hard to pick out from the villains if you're a bit colourblind - and very, very loud. I also appreciated seeing the occasional 'Lexcorp' logo crop up.

Much Ado About Nothing (Joss Whedon)

Sometimes, I really hate Joss Whedon. Given a tidy sum to direct the Avengers and a contractual week off between shooting and editing, what does he do with his life? He retreats to his utterly gorgeous house with his 'rep company' of actors and makes a low-budget version of Much Ado About Nothing. You know; for funsies.

This being the case, you could almost want him to fail, but you know what? He doesn't. Instead he produces an interesting take on one of the world's favourite Shakespeare plays, albeit one that is not without its problems. It's basically a light rom-com that goes pitch black in the middle and then at the end everyone acts as if it didn't. It also has a strangely undefined villain, whose self-professed motivation is basically that no-one likes him so he doesn't like them and he's going to fuck with them.

In general the playing was good, and if not every note was perfect, it's doing pretty well for a week's work. It's nice to see Clark Gregg working his range a little - especially when Leonato wishes Hero dead, which is a tough act to play and a harder one to come back from - and no-one felt overly stagey. Alexis Denisof was never quite light enough as Bendick, but I'm comparing him to the Branagh film version and David Tennant on stage, so I am holding to a high standard. Nathan Fillion could easily have overcooked Dogberry, but played it nicely close.

Did I mention I got to see Tennant play this on stage? I did. I still want Whedon's house.

As with any even vaguely successful Shakespeare adaptation, there are a lot of interesting choices. To pick up on a few that I noticed: Wordless flashbacks to cement the nature of Beatrice and Benedick's past, somewhat reminiscent of Branagh's similar device with Hamlet and Ophelia; Beatrice and Benedick's opening volleys, taking a cue from Beatrice's line 'I wonder that you be still talking, Signor, nobody marks you' is actually offset from the action, rather than being watched by the other characters as if it were a spectator event; Claudio's 'I'll hold my mind, were she an Ethiope' being maintained as an 'in universe' faux pas.

In terms of adaptation, the use of a modern setting with political motivations and an ever-present photographer capturing every public moment allows the story to maintain the importance of public honour and in particular public shame, although the middle eight, as it were, is still kind of jarring. Dogberry and the watch worked well as cops, and the replacement of a sword with a pistol when Benedick calls Claudio out adds a chilling fatality to the challenge. It is much harder to doubt that he means business when he's strapping on a gat for the purpose, rather than just carrying a sword as a matter of dress.

Epic

On Sunday, we had another family outing, this time to see Epic, which I later discovered is from a book by the same author (and in both cases also screenwriter) as The Rise of the Guardians, another children's animation that I really enjoyed.

So, that was a giveaway; I enjoyed this one as well. In some ways it's a standard plot - ordinary girl meets tiny boy, gets caught up in battle to save the world - but with enough twists to mark it out. Both the girl and the boy are at odds with their father-figures, and in both cases find reconciliation not in the father accepting that they are right, but in a compromise which is actually weighted in the adult's favour. Also,  the battle to save the forest is a battle for the proper balance of life and decay, not the usual nature vs pollution bit.

The film is about understanding between generations, about stewardship and about responsibility, of all things, and yet it went down a storm with the kids in the audience. Who knew that kids could be enthused about something that wasn't the anarchic and mindless rejection of authority?