Film Review | Django Unchained (2013)

Promoting Django Unchained in an interview with Playboy Magazine at the end of last year, Quentin Tarantino was quoted as saying that "directors don't get better as they get older. Usually the worst films in their filmography are those last four at the end. I'm all about my filmography, and one bad film fucks up three good ones". Ironically, if there is any contemporary director whose output disproves this theory, it's Tarantino himself. And if Django Unchained ended up being his last hurrah, then what a spectacular way it would be to sew up Tarantino's beloved filmography.

Django Unchained in many ways feels like the spiritual and natural successor to Tarantino's most recent previous work, Inglourious Basterds, with the two films in conjunction feeling as though they hail a renaissance in the director's career. Tarantino is no longer the young upstart on the scene, the indie filmmaker who reshaped 1990s cinema with the one-two combo of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. That's not to say that his films no longer have the impact they once did. Quite the contrary in fact: Inglourious Basterds was so bold in its execution, so finely mastered by the man behind the camera, that it couldn't help but redefine war films for the modern era. Django Unchained does the same for the western genre, arguably with even greater success.

This is hands down Tarantino's finest story yet. From the opening scenes to the final moments, Tarantino the writer knows exactly where he's taking Django as well as every other character involved; Tarantino the director assuredly takes you along with them every step. This is intoxicating cinema, both brutal and beautiful - Django Unchained shows that the jawdropping cinematography of Inglourious Basterds was no one-off. Tarantino may beg, steal and borrow from his encyclopaedic passion for cinema when crafting his tales, but nobody can deny that he is one of the most artistically proficient filmmakers making movies today.

Tarantino's skill for drawing out the very best work from his actors is as robust as ever here. Jamie Foxx as Django is intense and immeasurably cool, developing the character over the film's effortless 165 minutes without putting a foot wrong. Alongside him is Christoph Waltz's dentist-turned-bounty-hunter Dr. King Schultz. It's almost unfair to compare Waltz's performance here to his enigmatic turn as Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds, so I simply won't. Waltz is once again superb, immediately creating a captivating curiosity of a character who you can't help but warm to. Waltz regularly makes Schultz a genuinely funny character too, relieving some of Django Unchained's inherent heaviness with a perfectly timed quip or a charming demonstration of the Schultz's gift of the gab. The chemistry between Foxx and Waltz is palpable and rich, two fine actors on top of their game brilliantly glancing off one another wonderfully throughout.

If the film's first half belongs to Waltz and Foxx, then its second is firmly in the joint possession of Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson. DiCaprio's incomparably vile plantation owner Calvin Candie is a villain for the ages, with the actor imbuing his creation with a heady mix of Southern hospitality and monstrous cruelty. Matching DiCaprio in detestabilty is Jackson as Stephen, Candie's aging Uncle Tom of a house slave. His is a performance as captivating as it is ire-inducing, the actor's finest since his last major role in a Tarantino film as Ordell Robbie in 1997's Jackie Brown.

Django Unchained comes together brilliantly as Tarantino's most mature work yet. The director strides assuredly and masterfully into his third decade of filmmaking with fresh ideas and increasingly impressive cinematic style and craft, whilst at the same time making clear that same burning desire and unbridled passion for every element of every moment of his films seen since his earliest work. During the same interview referenced earlier, Tarantino suggested that he may stop directing after his tenth film. If he follows through with this plan, it means we've got three more films to see from him yet. And if Django Unchained is anything to go by, we've potentially got some of the finest cinema ever created to look forward to.

10/10

Film Review | Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)

As I stated in my review of Paranormal Activity, the "found footage" format used throughout had both positive and negative outcomes. It added an element of reality that traditional Hollywood style horror at times can't manage, as well as giving the film a low-budget indie charm which was, for the vast majority of the film, entirely genuine. Paranormal Activity 2 employed the same style and techniques, but in order for it to come across as a worthwhile sequel, it needed to be more than just a retread of the same ground covered in the original.

Paranormal Activity 2 is in fact a prequel-sequel hybrid, relating events happening both before and after those seen in the first film. The film focuses on married couple Kristi and Dan Rey (Sprague Grayden and Brian Boland) and their family, Dan's teenage daughter Ali (Molly Ephraim) from a previous marriage, and the couple's baby son Hunter. Kristi is the sister of Katie (Katie Featherstone) from the first film, and both Katie and her partner Micah (Micah Sloat) make appearances here. The film focuses on strange supernatural occurrences happening in the Reys' home a few months before those seen happening to Katie and Micah in the original film.

Unfortunately, Paranormal Activity 2 magnifies the problems seen in Paranormal Activity, as well as displaying a few of its own. The style is very similar, although the way in which security cameras are installed to capture the goings on in the house feels more contrived than Micah's camcorder of the original film. There is evidence that the film makers realised the less compelling nature of the daytime sequences of Paranormal Activity, as those segments are regularly much briefer, allowing the night time activity - much more interesting in the first film - to come along more regularly.

However, the problem here is that even the night time "footage" is too often really quite dull. In fact, it takes around an hour - two thirds of the film's total running time - for anything genuinely scary to happen. The film just ticks over without anything meaningful to say, or even giving much of a clue as to why the activity might be happening. Daughter Ali seemingly stumbles across a couple of clues as to what they are experiencing and why, but then does nothing with them. Katie provides the most interesting reaction to what is going on, but isn't in the film enough to have much of an effect.

In and of themselves, none of the characters here are particularly interesting. Dan and Kristi are decidedly ordinary; Ali is a one-dimensional teenage girl, complete with paper-thin boyfriend Brad (Seth Ginsburg); Viviz Cortez as housekeeper and nanny Martine looks to offer a more interesting perspective in the film, but is removed from proceedings far too early to make an impact.

Whilst the final twenty minutes or so of the film do manage to produce some creepy moments and palpable scares, ultimately this is far too little too late. The connection to the events of the first film feels rushed, and the final scenes feel tacked on which is especially frustrating as they are clearly intended to not only tie up the events of this film and the last, but also lead the franchise into further installments. Whilst Paranormal Activity 2 isn't awful, it has far too many problems and generates far too little of interest to be able to truly recommend it.

4/10