'Non-Stop' directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

'SHE'S BEEN TAKEN!!'

No, wrong review...

Non-Stop, is however another film emerging from the ever developing sub genre of Liam Neeson action thrillers, of which this is a functional and respectable edition.

Neeson plays Bill Marks, an air marshal (essentially an in flight policeman) with an alcohol problem and a difficult personal life. Bill gets on a trans-Atlantic flight bound for London, meeting Jen (Julianne Moore), a businesswoman who is at a similar point in her life and then, rapidly and predictably, bad things start happening.

It turns out that one of the passengers wants a large amount of money to be deposited in his account by the agency that Marks works for. Otherwise, he will kill one person on the plane every twenty minutes until his demands are met. He makes these demands known through a series of malicious text messages.

What follows is a fun, if somewhat predictable run through the various suspects on the flight. Bill Marks investigative techniques essentially involve pointing his gun at people and waiting for them to talk, which is an effective if terrifying technique given that on a plane you are one stray bullet away from disaster.

The suspect is something of a tech genius, so he then makes it seem as though Marks himself is stealing the money and causing the hijack of the plane. What follows is a tense investigation of these allegations with Marks' allies Nancy (a flight attendant played by Michelle Dockery) and the aforementioned Jen.

Unfortunately, not everyone on the flight is on Marks' side and this results in some rather egotistical ranting by unreliable NYPD cop Austin Reilly (Corey Stoll), who believes the rumours spread by the criminal that Marks is behind the hijack.

This is where the film is at its strongest, as the passengers struggle with the panic of being held hostage at 25,000 feet. Marks himself has profoundly little control over the situation, which, as Jen observes, reflects the wider state of his life in general.

These two make an interesting pair and it's refreshing to see a romantic sub plot on screen for two middle aged characters who have already been through a lot in their lives. This is a fairly unusual step in any widely released film.

These well developed characters raise it slightly above the level of Taken, which whilst interesting was ultimately about one man on a revenge mission. Bill Marks is a far more sympathetic character who is acting to protect those around him despite the dreadful state of his own life.

Ultimately, as you can see from the picture that goes with this review, it is a film about Liam Neeson shooting things but there seems to be more of a reason for Liam Neeson shooting things, which makes it an enjoyable, interesting and worthwhile action film.

'300: Rise of an Empire' directed by Noam Murro

Contrived and rather pleased with itself, the 300 franchise has provided us with it's second edition, some eight years after its first instalment.

This time rather than just the SPARTANS!! being involved and the focus being exclusively on the Battle of Thermopylae (or a hilariously inaccurate depiction thereof) this film encompasses the wider narrative of The Persian War and in particular Themistocles' Athenian led defence of his home city.

Not that the 300 series is in any way rooted or bound by historical fact. Some of the critics who have lined up to dismiss these films on this basis forget that these stories are based on a graphic novel and whilst graphic novels have much to say for them, sticking to realistic or accurate depiction of factual events is not a speciality of the genre.

Nonetheless, the film opens with a depiction of the Battle of Marathon, ten years previous to the events of the first film, which was a tremendous Athenian victory that drove off Xerxes' father Darius' invasion. The film would have us believe that Themistocles (played with a hilarious movable accent by Sullivan Stapleton) killed Darius personally and this is what transformed Xerxes into the weird bloke we see sitting on a floating gold throne in the first film.

Anyway, much back story then follows, which gets a little tedious whilst Artemisia, a Persian warrior princess (played with a grim malevolence by Eva Green) becomes the power behind Xerxes' throne. The two of them decide that pure evil is the best way to advance their plans for the conquest of Greece and that actually they are a bit tired of waiting for an opportune moment so they launch a huge invasion force on nasty looking ships.

Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey - Leonidas' wife from the first film) is narrating all of this and even she sounds a bit bored. This section, which encompasses around the first half hour, fails to command much attention from the audience. Indeed, failure to command catches on with the Persians as they continue their high levels of military incompetence from the first film in the opening naval battles.

That is with the exception of Artemisia, who seems to take quite a perverse pleasure in seeing the men under her command die. It turns out that she is purposely losing the war cause she has a bit of a thing for Themistocles. This is a 300 film so I will leave you to guess what happens next between these two...

Then Themistocles makes a lot a speeches (about 93) which all essentially say the same thing - that the Athenians are fighting for freedom and democracy against tyrannical Persia. All of which is at the very least vastly overstated given that ancient democracy only ever enfranchised a couple of hundred men (not women, slaves or freed slaves) in Athens at any one time.

It was therefore very disappointing to note that these speeches transposed modern democratic values onto a a system that, whilst revolutionary for its time, was nowhere near as free or as representative as this film has made out.

Nonetheless, I have criticised others for attacking inaccuracies in the film so back to the review... and by this point, after Themistocles' many, many speeches, we have finally reached the Battle of Salamis - a final naval engagement between the Greek and Persian forces. You do not need to have any knowledge of Ancient History to guess which way that one is going to go.

There is a fun intervention from the Spartans at this point and it is good to have Lena Headey and David Wenham back. This is the strongest of the battle set pieces and it cannot be argued that these sequences are not an interesting watch.

Unfortunately, the script simply does not lend any depth to these scenes. The characters (both major and minor) are wooden, two dimensional war film clichés. Having enjoyed 300 for it's sheer levels of camp, Rise of an Empire takes itself far too seriously to be a truly remarkable watch and it does not seem to be able to decide if it is a genuine attempt at depicting ancient warfare or a blood and guts comic like it's predecessor. Add to this some average direction and it is ultimately impossible to escape the conclusion that the series has become a victim of its own success.

NB: I do not own the rights to the photo used in this review and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.

'Love in the Time of Cholera' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

This book, set in Columbia at the start of the 20th Century, explores the many and varied forms of love that exist between men and women through the experiences of its protagonists – Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza.

The story begins during Florentino’s teenage years, with a description of the kind of listless pursuit of love that only teenage boys are capable of. His early attempts to woo Fermina involve a relentless letter writing campaign and the composition of various pieces of music on his violin.

Fermina, whilst initially flattered, does not feel amorously for Florentino and, after humouring him for a while, she rejects his suit, seeing him as an immature hopeless romantic. This rejection devastates Florentino, who instead focusses on his career at a local shipping company. After a time, he moves on and develops something of a reputation locally as a womanizer, despite his feelings for Fermina remaining unchanged.

Meanwhile, Fermina has met her future husband, a practical man by the name of Juvenal Urbino – a doctor by profession who is, by contrast to Florentino, composed, self-possessed and an important figure in the local community.

The rest of the novel goes on to explore the divergent lives of these two characters as they grow older. Fermina’s tale in particular is populated by scores of difficult relatives and cynics who attempt to manipulate her and her husband. Yet, Marquez has created an intriguing woman in Fermina - she is fiercely independent and possessed of a rare conviction about her opinions, usually to the exclusion of the wishes of her husband.

Among the cynics, Fermina’s father, Lorenzo Daza, is a particularly memorable creation – a driven, self-made man whose primary concern is the advancement of his business. His treatment of Florentino in the early chapters of the book is particularly striking and the interplay between the two over Florentino’s pursuit of Fermina is a fascinating confrontation which is one of the strongest sections of the book.

Florentino’s development as a character as he ages is certainly curious. He goes from being a slightly clueless but ultimately sympathetic character as a young man to being something of a user of women, who he seems to view as collectively as distractions from Fermina, who is beyond his reach. He is by no means a consistently moral character and comes across as something of a hypocrite when he offers his true opinions on love to the various women he sleeps with.

Overall, this novel, whilst slow and a little laborious as a read, is an interesting meditation on love and the effects thereof on different characters. Although the dialogue sometimes feels a little off and some of the incidents seem to have been lifted straight out of a soap, it is rich novel by a highly accomplished author.

It will, however, take even the most committed reader at least a week to read so it is worth picking up when there is plenty of spare time available.

N/B: I do not own the rights to the photo used in this blog entry and will remove it at the request of the rights holder.