Film

Rip It Up, Issue 242, 1 October 1997, Page 38

Film

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William Dart

George of the Jungle WiAectcvu Sam Weisman It’s difficult to resist this tasty slice of Disney chic, as Sam Weisman and his team rework the classic 60s cartoon for the knowing 90s. George is mostly unabashed slapstick, but inspired slapstick nevertheless. Animation, animatronics, an oleaginous narrator (who is not averse to advising the characters on what to do in a tight comer), and a marvellous cast ensure its success. Our hero is, as the narrator reminds us on more than once occasion, ‘defender of the innocent, protector of the weak and all-round good guy’, and Brendan Fraser is pure charm school, a most affable comedian. He’s more than capable of holding his own against the suave Ape, constantly consulting tomes from his treehouse library, grimacing over his lunettes at George’s inanities and speaking with the droll, clipped tones of John Cleese. There’s strong support too from Leslie Mann as the dizzy heiress, coming across as something of a Bernadette Peters for the 90s. From the frantic animated title sequence to a final tableau straight out of The Lion King, George of the Jungle is a rabbit’s warren of film references — even when you least expect it. A scene in which the heroine is at the prow of a launch in the San Francisco harbour brings forth a hint of ‘Don’t Rain on my Parade’ on the soundtrack — and then you recall that iconic shot of Barbra Streisand

singing that song in Funny Girl, in a similar situation in the New York harbour. The Jim Henson Workshop is behind the splendid animal sequences. The two superb set pieces are George's sparring with a lion (a beautiful send-up of WWF Superstars) and the antics of Shep, the elephant who thinks he’s a dog. Right through to the final splash in Las Vegas, which could be described as a simian tribute to Frank Sinatra, the film is a delight. I can understand why Justin Bourret was so happy to describe himself as an Avid Assistant in the end titles. Celestial Clockwork NA TORRES In this tizzy, wayward comedy, based around the Cinderella legend, there are no glass slippers or midnight transformations into mice and pumpkins — a cassette recording is the only clue dropped by the young Venezuelan soprano (the delightful Adriana Gil) who is desperate to star in a new film of Rossini's opera Cinderella. Kooky characters abound, the best being the cute, tubby Frederik Longbos’s Armand, a cute, tubby Astrotwit and Maria Callas fanatic to boot, and Evelyne Didi’s wide-eyed psychoanalyst, who has a thriving practice that keeps her customers at video cable’s length. Amazingly, the snappy script survives its subtitles (in one uproarious scene, a character confuses visa problems with a Lacanian riddle) and Callas’s ‘Casta Diva’ has never sounded more divine than here, where it’s played on a pink transistor in the bar. The scene in which the heroine breaks into a Schubert song on the rooftops is magical. Best of all, this is a joyous, unruffled film in which the diversity of sexuality is the main theme, but never a grinding issue. No mean achievement. MEN IN BLACK £Dizuieta/u Barry Sonnenfeld Perhaps it was the Civic’s atrocious sound system (the culprit in many a Festival screening) that made the throwaway repartee more throwaway than it should have been. This is ironic when Ed Solomon’s script is

strong enough to withstand the inevitable distraction of the film’s high-powered visuals. Men In Black is a preposterous piece of hokum, a little like a National Enquirer fantasy come to life. The plot? Special agents K and J (Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith) save the our beleaguered planet from the perils of extraterrestrial invasion. Barry Sonnenfeld is a director with punch and a sense of timing (he sustained a miraculously wacky logic in both Addams family films). He also knows what style is about, having been behind the camera for Joel Coen’s Raising Arizona. In a film like MLB that zaps from sci-fi and Hee-Haw farce to atmospheric film noir, he’s just the man to hold the whole thing together. Will Smith is a hip foil for the unflappable Tommy Lee Jones. Vincent D’Onofrio storms and stamps as the hapless Edgar and Linda Fiorentino is the Queen of ultra cool as a morgue technician, and may have already lined up her reservations for the sequel. But those critters are something else... From the weird (the various beasties at Headquarters) through the malevolent (a truly foul Frank the Pug) to the moving (the dying miniature ET inside an alien’s head), they steal all the scenes that they’re in. ABSOLUTE POWER t'recto a: Clint Eastwood This film is slipping through the system gathering neither love nor respect (one local critic unceremoniously dismissed it as a ‘turkey’) but, in terms of mainstream cinema, it's certainly one of the more solid releases of the year. Clint Eastwood, as director and star, is relaxed about being both — too much so, perhaps, in the exposition of the film which is a little on the lethargic side. But once Clint the erstwhile cat burglar is caught up in a web of political corruption, the plot unfolds with the customary inevitability. Scriptwriter William Goldman has an eye for detail (at one point, a CIA hood is immersed in the music of Wagner) and, although there’s a mite too much cuteness in some of the scenes between Eastwood and his daughter, most of the dialogue is taut and straight-from-the-shoulder (“Doctor Kevorkian, I presume,” spiels Eastwood when he finds a villain about to administer a lethal injection to his daughter. The assailant barely has time to croak,

“Mercy," when Eastwood rasps, “I’m clean out,” and polishes him off... a line worthy of Dirty Harry himself). The initial murder is brilliantly handled, and the political plot, once set into action, doesn’t let up for a moment, although it’s disappointing that E.G. Marshall’s final revenge takes place off screen. In amongst the effortless pans and crisp montage, Eastwood allows the odd virtuoso touch, like the swooping dance between Gene Hackman’s President and the delicious Judy Davis as his Chief of Staff, positively cooing with coyness. The Full Monty SDt'tec tn-r: Peter CATTANEO ‘Sheffield, a city on the move’ — or so says a early 70s travelogue that plays under the opening titles for Peter Cattaneo’s new film. At the end of the credits, though, we’re face-to-face with the brutal reality of unemployment and poverty in Northern England. Likely lad Gaz (Robert Carlyle) organises some of his unemployed mates into a rough-and-ready Chippendales for the local lasses, who are only too willing to come up with £lO for a bit of male flesh. And if the boys offer the full monty (that is, total nudity) how can they fail? Lusty vulgarity and sentimentality go hand in hand, along with some inspired humour. Sometimes this humour is crude (a, job interview sabotaged by a garden gnome performance), elsewhere it’s worthy of Keaton or Chaplin (one of the lads thinks a pilfered sweet in the supermarket has set off the alarm); occasionally it steals upon you rather slyly (the boys in the dole queue start to rehearse their steps when the muzak turns to Donna Summer). The genuinely bizarre (the portly Dave retreating to the woodshed at night and gladwrapping his belly in a desperate attempt to lose condition) contrasts with the careful underplaying of the scene in which two of the lads realise they are gay. Despite the subtlety of this scene, at the screening I attended, an enthusiastic woman behind me shrieked, ‘No, no, no!' as if some neighbour was regaling her with a particularly salacious piece of gossip, phrase by phrase. Elsewhere, the same woman treated us to screams of delight, running the gamut from ‘God it's gorgeous’ to ‘Fantastic!’. It would seem that a revival of Ladies’ Night is overdue...