The Fall review

 Number 404 on the top 1000 films of all time is the adventure-fantasy film 'The Fall.'

In 1915 Los Angeles, stunt man Roy Walker (Lee Pace) is hospitalised after a stunt gone wrong. In hospital, he forms an unlikely friendship with fellow patient, eight-year-old Romanian girl Alexandria  (Catinca Untaru) who is recovering from a broken arm. He entertains her with a wild and fantasy tale about a rag-tag group of rebels to team up to kill a common enemy, but he has an agenda of his own. 

Although I understand respect director Tarsem's vision, The Fall didn't land for me. This was because of the story-within-a story format. Other films such as the Chinese Wuxia Hero also employ this format, but they only work if the framing story is as interesting as the secondary story.

This was not the case for the Fall, where the secondary story was infinitely more interesting than the framing story of Roy and Alexandria in the hospital. Yes, their relationship was cute and touching, but it didn't quite resonate for me.

*spoilers*

Roy has a dark secret. In exchange for entertaining Alexandria with these stories, he asks her to steal morphine for him. Ostensibly, this is to help him sleep, but he actually intends to commit suicide. His beloved has left him for the actor he was doubling for. Now he now longer wants to live. This was suitably tragic with Pace and Catinca giving good performances, but this framing story lacked the same forward momentum of the supporting story.

It also lacked the same, great visual style. Our B-story sees a range of quirky characters including a masked bandit, a silent Indian warrior, an ex-slave, an Italian explosives expert and Charles Darwin. They all team up to take revenge on a governor who has wronged them all. The fantasy land they inhabited was marked by bold colours and a distinct look - similar to the Chinese Hero film.

I do think this was just a case of a film not working for me, Obviously, The Fall is held in high regard, the IMDB fan base voted it as the 405th best film for a reason, but alas I was not one of those fans.

Stardust review

 Number 532 on the top 1000 films of all time is Matthew Vaughn's 2007 fantasy romantic-drama 'Stardust.'

Tristan Thorn (Charlie Cox) is a young man from the fictional Victorian village of Wall. In love with an already betrothed woman, he ventures into the neighbouring fantasy land of Stormhold to collect a fallen star that has taken the form of a woman called Yvaine (Clare Danes.) However, a coven of witches led by Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer) are also seeking Yvaine in their quest for immortality. Meanwhile, Stormhold's dying king (Peter O'Toole) decides that his successor should be whoever can find the ruby he has thrown into the sky. His squabbling sons led by Prince Septimus (Mark Strong) start fighting to become the new king.

This was a fun re-imagining and subversion of the fairy-tale, as well a great take on the fantasy genre. Like science-fiction, I find fantasy to be full of pretentiousness - authors desperate to show off how creative they are put all their efforts into world-building and purple prose, neglecting their characters and narrative. The result is usually an overly-serious and stuffy story.

 Yet Stardust was refreshing and charming. There was no shortage of well-choregraphed, slapstick fights, as well as comedic characters. Robert De Niro as the effeminate pirate Captain Shakespeare is a prime example. De Niro has such a reputation for playing grizzled, old gangsters, it's difficult to imagine him as cross-dressing dame, but he did the comedy so well. He only had a supporting role, but a scene-stealing one.

Similarly, the old man (David Kelly) guarding the wall was great. He uses his staff to fiercely stop Tristan from crossing realms. Granted, he isn't very effective, but it was great slapstick all the same. And there's loads more examples of quiet humour from Lamia's youth potion wearing off leading to her hair falling out and her breasts sagging, to the king's sons committing fraticide one by one. When one of them has his throat slit, he bleeds blue blood. All of these were nice little touches.

I wish my praise could extend to Charlie Cox, but he was very bland and sappy as Tristan Thorn. Arguably, he becomes progressively more heroic, but he is still a rather dull protagonist. It's a shame as I've seen Charlie Cox in more action-oriented roles and he's very good, but he was nothing out the ordinary here. Mark Strong and Michelle Pfeiffer made great villains though. Generally, I've only seen Mark Strong in villainous roles, but he does do them so damn well.

All in all, I did enjoy Stardust. It was wonderfully creative. Yes, Charlie Cox, is sappy, but Stardust proved that fantasy does not need to be dark and serious all the time.

Corpse Bride review

 Number 911 on the top 1000 films of all time is Tim Burton's stop-motion, dark-fantasy 'Corpse Bride.'

Set in Victorian London, Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp) is a respectable young man who is betrothed Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson) a sweet-natured, young woman. However, cold feet leads to him messing up the ceremony and running into the nearby forest in shame. While rehearsing his vows, he inadvertently awakens the titular corpse bride Emily (Helena Bonham Carter.) She believes the two are now married and Victor finds himself caught between his alive bride Victoria and his dead bride Emily.

In Corpse Bride, Tim Burton blended together a charming, but strange narrative with some brilliant visuals. The animation was absolutely gorgeous if surreal at times. Stop-motion is always so impressive due to its pain-staking nature. Production for this film lasted for over a year and there were over 100,000 individual frames to be animated. But the finished product was a visual feast for the eyes. I loved the colour scheme. In the Land of the Dead, everything is so bright and colourful, whereas in the real world, everything is daub and downtrodden.

But it's in the Land of the Dead where things get really weird. Especially during the musical numbers, it was like watching an acid-trip. But it's this trademark surrealism that made this film so memorable. It was so creative; I can safely say that I haven't seen a film quite like it. And although the musical numbers are few and far between, they are catchy and thoroughly entertaining. The Remains of the Day was one of my favourites especially with its striking visuals.

Corpse Bride is also littered with acting talent. We've already mentioned Johnny Depp, Emily Watson and Helena Bonham Carter, but Christopher Lee, Richard E.Grant, Joanna Lumley and Albert Finney all lend their voices to this fun little flight of fancy. Johnny Depp sounded almost unrecognisable as he lacks the same accent he adorns for the Pirates of the Caribbean series or Sweeney Todd.  It was also a great script with plenty of jokes as well as some real emotional notes. I particularly loved the final image of the eponymous Corpse Bride dissolving into a group of butterflies. I thought this was a touching and elegant image.

Overall, I really enjoyed Corpse Bride. It was so creative, so colourful with some great musical numbers and voice performances. And the stop-motion animation was absolutely brilliant. It proved that stop-motion animation should be respected as much as any other medium within cinema.