REVIEW: The Imposter

True stories have an incredible power to draw in it's audience. No matter how ludicrous or how unbelievable the story may seem, there's always the fallback that this actually did happen, it's not made up and it could possibly happen again.

The Imposter plays on quite contemporary fears of children being snatched away from their parents or who simply go missing (high profile cases from the UK such as Madeline McCann, Shannon Matthews and Tia Sharp). However, this documentary focuses on the complex tale of the disappearance of Texan born Nicholas Barcley who disappeared in 1994 and then found in Spain, three years later.

It's kind of hard to explain what the plot of The Imposter is without giving away key details, because the less you know about the case of Nicholas Barcley, the better and more shocking the film will be. However, I'll give it a go...

The film starts in 1994, where a young blonde haired, blue-eyed Nicholas Barcley goes missing after leaving the house to play basketball and arguing with his Mother. What starts as a simple missing persons case that didn't even make the news had the whole of America stunned three years later when Nicholas is supposedly found in 1997... in Spain. The family are thrilled to bits and Nicholas' sister, Carey Gibson immediately flies out to Spain to bring him home where he belongs. However, as the title of the film suggests, many people start to believe that Nicholas is not telling the whole truth and they start to believe that parts of his story might be made up. It's not until the FBI and a private investigator become involved in interviewing Nicholas to get the truth out of him that the motives behind his story and the family's dark past start to come under the spotlight.

There... I tried. I really hope I didn't give any important parts of the plot away, because I went into watch this documentary without knowing anything about the case and I was completely shocked by what I saw. The story is so gripping and at times, crazy, that you will wonder just exactly how the people could have got away with what they did. Quite frankly, if this story was made into a Hollywood drama, it would be a tale that's pretty hard to swallow because of what certain people did (for example, the frankly rookie nature of the FBI agent who investigated Nicholas when he was brought back to the States.) But because the story is told through the documentary format, I found myself sitting their flabbergasted at what happened, rather than questioning how believable it was.

Besides the questionable nature of the professionals who were bought in to investigate Nicholas, the actions and motives behind the different family members themselves were so intriguing that after every twist of the story that happened, I was waiting to see what excuse or reasoning they were going to give to explain themselves. It's just a shame that the key member of the family who had the finger pointed at him the most, Nicholas' half-brother is now dead, so he couldn't defend/explain himself. However, the documentary does well in keeping the witness interviews to a select few members of Nicholas' close family to keep the tale as simple and straight-forward as possible. IT could have easily descended into talking-head interviews with classmates and second-cousins that Nicholas never met, all wanting to pop in and give their little thoughts on what happened, but the documentary keeps it to Nicholas' sister, his Mother, the FBI agent, the undercover agent and someone else (who I won't name, so I won't reveal the first twist that is revealed in the first five minutes of the film!)

However, it's not just the story that is captivating. Director Bart Layton could have easily relied on the compelling narrative of the story and filled it with some bland direction and still got away with a good film. But his style of filming and storytelling is just as compelling as the tale that he is telling. His use of match-cuts, rewind edits and composition of certain shots help drag the audience further into the story. He also does well with weaving the drama sequences that help tell the story of Nicholas in-between the talking head interviews. Basically, in short, Layton takes the idea of a simple documentary, that could have easily been an hour TV special, and takes it to cinematic level that is up there with the best crime drama films.

OK, that's all I'm going to give away. I really don't want to let on too much. because like I said at the beginning, the less you know the better. All I will say is that I've never sat so close to the edge of my seat (figuratively, not literally of course) while watching a film in the cinema. While some might argue that the film and the actual case of Nicholas Barclay itself doesn't have definite closure, I just love how many questions I had at the end running through my head.

That is the sign of a good film... That's the sign of a story well told... When you want to carry on talking about it long after you've seen it.

***** / *****
(My first 5 star review!)

REVIEW: The Expendables 2

The action film is a staple for the male gender. It's what makes us men, what makes us realise what it is to be men and also makes us realise that our lives are nothing like an action film!

All you really need are guns, explosions, tanks, shouting, one-liners and epic music and you will pretty much have the action film in the palm of your hand.

The Expendables 2 is a film that you don't really have to have seen the first film, because the plot is so straight-forward, but I'll explain it anyway. Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) - not really a character name that inspires him to be a male role model - is called back by Church (Bruce Willis) as it seems they are still in his debt from the end of the first film. He calls them back to do a simple job; take a case from a fallen plane. They are instructed to take Maggie (Nan Yu) along with them as she knows the location and how to get it, however on their way back they are ambushed by the evil Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) who steals the case and kills the new kid on the block, Bill the Kid (Liam Hemsworth). Maggie then reveals that the case was actually a blue-print to find tonnes of plutonium that was left in Russia after the Cold War. What follows is a pretty forward revenge film, where Barney and returning members, Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Gunner Yensen (Dolph Lundgren), Hale Caeser (Terry Crews) and Toll Road (Randy Couture) travel across the continent to take down Vilain and save the day. Oh, and they also encounter more extended cameos from Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger) this time and a new cameo from Booker (Chuck Norris).

To be honest, there's no denying that The Expendables 2 is a product of "bigger=better" as far as sequels go. There are bigger battle sequences, more bone-crunching fight scenes and a lot more characters with even bigger action stars from time-gone-by squashed into it's fairly standard running time (103 minutes). What struck me the most when watching this film was that it seemed to be taking itself far less serious than the first film. While The Expendables wasn't setting out to win any Oscars or BAFTAs, The Expendables 2 firmly sticks it's tongue in it's cheek from the offset, where the team save Schwarzenegger from the depths of Nepal, to the final battle against Van Damme in Soviet airport where every action star from the past 20 years throw each other's catch phrases around (Willis says something along the lines of "No, I'll be back" and then Schwarzenegger replies, "Yippe Ki-Yay!") It's just silly fun and it's something that really shines throughout in The Expendables 2. I can honestly say that the injection of more humour in the sequel was something that the first film was missing.

Another positive move that the sequel makes is that it doesn't feel as much of a Sylvester Stallone show as the first film did. While Stallone still plays the main protagonist in this film and he does get to have the final fight scene against the evil Vilain, Stallone steps down from the Director's chair for this one and so the film just had a general feel of being less self-indulgent than the first one. However, Stallone moves aside for a new Director, Simon West (Con Air, Tomb Raider) and sometimes his directing style felt a little off-kilter. Most of the film had a hazy soft-focus look to it, which was distracting at first, but I soon got used to it. However, most of his shot choices and scene set-ups were fairly boring. Stallone's character first meets Maggie under a suspension bridge, the mine shaft where Vilain is trying to find the plutonium is just a wide underground space and the final scene at the airport was just fairly generic. One scene that stuck out was where Stallone's character was being informed of their new mission by Church - Willis had some brilliant moody shadows going across his face and was being back-lit through the cockpit window, but the reverse shot on Stallone was just brightly lit and boring. Things just felt a bit off-balance at times.

However, bland direction is not The Expendables 2's only problem. One of the major issues was the script and the dialogue. While the film overall does a good job of keeping the plot fairly straight-forward to make way for the action set-pieces, the dialogue scenes at the beginning of the film are insanely dense and full of stupid dialogue. Bill the Kid gives some silly speech about The Expendables not being the right group for him because he wants to go home and get married to his girlfriend (if that isn't a big set-up for the rookie to die, I don't know what is!) Maggie arrives on her motorbike to meet Barney and just retell us exactly what Church has already told us (she's a girl joining a group of men and she's tough...) And then, the scene involving Vilain stealing the case repeats itself twice using the same plot device (Vilain threatens to kill Bill the Kid unless they hand over their weapons/hand over the WMD and counts down to one before a member of the group steps forward and gives him what he wants.) While you may think I'm crazy for criticising the scriptwriting of The Expendables 2, I think that just because the film relies on it's action doesn't mean that the small amounts of plot and dialogue is does attempt has to be bad.

Finally, the other major problem with The Expendables 2 is the character of Maggie and the casting of Nan Yu. As a character, Maggie adds absolutely nothing to the group or the plot. While she does help them find the case, Church could have easily given them a GPS navigator to do that. After that, Maggie cracks open the safe (again, something a machine could do) and then just provides some crap dialogue and shoots her gun. Sure, she's tough... Sure, she doesn't prove to be a burden to the group... But, she doesn't do anything. I was expecting some high-flying, ass-kicking chick to come in and show this testosterone riddled group just exactly what the female gender can do for the action flick... but, she doesn't.

Also, if the way the character was written wasn't bad enough, the casting of Nan Yu just put the final nail in the coffin. She has no charisma whatsoever and I dare say, she finds it very difficult to act. I rarely saw any glimpse of emotion from Yu, even in the final scene where she is being congratulated by Stallone for helping them out. She tries to force some remorse when she discusses the death of Bill the Kid, but she's a new character and so was Bill, so the audience are not emotionally involved with them enough to care. Basically, if I haven't made it clear enough, Yu was nearly the single reason for the downfall of The Expendables 2 - I feel that strongly about how crap her character and acting was.

So, overall The Expendables 2 really does provide a good time for lovers of the action genre and people who just like to go to the cinema to sit back, relax and switch their brain off. While the film does improve on some of the flaws of the original film - most notably provide some decent action fighting/shooting scenes and clear up that god-awful CGI blood that was used in the first film - it does make some new flaws of it's own.

*** / *****



On a side note, if you have a few spare minutes, watch this 80s style trailer for The Expendables 2. It really captures the "fun" of the film.

REVIEW: Brave

What does it take to be a Disney princess?

A deprived background, an evil curse/spell in a desperate attempt to change your luck, overpowering parents (to show the oppression against the youth of America) and a handsome Prince Charming.

Well, Brave tries to turn most of this on it's head... most of it.

Brave follows new Disney/Pixar princess, Merida (Kelly MacDonald) as she grows up to be the young princess to her Father, Fergus (Billy Connolly) and her Mother, Elinor (Emma Thompson). While her Mother wants her to grow up prim and proper like a proper Princess and arranged to be married to one of the other clan leaders' eldest sons, Merida just wants her FREEDOM (say that with a Scottish accent Braveheart style!) So, she follows the blue magical willo-the-wisps into the forest and comes across the Witch (Julie Walters)... I mean woodcarver who grants her one wish. Merida wants to change her Mother for good. While this is all very well and good, the twist in the tale comes in the form of Merida's Father lifelong vendetta against a wild bear that took his leg when Merida was very young. I won't give anymore away than that (some say the twist is quite obvious, but I thought it tied in well!) What follows is Merida's inner-battle to find out the answer to the Witch's riddle about mending what is broken.

While Brave largely uses the well-trodden Disney Princess tale structure, it's use of a new "anti" Princess was refreshing to see (much like Tiana from The Princess and the Frog). No longer do we have the beautiful (if somewhat sexualised) teenage princess with long flowing locks wearing gowns with plunging necklines who fall in love instantly with their Prince Charming. Instead, with Brave, Merida must battle her own demons within inside herself. While this sometimes made the narrative to the story a little bit slow (especially during the second act when she starts to try and reverse the spell), because there is no external demons for her to face-off against. We are loosely introduced to another Prince who has the same curse put upon him as Merida (and her Mother) does, but we never truly understand his backstory to make him a worthwhile villain. Disney are usually very good at creating intriguing villains, unfortunately with Brave they kind of missed the mark.

In fact, my only major issue with Brave was that it seemed to under develop a lot of it's main characters. Merida is shown to be stubborn and not want to be the prim and proper princess that her Mother wants her to be because she is really into her Archery. However, it would have been nice to see how her Archery and 'tomboyishness' could have saved the day (to convince her Mother why Merida is actually right)... but that moment never happens.

It also would have been quite interesting to see how Elinor herself had come to terms with her own arranged marriage to Fergus, because she is so sure that an arranged marriage is the right thing for her daughter. However, all we get is a little argument scene where Merida slashes a family portrait, visually showing the rift between the family, but not really carrying much emotional weight.

However, it does sound like I'm moaning and I'm not, because I really enjoyed Brave. It was a gorgeous film to look at, from sweeping establishing shots of the Scottish countryside (which was strangely always in blazing sunshine... hmmm, is that the American view of Great Britain?!) to the intricate detail of each strand of Merida's flowing strawberry blonde hair. There's a scene in particular where Merida tries to challenge her arranged marriage by using her archery skills and we get to witness the arrow leave the bow in super-slowmotion and then whip through the air before slamming into the target. It's a beautiful shot that shows how far animation has come along and that sometimes... just sometimes... this new form of computer generated animation can surpass the traditional hand-drawn animation.

For an animation, the voice acting in Brave was pretty spot-on. MacDonald played the suppressed teenager trying to break-free of her parent's grasp very well, Thompson played the headstrong yet loving Mother very well and Connolly was surprisingly funny as Merida's Father - I was expecting to find him just as annoying in a voice role as in his acting roles.

Also, on a purely selfish note, it was really refreshing to see a Disney/Pixar tale set in Great Britain and not some far off American land or fantastical European setting. While it would have been really interesting to see the original Director (Brenda Chapman) and her vision to have most of the film set in the snowy highlands, the final product we got was just as pleasing on the eye.

So, if you like your Disney/Pixar Princess tales with a little bit of female empowerment sass to them, then Brave will be right up your street. It's a visual feast for the eyes that will keep adults and children alike entertained right up until the very end.

**** / *****

REVIEW: The Bourne Legacy

It's hard going into a fourth film of a franchise when you haven't seen the majority of the rest of the films in the franchise. It's probably even harder to give the new film a fair review, but that's exactly what I'm going to try and do.

I've only seen The Bourne Identity. I'll admit, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum just didn't really appeal, and I think it might be because of Matt Damon. However, I found myself wound up in the cinema ready to watch The Bourne Legacy.

This film follows a new hero, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), who takes over the protagonist role from Matt Damon in the previous films, who is a member of the Department of Defence's Operation Outcome. As a result of Jason Bourne's antics in the previous film, the Operation Outcome is on lockdown and is offing their own agents, by replacing their green pills (that enhance physical abilities) and blue pills (that enhance mental abilities) with an orange triangle pill that... well, it kills them, as a form of cover-up. However, Aaron Cross just isn't really happy about this and goes rogue, trying to escape from Operation Outcome. Meanwhile, Eric Byer (Edward Norton) brainwashes a Doctor Donald Foite (Zeljko Ivanek) to cover up Operation Outcome's at the lab (involving the Green and Blue pills), and Doctor Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) manages to be the only survivor! Cross makes his way to Shearing's house and manages to save her from a second assassination attempt, however he has a plan. He wants Shearing to help him wean off the pills so that Byer and Operation Outcome have no control over him anymore. What follows is a cat and mouse chase across America and the Philippines as Cross and Shearing try to escape the clutches of Operation Outcome.

First things first... I have to say that The Bourne Legacy does a very good job of expanding the Bourne story without relying on the audience to have seen all of the previous Bourne films. Like I said, I haven't seen the previous two films, yet not once during Legacy did I feel confused or not know what was happening. The reason for this is all down to the expansion to new agent Cross, because the film kind of pulls a James Bond (a new actor taking on the lead role) and takes some time at the beginning introducing us to the new protagonist in the film franchise. While the start was the slowest part of the film (we first meet Cross at a training facility in Alaska), I feel it was needed to establish Jeremy Renner in the new role.

Also, for the film's 12A rating (in the UK, kind of the equivalent of a PG-13 in America), the film does pack quite a punch. The stand-out scene for me that racked up the most tension most definitely has to go to the massacre in the science lab. While some of the later motorbike and rooftop chases are also extremely tense, the massacre just served the purpose to show just how far Byer would go to cover up their legacy. I think credit is due to the Director/Screenwriter Tony Gilroy (Duplicity), who has only directed three films in total, but is definitely honing his craft to direct a good action scene very well. There was only a slight annoyance with the film, which was Gilroy's obsession to have a zoom-in every now and then. They seemed to come at the most inopportune moments and took me out of the story for a slight second, but the story and direction quickly grabbed me back in again.

The casting of the film is also a strength to the film. Renner's growing reputation as an all-action film star is definitely taking another step up in this film. With previous credits such as Avengers Assemble, The Town and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol already behind him, his shining point in The Bourne Legacy definitely had to be his ability to handle a motorbike (for some reason, I could have completely seen him as Bond in Tomorrow Never Dies!) and the shootout at Shearing's house - at one point he parkour climbs up the outside of the house, throws himself through the window and then takes out the assassin with just one bullet. What a badass! However, credit is also due to Rachel Weisz as Dr. Marta Shearing who treads the fine line between inexperienced sidekick to ass-kicking sidekick very well. There's a tendency to overplay the need of the female sidekick's inability at the start of the action/spy film, but Weisz takes this stereotype and smashes it away as she barely flinches when she fires her gun. It was kind of refreshing.

However, while Weisz and Renner did a good job, I felt a bit disappointed with Edward Norton's role. After loving him in The Incredible Hulk, I wanted to see him play a straight villain, but I don't think he was given enough to do in this film to make him truely formidable. He spent most of the time sitting in a room, surrounded by monitors telling other people what to do. Surely, he should have grabbed a gun and come face to face with Renner himself?! If the film would have taken the role of being bigger, better and more badass with it's villain, then The Bourne Legacy could have really ratcheted up the tension.

So if, like me, you haven't seen The Bourne Identity, Supremacy or Ultimatum then don't let it put you off seeing Legacy. What we've got here is a brand new agent going rogue against the agency that created him, it just suffers slightly from having a slightly weak villain.

*** / *****

REVIEW: Ted

How do you get couples into the cinema in perfect harmony? How do you keep the gross-out humour for the males without upsetting the females who want to see romance and love? It's a tough call, because usually one has to make a sacrifice on "date night" to please the other one.

How does Ted overcome this problem? Well, it dresses up a romantic-comedy film as a gross-out humour film. When one of my friends recently said why he was disappointed with Ted, he said it was because, "it was a Rom-Com, I expected better."*

Ted is the first live-action feature film from Family Guy creator, Seth McFarlane, so fans of Family Guy should know that the film largely follows his style of humour - awkward, hipster style comedy that likes to look at popular culture from the present day and in the past to poke fun at it. The film itself follows a young and lonely John (Bretton Manley) who receives a brand new teddy bear from his parents for Christmas, which he soon names 'Teddy'. One night, he makes a wish for 'Teddy' to come alive and be his best friend and his wish comes true. Flash-forward about 30 years and the now grown-up John (Marky Mark Whalberg) and Ted (voiced by Seth McFarlane) are still thunder buddies (best friends), but their friendship is getting in the way of John's relationship with his girlfriend, Lori (Mila Kunis). After John is forced to kick Ted out of his house to start his own life, Ted is faced with getting a minimum wage job (after being a mega-star when he first started talking, but is now washed-up), having a rubbish apartment in a rough part of town and starting a new relationship with his girlfriend, Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth). Oh, and there's also some sub-plots that involve Lori's creepy boss, Rex (Joel McHale) lusting after her and a strange man, Donny (Giovanni Ribisi) and his son, Robert (Aedin Mincks) who want to buy Ted for themselves and seem almost obsessed by him.

Firstly, no matter what people say, Ted is funny. If you find Family Guy funny, then you will enjoy Ted. While it's not laugh-out-loud funny all the way through, there are definitely enough jokes peppered throughout to keep yourself entertained. Just don't expect the humour and the jokes to be thrown out constantly, otherwise you will be disappointed. And needless to say, the funniest scenes in Ted are the ones that involve, Ted - the scenes that only feature the human characters somehow feel a little bit flat in comparison.

Secondly, the humour in Ted is largely aimed at the older crowd who grew up in the 1970s and 80s, because a lot of the popular culture jokes fall into that era (especially the cameos from such people as Tom Skerrit and Sam J. Jones aka. Flash Gordon). However, it has to be said that sometimes McFarlane's comedy seems to be like an "inside" joke that he has between himself and his friends that he is trying to share with the rest of us. While the Flash Gordon reference was funny for about two minutes, it was definitely over-played to the point where I wondered why McFarlane was so obsessed with him? I certainly didn't get the joke...

Unfortunately for Ted, there are a few more negative aspects that I can talk about rather than positive. Firstly, like I have previously said, the film is not really the gross-out comedy that you would expect from Seth McFarlane. The film itself is largely a romantic-comedy with a few gross jokes thrown in-between. While you could argue that the trailer itself makes no attempt in hiding that the film is a romantic comedy (it starts by showing how John and Lori first met), but I understood the trailer as being a parody of romantic-comedy films. Now, I didn't really have an issue with the film being a romantic-comedy, but I can imagine that it won't please the majority of the crowd wanting to see a film that has humour in the same vein as Family Guy.

My next issue with Ted was that the writing of the film felt a little bit half-baked. Whenever there is a scene between Lori and her leaching boss Rex, the dialogue just felt like it was written by a 10 year old. Rex likes Lori and wants her to be with him... yeah, we get that, but we don't need to characters to tell us with such inane dialogue (I think one line from Rex was something like, "I want you to be with me, not him. Give me a chance." I mean, who speaks like this, really?!)

But, like I said, the real scene stealer is Ted himself, so all the scenes with the human counter-parts are a bit slow or awkward in comparison. The motion capture on Ted is seamless, with a CGI Ted completely blending in with his surroundings (a sign of how computers have advanced since 1993 with CGI dinosaurs?!) Ted's humour also completely outshines any of the comedy attempts by the human characters - look out for how he tries to seduce Tami-Lynn in the supermarket (although the trailer gives away most of that), Ted's attempt to trash talk Robert and his Dad, Donny when trying to escape from them and then his final gag where he says that they put his stuffing back in wrong.

Finally, the main issue that I had with Ted was that most of the plot felt half complete. While the majority of the film devotes itself to the make-ups and break-ups of John and Lori, the sub-plots involving Lori's Boss doesn't seem to go anywhere, and the sub-plot of the crazy Donny and Robert only seem to be around for their introduction in the park and then for the finale in the third act of the film where they try to kidnap Ted. Personally, I'd have liked to see the film drop the entire sub-plot of Rex and Lori and spend more time in developing Donny and Robert as true comic-book style villains (I'm thinking like Sid in Toy Story - they could have been the sadistic toy torturers in Ted!)

So, overall Ted is an enjoyable effort from Seth McFarlane out of his Family Guy fame, although it's not really the film you might have expected from him. Instead, expect a fluffy romantic-comedy in parts with a very funny, and very rude, teddy bear.

***½ / *****



*Quote courtesy of Nathan Priest!

REVIEW: The Lorax

What is the secret to making a good children's animated film? On the surface, they may appear to be shallow films that have to appeal to a target audience with the combined attention span of about 5 seconds.

However, when thinking about it, animated films have the tricky job of appealing to this younger audience but also pleasing the older parent crowd who are unfortunate enough to have to take their little darlings to the cinema to entertain them. Take a look at films like Shrek that successfully mould together adult subtle humour with silly fart jokes for the children (apart from the sequels, which have far too many popular culture references that are now outdated) and you can see the winning formula.

The Lorax is a another Dr. Seuss adventure that has had a big screen adaption. The film follows 12-year-old Ted (voiced by Zac Efron) who wants to win the affection of the girl of his dreams, Audrey (Taylor Swift). She loves trees (of all things - they live in a town called Thneed-Ville where everything is man-made and unnatural), so Ted has to go on an adventure outside of town to see The Once-ler (Ed Helms) to learn about the secret behind where the trees are and all about The Lorax (Danny DeVito), who was once the guardian of nature. Thrown into the mix are Mr O'Hare (Rob Riggle), the dastardly businessman who has made money out of selling bottled air to the residents of Thneed-Ville who wants to stop Ted and Grammy Norma (Betty White) the hip granny - who provides most of the laughs for the young-uns who tries to help Ted.

Now, The Lorax gets one thing right about children's films - it's premise is very simple and straight-forward with a strong moral message behind it. What's the point of taking the little kiddies to the cinema and spending £20+ on admission and snacks if we can't teach them anything?! The Lorax really pushes the positive message of looking after nature and basically hugging our lovely trees. While it is arguably a bit of an old message that we have been told again and again, The Lorax tells it in a way that involves garishly bright colours, silly toilet humour and a few catchy songs thrown in for good measure (with the ultra-catchy "Let It Grow" at the end, which should have the young-uns singing and dancing on the way out.)

For the adults, there's not a lot... Sure, it's not completely childlike and the film is generally enjoyable, but the film doesn't try to 'go there' with subtle adult humour/innuendos (like Shrek did), so there's not a lot of laugh-out-loud moments for adults. Sure, the songs are catchy enough to grab the older audience's attention, but this is mainly one for the children.

However, the one major gripe that I had with The Lorax was that parts of it were quite boring. For a film that's supposed to appeal to a target audience of the fickle with short attention spans, the story of how The Lorax met The Once-ler and tried to warn him against chopping all the trees down was quite boring. When the film sets up the problem of Ted wanting to impress Audrey by finding her a tree, I was expecting a film full of chases with the evil O'Hare, a dangerous mission to a far part of the Earth to find the remaining seed and then the dangerous mission back to Thneed-Ville to give it to her.

But, no. We didn't get any of that. Instead, we are treated to Ted visiting the older Once-ler on three separate occasions (each time he wasn't pursued out of Thneed-Ville by O'Hare or his henchmen... why?!) to be told a story in flashback as to how the Once-ler met The Lorax, chopped all the trees down to make his business work and then realise that he has destroyed nature. Ted is then just given the last remaining tree seed and then there is a quick 10-minute (if that) chase with O'Hare in a race to plant the seed. It all just felt a little bit flat and boring for a children's film that looks so exciting and vibrant.

So, overall The Lorax isn't completely a bad time, but it just didn't seem as exciting or thrilling as it could have been. While the children will like the silly toilet humour and the ass-kicking touches of Grammy Norma, the real shining moments in the film are the musical numbers.

*** / *****