Screen: Reviews

I remember that feeling of confusion and disbelief, because I got it again when I realised that America was welcoming Ricky Gervais with open arms.

I’ve tried to convince my American friends of the brilliance of shows such as Father Ted for years, only to find that they’re more interested in cooing at Gervais and frolicking fog-horn Russell Brand.

Maybe I’m being unfair. I still haven’t forgiven the funny-man for his association with The 11 O’Clock Show, the most smug and pitiful attempt at satire since your last in-house staff Christmas play.

But if the world is now at his feet, what is he doing in this?

Since Gervais became a critical darling with The Office, Hollywood has taken his eye for detail and used it in edgy efforts such as... Ben Stiller’s Night At The Museum.

Now he’s starring in Ghost Town, playing a man tormented by the ghosts of 10,000 movies which have exactly the same plot.

Seriously, how much more mileage can we drag out of the I-see-dead-people concept? It’s time to admit that The Sixth Sense was rubbish, and that a genre that’s produced Just Like Heaven and Bill Cosby’s Ghost Dad probably isn’t a rich mine of comedy gold.

Gervais plays a grumpy dentist who starts seeing ghosts, and has to help one of them to make them all go away.

Many respected pundits claim Gervais is a comedy gem. In which case, surely dumping him in something this bland is like buying a shiny gold-plated microwave oven and using it as a door stop?

MUSICAL
High School Musical 3 (U)
3/5

The High School Musical franchise is more popular with kids than candy, cartoons and making really loud noises on long-distance train journeys.

So what use is the opinion of an ageing film critic with the dry, crusty sensibilities of a discarded strip of truck-stop beef jerky?

High School Musical was not for me. It had dancing, singing, Disney’s own peculiarly Stepford-like sense of reality and – worst of all – smiling. Lots of smiling.

But it was also the most profitable hit in Disney Channel history, a monstrous musical Kraken whose tendrils stretched the globe leaving slime trails of lunch boxes, karaoke games, trading cards and duvet covers in its wake.

And when you’ve got a monster this big, sequels are inevitable. Enter High School Musical 3, in which the young performers are readying themselves for life in college.

Basketball star Troy is forced to choose between a sports scholarship or life in a prestigious dancing school, while his brainy beau Gabriella looks set to head to pastures new.

It’s all standard stuff, but that’s not the point. High School Musical is about the moves and the warbling, and Disney pack musical numbers into this movie tighter than a booze-cruiser trying to fill his trunk in Calais.

When this movie premiered in Leicester Square, it attracted the sort of screaming masses you’d expect to see on Beatles showreels.

So I’m giving this a three with a nod to any 12-year-olds, and steering well clear.

It might be against my better judgment, but I’ve seen Children Of The Corn, and I’m not keen on making that crowd angry.

DRAMA
Incendiary (15)
3/5

Incendiary is a tale of a mother and child caught up in a terrorist attack on London.

But relax, folks, it’s not a Brit version of Nicolas Cage’s sludgefest World Trade Center.

Admittedly, it does feature an American actress in the lead, which is odd considering the subject matter.
But former Dawson’s Creek actress Michelle Williams attracts empathy and sympathy in her role, even though she’s hardly the “London council estate pikey� she tells us she is.

Chris Cleave’s novel was released just days before the 7/7 attacks on London, winning it an eerie notoriety.

And this real event also looms large over the film, which follows Williams’ tryst with journo Ewan McGregor and her attempts to recover from the atrocity. But what could have been an interesting and thought-provoking parallel to real-life events loses its sting towards the final act, when it slides towards a disappointingly unimpressive conclusion.

It’s not as utterly terrible as you’d fear from a movie tackling such a raw topic. But you wonder what could have been achieved if it hadn’t slammed on the brakes before the end.