Screen: Reviews

ACTION
Quantum of Solace (15)
4/5

The next time 007 fans find themselves within guzzling distance of a vodka martini, they may want to toast the man who rescued their sorry franchise from oblivion.

And that man isn’t Daniel Craig.

Back at the turn of the millennium, James Bond was a joke.

This was a series that wouldn’t flinch at the thought of unconvincing invisible cars and Madonna soundtracks, and Fleming’s British superspy looked more like the pervy wedding guest who’d shamelessly hit on your 16-year-old sister.

Then came Jason Bourne, the monochrome operative who’d rather knock someone's head through a plate-glass window than trade sly quips over a cocktail.

And just like that, the folks behind Bond got scared, and finally gave their hot property the face-lift he’d been praying for years.

Daniel Craig’s Bond is now the Dark Knight of secret agents – serious to a fault, craggy, scarred and brutal. And, while his second outing in Quantum Of Solace doesn’t offer quite the sparks of Casino Royale, it’s still a breath of fresh air for anyone who worried the armrests through Die Another Day.

The film follows Bond on the trail of Quantum, the shadowy organisation he blames for the death of his lover Vesper Lynd. The quest sees him irritate his own employers, cross swords with the sinister Dominic Greene, and tangle himself up with obligatory “Bond girls� Agent Fields and Olga Kurylenko.

But it’s the stunts that define the new Bond, as former Bourne leg-breaker Dan Bradley leads 007 on a gritty international odyssey of thuds, leaps, crashes and explosions.

Britain’s favourite spy now has the legs for a fair few missions yet. And it’s good to see him looking so well, even if he is a miserable sod nowadays.

HORROR
Midnight Meat Train (18)
3/5

While the world may one day run out of oil, rainforests, food and ozone, it’s in no danger of ever finding itself low on psycho-killer slasher movies.

The video stores of the world are amply stocked with examples of the gruesome genre, from the highs of the original Hitcher movie to the lows of, well, the remake of the Hitcher movie.

Although there always seems to be room for one more, it’s often hard to find a new arrival that anyone’s particularly pleased to welcome to the fold.

In that respect, Midnight Meat Train may not quite have been offered the hand of the host’s daughter, but it is at least happily tucking into the finger foods and the fine whiskey in the lounge.

J-horror director Ryuhei Kitamura has been getting better than average reviews for his subway slasher, and the film has emerged unscathed from events such as Gorezone magazine’s Weekend Of Horror. And those folks know a decent bloodbath when they see one.

This adaptation of Clive Barker’s short story follows Leon, an under-achieving photographer who’s sent out to capture grittier pics by an unimpressed gallery owner.

His quest takes him into the subway, where he runs into the chunky serial killer known to British film and footie fans as Vinnie Jones.

Vinnie Jones’ film career has been rather hit-and-miss, but his emotionless turn here is a more of a hit, even if it is a mallet-assisted hit directly onto some poor sap’s skull.

He’s a key part of a movie which is both tense and gory, even if some of the plotting and characterisation does veer off on weird detours at times.

DRAMA
Hunger (15)
3/5

In an era in which merely the mention of something that rhymes with “terrorism� has governments reaching for the panic button, it’s a risky time for any movie like Hunger.

Steve McQueen’s tale of a radical who embarks on a hunger strike in jail would be controversial even if it was fictional. But this is the tale of Bobby Sands, the IRA member at the forefront of the 1981 Irish prison strikes.

So how will UK cinema-goers react to this bleak memory from a conflict that blighted Britain for so long?
Hunger is almost an example of extreme art from the Turner Prize winner, from the stylised cinematography to the emaciated method acting of self-starving star Michael Fassbender.

Most of the film takes place in near-silent squalour, with little dialogue surfacing among the excrement and horror. When the talking does arrive, it comes in the form of a 23-minute scene in which Sands and a priest dissect the usefulness and morality of his self-destructive protest.

It’s a little disappointing that the film descends into trite symbolism near the end, considering what has come before.

But it is – at least – an interesting look at one of the headline-grabbing flashpoints in The Troubles.