Showing posts with label Mads Mikkelsen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mads Mikkelsen. Show all posts

Saturday, 3 July 2021

Another Round

 Year of Release:  2020

Director:  Thomas Vinterberg

Screenplay:  Thomas Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm

Starring:  Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang, Lars Ranthe

Running Time:  118 minutes

Genre:  Comedy drama


Middle-aged friends Martin (Mikkelsen), Tommy (Larsen), Peter (Ranthe) and Nikolaj (Millang) are all teachers at the same high school in Copenhagen.  All of them are unhappy and bored with their jobs and lives.  At Nikolaj's birthday party, they discuss a theory by psychiatrist and philosopher Finn Skårderud which claims that having a blood alcohol content of 0.05 makes one happier, more creative and more relaxed.  The four decide to test this theory and vow to spend their work hours a little bit drunk, as time goes on they increase their dosage, and soon find that always being drunk isn't necessarily a good thing.


This Danish comedy-drama won Best International Feature at the 2021 Academy Awards, and Vinterberg was nominated for Best Director but lost to Chloé Zhao for Nomadland.  It started out as a stage play that Vinterberg wrote, as well as stories that his daughter Ida told him about drinking among Danish teenagers.  Ida tragically died in a car crash while the film was in production causing Vinterberg to rewrite the film from being a homage to drink to being more of an affirmation of life in general.  The film is dedicated to her memory.  Vinterberg made his name in the international film world with Festen (1998), one of the best of the back-to-basics "Dogme '95" films which were something of a sensation for about five minutes in the late '90s, and went on to make the fine Thomas Hardy adaptation Far From the Madding Crowd (2015) starring Carey Mulligan.  This film is stylishly made, with text messages and passages from the report that the guys write about their boozy adventures appearing as text on the screen.  There are some very good performances, particularly from Mads Mikkelsen, and the four guys all give very layered performances.  They are likeable characters, and while they are a bunch of white guys in the middle of a midlife crisis, they are sympathetic, the film communicates their boredom and quiet unhappiness and makes us care about them.  The female characters are more one note being wives or girlfriends or the school principal, who really seem to be there to react to their men's drinking.  However Maria Bonnevie is good as Martin's wife, Annika.  There is real chemistry between her and Mikkelsen, however she is kind of underused.  The film is often funny, however it feels far too long, and it really doesn't seem to know what it wants to say about alcohol.  The film is more or less a celebration of drinking, however it does show the dangers of being too drunk, but there is really nothing about the health consequences of drink, aside from the risk of alcoholism.  Really, when they are only drinking a controlled amount of alcohol, they actually do have a great time.  They are better, more engaged teachers (Martin teaches history, Tommy teaches sports, Peter teaches music and Nikolaj teaches psychology), and happier in their personal lives.  Of course there is a dark side, but it isn't really dwelled on that much, with the exception of a tragedy late in the film, and seems more there to end the experiment.  The teens in the film also drink like fishes.  The movie opens with a group of teenagers taking part in a very popular game where they race around a lake in teams with a crate of beer, chugging a beer periodically and end up causing drunken mayhem on a bus, all of which is played for laughs, and doesn't even seem to get them a talking-to.   As I said, the film is too long, but it is often fun, and has some very good performances.  Ultimately it is celebratory, and if anything argues that things are best in moderation. I felt that the film was a little awkwardly paced in the opening passages but it does come into itself as the story progresses and we become more familiar with the characters, and by the end you might find yourself wishing you could go for a drink with them.  By the way, mine's a pint.



Mads Mikkelsen has Another Round

Friday, 14 April 2017

Rogue One

Year of Release:  2016
Director:  Gareth Edwards
Screenplay:  Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy, from a story by John Knoll and Gary Whitta, based on characters created by George Lucas
Starring:  Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, Riz Ahmed, Jiang Wen, Forest Whitaker,
Running Time:  134 minutes
Genre:  Science-fiction, action, adventure

Jyn Erso (Jones) is a young convict, who is rescued by the Rebel Alliance.  Jyn's father, Galen (Mikkelsen), is a scientist who has been recruited by the evil Galactic Empire to work on a devastating new weapon known as the Death Star, which has the power to destroy an entire planet.  Jyn is partnered with Cassian Andor (Luna) on a mission to find and rescue her father, so that the Alliance can learn more about the Death Star.  However, unbeknownst to her, Andor's orders are to kill Galen.

If you remember the opening text to Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) about the Rebel spies stealing the plans for the Death Star, well this is their story, expanding a scant few words into a two hour plus film.  The Star Wars series made a triumphant return to screens in 2015 with The Force Awakens, and the current thinking is that there will be a new Star Wars film every year for the foreseeable future with a new entry in the ongoing storyline every two years, and in the interim a standalone film set in the Star Wars universe but not part of the ongoing saga.  Rogue One is the first of these standalone films, although it is intrinsically linked to the Star Wars storyline.  This does not open with the Star Wars title, or have the traditional opening text crawl.  It's also darker and grittier, more of a war movie in space.  Set just before the first Star Wars film, it manages the difficult task of combining cutting edge digital special effects, with technology that would not look out of place in that first film back in 1977, for example the Death Star plans are contained in what looks like an old Betamax cassette, which gives it a nice, chunky physical appeal.  It's a film full of adventure, excitement, and entertainment for Star Wars fans old and new, combined with some stunning visuals and real emotional heft at times.   Cutting edge digital effects allow for moving cameos from some favorite characters.  With appealing characters, well-played by the cast, the conclusion of the film has some real weight to it.


Felicity Jones in Rogue One

Saturday, 29 October 2016

Doctor Strange

Year of Release:  2016
Director:  Scott Derrickson
Screenplay:  Jon Spaihts, Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, based on the character created by Steve Ditko
Starring:  Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tilda Swinton, Benedict Wong, Rachel McAdams, Mads Mikkelsen, Michael Stuhlbarg, Benjamin Bratt
Running Time:  115 minutes
Genre:  Fantasy, science-fiction, action, superhero


This is a film based on the Marvel Comics character and is part of the ongoing Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise.  In New York City, Doctor Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch) is an acclaimed neurosurgeon, until he is badly injured in a car accident.  Unable to return to surgery because of nerve damage to his hands, Strange is confronted with the loss of his purpose in life.  Desperate to heal his hands by any means necessary, Strange's quest leads him to Kathmandu, Nepal, where he enconters the Ancient One (Swinton), and her followers, known as "Masters", including Mordo (Ejiofor), who Strange befriends, and stern librarian Wong (Wong).  The Ancient One takes Strange on as a pupil, training him in mystical practices and sorcery.  However, Stange soon becomes aware of the dark side of sorcery, when a renegade (Mikkelsen) threatens to unleash dark and terrible forces.

This is very much a superhero origin story and follows a path that we have seen many times before.  There is also the problem that Strange's powers and the film's mythos are quite complex and so there is a lot of exposition necessary.  However in the confines of this, the film manages to work.  It's smart, funny and full of action.   Cumberbatch has a lot of charisma and makes the, at times, pretty unlikable Strange an interesting and amusing character, however no one else really gets a chance to shine, being there to provide  exposition or conflict.  The character of the Ancient One in the comics is a Tibetan man, the film swaps the gender and, controversially, the ethnicity of the character, in another example of Hollywood whitewashing.  Another problem is that Rachael McAdams is completely underused as Strange's colleague and love interest, and really has more or less an extended cameo.

However the film has a lot going for it, and is well worth seeing on the biggest screen you can find.  For one thing it is possibly the closest thing you can get, legally, to a full on psychedelic trip.  The special effects are absolutely stunning, with buildings and entire cities becoming beautifully complex, floating, changing Rubik's cubes (ask someone who remembers the 80s).  It has a distinct look and style, and may be too oddball for some True Believers.  Speaking of which, look out for the obligatory cameo from Stan Lee, and remember to stay until the end of the credits.

           Benedict Cumberbatch is Doctor Strange