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Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 ***

Reviewing Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 is a bit like reviewing the Drakensberg. It’s visually wonderful and it’s been around for centuries. Occasionally there’s a striking event, such as a major snowfall, a wildfire, or a heavy rain, but away from each additional from that, it’s just the same ancient, same ancient.

The Twilight books and movies have become like a cinematic mountain range that its fanatical fan base continually climbs. These “Twilighters” or “Twi-heads” have made vast profits for the writer and producers and they adore the films even before they have seen them.

Film reviewers like me, though, do not have that luxury of worship. I really have to watch the film critically and to prompt my opinion as honestly as I can.

So, to cut to the chase, this film is a load of codswallop. Throughout the press screening, barely suppressed laughter and giggling derision greeted many scenes.

To be honest, though, I will mention the best things in the film. Cinematographer Guillermo Navarro makes it look unquestionably wonderful. The forests and rugged locations are visual poetry, and he does just as well with the more intimate scenes.

The film starts with two weddings – one a dream wedding in a vivid red-and-colorless setting; the additional the real wedding, where everything is colorless. With production designer Richard Sherman’s designs and Navarro’s stunning camerawork, the film is gorgeous.

The huge problem is that it has been cut in half. There is the fundamental plot-line in which Edward (Robert Pattinson) and Bella (Kristen Stewart), both pictured, have chose to marry. The wedding ceremony has perhaps the weirdest group of guests I have ever seen on screen.

There are the human family members and friends but we also have a vampire family and several werewolves.

Adding to the drama is Jacob (Taylor Lautner), a werewolf who retains a deep passion for Bella though she has select Edward of the shimmering skin. Surrounded by their emotional shifts, there are layers of temperamental tension that burst into rage.

The huge question is what Edward and Bella will do now that they are married. Edward is a vampire who has already lived for centuries and will live for many more, but Bella is still a human being.

That’s the first marital problem. And if a vampire impregnates a human, what kind of child will it be? And what will all this mean for Bella, who will age and die, while her beloved husband lives on?

All the additional families in the tale are taking a keen interest, and at one the boards in the film I felt as if I was watching an episode of Desperate Housewives with vampire fangs, but that is just one part of the novel.

There is a second tale-line about vampire babies. The Volturi, an very ancient, powerful vampire coven, are the keepers of the secrets and the guardians of vampire tradition and history.

The birth of a vampire child to a human woman is an fascinating issue for the Volturi, and readers were able to explore their sinister moves in the book, but they only make a two-minute appearance in the film, right at the end. Effectively, the second half of the book is missing from this film. We will have to wait and wonder a full year until the series is concluded. It’s a dire case of “vampirus interruptus”.

To my mind, a full year is a hell of a long time to wait to learn what the Volturi might do to Bella and Edward, but that is just so what the producers have done.

As I mentioned earlier, the producers are likely to make a huge sum of money, and that’s why they chopped the tale in half. They are betting they will earn a ton from the first half of the film, and then another ton with the second. That means two box-office pay-outs for producing only one film then breaking it in half – Hollywood finance at its sharpest.

Close Up: Puss in Boots

Shrek fans will be surprised that Puss in Boots (articulated by Antonio Banderas) had an exciting life even before he met the ogre. Puss in Boots is a prequel, as you will see in the film, but the origins go back to Shrek 2.

Director Chris Miller saw potential in this fierce feline a long time ago. “While we were making the tale for Shrek 2, everybody sought after to work on the Puss in Boots character,” he said.

“He was a cool, dynamic sidekick character, and we infused him with as much weird history as we could, but we knew that in his heart he was a fiercely loyal and honourable cat. He was so much fun to write for and he had a huge impact on audiences.

“While we were making the second film, we questioned ourselves, what would his life tale be? Where did he get the boots? Where did he get that accent? Why does he talk like that? We built his life tale, making a small cat with a larger-than-life presence.

“After the Shrek franchise finished, DreamWorks chose to make a movie with Puss in Boots as the star.

“In this film he is a notorious fighter, lover and bandit and – of course – he is articulated by Banderas. It was obvious he needed a suitable companion, and we made the street-smart Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek), who joined the cast.

“There’s the mastermind, Humpty Dumpty (Zach Galifianakis), who is threatened by notorious outlaws Jack and Jill (Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris), who are plotting a heist. Puss and Kitty get onto their case and that’s where the adventure starts.”

•  Puss in Boots opens on December 2.

Everything Must Go ****

This delicately made film is about an unpleasant man facing a crisis. It is based on a Raymond Carver small tale and Will Ferrell does a sharp-edged acting job. He plays a taken aback suburbanite, Nick, who loses his job and is abandoned by his wife on the same day. She locks him out of their house and dumps all his belongings on the lawn. In a fit of maudlin self-pity, Nick sits down on the lawn and refuses to budge. He is the perfect “nowhere man” and he declares that his whole life must become a yard sale, in which everything must go. The prissy neighbours steer clear, but Kenny (Christopher Jordan Wallace) is an overweight, insecure teenager who is an outsider, just like Nick, and collectively they prepare for the yard sale. That’s pretty much all that happens. For both characters it’s an inner journey, a confrontation with their anxieties. There’s also a superb cameo from Rebecca Hall as a woman who feels similarly unsure about her life. There’s no certain tale, but the skill is all in the detail, where the acting is precise and rich.

Straw Dogs ***

This remake is based on a 1971 film starring Dustin Hoffman and Susan George. It was a hit at the time but now, 40 years later, the film has undergone a radical make-over. It is now located in the American deep south, in a small town where small has changed. Amy (Kate Bosworth) has inherited an ancient family house. It’s the perfect place in which her husband, David (James Marsden), a Hollywood screenwriter, can complete a script. The townsfolk are wary of and hostile to these city people, especially Charlie (Alexander Skarsgaard), who was once Amy’s boyfriend. The couple are rich and well-known, which antagonises the locals, and animosity rapidly flares into violence. Director Rod Lurie makes brilliant use of the locale, but the film plods from one violent incident to the next, and becomes small more than a routine slasher movie.

Outside the Law ***

Rachid Bouchareb is a French director of Algerian descent and in past years we have seen brilliant films from him, notably London River. Outside the Law is the second film in a intended trilogy in which Bouchareb deals with the services struggle linking Algerian independence fighters and French colonial forces occupying Algeria after World War 2. Three brothers, Messaoud (Roschdy Zem), Abdelkader (Sami Bouajila) and Saïd (Jamel Debbouze), are drawn into a battle in the Algerian town of Sétif in 1945. The populace staged a peaceful liberation march, but the French army met them with unfeeling opposition. The film is powerfully staged and emotionally draining, but this director really knows how to weave a human tale into biased history.

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