Inside - Seren

8 SEREN March 2001 MOVIES movies@seren.bangor.ac.ukLlama/farmer karma dramaThe Emperor’s New Groove, probably still showingat the Plaza CinemaUnusually for a student, I managed to dragmyself out of bed before mid-day ona dingy Saturday to approach the cinema.Once inside, I found myself surrounded andbesieged by a frantic hoard of under-tens,but as the Disney logo appeared on thescreen, I reassured myself that I had madethe right choice.Twenty minutes in, I was starting towonder.The basic plot goes something like this: Theyoung, selfish Emperor Kuzco fires his advisorYzma (a nasty withered old crone, strangelyreminiscent of Cruella DeVille) who seeks herrevenge. Plotting his death by poison, sheinvites him to a meal and slips the potioninto his drink. However, instead of dying, heturns into a llama. Yes, you did read it right…a llama. He is then mistakenly kidnapped byupstanding Pacho the peasant (voiced by JohnGoodman). Overcoming his distaste of theEmperor’s uncaring reign, Pacho must helpKuzco out. Kuzco must rub shoulder’s withthe peasants he has previously thought of asscum, and—you guessed it—learn a coupleof important moral lessons, defeat the evilbaddies etc, etc. Okay, so it’s not too original,but come on, it’s a llama!The trailer inspired me so much that forfour months my social group resounded withshouts of “changed into a llama!” and “weMUST see it!” However, much to my annoyance,I discovered that most of the film’shigh points are shown on the trailer. Don’tget me wrong, its not that the rest of itis rubbish, just that it’s all a bit… average.The storyline is run-of-the-mill Disney staple,whilst the animation—despite a couple ofgood points—is hardly revolutionary.There are some good ideas though: Riverdancingguards (Michael Flatley eat your heartout!); an exceedingly short cartoon Tom Jones(including ginger afro!); a pump action deviltrident (clickclick!); and a very very cute babyjaguar (miaooww!). However, Disney’s wildliferesearch has obviously been a tad shoddy,as the jaguars end up looking far more likenasty black panthers. Do Disney dislike jagsor what? All credit to them though for includingPacho’s heavily pregnant wife—a first forINTO THE GROOVE: Reaction shot from the infamous Vicky Parry striptease scenea Disney cartoon I do believe!One thing that annoyed me was the film’slack of relevance to its own title; okay, soKuzco changes his selfish ways, hence hisnew groove, but he only gets jiggy for thefirst ten minutes, then… no more dancing! Iwanted more groove! And, there’s a distinctlack of music. Dammit, I watch a Disney, Iexpect a memorably funky soundtrack, notjust one song! But although I’m griping, I didenjoy it. It has its moments, and it did makeme laugh on a number of occasions. Prettygroovy. HHHIIChristina Stannard, M.D.ElephantineHannibal, until recently at the Plaza CinemaAs he surveyed the army ofmutant pigs his minions hadcreated, Davros let out a malevolentcackle. He manoeuvred hishi-tech wheelchair into position,ready to watch the slaughter.Finally his nemesis, the Doctorwould be eliminated. He raisedhis deformed head to the sky,sickly mouth opening, near uselesshand slowly clenching, hescreamed: ‘DOCTOR, YOU AREDOOMED!’OK, well, maybe a few libertieshave been taken with that plotsynopsis. Let’s try again shall we?Hannibal begins ten years afterthe events of Silence of the Lambs.Lecter (BIG Tony Hopkins) is stillhavin’ it laaarge in Europe, awayfrom those pesky no-fun Feds;mixing with the cultural eliteand enjoying a tender snack fromtime to time, just as we knew hewould. Clarice has kept on withthat catching criminals lark, onlystopping, rather oddly, to changeher Jodie Foster-styled face. MissJulianne Moore now has controlof the role, not imitating butstill copying Foster. The plot ispretty basic, with jaded Italian copPazzi (Giancarlo Giannini) locatingLecter and helping the cannibal’sarch enemy Mason Verger(Gary Oldman) to wreak his gruesomerevenge. Starling is assignedto recapture Lecter, and is forcedto keep her old adversary out ofVerger’s nasty grasp.One of the most interesting andrewarding things about Silence ofthe Lambs was that despite possessingtwo excellently-portrayedvillains, it still managed to focusitself very squarely on ClariceStarling. Silence was her story.Dwarfed by talk of fava beansand skin removals, thisfactor is often forgotten.If Hannibal doesanything, it reminds ushow important Clarice’srole was. Don’t get mewrong, this isn’t aFoster vs. Moore point,the latter is just as goodan actress, but Clariceis sidelined throughout Hannibal.We are lazily given one or tworeferences to her dad early on,but for the most part she is justshowered in genre clichés: Theraid goes pear shaped, man down,she blames herself; an old flamedetective tries to mess her about;and worst of all, she gets a ‘giveme your badge, Clarice’ scene.You almost expect to hear theominous tones of “the truth? Youcan’t handle the truth!”So this lack of Starling allowsHannibal himself to take over proceedings.You might think thiswould be a good thing, consideringhow much camp evil Hopkinsprovided in the last film. However,although he’s better thanhe’s been in years, Tony just lookslike he’s showing off, overdoingthe overacting, heightening theham. His character worked wellin Silence because of the episodicnature of his behind glassappearances: we’d descend intothe darkened FBI basement, passby the other maniacs, knowingthat the worst was yet to come.Here, with Hannibal just roamingrandomly, we never get a real feelingof suspense about his character.We never see any deeper intohis persona, and this is perhapsthe most annoying of Hannibal’sproblems.This is a beautiful film, though.Scott, at least as a visual director,continues his Gladiator return toform after ten years of shite. Onthe ‘good stuff ’ front, Gianniniis excellent as the cop on Lecter’sbloody trail: he adds a greatsense of realism (something distinctlylacking in Hopkins hamand Moore impersonations). As aresult of these splendid efforts,his section of the film is by farthe most intriguing and impressive,and is helped by its lackof reliance on what has comebefore. Oldman returns to his villainshoes (something the lyinggit swore he would never doagain), and turns in an enjoyablyevil performance as Verger, totallyunrecognisable and absent fromthe credits to avoid that ‘Gary’sdoing evil again, yawn’ factor.The biggest problems rest onthe script. The lack of substancehere is always obvious, andalthough nice looking visuals area distraction, they are not a substitute.The first hour and a halfis just a slow, sometimes dullbuild-up towards a massively overblownfinale that fails to deliver.There are also a number of jarringplot discrepancies—for example,why exactly does Verger’s butlerdo what he does? (If you’ve seenit, you’ll understand what I’m gettingat.) And the killer pigs lookgreat but are totally underused,as the film brings them in, andthen hurries to remove them fromthe plot.Overall, you are left with thesense of something far greaterhanging intriguingly in the air,avoiding the film’s sweepingneed to impress, something thatwe sadly never catch full sightof. As Hannibal’s finest set pieceshows (Lecter hanging Pazzi outto dry with his intestines onthe outside), there are definitelysome juicy morsels here—justnot enough to constitute a satisfyingmeal. HHHII