Special effects win out over all else in Nicholas Ashe Bateman's THE WANTING MARE

According to the press release about this new film, "an intimate, dramatic fantasy epic written and directed by renowned digital artist Nicholas Ashe Bateman" (the filmmaker is shown below), the movie is "a technical marvel of digital world-building and independent ambition, the sprawling vistas, fantastical sights, and otherworldly tableaus of THE WANTING MARE were lensed almost entirely inside a warehouse in Paterson, New Jersey."

Yes, I have to admit that nothing I saw on screen at all reminded me, even in the least, of Paterson, New Jersey. Nor, unfortunately of the wonders I encountered in Jim Jarmusch's lovely film set in that city. While TrustMovies supposes that, yes, it is some kind of accomplishment to create a bunch of 

too often dark, muddy, rather ugly visuals that way too desperately try to conjure an alternate world via CGI effects plus whatever you've shot of characters moving across one of those "green screens" in a New Jersey warehouse, still, the end result needs to be measured against a film whose dialog and storyline somehow pull you in and carry you along. The Wanting Mare never even began to pull me in, and by its finale left me so annoyed and frustrated that I couldn't give a shit about anything except getting this tiresome twaddle the fuck over with.

The opening information alerts us to something about horses being transported from a warm climate to a cold one (yes, we do see a horse now and again during the movie), and we get some drivel about dreams, a newborn baby, a pretty young woman and a young man on the run. Soon we're moving between past and present time, encountering older and younger versions of our characters.

After awhile it becomes apparent that the filmmaker is simply feeding us a bunch of the usual movie cliches -- from the "quest" (this time for some much-vaunted "ticket") to boy/girl love story, masked men with guns, murder, vengeance, and must I keep going? -- which are somehow supposed to be more interesting when they are plastered onto a "timeless neverland" locale. And yet everything here seems utterly generic, including that "exotic" locale.

The images are consistently dark and muddy (seems to go with the territory when one is doing all CGI effects). Worse, Bateman's insistence on having his characters near-constantly gazing soulfully into the distance lengthens his movie by -- what -- one full third? (The content level here is nowhere near the actual running time.)

Some critics have described this thing as "poetic." Really? Only for those who have little appreciation for good poetry -- which is usually distilled. This film is instead bloated. Not wanting to beat a dead mare, I'll simply say that this is not my cup of.... anything at all. Rather than belabor any longer, I'll just offer you the viewing details below.

From Gravitas Ventures and running 89 minutes, the movie opened in theaters and via VOD on February 5. Click here for more information on the choices you have to watch this movie.

The latest in the Jurassic series is the best yet (though the best still remains a bit "iffy")

The much-vaunted Jurassic Park franchise finally turned tiresome enough, culminating in the 2015 episode that proved so boring that TrustMovies had begun referring to the series as Jurassic Fart: a bunch of dinosaurs running amok amidst a lot of hot air. What a surprise, then, to actually enjoy the latest installment, JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM. This one boasts the usual silliness, coincidence and longueurs that have plagued the series since inception, but it also grows better, more interesting and exciting as it moves along -- which proves pretty much the opposite of the rest of the sequels, which were increasingly paint-by-numbers productions.

The movie's not great by any means, but the dinosaurs are a bit more fun and inventive this time around (see below), while the story, though full of already overused ideas --  Let's weaponize 'em! -- manages an environmental resonance missing from the earlier films, which helps moves the viewer regarding the fate of some of these creatures.

With the gifted J.A. Bayona (shown at right) as director (he did The Impossible, A Monster Calls and episodes of the great Penny Dreadful cable series), the movie is never less than watchable. Along with Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, that scary-but-sweet dinosaur, "Blue," returns, too, and proves every bit as helpful as ever.

The supporting cast is competent and well-chosen -- Rafe Spall and Toby Jones are standouts -- and production-wise, the movie generally sparkles, even at its dark and muddiest. This may be a time-waster for dino-lovers, but at least that time, in the hands of these particular professionals, can be wasted in relative enjoyment.

From Universal and running the requisite two hours and eight minutes, the film is playing just about everywhere. Click here to find the theater(s) nearest you.

Greek VFX artist Konstantinos Koutsoliotas' debut feature, THE WINTER, arrives on DVD and via IndiePix's new streaming service

Considering that Greek film-maker Konstantinos Koutsoliotas (shown below) is best known for his visual effects work on blockbusters like 300 and Guardians of the Galaxy, his debut feature film is relatively light on VFX. What's there is quite good, however, but it does more to clue viewers in to the character of the film's protagonist, Niko (played by soulful, if one-note newcomer, Theo Albanis), than to create the excitement and action that most special effects bring us.

This is all to the good, for awhile, at least, as we slowly identify with Niko and his plight. He's a writer who evidently can't -- or won't or doesn't want to -- write. And he's also in heavy financial trouble (well, he's Greek!), so he arranges for a good friend in London to take care of his pet plant and hightails it back to Greece to his former home in the hills of Siatista. So far, so good, particularly since the movie is gorgeously filmed, with stunning visuals filled with images that resonate and compositions and framing that bring them to fine life. In fact, the opening scene -- in which a man sits somberly at a work table and then slowly disappears -- is simultaneously beautiful, sad and strangely riveting.

The actor that plays this man (our protagonist's late father) is noted Greek thespian, Vangelis Mourikis, shown above, and he has a face -- baggy-eyed and haunting -- that you will not easily forget. Albanis, too, as his son (below) is blessed in the "interesting face" department.

When special effects are called for -- in fantasy animation, below, or in that key scene used on the box art (at top) and shown more completely two photos down -- the filmmaker finds symbolic images that alternately sparkle and darkly resonate.

If visuals were all, the film would be top notch. But theme and execution are important, too. And while THE WINTER offers some ideas -- home and what it means, family and how that apple never falls far from the tree, religion and what it has to offer society (very little) -- there is finally not enough content in this 105-minute movie to warrant its length or our time. And Niko is simply not that interesting a character to keep us concerned about him. He begins the movie in an irresponsible and fraught state and goes downhill from there.

Along the way he meets some of the town's children, a pretty pharmacist, the pompous and tiresome priest, and a kindly neighbor -- any of whom prove more interesting than our protagonist, who begins the film crazy and ends it crazier. As journey's go, this is not much of one. In a way, the film becomes a kind of a character study that is missing its character.

However so many of Koutsoliotas' visuals are so damned beautiful that I would view the film for these alone. But I also wish it were a better movie.

From IndiePix Films, The Winter hits the street in DVD format this coming Tuesday, March 29. In addition to making its U.S. home enter-tainment debut on disc, the film will also be available though IndiePix’s new signature streaming subscription service, IndiePix Unlimited. For more information on this new service, click the preceding link.

GODS OF EGYPT: The joyous spirit of Michael Powell's The Thief of Bagdad lives on!

What a cacophony of critical nonsense greeted the debut of the would-be blockbuster, GODS OF EGYPT, which you will be lucky to still find in theaters one week later. And what a shame the majority of today's critical establishment is so untutored in film history -- not to mention the joy that comes from watching a well-made and exciting kids' adventure film -- that they stupidly gave this very enjoyable visual knockout such a drubbing.

A number of our "cultural guardians" even claim that the movie is difficult to follow, which must say something pretty dismal about their own IQ. This is one of the easiest-to-follow films, not to mention the most delightful of roller-coaster rides, to hit screens in a long while. Directed by Alex Proyas (shown at right and no slouch in the "great visuals" department: The Crow; Dark City; I, Robot) and written by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless (who also gave us the underrated Dracula Untold), the movie reminded me most of the rightly famous and now-classic 1940 film The Thief of Baghdad. Granted, it is nowhere near as special as that movie, but it does indeed adhere to many of the tropes, themes and fine style of the Michael Powell/Ludwig Berger/Tim Whelan film.

How can anyone who's seen both films not almost immediately recognize young Brenton Thwaites (above, center, right) as the film's delightful Sabu-like hero, Bek? The flying carpets and genie of the early film may have been replaced by today's special effects (the effects here really are quite special), but their use remains in the service of telling a fine story about the importance of love, quests, gods, mortals, life, death and, of course, doing the right thing. (That's the willowy and gorgeous Courtney Eaton -- center, left, above -- who plays Thwaites' love interest.)

In the gods department you'll find a whole raft of fine performers in both the good and the evil sections -- from Gerard Butler (above, left) and Elodie Yung (above, right) to Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (below, right)

to none other than Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush, who plays Ra, the Sun God who must spend his days fighting off a very naughty, cloud-with-teeth-like monster from who-knows-where. (Mr. Rush handles this with his usual exemplary aplomb.)

If the movie seems to take awhile to find its footing and get into gear, I am not sure if this is actually the fault of the film itself, as much as it is our own for being simply so unused to seeing a good, old-fashioned fantasy/adventure like this one.

The movie may be all-green-screen all the time, but so far as eye-popping backdrops go, it looks like a billion bucks. You won't have seen this much imagination, color, and creativity going into fantasy-movie production values in a long time.

Compare what you see here, in fact, to the high-tech-but-pretty-ordinary crap dished out by so many of those Marvel franchises -- Iron Man, Avengers, Spiderman -- or much worse, that ridiculous abs-and-attitude movie, 300, in which all the backdrops looks almost the same. (One of the more special of the effects has to do with how much larger the gods register on-screen than do the humans -- even if, occasionally, the scale does seem a bit "off.")

Acting is on-target throughout, and the writing is just fine: The dialog and screenplay move everything along at a very fast clip, even as those themes of love, loss and redemption are given their due. There is a sweetness to this movie that escapes most fantasy blockbusters these days, and it is to be treasured, I think.

The monsters? They're quite fab, as well: fun and scary and created with extra flair and oomph. The movie may not be a classic, but it is so much better-than-expected in every way that to miss it on the big screen seems a shame.

It was hoped by the film's distributor, Lionsgate, that this would turn into another HungerGames/Divergent franchise. I guess not. But maybe there will be an after-life on home video, once cult world-of-mouth takes hold.  Click here to find out where these Gods are playing near you.

Streaming: Luc Besson is back with something different and delightful: THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF ADÈLE BLANC-SEC

We've been hearing about THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF ADÈLE BLANC-SEC -- the 2010 film directed, written and associate-produced by Luc Besson -- for several years now, always wondering: Will it ever be released over here? I think it was shown at FIAF in New York City some time back, and of course distributed in most of the rest of the countries around the world. But not here -- until it finally hit DVD in the USA last fall and is now available via Netflix streaming. It's an odd bird of a film, especially for someone known so well for his action movies as is Besson. Yet it has been received rather well throughout the world, and now that we have the chance to finally view "Blanc-Sec," it is easy to understand why.

What this famous French movie-maestro, shown at right, has done is to take the very earliest reason that so many of us folk grew up loving film -- the sense of wide-eyed, childlike spectacle and adventure that movies can provide -- and hand it back to us as adults. This works surprisingly well and so we lap it up all over again.

Set in the early 1900s, the film is lavish in its use of sets and costumes that beautifully whisk us back 150 years.

If the basic story is pretty paint-by-numbers -- intelligent adventuress gets involved in Egyptian tomb robbing, romance (rather one-sided) and a pterodactyl (this is the film's pièce de résistance), the execution of that story is done with such sprightliness and charm (not what you would call M. Besson's calling cards up until now) that we are easily carried along.

Truthfully, this movie is such a very odd compilation of story, style, events and special effects that it resembles little else (certainly little in Besson's catalog). The film it most calls to mind is Belpheghor: Phantom of the Louvre, though  Adèle is better than Belpheghor in every way. Its oddness is actually what keeps us amazed and amused. From the outset, as we watch an event of phaux physics taking place that results in the hatching of said pterodactyl, then take a trip to the Folies Bergère (above), go off for some Egyptian mumbo-jumbo that may bring to mind a female Indiana Jones, events are so fast, furious and far afield that we can only watch, open-mouthed and chuckling.

In the lead role, Besson has cast an upcoming actress, Louise Bourgoin (above, from The Girl from Monaco and Black Heaven) and then surrounded her with some current icons of French cinema -- from an unrecognizable Mathieu Amalric (below) to a nearly unrecognizable Gilles Lellouche (center, further below), among others. Everyone gets into the correct spirit of foolish fun and delivers the right kind of performance to keep the movie's tone on track.

The film boasts two expert pieces of special effect cinema played for all they are worth. One is that pterodactyl, a remarkable piece of work that will keep you glued to the screen, breathless and laughing at the same time. This big bird is a marvel that will scare, charm and finally even move you a bit. (I could find not a single photo of him, either, so you'll just have to watch the movie to see him in action!)

The second "wonder" is a unwrapped mummy -- eventually, an entire horde of them -- who come to life and prove quite the intelligent tourists in the Paris of two centuries past. The mummies are played as much for charm and humor as for any fright factor, and this decision was quite the smart one. I think that the late Ray Harryhausen, bless his special-effect soul, would have loved both these wonderful creations.

What Besson has done is to pretty much re-imagine family entertainment, giving the kids plenty to gape at and laugh at, while their parents get spectacles of another sort: costumes, sets, wittier humor and irony. And all this is live-action, remember.

Even if much of the film does resemble a cartoon, the style, tone and movie-making skills on display render it all into this very odd mixture of goofiness, charm, beauty and child-like delight.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec is available to view now via Netflix streaming & via Amazon Instant Video or DVD/Blu-ray.

Happy Thanksgiving -- and this year's turkey is... INCEPTION on Blu-Ray

Last year's Christmas turkey, movie-wise, was the arrival of Four Christmases on DVD.  This year, for an even more timely turkey, the award goes to INCEPTION, which TrustMovies finally got around to viewing a couple of weeks prior to its December 7 debut on Blu-Ray and DVD. Millions may disagree, as the movie has already raked in close to a billion dollars at the worldwide box-office, but TM stands behind his opinion of Inception as one sorry excuse for storytelling.  All about special effects, the film uses near-constant CGI stuff designed to dazzle us to death. Individually, some of its effects are fun (for awhile), but collectively they don't hold a candle to the single big Tsunami scene in Eastwood's Hereafter.

Writer/director Christopher Nolan, left, still has trouble staging intelligent action scenes. They waddle and wobble. It doesn't matter as much here, though, because most of the movie is a dream, or a dream within a dream (within a dream). Consequently, we immediately imagine that nothing much is at stake, since the protagonists can always wake up and make things OK.  But no: Nolan gives us reams of exposition in order to explain his "rules of engagement."  For awhile, this is so silly that it's rather endearing. And then, because we simply can't begin to care, even a poop, about any of these characters (none of them have a character), our interest wanes, our patience wears thin, thinner, then -- pop! -- annoyance sets in. This grows into something like anger, as the film runs an unconscionably long two-and-one-half hours.

If you are going to make a movie that dwells mostly in dreams, I would suggest that you make some attempt to capture the sense of the dream state. There are many approaches to this but Nolan doesn't try any of them. Instead, everything looks slick and glossy and "special effecty" rather than off-kilter yet real (or maybe on-kilter but somehow unreal) in the way that dreams manage it. There's little that seems genuinely hallucinatory here; it's all ooooh-look-at-that!

After Shutter Island and now this one, Leonardo DiCaprio (above, center) might consider a moratorium on playing grief roles without a character to attach them to. He's still pretty enough, but god, he's growing glum and boring. Michael Caine has a throwaway role (and Pete Postlethwaite even more of one); Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy (above, left) and Marion Cotillard, play pretty much single notes in parts that allow nothing more. Only Ellen Page (below), Tom Hardy (this, remember, is the guy who did the title role in Bronson!) and Dileep Rao bring some sense of fun and energy to the proceedings. They prove very nearly the only saving graces on view.

As to the Blu-Ray transfer, it's nothing special and consequently rather disappointing.  The scene with Page and DiCaprio in Paris with mirrored doors is nice, and certain other shots are semi-spectacular. But Nolan's attempts at suspense -- cutting back, again and again and again, to a car going over a bridge in slo-mo -- are exasperatingly laughable. Despite the movie's very high "concept," by the finale (massive gun-play and explosions), the far too-heavy hand of been-there/done-that hangs all over Inception. What a waste of time.