Johnny Depp, as notorious Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger, heads up an all-star cast in Public Enemies.

Credit: supplied

MOVIE REVIEWS (Week beginning July 1)

PUBLIC ENEMIES

Starring Christian Bale, Billy Crudup, Johnny Depp

Directed by Michael Mann

2 stars (out of 5)

For many who lost their homes and life savings in the tsunami of bank failures that characterized the Dirty Thirties, revenge comes in the form of folk hero and bank robber John Dillinger (Johhny Depp). A charismatic Tommy gun-toting Robin Hood and newsreel star, Dillinger’s cult of personality gets under the skin of J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup), head of the nascent FBI and the country’s top law man. Obsessed with bringing Dillinger’s notoriety to an end, Hoover assigns his star G-man, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), to bring in the newly dubbed “Public Enemy Number One” by any means possible. Preferably in a pine box.

Given Michael Mann’s pedigree helming crime dramas (Heat — need more be said?) and the intense cast, Public Enemies should be a taut thriller. While it holds close to history and looks nice doing so with period wardrobe and classic cars, what it lacks is a soul. We learn precious little about the protagonists or their motivations, which makes it difficult to establish a connection. Surely something could have been cut from the 140-minute runtime to allow for some exposition?

Crudup nails Hoover’s obsessive creepiness, and Johnny Depp fleshes out Dillinger’s flourishes. As written, though, Purvis’s character is flat, and Bale is utterly wasted. Mann’s trademark moody stylings and carefully chosen musical accompaniment are replaced by sluggish pacing, wholly unremarkable dialogue, and an overreliance on handheld shots. Were it not for the occasional well-choreographed hail of gunfire and gore, this mediocre monstrosity would put you to sleep.

Public Enemies had the potential to be The Untouchables of the new millennia, but ends up being virtually un-watchable. It appears the Mann has lost his touch. —Greg Ursic

MOON

Starring Sam Rockwell

Directed by Duncan Jones

4 stars (out of 5)

Duncan Jones goes back to the future in his feature-film debut, offering up a slice of sci-fi that harkens back to the slow-burning space epics of the sixties and seventies.

Astronaut Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is finishing out the final weeks of a three-year contract as the one-man crew of a lunar mining operation. With only computer unit GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey) to keep him company, acute cabin fever has set in. Nagging hallucinations seemingly give way to full-on psychosis when Sam happens upon an exact duplicate of himself roaming the halls. Once the two Sams get to talking (right after they’ve wrapped up a rousing game of ping pong), it occurs to them that something more insidious might be afoot.

While notably less cerebral, Moon’s ominous tone recalls the rich atmospherics of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the 1972 Russian space thriller, Solaris. From the outset, there’s the pervasive sense that something is amiss. Jones executes the twists and reveals of Nathan Parker’s screenplay with a deftness that belies his inexperience. The young director also makes the most of the film’s modest $5 million budget, creating beautifully realized claustrophobic interiors as well as expansive spacescapes.

That said, Jones’s masterstroke is undoubtedly his casting. The film was written specifically for Rockwell, and it’s almost impossible to imagine anyone else — with the possible exception of Robert Downey Jr. — doing Sam justice. In the opening passage, Sam’s defeated body language and rote banter with GERTY perfectly evince the toll of his isolation. When confronted by his duplicate, Rockwell brilliantly conveys both Sam’s understandable confusion and his evident relief over no longer being alone. There’s a refreshing absence of showiness concerning both Rockwell’s performance in his double role, and the technical onscreen trickery required to pull it off convincingly.

It slowly becomes apparent that we’re watching both the emergence of a bright new directorial talent and the performance(s) of a lifetime by an oft-overlooked actor. —Curtis Woloschuk

ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS

Starring the voices of Queen Latifah, John Leguizamo, Simon Pegg, Ray Romano

Directed by Carlos Saldanha

4 stars (out of 5)

After Ice Age: The Meltdown’s weak storyline and lacklustre action, the Ice Age franchise was in danger of extinction. Thankfully, Dawn of the Dinosaurs provides the series with the rebirth it sorely needed.

In this installment, Manny the Mammoth (Ray Romano) is so focused on Ellie (Queen Latifah), his expectant mastodon mate, that he fails to notice his pals in crisis. Sabre-tooth tiger Diego (Dennis Leary), fearing he’s lost his edge, decides to go solo. Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo), meanwhile, yearns for a family of his own and gets kidnapped by the miffed mommy of a trio of T-Rex toddlers he tries to adopt. In order to save him, the friends follow clues leading to a mysterious subterranean realm where dinosaurs have survived mass extinction.

The decision to take Dawn of the Dinosaurs underground allowed the animators to expand beyond the blue and white constraints of an Arctic icescape, and in that they don’t disappoint. Luxuriant jungles are beautifully rendered, ablaze with kaleidoscopic flashes of colour. You can practically feel the heat from the luminous blood orange tendrils of magma as they snake across the landscape. And let’s not forget the dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes on hand to shake things up.

Whether you’re laughing at manic mayhem of the obsessive weasel Buck (Simon Pegg), holding your breath during the spectacular pterodactyl chase, or being entertained by perennial favourite Scrat and his eternal acorn antics, the story is consistently dynamic and entertaining.

Dawn of the Dinosaurs not only escapes the curse of the trilogy — its solid animation, whacky comic touches, stirring action sequences, and family-friendly message make it the best of the franchise. —G.U.

LET IT RAIN

Starring Jean-Pierre Bacri, Jamel Debbouze, Agnès Jaoui

Directed by Agnès Jaoui

Agnès Jaoui has made her career as a writer-director-actor in France on the merits of finely crafted films that focus on la petite vie, or “the small life” — those moments that seem almost too mundane to be worthy of recognition. While considered comedies in her native country, Jaoui’s meandering, socially-conscious storylines and droll, dark humour are not conventional North American belly-laughers by any stretch of the imagination.

In Let it Rain (co-written and co-starring her real-life husband, Jean-Pierre Bacri), Jaoui plays Agathe, a feminist literary star dipping her toe into political waters for the first time. Thanks to a quota system, her party shuttles her off to Provence, where she was born, to face a powerful incumbent, and a needy, unhappily married sister who has taken over their mother’s house following her death.

Approached by Karim (Jamel Debbouze), the son of her family’s Algerian housekeeper, Agathe agrees to appear in a documentary he is co-producing with a dead-end director, Michel Ronsard (Bacri). As the weather in usually idyllic Provence becomes progressively worse, the documentary slowly and insidiously tears Agathe’s life apart: her boyfriend leaves her, her political career is derailed, and she learns that she might not be the person she always thought she was.

In a decidedly continental way, this final realization is so subtle, it barely even registers — no breakdown, fit of tears, or grand apologetic gesture of atonement. The film itself is similarly restrained. Hardly a monumental work, it is nonetheless an enjoyable distraction. —Steven Schelling