The House With A Clock In Its Walls Cert: 12A, 1hr 44mins
The House With A Clock In Its Walls is one of those films that reminds you of a lot of others. The mix of orphans and clocks summons Martin Scorsese’s Hugo instantly to mind, while blending orphans with sinister relatives gets you to Lemony Snicket even quicker.
Magic textbooks and trainee boy wizards are pure Harry Potter, of course, while the curious combination of clocks and walking, talking furniture provide an unexpected reminder of Disney’s Beauty And The Beast.
But it’s the central presence of Jack Black that provides the loudest prompt, because what his latest film resembles more than anything is his relatively recent offering, Goosebumps, which was released here just two-and-a-half years ago.
Jack Black plays the eccentric uncle of orphan Lewis (Owen Vaccaro, above with Black and Cate Blanchett) in The House With A Clock In Its Walls
That was based on a long-running book series written by the American children’s horror writer RL Stine, and while this has no direct connection with Stine – it’s actually based on a 1973 novel written by the late John Bellairs – the necessities of commercial cinema mean that Stine’s spirit runs right through it.
The good thing is that The House With A Clock In Its Walls is a lot better than the only modestly successful Goosebumps. Black – so often an over-powering presence – is better cast and more reined-in than usual (possibly having worked out that if he was acting opposite Cate Blanchett he’d have to raise his game), the central story makes a little more sense, and its director Eli Roth – hitherto a specialist in distinctly more adult scares – seems to have a more focused idea of who his target audience is.
For while Goosebumps featured a central character who was a teenager but then delivered the sort of fantasy fare that only a much younger audience would enjoy, The House With A Clock In Its Walls is all about a newly orphaned ten-year-old boy – and that’s about the starting age for its target audience, bearing in mind that the blend of dark corridors, strange noises and creepy clockwork automata does get quite scary at times.
The presence of double Oscar-winning Blancett adds real class and the film is, by and large, pretty nicely done with a polished screenplay and decent visual effects
Our young hero is Lewis Barnavelt (Owen Vaccaro), who arrives in the town of New Zebedee to live with his kimono-wearing Uncle Jonathan (Black) soon after the death of his parents.
Lewis already seems a rather lonely, self-contained little boy, with established eccentricities – he likes to wear aviator goggles and consults a fortune-telling novelty pool ball over difficult decisions – that are likely to hinder his chances of making new friends.
So when his uncle turns out to live in the big old Gothic house that this sort of American film can’t manage without, we fear the worst. Especially as it’s crammed with ticking clocks, a spooky organ that can play itself and stained-glass windows that move when you’re not looking. Even the pumpkin lanterns are there year-round.
Overall the magical mystery film definitely gets better as it goes along, but it also gets a good deal scarier too. Parents – you’ve been warned! Above: Vaccaro and Sunny Suljic
But from the moment we meet Jonathan’s purple-clad and insult-trading best friend and neighbour, Mrs Zimmerman (Blanchett), we suspect all may not yet be lost for Lewis.
For while Mrs Z can be scary at times, she’s also rather beautiful and kind. And she makes it quite clear that there is nothing remotely ‘kissy-faced’ about her relationship with his uncle, ‘it’s…’
‘Platonic,’ completes Lewis, a word-loving boy who’s arrived with his own dictionary.
Now, if only the strange ticking noise in the walls would cease and Uncle Jonathan stop stalking the corridors at night armed with an axe, then Lewis could get on with his new life…
But what sort of film would that make? This, after all, is a house with secrets, and Uncle J and Mrs Z have a few between them too. Our magic-themed mystery, which comes complete with evil warlocks and incontinent topiary bushes (yes, really) is about to unfold.
By and large it’s pretty nicely done, as you’d expect from a film that includes Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment among its backers, and Kyle MacLachlan among its supporting cast.
The screenplay is polished, the vital visual effects decent and the presence of the double Oscar-winning Blanchett adds real class.
The result is a film that definitely gets better as it goes along, but also gets scarier too. Parents – you’ve been warned.
SECOND SCREEN
A Simple Favor (15)
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The Little Stranger (12A)
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Mile 22 (18)
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The makers of Nureyev (12A)
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Directed by Paul Feig of Bridesmaids fame, and starring the normally watchable Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively, A Simple Favor is one of those films you find yourself really looking forward to. Ninety minutes into its seriously over-extended running time, however, and I was rapidly losing the will to live, as what can easily be described as the comedy version of Gone Girl or The Girl On The Train ties itself into over-elaborate knots.
It’s a shame because it starts so brightly, with Kendrick on form as Stephanie, a widowed single mum who now combines helicopter-parenting with food blogging, and Lively very funny as her polar opposite, Emily, the sexy, hard-drinking corporate exec. Then Emily asks Stephanie a simple favour – could she pick up her son from school – and promptly disappears.
Lively’s absence robs Kendrick of her sparring partner and the film of its fun, puts too much pressure on Henry Golding, who plays Emily’s handsome and far from grieving husband, and reveals that screenplay writer Jessica Sharzer just doesn’t know when to stop.
Despite nice acting from the likes of Charlotte Rampling and Domhnall Gleeson (above), The Little Stranger is more a restrained study of social manners than a country house ghost story
The Little Stranger is supposed to be a British country house ghost story. Only no one seems to have told director Lenny Abrahamson, who instead delivers a dry and excessively restrained study of social manners and post-war class… with a few bumps in the night tacked on at the end.
Still, the atmosphere and acting are nice, with Domhnall Gleeson as a buttoned-up country doctor, Ruth Wilson as the posh spinster daughter who catches his eye at the local crumbling stately pile, and Charlotte Rampling as the matriarch who may know its dark secret.
The rural setting and subject matter will remind some of The Others, but reminded me more of The Awakening, although the key thing is it’s nowhere near as scary as either.
Mile 22 is a tough, repetitive and excessively violent old watch set in southeast Asia. Mark Wahlberg plays an unlikeable US ‘dark ops’ agent with anger-management issues, who is charged with getting a double agent out of the country before either the local corrupt government or the Russians get him first. The airport, of course, is just 22 miles away. It definitely feels farther.
Mile 22 is a tough, repetitive and excessively violent old watch set in southeast Asia starring Mark Wahlberg as an unlikeable US ‘dark ops’ agent with anger-management issues (above)
The makers of Nureyev forsake the normal talking-head format for their biographical documentary, instead combining archive footage of the brilliant Russian ballet dancer with dance scenes recreating a stylised sense of some of the more important moments from his extraordinary life. It takes a while to get used to it, but is rather lovely once you do, despite the apparent shortage of decent footage of the great man dancing at his absolute best.