Film reviews: District 13: The Ultimatum | The Cove | The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard | Cirque Du Freak

Published on Thursday 22 October 2009 21:18

DISTRICT 13: ULTIMATUM (15) *** DIRECTED BY: PATRICK ALESSANDRIN STARRING: DAVID BELLE, CYRIL RAFFAELLI, PHILIPPE TORRETON, DANIEL DUVAL

THE original Luc Besson scripted-and-produced District 13 was little more than a Gallic Escape from New York, with Paris standing in for the Big Apple as the futuristic city gone to seed, there to supply a suitably grubby urban jungle locale to showcase the astonishing physical feats of star David Belle, inventor of the building-vaulting, free-running martial arts technique known as parkour, which has been an action movie staple ever since. This perfectly serviceable brain-off sequel is more of the same, with Belle returning as the streetwise, good-hearted ghetto kid determined to keep his high-rise home in the prison-like District 13 free from drug scum. Cyril Raffaelli is also back as the ethical undercover cop who cares more than his bosses would like about the plight of District 13's inhabitants. The sketchy plot revolves around this pair teaming up to save D13 from being annihilated by a multinational corporation,, wiping out its lowly inhabitants in the process, in order to rebuild it as a gated community for the middle classes. B-movie social commentary established, the film soon gets down to the business of supplying lots of wham-bam, mildly entertaining action.

THE COVE (12A)

***

DIRECTED BY: LOUIE PSIHOYOS

DELIBERATELY sounding like a horror movie, the title of this dolphin documentary refers to the hidden, heavily guarded piece of coastline next to the Japanese village of Taiji, where thousands dolphins are lured with sonar each year and slaughtered for their meat. This damaging, mercury-rich mammal meat is then sold to unsuspecting Japanese shoppers who think they're buying whale meat; it's also fed to unsuspecting schoolchildren as part of their government-supplied lunches. These are just some of the sickening revelations in this impassioned piece of agit-prop, which goes to great lengths to penetrate Taiji's tight security to expose this problem in gruesome detail. The film's main contention is that all of this is an offshoot of the multimillion dollar dolphin-centric entertainment industry, with aqua parks around the world creating a global demand for dolphins, many of which are supplied by the fishermen in Taiji. It's a development the film traces back to the Flipper TV show, so it's only right that its chief protagonist is the remorseful Richard O'Barry, who trained the show's dolphins, but after realising the distress captivity caused them – the original Flipper died in his arms, apparently – has spent decades trying to set them free.

THE GOODS: LIVE HARD, SELL HARD (15)

*

DIRECTED BY: NEAL BRENNAN STARRING: JEREMY PIVEN, VING RHAMES, JAMES BROLIN, ED HELMS

GIVEN this comedy vehicle for Jeremy Piven finds the Entourage star playing a blowhard car salesman who specialises in rescuing failing dealerships with his motivated selling techniques, it's ironic that even this actor's immense charisma can't salvage what is essentially a shrill and lazily written wreck of a movie. Piven's Don 'the Goods' Ready introduces himself with the words "I have hair on my balls and I sell cars", which pretty much sums up the macho posturing tone the film is going for. Alas, it forgets to supply him with the necessary shred of humanity to make all the pissing-contest bluster charming. What's more, after innumerable scenes set in strip clubs and mirthless attempts to mine laughs from underage sex gags and ironic racism, the fatally low gags-to-giggle ratio exposes the film as little more than crass collection of dick jokes, making Don's last-minute push for redemption an even tougher sell. It doesn't help when Will Ferrell (who produced this) turns up to suck the air out of the room with another of his dismal cameos. It's one for the scrap heap.

CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE VAMPIRE'S ASSISTANT (12A)

*

DIRECTED BY: PAUL WEITZ STARRING: JOHN C REILLY, CHRIS MASSOGLIA, JOSH HUTCHERSON, SALMA HAYEK

BRIT children's author Darren Shan's bestselling teen vampire saga makes it to the big screen courtesy of a bloodless adaptation that not even John C Reilly's presence can stop from sucking. He plays Larten Crepsley, a good vampire who hides out within normal society by living with the titular band of touring freaks, all of whom have strange, supernatural powers. Into this world comes goody two-shoes schoolboy Darren (Chris Massoglia), whom Crepsley inducts into the vampire life, much to the chagrin of Darren's desperate-to-be-a-vampire delinquent best friend (Josh Hutcherson). What follows is a tedious franchise set-up that spends way too long poring over tedious details and hinting at bigger things to come, rather than concentrating on creating a solid stand-alone film. Who cares if there's a war brewing between the good neck-biters and the evil "Vampaneze" if director Paul Weitz can't even establish why this world is supposed to be interesting in the first place? Shoddily structured, boring, and featuring the drippiest teen lead this side of the Jonas brothers, it seems designed for junior fanboys who still wet the bed. They're welcome to it.