On the couch

DVD REVIEW

Let Me In****
Directed by: Matt Reeves
Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloë Moretz, Elias Koteas, Richard Jenkins

Unstoppable ***
Directed by: Tony Scott
Starring: Denzel Washintgon, Chris Pine, Rosario Dawson, Kevin Dunn, Kevin Corrigan

Right, here’s the very, very brief review – Let Me In is very good. Creepy, well acted and good to look at. It’s a quality piece of work all ‘round.
This glowing endorsement comes with one caveat, however. If you’ve seen the orginal Swedish version of this vampiric children spookfest then there may be no real reason to watch director Matt Reeves’ version.
Barring some difference in pacing, the presence of subtitles (depending on your grasp of Swedish) and a more recognisable cast, there’s little between them. Both are excellent but no liberties have been taken with the story so there’s little to surprise second time watchers.
For the uninitiated, however, the set-up is this. It’s 1983 in Los Alamos, New Mexico. 12-year-old Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a lonely, puny kid coping with his parents’ inability to deal with their divorce. Bullied at school and neglected at home he spends his time eating sweets, peering through a telescope at his neighbours.
After a halting, awkward start, he befirned the new kid that’s moved in next door to him. Abby (Chloe Moretz) is “12, more or less” and only seems to be around at night.
The innocence of the pair’s growing friendship is offset somewhat by the fact that Abby is a vampire and responsible for a spate of murders in the area.
In case you’re wondering who you’ll be watching accepting best actor and actress Oscars about ten or 15 years from now look no further than Smit McPhee and Moretz. Perfectly cast, McPhee, so effective in The Road, again shows that he can say a lot with very little dialogue. Moretz, meanwhile – the crackling, swearing sensation from KickAss, makes Abby seem both young and old, wise and innocent.
Move over Dakota Fanning, there’s a new generation of kids with freaky adult acting skills in town.
As with the original, the adult world has very little to do with Let Me In. Owen’s mother is a blur or a sobbing, sleeping wreck and Abby’s “provider” is little more than that – he gets her blood and offers little else in the way of support.
Cracks begin to show in Abby and Owen’s burgeoning little romance when a local cop (Elias Koteas, barely recognisable from his normal appearance on Law&Order: SVU) starts to get too close to the cause of the local deaths.
Tense, horrific and occasionally surprisingly sweet, Let Me In is a fine film and more than an equal to its Swedish predecessor. It also shows that director Matt Reeves can handle the small, personal stories as well as the ones involving rampaging monsters in New York like his most recent effort, Cloverfield.
Unstoppable. Oh where to start.
Making fun of it seems a little like shutting a younger sibling inside a fold-up sofa and then hitting it with sticks – it’s oh so cruel, oh so easy and, if your brother or sister is anywhere close to being as annoying or dumb as Unstoppable, oh so satisfying.
Trainwreck jokes notwithstanding, the latest in Tony Scott’s seemingly endless procession of high concept action movies and the second that has centred around a misbehaving locomotive, the hooks this time are that a) the train is an unmanned, out-of-control behemoth loaded with hazardous chemicals and b) it’s all based on a true story. Kinda sorta.
Taking the saying “never let the truth get in the way of a good story” to heart, Scott’s little adventure with the cranky but experienced train driver Frank (Denzel Washington) and wet behind the ears conductor Will (Chris Pine) was only going to go one way: heroics, banter and more heroics before an explosive finale.
If it weren’t for the tight direction and recognisable cast (Rosario Dawson, Kevin Dunn and Kevin Corrigan all show up) this would be straight to TV fodder.
Denzel Washington has degenerated into acting with his teeth. When you can’t see ‘em he’s serious, broody or, heaven forfend, stroppy. When you can see those perfect and terrifying huge pearly whites it’s nothing but good times for the once, and still occasionally, great actor.
He’s still enormously watchable though and, despite his disappointing downward slide, it is down to his and Chris Pine’s efforts that Unstoppable manages to entertain despite its paper thin story and lousy script.