James Franco plays Aron Ralston, a hyper young man who can climb, cycle and navigate with the best of them while sprouting existential dialogue and giving all those around him a running travelogue. Unfortunately for him in this case, his loner characteristics take over and he ventures forth into Robbers Roost, Utah by himself.

The isolated area, once used as a hide out by Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch gang is filled with huge rock formations and an almost hidden underworld between the massive stones. This proves his downfall when he knocks a boulder loose and it traps his arm. His is trapped there for five days before he severs his own arm with a dull knife to make his escape.

The challenge of giving forward momentum to a tale that is essentially a single person in a single location is met by Boyle’s examination of the life choices Ralston took that isolated him from his peers and the hallucinations he experiences while his body breaks down from dehydration and hunger. The film is also dependent on James Franco’s performance and it is stellar.

This film should come with a warning as its gruesome scenes are very confrontational but you feel so attached to Ralston’s character and plight by then that you revel in the pure triumph of both his escape and the film’s excellence.

Rob Hudson
www.facebook.com/20thCenturyStudiosAUNZ

Despite its incredibly successful Marvel brethren, this Fantastic Four is yet another dud, albeit a dud with a $200 million dollar budget.

The story is fantastically linear: we follow genius, Reed Richards, from childhood as he meets each of the characters who we know will become part of the Four as well as the guy we know is destined to be the villain, Victor von Doom (with a name like that, how could he not turn bad?).

Usually in an instance like this the structure of the film would be mixed up, moving the action forward and telling the preceding events in flashback but not here; we’re left to suffer the events in strict, dull, consecutive order. The result being a good hour of plodding character development before we get any glimpse at our pending heroes’ super powers. We’re then pushing an hour and a half before we get to the inevitable battle with Dr Doom – the first (and only) real action set piece. This is a long time to wait for something to happen!

The CGI is mostly on par with what we’d expect these days though Mr Fantastic’s stretchy limbs still don’t seem right somehow. The most noticeable improvement in this incarnation of the franchise is that Thing now looks and sounds like he’s made of rock rather than rubber.

That Fantastic Four was released within weeks of Ant Man suggests a throw-away attitude towards this film from Marvel. An attitude reinforced by a lack of any post credit sequence or Stan Lee cameo (that I could see anyway).

Despite high hopes for this reboot, this remains at the low rent end of the franchise.
Stuart Jamieson
www.fantasticfourmovie.com