Elba superb in Mandela role

Liberty Theatre

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

***

Stars: Idris Elba, Naomie Harris, Terry Pheto. 

Director: Justin Chadwick.

Rated: PG-13

Showing: Premieres Boxing Day. For more details call 292-7296.

Runtime: 139 minutes

Biography, drama, history.

As Nelson Mandela, Idris Elba towers over the rest of the cast. That’s literally true and perfectly accurate. Mandela was tall, as is Elba (of the Thor movies and Takers). And Elba manages both the voice and a hint of the presence of the great man.

He tends to tower over the movie, as well, in this comprehensive but generally dry account of one man’s journey from upwardly mobile attorney to activist to revolutionary to statesman. There are no “name” actors arrayed against him as his South African oppressors. Some of the sense of struggle is lost when you spend almost all your charismatic cash on your leading man and don’t give him villains of equal stature.

With Long Walk, Gladiator and Les Miserables screenwriter William Nicholson and director Justin Chadwick  manage a comprehensive history lesson that approaches but never quite achieves “epic”. They’re better at humanizing their hero than Richard Attenborough was with “Gandhi,” for instance. But there’s barely a hint of grandeur and triumph to this amazing story.

Like Gandhi, Mandela was a lawyer who came to the conclusion that working within an unjust system wasn’t going to pay off. Unlike Gandhi, Mandela turned to violence. Unlike Gandhi, Mandela was no saint. And unlike Gandhi, Mandela was a player.

Long Walk to Freedom captures the womanizing attorney in 1942 who figures that “education, hard work and pride” are the secrets to his success and to that of any black South African. He just has to ignore all the times the white Boers call him “boy”.

Trying to get justice for a friend murdered in police custody is what radicalizes him. He finds his purpose and his voice, speaking out for equality.

“’They’ are having a party, and we are not invited.”

His political activism and wandering eye cost him his first marriage. His life, his cause and the movie get a serious jolt of electricity when he meets, courts and marries his much-younger second wife, Winnie, in the late 1950s.

Naomie Harris is at her most beguiling in their courtship and marriage scenes, two modern Africans who don first Western wedding wear, then traditional tribal attire for their nuptials. Then Harris lets us see the rage and hatred rise up in Winnie, the imprisonment, interrogations and mistreatment that fired her fury. Nelson was in prison, having been convicted of terrorism agitation, bombings of power plants and the like. Winnie, given even worse treatment (the film suggests), seethes. She decides to take everything to the next level.

In this script, Winnie is the counterpoint to Nelson’s journey from principled revolutionary to pragmatic yet still principled negotiator and conciliator. He ages into wisdom and grows into the job of “leader”. Winnie dons combat fatigues and punishes “traitors” and “informers” within her own community in ways every bit as horrifying as the regime.

The story feels simplified, but never simplistic. There’s nothing of Mandela’s dalliance with the wider world of politics (communism) and the dictators (Libya’s Gadhafi) he embraced, anyone who would lend a sympathetic ear to his and his people’s plight. Snippets of newscasts feed us the decades it took for the world to pay attention to and devise a strategy (divestment, sanctions) to help him end apartheid.

The framework captures Mandela’s tribal childhood, if not the abrupt transition from grass huts to law school. 

As long as the film is, one feels his famous 1960s trial and the war of wills he fought in prison are shortchanged. But there are still lovely grace notes — gorgeous African panoramas, moments of grief  personal and national.

And looming large above the film is Elba, in a mostly still performance, one of quietly compelling authority that dominates every moment — save for those when Harris shows up and sets the screen on fire. 

Walking With Dinosaurs in 3D

***

Stars: Charlie Rowe, Karl Urban, Angourie Rice 

Director: Barry Cook, Neil Nightingale.

Rated: PG

Showing: Tues 1pm, 3:30pm; Wed closed; Thurs 1:30pm, 4:30pm.

Runtime: 86 minutes

Animation, action, family.

The BBC series Walking With Dinosaurs gets a kid-friendly big-screen treatment, complete with cutesy story and dino-poop jokes.

Aimed squarely at that dino-crazy demographic (7-12), it pumps a few IQ points into a kid’s film genre sorely in need of them.

Walking takes care to ID each new dinosaur species introduced, including factoids about what they ate and any special skills they might have had. It’s downright educational. Just don’t tell your kids that. 

Neptune Theatre

Frozen (2D)

***

Stars: Kristen Bell, Josh Gad, Idina Menzel. 

Directors: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee. 

Rated: PG

Showing: Tues 2:30pm, 6:30pm; Wed closed;  Thurs 2:30pm.

Runtime: 108 minutes

Animation, comedy.

Disney is on to something pretty cool with its latest princess picture, Frozen. It’s evolving a solid story template that will give its girl movies an identity distinct from the studio’s boy films.

The new movie is roughly based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen. Compelling interpretations of classic stories is what built Disney’s brand. It’s good to see that they’re still on the job. 

Speciality Theatre

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (3D)

***

Stars: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage.

Directors: Peter Jackson. 

Rated: PG

Showing: Call 292-2135 for show times. Closed Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

Runtime: 161 minutes

Advenuture, drama, fantasy.

Bilbo turns tougher and more cunning and The Hobbit turns altogether more entertaining in The Desolation of Smaug, Peter Jackson’s livelier, funnier and action-packed middle film in his trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s slight delight of a novel.

It looks more like a fantasy — fantastical, with more murk and the otherworldly light of those mass-produced Thomas Kinkade paintings. 

Characters feel more distinct, with Martin Freeman’s Bilbo making the transition from mere passenger on this dwarf’s quest “beneath the Lonely Mountain” to the brains of the motley crew.

And there’s just more going on. Jackson and company wisely tamper with the Holy Writ of Tolkien to invent a lady elf and to find Orlando Bloom’s elf Legolas a part to play. 

They’re more concerned with making this all a prelude to The Lord of the Rings, so foreshadowing and the suspicions of Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) step to the fore.

That ups the ante, creates urgency and sets up a love triangle, just one of several elements that become cliffhangers before The Desolation of Smaug ends. 

Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas

***

Stars: Tyler Perry, Chad Michael Murray.

Director: Tyler Perry.

Rated: PG-13

Showing: Call 292-2135 for show times.

Runtime: 122 minutes

Comedy, drama.

Madea gets coaxed into helping a friend pay her daughter a surprise visit in the country for Christmas, but the biggest surprise is what they’ll find when they arrive. 

Southside

CLOSED 

Call 297-2821 for future shows.

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