Lejink

The open secret to blockbuster success in animation features is the creation of characters and situations which appeal on their different ways to children and adults alike. Most usually the formula incorporates familiar fairy-tale like concepts but in films like "Up","Inside Out" and especially "Wall-E" we're treated to something quite different again. A quirky, kooky space-age romance between two robots who communicate through processed, inarticulate, monosyllabic bleats, it nevertheless has a lot to say about many of the modern problems in society, from environmentalism to the obesity crisis.

Wall-E is a transformer-like little robot whose daily job is to collect the junk strewn all over the streets of a post-Apocalyptic Earth where no humans are present - we find out later where they went. The film immediately taps into our love of nostalgia as we see it / him carefully categorising and storing away easily recognisable childhood items whilst reprocessing the remaining rubble into scrap-heap cubes and arranging them into above-ground order - we seem to have moved on from landfill sites.

Anyway, one day he encounters a higher-level probe sent down to see if there is any sign of life on the planet. This is Eve, who initially works on a search-and-destroy basis but who Wall-E doggedly pursues and eventually charms with his persistence, not to mention his collection of trinkets.

Eve it is who finds, like the rose growing up through the concrete in Spanish Harlem, a single budding plant which indicates that the Earth is at last ready support recolonisation again. But when Eve's computer-programme masters take her back up into the orbiting space station above, the warped command centre resists the prime directive to return home and start again.

This is where we finally encounter earthlings, only to find that through indolence, the consumption of fast food and forced couch-potato assimilation of computer screen data that they've all become bloated to the point where they can't even stand up to walk. The ship's captain for, as we learn, 700 years has become similarly corpulent and complacent so that what begins.with Wall-E attempting to rescue Eve from cancellation by the sinister Main-Frame, sees the pair by their selfless outlook basically invoke the reawakening of human-kind.

There are a heck of a lot of ideas to process in the movie and this all the while you're assimilating the remarkable animation and humorous inserts, the latter not above referencing classic movies like "Star Wars", "2001" and even, aptly, the silent masters Chaplin and Keaton. I do think though that WALL-E might have chosen a more representative film than "Hello Dolly!" to illustrate his points!

My head was properly spinning both during and after watching a movie with so much going on it, you feel it demands a repeat viewing or three. However, looking around us today, given that it was made almost twenty years ago, it seems as a society we're still not acting on the many warnings flashed up here, courtesy of the loveable little clockwork tykes.

Mike Newell's gangland movie documents the real-life story of FBI agent Joseph C Pistone, who, set up as a criminal jewel-expert under the name of Donnie Brasco, infiltrated the Mafia organisation's New York operation, putting away, as we're told in the end titles, many of its members. The film shows how as "Brasco",he ingratiated himself into the Mob through a targeted relationship with a middle-ranking hit-man Lefty Ruggiero, played by Al Pacino in an operation which lasted two years, highlighting the lengths to which Brasco must go to fully gain the mobsters' trust as well as the strain playing such a part puts on his relationship with his own wife and family.

As his immersion goes deeper and deeper, Brasco is forced into at first witnessing and then actively participating in the criminality and related violence escalating around him, so as not to blow his cover. At the same time, we see close-up the strain that living this double-life places on Brasco's wife, played by Anne Heche and their young family as his behaviour to them changes. On the few occasions he gets to go home, he's increasingly distant to them before, certainly with his wife, becoming completely dismissive, coercive and finally violent.

Although extensively cast, the film is clearly centred on the relationship between Depp and Pacino's characters. We learn quickly that Lefty has a difficult relationship with his own son, who seems to be about the same age as Donnie, but who suffers from a drug addiction. With Donnie's evident street-smarts, plus the admiration and loyalty he shows the older man, the ties between the two bind closer as you sense Lefty considers Donnie as a better version of his son.

With Lefty's help, Donnie's acceptance amongst the upper echelons of the organisation leads him to take greater personal risks to protect his identity, especially when he incites the brutal beating up of a Chinese restaurateur which comes about when the man perfectly reasonably insists that Donnie, like the rest, remove his shoes on entering his premises which act would have exposed the wire he was concealing.

The movie is unremitting in its depiction of violence, culminating in the bloody slaughter of three senior bosses with Donnie forced to assist in the dismemberment and disposal of their corpses. This occurs after the action has moved to Miami, where Donnie has been compelled by his FBI superiors to develop a sting down there with a fellow-agent, director Newell effectively contrasting the sunshine colours of Miami with the grim greyness of New York.

Depp is very good as the compromised agent, you see in his eyes alone his growing descent into dehumanisation while Al naturally Pacinos all over the place with his garish clothes, accentuated mannerisms and of course his traditional motormouth Ital-american "fuggedaboudit!" delivery.

The question looms at the finish as to whether the ends justifies the means as you suspect that Donnie will struggle in the future to live with his recent past and resume his normal family life. Meanwhile, we almost sympathise with Lefty who we say ritually removing his jewellery as he answers the summoning call where he will pay the ultimate price for his unsuspecting duplicity.

Making good use of actual Sun-apple locations and effectively evoking the late 70's / 80's era, especially with the songs chosen for the soundtrack, this uncompromisingly tough movie shows that where the Mob is concerned, the only way to beat them is to actually join them.

The third entry in what I guess we'll have to call the Paddington Trilogy sees the duffel-coated little bear return to his native Peru to track down his Aunt Lucy, who's been reported missing by the mother superior of the Care Bear Home to which she's retreated. Along with him for the South American adventure, of course, is the Brown family, in their own way trying to reconnect as they seem to be drifting apart from each other at home.

The change of scenery undoubtedly does the series some good as the film cheerily evokes "The Sound of Music", "Mission Impossible" and the Indiana Jones movies on its travels and is boosted further by amusing guest turns from Antonio Banderas as Sebastian Cabote, the guide employed in their bear-hunt, who has his own ulterior motives, Olivia Colman who gets to channel her inner Maria as the Mother Superior, plus Julie Walters with her wavering Scottish accent, gets to tag along for the ride as old Mrs Bird.

As for the marmalade-sandwich-munching Paddington, he gets to do his usual array of rolling and tumbling feats in the jungle, over waterfalls and up and down Machu Picchu before it all culminates in a good old Peruvian stand-off where Colman shows her true colours, Banderas resets his priorities and Paddington finds his tribe.

It's all very light and bright with another personable performance besides by Hugh Bonneville-Scott as the indefatigable father Brown, even if he hasn't detected that his wife has changed from Sally Hawkins into Emily Mortimer.

I felt the film started nicely with some entertainingly amusing animation but inevitably dragged as the search got properly underway, although a neat sight gag, running joke or genuinely funny line was never too far away. I especially liked the moment when Cabot interpreted the ironing instructions on a scrap of clothing as ancient Inca scripture.

The film ends with a hopeful teaser setting up the return of Hugh Grant's dastardly Phoenix Buchanan from "Paddington 2". I fear however with familiarity breeding a little discontent that this might be where the story ends although I guess we'll have to bear with the situation (ouch!) to see if there's a bear necessity (ouch again!) for any more bovine frolics to come to the big screen.