The Chair Reviews: Miles Ahead, The Jungle Book and more…

Thrones: good; Chairs: average; Stools: bad

IN CINEMAS — I don’t know much about the real Miles Davis, aside from the fact that the boy could play that trumpet, but in Don Cheadle’s Miles Ahead (2015; 100 mins) he is one cool, hard, angry muthafucker. Hail, Miles! Cheadle co-writes, directs and stars alongside Ewan McGregor, a nosey Rolling Stone reporter (McGregor was due to play Davis but ceded to Cheadle after a bit of a row — I think it works better this way around) after a comeback story, Davis having been absent from the business for five years; five years spent moping around snorting coke and drinking. Naturally, he’s pretty peeved at McGregor for interrupting this, but events tie the pair together and so begins a crazy partnership as the two discuss life, music and women, and engage in punch-ups and shootouts as they try to retrieve a stolen tape containing Davis’s new recordings. As you see, this is no ordinary biopic and it is all the better for it. That’s not to say we don’t witness some of his more formative years, but these flashbacks are centred almost solely round his romance with girlfriend-then-wife Frances (Emayatzy Corinealdi). They are effective and are slickly dipped into via prompts from current day events but, and this is especially true towards the end of the film, in truth they are a minor drag when we could be watching the modern day version getting coolly angry and putting it about. I’ve always liked Cheadle but I’ve never seen him in form as rich as this. He is absolutely brilliant as Davis, every withering gaze and husky word drawing us to this enigma of a troubled legend on the rocks, proud as punch and proud to punch. McGregor, too, is great fun, and their rapport is supported by a great script and a daring level of technical skill and trickery: film stock switches (for different periods), sound changes and classy camera angles are just a few employed by first-timer Cheadle at the other end of the camera. Easily one of the most enjoyable films about a musician. Not a bad start, Don. Rating: 2 Thrones.

Did we need a live action version? Was it a bear necessity? Disney and Jon Favreau thought so, so welcome once again to The Jungle Book (2016; 102 mins). The good news is that it’s virtually flawless. Virtually and virtually. Let’s deal with the first flaw: Mowgli. The movements and look of little Neel Sethi as the red-panted jungle boy are uncanny, they’ve done a wonderful job there. What is less wonderful is his voice and accent. I know that in the cartoon he sports an American coo but what works for an animation does not always carry over and I felt a little cheated when I heard this North Atlantic yelping rather than an Indian voice. What is good enough for world star Sabu and Life of Pi etc. But anyway, we have diversions, because everything else is stunningly well realised. Every ancient temple, every dark jungle corner, every twig and whisker, are marvels to look at, and it takes your breath away to learn that almost everything you see was created virtually (see). Bagheera and Baloo are particularly well rendered and what I perceived as a problem — how can you make animals look like they’re talking and not have it look stupid? — is cleared as easily as a hurdle made from three matches. Yes, just three. Ben Kingsley and Bill Murray provide predictably fine voice work, too. And then there’s Shere Khan. Idris Elba gives good menace but he needn’t worry because the script has put paid to any doubt: this version of nature’s most beautiful killer is a homicidal nutcase. He is genuinely frightening, and all credit to the team for making this jungle a far more dangerous place than it was. Christopher Walken’s King Louie is only slightly less menacing and the sequence involving Scarlett Johansson’s Kaa (I would have given in straight away) is a dark pleasure. The story stays much the same, as you might expect, although fans of Return of the Jedi will notice that a healthy dose of that film has been injected here (father bits, hiding behind shaded pillars as a malicious character hunts you and says you’ve lost your friends…hmmm). The second and only other flaw was created in 1967: Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book. There are moments of real awe in this version, but sometimes, just occasionally, after a scene had passed I would wonder if I was impressed beyond the technical skill involved. This is an interpretation of the Disney version, so a lot of elements look identical, and there are songs hummed and sang that, while skewed a little, do drag you back to that initial question, did we need this? Where are my beloved cartoon friends and the voices I know so well? But still, they have done a fine job and this is a grand film full of exciting spectacle. Rating: 2 Thrones.

FOR RENTAL — Epilepsy doesn’t get too many airings in the cinema, so Electricity (2014; 96 mins) is a breath of fresh air, and that air is crackling with — yes, you guessed it — electricity, visually, where the on-screen effects signal an attack is on its way, and in the performance of former model Agyness Deyn as Lily, a Lancashire lass afflicted with the brain disorder but willing to risk leaving the relative stability of her northern seaside town in order to find a lost reprobate brother dahn in Lahndon town. Deyn is excellent, an Earth-y angel who projects toughness, dignity, fragility and anger with a real economy of effort. It’s all in the pretty face and she anchors the film and a potentially difficult subject in someone very, very human. Around her are a flotsam of characters, some shithouses, some bricks, and they combine to make for an interesting, picaresque narrative (Alice in Wonderland has been cited in other reviews — fair play) that intertwines with the study of her condition and makes the whole package feel richer. Trippy visuals add to the mixture and help alleviate some of the grim drama that is at the core of the movie: acid-soaked Brit-grit! There’s a new genre for you! They also provide a spectacular and frightening insight into what it might actually be like to live with epilepsy. All in all, this is easily worth your time. Rating: 1 Throne.

Submarine star Craig Roberts is now all growed up and making films and stuff. His debut feature is Just Jim (2015; 84 mins), an off-kilter story of a class weakling (Jim/Roberts) aided to coolhood by rebel yank Dean (Emile Hirsch) after he moves in next door. It is a film that wears its influences on its sleeve, from Submarine itself (weird welsh boy, odd parents) to Youth in Revolt (odd boy helped by cool friend/alter ego) and yes, Bad Influence (a bad influence), but it generally gets away with it. Roberts as director conjures up a neat flavour of quirky through the awkward, funny dialogue and confident use of the camera; you can see he learned a lot from Richard Ayoade on the excellent Submarine, a shared affinity with the French and British New Wave films of the 60s shining through. The party scene, Dean’s excellent warning rant to one of Jim’s friends, the chief bully every time he appears (“Oi oi, shitpants!”): these are all brilliant touches. It’s a little disjointed, with perhaps too much being thrown at the camera for a first-time effort, and there are lurches in tone and character that are a bit hard to swallow, but I think the film does mark out Roberts as one to watch. He certainly knows how to direct and his camera-work is occasionally sublime. Rating: High Chair (almost a Throne).

FILM OF THE WEEK — A very, very close call but I’ll have to go with Miles Ahead.

CLASSIC OF THE WEEK — People go on and on about John Ford westerns citing them as the greatest, and they may have a point, but I always favoured the grit and edge of Anthony Mann’s, my favourite of which is The Man From Laramie (1955; 98 mins). The great, great James Stewart stars as a man out to kill the gun-runner who caused his brother’s death, and gets dragged through a fire and held by goons while a crazed dick shoots him through the hand for his trouble. Cinemascope, Technicolor, fighting. Great stuff.