Churchill is history for the hard of thinking

There is a story, probably apocryphal, that in the 1920s Charlie Chaplin entered a Chaplin lookalike competition for a lark -  and lost. He came second, third, or 21^st depending on which version you read. I suspect had we the time for such frivolity during the Second World War, Winston Churchill might have suffered the same fate as Chaplin. His sonorous tones and emphatic diction were much impersonated, mostly affectionately.

And it continues to the present day with the release of Churchill in which Dundonian Brian Cox is the latest to have a stab at playing the former Member of Parliament for Dundee. It is not an exclusive club. Cox follows Michael Gambon in last year’s Churchill’s Secret, John Lithgow made a decent fist of it in The Queen earlier this year, and we await Gary Oldman giving us his Winston in Darkest Hour in the autumn.

Given the nature of the man and the quality of the talent lining up to play him Churchill is a part to savour. He is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, as he once said of the Soviet Union but sadly this film provides little more than provide a broad-brush caricature. It’s like Churchill’s greatest hits. Boiler suit? Check. Cigar? Check. Homburg? Check. V-sign? Check. But despite all of this, nothing of the man.

Churchill focuses on the three days before D-Day in June 1944. The Allies, led by Eisenhower (John Slattery) and Montgomery (Julian Wadham), are ready to invade at Normandy but Churchill is uncertain. He is apparently haunted by the memory of the Dardanelles disaster in 1915; an incident which is so open to so many historical interpretations that this film decides simply not to tell the audience what happened. Just that it was A Very Bad Thing. We know this because Churchill keeps seeing the sea turn to blood.

In any event he is determined to alter the plans and, in his view, save the lives of thousands of young men but Montgomery and Eisenhower are having none of it. The plan is the plan and the only thing that can stop it is the weather.

This is an interesting moment in Churchill’s life. This is a man whose powers are waning; he would be unceremoniously voted out of office the following year, and there is a story to be told here. This however is not that story.

Cox careers around the War Room like a spoilt child throwing a tantrum; it’s a gross caricature. At times in this film I did rather get the impression that this must be what the White House is currently like. To humanise him Miranda Richardson pops up as his long-suffering wife, all bitter regret and rueful recrimination. And, just like The Imitation Game (2015), there is a doe-eyed secretary whose sweetheart is part of the invasion force who must give Churchill a piece of her mind.

The film is grievously wounded by two things. The first is the paucity of the budget. According to this we were invading France with about a dozen infantrymen spaced out to look bigger. You can almost see where the modern world begins at the edge of every frame – Glasgow City Chambers incidentally does sterling duty as a couple of marble-clad locations.

The real issue however is the script. This is the sort of film where characters stand around telling each other things they must already know just to catch the audience up. There is no characterisation or nuance here, just endless exposition and huge amounts of information taking the place of the plot. Also, every single line is freighted with the weight of its own self-importance making for pretty turgid stuff.

The kindest thing to be said about Churchill is that it is workmanlike. You might sit and watch it at home but having to pay the best part of a tennner is a bit much. Still, these days Churchill films are like buses – if you don’t care for this one there’ll be another along shortly.

You're a wonder, Wonder Woman

It’s a smart move opening Wonder Woman with a reference to Batman vs. Superman (2016); a subconscious way of letting the audience know that whatever comes next it won’t be as bad as that one. In fact, they are on pretty safe territory because Wonder Woman, is by some distance, the best effort in the DC Extended Universe offerings.

In some respects, it is a bit of a place-holder between BvS and the upcoming Justice League, but filling in Wonder Woman’s back-story gives us a refreshing and interesting take on the superhero movie.

The academic Laura Mulvey’s writing on ‘the male gaze’ has taken root and spread beyond cinema but essentially it refers to the fact that most movies are told from the perspective of a white, heterosexual male and women are framed accordingly. Superhero movies are a little different in that the gaze tends to be that of a teenage male which makes the issue of female representation even more acute.

Wonder Woman is refreshingly free of this perspective since it is directed by Patty Jenkins and presents our heroine – never actually referred to as Wonder Woman – as a role model for young women everywhere. We first meet Diana of Themyscira, as a six-year-old, then again as a fourteen-year-old. She is an Amazon Princess and this opening third of the film, in which we meet the Amazons and their world is far and away the best section of the film.

The film’s mythology is a bit woolly but the Amazons are intended to be a counter-balancing force to Ares, the god of war, and they live on their secret island, hidden from the eyes of man, until such times as they are needed. Diana is guided by her mentor, the warlike Antiope (Robin Wright), and her mother Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) in the ways of these Amazon women.

The arrival of a man, Steve Trevor (Christopher Pine) into their community brings chaos, especially with the news of a ’war to end all wars’. Diana sees this as the work of Ares and, against her mother’s wishes, sets out to defeat Ares and end war.

The rest of the film is a lot of fish out of water stuff as the emancipated Diana deals with Edwardian England and then the final conflict on the Western Front, which is where the photograph that appears in Batman vs Superman was taken.

Wonder Woman is far from perfect. The script for one thing seems very perfunctory. It bounces from event to event as things happen just because they need to happen to keep the film moving along. The discovery of the Amazon’s secret island, for example, seems ludicrously easy and the big sacrifice at the end seems a little pointless and hard to understand. Likewise, Diana’s powers seem to expand and contract as the plot demands.

There is however much to enjoy especially in that first third. The battle sequence on Themyscira is such a tonic compared to the usual thud and blunder of superhero movies. This is a feast of energy, dynamism, and athleticism which marries power with grace and some superb choreography. If nothing else this sequence gives the lie to the suggestion that women can’t direct action.

There are nice character touches from Robin Wright and Connie Nielsen with a lovely comedy supporting role from Lucy Davis. As the damsel in distress Christopher Pine is nicely self-deprecating and, if the ending is a little generic, the final battle is executed as well as in any other superhero film.

As for Gal Gadot, she does very well with what she is given to do. This for me is the film’s main failing. Much is made, quite correctly, of Patty Jenkins in the director’s chair but this film is still essentially written by three men, one of whom is that paragon of nuance and sensitivity, Zack Snyder. I would have loved to see some input from a female writer to make Diana a more rounded character – a bit less wonder and a bit more woman.

Nonetheless this is film which will do for young women what Richard Donner’s Superman did for young men in 1978. And even if my heart still sinks at the prospect of Justice League, I look forward to the next Wonder Woman movie.