The Rum Diary tells the story of Paul Kemp (Depp), a writer who travels to Puerto Rico to accept a position at a failing newspaper. The editor (Richard Jenkins) hopes that Kemp’s presence will revive the paper, which is currently staffed by inept drunks including the Withnail-esque, Nazi-sympathising Moburg (Giovanni Ribisi). Kemp befriends photographer Sala (Michael Rispoli) and ends up getting entangled with shady hotel developer Sanderson (Eckhart) and his beautiful fiancé Chenault (Heard). Along the way, obviously, everyone drinks loads and loads of rum.

It sounds like the recipe for a lot of fun. And sometimes it really is. There are silly car chases and bizarre, funny lines and – in one of the film’s best scenes – a cool hallucination where Kemp imagines Sala’s tongue has suddenly grown and is flapping around in the air in front of him. The thing is, you’ve probably seen that moment in the trailer. In fact, you’ve probably seen all the best bits in the trailer.

How did Johnny Depp act before Pirates of the Caribbean? Did he act? Who can remember a time before he played Jack Sparrow? Who would want to?! Seriously, though, despite the success of his turn as cinema’s favourite pirate captain, it seems to have seriously damaged the part of his brain that controls the acting. With the exception of a few funny moments, throughout The Rum Diary Depp is either doing normal face – staring blankly into the middle distance – or gurning like a bad extra. It’s a bit like a half-hearted Jack Sparrow imitation, but without the pirate voice. There are also a few odd, uncomfortable moments when Kemp’s conscience comes to the fore and Depp finds himself spouting lines which, in the midst of a film such as this, feel almost cringeworthy: “I will try and speak for my reader. That is my promise. And it will be a voice made of ink and rage.” What?

Depp’s performance, though, is not the main issue with Robinson’s film. The major problem is that – aside from the odd hallucination/spot of firebreathing – the story is really very conventional. Depp’s character is a drunk, yes, but a good-hearted drunk who takes offence to the greedy Sanderson’s plans to develop an idyllic island into a sprawling hotel complex. Similarly, Kemp’s intentions towards Chenault are always firmly honourable.

There’s just really no depth to this story, which is probably why Robinson attempts to distract us by having people drinking 450 proof alcohol and driving around extremely recklessly (“Don’t drink and drive people,” the film warns us, “There will be dangerously hilarious consequences!”).

At the last moment, The Rum Diary does veer away from a neat, happy ending – that is, until a title comes up on the screen assuring us that everything is just peachy. The fact that this is then followed by a memorial to Thompson himself, who died in 2005, goes some way to explaining the strange, slightly confused tone of the film. Ultimately it’s a tender homage to a much loved writer which pulls back from the extremes in an attempt, perhaps, to portray the work in a dignified, worthy light. It’s just a shame that it doesn’t really succeed.

If you haven’t heard of The Gangster Squad, it’s a new crime movie set in 1940s/50s LA. Directed by Ruben Fleischer, it already has Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Anthony Mackie, Michael Pena and Bryan Cranston on its books (yes, believe it sister).

In this cop vs mafia set-up Ribisi is playing on the side of the law with his character Conway Keeler, member of the elite police team and specialist in electronics, wiring and general techy stuff that will have him talking in a fast voice as he explains something no-one understands.

Set for release in 2013 we are getting more excited about The Gangster Squad by the day – but with no ladies confirmed yet, we’re curious about who the lucky biatch will be.

Unfortunately for them, the Na’vi’s ancestral home – a whacking great big tree, no less – sits right on top of one of the richest seams of the mineral. Augustine, Sully and über-geek Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore) don their Avatars in an attempt to find a peaceful solution before trigger-happy nutjob Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) shifts the Na’vi using shock-and-awe tactics. But as Sully learns more about the Navi and the bizarre world that surrounds them – as well as a burgeoning romance with Na’vi princess Neytiri (a sublime Zoë Saldaña) – he finds his loyalty to the human race tested.

Escape From Uncanny Valley

If anything, the plot is one of the weakest aspects of Avatar, with its down-the-line simplicity and black and white morality. But bizarrely, this simplicity complements and supports the film’s fairytale quality, and allows the narrative to progress at a measured, intelligent pace – despite other reviewers lambasting its length, Avatar doesn’t feel overlong or laboured. Slower, character-driven scenes mesh perfectly with adrenaline-fuelled and unobtrusive action set-pieces – there’s literally something there for everyone, and it all works.

And then, of course, there are the effects.

Or what should properly be referred to as the lack of effects. We’re happy to report thatAvatar really is the start of a new era in filmmaking – and that’s not idle hyperbole. The computer-generated characters are so real, so believable, that you quickly forget they’re computer generated at all. The giant blue Na’vi – lambasted in the popular press as “Thundersmurfs” – are easily the most intricately rendered alien species ever committed to the silver screen, miles away from the Uncanny Valley that has plagued previous GCI characters. They’re truly living beings – expressive, emotional and beautiful, moving through their jungle home with a grace and precision unseen outside – well, outside true animals living in their jungle homes. A massive amount of praise has to go to Zoë Saldaña here, whose performance is animalistic, heartbreaking and utterly spellbinding. Pandora itself is so exquisitely detailed and well-designed you become lost in an alien world so immersive it transcends sci-fi clichés and becomes something so much more – it’s like a David Attenborough documentary about a totally different planet.

Putting it simply, Avatar has everything – jaw-dropping effects, solid performances, slam-bang, eye-popping action and an entertaining, eco-aware story. Even the spiritualism latent in the plot feels refreshing in comparison to other guns-and-explosions blockbusters. It’s as simple as this: go and see it, in 3D if you can. Without question it’s the film of the decade.

What do you reckon? Agree with our enthusiasm, or have you spotted something in Avatar we didn’t? Leave us your comments below!

And then suddenly, every once in while, something will come along that might you think, or even just ponder for a second, perhaps, that all the hype might be justified. Hello new Avatar trailer.

Only this isn’t your usual fuzzy Youtube link. Far from it – this is some crazy Next Generation wizardry going on right here, right now. It’s a small app downloaded onto your desktop that not only contains the latest trailer but a whole mixed-media salad of interactivity, linking trailers, design shorts and cast profiles in one delicious minty package. You can even have it quietly humming away in the background, continually updating Twitter and Flickr feeds.

OK, so the whole thing is little more than a slightly fancy toy pulling various strands of advertising together, but wheeeeeeeeeeeeee! It’s fun to play with and to look at and to generally spend time messing about on. And it does actually make us look forward to Avatar that little bit more. The way our logic goes, if this tie-in app is cool then the movie’s gonna be cool.

That’s how it works, right?

Right?

You can find the Interactive Trailer here.

Yet try as they might – and ignoring the fact that this is little more than another trailer feeding an already bloated hype machine – we can’t shake the feeling that much of the footage so far still suffers from the immortal CGI curse – you don’t quite buy it. Maybe it’s the fact that many of the film’s visuals we’ve seen are fairly similar in design to Halo and its sequels, but the whole thing still looks a helluva lot like an XBox game. Naturally, we’re deferring judgement until its release, but from what we’ve seen so far, Avatar is going to need more than fancy visuals to win us over.

Still, the featurette isn’t the only Avatar footage to find itself on the web this week – along with a poster, four minutes of the French version of the film were leaked on Wednesday… but dash it all, we weren’t quick enough. 20th Century Fox put the kybosh on many of the sites that were hosting it, so we’ll just have to sit and wait for the proper theatrical release. Y’know, like we’re supposed to.

As usual, the level of attention that has been paid to both the legend of 1930′s bank robber John Dillinger, and Bryan Burrough’s book on the Depression-era crimewave in the US on which the screenplay is largely based, is impressive. Using most of the real locations where Dillinger’s exploits took place, and recreating costume and character minutae perfectly, Mann ensures we are thoroughly immersed in Dillinger’s world. Where he fails is by not letting us into his headspace – the lack of back story hurtles us right into the bank robber’s criminal present without actually stopping to examine his motivations for being the man he was.

Depp’s performance, as usual, is hard to fault. He plays Dillinger all coldness, ruthlessness and restraint, and like Mann, has paid sharp attention to detail. He physically inhabits the character from mannerisms to accent, and is far from the typical gangster cliché. Bale, as the FBI agent on his trail, is Depp’s equal in precision and cold realism. While both of these might be expert portrayals, they don’t exactly loan the film a lot of heart, which it is already missing from Mann’s matter-of-fact directing style.

Public Enemies is expertly put together, perfectly acted, and has a great supporting cast too, in the form of the endearing Marillon Cotillard as Dillinger’s love interest, a credibly creepy Billy Crudup as J. Edgar Hoover and the always enjoyable Giovanni Ribisi as a fellow gangster. But in spite of this, at the end of the almost two and a half hour viewing time, we’re still at a loss to understand what really made the man tick.

Special Features

Commentary with director Michael Mann