Monthly Roundup – July 2018

31 Tuesday Jul 2018

Tags

Abby Kohn, Action, Amanda Seyfried, Amy Schumer, Ari Aster, Backlash (1956), Christopher McQuarrie, Comedy, Donna Reed, Drama, Dwayne Johnson, Edward Lexy, Fred Ellis, Gabriel Byrne, Henry Cavill, Hereditary, Horror, I Feel Pretty, John Sturges, Lily James, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, Marc Silverstein, Mary Clare, Michelle Williams, Mission: Impossible - Fallout, Mrs. Pym of Scotland Yard, Murder, Musical, Mystery, Neve Campbell, Ol Parker, Rawson Marshall Thurber, Richard Widmark, Romance, Skyscraper, Thriller, Tom Cruise, Toni Collette, Western

Hereditary (2018) / D: Ari Aster / 127m

Cast: Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd

Rating: 7/10 – following the death of her mother, miniaturist artist Annie (Collette) and her family begin to experience strange phenomena that hint at supernatural forces at work around them, and which appear to be malevolent in their intentions; this year’s critics’ favourite in the horror genre, Hereditary does boast a superb performance from Collette, and creates a fervid atmosphere in its first half that is genuinely unnerving, but this is a movie where the sum of its parts isn’t equal to a satisfying whole, and what should have been a tense, psychological thriller becomes a grandstanding Rosemary’s Baby for the new millennium, an outcome that robs it of much of its impact.

Mrs. Pym of Scotland Yard (1940) / D: Fred Ellis / 64m

Cast: Mary Clare, Edward Lexy, Nigel Patrick, Janet Johnson, Anthony Ireland, Irene Handl, Vernon Kelso

Rating: 7/10 – the predicted deaths of two members of a Psychic Society leads Scotland Yard to assign their lone female detective, Mrs. Pym (Clare), to the case in an effort to track down the victims’ killer; a boisterous little crime caper with a delightful performance by Clare (in her only starring role), Mrs. Pym of Scotland Yard retains a freshness nearly eighty years on that some movies can’t manage after eighty days, a feat that can be attributed to Ellis’s sprightly direction, a handful of engaging secondary performances, and a script – based on stories by Nigel Morland and adapted by Ellis and Peggy Barwell – that knows when to be amusing and when to be dramatic, and when to be delightfully daft (which, thankfully, is often).

Backlash (1956) / D: John Sturges / 84m

Cast: Richard Widmark, Donna Reed, William Campbell, John McIntire, Barton MacLane, Harry Morgan, Robert J. Wilke

Rating: 7/10 – while searching for his father’s killer, Jim Slater (Widmark) crosses paths with a woman (Reed) who may be connected to his father’s death, and who may be able to provide him with information that will lead him to the man responsible, an outcome that, when it happens, isn’t as straightforward as he’s been led to believe; a tough, muscular Western with psychological and film noir elements, Backlash is also a taut, uncompromising revenge tale that doesn’t pull its punches and which takes a sudden narrative turn halfway through that puts a whole different spin on Slater’s journey, something that Widmark handles with his usual aplomb, and Sturges – who would go on to helm Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) and The Magnificent Seven (1960) – handles the twists and turns with confidence and no small amount of directorial flair.

Skyscraper (2018) / D: Rawson Marshall Thurber / 102m

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Neve Campbell, Chin Han, Roland Møller, Noah Taylor, Byron Mann, Pablo Schreiber, McKenna Roberts, Noah Cottrell, Hannah Quinlivan

Rating: 4/10 – the world’s tallest building, The Pearl, is ready to open but needs a final sign-off from security analyst Will Sawyer (Johnson), but when terrorists set the building on fire, Sawyer has a greater problem: that of rescuing his family who are trapped above the fire line; there was a time when a movie like Skyscraper would have been a must-see at the cinema, but this Die Hard meets The Towering Inferno mash-up (scripted by Thurber) is a soulless, empty spectacle that can’t even put Sawyer’s family in any appreciable peril, wastes its talented cast by having them play one-dimensional stereotypes, and which uses Sawyer’s disability as a narrative parlour trick whenever the plot needs it.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018) / D: Ol Parker / 114m

Cast: Lily James, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgård, Colin Firth, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, Dominic Cooper, Andy Garcia, Jeremy Irvine, Josh Dylan, Hugh Skinner, Jessica Keenan Wynn, Alexa Davies, Celia Imrie, Cher, Meryl Streep

Rating: 7/10 – with the reopening of her late mother’s hotel just days away, Sophie Sheridan (Seyfried) is worried that everything won’t go according to plan, while the story of how a young Donna Sheridan (James) came to own the hotel in the first place, plays out simultaneously; if you liked the first movie then you’ll definitely like Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, another love letter to the music of ABBA, and a movie that has no simpler ambition than to charm its audience at every turn and provide fans with as good a time as before, something it achieves thanks to generous dollops of good-natured humour, a talented cast giving their all, and an if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it approach that works wonders on what is very familiar material indeed.

Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) / D: Christopher McQuarrie / 147m

Cast: Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris, Vanessa Kirby, Angela Bassett, Alec Baldwin, Michelle Monaghan, Wes Bentley

Rating: 9/10 – a mission in Berlin to retrieve three plutonium cores leads Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his IMF team into a high stakes race-against-time chase across the continents as they try to avert a terrorist attack orchestrated by the followers of arch-nemesis Solomon Lane (Harris); number six in the franchise, and Mission: Impossible – Fallout is the best entry yet, with hugely impressive action scenes, the strongest plot so far, and a surprisingly emotional core drawn from the interactions of the characters that puts this head and shoulders above every other action movie you’ll see this year – and who would have bet on that?

I Feel Pretty (2018) / D: Abby Kohn, Marc Silverstein / 111m

Cast: Amy Schumer, Michelle Williams, Tom Hopper, Rory Scovel, Adrian Martinez, Emily Ratajkowski, Aidy Bryant, Busy Philipps, Lauren Hutton, Naomi Campbell

Rating: 5/10 – when an insecure woman, Renee Bennett (Schumer), who works at an international cosmetics company suffers a blow to the head, she wakes seeing herself as beautiful and capable of achieving anything – but in reality she looks exactly the same; what should be an immensely likeable shout out to the power of self-belief, I Feel Pretty is hampered by the bludgeoning approach of the script (by directors Kohn and Silverstein), and the incredible ease with which Renee powers her way up the corporate ladder, aspects that are at least more palatable than the way in which the men are treated as accessories, something that, if the roles were reversed, would likely cause an outcry.

Gringo (2018)

10 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Amanda Seyfried, Black comedy, Charlize Theron, Crime, David Oyelowo, Drama, Drugs, Joel Edgerton, Mexico, Nash Edgerton, Review, Sharlto Copley

D: Nash Edgerton / 110m

Cast: David Oyelowo, Charlize Theron, Joel Edgerton, Amanda Seyfried, Sharlto Copley, Harry Treadaway, Thandie Newton, Yul Vazquez, Carlos Corona, Diego Cataño, Rodrigo Corea, Hernán Mendoza, Alan Ruck, Kenneth Choi

Ah, the underdog. The plucky, conscientious, yet continually overlooked underdog. One of Life’s also-rans, he or she rarely gets ahead because everyone around them is too busy feathering their own nests to do anything other than take them for granted – except when it comes time to make them the fall guy in some nefarious scheme or other. How many times have we seen this scenario in a movie? (Don’t answer, that’s an entirely rhetorical question.) And how many times have we seen the underdog, after many trials and tribulations, find a way to come out on top? (Again, don’t answer.) But it doesn’t seem to matter how often this kind of scenario plays out in a movie, someone will always come along and attempt to provide another variation on such a time-worn theme. Which leads us to Gringo, the second feature from Nash Edgerton, and another example of the underdog story. Here, the underdog is Harold Soyinka (Oyelowo), a Nigerian-born executive at a US pharmaceutical company, Cannabax Technologies Inc, who finds himself in trouble with a Mexican drugs cartel.

It’s all the fault of his duplicitous bosses, Richard Rusk (Edgerton), and Elaine Markinson (Theron). The marijuana-based drug they’ve been developing for the mass market is ready to go, but in their haste to rake in as much profit as they can, Richard and Elaine have decided to sever ties with the drugs cartel they have been colluding with up until now. Harold doesn’t know any of this at first, but he soon gets wise, and he learns that Richard and Elaine are planning to sell the company, meaning he’ll lose his job. So on a trip to Cannabax’s Mexican factory, Harold decides to fake his own kidnapping. He hopes to force Richard and Elaine into paying the “ransom demand” and pocketing the money for himself. Inevitably, things don’t go the way Harold has planned them, and soon he’s being chased by the cartel, getting involved with the girlfriend (Seyfried) of a drug mule (Treadaway) (they’re all staying in the same hotel where he’s hiding out), and finding an unlikely saviour in an ex-mercenary (Copley) who isn’t all that he seems.

Gringo is the kind of black comedy thriller that always seems to attract a great cast, but which then spends a lot of time and effort in giving them hardly anything to do, or to work with. It’s a busy movie, but messy and dramatically uneven, and unsure of what tone to adopt in any given scene. As it plays out, the movie seems committed to providing as many stock characters in as many stock situations as it can, and to adding a thick layer of humour to proceedings in the hope that if the drama doesn’t work, then the audience will be distracted by the sight of Harold’s high-pitched yelping when given an injection (admittedly funny thanks to Oyelowo), or the cartel boss’s obsession with The Beatles (less so). When things turn violent, the movie becomes another beast altogether, and it tries for tragedy as well, something it can’t pull off because by then it’s way too late. The performances suffer as a result, with Oyelowo and Copley coming off best, but Theron is saddled with a thankless “corporate bitch” role that even she can’t enliven. There’s a half decent movie in there somewhere, but thanks to the vagaries of the script (by Anthony Tambakis and Matthew Stone) and Edgerton’s inability to maintain a consistent tone throughout, it’s never going to see the light of day.

Rating: 5/10 – intermittently funny, but otherwise too predictable and/or derivative of other, similar movies, Gringo wants to be entertaining but lacks the wherewithal to know how; a movie that coasts along at times in its search for the next incident to move it forward, it’s amiable enough, but not very ambitious in its ideas, something that leaves it feeling rough and ready and under-developed.

The Clapper (2017)

02 Friday Feb 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Amanda Seyfried, Comedy, Dito Montiel, Drama, Ed Helms, Infomercials, Literary adaptation, Review, Romance, Tracy Morgan

D: Dito Montiel / 90m

Cast: Ed Helms, Amanda Seyfried, Tracy Morgan, Adam Levine, Russell Peters, P.J. Byrne, Brenda Vaccaro, Leah Remini

Eddie Krumble (Helms) is a professional clapper, a paid audience member of informercials who sometimes gets paid extra for asking a question, or standing out from the crowd in some other way. It’s not the best paid job in the world, but Eddie is kept busy, and along with his best (and only) friend, Chris (Morgan), he makes a good enough living to suit his needs. He’s also struck up an unlikely friendship with a young woman, Judy (Seyfried), who works at a gas station. But just as they begin dating, a late night TV show shines a spotlight on Eddie’s clapper activities, and asks the question, Who is the Clapper? This unwanted attention causes problems for Eddie as he doesn’t want the exposure, and it leads to Judy being fired from her job at the gas station. Not knowing how to contact her, and with the TV show still trying to track him down, Eddie hits on an idea that he thinks will keep everyone happy: he’ll appear on the show and ask people to help him find Judy. But Eddie’s efforts backfire, and soon it looks as if he and Judy are destined never to be reunited.

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In adapting his own novel, writer/director Dito Montiel has crafted an uneven yet enjoyable movie that tries to take a number of heavy-handed potshots at lowest common denominator television, while also featuring a sweetly nuanced romance, and a deft exploration of the lasting effects of overwhelming grief. In targeting the exploitative nature of some US TV shows, Montiel’s approach feels a little old and past its time, and it lacks the satirical bite that’s needed for his barbs to hit home with the required effect. The burgeoning romance between Eddie and Judy is handled with a lightness of touch that is magnified by the just-this-side of overbearingly cute performances by Helms and Seyfried. In their capable hands, what could have been sickly and off-putting is instead winning and delightful, a meeting of unsure hearts and minds with each needing to protect themselves as much as possible while also trying to find the courage to make a commitment. Their romance is touching and sincere, and the awkwardness each feels is tenderly expressed on both sides, with Eddie’s nervous ramblings a perfect foil for Judy’s equally nervous uncertainty.

But where the movie really works is in its depiction of the emotional troubles affecting Eddie, and his consternation at being singled out. Helms is terrific as Eddie, a man just trying to get along without being noticed, and trying to put a devastating trauma behind him. There’s a frailty and an anger and a desperation in Eddie, and they all threaten to leak out and overwhelm him, and Helms is at his best when showing us how his character is trying to keep all these feelings in check. There are moments when it seems as though Montiel has let Helms run with a scene, and if this is true, then it was a wise decision; this is one of Helms’s finest performances. However, it’s a performance that can’t make up for some of the other decisions Montiel has made, such as the late inclusion of Vaccaro as Eddie’s mother (there just to push Eddie into a necessary narrative corner), and the length of time that Eddie remains anonymous (when she wants to, Judy finds his agent/manager with ease; yet the TV show struggles for weeks to do the same thing). The tone of the piece changes too often as well, with the disparate storylines not always fitting well together. Nevertheless, this is diverting enough to warrant maybe a repeat watch, just for the pleasure of seeing Helms at his best.

Rating: 7/10 – that man Helms rescues The Clapper from a lower score purely by the strength and subtlety of his performance, and Montiel’s inspired decision to cast him; Morgan too is on good form, and so is Seyfried (even if she’s given less and less to do as the movie progresses), but narrative inconsistencies, and a sense that Montiel hasn’t fully locked in the script, undermine the good work on show elsewhere, leaving the movie feeling likeable yet also incomplete.

Pan (2015) or: One More Unnecessary Origin Movie

16 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Amanda Seyfried, Blackbeard, Captain Hook, Drama, Fairies, Fantasy, Garrett Hedlund, Hugh Jackman, J.M. Barrie, Joe Wright, Lambert Home for Boys, Levi Miller, Neverland, Peter Pan, Pirates, Review, Rooney Mara, Tiger Lily, World War II

D: Joe Wright / 111m

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Levi Miller, Garrett Hedlund, Rooney Mara, Amanda Seyfried, Adeel Akhtar, Nonso Anozie, Kathy Burke, Lewis MacDougall, Cara Delevingne

Let’s cut to the chase: Pan, by itself, is a disappointment, an uneven children’s fantasy movie that is disjointed, awkwardly humorous, suffers from production overkill, and makes very little sense throughout. But unfortunately, Pan isn’t just a movie by itself, it’s an origin story for a beloved children’s tale that didn’t need it in the first place.

In recent years, Hollywood has given us origin story after origin story in an attempt to expand franchises and add “depth” to existing stories. Last year we had Maleficent, a movie that tried to rewrite the Sleeping Beauty story to make its Wicked Queen a more sympathetic character, as if somebody somewhere had decided that a Wicked Queen couldn’t just be a Wicked Queen; no, there had to be a good reason why she was a Wicked Queen. And now we get to see how a foundling called Peter became the high-flying leader of the Lost Boys, Peter Pan. But did we need to? Perhaps there’s a clue in the fact that J.M. Barrie, who created Peter Pan, never felt the need to go back and provide an origin story for him. And if he didn’t feel the need to, do we really need to know either?

But Hollywood knows better (or so they like to think), and now we have an origin story anyway, but one that’s been given so little thought it’s frightening given all the talent involved in making it. You only have to watch the first five minutes of Pan to know that the makers have got it completely, spectacularly wrong. The scene is London, between the two World Wars. An unidentified young woman, clearly scared and frightened that she’s being followed, carries an infant with her until she reaches the doorstep of the Lambert Home for Boys. There she leaves him but not before she’s told him that they’ll meet again, in this world or another. Already there’s a problem: why does the woman abandon her son so recklessly (it’s not the most pleasant-looking of orphanages) and if he’s in as much danger as she seems to think, why take the risk of leaving him in such an awful place?

We fast forward twelve years and find the infant has grown up to be Peter (Miller), and he’s still at the orphanage (surprise, surprise), and he’s a bright, confident child who has no problem challenging authority, in this case Kathy Burke’s snarling, growling, thoroughly unpleasant Sister Barnabas. At this point the movie introduces a superfluous subplot involving Sister Barnabas hoarding goods before Peter and some of the orphans are kidnapped by pirates who descend through the skylights on bungee cords (the dormitory is located conveniently in the roofspace). Now correct me if I’m wrong, but this now makes the woman’s decision to leave Peter there a tad careless, as she’s placed him in the very place that her adversary – who we learn is the pirate Blackbeard (Jackman) – is stealing children from. (What it is to be undone by unforeseen coincidence…)

Once in Neverland, the movie takes a left turn by introducing Blackbeard and his merry band of pirates, and what looks like thousands of Lost Boys, as they indulge in a bit of a sing-song. The song in question turns out to be Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, an anachronistic choice that serves only to remind viewers just how well this sort of thing was done in A Knight’s Tale (2001) (and begs the question, does Blackbeard time travel as well for his Lost Boys?). From then on, and despite the introduction of James Hook (Hedlund) (also trapped by Blackbeard), and Tiger Lily (Mara), the princess of the natives, and a plot involving Blackbeard’s determined efforts to wipe out all the fairies (don’t ask why – the movie doesn’t), Pan becomes the Hugh Jackman larger-than-life performance movie as he struts and rampages and roars his way through things with all the gusto of a pantomime villain. It’s not a bad performance per se, it’s just in the wrong movie.

As you’d expect, Neverland is beautifully, stunningly realised, and is a triumph of art direction, set construction, costume design, and special effects, but ultimately it all makes for a hollow confection, an empty shell that the narrative flits and jumps around without any clear idea of where it’s going or why. With the fairies hidden from Blackbeard’s grasp, and of course with Peter as his unwitting accomplice in getting to them, it comes as no surprise that the script shows the fairies completely able to defend themselves from Blackbeard and his men, thus ending any idea that the pirate’s intentions were in any way a threat. It’s not the first time in the movie that the viewer is likely to be wondering why something is happening, or if it’s likely to be explained (usually not).

Pan is a movie that should be included in the ever-growing number of movies that come under the heading, Just Because You Can, Doesn’t Mean You Should. Joe Wright’s direction is focused largely on the cast, and while he’s obviously let Jackman do his own thing, he does allow Mara to give a decent performance, and Miller is suitably stout-hearted as Peter, even if he does take everything in his stride a little too easily. And Hedlund acts more by smiling roguishly than actually emoting, but it’s still a likeable portrayal. The only trouble is, Hook is a character who lacks for development, and remains the same from beginning to end.

Pan‘s terrible performance at the box office – so far it’s only grossed $125m against a budget of $150m – will hopefully discourage other studios/production companies from messing with other established, classic stories. These stories are so well-regarded for a reason: they work independently of any others and in many cases are archetypal and don’t need further embellishment or expansion. Such is the case with Barrie’s tale of the boy who never grew up, and Pan serves only to reinforce what a foolhardy idea it is to try.

Rating: 4/10 – lacking a true sense of childlike wonder, or focus in the story it’s telling, Pan is the movie equivalent of pudding: rich, stolid, and if you’ve had too much, weighing too heavily for comfort; another unsatisfactory, unnecessary origin story that shows just how difficult it is to get these things right, and especially when there’s no real need to.

Monthly Roundup – July 2015

31 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

1968, Adoption, Amanda Seyfried, Animation, Ari Sandel, Behind Office Doors, Bianca Rusu, Comedy, Daphne, Deportation, Designated Ugly Fat Friend, Drama, Fashion, Fred, Horror, KISS, KISS World, Kyle Balda, London, Mae Whitman, Mark Wahlberg, Mary Astor, Minions, Morocco, Paris á tout prix, Pierre Coffin, Reem Kherici, Reviews, Robbie Amell, Robert Ames, Rodrigo Gudiño, Romantic drama, Sandra Bullock, Scarlet Witch, Scarlett Overkill, Scooby-Doo! and KISS: Rock and Roll Mystery, Seth MacFarlane, Shaggy, Ted 2, The Demonology of Desire, The DUFF, The Mystery Gang, Thunderbuddies, Velma

Behind Office Doors (1931) / D: Melville W. Brown / 82m

Cast: Mary Astor, Robert Ames, Ricardo Cortez, Catherine Dale Owen, Kitty Kelly, Edna Murphy, Charles Sellon, William Morris

Rating: 6/10 – at a paper supply company, personal assistant Mary Linden (Astor) is in love with rising young salesman Jim Duneen (Ames), but has to watch from the sidelines as he plans to marry a socialite (Owen), completely unaware of how she feels about him; a broadly entertaining drama that was probably as predictable to watch in 1931 as it is today, Behind Office Doors benefits from a good performance from the always watchable Astor, and a breezy approach to social affairs that – pre-Hays code – allows Astor to kiss Cortez without being introduced first.

Minions (2015) / D: Pierre Coffin, Kyle Balda / 91m

Cast: Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Allison Janney, Steve Coogan, Jennifer Saunders, Geoffrey Rush, Steve Carell, Pierre Coffin

Rating: 8/10 – the origin of the Minions takes us all the way back to the first stirrings of life on earth and then catapults the viewer to 1968 and the efforts of three intrepid Minions – Kevin, Stuart and Bob – to find a new evil master; as absurdist and mayhem-filled as the Despicable Me movies, Minions promotes the little yellow sidekicks to centre stage, and has all sorts of fun riffing on the Sixties, even though some of the voice talents are far from recognisable (Hamm, Keaton, Janney).

Paris á tout prix (2013) / D: Reem Kherici / 93m

aka Paris or Perish

Cast: Reem Kherici, Cécile Cassel, Tarek Boudali, Philippe Lacheau, Shirley Bousquet, Salim Kechiouche, Stéphane Rousseau

Rating: 7/10 – Moroccan-born fashion designer Maya (Kherici) finds herself in the running for a promotion but is deported back to Morocco when it’s discovered her visa has expired, leaving her with no choice but to pretend she’s off sick until she can find a way back to Paris and win her promotion; Kherici’s likeable, frothy comedy has its poignant moments too, and takes an affectionate stab at the fashion industry, but in the end, Paris á tout prix suffers by being too predictable and slow to get off the ground while using very broad brush strokes on the secondary characters.

Ted 2 (2015) / D: Seth MacFarlane / 115m

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Seth MacFarlane, Amanda Seyfried, Jessica Barth, Giovanni Ribisi, Morgan Freeman, Sam J. Jones, Patrick Warburton, Michael Dorn, John Slattery, John Carroll Lynch

Rating: 6/10 – when Ted (MacFarlane) marries his sweetheart Tami-Lynn (Barth) and they want to have children, their adoption application leads to Ted being declared to be property rather than a person, and his only chance of reversing the decision is to employ the services of eminent lawyer Patrick Meighan (Freeman); a sequel was always in the works and to his credit MacFarlane hasn’t strayed too far from the first movie’s formula, but it also makes Ted 2 seem more like a rehash than a genuine sequel, and while some of it is as outrageous as expected, there’s a little too much unnecessary plotting getting in the way of the jokes.

Scooby-Doo! and KISS: Rock and Roll Mystery (2015) / D: Spike Brandt, Tony Cervone / 79m

Cast: Frank Welker, Mindy Cohn, Grey Griffin, Matthew Lillard, Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Eric Singer, Tommy Thayer, Jennifer Carpenter, Garry Marshall, Penny Marshall, Doc McGhee, Jason Mewes, Pauley Perrette, Rachel Ramras, Darius Rucker, Kevin Smith

Rating: 5/10 – at the KISS World amusement park, the appearance of the Scarlet Witch and her search for a legendary rock leads to the Mystery Gang and KISS teaming up to unmask the Witch and save the park from closing; not the best of Scooby-Doo’s recent outings, Scooby-Doo! and KISS: Rock and Roll Mystery is overlong – an extended fantasy sequence soon becomes tedious – and doesn’t play to either group’s strengths, while the actual mystery is sadly, quite weak, all of which leaves the movie both disappointing and unrewarding (unless you’re a die hard KISS fan, in which case you’ll probably love it).

The Demonology of Desire (2007) / D: Rodrigo Gudiño / 22m

Cast: Bianca Rusu, Tudor Plopeanu, Jewelia Fisico

Rating: 6/10 – a teenage girl (Rusu) torments a younger boy (Plopeanu) who professes his love for her, and leads him into a nightmare of death and madness; regarded as art-core, The Demonology of Desire is less art and more waspish commentary on the futility of young love, but it does feature some strong visuals and a performance from Rusu that makes a virtue of some very poor line readings.

The DUFF (2015) / D: Ari Sandel / 101m

Cast: Mae Whitman, Robbie Amell, Bella Thorne, Bianca A. Santos, Skyler Samuels, Romany Malco, Nick Eversman, Chris Wylde, Ken Jeong, Allison Janney

Rating: 5/10 – ordinary-looking Bianca (Whitman) discovers she’s her two best (attractive) friends’ DUFF (Designated Ugly Fat Friend), but finds her way through the necessary social adjustments thanks to best friend Wesley (Amell); pleasant enough, though featuring too many stretches where the audience is likely to lose interest, The DUFF is yet another Cinderella makeover movie that adds little to its old-time scenario.

A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014)

04 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Amanda Seyfried, Charlize Theron, Comedy, Gunfights, Liam Neeson, Neil Patrick Harris, Old Stump, Outlaw, Review, Romance, Seth MacFarlane, Sheep farmer, The Old West, Western

D: Seth MacFarlane / 116m

Cast: Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Amanda Seyfried, Liam Neeson, Giovanni Ribisi, Neil Patrick Harris, Sarah Silverman, Christopher Hagen, Wes Studi, Matt Clark, John Aylward, Evan Jones

It’s 1882, and on the edge of the wild frontier is the town of Old Stump, a place that epitomises the daily fight for survival, where “everything that isn’t you, wants to kill you”. So believes Albert Stark (MacFarlane), a sheep farmer with low self esteem and a girlfriend, Louise (Seyfried) who dumps him after he chickens out of a gunfight. Hurt, angry and depressed, Albert hides away at his farm until his best friend, Edward (Ribisi) persuades him to come back into town and try and win back Louise. It soon becomes clear though that Louise has moved on, and she’s now seeing smarmy moustache salesman Foy (Harris). Meanwhile, vicious outlaw Clinch Leatherwood (Neeson), riding nearby on his way to rob a stagecoach with his gang, decides to keep his wife, Anna (Theron) out of harm’s way and tells her to hide out in Old Stump until he can come back for her.

When a fight breaks out in Old Stump’s saloon, Albert saves Anna from being injured and a friendship develops between them. He tells her about Louise and Anna agrees to help Albert win her back. At the County Fair, Albert’s attempts to make Louise jealous by pretending Anna is his new girlfriend backfires when he ends up challenging Foy to a gunfight in a week’s time. Albert has never fired a gun before and proves to be the worst shot in the world, but with Anna teaching him he slowly improves. As the week progresses, Albert grows in confidence, and he and Anna begin to fall in love. When Clinch comes to Old Stump he learns that Anna has been seen kissing another man, and he makes it clear that unless the man in question meets him at high noon the next day, he’ll keep killing the townspeople until he does.

Anna is forced to reveal Albert’s identity to Clinch. She gets away from him and warns Albert who runs away. An encounter with Cochise (Studi) and some serious peyote reveals Albert’s true courage and he returns to town to face Clinch and go through with the gunfight.

As you’d expect from a movie starring, and written and directed by, Seth MacFarlane, A Million Ways to Die in the West does its best to raise big laughs, and there are plenty of laugh out loud moments that are either inspired or just plain funny (the movie’s best gag is also its most contentious, the Runaway Slave Shooting Gallery). But there are also too many occasions when the humour falls flat, though to be fair it’s the attempts at injecting modern, gross-out gags into the mix that generally don’t work (except for one priceless combination of sound effect and line of dialogue that sounds like an outtake from Family Guy). Albert’s claim that the West is a horrible place to live in is reinforced by some great sight gags, and Foy’s need for a hat at one point is a joy to watch. And then there’s Edward’s girlfriend Ruth (Silverman), a prostitute who believes they shouldn’t have sex until they’re married, but who sleeps with around ten men each day (when things are slow). All these aspects help to make A Million Ways to Die in the West one of the most entertaining comedies of recent years (though your appreciation for MacFarlane’s line in humour will go some way to determining that).

What does come as a surprise is MacFarlane’s handling of some of the other elements. The romance between Albert and Anna is well thought out and handled with care, making it quite affecting, and MacFarlane ups his game during these scenes, matching Theron for soulfulness and charm. Their romance is the heart of the movie and MacFarlane takes more care with these scenes than he does with most of the comedy, and proves himself a better director here than elsewhere. He’s matched by Theron – who’s clearly enjoying herself – and even though the movie slows down a bit to accommodate this particular subplot, there’s no harm done. There’s also some beautiful location photography, with the glories of Monument Valley on display throughout, and the score encapsulates nods to all the great Western musical themes without descending entirely into pastiche. MacFarlane obviously has a love of the genre, and even though he spends as much time spoofing it as he does celebrating it, that appreciation shines through and provides the soul of the movie.

He’s helped by a great cast. Theron, as noted above, has a whale of a time. She hasn’t made a comedy since Waking Up in Reno (2002) – though the uncharitable of you out there might opt for Æon Flux (2005) – but on this evidence casting directors need to be looking at her anew. She has a lightness of touch that makes her comic timing quite subtle. Seyfried, unfortunately, is given very little to do except hang on Harris’s arm, though the sight of Louise giving head to Foy’s moustache is definitely an image not to be forgotten. Harris is an appropriately hissable secondary villain, while Neeson plays it straight as the dastardly Clinch. As the “virginal” lovers, Edward and Ruth, Ribisi and Silverman are given plenty of opportunities to shine as all good sidekicks should be, and there’s a number of cameos that add to the overall feel good vibe that MacFarlane engenders from start to finish (one in particular, featuring a character from another movie series altogether, is an unexpected delight).

On the minus side, and despite all the positives, MacFarlane’s script is in need of some judicious pruning, and as a result the movie is uneven and the various elements don’t always gel. Scenes overrun, while others feel in need of further development, as if MacFarlane has thought of a great idea but isn’t sure where to take it; the end result is an addition to the movie that doesn’t feel right (the hallucination sequence toward the end is a good case in point). Again, there are too many jokes that don’t work, or seem forced, and while the cast all acquit themselves well, there are too many occasions when they’re foundering trying to make a joke work. Also, the last third plays much as if MacFarlane hadn’t quite worked out the ending, and there’s an air of settlement about the whole thing, as if it was the best conclusion he could think of. Considering the attention given to the build-up, it’s a major disappointment (and to make matters worse, MacFarlane adds an unnecessary explanation into the mix as well).

Rating: 7/10 – there’s more to like here than not, but a lot will depend on your tolerance for MacFarlane’s sense of humour; not quite the edgy, smut-filled laugh-fest you might be expecting, and with a bigger heart as well, and topped off by a great cast clearly entering into the spirit of things (and we need more Westerns anyway).