Monthly Roundup – April 2018

12 Saturday May 2018

Tags

Action, Adventure, Alain Guiraudie, Alberto Cavalcanti, Amen Island, Animation, Anthony Russo, Assassin, Avengers: Infinity War, B-movie, Babak Nafari, Bank robbery, Barbara Britton, Billy Brown, Blaxploitation, Blue Sky, Brad Peyton, Bullfighting, Burglars, Carlos Saldanha, Children of the Corn: Runaway, Children's Film Foundation, Chris Evans, Christina De Vallee, Comedy, Crime, Danny Glover, David Paisley, Drama, Eugeniusz Chylek, Ferdinand, France, Genetic experiment, Hafsia Herzi, Horror, Jake Ryan Scott, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Joe Russo, John Cena, John Gulager, Johnny on the Run, Kate McKinnon, Le roi de l'évasion, Lewis Gilbert, Literary adaptation, Ludovic Berthillot, Maggie Grace, Marci Miller, Mark Harriott, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mike Matthews, Naomie Harris, Pine-Thomas, Proud Mary, Rampage, Reviews, Rival gangs, Rob Cohen, Robert Downey Jr, Robert Lowery, Romance, Ryan Kwanten, Sequel, Sydney Tafler, Taraji P. Henson, Thanos, The Hurricane Heist, The Monster of Highgate Ponds, They Made Me a Killer, Thriller, Toby Kebbell, Unhappy Birthday, Video game, William C. Thomas

They Made Me a Killer (1946) / D: William C. Thomas / 64m

Cast: Robert Lowery, Barbara Britton, Lola Lane, Frank Albertson, Elisabeth Risdon, Byron Barr, Edmund MacDonald, Ralph Sanford, James Bush

Rating: 5/10 – a man (Lowery) drives across country after the death of his brother and gives a lift to a woman (Lane) who tricks him into being the getaway driver in a bank robbery, a situation that sees him on the run from the police but determined to prove his innocence; a gritty, hard-boiled film noir, They Made Me a Killer adds enough incident to its basic plot to keep viewers entertained from start to finish without really adding anything new or overly impressive to the mix, but it does have a brash performance from Lowery, and Thomas’s direction ensures it’s another solid effort from Paramount’s B-movie unit, Pine-Thomas.

Proud Mary (2018) / D: Babak Najafi / 89m

Cast: Taraji P. Henson, Billy Brown, Jahi Di’Allo Winston, Danny Glover, Neal McDonough, Margaret Avery, Xander Berkeley, Rade Serbedzija, Erik LaRay Harvey

Rating: 3/10 – a female assassin (Henson) finds herself protecting the teenage boy (Winston) whose father she killed years before, and at a time when her actions cause a murderous dispute between the gang she works for and their main rival; as the titular Proud Mary, Henson makes for a less than convincing assassin in this modern day blaxploitation thriller that lets itself down constantly thanks to a turgid script and lacklustre direction, and which has far too many moments where suspension of disbelief isn’t just required but an absolute necessity.

Children of the Corn: Runaway (2018) / D: John Gulager / 82m

Cast: Marci Miller, Jake Ryan Scott, Mary Kathryn Bryant, Lynn Andrews III, Sara Moore, Diane Ayala Goldner, Clu Gulager

Rating: 3/10 – arriving in a small Oklahoman town with her teenage son, Ruth (Miller) attempts to put down roots after over ten years of running from the child cult that nearly cost her her life, but she soon finds that safety still isn’t something she can count on; number ten in the overall series, Children of the Corn: Runaway is yet another entry that keeps well away from any attempts at providing anything new, and succeeds only in being as dull to watch as you’d expect, leaving unlucky viewers to ponder on why these movies still keep getting made when it’s clear the basic premise has been done to death – again and again and again…

Johnny on the Run (1953) / D: Lewis Gilbert / 68m

Cast: Eugeniusz Chylek, Sydney Tafler, Michael Balfour, Edna Wynn, David Coote, Cleo Sylvestre, Jean Anderson, Moultrie Kelsall, Mona Washbourne

Rating: 7/10 – after running away from his foster home in Edinburgh, a young Polish boy, Janek (Chylek), unwittingly falls in with two burglars (Tafler, Balfour), and then finds himself in a Highland village where the possibility of a new and better life is within his grasp; an enjoyable mix of drama and comedy from the UK’s Children’s Film Foundation, Johnny on the Run benefits from sterling performances, Gilbert’s astute direction, excellent location work, and a good understanding of what will interest both children and adults alike, making this one of the Foundation’s better entries, and still as entertaining now as when it was first released.

Ferdinand (2017) / D: Carlos Saldanha / 108m

Cast: John Cena, Kate McKinnon, Anthony Anderson, Bobby Cannavale, Peyton Manning, David Tennant, Jeremy Sisto, Lily Day, Gina Rodriguez, Daveed Diggs, Gabriel Iglesias

Rating: 8/10 – a young bull called Ferdinand (Cena) whose disposition includes a fondness for flowers and protecting other animals, finds himself temporarily living with a supportive family, until events bring him back to the world of bullfighting that he thought he’d left behind; the classic children’s tale gets the Blue Sky treatment, and in the process, retains much of the story’s whimsical yet pertinent takes on pacifism, anti-bullying, and gender diversity, while providing audiences with a rollicking and very humorous adventure that makes Ferdinand a very enjoyable experience indeed.

The Hurricane Heist (2018) / D: Rob Cohen / 98m

Cast: Toby Kebbell, Maggie Grace, Ryan Kwanten, Ralph Ineson, Melissa Bolona, Ben Cross, Jamie Andrew Cutler, Christian Contreras

Rating: 4/10 – thieves target a US Treasury facility during a Category 5 hurricane, but don’t reckon on their plans going awry thanks to a Treasury agent (Grace), a meteorologist (Kebbell), and his ex-Marine brother (Kwanten); as daft as you’d expect, The Hurricane Heist continues the downward career spiral of Cohen, and betrays its relatively small budget every time it sets up a major action sequence, leaving its talented cast to thrash against the wind machines in search of credibility and sincerity, a notion that the script abandons very early on as it maximises all its efforts to appear as ridiculous as possible (which is the only area in which it succeeds).

The Monster of Highgate Ponds (1961) / D: Alberto Cavalcanti / 59m

Cast: Sophie Clay, Michael Wade, Terry Raven, Ronald Howard, Frederick Piper, Michael Balfour, Roy Vincente, Beryl Cooke

Rating: 6/10 – when his uncle (Howard) returns home from a trip to Malaya, David (Wade) gets to keep a large egg that’s been brought back, but little does he realise that a creature will hatch from the egg – a creature David, his sister Sophie (Clay), and their friend, Chris (Raven) need to protect from the authorities until his uncle returns home from his latest trip; though the special effects that bring the “monster” to life are less than impressive, there’s a pleasing low budget, wish fulfillment vibe to The Monster of Highgate Ponds that allows for the absurdity of it all to be taken in stride, and thanks to Cavalcanti’s relaxed direction, that absurdity makes the movie all the more enjoyable.

Rampage (2018) / D: Brad Peyton / 107m

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Akerman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jake Lacy

Rating: 5/10 – a gorilla, a wolf, and an alligator are all exposed to an illegal genetic engineering experiment and become massively bigger and more aggressive thanks to the corporation behind the experiment, leaving the gorilla’s handler (Johnson) to try and help put things right; based on a video game, and as brightly ridiculous as any movie version of a video game could be, Rampage uses its (very) simple plotting to bludgeon the audience into submission with a variety of exemplary digital effects, while also trying to dredge up a suitable amount of emotion along the way, but in the end – and surprisingly – it’s Johnson’s knowing performance and Morgan’s affected government spook that trade this up from simple disaster to almost disaster.

Unhappy Birthday (2011) / D: Mark Harriott, Mike Matthews / 91m

aka Amen Island

Cast: David Paisley, Christina De Vallee, Jill Riddiford, Jonathan Deane

Rating: 4/10 – Rick (Paisley) and his girlfriend, Sadie (De Vallee), along with their friend Jonny (Keane), travel to the tidal island of Amen to reunite Sadie with her long lost sister, only to find that the islanders have a secret that threatens the lives of all three of them; a low budget British thriller with distinct echoes of The Wicker Man (1973) – though it’s not nearly as effective – Unhappy Birthday highlights the isolated nature of the island and the strangeness of its inhabitants, but reduces its characters to squabbling malcontents pretty much from the word go, which makes spending time with them far from appealing, and stops the viewer from having any sympathy for them once things start to go wrong.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) / D: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo / 149m

Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt, Josh Brolin, Scarlett Johansson, Don Cheadle, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan, Tom Hiddleston, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Idris Elba, Danai Gurira, Peter Dinklage, Benedict Wong, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Benicio Del Toro, William Hurt, Letitia Wright

Rating: 8/10 – Thanos (Brolin) finally gets around to collecting the Infinity stones and only the Avengers (and almost every other Marvel superhero) can stop him – or can they?; there’s much that could be said about Avengers: Infinity War, but suffice it to say, after eighteen previous movies, Marvel have finally made the MCU’s version of The Empire Strikes Back (1980).

The King of Escape (2009) / D: Alain Guiraudie / 90m

Original title: Le roi de l’évasion

Cast: Ludovic Berthillot, Hafsia Herzi, Pierre Laur, Luc Palun, Pascal Aubert, François Clavier, Bruno Valayer, Jean Toscan

Rating: 6/10 – when a middle-aged homosexual tractor salesman (Berthillot) falls in love with the daughter (Herzi) of a rival salesman, this unexpected turn of events has further unexpected repercussions, all of which lead the pair to go on the run from her father and the police; as much a comedy of manners as an unlikely romance, The King of Escape is humorous (though far from profound), and features too many scenes of its central couple running across fields and through woods, something that becomes as tiring for the viewer as it must have been for the actors, though the performances are finely judged, and Guiraudie’s direction displays the increasing confidence that would allow him to make a bigger step with Stranger by the Lake (2013).

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

04 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Action, Ant-Man, Anthony Russo, Black Panther, Black Widow, Bucky Barnes, Chris Evans, Colonel Zemo, Drama, Elizabeth Olsen, Falcon, Hawkeye, Iron Man, Jeremy Renner, Joe Russo, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Paul Bettany, Paul Rudd, Review, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlet Witch, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Sokovia Accords, Spider-Man, Superheroes, The Avengers, Thriller, Tom Holland, Vision, War Machine, William Hurt, Winter Soldier

D: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo / 147m

Cast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Rudd, Emily VanCamp, Tom Holland, Daniel Brühl, Frank Grillo, William Hurt, Martin Freeman, Marisa Tomei, John Kani, John Slattery, Hope Davis, Alfre Woodard

And so begins Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Though the Marvel formula is pretty well established now, and is beginning to show through a little too often for comfort – Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) disappoints more and more with repeated viewings, Ant-Man (2015) was fun but too married to the formula for its own good – the company that should finally give us the Spider-Man movie a lot of people have been waiting for, has cannily begun the process of dismantling and rebuilding the work it carried out in Phases 1 and 2. Having introduced us to the more well-known Marvel superheroes – Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Captain America etc. – over the next few years we’re going to meet several newer additions to the roster, so that by the time we get to Avengers: Infinity War Part II (2019), the Avengers will hopefully be comprised of a different set of superheroes.

With that in mind, there’s a lot that needs to happen before then, and while Captain America: Civil War looks as if it’s the first step in getting there, and while it’s still the best Marvel movie this side of Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Marvel are still playing it safe in terms of the characters – contrary to what you may have heard, all the main players survive in this movie – but they are trying to make things grittier and more true to life in relation to the characters’ relationships and feelings. Hence we have a falling out between Tony Stark (Downey Jr) and Steve Rogers (Evans) over whether or not the Avengers should be “policed” following the destructive events in Sokovia. Tony believes that their actions in the past have caused too much death and suffering (even though they’ve saved the world twice), while Steve feels that it shouldn’t be left up to anyone else but the Avengers as to where they go and who they stand up to; what if they’re not asked to go somewhere they should be?

It all leads to the various core Avengers – except for an absent Thor and Bruce Banner – taking sides over the issue, and for each side to bring in back up when it’s clear that a showdown is inevitable. Meanwhile, as if things aren’t bad enough, Steve’s old friend and Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes (Stan) is still on the run and apparently responsible for the bombing of a United Nations building that has taken the life of T’Chaka (Kani), the king of African nation Wakanda. His son, T’Challa (Boseman), swears to have his revenge on Barnes, and with Steve unwilling to give up on his friend, the battle lines are even more fiercely drawn. (T’Challa is one of the new characters, aka Black Panther, and will have his own movie in 2018.)

What it all boils down to is whether or not the Avengers should be autonomous or inducted into the world’s police force and used accordingly. There are good reasons on both sides for inclusion or exclusion but the interesting thing about the arguments put forward is that Tony’s are emotionally driven by his feelings of guilt over the numerous deaths that occurred in Sokovia, while Steve’s are still rooted in his past. Having fought against Hitler and Hydra both in World War II, Steve knows one thing for sure: if there’s evil to be faced and defeated, then you just do it. It’s a simple idea, but for Steve a very powerful one. And though the movie does its best to keep the narrative focused on this divisive idea, there’s a spanner in the works.

The “spanner” is this movie’s principal villain, Colonel Helmut Zemo (Brühl), who is operating in the background and using Barnes’ past to cause maximum distrust between Tony and Steve. He’s doing so for personal reasons, and credible ones at that, and they have a bearing on the division that threatens the future of the Avengers. Zemo may not be trying to destroy the world like Loki or Ultron, but it’s good to see a villain causing so much harm all by himself and without an army of aliens or robots to help him. Brühl puts in a good performance, and its one whose quiet determination isn’t overwhelmed by all the sturm und drang going on around him. But Zemo is also the device by which the Avengers reach their own accord, an uneasy truce if you like, but one that introduces a further interesting dynamic for future movies.

As for the other characters, and with so many to include, the script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely rightly concentrates on the falling out between Tony and Steve, while doing its best to address and develop issues surrounding everyone else. There’s the tentative romance brewing between Vision (Bettany) and Scarlet Witch (Olsen) that has them on opposite sides (as well as Vision’s understanding of the Infinity Stone in his forehead), the return of General Thaddeus Ross (Hurt) as the man charged with bringing the Avengers into line, the various drawbacks encountered by Falcon (Mackie) and War Machine (Cheadle) as the sidekicks of Captain America and Iron Man respectively, Black Widow’s (Johansson) kick-ass yet conciliatory occupation of the middle ground when necessary, the return of Hawkeye (Renner) to make up the numbers on Cap’s side, and the return also of Scott Lang aka Ant-Man (Rudd) who provides much of the comedy that makes the airport confrontation so much fun.

As mentioned before, we’re introduced to one of Phase 3’s newer characters, Black Panther. Originally meant to have a much smaller role in Captain America: Civil War, Boseman’s portrayal is extremely good, and bodes well for his solo outing. The character’s place in the MCU is assured thanks to the way in which the script integrates his own personal mission of revenge into Tony’s attempts to achieve regulation of the Avengers. Neither a part of the Avengers or against them, Black Panther is a neutral figure in terms of the differences affecting them, and acts as a buffer for the audience by following his own path.

And then there’s the little matter of finally seeing Peter Parker aka Spider-Man in a Marvel movie – at last. With all due respect to Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire, and Marc Webb and Andrew Garfield, in the space of roughly half an hour, the Russo brothers and the writers have given us the best Spidey yet seen on the big screen. Holland is terrific as the garrulous super-teen, nervous and perplexed in his meeting with Tony Stark, unabashedly starstruck in his set-to with Captain America et al. It’s an absolute joy to see him portrayed in this fashion, and for fans who stay to (almost) the very end, the caveat “Soider-Man will return” (a la James Bond) will be a welcome sight.

With this movie, Marvel has begun the next Phase of its assault on our hearts and minds and disposable incomes in such an enjoyable way that even though it’s not a movie that takes any real risks with either its characters or the storyline, it’s still a marked improvement on recent outings. The humour is there, the action/fight scenes are as inventive and thrilling as ever, and (some of) the characters are allowed to develop further, thereby consolidating our affection for them. It’s a huge juggling act, but here the writers and the Russo brothers have made such a good job of things that there are only minor gripes to be had, and those aren’t really worth mentioning. Where Guardians of the Galaxy raised the bar considerably for the MCU, Captain America: Civil War has just vaulted over it with accomplished ease.

Rating: 9/10 – while many may regard this as just Avengers 2.5, there’s more to Captain America: Civil War than meets the eye, and Marvel can be rightly proud of what they’ve achieved; as a stand-alone movie it works incredibly well, and as a part of the wider MCU it’s even more effective, being more tightly scripted and more efficiently directed than any other superhero movies out there at the moment – and yes, that does mean Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016).

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

02 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Agent Hill, Anthony Mackie, Anthony Russo, Black Widow, Bucky Barnes, Captain America, Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Hydra, Joe Russo, Marvel, Natasha Romanoff, Nick Fury, Peggy Carter, Project Insight, Review, Robert Redford, S.H.I.E.L.D., Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Steve Rogers, The Falcon, The Winter Soldier

D: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo / 136m

Cast: Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Redford, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Frank Grillo, Cobie Smulders, Maximiliano Hernández, Emily VanCamp, Hayley Atwell, Toby Jones

Episode 3 of Phase 2 of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe sees ninety-five year old Steve Rogers (Evans) still trying to fit in to the modern day era. After the events of Avengers Assemble (2012), his life has settled down a bit, though he still has doubts about his role in S.H.I.E.L.D. When Nick Fury (Jackson) sends him on a mission with Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow (Johansson) that proves to be cover for another, secret, mission altogether, Rogers confronts Fury over being used. Fury takes Rogers’ point and as a show of faith, shows him the fruits of Project Insight, a plan to pre-empt future terrorist activity involving three gi-normous heli-carriers that, once launched, will sync up with satellites in order to locate and eradicate their targets. Rogers is unimpressed and refuses to be a part of it all. Meanwhile, Fury, having acquired a USB stick that contains details of Project Insight, finds himself unable to access it, despite its having apparently been encrypted by him. He takes his concerns to senior S.H.I.E.L.D. officer Alexander Pierce (Redford), and asks for a delay in Project Insight’s launch.

Later, Fury is injured in an ambush carried out by agents we later learn are working for Hydra, and by a masked man with a metal arm; this proves to be the Winter Soldier of the title. Fury manages to get to Rogers’ apartment and gives him the USB stick. Before he can say any more, Fury is shot by the Winter Soldier. Both Natasha and Pierce attempt to find out why Fury was in Rogers’ apartment but he rebuffs both of them. When Natasha finds the USB stick he’s forced to accept her help, even though Fury told him to “trust no one”. They trace the stick’s origins to a secret bunker at the army base where Rogers received his training. There they encounter the consciousness of Hydra scientist Dr Zola (Jones) who has been infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D.’s systems since his co-option after World War II. A missile strike on the base that nearly kills them points to Pierce as the architect behind Hydra’s involvement in Project Insight and the attack on Fury.

With the aid of Sam Wilson (Mackie), a veteran with a surprise of his own to share, and Agent Hill (Smulders), Rogers and Natasha decide to stop the launch of Project Insight, but not before they’re targeted by the Winter Soldier. During this encounter, his identity is revealed as Bucky Barnes, Rogers’ best friend from his army days and someone everybody believed had died during a mission. From there it becomes a race against time to stop Pierce, the Winter Soldier, and the launch of the heli-carriers.

From the outset, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a more confident, more impressive outing than Rogers’ first appearance. Partly this is due to the first movie’s need to be an origin story, and partly because Rogers has always been Marvel’s answer to the “truth, justice and the American way” approach of DC’s Superman. He’s the ultimate boy scout, not for him the convenient grey areas and moral sidestepping of today’s society. Instead he sees things in black and white, and when challenged keeps his moral compass constant; it’s this unshakeable point of view that makes his character more interesting than many of his co-Avengers. Evans has grown into the role over the course of three movies, and he’s never less than absolutely convincing.

Of course, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s ever-so-slightly imperialistic view of the world is glossed over in favour of some extended action sequences and a final thirty minutes that tests the various effects departments to destroy as much as possible in as many ways as possible (if there’s one thing the Avengers are good for, it’s putting insurance premiums up on a regular basis). Rogers’ solution to the problem of Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. being joined at the hip (as it were) is extreme – and certainly poses a problem for the writers of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series – but it has a certain inevitability given the circumstances and the extent of Hydra’s infiltration. Pierce’s motivation is less clear-cut and has something to do with creating a new world out of the current one, where there will be no subversive activity because anyone fitting his description of subversive will be targeted and killed. (When the hell-carriers are launched and start picking out targets what we see on screen is laughable: in New York alone there appears to be a subversive living on nearly every block.) How this idea benefits Hydra is never explained, and for all the issues surrounding the rights and wrongs of homeland security, the greater plot is poorly explored and exploited.

Also worrying are moments where the plot falters in other areas. Rogers pays a visit to Peggy Carter (Atwell), now ill and in what looks like a nursing home. It’s a short scene, and while both Evans and Atwell give it the resonance such a scene demands, it sits uncomfortably within the movie and isn’t referred to either before or after. Part of Rogers’ solution to the problem of Hydra is to upload all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s files and history onto the Internet, but why this is necessary is never explained, and only serves to give Natasha a chance to verbally stick two fingers up at a congressional committee. And Dr Zola is only too quick to explain what’s going on and spill the beans about Hydra’s activities within S.H.I.E.L.D.

But there’s plenty to enjoy as well. Those extended action sequences are superbly executed, although most of the hand-to-hand combat between Captain America and the Winter Soldier is edited to within an inch of both their lives, sacrificing clarity of movement for speed. When Fury is ambushed it leads to a car chase that is as thrilling, if not more so, than those in Need for Speed, and the fight in the elevator – Rogers against (I counted ten) assailants is a stand-out. Evans and the rest of the cast are on top form, and newbies Mackie and Redford fit in well as hero and villain respectively. The Russo brothers handle the visuals with style, creating a lot of space for the characters to move around in, both to emphasise the scale of the movie and the threat within it. And while some aspects of the script don’t always add up, for once the dialogue isn’t as hokey or contrived as it might have been (and the best line is delivered by the computer in Fury’s car). The relationship between Rogers and Natasha is deepened, there’s a quick-and-you’ll-miss-it reference to someone who’s still waiting for their own movie, some knowing humour in amongst the gunplay and explosions, and a short pre-credits scene that introduces us to… well, that would be telling.

Rating: 8/10 – narrative troubles aside, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a confident mix of character development – even Fury’s – and spectacular action; another hit from Marvel Studios and one that seems certain to be the real precursor to Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), rather than Iron Man 3 (2013) or Thor: The Dark World (2013).