Tag Archives: Dave Bautista

Hotel Artemis (2018)

25 Wednesday Jul 2018

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D: Drew Pearce / 94m

Cast: Jodie Foster, Sterling K. Brown, Sofia Boutella, Jeff Goldblum, Charlie Day, Dave Bautista, Jenny Slate, Zachary Quinto, Brian Tyree Henry

In the US in 2028, water has become a precious, but privatised commodity. When punitive restrictions are put in place by the company that controls the water supply, a riot breaks out that sweeps through Los Angeles. Using the riot as a cover, brothers Sherman (Brown) and Lev (Henry), plus two accomplices, plan to rob the vault of an up-market bank. Their plan backfires, and during their escape, Sherman and Lev are wounded by the police, Lev quite seriously. They manage to get to the Hotel Artemis, a kind of field hospital for criminals, where they are safe from the police, and thanks to the rules, any other criminals who might be there. Run by Nurse (Foster), with assistance from “health care professional” Everest (Bautista), the Artemis offers anonymity in the form of code names based around the room(s) they stay in. With female assassin Nice (Boutella) and loud-mouthed arms dealer Acapulco (Day) already there, Sherman begins to wonder just how safe he and his brother are going to be, especially when Nurse lets in a wounded police officer (Slate) – otherwise a strict no-no – and word reaches them that local crime boss, and founder of the Artemis, the Wolf (Goldblum) is on his way, and in need of medical attention…

Let’s get the obvious comparison out of the way: the Hotel Artemis is the medical facility version of the Continental Hotel in the John Wick movies. But that’s as far as the comparison goes, because in the self-assured hands of writer/director Drew Pearce, Hotel Artemis is a tribute to an era gone by, a high-tech yet nostalgic shout out to a time when honour amongst thieves actually meant something. By pitching the movie ten years on, Pearce is able to draw a distinction between the growing feudal state of affairs outside the hotel, and the semblance of order that Nurse feels compelled to uphold within the hotel’s walls and its rooms. It’s meant to be a neutral base for everyone, but machinations and plotting abound, and it’s not long before alliances are being forged, threats are being backed up, and an escalating sense of impending violence is allowed to bear fruit. The sense of an era coming to an end, imploding in on itself, is highlighted by the encroaching riot, and the swift descent of the hotel “guests” into murderous anarchy. There are rules, but once they begin to be broken, there’s no difference between inside and outside.

Pearce handles all this with a downplayed sense of fun, casting cruel aspersions on the morality of his characters – even the “good guys” do some unpalatable things in this movie – and by making sure everyone suffers to one degree or another. The humour is pitch black at times, but plays in support to the drama rather than overwhelming it, and Pearce draws out strong perfprmances from his cast, with Foster reminding us just how good an actress she is, while Brown continues his rise to the A-list, and Boutella exudes a silky menace that is captivating and unpleasant at the same time. Some things, however, are less successful. Slate’s wounded police officer awkwardly provides Nurse with a back story that feels forced and unnecessary, and Day’s obnoxious, sexist arms dealer seems like a throwback to the Nineties. But the real MVP of the movie is the Artemis itself, a triumph of cinematography, lighting, production design, art direction and set decoration that reflects the tired glory of the premises through the faded glamour of its hallways and rooms. It’s the perfect setting in which to record the end of an era…

Rating: 8/10 – flecked with nostalgia and a wistful harking back to simpler times, Hotel Artemis is a violent crime thriller that has a surprising amount of heart, and which tells its story with a welcome measure of simplicity; boosted by the detailed backdrop of the hotel itself, it’s a welcome entry into a sub-genre of crime drama that has slowly been cannabalising itself for far too long.

Bushwick (2017)

27 Wednesday Sep 2017

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D: Cary Murnion, Jonathan Milott / 94m

Cast: Dave Bautista, Brittany Snow, Angelic Zambrana, Jeremie Harris, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Alex Breaux, Arturo Castro

Bushwick asks the question, what would a modern day US Civil War be like? The answer is a lot like The Purge (2013), abut without that movie’s intended freakshow aesthetic or its extreme fantasy elements. Here, everybody is fair game, but not just for one night. Here, secessionists go from door to door shooting everyone on sight, and the local residents of Bushwick fight back as best they can, and without really knowing why it’s all happening. What should have been an easy takeover of the US political system has become a guerrilla-led fight to the death. But is this a fight to maintain the status quo, or is it just because you shouldn’t mess with Bushwick?

The straightforward answer is, you shouldn’t mess with Bushwick. This is shown by the way in which Lucy (Snow) transforms from being a scared college student into a gutsy, gun-toting leader of others, solving problems and taking charge and kicking ass when necessary. She’s from the area, and when we first meet her she’s just trying to get home accompanied by her boyfriend, Jose (Castro). Getting off the subway they find it’s deserted except for a man who runs through the station screaming because he’s on fire. Adopting a “let’s-not-get-involved” stance, Lucy decides it would be better if they just headed to her parents’ house. As they ascend the steps out of the subway station though, they soon become aware that something wrong is going on, a fact that’s confirmed when Jose goes to see what’s happening and is promptly killed in an explosion. Lucy tries to find her way to her grandmother’s house, but along the way she witnesses a murder and is chased into a basement dwelling by the killer and his accomplice. It’s there that she meets Stupe (Bautista), who saves her from the two men.

By the time night has fallen, and the pair have had more than their fair share of shootouts, near misses, murderous encounters, disappointments, and injuries – Stupe suffers a nasty leg wound that needs to be cauterised, Lucy loses half a finger (“Oh my God. Oh my God. What am I going to do when I get married?”) – Lucy and Stupe have switched roles, and she displays a confidence and a determination that she didn’t have when they first met. Lucy learns to survive, and to keep others around her alive, and though the experience of being thrust into the midst of a bona fide Civil War is immediately frightening, she steps up and starts to make a difference. Lucy is exactly the kind of person we’d all like to think we would be if we were in the same situation, but probably wouldn’t be (run and hide until it’s all over? Now that sounds like a plan). Watching her character arc play out over the course of the movie is one of the best things about it, and Snow portrays Lucy as credibly and persuasively as you could expect, and for the viewer, she’s someone to admire and respect.

Snow is matched by an equally intuitive and convincing performance by Bautista as an ex-US Army medic turned janitor who has a tragic back story. His is a more contained portrayal, but combined with Snow’s more emotionally expressive performance, the difference in their characters’ respective temperaments allows their growing friendship and reliance on each other to blossom naturally and without feeling forced. The script – by Nick Damici and Graham Reznick – keeps the duo at the forefront of the action, and despite a couple of occasions where plot developments stretch the movie’s otherwise carefully constructed plausibility (Lucy’s encounter with a priest is particularly jarring), following their progress to safety is handled extremely well by both the script and directing team Murnion and Milott.

Indeed it’s the way in which Murnion and Milott – making their second feature together after Cooties (2014) – handle the material that makes the movie so effective. Adopting a Steadicam approach to the photography that provides a sense of immediacy, the duo also keep much of what is happening around Stupe and Lucy at the edge of the frame or just outside it. It all adds to the sense that despite their being careful, that something could happen to them at any moment. This feeling of jeopardy is maintained throughout, and the script’s investment in them as recognisable characters adds a further sense of uncertainty that increases the tension. The directing duo also elicit good performances from the supporting cast, and with the aid of sound mixer Richard Hart and supervising sound editor Rich Bologna, they’ve constructed an aural landscape for the movie that ensures there is always something going on in the background or just out of sight (except for when Stupe reveals his tragic back story).

Wisely perhaps, the movie doesn’t attempt to provide much more of a political statement regarding its Civil War backdrop other than the secessionists having a misguided sense of patriotism, but in doing so (and you could argue this may be deliberate) a parallel can be drawn with the recent upsurge of sentiments in the US around Making America Great Again. If this is a deliberate ploy by the makers to pass comment on what could happen as a result of parts of the US electorate deciding they want to have their own government, then the movie does have an eerie prescience about it, despite common sense saying this won’t ever happen. But then, whoever thought that an actor would become President, or a black man, or a businessman who’d end up keeping Alec Baldwin in continuous work for at least four years? A good movie overall, Bushwick has more going on behind the gunfire and the street-level anarchy than is at first apparent, and this adds to its considerable effectiveness.

Rating: 7/10 – a solid, well thought out thriller with modest ambitions, most of which it achieves, Bushwick is engrossing for the most part and not always as predictable as it sounds; with very good performances from Bautista and Snow, and fine attention to detail, it’s marred only by a generic urban soundtrack by Aesop Rock, and an ending that disappoints thanks the movie’s need to be edgy and dark at a point where it doesn’t need to be at all.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

28 Friday Apr 2017

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D: James Gunn / 136m

Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Kurt Russell, Pom Klementieff, Elizabeth Debicki, Chris Sullivan, Sean Gunn, Tommy Flanagan, Laura Haddock

At the end of Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), there was a reference to the identity of Peter Quill/Star Lord’s father. It wasn’t particularly complimentary, but it did give some idea of where a sequel might be headed if the movie was successful (which it ever so slightly was). Three months on from the events of the first movie, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 begins with our heroes working for the Sovereign, a race led by Ayesha (Debicki). Charged with protecting some valuable batteries, the Guardians complete their mission but manage to earn the Sovereign’s enmity when it’s discovered that Rocket (Cooper) has stolen some of the batteries himself. Attacked by hundreds of Sovereign drone ships, the Guardians’ spaceship suffers a lot of damage before it can make a light speed jump to safety – and before the drone ships are all destroyed by another mysterious craft.

The Guardians crash land on a nearby planet and the mysterious craft lands also. The owner of the craft reveals himself as Peter’s father, called Ego (Russell), and that he’s been searching for Peter (Pratt) for years. It also transpires that Peter was abducted from Earth by Ravager Yondu Udonta (Rooker) at Ego’s request (though why Yondu kept charge of Peter goes unexplained). Now reunited, Ego suggests they travel to his home planet so that he can be “the father he should have been”. While Peter, Gamora (Saldana), and Drax (Bautista) agree to journey with him, Rocket and Baby Groot (Diesel) stay behind to repair their ship and look after Nebula (Gillan), Gamora’s sister and the payment they received from the Sovereign for their work. However, Ayesha has hired Yondu with the mission of retrieving the stolen batteries and capturing the Guardians.

On Ego’s home planet, Peter and his father begin to bond, but Gamora senses that something isn’t right. Ego’s attendant, an empath called Mantis (Klementieff), appears anxious over Peter’s being there but remains silent. Meanwhile, Yondu has been the victim of a mutiny, and some of his crew, led by self-proclaimed Taserface (Sullivan) and aided by Nebula, have taken over the ship. Nebula takes a ship and heads for Ego’s planet intent on killing Gamora, while Rocket, Baby Groot and Yondu find they need to work together to avoid being killed. Soon, everyone, including another drone armada sent by Ayesha, is heading for Ego’s planet, and the fate of the Guardians and hundreds of other far-flung planets hangs in the balance…

The surprise success of Guardians of the Galaxy three years ago was a shot in the arm for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, proving to audiences becoming accustomed to a regular diet of superhero theatrics, that there was more to said Universe than egotists in tin suits, enhanced super soldiers, and feuding demi-gods. By making a movie that had nothing to do with anyone else in the MCU, Marvel showed a confidence in their original material, and in the movie’s writer/director, that could so easily have backfired on them. That it didn’t must lie squarely on the creative shoulders of James Gunn, the man who took a motley crew of ne’er-do-wells and made them loved the world over. It wasn’t long before there was talk of the Guardians appearing in Avengers: Infinity War (2018), but a sequel was already in place. So – what to do with them in the meantime?

The answer is…not very much at all. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 falls into the category of uninspired Marvel sequel, a placement it shares with Iron Man 2 (2010), Thor: The Dark World (2013), and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) (only the Captain America sequels have avoided falling into this category). While it’s true that there’s much to enjoy this time around, and the first movie’s freewheeling sense of fun and adventure is firmly in place, the fact is that this is a two and a quarter hour movie that runs out of steam – dramatically at least – at around the hour and a quarter mark. By that time, the three main storylines – Peter finds his father, Yondu makes amends for breaking the Ravager code, Gamora and Nebula come to terms with their hatred of each other – have all reached a point where there’s nowhere further for them to go, and James Gunn’s script lurches into an extended series of showdowns and signposted revelations that offer little in the way of character or plot development.

On this occasion, and with only one post-credits scene designed to set up the already announced Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, it’s clear that this is Marvel’s first true filler movie, designed and made to capitalise on the success of the original, and to fill a gap in the release schedule. Fortunately though, and again thanks to the involvement of Gunn and his returning cast, this is a filler movie that replicates much of the first movie’s highly enjoyable charm and visual quirkiness. From the opening credits sequence that sees Baby Groot dancing to ELO’s Mr. Blue Sky while his fellow Guardians take on a multi-tentacled inter-dimensional monster in the background, Gunn’s novel approach to the material proves (again) to be one of the movie’s MVP’s, and is only bested by the sequence later in the movie when Yondu and Rocket take back control of Yondu’s ship. (However, Ego’s home planet looks like it was designed by My Little Pony on an acid trip.)

But while there’s a heck of a lot going on visually, it’s down in the story department that the movie shows signs of wear and tear. The emphasis on family ties is made over and over again as old enemies become bosom buddies in order to give the movie a happy, feelgood vibe, and the ranks of the Guardians are swelled temporarily (this is personal redemption achieved easily and without the slightest challenge). The characters remain much the same too, with Peter and Gamora still at odds over their attraction for each other, and Rocket retaining his knack for deliberately saying things that will antagonise others. Drax is even more insensitive than before, Nebula is still consumed with rage against her father, Thanos, and Baby Groot – well, he’s still just as cute (if not more so). Of the newcomers, Gunn doesn’t seem entirely sure of how to use Mantis, Ayesha is akin to a spoilt little princess, while Ego’s “purpose” isn’t fully explored, and makes Russell work extra hard in getting the idea across to audiences.

With much of the movie underperforming in this way, it’s fortunate that Gunn has retained the irreverent sense of humour present in the first movie, and there are some very funny moments indeed, from Rocket being described as a “trash panda”, to an out of leftfield reference to Mary Poppins, and the pay-off to the first post-credits scene. Elsewhere, Sylvester Stallone pops up in a role that’s intended to be expanded on in future outings, Russell is given the same younger version treatment Michael Douglas received in Ant-Man (2015), the Awesome Mix Tape Vol. 2 is exactly that, and the space battles are bewildering in terms of what’s happening and to whom. But with all that, this is still hugely enjoyable stuff, lavishly produced and glossy from start to finish, and designed to please the fans first and foremost. On that level it will probably succeed, but it won’t change the fact that this is not quite the triumphant sequel that many will be expecting – or hearing about.

Rating: 6/10 – with much of the movie feeling flat and ponderous in terms of the drama, and the characters no further forward in terms of their development, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 gets by on its often inspired humour, and the chemistry that unites its cast; a safe bet for the most part, with enough inventiveness and charm to make it look and sound better than it is, it’s a solid enough movie, but in automobile terms, it doesn’t have too much going on under the hood.

The Warriors Gate (2016)

13 Thursday Apr 2017

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D: Matthias Hoene / 107m

Cast: Uriah Shelton, Mark Chao, Ni Ni, Dave Bautista, Sienna Guillory, Francis Chun-Yu Ng, Zha Ka, Dakota Daulby, Luke Mac Davis

Jack Bronson (Shelton) is a teenager whose online gaming avatar, the Black Knight, is a complete badass, winning fantasy encounter after fantasy encounter. Away from his computer, however, he’s not quite so powerful or dominating. His life has its fair share of problems: his mother, Annie (Guillory), is a realtor who hasn’t sold a property in months (which means money is fast becoming an issue), and at school he’s being bullied by an older teen called Travis (Daulby). Jack does have a job, at least, even if it doesn’t pay an awful lot, but his boss likes him, enough to give Jack a gift: a large wooden, ornamental box. Jack takes it home and keeps it in his room. That first night, Jack wakes to find a sword at his throat, and an ancient Chinese warrior (Chao) asking if he’s the Black Knight. Even though he’s clearly not the fierce warrior the stranger is looking for, Jack is still given a task: to protect the Princess Su Lin (Ni) from harm.

The Princess is left in Jack’s care – but not before her bodyguard disappears back to their world via the box. The Princess is used to getting her own way, and it’s not long before she has Jack take her to the local mall so that she can learn how to blend in. But it’s also not long before mercenaries from the Princess’s world come for her, and despite Jack’s best efforts (which aren’t that great anyway), she’s taken back to her world. Jack follows, and finds himself in the company of the bodyguard, whose name is Zhoo. Soon, Jack learns that the Princess is the target of a murderous warlord called Arun the Cruel (Bautista). Arun plans to wed Su Lin, and once they’re married, kill her and assume the role of Emperor. Zhoo’s mission is to rescue her and kill the warlord. With the occasional aid of a wizard (Ng), and Jack himself, Zhoo sets off for the Imperial Palace.

Along the way they encounter danger in the form of three tree nymphs with a taste for human flesh, a number of Arun’s men, and having to cross a large lake despite Zhoo being unable to swim. Once at the Imperial Palace, their attempt to rescue the Princess is stalled, and they find themselves imprisoned. It’s only when a butterfly appears at their cell window that Zhoo is certain that his plan (which he’s making up as he goes along) will actually work.

If nothing else, The Warriors Gate proves that with great publicity comes greater accusations of racism. Zhang Yimou’s bloated melodrama The Great Wall (2016) came in for heaps of criticism for having an Occidental hero coming to China’s rescue when faced with hordes of rampaging dragons. Here, Matthias Hoene’s tiresome fantasy swaps Matt Damon’s Irish mercenary for Uriah Shelton’s whiny teenager as a Chinese dynasty comes under threat from a surly warlord who’s massively into face painting. And yet The Warriors Gate is just as guilty of cultural whitewashing as its more expensively mounted compatriot. More so, perhaps. How galling must it be for Chinese audiences to see their heritage, their culture, and their fierce warrior history ignored in favour of making the hero a – let’s say it again – whiny teenager.

Bad as this approach is, The Warriors Gate has far more things wrong with it than there are good. A pale imitation of the far more entertaining The Forbidden Kingdom (2008), Hoene’s follow-up to the low-concept, low return Cockneys vs Zombies (2012) sees him take a script by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen (who really should have known better) and turn it into a bland, functional, and entirely unremarkable teen fantasy movie that feels like it was made in the Nineties and has only recently secured a big screen release. With its bizarre set up, fortune cookie philosophising, bland time travel theatrics, agonising moments of teen humour, bullying subplot, cultural indifference to Chinese history, off-putting tonal shifts (sometimes in the same scene), and forgettable characters, the movie struggles hard to work on any level… and then struggles some more.

It’s a movie that steals from other, better movies too, and in doing so, only serves to highlight just how derivative and unoriginal it all is. Jack’s lack of self-confidence is such a staple of teen heroes and heroines these days that it’s a wonder any of them get out of bed in the first place. Naturally he has a skill that will enable him to defeat the bad guy, but the script can’t decide if it’s inside him all along or is something that he’ll need to learn. In the end, the movie settles for Jack being shown one single, semi-meditative pose and it’s all he needs to be the warrior Zhoo has been looking for. Inside of him all along, or a simple technique easily learned – either way Jack steps up and never looks back. And of course, everyone says they always believed in him (and yet Zhoo doubts him repeatedly).

There’s also the small issue of the reason Jack follows the kidnapped Princess into her world: he’s horny, has never been kissed, and fancies Su Lin like mad. (His hormones made him do it!) Even when he’s fully aware of what’s at stake if Arun’s plan succeeds, Jack is still thinking with his ‘nads, and though it’s unreasonable to assume he’s trying to help for more noble reasons, the movie keeps him firmly in place as a teenager with only one thing on his mind: getting the girl. With this level of ambition, it’s no wonder Jack is a character who screams “superficial!” when compared with his Chinese assistants – sorry, enablers. Unsurprisingly, Su Lin is attracted to Jack, but their romance has all the emotional clout of a Hallmark movie of the week.

The script sabotages itself too often for comfort. Arun the Cruel is revealed to be a pretty fair despot on the whole, and possessed of a sly line in humour. Bautista gets the tone right fortunately, but can’t do anything with the silly-sounding dialogue he’s lumbered with. As the Princess, Ni is allowed to be haughty for all of five minutes before falling for Jack’s, err, charms, while Chao has the dour straight man role and as a result, sometimes fades into the background. Ng is clearly enjoying his turn as a comedy wizard, while Guillory gets the thankless role of worried mother. The cast as a whole are hampered by having to deal with perfunctory characterisations and finding themselves unsupported by Hoene and the script. The fight sequences have a certain panache, but when the final showdown between hero and villain takes place, it’s too little too late (and no one ever explains why the Princess is hanging by her wrists the whole time).

Rating: 4/10 – sloppy writing and an uninspired vibe make The Warriors Gate (yes, there’s no apostrophe) a disappointing entry in the teen fantasy stakes; acceptable only if you don’t care enough to be insulted, the movie can best be summed up by stealing a paraphrased line from the New York Times movie critic A.O. Scott: it sets a very low bar for itself, and then trips over it repeatedly.

Heist (2015)

03 Thursday Dec 2015

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D: Scott Mann / 93m

Cast: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Robert De Niro, Dave Bautista, Gina Carano, Morris Chestnut, Kate Bosworth, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Summer Altice, D.B. Sweeney, Lydia Hull

There are few things in the world of cinema more dispiriting, more dismal, than the sight of good actors struggling to make something out of nothing. We’ve all seen them: those star-drenched movies that feature a great cast; the kind of movie where you can’t help but think, “Well, if they all signed up for it then it must be good”. But here’s the thing, the thing that a lot of people forget: actors, just like everyone else on the planet, have bills to pay, and so, sometimes, they forget about the “art” of cinema and focus on getting paid. And you can tell within minutes of the movie starting that the Oscar-winner in the supporting role is bored, or that the up-and-coming actor with a few good roles under his belt is trying too hard by way of compensating for the paper-thin nature of his character, and the star looks weary throughout, as if once committed to making the movie he can’t wait for filming to be over. (And let’s not mention any promotion work, where they might have to talk about the movie and how “good” it is…)

And so it is with Heist, a movie that has no real reason for existing, and wouldn’t be missed if by some chance it suddenly didn’t. This is knock-off movie making of the finest ordure, a terrible waste of the cast’s time, the crew’s time, your time, everybody’s time. It sucks, and royally. Despite what you see on screen, the overwhelming impression is of a movie made just for the sake of it, because somebody  – and here we have to lay the blame very firmly at the feet of writer Stephen Cyrus Sepher – had an idea for a movie and they managed to persuade five separate production companies to cough up the money to make it. And as so often happens in these situations, nobody looked at Sepher’s script and said, “Er, hang on a second…”

Heist - scene1

Ironically given the movie’s subject matter, this should be filed under “take the money and run”, as everyone involved does not quite enough to make Heist a watchable affair, from Mann’s uninspired, by-the-numbers direction to Sepher’s cliché-ridden, nonsensical script to half a dozen bored performances that help to sap the life out of a movie that’s already on life support. The main offender is De Niro, giving possibly the worst performance of his career, a lazy, credibility-free caricature of a gangster. De Niro is so bad that if you were to show someone who had no idea about his career or his legacy this particular movie, and then showed them, say, Raging Bull (1980), that someone would be completely baffled as to how it could be the same actor. This is a role where he mugs his way through in lieu of providing a recognisable character, and where he makes absolutely no attempt to convince the audience that his character’s sudden change of heart in the last ten minutes is in any way believable.

Elsewhere, the movie’s star looks tired and/or bored, with Morgan summing up just enough energy to get him through each scene, while Bautista undoes the kudos he’s gained from Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) by giving such a one-note performance it’s embarrassing (though to be fair his character doesn’t exactly benefit from being written that well). He’s matched by Chestnut as De Niro’s psychotic right hand man, but both actors are outdone by Gosselaar’s crooked cop, a wise-cracking annoyance who’s introduced in the most unlikely of fashions and continues to be annoying until the script finally has done with him. And Carano continues to undo the good work she did in Haywire (2011) by steadfastly refusing to alter her expression no matter what.

Heist - scene2

With so many things going against it, Heist struggles along from scene to scene, clearly happening in its own little alternate universe where the laws of plausibility are flouted with impunity, and where bad directing, writing and acting are actively encouraged and supported. The plot, such as it is, involves Morgan teaming up with Bautista to rob De Niro’s casino, but when the robbery goes wrong, they hijack a bus and head for Texas (as you do). Bautista is bad through and through – hey, he doesn’t care if the pregnant lady on board goes into labour, that’s how badass he is – but Morgan is doing it to pay for his sick daughter’s transplant operation (so he’s much more noble). The threat of passengers being killed keeps the police at bay, while De Niro and Chestnut beaver away in the background looking for a way to isolate Morgan from the bus and for De Niro to get his money back. Along the way Carano becomes an ally, Bosworth cameos as De Niro’s daughter, and bus driver D.B. Sweeney continually looks like he’s wondering what happened to his career.

So, it’s a bad movie, but it’s professionally made and manages to look a little more glossy than your average TV movie, but with so many “did they really just do that?” moments littering the narrative, no amount of goodwill generated by the production crew can mitigate for the farrago of bad ideas and decisions made in front of the camera. This could – and should – have been better in every way but sadly, no one took the time or made the effort to improve things, and the result is a movie that should be a dictionary definition of the word lame. Or awful. Or lousy. Or rubbish (you get the picture).

Rating: 3/10 – one to avoid, Heist only scores so highly because the crew, at least, weren’t asleep at the wheel; with no one attempting to correct the mistakes inherent in the script, or even recognise them, all the viewer can do is to try and stop their jaw from continually hitting the floor from seeing all the ridiculous antics the script is packed with.

Spectre (2015)

10 Tuesday Nov 2015

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Spectre

D: Sam Mendes / 148m

Cast: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Léa Seydoux, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Monica Bellucci, Dave Bautista, Andrew Scott, Rory Kinnear, Jesper Christensen, Alessandro Cremona

And so, here we are again, back in familiar territory: after a run of three movies with a new actor playing James Bond, and with the material getting worse and worse, we arrive at a fourth movie that neither grips or excites, boasts a decent script or direction, and which labours through its extended running time like an asthmatic running a half-marathon. We could be talking about Die Another Day (2002), but instead we’re talking about Spectre, the latest in the oft-rebooted franchise, and possibly Daniel Craig’s last outing as Bond (he may do one more but nothing’s definite yet).

It’s been a relatively short nine years since Casino Royale exploded onto our screens in a welter of frenzied, punishing action sequences, and one of the best Bond scripts ever. It was everything you could ever hope for from a Bond movie, and then some, and for many fans it went straight to the top of their favourite Bond movie list. There were some psychological aspects to it in terms of Bond’s behaviour, the best Bond villain for an age, and as an “origin story” it worked much better than most. But most of all it was fun with a capital F.

And then there came the inevitable stumble with Quantum of Solace (2008). A straight-out revenge flick but with James Bond as the central character, it was basically a direct follow-up to Casino Royale that suffered from a weak villain and a mid-section that dragged as if the writers had lost focus on the story they were telling. But it did have some great action sequences, just as tough and brutal as before, and a great performance from Craig. (If you watch it back to back with Casino Royale as a four hour movie it plays a lot better than on its own.)

Spectre - scene2

Now at this stage, the producers brought on board Sam Mendes to helm the third outing for Craig, and he delivered the most successful Bond movie to date: Skyfall (2012). But while critics and fans heaped praise on the first Bond movie to make over a billion dollars at the box office, less easily swayed viewers could see the cracks starting to show as the writers tried to include a mystery relating to Bond’s past. And there were problems elsewhere, where the script showed signs of laziness (the train crash – how could Silva have “known” that he and Bond would meet at that particular place and time for the train to come crashing through the ceiling?).

That laziness has been extended to Spectre, with its tired action sequences (only the fight on the train between Bond and Mr Hinx has any energy or verve about it), eggshell thin characterisations (why does it seem as if Vesper Lynd is the only female character in the Bond franchise with any depth?), nonsensical reason for the villain’s actions (whatever happened to blackmailing the world’s leaders into not killing them with hijacked nukes?), and nods to previous entries in the franchise that only serve to remind audiences of the good old days when Bond just got on with the job and didn’t have to deal with questions about his lifestyle or any emotional scarring arising out of his childhood.

There’s also the absurd plot about linking all the world’s security systems under one (though it looks as if Waltz’s character is already doing that anyway), and then there’s Christoph Waltz’s ersatz-Blofeld scampering around like an escaped inmate from Bellevue, and providing none of the menace required to make his character a match for Bond’s determination and drive; in fact, he has more in common with Elliot Carver, Jonathan Pryce’s crazed media tycoon in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) (but that’s still not a recommendation). Waltz is a good actor, but he’s all too often an actor making his own decisions about playing a role, and without, it seems, much instruction from the director. Here he tries the playful über-villain too often for comfort, and for the head of an organisation that included Le Chiffre and Raoul Silva as mere agents, looks entirely like someone’s younger brother who finally gets to play with his bigger brother’s toys.

Spectre - scene

Once again, the female characters are there for decoration, with Seydoux going to sleep in a hotel room fully clothed and then waking up some time later in her slip, and Bellucci wasted as the wife of a man Bond kills in the opening sequence. Harris though, does get more to do as Miss Moneypenny (we even get a glimpse of her home life), but beyond that it’s business as usual, with no other female roles of note, and the focus firmly on the macho posturing that occurs elsewhere throughout (even Whishaw gets a moment out in the field where he encounters some danger). Fiennes is a grumpy-looking M (though he does get the movie’s best line), Scott is a slimy-looking C, and Bautista is all the more imposing for being dressed in bespoke tailoring throughout. The returning Christensen is a welcome sight but he’s only there to reiterate what he said in Quantum of Solace (though “we have people everywhere” now becomes “he’s everywhere”), and his one scene is over far too quickly.

Returning as well, of course, is Mendes, whose handling of Skyfall meant he was always going to be asked to return, but perhaps it would have been better to go with someone who could inject some much needed energy into proceedings. Mendes is good at the MI6 stuff, prowling the corridors of power and highlighting the power games surrounding the shake up of the security services that serves as the political backdrop for the movie, but “out in the field” he’s less confident, and on this evidence, less engaged. There are too many scenes that go by without making much of an impact, and too many scenes that could have been more judiciously pruned in the editing suite. Instead, Mendes does just enough to make Spectre a facsimile of Skyfall, but without the emotional ending (here Bond rides off into the sunset with Seydoux’s character, but you know she won’t be back for the next movie).

If Craig decides not to play Bond one more time then the producers will need to go back to square one and start afresh – again. If they do, then let’s hope this whole let’s-give-Bond-an-origin-story-he-doesn’t-need angle is dropped in favour of seeing him do what he does best: being a one-man wrecking crew with no time for niceties. In many ways, Ian Fleming’s creation is a “sexist, misogynist dinosaur”, but it’s what we’ve loved about him for over fifty years now, and in their efforts to give us a “new” Bond for contemporary times, the producers have lost sight of what makes him truly Bond: he doesn’t do introspection or guilt, and because of that he’s good at his job. (And if a reboot is in order, then let’s get Martin Campbell back in the director’s chair – he seems to know what he’s doing.)

Rating: 5/10 – not a complete stinker – it’s production values, along with Craig’s still committed performace see to that – but not the best Bond outing you’re likely to see either, and proof that the series, in this stretch at least, is heading downhill fast; when even the action sequences in Spectre feel tired and lacklustre, then it’s time for the producers to take a step back and work out where they really want to take Bond next, because right now, it doesn’t look as if they know.

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

08 Friday Aug 2014

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Guardians of the Galaxy

D: James Gunn / 121m

Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, John C. Reilly, Glenn Close, Benicio Del Toro, Laura Haddock, Peter Serafinowicz, Christopher Fairbank, Josh Brolin

As a child, and following the death of his mother (Haddock), Peter Quill (Pratt) is kidnapped by aliens; as an adult, all he has as a memory of Earth and his past is a Sony Walkman and a cassette of his mother’s favourite songs.  Now a skilled thief working for the bandit who abducted (and raised) him, Yondu (Rooker), Quill steals a mysterious orb for an equally mysterious buyer but decides to sell it himself, taking it to the planet Xandar.  When the fence he tries to sell it to refuses to take it when Quill mentions the orb is being sought by Kree warlord Ronan the Accuser (Pace), the man who’d prefer it if people called him Star Lord finds himself attacked by Gamora (Saldana).  Gamora is the adopted daughter of Thanos (Brolin), sent by Ronan to retrieve the orb.  As they fight for possession of the orb it attracts the attention of Rocket Raccoon (Cooper) and his companion Groot (Diesel), who want Quill for the bounty on his head.  They all end up being arrested by the Xandarian police and are sent to the Kyln, a prison in orbit around Xandar.

Once there, Gamora reveals she means to betray both Ronan and Thanos, and wants the orb to be given over to another buyer who will know how to keep it safe.  The four become five when they convince inmate Drax the Destroyer (Bautista) to join them; he wants revenge on Ronan for the death of his family.  They escape, with the orb, and rendezvous with Gamora’s secret buyer, The Collector (Del Toro).  He reveals that the orb contains an Infinity Stone, a powerful gem that in the wrong hands could be used to destroy whole worlds.  One of The Collector’s assistants tries to use the Stone to kill him but she is unable to control the Stone’s power and she is killed, while The Collector’s base is partially destroyed.  Quill and the rest escape with the orb but are ambushed by Ronan; in a dogfight with her sister, Nebula (Gillan), Gamora’s ship is blown up and Nebula retrieves the orb, leaving Gamora adrift in space amongst the wreckage.  Quill rescues her, but not before he alerts Yondu as to his whereabouts.

On board Yondu’s ship, Quill convinces him to help retrieve the orb and join in the fight to stop Ronan (who has since absorbed the power of the Infinity Stone and has threatened even Thanos).  Quill devises a plan to stop him, and as Ronan heads toward Xandar in order to destroy it, the five disparate “friends” realise that only they can save the galaxy.

Guardians of the Galaxy - scene

Long regarded as the riskiest move in Marvel’s assault on the box office, Guardians of the Galaxy is likely to be their most effective, most enjoyable and most well delivered movie for some time to come (and if there’s any justice in the cosmos, their most financially successful movie as well).  This latest instalment in Marvel’s ever-expanding Cinematic Universe is a joy to watch from start to finish, a winning combination of thrills, heroics, action, hugely impressive special effects, enthralling set pieces, well grounded characters, and laughs galore.  It’s a mix that could easily have gone wrong, but thanks to an assured hand at the helm in co-writer (with Nicole Perlman) and director Gunn, Marvel’s bold mov(i)e has paid off.

There’s so much to enjoy here that it’s hard to know where to start.  As an origin movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, at first glance, appears to paint in broad brush strokes, but as the movie progresses and we learn more and more about the characters and get to know them, their individual quirks and foibles become more established, until by the movie’s end, all five guardians seem like old friends.  Pratt takes Quill’s exuberance and cocky charm and establishes it as a cover for the more serious, more regretful character he really is, while Saldana takes Gamora’s hardened exterior – necessary as a daughter of Thanos – and gradually softens it to reveal a more caring demeanour underneath.  That they complement each other is expected, but their fledgling romance is played out with due reference to their differences, and never feels as stereotypical as it might have done given the conventions of the genre.

As Drax, Bautista takes his physical presence and subverts audience expectations – both of the character and his acting ability – by providing a clever, rounded performance that overcomes some arch dialogue and draws laughs from Drax’s literal interpretations of metaphors and analogies.  The WWE star has a great sense of comic timing and delivery and more than holds his own against his co-stars, even the CGI creations Rocket and Groot, whose odd couple pairing is the movie’s strongest suit, their friendship providing an indelible emotional heft.  Cooper invests Rocket with energy and devil-may-care recklessness, while Groot is just… Groot, Diesel investing his simple lines (“I am Groot”) with enough variation of delivery to make his meaning clear throughout.

With five great performances anchoring the movie so well, the supporting cast can only hope to hang on and keep up.  As Yondu, Rooker is all blue skin, pointy teeth and unconvincing thuggishness, while Gillan oozes venom as the villainous Nebula, her voice cleverly distorted to reflect her cyborg attributes.  Pace as Ronan is the antithesis of his role as Thranduil in The Hobbit trilogy, his sharp features broadened and cloaked in make up, his physical presence as threatening as his vocal manner.  And as Xandarians Corpsman Dey and Nova Prime, Reilly and Close offer sterling support (witness Nova’s conclusion after a less than satisfactory discussion with a Kree diplomat).

The performances are the icing on the cake, the story propelling itself forward with undisguised vigour, Gunn’s expert handling never losing sight of the wider story arc that is obviously to come in future movies and is hinted at towards the end.  The dramatic elements fuse well with the humour – Guardians may just turn out to be one of the funniest movies of 2014 – and the action set pieces are exhilarating, especially the aerial assault on Ronan’s ship, the Dark Aster.  There are a couple of missteps: Drax alerting Ronan to their presence at The Collector’s reeks of awkward (and unnecessary) plot advancement; and Thanos (Brolin) is just a guy on a throne, with no menace to him at all (no wonder Ronan betrays him).  But otherwise, the movie is a genuine winner, a crowd-pleaser for everyone of all ages.

Rating: 9/10 – a huge delight for fans and for newcomers alike, Guardians of the Galaxy cements Marvel’s position as global box office leader; with a post credits scene that is just sublime, this is one movie set in a galaxy far, far away that is (almost) pure entertainment from beginning to end.