A Brief Word About the 2017 Blockbuster Season

17 Saturday Jun 2017

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2017, Blockbuster movies, Movies, Reboot, Remake, Sequel

Okay, it’s well and truly here, the 2017 Blockbuster Season, the time when the big studios release their tentpole summer movies in the hopes of bagging massive box office returns, and if they’re lucky, some long overdue critical approval. The movies that have been given the biggest push through trailers and promotional tie-ins and targeted social media outlets. The movies with the biggest budgets and the biggest stars. And the movies that roundly and soundly let us down. Each. And. Every. Year.

If you begin with Logan (released back in March), and if you treat it as a blockbuster, then the following movies all fall into the same category: big movies given big releases after big advertising spends have been pretty much exhausted. And those movies are: Kong: Skull Island, Beauty and the Beast, Power Rangers, Ghost in the Shell, The Fate of the Furious, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Alien: Covenant, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Baywatch, Wonder Woman, and The Mummy. Not one of these movies is an original. They’re either a reboot, a remake or a sequel. Most of them have made a shed load of money already, and two of them have made over $1 billion. But can anyone say, hand on heart, that any of these movies have been so good that the anticipation built up by the studios was entirely justified? I don’t think so. To put it bluntly, none of them were that good.

So, still to come we have: Transformers: The Last Knight, Despicable Me 3, Spider-Man: Homecoming, War for the Planet of the Apes, Cars 3, Dunkirk, The Dark Tower, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, and Kingsman: The Golden Circle. More heavy doses of fantasy and action, and another round of movies that we’ll all hope will be better than we think they’ll be. But how is it that we always fall for this “false advertising”? How is it that we always fall for the same build-ups and the same claims that Movie X will be amazing/fantastic/mind-blowing/the best thing sliced bread? Are we that numb to the continual failings of the big studios to provide audiences with movies that they can actually engage with on an emotional and intellectual level? And can we not just say No to over-hyped movies and their dire content? The people that make these movies are all highly regarded and all highly talented, but they make the same mediocre/rubbish/moronic (I’m talking about you, Baywatch) movies over and over. And we all rush to see them (and before you say, “yes, and so do you”, my excuse is that I’ll watch anything – I’m a movie addict).

This is a concern that I’ve raised before on thedullwoodexperiment, and I have no doubt that I’ll be raising it again in the future (probably next year). But before I do, think about it like this: the big studios tell us that their summer blockbuster movies help subsidise the smaller, more intimate movies that they also make. But even with that, aren’t we entitled to spend our money on seeing a tentpole movie that really does move us – and not to ennui?

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)

30 Tuesday May 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Black Pearl, Brenton Thwaites, Comedy, Curse, Drama, Fantasy, Geoffrey Rush, Javier Bardem, Joachim Rønning, Johnny Depp, Kaya Scodelario, Review, Sequel, Trident of Poseidon

aka Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge

D: Joachim Rønning, Espen Sandberg / 129m

Cast: Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Geoffrey Rush, Brenton Thwaites, Kaya Scodelario, Kevin McNally, Golshifteh Farahani, David Wenham, Stephen Graham, Angus Barnett, Martin Klebba, Adam Brown, Giles New, Lewis McGowan, Orlando Bloom, Paul McCartney

Six years after Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides appeared to have brought the franchise to an end, Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer have resurrected Captain Jack Sparrow for one more round of hijinks on the high seas. This movie and a potential sixth in the series were being planned even before On Stranger Tides was released, but production delays and script problems kept Dead Men Tell No Tales from our screens until now. It’s debatable that anyone outside of the cast and crew and studio bosses were enthusiastic about the idea of a fifth movie, and it’s doubtful that even die-hard fans were expecting too much from it, but the series has made a lot of money since it began back in 2003 – over $3.7 billion before this installment – so perhaps another entry shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.

Dead Men Tell No Tales harks back to the simpler, more effective pleasures found in the series’ first movie, Curse of the Black Pearl, and attempts to forget the bloated excesses of the previous two installments by imitating much of what made that movie so successful. However, this approach hasn’t meant a return to form, but instead has stopped the rot. You can argue that this is a better movie than On Stranger Tides, and you wouldn’t be wrong, but both as a stand-alone entry and the continuation of a series that provides links to its predecessors in an ongoing game of Guess-the-Reference, number five in the series is still found wanting.

For a start, there’s the plot, a mish-mash of ideas that are borne out of the idea that hidden somewhere at sea is the Trident of Poseidon, and that this is the cure for all the curses of the sea. At the start of the movie, a young Henry Turner (McGowan) confronts his father, Will (Bloom), and tells him of his plan to find the Trident and free him from his fate as the Flying Dutchman. Will believes the Trident can’t be found, but Henry is determined. Nine years later, Henry is now a young man (Thwaites), and still searching for the Trident, as is astronomer Carina Smyth (Scodelario). She has a book that gives clues to the Trident’s whereabouts, but has been condemned by the British as a witch. Henry, meanwhile, has encountered the ghost of Captain Salazar (Bardem) who is seeking revenge on Captain Jack Sparrow for his supernatural existence. On the island of St Martin, Henry, Carina and Jack all come together and make sail for the unmarked island that can’t be navigated to, closely followed by Salazar and interested party Barbossa (Rush).

There’s more – much more – and therein lies one of the movie’s biggest problems: it takes what should be a fairly straightforward idea and twists it so far out of shape that every attempt to straighten it out merely serves to make it less and less, and less, straightforward. The plot becomes buried under layer after layer of unnecessary twists and turns and double crosses and “clever” subterfuges. The characters’ individual storylines become convoluted and unwieldy, with one relationship forged out of nothing, and as for any character development, that’s been ignored in favour of getting everyone from point A to point B with a minimum of effort or fuss. For a movie that was delayed partly because of script problems, it makes you wonder just how bad scribe Jeff Nathanson’s original screenplay really was (or if Johnny Depp’s widely credited contributions are to blame instead).

Another problem lies with the character of Jack Sparrow himself. Five movies in and it’s clear that the character has run out of steam both dramatically and comedically. He’s a pale shadow of his former self, no longer as witty as he once was, or retaining the skewed moral compass he once had, and halfway to being a lampoon. And for the most part Depp is going through the motions, offering brief glimpses of the portrayal that made such an impact fourteen years ago, but unable to rekindle the past glories that came with that portrayal. The usual grinning and grimacing are there but that’s the point: it’s exactly the same grinning and grimacing we’ve already seen four times before. When your main character becomes more and more of a caricature with every outing, then it’s time to really shake things up and do something different.

But doing something different – anything different – isn’t part of the movie’s agenda. Instead, newcomers Rønning and Sandberg cleave to the look and feel of the first movie, but are hamstrung by having little in the way of dramatic meat to work with, and a preponderance of comedic moments that are self-referential and which largely fall flat. Yes, there are moments where you’ll smile and maybe chuckle to yourself, but outright laughs are as rare as someone in Salazar’s crew having a complete body. The various action set pieces offer the occasional frisson, but again there’s very little that holds the attention or seems fresh by design or in execution. A bank heist early on plays like a low-budget version of the vault robbery from Fast Five (2011), while the finale steals its set up from the parting of the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments (1956).

On the acting front, returnees Rush, McNally, Klebba, Graham, Barnett, New, and Bloom do what they need to do within the confines of the script, while newcomers Bardem, Thwaites, Scodelario, Farahani (as a thinly disguised version of Naomie Harris’s Calypso), and Wenham face exactly the same problem. When an actor of the calibre of Javier Bardem can’t manage to make a character such as Salazar even occasionally memorable then there’s definitely something wrong going on. And just when you thought there wasn’t a rock star who could give a worse performance than Keith Richards in a Pirates movie, up pops Paul McCartney as Jack’s Uncle Jack, an appearance that makes you pray he doesn’t pop up again.

In essence, this is a movie (and a fourth sequel to boot) that atones for the appalling nature of its immediate predecessor, but which in doing so, defaults to being predictable and safe. This makes it a movie that offers few rewards for its fans, and even fewer rewards for anyone coming to the franchise for the first time. A post credits scene sets up a sixth movie which looks set to bring back another character from the series’ past, but if it does, then it will have to be a vast improvement on this entry, and perhaps require a complete rethink of a franchise that has gone astray and which shows no immediate signs of finding its way back.

Rating: 4/10 – impressive CGI and beautiful locations are about the best things in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, but even they aren’t good enough to rescue a movie that opts for mediocre as a first choice, and is only fitfully entertaining; a tiptoe in the right direction for the franchise but still an underwhelming experience for anyone who remembers the glory days of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

Alien: Covenant (2017)

12 Friday May 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Drama, Horror, Katherine Waterston, Michael Fassbender, Prequel, Review, Ridley Scott, Sci-fi, Sequel, Thriller, Xenomorph

D: Ridley Scott / 122m

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demián Bichir, Carmen Ejogo, Jussie Smollett, Callie Hernandez, Amy Siemetz, Nathaniel Dean, Alexander England, Benjamin Rigby, Uli Latukefu, Tess Haubrich

When the Alien franchise was given a new lease of life with official prequel Prometheus (2012), audiences were teased with the idea that they would finally learn just where the series’ chief villain, the xenomorph, came from. Prometheus, though, raised far more questions than it provided answers, and while it introduced the Engineers and went some way to showing the xenomorph’s origins (though not the reasons for its creation), the intended link between this first prequel and the original Alien (1979) remained obscure, and still far from being revealed. With Alien: Covenant, audiences could be excused for believing that some of those unanswered questions would be addressed, and the connecting story expanded on. But with at least two further prequels (sequels to the prequels?) planned, and possibly a third, the message here is frustratingly clear: don’t expect to learn anything you didn’t already know.

After the cod-theological leanings of Prometheus, the latest in the saga opts instead for cod-philosophical leanings, and spends time musing on notions of creation and acknowledging one’s place in the scheme of things. But the movie – scripted by John Logan and Dante Harper from a story by Jack Paglen and Michael Green – isn’t interested in exploring these notions in relation to the human contingent of the story, but instead in relation to two androids: David and Walter (both Fassbender) who represent opposite ends of their creationist cycle. David is the prototype, while Walter is the later model built to surpass the limitations of the original. Together they talk about their creator’s expectations for them, and then their own. But while on the surface these musings appear in keeping with the wider story of the xenomorph’s creation (whatever that may be), they don’t add as much depth to the material as may have been intended. Instead, they provide a basis and a reason for a third act “reveal” that exists purely to set up the next installment.

Before then, we’re introduced to the latest group of dinner dates for the murderous xenomorph. Only this time it’s either a neomorph (“infant” version) or a protomorph (“adult” version), but either way it still behaves like its forebear(?), has acid for blood, screeches like a banshee, and kills anyone in its path. This time around, the movie’s motley band of victims is the crew of the colony ship Covenant. A group of terraformers en route to an Earth-like planet called Origae-6, their cargo consists of two thousand colonists all in cryo-sleep, and a thousand embryos all in cold storage. While the crew also enjoys their cryo-sleep (they’re seven-and-a-half years away from reaching their destination), Walter carries out a variety of assigned tasks and monitors the ship and its personnel. A blast of unexpected solar energy damages the ship, and Walter wakes up the crew – all except for the captain, whose cryo-pod refuses to open. Thanks to the damage to the ship’s systems, the captain burns to death in his cryo-pod, which leaves Oram (Crudup) in charge.

A distress signal picked up from a planet that apparently doesn’t exist on any celestial maps reveals a human origin, and prompts Oram to redirect the Covenant to check it out. With the planet appearing to support human life, and being only a few weeks’ to get to, the reservations of chief terraformer Daniels (Waterston) are acknowledged but unheeded. Leaving chief pilot Tennessee (McBride) and two other crewmembers on board, Oram, along with Daniels, Walter, and the rest of the crew descends to the planet’s surface. There they find an anomaly in the form of wheat, a crashed spaceship, danger in the form of spores that infect two of the crew, and an unexpected rescuer when said spores precipitate the deaths of more than the infected. With a massive magnetic storm hindering their return to the Covenant, Oram and the remaining crew must find a way to survive the deadly intentions of the protomorph, and a more sinister danger lurking in their midst.

Those who found themselves dissatisfied with the direction taken in Prometheus will be pleased with this return to the series’ more basic roots, but even though it’s a step in the right direction, the problem with the movie overall is that it doesn’t offer anything new, and it doesn’t come close to replicating the tension and sense of dread that made Alien such an impressive outing. It tries to, and the script is clearly designed and constructed to provide gory set pieces at regular intervals in honour of the series’ abiding commitment to shocking audiences with jolts of body horror, but for anyone who’s seen all the previous movies in the franchise, this is a retread of scenes and set ups that were far more effective the first time round. Likewise the introduction of the various characters as regular joes, a device used to very good effect in Alien, but which here is truncated in favour of getting on with the action. Inevitably this means that when the crew starts to be whittled down, it doesn’t have the same effect as in the past, and Waterston’s plucky terraformer aside, it’s difficult to care about anyone as well.

In many ways, Alien: Covenant is a stripped down series’ entry that concentrates more on reliving old glories than advancing the franchise’s intended long-form narrative. Whatever happens in Alien: Awakening (2019?), it’s to be hoped that it reverts to telling the story begun in Prometheus and which should eventually connect with Alien. Here there are still more questions to be answered, and there’s a suspicion that the writers are already painting themselves into a corner, and that the decision to make a handful of prequels instead of just one all-encompassing prequel is beginning to look more than a little unsound. This has all the hallmarks of a movie made in response to the negative reaction afforded Prometheus, and if so, you have to wonder what this movie would have been like if the reaction had been positive. More of the same? Further exploration of the Engineers and their motivations? More pseudo-religious theorising? Less rampaging alien attacks and gory killings? It looks as if we’ll never know.

With the characters reduced mostly to alien-bait, only Fassbender and Waterston make any impact, though it is good to see McBride playing it completely straight for once. Fassbender is a mercurial actor but he always seems to have a stillness about him that seeps through in all his performances. Here as both David and Walter, that stillness is used to tremendous effect, and whether he’s waxing lyrical about art and music as David, or looking concerned as Walter, Fassbender provides two endlessly fascinating portrayals for the price of one. Waterston is equally impressive in a role that will inevitably draw comparisons with Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, but Waterston is canny enough not to make Daniels as strong-willed as Ripley, nor as valorous. Though she’s the movie’s nominal heroine, Daniels retains a vulnerability that Ripley didn’t have at all, and Waterston is a winning presence, her last act heroism borne out of desperation rather than determination.

Third time around, Ridley Scott ensures the movie looks as beautiful and darkly realised as his other entries, but somehow fails to make the movie as tense and compelling as Alien, or as intellectually portentous as Prometheus. He does ensure that the movie rattles along at a fair old lick, but with the script providing a series of “greatest hits” moments for him to revisit, Scott’s involvement doesn’t always appear to be as purposeful as in the past. There are too many moments where the movie’s energy seems to flag, and the tension dissipates as a result, leaving the viewer to wonder, if a director’s cut should be released in the future, will it be shorter than the theatrical version? And not even he can avoid making the movie’s coda look uninspired and predictable, all of which begs the question, should someone else sit in the director’s chair for the rest of the prequels?

Rating: 6/10 – a fitful, occasionally impressive second prequel/first sequel, Alien: Covenant revisits the haunted house horror tropes that made the first movie so successful, but finds little inspiration to help it fulfill its intentions; another missed opportunity to make the series as momentous as it was nearly forty years ago, where the story goes from here remains to be seen, but in continuing Scott et al really need to remember that a satisfying mystery requires a satisfying answer, something that this entry seems to have forgotten about entirely.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

28 Friday Apr 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Bradley Cooper, Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Drama, Ego, James Gunn, Marvel, Michael Rooker, Review, Sci-fi, Sequel, Star Lord, The Sovereign, Vin Diesel, Zoe Saldana

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 Fate of the Furious (2017)

12 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Charlize Theron, Cuba, Drama, Dwayne Johnson, F. Gary Gray, Jason Statham, Kurt Russell, Michelle Rodriguez, Review, Sequel, Thriller, Vin Diesel

aka Fast & Furious 8

D: F. Gary Gray / 136m

Cast: Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez, Charlize Theron, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Nathalie Emmanuel, Scott Eastwood, Kurt Russell, Elsa Pataky, Helen Mirren, Kristofer Hivju

And so we come to episode eight in the ongoing Fast and Furious franchise, the series that just keeps on giving and giving… and giving and giving and giving and giving. This is a movie, one of several that we’ll see this year, that will do incredibly well at the international box office, and which will be hugely successful no matter what critics or bloggers or anyone and their auntie says about it. It’s a movie that exists in its own little cinematic bubble, oblivious to movie making trends, advances or developments. If you live in the UK, it’s the equivalent of those Ronseal adverts that state, “It does what it says on the tin”. And if you don’t live in the UK, then try this comparison: it’s like going to McDonalds and ordering a Big Mac, fries and a Coke. You know exactly what you’re getting, and it doesn’t matter if you’ve had that particular combo more times than you can remember, that’s also kind of the point. Here, familiarity breeds expectation, and the makers of the Fast and Furious movies know exactly how to satisfy that expectation.

All the familiar elements are here: exotic locations (Iceland, Cuba, New York?), Diesel being taciturn and glowering a lot (he even shouts a few times, which is new), Johnson looking like a poster boy for steroid abuse, Rodriguez glowering a lot like Diesel, Gibson acting unconscionably stupid, Bridges giving nerds a fairly good name for once, over-the-top action sequences that regularly and deliberately challenge the laws of physics, and cars, lots of shiny, sleek, expensive cars. Relative series newbies Russell, Emmanuel and Statham slot in neatly amidst the rest of the cast, while complete newbies Eastwood (good guy) and Theron (bad guy) add little and a lot respectively. Throw in some old faces from previous entries, and a storyline that’s been built on the back of the last two outings, and you have another patchy, under-developed crowd-pleaser that does enough to keep its audience interested while at the same time giving said audience very very very little that’s new. And it’s the opener for a closing trilogy of movies that will see the franchise come to an end in April 2021.

If there’s anything interesting about the movie, it’s the way in which it harkens back to earlier entries, and tries to incorporate the look and feel of those earlier movies. The opening sequence, set in Cuba, is a throwback to the approach and feel of the first and third movies, with its street-level, underground racing vibe, and beautiful hangers-on to some of the ugliest drivers ever seen on screen. There’s a car up for grabs, a sneering minor villain who thinks he can outwit Dominic Toretto (foolish man!), and some very impressive stunt driving. But it’s a measure of how far the series has come in terms of its tone and style, that this sequence – which starts off well – soon descends into the kind of ridiculous, credibility-free, and excessive action set-piece that the series has become known for. Seeing Toretto winning the race in a stripped-down junker, in reverse, and with the engine on fire no less, serves as an acknowledgement that while the series wants to honour its more scaled-back origins, it’s grown too big and excessive to be able to.

Much has been made of this movie’s main storyline – Toretto betrays his “family” – but as a plot device it’s one of the weaker ideas in the series, and all because we know that there’s no way it’s “for real”. As expected, there’s a reason for his “betrayal”, and while it’s played out with as much sincerity as returning scribe Chris Morgan can instil in his by-the-numbers screenplay, it shows a complete disregard for the character of Letty (Rodriguez) and the trials she’s endured since “dying” in part four (and especially in relation to a scene between Letty and Toretto early on in Cuba). Worse still, the whole thing leads to a scene involving Statham’s returning nemesis Deckard Shaw, and the complete reversal of his character from murderous psychopath to genial funster. It’s as if the makers have seen his performance in Spy (2015) and thought to themselves, how can we exploit this?

Character assassination apart, the movie follows the tried and tested formula of the previous three movies, and never deviates from its cookie-cutter approach. It’s no secret that the franchise thinks up its action sequences first and fits a story and plot around them later, but this time the obvious nature of such a design is even more noticeable than before. An attack on a Russian minister on the streets of New York occurs at the halfway mark, and includes the appropriation by über-villain Cipher (Theron) of any car in the area that has an on-board computer system. Why she has to activate all of them makes no sense, but it does lead to mass collisions and vehicles falling from multi-storey car parks and no end of unconvincing CGI. Far better? The scenes predceeding this where Toretto has to escape Cipher’s surveillance in order to put his own plans into action. Short, simple, and so much more effective.

One thing The Fate of the Furious does get right – finally – is its choice of villain. Stepping out of the shadows no one knew she inhabited, Cipher is played with chilling conviction by Theron, and if as seems likely, she’s going to be the villain for the last two movies as well, then her involvement could be the best thing about them – as it is here. With Statham’s character now reformed, the movie needed someone to be a real villain, and Theron comes through in spades. She’s icy, mad, and bad to the core. Theron shares most of her scenes with Diesel, and every time it’s a no contest: she acts him off the plane Cipher uses, and off the screen as well (which is a shame, as away from all his franchise movies, Pitch Black (2000) excepted, he can be a very good actor indeed).

But what about those action sequences? And what about that submarine smashing through the ice? And all those explosions? Everything we’ve seen in the various trailers? Well, they’re all as slickly produced and homogeneously exciting as those in previous entries, and they’re fine examples of modern day action heroics, but even so they remain curiously thrill-free. A prison riot does Statham and Johnson no favours thanks to having been shot in a jerky, shaky style that makes focusing on the various punches and kicks both actors dish out quite difficult to follow. It’s a sequence that could have benefitted from having a few more bone-crunching sound effects thrown in as well. The submarine sequence is reminiscent of the ending to Furious 6 (2013) (justly famous for its neverending runway), but is surprisingly restrained for all that, while the movie’s biggest explosion – naturally saved for last – also gives rise to the movie’s most ridiculous and risible moment.

But none of this matters. Not Helen Mirren’s awful Cockney accent, not Hivju’s distracting resemblance to a young James Cosmo, not even the sight of Johnson manhandling a torpedo as it races across the ice. The Fate of the Furious can do what it likes and audiences will lap it up regardless. Does this make it a bad movie? On the whole, yes, it does. But for all that, is it entertaining? Weirdly, yes, but in a subdued, stopgap kind of fashion, as if this entry in the series was a bridge between previous episodes and the ones to come, ones that will (hopefully) up the series’ game considerably. After eight movies the franchise has reached a kind of tipping point: the final two outings need to be much stronger and more focused on what they’re trying to do. The series hasn’t quite run out of mileage yet, but it’s running perilously close, and if the makers aren’t careful, the remaining movies will most likely be running on fumes.

Rating: 5/10 – fans will lap this up, but The Fate of the Furious, with its tangled ideas about family and betrayal, doesn’t add up to much, and relies too heavily on its action sequences to prop up its awkward script; the cast have to make do with the same character beats they’ve been given in previous movies, and franchise first-timer Gray isn’t allowed to do anything different with the formula, making this a movie generated and made by committee, and as a result, lacking a distinct identity to make it stand out from the rest of the series.

T2 Trainspotting (2017)

19 Sunday Mar 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Danny Boyle, Drama, Drugs, Edinburgh, Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Irvine Welsh, Jonny Lee Miller, Literary adaptation, Porno, Review, Robert Carlyle, Sequel

D: Danny Boyle / 117m

Cast: Ewen McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller, Anjela Nedyalkova, Kelly Macdonald, James Cosmo, Shirley Henderson, Pauline Turner, Scot Greenan, Kyle Fitzpatrick, Gordon Kennedy, Irvine Welsh

Choose life, choose four characters who have led miserable lives for the past twenty years and can’t overcome their failings. Choose redemption if only because it sounds good and it might make you feel better. Choose old friends, however much they might hate you, because making new ones is too difficult. Choose Scotland. Choose to make amends. Choose the past over the future because it’s safer. Choose remorse. Choose anger at seeing your dreams go unfulfilled, and try to make new dreams to stop yourself from feeling angry. Choose revenge if remorse won’t work. Choose life over a slow, drawn-out, painful trudge towards non-existence. Choose drugs to soothe or melt away the pain of choosing life. And choose the path of least resistence so that choices become easy. Choose football, music, sex, anything to make the emptiness inside you feel less overwhelming. But above all, choose life, and live it with everything you’ve got, even when you feel that you don’t have anything to offer, and if you did, that no one would want it.

Twenty-one years on from the events depicted in Trainspotting (1996), we finally have the sequel that’s been mooted for so long (Danny Boyle first voiced the idea back in January 2009). Back then, the original movie ended with Renton (McGregor) stealing the proceeds of a drug deal – £16,000 – from his friends, Simon aka Sick Boy (Miller), Spud (Bremner) and Begbie (Carlyle), and heading off to live a normal life. But that “normal” life, which included living in Amsterdam and being married, has fallen apart, and now Renton is back in Edinburgh. His mother has died, he’s staying with his dad (Cosmo), and looking to hook up with his old friends – if they’ll let him. He visits Spud first, only to find him trying to asphyxiate himself with a plastic bag. Saving an initially ungrateful Spud, Renton learns that Begbie is in jail serving a twenty-five year sentence, Simon is the landlord of a rundown pub that an aunt has left him, and Spud himself is a drug addict.

Renton reconnects with Simon, but Simon holds too much enmity towards his old friend because of the money from the drug deal. Along with his business partner, Veronika (Nedyalkova), Simon offers Renton the chance to become part of a scam to acquire European development funds that Simon can use to open a “leisure” club above the pub. Renton agrees, and ropes in Spud to help design the club and oversee its construction once the funds are awarded. Meanwhile, Begbie finds a way out of prison and back home to his wife, June (Turner), and teenage son, Frank Jr (Greenan). Begbie takes his son with him when he burgles properties, but is sidetracked from his endeavours when he learns from Simon that Renton is back in Edinburgh. Begbie’s thirst for revenge is exploited by Simon, and a chance encounter at a nightclub between the AWOL gaolbird and Renton leads to a showdown above the pub, and the chance to settle old scores the hard way.

If you enjoyed Trainspotting, then T2 Trainspotting is likely to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Laced with affectionate nostalgia and perceptive notions of what it is to be middle-aged and treading water, this looked-for sequel isn’t as iconic as its predecessor – and to be fair, it was never likely to be – but it does have an erstwhile melancholy feel to it that accurately reflects the regrets of its four main characters. Like everyone else, Renton is the architect of his own downfall: drug-free but without any purpose in life, he’s come home because he’s not been able to make a go of it in Amsterdam; he’s adrift in his own life, and lacking ambition. Conversely, Simon has nothing but ambition, a drive to better himself financially, but he lacks foresight and cohesive thinking; his plans always backfire as a result. Spud is an addict who wants to swap his drug habit for something more meaningful, another addiction preferably, but one that has a positive effect on his life; writing down stories from twenty years ago helps him on this path. And Begbie – well, Begbie’s only regret is that he’s only just now got out of prison.

With the characters locked in place, John Hodge’s screenplay is free to explore themes of personal responsibility, misplaced nostalgia, revenge, deceit, and compromised friendships. It looks back further than Trainspotting itself, to when all four friends were much younger, pre-teens with the whole world ahead of them, and all the promise that entailed. It provides flashbacks to the first movie, and reintroduces other characters from twenty years before, such as Renton’s girlfriend, Diane (Macdonald), now a successful solicitor. And it shows how stagnant each of the main characters’ lives have become, how mired in mediocrity they are thanks to emotional malaise and impulsive behaviour. There’s little in the way of meaningful progress for any of them, just a desire to lead brighter, better lives that is slipping away from them with every passing year.

This gloomy, regret-laden approach could have made the movie too depressing or downbeat for audiences unfamiliar with the original (which was itself a frank, unapologetic examination of the joys and horrors inherent in taking drugs), but there’s too much mordaunt humour and scabrous comedy on display, and Hodge and returning director Danny Boyle have made a movie that connects on various, different levels, and which does so with Boyle’s trademark visual stylings. This is still a movie that fizzes with invention, from its seemingly scattershot, haphazard camera angles, complex yet rewarding editing rhythms, exceptionally well chosen soundtrack, and emphatic performances, and all the way down to the integration of “old’ footage with new, including a recreation of that classic moment from the original where Renton is almost knocked down by a car – and then stops to revel in the moment.

It’s a Danny Boyle movie through and through, with several moments where the semi-linear narrative seems unlikely to knit together into a satisfying whole, until by the end, everything has been explained and the various strands all neatly tied up. And there are fitting outcomes for all the characters, with all bar one back on the road to self-respect and potential absolution. In bringing back the original cast, and at a point where their own ages reflect the passing of time more effectively than if it had been achieved through make up, the movie offers a kind of shorthand for new viewers, introducing each character they play with an economy of purpose that’s admirable and effective. McGregor still retains some of that boyish charm that made the younger Renton so attractive to watch, while Miller takes glowering to new heights, his features displaying the frustration of Simon’s life with an icy conviction. Carlyle is still effortlessly frightening as Begbie, a man who may not be as comfortable in his own skin as we thought, but who can still inject menace and venom into the most unremarkable line of dialogue.

But if there’s one performance that stands out from the rest, and unexpectedly so, it’s that of Bremner as Spud. Spud is the eternal fuck-up, the addict with the unenviable ability to still feel deeply and profoundly despite the mental numbing he endures, and Bremner is simply superb in the role. Spud is the only character that the viewer can sympathise with, as his motives are selfless, and focused (as best he can) on providing for his partner, Gail (Henderson), and son, Fergus (Fitzpatrick). There’s an innate bravery about Spud that Bremner underplays with skill, making the moment where his writing skills are acknowledged by Veronika, a touching and heartfelt one. Through Veronika’s eyes we see Spud as more than just an addict, and unlike his friends, he can be cheered on with affectionate glee. But friendship is still the key ingredient in what makes these four people tick, even if they’re at odds with each other over past indiscretions. And some bonds, however stretched or damaged they may have become, will, as the movie tells us, withstand much more besides, and still prove beneficial to everyone concerned, no matter how much life has battered them.

Rating: 8/10 – an invigorating if pensive look at middle-aged bitterness wrapped up in a blanket of repentance, T2 Trainspotting doesn’t match the heights of its predecessor, but in fairness, it never actually tries; as much a product of its time as the first movie, there’s a heartache about this movie that is genuinely affecting, and which allows new viewers to see Renton et al as far more than cyphers in a movie about trying not to let the past inform and dictate the future.

Logan (2017)

03 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Adamantium, Boyd Holbrook, Caliban, Dafne Keen, Drama, Hugh Jackman, James Mangold, Marvel, Patrick Stewart, Professor X, Richard E. Grant, Road movie, Sequel, Stephen Merchant, Superheroes, Thriller, Transigen, Wolverine, X-23

D: James Mangold / 137m

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Richard E. Grant, Eriq LaSalle, Elise Neal, Quincy Fouse

It’s 2029, and mutants are pretty thin on the ground, with those that remain hiding from the rest of humanity, hoping to be overlooked. They’re almost extinct thanks to a virus created by the Transigen Project, led by Dr Zander Rice (Grant). More able than most to blend in, Logan aka Wolverine (Jackman), is working as a limo driver while also looking after – secretly – Professor Charles Xavier (Stewart), now in his nineties and suffering from senile dementia. Hidden away in Mexico, Logan is helped in this by another mutant, Caliban (Merchant). Xavier’s psychic abilities are now inherently dangerous; if he has a seizure it triggers a psychic attack that could mean the death of anyone around him. In one of his more lucid moments he talks of a mutant who will need Logan’s help, but Logan doesn’t want to know anything about it.

An encounter with a woman, Gabriela (Rodriguez) and a young girl, Laura (Keen), brings Logan and the mutant Xavier has been talking about together. Laura is a mutant, but with a difference: she was created in a Transigen lab, along with twenty-two other “children”. Bred to be weapons, the creation of a twenty-fourth mutant means Laura and all the other children are expendable. Gabriela has helped Laura and the other children escape, but now they need to rendezvous at a place called Eden in North Dakota. When Transigen come a-calling at Logan’s hideout – in the form of Donald Pierce (Holbrook) and his team of genetically enhanced Reavers – previous events dictate that Logan, Xavier and Laura make a run for it, and against Logan’s better judgment, they head for North Dakota. But Caliban is captured by Pierce and coerced into using his tracking abilities to find Logan and the girl.

As the trio journey to Eden, Logan learns more about the activities of Transigen and their attempts to create mutants they can control, while Pierce comes close a couple of times to catching them. A chance encounter outside of Oklahoma City with a local family, the Munsons (LaSalle, Neal, Fouse) has unexpected consequences, as well as revealing the identity of X24, Transigen’s latest creation. Logan does eventually get Laura to Eden, which proves to be real and not the comic book-inspired destination that Logan has believed Gabriela made up. There the other children are planning to make a break for the Canadian border, and Laura plans to go with them. But Pierce, now accompanied by Dr Rice, is soon on their heels, and it will need Logan’s alter ego, the Wolverine, to ensure they reach safety instead of being captured and killed.

Fans of Logan/Wolverine have been clamouring to see the character that they’ve read and seen in the comics, brought to life in the same violent, berserker fashion that he’s portrayed on the page. A brief moment towards the end of X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) gave everyone a chance to see what that would look like, but it was just a moment, however well-received. Now, in his third solo outing, Logan’s rage has finally been given its due, and this is the ultra-violent/borderline sadistic outing that the fans have been waiting for. The tone is set right at the start, with a scene that pits Logan against a quartet of gangbangers. Blasted in the chest, he still gets up and proceeds to use his adamantium claws to slice, dice and eviscerate all four of them. But at the same time it’s clear that his healing powers aren’t as effective as they used to be, and though his trademark rage is still there, it appears that the use of his claws is as painful for him as it is for anyone on their receiving end.

It’s this vulnerable side to Logan’s character, this curtailment of his powers, that makes Logan such an interesting movie to watch. Based very loosely on the comic book series Old Man Logan (2008-09), this version of Logan, older, even more pragmatic, yet weary of life and living, allows the viewer to look beyond the usual superhero movie traits, and into the mind of a character who’s seen and done too much and doesn’t care to keep living that kind of life. He wants to die, a concept that most – if not all – other superhero movies shy away from. But returning director James Mangold, who made The Wolverine (2013), and along with screenwriters Michael Green and Scott Frank, has made a road movie-cum-Western that adds surprisingly complex emotional layers to its basic storyline, and which doesn’t tiptoe around the issues it brings up. This is an unashamedly adult “superhero” movie, dealing with adult themes in an intelligent, adult way, and at no point does it short change the viewer by glossing over the emotional stakes set up within the narrative.

It’s the Wolverine movie that Hugh Jackman has been waiting to make since his first appearance in the role back in 2000. Still aloof, but weighed down by experiences we can only guess at, Logan is battered and scarred, his features weathered by time, and partly hidden beneath a salt and pepper beard that provides texture in terms of his age and weary resignation at being so old. This is a Logan who is continually in pain, the antithesis of the Logan we’re used to seeing, and it’s ironic that the source of his strength and invincibility (until now), his adamantium skeleton and claws, is the very thing that’s now killing him. There’s an inevitable layer of melancholy attached to this, but Mangold and Jackman make sure that Logan’s gruff demeanour is still in place, derailing any sentimentality that might have arisen otherwise. This isn’t as elegiac as its references to Shane (1953) make it sound; instead, it’s about that other staple narrative of the Old West, the passing of an era.

Jackman excels in what is easily his best performance in the role, and it’s good to see him finally playing Logan as something more than the cigar-chomping, Elvis-sideburned figure we’ve been used to. But if Jackman’s transformation into a much older Logan is disarming, then he’s more than matched by Stewart’s interpretation of Xavier’s mental disintegration. There are moments when Stewart’s bewildered, beseeching features are too painful to watch, and again it’s the irony of seeing a once proud and powerful man undermined by the very gift that made him stand out from the crowd that makes the movie so emotionally complex and rewarding. There are terrific supporting turns from Holbrook (give this man a leading role, for Pete’s sake), Grant, and Merchant, but inevitably it’s Keen who draws the viewer’s attention for her largely mute, refreshingly feral performance as Laura/X23, a character with a close connection to Logan, and someone you really don’t want to mess with when she furrows her brow.

If this really is Jackman’s swansong in the role then he couldn’t have picked a better storyline with which to hang up the claws and walk away from the X-Men franchise. By stripping back the narrative, and focusing on the relationships of the three main characters, Logan transcends its comic book origins to become a movie that is daring, quietly introspective when necessary, aggressively violent in a shocking, sometimes disturbing way, and able to take its basic set up – the road movie – and twist it far enough out of shape that it feels more nuanced and transgressive than on first impression. Mangold shapes the world around Logan with a keen eye for detail, and avoids doling out excessive sentimentality, keeping everything grounded and credible, despite the fantastic nature of the material. It’s an artistic triumph, and one that shows that Marvel superhero movies don’t have to follow the same template all the time, a message that Kevin Feige will hopefully take on board.

Rating: 9/10 – an intense, gritty, superbly realised and mature outing for its title character, Logan is perhaps the first “superhero” movie that wouldn’t feel out of place as a Best Film Oscar nominee (though it’s still unlikely to happen); gripping for long stretches, with the quieter moments proving just as engrossing as the action sequences (which are very well staged indeed, if a little hyper-edited), Mangold and Jackman’s determination to give the Wolverine a proper send-off is apparent from start to end.

John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

15 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Chad Stahelski, Common, Drama, Ian McShane, Keanu Reeves, New York, Review, Riccardo Scamarcio, Rome, Sequel, The Continental, Thriller

D: Chad Stahelski / 122m

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Riccardo Scamarcio, Ian McShane, Common, Ruby Rose, Claudia Gerini, Laurence Fishburne, Lance Reddick, Franco Nero, Peter Serafinowicz, Peter Stormare, John Leguizamo, Bridget Moynahan

In the surprise movie of 2014, Keanu Reeves made a bit of a comeback playing a retired assassin called John Wick. Brutally coerced into giving up a peaceful life as a widower after his wife, Helen (Moynahan), died from cancer, Wick had his car stolen and his dog – a puppy! – killed (not to mention being beaten up himself). He came out of retirement, dished out some serious retribution – killing a total of seventy-seven people (mostly unfortunate henchmen) in the process – and headed off into the sunrise.

Well, that’s what we thought he was doing. But as this amped-up, mercilessly nihilistic sequel shows, here’s what John actually did next. First there’s the small matter of retrieving his car from the uncle (Stormare) of the Russian gangster who stole his car in the first place. One warehouse full of wrecked cars and dead or suffering henchmen later, John has got his vehicle back and has managed to get it home where it can be rebuilt in all its former glory by John’s friend and chop shop specialist, Aurelio (Leguizamo). Job done, he says hello to his new dog, and he even re-buries the weapons he disinterred in the first movie. But just as he’s finished that, and is ready to resume his retirement, fate comes calling in the form of sequel nemesis, Santino D’Antonio (Scamarcia).

Santino wants John to honour a marker he has, the debt that John owes him for Santino’s help in John’s retirement. John refuses, but Santino is like a spoilt child who’s been told he can’t have his own way. As soon as he leaves he uses a rocket launcher to blow John’s house to smithereens (but don’t worry, this time John and the dog survive). Next stop for a seriously annoyed John is the Continental hotel, where assassins can meet, have a few drinks, rest up, and absolutely, positively not kill each other. Chided by hotel owner and mentor, Winston (McShane), for not accepting the marker, John meets with Santino and discovers that his target is Santino’s sister, Gianna (Gerini).

So, a less than happy John travels to Rome, meets up with Winston’s Italian counterpart, Julius (Nero), gets all kitted out – bulletproof suits are all the rage in Rome – and after wandering through a series of tunnels setting up an elaborate kill sequence for later, he finds Gianna. Her death ensues, and just as expected, John has to escape back through the tunnels while offing an astonishingly large amount of disposable henchmen (don’t they have a union?). On his tail is Santino’s right hand assassin, Ares (Rose), there to dispose of him as a “loose end”, and Cassian (Common), Gianna’s personal bodyguard, who has taken his employer’s death, well, personally. John avoids death several dozen times over, gets back to the Italian Continental, and manages to leave for New York with Julius’s help. But not before the scheming and deceitful Santino has taken out a contract on John’s life, a contract worth $7m to anyone who can do what no one else has even come close to doing: killing the Boogeyman himself.

There’s more to the story, but in actuality it doesn’t amount to much, peppered as it is with an extended sequence of multiple mayhems at a train station – John and Cassian casually shooting at each other over the heads of blissfully unaware travellers is both comical and disturbing in equal measure – a reunion for ex-Matrix co-stars Reeves and Laurence (“Don’t call me Larry”) Fishburne, and yet another extended shootout in a museum, which features a genuinely disorientating sequence in an exhibition wing full of mirrored hallways and rooms. It’s all impossibly loud and garish and there’s not even the hint of a policeman hoving into view at any moment (though we do get to see a returning Jimmy the patrolman ask John if he’s “working”).

But plausibility and noting the absence of any laws that don’t pertain to the life of an assassin aren’t exactly the movie’s main interest. John Wick: Chapter 2 has one mission statement and one mission statement only: to provide its audience with as many over the top, seriously insane fight sequences as it can squeeze into its two hour running time. There are moments when the movie is absolutely bat-shit crazy in its determination to make viewers exclaim “Holy f*ck!” at the positively insane levels of violence on display, whether it’s John taking out a motorcyclist with a car door, or dispatching another assassin with a pencil; it’s all designed to up the ante for modern day action thrillers, and put other like-minded movie makers on notice: this is what you have to surpass.

Whether anyone else can or will match the violent excesses that John Wick can come up with is debatable – and that’s without the inevitable Chapter 3 to consider as well. Under the guidance of returning screenwriter Derek Kolstad and director Chad Stahelski, John Wick: Chapter 2 is a riot: bigger, bolder, more exhausting than its predecessor, and yet leavened by healthy doses of humour when it’s needed. It’s not to all tastes, and some viewers will be put off by the obvious “gun love” on display, not to mention the number of close up head shots that are sprayed (literally) throughout the movie. But this is a movie that’s unashamedly for fans of high body counts, sneering villains who’ll definitely get their come-uppance, brutal fight sequences, and beautifully art-directed and surreal backdrops for said sequences.

The world that John Wick and his contemporaries inhabit is not the same world that we inhabit (though it has its similarities, obviously). In it, a man can be shot in the stomach and still see off multiple attackers. But thanks to a script that’s much cleverer in its design and intent than most people are likely to give it credit for, this is a sequel that delivers on the promise of its predecessor, and adds a whole new level of shock and awe, while also expanding on the world it takes place in. It’s almost the perfect sequel, giving the returning audience more of what it liked first time round and much more besides. If there are criticisms to be made then they’ll relate to the suddenness of the airport sequences and how they’re edited together (clumsily in places), and the continuing idea that John Wick is a ghost, the boogeyman that no one sees coming, when everyone he meets says, “Ah, Mr Wick”.

It all ends on a promise, one that will have fans clamouring for the makers to hurry up, and naysayers burying their heads in their hands in despair. But again, this is a movie made for fans of the original, a demographic that has apparently grown since 2014. At time of writing, John Wick: Chapter 2 has already made half of what the first movie made overall, and in just four days of release. And whatever you might say about Reeves’ acting ability, or the absurdity of the shootouts and one man overcoming all odds, this is a movie that delivers a ridiculous amount of adrenalin-fuelled turmoil and does so with an enormous amount of chutzpah. There really isn’t anything else out there to touch it.

Rating: 9/10 – that rare beast, a superior sequel, John Wick: Chapter 2 opens up the throttle in the first frenzied fifteen minutes, and barely lets up for the next hour and forty-five minutes; simply put, it does what it says on the tin, and then pumps an extra shot in for good measure.

Brotherhood (2016)

09 Thursday Feb 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Arnold Oceng, Cornell John, Drama, Jason Maza, Noel Clarke, Revenge, Review, Sequel, The Hood Trilogy, Thriller

D: Noel Clarke / 104m

Cast: Noel Clarke, Arnold Oceng, Jason Maza, Cornell John, Shanika Warren-Markland, Tonia Sotiropoulou, Leeshon Alexander, Lashana Lynch, David Ajala, Nick Nevern, Jack McMullen, Michael “Stormzy” Omari, Daniel Anthony, Adjoa Andoh, Red Madrell

And this year’s award for worst second sequel of a British movie goes to…

It’s a category you’re not likely to see at the BAFTAs this year (or any year for that matter), but if you did then Brotherhood would be the odds-on, hands-down winner. A broad mix of revenge drama, juvenile comedy, awkward social commentary, and baffling thriller, Noel Clarke’s conclusion to The Hood Trilogy – following Kidulthood (2006) and Adulthood (2008) – sees him return to the character of Sam Peel and provide fans of the previous entries with a disjointed, exploitation-heavy, credibility-free movie that is let down by Clarke most of all.

Which is a huge shame, as Clarke has consistently fought to make British movies on his own terms and for British audiences first and foremost. When Kidulthood was released, it was the kind of movie that audiences were unfamiliar with. Its gritty, though exaggerated look at a South London teenage sub-culture, was challenging, and a bold statement of intent from Clarke himself, who wrote the script. As well as Clarke, it contained roles for the likes of Adam Deacon, Nicholas Hoult and Rafe Spall, and grabbed enough attention that it spawned a slew of similar, like-minded movies over the next few years. Two years later, Adulthood cemented Clarke’s reputation as an indie movie maker, retaining the original’s gritty, challenging demeanour while exploring themes of revenge and personal responsibility that attempted to add depth to the events of the movie.

The same themes are explored even further in Brotherhood, but as with most second sequels, the law of diminishing returns hits hard, and sees Clarke struggle to piece together a storyline that makes any sense. Ten years on from the events seen in Kidulthood, Sam is holding down four jobs in his efforts to keep his family – partner Kayla (Warren-Markland), and their two young children – together, but it means he doesn’t see as much of them as he needs to. Meanwhile, his younger brother, Royston (Anthony), an up-and-coming singer, is shot and wounded at a gig; the gunman leaves a note “For Sam Peel”.

When Sam learns of the note through one of Royston’s friends, Henry (Oceng), it leads him to an East End gangster called Daley (Maza). Daley explains that Sam, and his family, has been targeted for “past sins”, sins that can be erased if he takes a job working for him. Sam refuses, and is then confronted by Curtis (John), the uncle of Trife, a young man Sam killed ten years before. He wants revenge, and wants Sam to know what it’s like to have nothing. Matters are made worse when a stupid mistake on Sam’s part causes Kayla to leave with the children, and a sudden death pushes Sam over the edge and seeking his own revenge on both Curtis and Daley.

Brotherhood is a mess, both in terms of its plot and storyline, and its overall approach. Clarke can’t seem to connect things in an organic, natural manner, and there are too many scenes that bump up against each other like strangers. Whether or not this was intended from the start – and it’s unlikely that it was – what it means for the movie as a whole is it becomes a succession of unlikely situations and confrontations connected by the thinnest of motivations or a variety of ill-considered choices. Chief among these is the note left for Sam by Royston’s assailant: Henry takes the note home, leaves it there for a day or two (the movie’s timeline is hazy at the best of times), runs into Sam by accident, and only then tells him about it. It’s one of several occasions when the movie prompts disbelief in the viewer, and makes you wonder if Clarke was in too much of a rush to get the movie made, and was forced to cut several corners in the process.

If so, it still doesn’t excuse just how clumsily the plot has been assembled, or how badly it’s been executed. Clarke the writer and Clarke the director often seem at odds with each other, offering contradictions in scene after scene and never meshing together in a way that allows the tortured narrative to make any sense. Early on, Sam catches on that one of Daley’s gang is following him. Sam attacks him, beating him to the ground and injuring his leg, but in the very next minute, Hugs (Alexander), Daley’s enforcer, arrives on the scene and Sam immediately backs down and behaves like a scared child. It’s such an about-face that it’s actually shocking to see Clarke the screenwriter and Clarke the director expose Clarke the actor in such a terrible way, and make what should be a tense, memorable moment one that encourages laughter and further disbelief.

As a result of Clarke’s poorly constructed script, and his equally poor directorial choices, the rest of the cast fare just as badly, and are as poorly served as Clarke himself. Maza gives a mannered performance that’s meant to be menacing, but he’s about as scary as the villain in a Scooby-Doo! movie. John, who’s appeared in all three movies, plays the vengeful Curtis with all the subtlety of a tank crushing roses, while Oceng is the comic relief whose performance is surprisingly enjoyable, but whose character, and his involvement, is at odds with the tone of the rest of the movie.

But worst of all is the callous streak of misogyny that runs throughout the movie, with several scenes that feature “European prostitutes” being paraded completely naked or wearing the kind of lingerie that makes no difference. Their inclusion provides a sour taste that the movie never overcomes (or makes any apology for), and Clarke makes sure that he has sex scenes with Warren-Markland and Sotiropoulou that fail to add to the plot or advance it in any way. The movie seems happier when it’s being violent, and there’s a particularly nasty – and yet, cathartic – scene where Sam takes a nail gun to one of Daley’s goons. But it doesn’t rescue the movie from the tonal and narrative disasters it propagates throughout its running time, and despite everyone’s best efforts, Brotherhood proves to be an unfortunate conclusion to a saga that has never really escaped its rough and ready appearance, or its raw, ill-defined acting.

Rating: 3/10 – low-budget, British “meh”; an unfortunate conclusion to a trilogy of movies that have always been well regarded (though against the odds), Brotherhood is unlikely to be thought of in the same way as either of its predecessors, and is let down by an amateurish sheen that is the responsibility of all concerned, and not just its overstretched writer/director/actor.

Mini-Review: Underworld: Blood Wars (2016)

22 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Anna Foerster, Charles Dance, Drama, Fantasy, Kate Beckinsale, Lara Pulver, Lycans, Review, Selene, Sequel, Theo James, Thriller, Tobias Menzies, Vampires

D: Anna Foerster / 91m

Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Theo James, Tobias Menzies, Lara Pulver, Charles Dance, James Faulkner, Peter Andersson, Clementine Nicholson, Bradley James, Daisy Head, Oliver Stark

Seconds out… round five! Yes, four years after the resoundingly awful Underworld: Awakening (2012), the world is treated to yet another unwanted, unneeded, unnecessary, and unwatchable Underworld movie. Nothing has changed. The Vampires and the Lycans are still at war with each other (though the Lycans appear to have the upper hand), Selene is still an outcast from her fellow bloodsuckers for killing Victor way, way back in Underworld (2003), blood is still the most important commodity on both sides, Kate Beckinsale still looks great in skin-tight black leather, and the plot makes about as much sense as building a dam from ten packs of waffles. It’s complete and utter tosh, and you get the sense that no one was really taking this seriously; not one person.

What plot there is concerns the Lycans reducing Vampire numbers by the coven load, thanks to the inspired leadership of Marius (Menzies), who appears to be a kind of enhanced werewolf. On the Vampire side, Elder Thomas (Dance) is supported by Vampire Council member Semira (Pulver) in bringing Selene (Beckinsale) back into the fold in order for her to use her unique skills in fending off/killing the Lycans. Selene relcutantly accepts but is soon betrayed by the scheming Semira, and flees to the Nordic Coven, where a Lycan attack led by Marius leaves her dead beneath the ice. With Semira further emboldened by news of Selene’s death, she allows the Lycans access to the Eastern Coven, and soon the place is overrun by werewolves. With only Thomas’s son David (James) to lead them – which is handy as he’s the true heir to the Vampire leadership – the Vampires are in danger of being wiped out once and for all…

By now, any movies in the Underworld franchise that find a release (and Alexander Corvinus help us, there’s another one in the works), are purely for the fans only. They will make a certain amount of money – so far Blood Wars has made over $75 million, more than double its production budget – and they’ll gain a respectable (new) lease of life on home video. For the makers, it’s a win-win situation, and to some degree, it’s the same for the fans. Kate Beckinsale as Selene + warring Vampires and Lycans + shoddy CGI effects + incomprehensible storylines and dialogue + the same steel blue lighting effects in each movie + poorly edited action sequences = the franchise that good taste can’t kill.

Like the Resident Evil series, which also foists a movie on us every few years, the Underworld movies feature a strong-minded, invincible heroine, and the merest interest in logic or credibility. As long as there’s a fight scene every ten minutes, and the villains are appropriately nasty and conniving and amoral, then nothing else is really needed. Well, except for an establishing shot to set up the next instalment, that is. That these movies continue to attract the likes of Beckinsale and Dance is possibly the only thing that’s impressive about them, but not even Beckinsale can do anything with lines such as, “There is no beginning, there is no end. There is only the coming.” That’ll be Underworld: Dead Poor then.

Rating: 3/10 – the first truly “meh” movie of 2017, Underworld: Blood Wars has all the attraction of root canal work and a rectal exam put together; unfailingly predictable, and trite on almost every level, the directorial debut of TV helmer Foerster readily shows that the producers are firmly in charge and there’s no room for originality – at all.

Monthly Roundup – December 2016

31 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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50's sci-fi movie, A Perfect Man, Action, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Ana Girardot, Barry Sonnenfeld, Cameron Mitchell, Cat, Cell, Chandler Riggs, Christopher Walken, Comedy, David Tomlinson, Devil's Crag, Diana Dors, Drama, Edward Kemmer, Eliminators (2016), Flight to Mars, Frances O'Connor, Giant from the Unknown, Hard Target 2, Horror, Hostile takeover, Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary, James Bobin, James Nunn, Jennifer Garner, John Cusack, Johnny Depp, Kevin Spacey, Lesley Selander, Literary adaptation, Marguerite Chapman, Mars, Maurice Elvey, Mercy (2014), Mia Wasikowska, Murder, Myanmar, Nine Lives, Peter Cornwell, Pierre Niney, Reviews, Rhona Mitra, Richard E. Cunha, Robert Knepper, Roel Reiné, Sally Fraser, Samuel L. Jackson, Scott Adkins, Sequel, Shirley Knight, Stephen King, The Mad Hatter, The Red Queen, Thriller, Tod Williams, Vargas, Wade Barrett, Wonderland, WWE Films, Yann Gozlan

Cell (2016) / D: Tod Williams / 98m

Cast: John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, Isabelle Fuhrman, Clark Sarullo, Ethan Andrew Casto, Owen Teague, Stacy Keach, Joshua Mikel

Rating: 4/10 – a mysterious cell phone signal turns people into crazed, zombie-like creatures, but one man (Cusack) is determined to find his son while society disintegrates around him; a Stephen King adaptation (and co-scripted by him), Cell is another reminder that his work rarely translates well to the screen, and this is no exception, being dramatically incoherent, a waste of its talented cast, and lumbered with an ending that makes absolutely no sense at all.

A Perfect Man (2015) / D: Yann Gozlan / 104m

Original title: Un homme idéal

Cast: Pierre Niney, Ana Girardot, André Marcon, Valéria Cavalli, Thibault Vinçon, Marc Barbé, Sacha Mijovic

Rating: 7/10 – aspiring author Mathieu Vasseur (Niney) isn’t getting anywhere until he finds an unpublished novel and claims it as his own, a move that leads to fame, fortune, blackmail, and ultimately, murder; a clever, twisty thriller that benefits from a splendidly nervous, anxious performance from Niney, A Perfect Man may have many familiar elements, but it’s a movie with a great deal of style, and it holds the attention in such a way that there are times when you won’t realise you’re holding your breath.

Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary (1953) / D: Maurice Elvey / 80m

Cast: David Tomlinson, Diana Dors, Bonar Colleano, Sidney James, Diana Decker, Audrey Freeman, MacDonald Parke

Rating: 5/10 – returning to the UK with his new bride (Decker), US soldier Laurie Vining (Colleano) is horrified to learn that he may still be married to his first wife, glamour girl Candy (Dors), a situation that leads to his desperately trying to avoid his new bride – or anyone else – from finding out; a bedroom farce based on a successful stage play, Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary has dated somewhat, but for fans of the cast and this type of Fifties UK comedy, there’s much to enjoy, from the frantic mugging of Colleano and Tomlinson, Elvey’s efficient direction, and a surprisingly nuanced performance from Dors.

Eliminators (2016) / D: James Nunn / 94m

Cast: Scott Adkins, Wade Barrett, Daniel Caltagirone, James Cosmo, Ty Glaser, Olivia Mace, Lily Ann Stubbs

Rating: 3/10 – when a home invasion means his Witness Protection identity is compromised, ex-Federal Agent Martin Parker (Adkins) finds himself the target of a hitman (Barrett) and forced to go on the run; a WWE Films production shot on location in and around London, Eliminators is a bog-standard actioner that stretches credulity, invites disbelief, and warrants avoidance as it does its best to cram in as many dull action scenes as it can in ninety minutes, and serves as yet another reminder that being a WWE superstar doesn’t mean you can act.

Giant from the Unknown (1958) / D: Richard E. Cunha / 77m

aka The Diablo Giant; Giant from Devil’s Crag; Giant from Diablo Point

Cast: Edward Kemmer, Sally Fraser, Bob Steele, Morris Ankrum, Buddy Baer, Jolene Brand, Gary Crutcher, Billy Dix

Rating: 4/10 – animal mutilations and murder plague a small town – and that’s before a giant Spanish conquistador is released from suspended animation by a lightning bolt, and threatens both the town’s inhabitants and the research team trying to ascertain if the legend about him is true; not the best example of a Fifties “creature feature”, Giant from the Unknown takes so long to get going that it’s nearly over before it’s begun, features a raft of irritating performances, and is so flatly directed by Cunha that once the Giant is awakened, you can’t help but pray that he’s the first victim.

Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) / D: James Bobin / 113m

Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, Rhys Ifans, Matt Lucas, Lindsay Duncan, Leo Bill, Ed Speelers, Geraldine James, Andrew Scott, Alan Rickman, Stephen Fry, Michael Sheen, Barbara Windsor, Timothy Spall, Matt Vogel, Paul Whitehouse

Rating: 5/10 – Alice (Wasikowska) returns to Wonderland to save the Mad Hatter (Depp) from suicidal depression(!) and the attentions of Time (Cohen) and the Red Queen (Carter) who are working in tandem and holding the Hatter’s family hostage for no convincing reason you can think of; another sequel no one asked for (and nowhere near as successful as its predecessor), Alice Through the Looking Glass is ravishing to look at, boasts some fine visual effects, and a great performance by Cohen, but everything else is a mess: bloated, derivative, witless, and with yet another wasteful performance from Depp (who clearly can’t be bothered).

Hard Target 2 (2016) / D: Roel Reiné / 104m

Cast: Scott Adkins, Robert Knepper, Rhona Mitra, Temuera Morrison, Ann Truong, Adam Saunders, Jamie Timony, Peter Hardy

Rating: 4/10 – ex-MMA fighter Wes Baylor (Adkins) finds himself in Myanmar with one simple objective: reach the Thai border while he’s pursued by a motley group of “hunters” who are out to kill him; a movie that definitely comes under the heading of “another sequel no one asked for”, Hard Target 2 is betrayed by its low budget origins, a script that lurches from one unmemorable action scene to another, and Knepper’s one-note portrayal of the villain.

Nine Lives (2016) / D: Barry Sonnenfeld / 87m

Cast: Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Garner, Christopher Walken, Robbie Amell, Malina Weissman, Cheryl Hines, Mark Consuelos, Talitha Bateman

Rating: 3/10 – businessman Tom Brand (Spacey) has no time for his wife (Garner) and daughter (Weissman), so what better way for him to learn the value of family (and some humility in the process) than by stranding his mind in the body of a cat?; the kind of inane, superficial comedy that Hollywood churns out with mindless regularity, Nine Lives gives Garfield 2 (2006) a run for its money in the stupid stakes, and hammers another nail into the coffin of Barry Sonnenfeld’s once-glorious career.

Flight to Mars (1951) / D: Lesley Selander / 72m

Cast: Marguerite Chapman, Cameron Mitchell, Arthur Franz, Virginia Huston, John Litel, Morris Ankrum, Richard Gaines, Lucille Barkley, Robert Barrat

Rating: 5/10 – the first manned flight to Mars gets there safely only to learn that the planet is inhabited, and by a human-like race that may or may not have an ulterior motive for helping them return to Earth; early-Fifties sci-fi hokum that throws in a tepid romance and some very, very short skirts for the female cast, Flight to Mars retains an odd charm – perhaps because of its naïve approach – that helps alleviate some of the more daffy moments the script insists on doling out.

Mercy (2014) / D: Peter Cornwell / 79m

Cast: Frances O’Connor, Shirley Knight, Chandler Riggs, Joel Courtney, Mark Duplass, Dylan McDermott, Amanda Walsh, Hana Hayes, Pepper Binkley

Rating: 4/10 – after a spell in a nursing home, Grandma Mercy (Knight) comes home to be looked after by her family – daughter Rebecca (O’Connor) and grandsons George (Riggs) and Buddy (Courtney) – but soon exhibits strange behaviour, behaviour that includes warning George that a supernatural force is coming to get him; adapted from the short story Gramma by Stephen King (yes, him again), Mercy aims for creepy and menacing, yet succeeds instead in being confused and uninspired, and with laboured direction and performances, a situation that devotees of King adaptations will appreciate, having been there many times before.

Blair Witch (2016)

27 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Adam Wingard, Black Hills, Burkittsville, Callie Hernandez, Drama, Horror, James Allen McCune, Review, Sequel, The Woods, Witch

D: Adam Wingard / 89m

Cast: James Allen McCune, Callie Hernandez, Corbin Reid, Brandon Scott, Wes Robinson, Valorie Curry

Twenty years after his older sister, Heather, disappeared in the Black Hills woods outside Burkittsville, Maryland, James Donahue (McCune) comes into possession of a video that he believes is evidence that his sister is – somehow – still alive. Determined to find out for sure, he co-opts film student Lisa Arlington (Hernandez) – who is making a documentary about Heather’s disappearance and James’s search for answers – and friends Peter (Scott) and Ashley (Reid) into going with him. The night before they’re due to set off into the woods, they meet locals Lane (Robinson) and Talia (Curry), who agree to go with them.

Having set up camp on the first night, Lane tells the rest of the group stories he’s heard about the history of the Blair Witch. That night, noises from the surrounding woods wake James and Lisa; they discover Lane outside the camp and looking scared. The next day, the group discover lots of stick figures hanging from the trees and that they’ve slept until two o’clock. Freaked out by this, they decide to go back, but after several hours of trying to retrace their steps, they find themselves back at the campsite. Circumstances lead to Lane and Talia leaving the group and attempting to make their own way back.

The remaining four are forced to stay there overnight. Peter disappears, and when James tries to find him he encounters Lane and Talia instead. They tell him they’ve been lost in the woods for five days. The couple are allowed to stay in camp, though Lisa is suspicious of them. James sets his alarm for seven o’clock in the morning, but when it goes off it is still pitch dark. There are also, more, larger stick figures hanging from the trees. Lane runs off, and something happens to Talia that terrifies the rest. James, Lisa and Ashley become separated. When James and Lisa find each other again, they hear what they think is Ashley screaming. With it now raining heavily, they discover the same house where James believes he’ll find his sister…

When The Blair Witch Project was released in 1999, it was a massive, unexpected success. Made on a budget of $60,000, it accrued nearly $250 million worldwide and to this day, is one of the most successful independent movies ever produced. It spawned a sequel, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) that was the antithesis of the original’s tone and approach, and which was so mangled in post-production by distributors Artisan Entertainment, that they wrecked any chances of it being even a fraction as successful as its predecessor. And now, we have a second sequel, one that ignores the events of Book of Shadows, and attempts to recreate the style and tone of the original movie.

The key word here is “attempts”. Writer Simon Barrett and director Adam Wingard have decided, somewhat wisely, to take viewers back to the Black Hills woods, but in doing so, have unwittingly reminded everyone just why The Blair Witch Project was such a major success. It was a movie that dared its audience to say this isn’t real, that three people haven’t really disappeared in mysterious circumstances in the Black Hills woods in Maryland. It also made a virtue of its found-footage approach, and was all the more impressive for it. It was a simple, very effective way of detailing the increasing terror being experienced by Heather and her two friends, Mike and Josh. But since then, the found-footage genre has been done to death and back again, and its very moribund nature is the biggest obstacle any movie maker has to overcome in tackling a movie such as this one. We’ve seen too many people who are lost in the woods and are being menaced by malevolent forces. We’ve seen too many movies where the footage consists of distressed video images that tell us nothing of what’s happening, and are often set up just to provide jump scares.

And Blair Witch is no different. Barrett and Wingard – who are no slouches when it comes to horror movies – fail to provide us with anything new, or memorable. Instead they fall back on the tried and tested formula of several other, similar movies – A Night in the Woods (2012), Evidence (2011), and Willow Creek (2013), to name but a few – and make the same mistake that everyone else makes: they don’t provide us with anyone to care about. This leaves the movie feeling more like a (very) belated cash-in designed to wring a few more dollars out of an unsuspecting fanbase and/or potentially interested public. The makers went to a lot of trouble to ensure that Blair Witch wasn’t on anyone’s radar during its production, and right up until its first showing at this year’s Comic-Con, it was known as The Woods. Perhaps they already knew this wasn’t going to be as good as they’d hoped.

In the end, the movie falls way short of being a worthy successor to The Blair Witch Project, and it falls way short of being even an above average found-footage movie. Several times, and particularly during the events that take place in the house, there are shots that are clearly made by a third person. The editing, by Louis Cioffi, is haphazard and draining, stretching some scenes out to longer than necessary, while truncating others unnecessarily, and Wingard’s control of the material is similar in execution, with a lack of focus that undermines the narrative – such as it is – and keeps the audience at a distance.

The movie makes yet another huge mistake in showing the Blair Witch herself (however briefly), where the original didn’t have the inclination or the need, being scary enough without her – and it doesn’t help that she looks like the second cousin of the creature from [Rec] 2 (2009). When a sequel doesn’t follow through on one of the most important and effective decisions its predecessor made, then you know that no one’s paying close enough attention. And if they’re not, why should you?

Rating: 4/10 – professionally made but lacking in real smarts, Blair Witch arrives like an unwanted guest at a funeral – they knew the deceased, but can’t think of anything worthwhile to say about them; a sequel that squanders its predecessor’s legacy, it soon runs out of things with which to engage the audience and worse still, it can’t even come up with an ending that is even halfway as disturbing as the fate that befell Heather.

Monthly Roundup – November 2016

01 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Adam Schindler, All'ultimo sangue, Andrew Stanton, Animation, Annalise Basso, Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies, Beth Riesgraf, Bury Them Deep, Colin Firth, Comedy, Craig Hill, Dominik Hartl, Drama, Elizabeth Reaser, Ellen DeGeneres, Ettore Manni, Felicity Jones, Finding Dory, Fort Osage, Gabriela Marcinková, Home invasion, Horror, Inferno (2016), Laurie Calvert, Lesley Selander, Literary adaptation, Mike Flanagan, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Paolo Moffa, Patrick Dempsey, Plague virus, Prequel, Renée Zellweger, Rod Cameron, Romance, Romantic comedy, Ron Howard, Rory Culkin, Sequel, Sharon Maguire, Shut In, Ski-ing, Thriller, Tom Hanks, Western

Bury Them Deep (1968) / D: Paolo Moffa (as John Byrd) / 109m

Original title: All’ultimo sangue

Cast: Craig Hill, Ettore Manni, Giovanni Cianfriglia (as Ken Wood), José Greci, Francesco Santovetti, Luciano Doria, Pino Patti (as Giuseppe Sorrentino), Ruggero Salvadori

Rating: 5/10 – when an Army payroll is stolen by notorious outlaw Billy Gun (Cianfriglia), expert tracker Clive Norton (Hill) is hired to get it back, but in the process he finds himself up against a variety of obstacles, not the least of which is Billy’s brother, El Chaleco (Manni); an average Spaghetti Western given a much needed dose of energy thanks to Manni’s muscular, spirited performance as the conniving El Chaleco, Bury Them Deep rarely rises above its perfunctory level, and despite cramming in several lengthy action sequences.

Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016) / D: Mike Flanagan / 99m

Cast: Elizabeth Reaser, Annalise Basso, Lulu Wilson, Henry Thomas, Parker Mack

Rating: 6/10 – it’s 1965, and the Zander family – single mother Alice (Reaser) and her two daughters, Lina (Basso) and Doris (Wilson) – become imperilled by an evil spirit thanks to the misguided use of a ouija board; a prequel to the events seen in Ouija (2014), this does nothing new in terms of scares and special effects, but thanks to the involvement of Flanagan, at least gives you characters you can actually relate to and care about, and which is a rare and valuable thing indeed.

Finding Dory (2016) / D: Andrew Stanton, Angus MacLane / 97m

Cast: Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Ed O’Neill, Kaitlin Olson, Hayden Rolence, Ty Burrell, Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy, Sloane Murray, Idris Elba, Dominic West, Bob Peterson, Kate McKinnon, Bill Hader, Sigourney Weaver

Rating: 7/10 – Dory the blue tang fish (DeGeneres) starts having flashbacks to when she was younger and lived with her parents, and these in turn prompt her to try and find them, much to the continuing consternation of clown fish Marlin (Brooks) and his more positive son Nemo (Rolence); a sequel to one of Pixar’s most cherished movies, and one of this year’s most anticipated releases, Finding Dory lacks the original movie’s winning charm, and settles instead for being a guilty pleasure retread of Finding Nemo, while being saved from a lower score thanks to DeGeneres wonderful, and still inspired, vocal performance.

Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016) / D: Sharon Maguire / 123m

Cast: Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth, Patrick Dempsey, Sarah Solemani, Gemma Jones, Jim Broadbent, Emma Thompson, Neil Pearson, Joanna Scanlan, Kate O’Flynn, Celia Imrie, Ed Sheeran

Rating: 7/10 – at the dreadfully old age of forty-three, Bridget (Zellweger) feels like love is passing her by, until two one night stands – with old flame Mark Darcy (Firth) and new beau Jack Qwant (Dempsey) – lead to her being pregnant but unsure as to which one of them is the father; a welcome return for Bridget, and with much of the pizzazz and feelgood humour of the first movie, but the whole “who’s the father?” storyline is a poor conceit to hang a whole movie on, and it shows, leaving standout moments such as Bridget miming to House of Pain’s Jump Around, as a much better reason for splurging on this latest installment.

Shut In (2015) / D: Adam Schindler / 90m

aka Deadly Home; Intruders

Cast: Beth Riesgraf, Rory Culkin, Martin Starr, Jack Kesy, Joshua Mikel, Leticia Jiminez, Timothy T. McKinney

Rating: 5/10 – when Anna (Riesgraf), who’s agoraphobic, doesn’t attend her recently deceased brother’s funeral, the three men who arrive at her home to rob her soon find that Anna has a dark secret that will endanger them all; a brave attempt to do something different in the home invasion genre, Shut In nevertheless remains an intriguing idea that never coalesces into a completely successful whole, but does feature a terrific performance from Riesgraf.

Inferno (2016) / D: Ron Howard / 121m

Cast: Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Omar Sy, Irrfan Khan, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Ben Foster, Ana Ularu, Ida Darvish

Rating: 6/10 – despite suffering from short term memory loss, symbologist Robert Langdon must endure a race against time in order to stop the release of a deadly toxin that will wipe out billions of people; another year, another Dan Brown adaptation, but this time it’s an adaptation that’s at least bearable, thanks to Tom Elkins’ and Daniel P. Hanley’s editing skills, an enjoyable, knowing performance from Khan, and a script that doesn’t hang around getting bogged down by endless exposition, which, considering Brown’s reliance on it in his novels, is a massive step forward should The Lost Symbol or any further novels be adapted for the screen.

Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies (2016) / D: Dominik Hartl / 77m

Cast: Laurie Calvert, Gabriela Marcinková, Oscar Dyekjær Giese, Margarete Tiesel, Karl Fischer, Patricia Aulitzky, Kari Rakkola

Rating: 5/10 – a formula for producing snow proves extremely harmful if ingested, and soon the guests at a remote mountain top ski resort are knee deep in zombies, both human and animal; similar in tone to the Dead Snow movies, Attack of the Lederhosen Zombies combines daft humour with gross-out gore and flying body parts a-plenty, but as usual with this type of movie, it pays lip service to cohesive plotting, or credible characters, and focuses instead on providing a series of inventive zombie kills – which is pretty much the only aspect it gets right.

Fort Osage (1952) / D: Lesley Selander / 72m

Cast: Rod Cameron, Jane Nigh, Morris Ankrum, Douglas Kennedy, John Ridgely

Rating: 6/10 – homesteaders looking to head west through Indian country are exploited by a crooked businessman (Ankrum) and have their lives put at risk by his decision to cheat said Indians out of the rewards of a peace treaty, leaving would-be wagonmaster Tom Clay (Cameron) to get the bottom of all the corruption; an enjoyable way to spend seventy-two minutes thanks to Selander’s typically intuitive direction, Cameron’s no-nonsense approach to dialogue, and the joy of watching so many standard Western tropes being trotted out and given such a good airing.

Mini-Review: Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)

06 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, Cobie Smulders, Conspiracy, Danika Yarosh, Drama, Edward Zwick, Father/daughter relationship, Lee Child, Literary adaptation, Murder, New Orleans, Sequel, Thriller, Tom Cruise, US Military

D: Edward Zwick / 118m

Cast: Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders, Aldis Hodge, Danika Yarosh, Patrick Heusinger, Holt McCallany, Austin Hébert, Robert Knepper, Madalyn Horcher, Robert Catrini

After helping the US Military apprehend a crooked sheriff – it doesn’t matter why – Jack Reacher (Cruise) begins flirting by telephone with his contact, Major Susan Turner (Smulders). When he arrives back at his old military HQ to meet her for the first time, Reacher finds she’s been arrested on suspicion of treason. It’s all to do with an investigation she was overseeing in Afghanistan, and which involves the murder of two soldiers out there. Reacher is instantly suspicious himself, but when Turner’s attorney winds up murdered, he finds himself framed for the killing, and with only one option going forward: break Turner and himself out of military prison and go on the run while also trying to solve the conspiracy surrounding Turner’s arrest.

While all this is going on, Reacher also learns that he may have a daughter. Her name is Samantha (Yarosh), she’s fifteen years old, and she becomes involved when the mercenary assassin (Heusinger) charged with tracking down Reacher and Turner links her to her possible father. With the guilty party looking like defence contractor, Parasource, the trio travel to New Orleans and try to find the company’s middle man in Afghanistan, Daniel Prudhomme (Hébert). Frightened and in hiding, Prudhomme is eventually found, and what he tells them reveals a puzzling conspiracy involving the illegal smuggling of weaponry owned by Parasource itself, the rewards of which are outweighed by the potential worth of government contracts.

Jack Reacher (2012) made just enough money (if $218,340,595 can be considered “just enough”) to allow Jack Reacher: Never Go Back to be made. Making this only the second time that Cruise has reprised a character role, the movie again dispenses with any intention of following the sequence of Lee Child’s novels, and plumps for a more recent effort. Given that it provides Reacher with a potential daughter, you can see why Never Go Back was so attractive to the producers, including Cruise himself: let’s show the action man can be a big softie as well (though, actually, not too much of a big softie). But in the end, all this means is that the viewer is subjected to dozens of close ups of Cruise manipulating his facial expressions as if with strings, and a handful of awkward father-daughter moments that are played by rote. You can guess the outcome of this particular “mystery” from a mile away, but the movie goes through the motions with it, and never once makes it seem that Reacher and Samantha could achieve a really meaningful relationship.

This leaves the conspiracy story to lead the rest of the movie, but sadly, the movie never springs to life with it, leaving everything feeling flat and unnecessarily bland. Part of the problem is that you don’t really care what happens to anyone, even Samantha, and the mechanics of the villain’s deadly plot never catch on in the way that the writers and producers and Edward Zwick would like. None of it seems relevant, and all of it is coated with a thin layer of effort. Cruise looks determined, but often it’s difficult to work out if he’s in character or just trying to get through the filming stage. Smulders at least tries to inject some passion into things, but she’s held back by a script that actively ignores her character’s role in the military whenever it can, and at one point sidelines her as a babysitter to Samantha. It all makes the viewer “glad” that sexism can rear its ugly head in a movie, and if it’s supported by Tom Cruise then it’s all the better, and perhaps, even acceptable.

Rating: 5/10 – a sequel that lacks the bite of its predecessor, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back could also be called Jack Reacher: Never Knowingly Exciting; professionally done but a little too generic in its approach and presentation, it’s a movie that never strays out of its comfort zone, not even by accident.

Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016)

06 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Bad Neighbours 2, Chloë Grace Moretz, Comedy, Kappa Nu, Neighbours, Nicholas Stoller, Review, Rose Byrne, Sequel, Seth Rogen, Sorority, Zac Efron

aka Bad Neighbours 2

D: Nicholas Stoller / 92m

Cast: Seth Rogen, Zac Efron, Rose Byrne, Chloë Grace Moretz, Ike Barinholtz, Kiersey Clemons, Beanie Feldstein, Dave Franco, Jerrod Carmichael, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Elise Vargas, Zoey Vargas, John Early, Hannibal Buress, Selena Gomez, Kelsey Grammer, Lisa Kudrow

Meh (see also Mechanic: Resurrection and Bastille Day).

Rating: 3/10 – a disastrous sequel that should be subtitled The Movie Laughs Forgot, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising is another “comedy” that barely succeeds in raising a smile, let alone any genuine outbursts of laughter; a lame retread of the original, the cast sleepwalk through their roles, the script allows for long stretches of tedium, Stoller appears to have been on holiday for the whole of shooting, and any chance of a good time is dismissed from the off, leaving the audience to wonder how on earth this was made in the first place.

Mechanic: Resurrection (2016)

31 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Arms dealers, Australia, Crime, Dennis Gansel, Drama, Hitman, Jason Statham, Jessica Alba, Malaysia, Michelle Yeoh, Review, Sequel, Thailand, Thriller, Tommy Lee Jones

D: Dennis Gansel / 99m

Cast: Jason Statham, Jessica Alba, Tommy Lee Jones, Michelle Yeoh, Sam Hazeldine, John Cenatiempo, Toby Eddington, Femi Elufowoju Jr, Anteo Quintavalle

Meh.

Rating: 3/10 – a terrible sequel that lies dead on the screen, Mechanic: Resurrection features some of the worst green screen work ever (the opening fight in Buenos Aires), a plot that makes absolutely no sense at all, and performances from all concerned that border almost on perfunctory – if only they could have made that much effort; action movies don’t have to tie up every loose end or narrative loophole, but this has a script that just doesn’t know when to give up and go home, making it one of the worst experiences you’re likely to have at the cinema all year.

Jason Bourne (2016)

20 Saturday Aug 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Alicia Vikander, Asset, Athens, Berlin, Black ops, CIA, Drama, Iron Hand, Las Vegas, London, Matt Damon, Paul Greengrass, Review, Sequel, Thriller, Tommy Lee Jones, Vincent Cassel

D: Paul Greengrass / 123m

Cast: Matt Damon, Tommy Lee Jones, Alicia Vikander, Vincent Cassel, Julia Stiles, Riz Ahmed, Ato Essandoh, Scott Shepherd, Bill Camp, Vinzenz Kiefer, Stephen Kunken, Gregg Henry

The original Bourne movie trilogy was smart, inventive, thrilling, and a massive boost for the ailing spy genre. It made an action hero of Matt Damon, featured action sequences that were fresh and exciting, and had an emotionally complex through-line that bolstered the already intense plotting. At the end of The Bourne Ultimatum, David Webb had gained the answers to questions that had plagued him ever since he’d been saved from a watery grave by the crew of a fishing boat.

Except… he hasn’t, not really. The closing lines from The Bourne Ultimatum – “I remember. I remember everything.” – are repeated here at the movie’s beginning, and are followed by a montage of scenes from the original trilogy (as far as this movie is concerned, The Bourne Legacy (2012) never happened). But in amongst these memories are flashes of scenes we haven’t seen before. And when Jason Bourne snaps out of his reverie, we find him in the back of a truck and heading for an illegal fight ground in Greece. Clearly the years since he took down Treadstone and Blackbriar haven’t been good to him: despite his fighting prowess he still looks lost. And the bad dreams, or reveries, he’s experiencing aren’t helping. For someone who “remembers everything”, he’s having some of the most spectacularly disturbing and disorienting dreams ever. And he can’t make sense of them, especially the ones that involve his father, Richard Webb (Henry).

Help comes in the familiar but unexpected form of ex-CIA analyst Nicky Parsons (Stiles). Having hacked into the CIA mainframe, she’s done so with the aim of helping Bourne learn more about his past, and has discovered that his father had a greater role in the Treadstone programme than Bourne has been led to believe. But in hacking the CIA, Nicky has become a target and her contacting Bourne in Athens leads to his getting “back in the game”. With CIA operatives on their trail, as well as an Asset (Cassel), Bourne gains access to the information Nicky hacked, and once he becomes aware of his father’s involvement, he finds his enrolment in the Treadstone program wasn’t as clear cut as he thought. But as before, his reappearance has senior members of the CIA, including Director Robert Dewey (Jones), unwilling to let Bourne expose their Black Ops programs. Using a combination of the Asset and the head of the Cyber Crimes Division, Heather Lee (Vikander), to track down Bourne and eliminate him once and for all, Dewey plots to keep the CIA’s secrets as hidden as ever.

Fans of the Bourne Trilogy are generally dismissive of The Bourne Legacy, the Jeremy Renner starring addition to the series that failed to add anything new to the mix, and which felt like an uninspired retread of everything that had gone before. Matt Damon famously turned down the chance to cameo in Legacy, and made it clear that he wouldn’t return to the franchise unless Paul Greengrass was back on board as well. Well, Damon got his wish, and Greengrass is back as the movie’s director. But perhaps Damon should have made another stipulation: that Greengrass didn’t write the script.

Jason Bourne has many of the same attributes that The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum share. There’s the generous use of “shaky cam”, Christopher Rouse’s exemplary editing, excellent location work, and a series of intense and very well-staged action sequences (one of the series major strengths). But there’s one aspect that’s missing this time round, and aside from Greengrass’s muscular directorial style, it’s perhaps the series’ most important component: the contribution of Tony Gilroy. As screenwriter of the first two movies, and co-screenwriter of the third (though his input was drastically reduced), as well as Legacy‘s writer/director, Gilroy helped guide the series from its inauspicious beginnings to a position of critical and commercial success worldwide. His scripts had intelligence, depth and subtlety, and his villains were drawn with a vividness and care that made them worthy adversaries.

But without Gilroy (no doubt a casualty of The Bourne Legacy‘s poor reception), Jason Bourne proves just as disappointing as its unacknowledged predecessor. Nearly ten years on from the events of Ultimatum, Bourne is still an emotional mess, haunted by memory fragments that cause him pain and regret. He looks awful, and Damon plays him like a man besieged. For a man who found all the answers he needed, Bourne looks even more tormented than when he was in the dark. The movie never really attempts to explain why this is the case, preferring instead to give audiences a tortured Bourne without expanding on his back story. As a result, his decision to jump back in, prompted by some spurious nonsense involving his father, seems perfunctory instead of necessary.

With Bourne himself treated in such a cavalier fashion – he’s really just a one-man wrecking crew here – the other characters fare just as badly. Dewey is a stock villain, one step removed from twirling an invisible moustache and muttering “mwah-ha-ha!” whenever the script has him do something nefarious. Jones has no chance with the role, and there are times when his awareness of this comes through loud and clear; just watch his scenes with Vikander, and ask yourself if he looks committed. Cassel’s Asset is fuelled by revenge for the torture he suffered through Bourne’s exposure of the Blackbriar program, but as the character spends an inordinate amount of time running around chasing Bourne without actually catching him, his anger (and his back story) gets shoved to the side. And then there’s Heather Lee, the Cyber Crimes head who acts as this movie’s Pamela Landy. There’s supposed to be some mystery as to which side she’s on (she helps Bourne in various ways while pushing a separate CIA agenda), but thanks to Greengrass’s less than subtle direction, Vikander never looks anything other than extremely distrustful.

And then there’s the small but important matter of how Bourne gets about. From Greece he travels to Berlin, then to London. He does so on his own, without any help from anyone, and manages to elude detection at every turn (a facet of the series that was usually, and very cleverly explained away – but not here). And yet when he travels from London to Las Vegas he does so by commercial aircraft, and though he receives assistance from Lee in getting through US Customs, it still begs the question how UK Customs didn’t flag him up in the first place. (Also, it seems that outside of Athens and Las Vegas there’s not the CCTV infrastructure to allow the CIA to track Bourne efficiently anywhere else.) And stop and think about this: in Las Vegas, at an expo for a communications platform that Dewey wants to appropriate – don’t ask – Bourne picks up various conveniently placed bugging devices that he uses to get to Dewey, all of which begs the question, what plan did he have originally (as he couldn’t have known they were there beforehand)?

Gaping plot holes like these only add to the realisation that Jason Bourne is a less than rewarding, less than necessary sequel to four previous movies (three of which had already told the story effectively and with impressive style), that throws in a handful of rousing action sequences, makes Bourne indestructible, has a subplot involving a communications platform – actually, still don’t ask – and features some of the blandest characters in the whole series. Greengrass is a mercurial director, with a great visual style, but he’s not as good a screenwriter as he might think, and along with Rouse, he makes things too simplistic for the movie’s own good. The end result? A movie that only takes off when it’s throwing punches or chasing SWAT vehicles.

Rating: 5/10 – a missed opportunity to enhance and expand on the series, Jason Bourne trades on nostalgia instead of bringing something new to the franchise; Bourne looks tired throughout, as does Jones, and by the movie’s end the viewer will feel exactly the same way.

Sharknado: The 4th Awakens (2016)

07 Sunday Aug 2016

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Action, Anthony C. Ferrante, Astro X, David Hasselhoff, Drama, Ian Ziering, Masiela Lusha, Niagara Falls, Nukenado, Review, Sequel, Sharks, SyFy, Tara Reid, The Asylum, Thriller, Tommy Davidson, Tornados

D: Anthony C. Ferrante / 85m

Cast: Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, Masiela Lusha, Tommy Davidson, Cody Linley, Ryan Newman, Imani Hakim, David Hasselhoff, Cheryl Tiegs, Gary Busey, Christopher Shone, Nicholas Shone

The title says it all. In fact, it says too much, because in hitching their bandwagon to that of Star Wars, and unleashing a torrent – a veritable Forcenado, if you like – of bad in-jokes and awkwardly added references to their own franchise, the producers of the Sharknado series have pretty much indicated that their confidence isn’t as high as it was this time last year, when Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! proved surprisingly enjoyable. Judging by the look of the movie, there was a much smaller budget available this time, despite the series’ growing success, and the calibre of familiar faces making cameo appearances couldn’t be maintained either.

But Star Wars isn’t the only movie to be given the subtlety-free tribute treatment. There’s also Pirates of the Caribbean, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Twister (“It’s a cownado!”) to name but a few. This leaves the already fragmented plot, what there is of it, feeling like it was made up as filming went along, with returning screenwriter Thunder Levin handing out new script pages each day. As the series’ put-upon hero, Fin Shepard (Ziering), aided by the same core group as in number three, is called upon to battle a variety of shark-infested tornados when a high-tech defense system designed to stop them from forming in the first place, goes wrong. Cue a trio of sharknados, all of which mutate thanks to whatever blatantly ridiculous idea Levin had that day. As a result we have a sandnado, an oilnado, a firenado, a bouldernado, a lightningnado, the aforementioned cownado, a hailnado (a hailmarynado might have been more appropriate), a lavanado, and to top them all, a nukenado.

Part of the series’ appeal – at least until now – has been its self-awareness, and the audience’s knowledge that the makers aren’t taking any of it seriously at all. The series’ humour has been an asset in this respect, but here it’s so tired, and conveyed with such a lack of energy that the one-liners which would previously have raised at least a smile, now induce groans instead. To paraphrase the tagline from Alien, In Sharknado: The 4th Awakens, no one can hear you sigh. Even the celebrity cameos, usually the source of much of the series’ merriment, aren’t able to raise the stakes, and there’s precious little fun to be had when the likes of Alexandra Paul and Gena Lee Nolin are drafted in (for a Baywatch-themed skit with Hasselhoff), only for them to be summarily eaten moments later (now if they’d managed to get Donald Trump…).

For many though, the main source of amusement will come from the so-bad-they’re-terrible special effects. Sharknado: The 4th Awakens reaches new heights (or should that be lows) in low-budget special effects, with some of the worst CGI ever committed to the small screen. The tornados themselves give new meaning to the word “appalling”, while any attempt at combining two separate film elements always looks like the worst kind of cut and splice effect, with backgrounds looking a different colour to what’s intended, and any of the cast unlucky enough to be in the foreground often highlighted by a soft white outline. While none of the Sharknado movies will ever be known for their use of cutting edge computer wizardry, the lack of attention to detail, and a “that’ll do” attitude harm the movie even more than usual.

And if the movie’s less than half-hearted approach to special effects hurts it, spare a thought for the acting – if it can be called that. Out of everyone, Ziering can be considered lucky: he’s got the most physical role, he has no choice but to play it seriously, and even though he knows it’s all as daft as a box of frogs, all he has to do is keep a straight face when he says his lines. As Fin’s supposedly dead wife, April, Reid also keeps a straight face throughout but instead of making the best of things she looks like she’s wondering when her character is really going to be killed off and she can get out of making these movies each year (it doesn’t help that Reid isn’t the best of actresses and uses the same expression for any and all feelings or emotions).

Further down the cast list we have Lusha as Gemini, a character that’s new to the series but who helps Fin in his endeavours (though exactly what her relationship is to Fin is never explained). She’s a replacement for the part of Nova, played in previous instalments by Cassie Scerbo, and while she attacks the role with relish, she’s too intent on making everything she does overly dramatic; as a result she offers a one-note performance that does her no favours. As Fin’s kids, Linley, Newman and the Shone twins are adequate but have little to do; Hakim’s character, though the latest member of the Shepard family (son Matt’s wife), also has little to do but run around after everyone else; Hasselhoff is in the same boat; Davidson tries to inject some much needed energy into his role as the tycoon behind the high-tech defense system, and succeeds largely because he makes more of an effort than anyone else; and then there’s Gary Busey, on board as April’s father and a mad scientist-type, who literally recites the majority of his lines standing up behind a table. It looks like he did all his work in under thirty minutes, or possibly twenty.

In charge once again is Ferrante, directing with all the flair and excitement of a man who can see any chance of a better career ebbing away with every entry in the series (and the movie ends on a set up for Part 5 – lucky guy). In conjunction with returning DoP Laura Beth Love, Ferrante drops any pretence at knowing how to frame a shot or a scene, or how to give direction to a cast who can only muster the enthusiasm to pick up their paycheck. It makes for an often embarrassing collection of stitched together moments that barely add up to a fully-fledged movie.

Rating: 2/10 – for a series that was improving – however gradually – with each successive entry, Sharknado: The 4th Awakens is a massive backward step, and easily the worst entry to date; shoddy in almost every department, with just Chris Ridenhour and Christopher Cano’s driving score to recommend it, the makers have got to go a long way to justify any further adventures for the unlucky Fin and his family.

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

02 Tuesday Aug 2016

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Action, Bones McCoy, Chris Pine, Drama, Federation, Idris Elba, James T. Kirk, Justin Lin, Karl Urban, Krall, Review, Sci-fi, Scotty, Sequel, Simon Pegg, Spock, Uhura, USS Enterprise, USS Franklin, Yorktown, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana

D: Justin Lin / 122m

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Idris Elba, Sofia Boutella, Joe Taslim, Lydia Wilson, Deep Roy, Shohreh Aghdashloo

It’s unfortunate, given the response to Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013), that the latest instalment in the JJ Abrams’ revamped movie franchise opens with über-Captain James T. Kirk (Pine) lamenting his time in space as part of the Enterprise’s five year mission. After nine hundred and sixty-six days, Kirk is, frankly, bored, and as he puts it, “wondering what it is we are trying to accomplish”. It’s like a listening to a man who’s treading water in the ocean, far from land, and hoping a shark comes along to break the monotony. Harking after further adventure, Kirk sounds petulant rather than unhappy. But if it’s a challenge he’s after, then he need wait no further, because once the Enterprise has docked at the Federation’s new super-duper starbase, the Yorktown (a nod to the Enterprise’s original name in the original series’ pilot), an alien craft seeking help arrives and propels Kirk and his long-suffering crew into just the kind of adventure that he craves.

Told that an alien menace headed by someone called Krall (Elba) is responsible for the abduction and imprisonment of her crew, Kalara (Wilson), leads Kirk and co to the planet where her crew are being held. Orbiting the planet, the Enterprise suffers a devastating attack, and the main saucer is forced into a crash landing – but not before Krall and his men have invaded the starship and made it clear they’re after an artifact – the Abronath – that is on board, and not before the crew have been either captured by Krall or gotten away by means of the Enterprise’s escape pods. Spock and Bones escape together, as do Kirk and Chekov, while Scotty gets clear by himself. Down on the planet, Scotty meets Jaylah (Boutella), a scavenger whose people were captured and imprisoned by Krall in the past. She takes him to what she calls her ship, and Scotty is amazed to find it’s the remains of the USS Franklin, a ship long considered to have been lost.

Meanwhile, Spock has been injured, and Bones is doing his best to keep him alive. Sulu and Uhura have been captured, and Kirk and Chekov head for the downed Enterprise to see if they can make it operational again. Krall appears to be one step ahead of everyone, and his motive for gaining the Abronath is revealed to be part of a plan of revenge on the Federation. Aided by Jaylah, the crew of the Enterprise come together to fight back against Krall’s homicidal intentions, and in the process, find some very unique ways of taking the fight to him.

When Paramount announced that they were rebooting the original Star Trek franchise and had given the project to JJ Abrams, it seemed like a risky proposition, what with William Shatner et al having become so completely associated with the roles of Kirk and Spock and Bones etc, that it was hard to imagine anyone else portraying them. But Abrams was more than up to the task, and even managed to come up with a plot device that allowed his “new crew” to have their own adventures independently of the original movie series’ timeline. Quinto was a great choice for Spock, Pine had the cocksure audacity of a younger Kirk down pat, and Urban was possibly a better (if underused) Bones than DeForest Kelley. Only the lack of a convincing villain stopped Star Trek (2009) from being a complete triumph. And then Star Trek: Into Darkness tried to be too clever for its own good with its “He’s not Khan/Okay, he is Khan” shenanigans, and overwrought plotting.

Perhaps realising that going “darker” on the first sequel works only on other sci-fi franchises, the producers have decided with this third outing to go lighter and make Star Trek Beyond more like an episode of the original series; or to be more accurate (or cynical – you decide) a retread of Star Trek: Generations (1994). The script, by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung (who appears briefly as Sulu’s husband, a gender acknowledgment that carries no weight whatsoever in the grand scheme of things), coasts along for the most part, and does what the original series always did so well: focuses on the relationships between Kirk, Spock and Bones, gives Scotty a chance to shine when something needs fixing (which happened pretty much every week), adds an alien collaborator to help the crew overcome the villain, throws in said villain and ensures they have a grudge against everyone else, and sidelines Uhura at every opportunity (though she is involved, by reference, in one of the movie’s funniest scenes). A tried and tested formula, to be sure, and one that on this occasion makes for an enjoyable if underwhelming experience.

But while enjoyable is good – and in a loud, dumb, fun kind of way the movie is enjoyable – there’s something missing that stops it from becoming a Star Trek movie that makes you want to go back and view it again because you had such a great experience watching it the first time. Partly because Krall is yet another weak villain, partly because there are too many occasions when the solution to a problem is to “couple the doohickey to the whatchamacallit and transverse the first number you thought of” (and who knew Kirk was so familiar with the properties of FM radio frequencies?), and partly because any plot development that relies on the presence of a fully functioning motor bike on the bridge of a downed starship, is stretching credibility to snapping point. (There are other moments where the viewer’s jaw is in danger of hitting the floor, but to reveal them all would take too long.)

In the director’s chair, Fast & Furious alumni Lin makes a decent enough fist of things but doesn’t manage to provide audiences with anything really memorable to go away with. It’s a turbo-charged experience, to be sure, and Lin, along with his editing team (Greg D’Auria, Dylan Highsmith, Kelly Matsumoto and Steven Sprung) ensures that the movie zips along at an exciting pace. The visuals are as crisp and vibrant as you would expect, and even though there’s an over-reliance on CGI, this is to be expected: it’s a science fiction movie, for Pete’s sake; how else is it going to look? The cast enter into the spirit of things, though Elba struggles with his dialogue thanks to the kind of alien mask that looks great but probably isn’t that functional; and there’s a touching moment where Spock looks at a picture from the past (that he can’t possibly have).

All in all, Star Trek Beyond is a movie that falls under the heading of “honourable mention”. It’s not going to be at the top of anyone’s list of all-time favourite Star Trek movies, but it won’t be anywhere near the bottom, like Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989). It zips along like a young child eager to show off the neat-looking toy it’s just found, but as any parent will tell you, even neat-looking toys can lose their attraction quickly and without warning.

Rating: 6/10 – a middling, superficially diverting entry in the Star Trek canon, Star Trek Beyond is nothing new or special, and only occasionally rises to meet the demands of franchise (and genre) expectations; more a case of “boldly going where everyone has been before” than anything else, the movie is yet another reminder that the odd-numbered entries in the series are the ones that don’t always work.

Trailers – xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017), Hands of Stone (2016) and In a Valley of Violence (2016)

22 Friday Jul 2016

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Action, Biopic, Ethan Hawke, Hands of Stone, In a Valley of Violence, Movies, Previews, Ray Arcel, Robert De Niro, Roberto Duran, Sequel, Ti West, Trailers, Vin Diesel, Western, xXx: Return of Xander Cage

In the trailer for xXx: Return of Xander Cage, one thing stands out: that pretty much all the action beats we see, involve, or are performed by, everyone with the exception of Vin Diesel (aside from one leg swipe and an elbow to the neck). So straight away this seems less of a movie about the return of Xander Cage, and more of a movie where the star of the Fast & Furious franchise reinvigorates another, minor franchise by inserting his character into a storyline Cage didn’t originally feature in. If that’s so, then Diesel and director D.J. Caruso have an uphill battle on their hands to make Cage a still-relevant action hero at a time when Jason Bourne is back on our screens, and the best action movies are being made by a little outfit called Marvel. But if this really is a brand new outing designed and written specifically for Cage, and is intended to restart the franchise with Diesel firmly in place this time, then on first glance, it’s not looking too good. And it’ll be interesting to see where Tony Jaa fits into the scrapping order (first Paul Walker, now Diesel – who’s next? Michelle Rodriguez?). Let’s hope the two have a thumping good fight scene together, and one that doesn’t rely on the kind of editing that makes you wonder if their stunt doubles should be sharing top billing.

Real violence is on display in Hands of Stone, the story of boxer Roberto Durán’s rise from the poverty-stricken streets of Guarare in Panama, to glory in the ring, and two historic fights with Sugar Ray Leonard. The trailer makes it look as if Durán’s story is being told from the perspective of legendary trainer Ray Arcel, so it may be that the movie carries a degree of objectivity in its approach, and isn’t out to simply lionise Durán’s achievements. The boxer had his demons, and though the trailer touches on these, it’s hard to tell how much time will be spent on the man outside the ring instead of or rather than, the man inside it. Ramirez seems an obvious choice to play Durán (and he may be hoping to erase moviegoers’ memories of his performance in the Point Break remake), but he’s not an actor who’s really proven himself to date. De Niro has proven himself (many times) but the trailer doesn’t make it look as if he’s really trying, so let’s hope he’s more engaged than he’s been in recent years. And let’s hope the fight sequences are more Raging Bull (1980) than Grudge Match (2013).

Ti West is an indie movie maker in the best sense: he writes and directs his own movies, and he has a intriguing visual style that means you’re never sure where he’s going to take you next. Sometimes, as in The Sacrament (2013), he can surprise you just by getting the camera to turn a corner; other times, as in The Innkeepers (2011), he can surprise you by not surprising you (you’ll have to see the movie to know what that’s like). In a Valley of Violence has been on West’s to-do list for some time, and now that the first trailer is here we can see that it’s been well worth the wait. There are few trailers that can adequately instill a sense of foreboding from its assembly of clips, but this is one of those trailers. The lone stranger in town isn’t exactly a new twist on the Western genre, but under West’s stewardship, this looks like meaty, thrilling stuff indeed. With a great cast that includes Ethan Hawke, John Travolta (let’s hope it’s the kind of role he can do real justice to), James Ransone, Karen Gillan and indie favourite Larry Fessenden, this should be a rousing treat come the end of the year.

Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

04 Monday Jul 2016

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Action, Aliens, Bill Pullman, Drama, Invasion, Jeff Goldblum, Jessie T. Usher, Judd Hirsch, Liam Hemsworth, Maika Monroe, Review, Roland Emmerich, Sela Ward, Sequel, Spaceships, Thriller, Twenty years, William Fichtner

D: Roland Emmerich / 120m

Cast: Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum, Jessie T. Usher, Bill Pullman, Maika Monroe, Sela Ward, William Fichtner, Judd Hirsch, Brent Spiner, Travis Tope, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Angelababy, Deobia Oparei, Nicolas Wright, Patrick St. Esprit, Chin Han, Vivica A. Fox

The tagline says it all: “We had twenty years to prepare.” And after all the waiting, this is the sequel we get, a bloated, lumbering, obscenely stupid movie that takes its predecessor’s legacy and repeatedly takes a dump on it. It’s a movie that insults the audience’s intelligence, and patience, at almost every turn in its efforts to tell the kind of half-baked story that should have been abandoned at the earliest stage possible. It took five people to pen the screenplay, two of them Emmerich and his long-time producing partner Dean Devlin, and it shows in the way that no two scenes run together seamlessly or with any sense of on-going purpose. Make no mistake about it: Independence Day: Resurgence is not worth your time.

The signs are there early on. Ex-President Whitmore (Pullman) is having dreams that anticipate the aliens returning. Once awake he’s plagued by a vision of an image he takes to be another of the aliens’ spaceships. Meanwhile, in Africa, a tribal warlord Dikembe Umbutu (Oparei), is visited by David Levinson (Goldblum), but there’s no reason given for Levinson’s being there. When Umbutu takes him to the site of a crashed alien spaceship they discover that it’s been sending out a distress call. Uh oh, we all know what that means!

Cue the Moon-based planetary defence systems coming under apparent attack from a giant sphere that appears out of some kind of black hole. Taking the approach that it’s safer to shoot first then ask questions later, current US President Lanford (Ward) orders its destruction. Maverick pilot Jake Morrison (Hemsworth), though grounded for saving a weapon from destroying the moon base (don’t ask), “borrows” a spaceship and heads for Africa to pick up Levinson so that he can take a look at the wreckage of the sphere (again, don’t ask). Umbutu tags along, as does Dr Catherine Marceaux (Gainsbourg), Umbutu’s shrink-cum-alien researcher, and a cowardly auditor, Floyd Rosenberg (Wright), who’s followng Levinson around for no other reason than the script has put him there. (Is it bizarre enough yet?)

Other characters are added to the mix. There’s ex-President Whitmore’s daughter, Patricia (Monroe), an ex-fighter pilot now working as part of President Lanford’s entourage. There’s Dylan Hiller (Usher), the son of Steven Hiller, the hero of the first movie who has died in a training exercise; he’s in a relationship with Patricia. Then there’s Dr Brakish Okun (Spiner). He’s been in a coma for the last twenty years since his “close encounter” with one of the aliens. Once the distress call goes out, he wakes up, older certainly, but suffering none of the side effects of being in a coma for such a long time (there’s certainly no muscle atrophy). Falling into line are General Adams (Fichtner), the military leader of the US forces, Dylan’s mother, Jasmine (Fox), who works in a hospital, and Jake’s co-pilot/gunner Charlie Miller (Tope), who acts as a comic alternative to Jake’s more serious demeanour. Oh, and let’s not forget Julius Levinson (Hirsch), David’s father, another character from the first movie who’s shoehorned into this one to add even more familiarity to the proceedings (and who miraculously survives what should be the world’s most destructive tsunami). (And that’s all without even mentioning the giant sphere that proves to have the personality of a stuffy doctor’s receptionist – still not bizarre enough?)

All these characters flit in and out of the narrative, adding little beyond their required presence at various points, and only occasionally making an impact. Even Levinson is sidelined by events, while Whitmore fills the role of this movie’s Russell Casse, and President Lanford proves expendable in a sequence that comes and goes without making audiences feel anything other than apathy. Even the movie’s principal hero, Jake, is cruelly underwritten, leaving Hemsworth in the unenviable position of playing a role that highlights his shortcomings as an actor. With the likes of Monroe, Usher and Fichtner reduced to the status of bit part players, the movie ignores its cast for the most part and concentrates on providing more spectacle than you can shake a giant spaceship at.

It’s while Emmerich piles on the destruction that the tagline for Gareth Edwards’ reboot of Godzilla (2014) springs to mind: “Size does matter.” For as the director gets carried away crashing an enormous spaceship into the North Atlantic, and displacing Singapore only as long as it takes to float it halfway around the world and drop it on London, the message comes across loud and clear, that this movie is better because it’s bigger, both in scope and special effects. But it’s all soulless and uninvolving, populated by whizz-bang dogfights and lacklustre retreads of moments from Indepedence Day that only serve to remind viewers just how enjoyable that movie was, and still is.

And where Independence Day kept its laughs to a minimum, its bloated but thankfully shorter sequel adds humour and silliness by the bucket load, largely whenever Okun or Floyd is on screen, and in the plethora of one-liners sprinkled throughout the script. This may have seemed like a good idea at the time but this reliance on making the audience laugh undercuts the seriousness of the situation, leaving the movie feeling uneven and, sometimes, crass in its efforts to entertain instead of having us on the edge of our seats. The world is about to end, but that’s okay, here comes Brent Spiner with another less-than-pithy wisecrack.

That this is so woeful proves the old adage, penned by William Goldman, that in Hollywood, “nobody knows anything”. If they did, then Messrs Emmerich and Devlin wouldn’t have transferred such a dreadful script to the screen and attempted to pass it off as a worthy successor to the movie that made both their names. Where Amy Schumer appeared in a movie called Trainwreck (2015), it wouldn’t be inappropriate for this farrago to be re-titled Spaceshipwreck – it’s a far more apt description.

Rating: 3/10 – without a doubt the worst – so far – of this year’s summer blockbusters, Independence Day: Resurgence lacks apppreciable thrills, appreciable drama, appreciable tension or emotion, and any clear idea of the story it wants to tell; frustrating on so many levels, it’s a movie that consistently defies belief, and does the one thing the viewer will be praying it won’t do: set things up for another sequel.

Mini-Review: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (2016)

30 Thursday Jun 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Comedy, John Corbett, Kirk Jones, Lainie Kazan, Marriage, Michael Constantine, Nia Vardalos, Review, Sequel, The Portokalos family, Wedding

D: Kirk Jones / 94m

Cast: Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Michael Constantine, Lainie Kazan, Andrea Martin, Gia Carides, Joey Fatone, Louis Mandylor, Elena Kampouris, Alex Wolff, Bess Meisler, Rita Wilson, John Stamos, Mark Margolis, Rob Riggle

The extended Portokalos family are back, but since we saw them in My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002), things haven’t remained the same: Toula (Vardalos) has had to close her travel agency due to the recession, and the family dry cleaning business has gone the same way. All that’s left is the restaurant started by her father, Gus (Constantine). On the home front, Toula and her husband, Ian (Corbett) have a grown-up daughter, Paris (Kampouris), who can’t wait to head off to college and escape her family’s overbearing attempts to make sure she’s okay – and Gus’s constant reminders that she needs to marry at the first opportunity. Some things though haven’t changed: Gus is still convinced that the Greeks invented everything, and that he’s a direct descendant of Alexander the Great. When this assertion is challenged he decides to prove his claim by entering his ancestors’ details on an online ancestry site. But when he starts going through his paper records he discovers that his marriage certificate was never signed by the priest, and that he and wife Maria (Kazan) aren’t officially married.

Expecting Maria to go along with his idea of renewing their vows, Gus is horrified when she tells him she wants a proper wedding, and more importantly, a proper proposal, something Gus failed to provide fifty years before. Gus baulks at this and a stalemate ensues, with each proving as stubborn as each other. It’s only when Gus falls ill and Maria refuses to go with him to the hospital that Gus relents and proposes. Maria accepts his proposal and when Gus is well again, she begins to plan their wedding. Meanwhile, Paris gets accepted to a college in New York, Toula and Ian try to spend more time together and rekindle the romance that brought them together, Gus’s estranged brother, Panos (Margolis) arrives from Greece for the wedding, and the ancestry site replies to Gus’s application.

If you liked My Big Fat Greek Wedding then you’ll definitely like My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. There’s very little here that’s different from the first movie (“Now, give me a word, any word; and I will show you how the root of that word is Greek.”), and Vardalos, who wrote the script, wisely plays up the original’s strengths in favour of doing anything too new or complicated. The end result is a movie that complements the original without challenging it any way, and which offers a pleasant if unexceptional viewing experience for anyone meeting the Portokalos family for the first time.

Vardalos has also been lucky enough to reassemble everyone from the first movie, and everyone reconnects with their characters as if they’ve only been away from them for a couple of months instead of fourteen years. Martin is wisely given ample opportunity to show off her particular brand of forthright comedy, while Meisler, as Mana-Yiayia, steals every scene she’s in. It’s a tribute to Vardalos’ skills as a writer that she manages to find moments for all the characters to shine, and she doesn’t make Toula the main focus of the movie as she did before. That said, there are still the usual themes surrounding family, and mutual love and support, and director Kirk Jones adds a degree of sparkle to proceedings, raising this way up and above the level of unnecessary sequel.

Rating: 6/10 – while it’s not the most original of sequels, nevertheless My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 is much better thanks to Vardalos’ decision to not tinker too much with the original format; still, it is formulaic, and it doesn’t stretch itself in any new directions, but it’s a nice, friendly movie that just wants to entertain – and by and large, it does.

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

17 Friday Jun 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Amityville, Demon nun, Drama, Ed Warren, Enfield, Frances O'Connor, Horror, james Wan, Lorraine Warren, Madison Wolfe, Paranormal activity, Patrick Wilson, Review, Sequel, The Hodgson Family, Thriller, True story, Valak, Vera Farmiga

aka The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Case

D: James Wan / 134m

Cast: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Frances O’Connor, Madison Wolfe, Lauren Esposito, Benjamin Haigh, Patrick McAuley, Simon McBurney, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Simon Delaney, Franka Potente, Bob Adrian

In the world of paranormal investigations, the plight of the Hodgson family, who resided in Enfield during the Seventies, is one of the most well-documented cases on record. Between 1977 and 1979, the family – single mother Peggy and her four children, Margaret (13), Janet (11), Johnny (10), and Billy (7) – were reported to have been plagued by poltergeist activity. Among the various investigators who looked into the case were Ed and Lorraine Warren. Their findings were that the activity was the result of “inhuman spirit phenomena”, and this despite a general consensus that the alleged poltergeist activity was a hoax perpetrated – largely – by Janet.

The Warrens were just two of many investigators who visited the Hodgson’s home during the late Seventies, but for the purposes of The Conjuring 2, their involvement has been beefed up to the point where lead investigator Maurice Grosse becomes a secondary character, left behind in the wake of the Warrens’ more experienced involvement with the paranormal. And in beefing up the Warrens’ involvement, the movie also connects the events that occurred in Enfield with events related to the Warrens’ investigation into the Amityville haunting.

And this is where the movie starts, in Amityville, and where it introduces us to the movie’s principal villain, a demon nun intent on claiming Ed Warren’s life (Lorraine witnesses his death while in a trance). This early sequence serves as the set up for the ensuing events based in Enfield, and widens the scope of the Warrens’ investigation once they’ve been persuaded to look into the case. In the hands of director James Wan and his co-screenwriters, Carey and Chad Hayes, and David Leslie Johnson, this gives viewers a mix of “true” occurrences and fictional explanations that works well for the most part, but which relies heavily on the style of horror movie making established in recent years through the likes of the Insidious series, the first Conjuring movie, and its spin-off Annabelle (2014).

It’s a style of horror movie making that is fast becoming too predictable for its own good, but as one of its creators, Wan is better placed than most to squeeze more life out of it. The Conjuring 2, with its demon nun and shaky dramatics, is a better sequel than might have been expected, but it still contains too many moments that shatter the ilusion of heightened reality that the script carefully tries to maintain throughout. With its flooded basement, final act heroics, and expository trance sequences, the movie identifies more with its own place in the modern horror landscape than it does with the requirements of telling a good story. And one or two standout sequences aside, the movie is too heavily reliant on the template established through previous movies to be entirely effective.

But that’s not to say that Wan doesn’t give it a good try. The opening sequence set in the house at Amityville is beautifully set up, with a reverse dolly shot that brings the viewer into the house via one of the two windows that are so iconic to the look of the property from the outside. A seance sees Lorraine (Farmiga) wandering the house and imitating/reliving the murders committed by a former occupant. It’s an effective collection of scenes but as they go on there’s a feeling that this is a sideshow, a gory hors d’oeuvre before the main course set in Enfield. The Warrens’ investigation into the events at Amityville made their names (and could have made for a movie all by itself), but we’re quickly moved on, and are introduced to the Hodgsons. Peggy (O’Connor) is an harrassed single mother struggling to keep her family afloat amid issues involving an absent husband, mounting money problems, and a house that looks in places like it’s suffered from fire damage (the set design is curious to say the least).

When Janet (Wolfe) begins to experience strange phenomena, Peggy is initially dismissive until she herself witnesses the same sort of thing. The police are called but can offer little help except as witnesses to the self-same phenomena, though this does lead to the Press taking up the story. Paranormal researcher Maurice Grosse (McBurney) begins his investigation while back in the States, Lorraine convinces Ed (Wilson) they should take a break from their own investigations (though in the end it doesn’t take much to convince Lorraine to change her mind). Once they arrive, Ed and Lorraine waste no time in contacting the spirit of the house’s previous owner, a man named Bill Wilkins (Adrian). Bill died in the house and it’s he who is responsible for all the paranormal goings-on. Unable to convince him to move on, Bill’s malicious behaviour begins to put everyone at risk. But when a video recording shows Janet causing damage that everyone had attributed to Bill Wilkins, Ed and Lorraine have no option but to leave as it throws too much doubt on the veracity of what’s happening. Until Ed has a breakthrough in relation to two recordings made of Bill talking through Janet…

While The Conjuring 2 is handsomely mounted with a touch of Grand Guignol here and there to add to the visual gloominess, and Wan orchestrates proceedings with a confidence and deftness of touch that benefits and enhances the mood of the movie to good effect, it’s still let down by the vagaries inherent in the script and its decision to include as many of the recorded events as possible (though the script seems to be saying that these events aren’t dramatic enough on their own and they’re bolstered by the inclusion of extra phenomena such as the Crooked Man and dozens of crosses that turn upside down). Narrative leaps make the movie feel disjointed at times, particularly in the stretch before Ed and Lorraine arrive in Enfield, and there’s little investment in the characters or their development, with only Grosse given a poignant (and true) reason to believe in the paranormal.

The cast perform efficiently enough, with Wilson and Farmiga settled into their roles, and there’s excellent support from Wolfe and O’Connor (though her accent, like Esposito’s, does wander from scene to scene). Don Burgess’s cinematography is a bonus, providing the movie with a sense of compressed space that feels appropriately claustrophobic when characters are shot in close-up, and there’s a subtle, “insidious” score by Joseph Bishara that adds to the effectiveness of the supernatural events. But if there’s one grumble to be made above all others, it’s why Valak, the demon nun in question, had to look like Marilyn Manson.

Rating: 7/10 – a solid if predictable horror sequel, The Conjuring 2 lacks cohesion in its narrative, but makes up for it with some impressive visuals and its recreation of the era; unnerving for the most part and featuring a couple of effective jump scares, viewers should take its assertion of being from “the true case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren” with a huge pinch of salt, and view accordingly.

The Scorch Trials (2015)

04 Saturday Jun 2016

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Action, Cranks, Drama, Dylan O'Brien, Gladers, Immunes, James Dashner, Kaya Scodelario, Literary adaptation, Patricia Clarkson, Review, Sci-fi, Sequel, The Flare, The Right Arm, The Scorch, Thriller, WCKD, Wes Ball

D: Wes Ball / 132m

Cast: Dylan O’Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Ki Hong Lee, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Dexter Darden, Alexander Flores, Jacob Lofland, Rosa Salazar, Giancarlo Esposito, Aiden Gillen, Patricia Clarkson, Barry Pepper, Lili Taylor, Alan Tudyk

Following on immediately from the events of The Maze Runner (2014), The Scorch Trials begins with Thomas (O’Brien) and his fellow Gladers – Teresa (Scodelario), Minho (Lee), Newt (Brodie-Sangster), Frypan (Darden), and Winston (Flores) – having escaped the maze and finding sanctuary in a facility run by Mr Janson (Gillen). All seems to be well, and Janson refutes any connection to WCKD, the organisation that’s behind the maze and the reason for its existence. But strange things are going on in the facility; each night selected Immunes from other mazes are chosen to be taken to a place of safety, far away from WCKD’s clutches. And Teresa is separated from the group. When Thomas tries to see her he’s prevented from doing so.

Help comes in the form of Aris, one of the first survivors to be brought to the facility. He shows Thomas proof that Janson is lying about the Immunes being safe, and that he works for WCKD. Rescuing Teresa from some kind of medical procedure, Thomas and the rest of the Gladers, and Aris, escape from the facility and find themselves in the hostile environment of the Scorch. There they encounter Cranks, people infected by the Flare, the disease that has brought worldwide destruction to the planet. Thomas and the rest head north to a range of nearby mountains where they hope to meet up with a resistance group called The Right Arm.

Circumstances find them taking shelter from a thunderstorm, where they meet Brenda (Salazar) and her surrogate father, Jorge (Esposito). Their hideout is discovered by WCKD forces led by Janson. In the resulting firefight, Thomas and Brenda find themselves separated from everyone else, but they manage to escape. At a nearby night club run by the duplicitous Marcus (Tudyk), the pair fall foul of a powerful narcotic but are saved by Jorge and the others. Marcus is forced to reveal the location of The Right Arm’s location in the mountains, and the group travels there quickly. But when they reach the Right Arm’s camp – led by Vince (Pepper) – Thomas is dismayed to discover that one of his friends has contacted WCKD, and more of their forces are on their way.

Where The Maze Runner was a surprising, tightly structured introduction to the world of the Flare and the young people known as Immunes, The Scorch Trials alas suffers very definitely from Middle Movie Syndrome. It tries hard to be as dramatic and as intense as its predecessor but the narrative is against it from the start. This is a movie that gives sporadic clues as to the larger back story, and even seems on the cusp of revealing some really important information about Thomas and his time working for WCKD, but ultimately it holds back from doing so, leaving any revelations for the final movie, The Death Cure, now due in January 2018 thanks to Dylan O’Brien’s on-set injuries suffered back in March of this year.

With the plot put largely on hold until then, The Scorch Trials becomes one long chase movie, with Thomas once again acting as unofficial leader of the Immunes, and Clarkson returning as WCKD head Dr Ava Paige. Character development is also put on hold, and the introduction of new antagonists such as Janson and Brenda is done in such a perfunctory way that it becomes impressive that both Gillen and Salazar are able to inject anything of note into their performances. And with Thomas front and centre throughout, O’Brien’s co-stars are left wth little to do but stand around while he agonises over his past, and monopolises the action scenes.

But where the plot struggles to make itself felt, the movie does impress with said action scenes, and several of the encounters with the Cranks are filmed with a sweat-inducing energy that makes what are essentially zombie attacks that much more inventive. It’s difficult enough to come up with a new look for any flesh-eaters, but the makeup and visual effects departments have done a great job here, and those that Thomas et al encounter in a ruined shopping mall are a terrific addition to the canon. It’s worth bearing in mind that this is still an adaptation of a YA novel, and the movie should be congratulated for keeping the darkness that is inherent in James Dashner’s novel (even if certain changes have been made in terms of the story).

More troublesome is the night club sequence which slows down the movie in its attempt to remind viewers that Thomas has a shared past with WCKD (it also seems to have been included to further remind viewers that when it comes to narcotics they should Just Say No). T.S. Nowlin’s script hits an awkward stretch at this point, almost as if it couldn’t find a way forward unless Thomas found himself in even more jeopardy than before. And the subsequent “interrogation” of Marcus by Jorge sees the kind of strong-arm tactics used that doesn’t sit well with the idea that this is being carried out by one of the “good” guys (there’s only a token objection made to Jorge’s methods of information gathering).

Away from troubling notions of the means justifying the ends, the movie lacks a suitable hook for the audience to cling on to. With the movie’s raison d’etre being to set up the final movie (no two-parter, thankfully), returning director Wes Ball can do little except keep things ticking over until next time. That he does this with a certain amount of conviction is evident enough, but it doesn’t help with a number of scenes that prove listless and ineffective, and there’s too much repetition as the characters move from one new introduction to yet another. This also leaves new cast members such as Pepper and Lili Taylor failing to make an impact, an oversight that points once more to the problems of trying to cram so much into a movie that runs for over two hours and lacks an overall focus.

Rating: 6/10 – although it moves (for the most part) with alacrity, The Scorch Trials isn’t as rewarding as The Maze Runner, and tries its best to make up for this by putting all its efforts into making its action scenes as thrilling as possible; in between times though, some viewers may be wondering why so much has been included and why so very little of it builds upon what’s gone before.

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

22 Sunday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Action, Angel, Apocalypse, Beast, Bryan Singer, Cyclops, Drama, Evan Peters, Havok, James McAvoy, Jean Grey, Jennifer Lawrence, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Magneto, Marvel, Michael Fassbender, Mutants, Mystique, Nicholas Hoult, Nightcrawler, Oscar Isaac, Professor Xavier, Psylocke, Quicksilver, Review, Rose Byrne, School for Gifted Children, Sci-fi, Sequel, Storm, Superheroes, Thriller, X-Men

D: Bryan Singer / 144m

Cast: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac, Nicholas Hoult, Rose Byrne, Evan Peters, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Lucas Till, Olivia Munn, Ben Hardy, Alexandra Shipp, Josh Helman, Ally Sheedy

It’s okay.

Rating: 6/10 – an average sequel that offers a muddled storyline complete with yet more disaster porn, the best thing you can say about X-Men: Apocalypse is that it’s competently made; without a strong emotional core to help the audience care about the characters, or a real sense of impending apocalypse to make the stakes all the more gripping, this is a sequel that fails to build on the good work achieved in the previous two instalments.

Zoolander 2 (2016)

19 Thursday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Ben Stiller, Blue Steel, Cameos, Comedy, Fashion, Fashion designers, Father/son relationship, Justin Bieber, Models, Murder, Owen Wilson, Penélope Cruz, Review, Rome, Sequel, Will Ferrell

D: Ben Stiller / 102m

Cast: Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell, Penélope Cruz, Kristen Wiig, Kyle Mooney, Justin Theroux, Cyrus Arnold, Benedict Cumberbatch, Nathan Lee Graham, Billy Zane

Zero

Originality

Laughs

Applied,

Now

Don’t

Ever

Repeat!

2 (for the money)

Rating: 3/10 – Stiller and co re-team for another crack at making idiot male model Derek Zoolander funny – and still miss the boat, the dock, hell, the whole damn harbour; the above photo says it all, as Zoolander 2 strikes out by repeating much of the same material the original trotted out, and (using just the one example) by thinking that “jokes” such as Susan Boyle giving the finger to a bunch of paparazzi is equal to side-splitting hilarity.

For One Week Only: Unnecessary Sequels – 6. S. Darko (2009)

15 Sunday May 2016

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Briana Evigan, Chris Fisher, Conejo Springs, Daveigh Chase, Donnie Darko, Drama, End of the world, For One Week Only, Iraq Jack, Jackson Rathbone, James Lafferty, Meteorite, Review, Sci-fi, Sequel, Thriller

Introduction

Cult movies are often beloved by their admirers beyond all other movies – passionately, fiercely, and with little truck for anyone or anything that tarnishes that movie’s reputation or their belief in it. Tell a fan of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) that anyone who attends a midnight screening in costume is a few sexual peccadilloes short of an orgy, and you’re likely to be slapped round the face with a posing pouch. But cult movies, by the nature of their fans’ love for them, will often attract producers with an eye to making a quick buck by exploiting said fans’ love and affection. Here’s one such movie, apparently made with the best of intentions but which in practice proved to be as far from those intentions as it’s possible to get.

S. Darko (2009) / D: Chris Fisher / 103m

Cast: Daveigh Chase, Briana Evigan, Jackson Rathbone, James Lafferty, Ed Westwick, Matthew Davis, John Hawkes, Bret Roberts, Elizabeth Berkley

By now – unless they’re trapped somewhere in the Fragmentary Universe – fans of Donnie Darko (2001) will have realised or heard that S. Darko is a less than satisfactory follow up to Richard Kelly’s surreal mindbender of a movie. With zero involvement from Kelly himself (not even a “good luck guys!”), this independently made sequel was created with the intention of taking place in “a similar world of blurred fantasy and reality”. Watching the movie, one thing is abundantly clear: neither director Chris Fisher nor screenwriter Nathan Atkins has any real idea of the world that Kelly created for Donnie Darko, or more importantly, the elements that made it all work.

The worst idea they have is to focus on Donnie’s younger sister, Samantha (Chase), as if by using one of Kelly’s original characters (and persuading the original actress to return to the role) it will lend their movie a degree of legitimacy it otherwise wouldn’t have. That this doesn’t work is evidenced by the way in which the character is treated. Samantha has run away from home, aged seventeen, with her best friend Corey (Evigan). When their car breaks down in Utah, the two friends accept a lift into the nearest town, Conejo Springs. Once there, Samantha finds herself sleepwalking; in this state she sees a future version of herself talking to a disturbed man nicknamed Iraq Jack (Lafferty). She tells him that the world will end in a few days’ time on July 4th.

Aside from passing on these messages, Samantha tends to wander aimlessly around town bumping into various locals and being treated like a bystander in her own storyline. She does get involved in the mystery of a missing child but it’s a subplot that, like large portions of the movie, hasn’t been thought through enough, and it feels like a distraction from the larger story. References to Donnie are made but Samantha’s reactions are muted, as if both Atkins and Chase don’t really know how to articulate her feelings over what happened to him at the end of Donnie Darko. What the script does do however, is saddle both the character (and the unfortunate Chase) with little motivation and even less development, preferring instead to treat Samantha in a callous (and careless) manner not once but twice (you’ll know how when you see the movie – not that you should, of course).

Atkins’ script is further muddled by its end of the world plotting, incoherent notions of time travel, secondary characters such as creepy bride of Jesus Trudy Kavanagh (Berkley), and inclusion of local nerd Jeremy (Rathbone) who develops a nasty looking rash that remains unexplained and immaterial to the narrative. There are further problems that Atkins can’t overcome, but the main one is his inability to craft dialogue that sounds like a real human being would say it. Here’s just one deathless exchange, between Samantha and local bad boy Randy (Westwick):

Samantha: I didn’t tell you something before. My brother died too. I was ten. Ever since that day, nothing’s ever been the same.

Randy: Never will be. We can’t change that.

Samantha: Think it’ll ever get easier?

Randy: Probably get worse.

Samantha: Maybe it’s up to us.

Randy: No.

Samantha: Wake up, start over?

Randy: I wish I could believe that. We have the same holes in our hearts, you and me.

That exchanges like that one are delivered with such po-faced sincerity makes it almost impossible to take the movie seriously. It’s like watching a teen movie where the leads are trying to make sense of relationship issues rather than fathom the mystery they’re all involved in. The plot – such as it is – is developed in fits and starts, and in such a haphazard manner that when it’s all wrapped up neatly (and with the cinematic equivalent of a bow on top), the viewer who’s managed to reach the end will be wondering what the previous ninety-five minutes were all about (or for).

Fisher may well be a fan of Kelly’s (emphasis on the) original movie, and he and Atkins may have set out to make a companion piece to that movie, but they show their complete lack of understanding of what made Donnie Darko such an extraordinary experience at every turn. Even on its own merits the movie struggles to perform effectively, with Fisher failing to inject any tension into the material, and leaving scenes feeling listless and uninvolving. The spirit of the original is missing entirely, as is the sense of mystery and chaos just beyond the veil of everyday life. And anyone waiting to see Frank put in an appearance, be prepared for disappointment; here his presence is entirely symbolic.

Rating: 3/10 – while using time lapse shots of clouds as indications of a portentous enigma may work in some movies, in S. Darko it merely serves to remind viewers of just how devoid of purpose and originality the movie really is; jumbled and unnecessary, it’s a movie that doesn’t even try hard enough to match its predecessor for subtlety or thought-provoking drama.

For One Week Only: Unnecessary Sequels – 5. Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004)

14 Saturday May 2016

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Cuba, Cuban Revolution, Dance, Dance competition, Diego Luna, Drama, For One Week Only, Guy Ferland, Havana, John Slattery, Music, Patrick Swayze, Review, Romance, Romola Garai, Sela Ward, Sequel

Introduction

There are dozens of sequels that turn up uninvited, years after their predecessor was first released. Some arrive without any kind of fanfare, while others appear with all the promotional backing available under the sun. Beware of those that arrive under the latter circumstances – sometimes the hype is designed to grab as much at the box office as the movie can manage before word of mouth kicks in and people begin to realise the movie is one to avoid. When the movie in question is a belated sequel to a much-loved original, any abundance of hype is perhaps the biggest clue that the sequel should be avoided. Here is one such example, a movie that came along seventeen years after the original, and still begs the question, why? (Read on for the answer.)

Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004) / D: Guy Ferland / 86m

Cast: Diego Luna, Romola Garai, Sela Ward, John Slattery, Jonathan Jackson, Mika Boorem, January Jones, René Lavan, Patrick Swayze, Mya

If you watch the opening credits of Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights closely, you’ll find that one of the producers is called JoAnn Fregalette Jansen (she also has a small, non-speaking role in the movie itself). Jansen lived in Cuba, aged fifteen, during the period the movie is set in, 1958. Playwright Peter Sagal wrote a screenplay based on Jansen’s experiences of the Cuban Revolution, and her relationship with a Cuban revolutionary. The screenplay was titled Cuba Mine and was a serious examination of the events that occurred in Cuba at the time, and how the country’s political idealism became polluted by the Communist ideology that replaced the more liberal regime that existed in the Fifties.

The script was commissioned by Lawrence Bender in 1992. Bender was fresh from the success of producing Reservoir Dogs (1992), but the script went unproduced until Bender revisited it again ten years later. However, Sagal’s script was only used as the basis of a completely new script by Boaz Yakin and Victoria Arch. The end result? A disastrous attempt to recreate the magic of Dirty Dancing (1987).

With the original having proved so successful, and having gained a place within the cultural zeitgeist (“Nobody puts Baby in a corner”), a sequel was always likely to appear eventually, but this is a movie that spends its thankfully short running time replicating the original’s storyline instead of coming up with something new. It’s the eternal problem facing sequels everywhere: how to combine enough DNA from the original movie with newer, fresher elements to make a satisfying whole. Sadly, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights is a sequel that can’t even assemble enough DNA from its predecessor to make much of a difference. It’s perfunctory, lazy, and lacks impact.

It also has a hard time doing the one thing that it should get right above all else, namely the dance routines. Thanks to the movie’s Cuban setting, the music and dance numbers are meant to be energetic, effortlessly fluid, and somewhat mildly erotic, but thanks to the movie’s determined efforts to edit the dance sequences into bite-sized shots that often don’t match the moves on show immediately before and after each shot, the very elements that are meant to draw in an audience are undermined from the word go. Now this could be a conscious, artisitic decision made by director Guy Ferland and his editors, Luis Colina and Scott Richter, in which case the trio have no idea of how to put together a dance sequence; or it could be that Luna and Garai’s moves weren’t quite as impressive as everyone hoped and they needed a little “help” in looking so accomplished (you decide).

Elsewhere the movie is equally determined to rely on cinematic and cultural clichés in order to tell its story. If the movie was even remotely realistic, it would be easy to believe that, before the revolution, all Cubans were happy-go-lucky souls who never tired of singing and dancing on pretty much every street corner. There are moments of casual racism that don’t amount to anything in terms of the drama, as well as cursory references to the political struggle happening at the time. Luna’s hotel waiter, Javier, evinces his distrust of Americans only until Garai’s preppy Katey waves the lure of competition prize money under his nose, while Katey’s family hang around in the background waiting to be given something to do.

The performances are average, with Luna and Garai developing an uneasy chemistry that seems more convincing on the dance floor than anywhere else, while Ward and Slattery get to play good cop/bad cop once Katey’s relationship with Javier is revealed (the scene in question is notable for playing like an outtake from a TV soap opera). Spare a thought though for poor old Patrick Swayze, co-opted into the script as a dance class instructor who gets to show Katey some moves before being reduced to providing reaction shots during the dance competition. Swayze looks uncomfortable in his scenes, as if he’s having second thoughts about being in the movie but also realising it’s too late to back out.

The movie is a sloppy mess, shot through with an earnest quality that wants to be taken for drama. But like so much on display it’s often involuntary, as if the various elements of the screenplay were put together in a blender rather than a word processor. Ferland directs it all with little or no attention to the emotions of the characters – Garai spends quite a bit of time looking upset but gets over it all just as quickly as it’s started – but at least he manages to make the Puerto Rican locations look suitably beautiful, throwing in wondrous sunsets and sunrises with giddy, artistic abandon.

Rating: 3/10 – unimaginative, even in its dance routines, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights lacks a compelling storyline and characters to care about; with so many aspects not working to their full potential, the movie proves to be inferior in almost every way to its predecessor – and no one should be surprised.

For One Week Only: Unnecessary Sequels – 3. The Wicker Tree (2011)

11 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Britannia Nicol, Cowboys for Christ, Fertility, For One Week Only, Graham McTavish, Henry Garrett, Horror, May Day, Pagan rituals, Robin Hardy, Sequel, Sir Lachlan Morrison, Tressock

Introduction

Horror movies – God bless ’em for their ability to have audiences shaking their heads in frustration as yet another group of teens head off to the haunted woods/abandoned building/kill zone of their choice, only to have their now ritualised behaviours interrupted and curtailed by whichever masked serial killer/escaped demon/demented whackjob happens to be lurking nearby. (And before anyone complains, yes, that description doesn’t cover every horror movie, but it is indicative of a great deal of modern “horror”; the true horror is that these tired, hoary old storylines are trotted out time and again.)

With horror movies becoming increasingly derivative and lacking in originality, the idea of watching one of them with a number at the end of the title isn’t exactly thrilling. Horror sequels rarely ever live up to the promise that may have been delivered by their predecessor, and it’s a very rare horror sequel indeed that expands effectively on, or outstrips, its parent. Not even the prospect of the same writer/director at the helm is a guarantee of quality. Here’s one example of a horror sequel that was much anticipated, but which didn’t live up to everyone’s expectations.

The Wicker Tree (2011) / D: Robin Hardy / 96m

Cast: Britannia Nicol, Henry Garrett, James Mapes, Lesley Mackie, Clive Russell, Graham McTavish, Jacqueline Leonard, Honeysuckle Weeks, Christopher Lee

The Wicker Man (1973) is an acknowledged horror classic, a brooding, unsettling movie that lingers in the memory, and features one of Christopher Lee’s finest performances. The news that the movie’s writer/director Robin Hardy was working on a sequel first surfaced in 2002, and Lee was set to return as Lord Summerisle. But problems with financing kept the movie from being made, and Hardy turned his screenplay into a novel (unfortunately titled Cowboys for Christ). Hardy next adapted his novel into the screenplay that was used for The Wicker Tree, and it’s this process that perhaps gives the best clue as to why the movie doesn’t work as successfully as it should.

Returning to themes set around the belief in paganism in the modern world, The Wicker Tree could, and perhaps should, have been a worthy follow-up to Hardy’s classic original. But the flaws are there from the beginning, and it’s not long before the viewer has no option but to realise that this sequel isn’t going to live up to expectations. Hardy’s story is as basically simple as in The Wicker Man: a religious individual finds themselves caught up in a pagan community, and learns that they are being used as part of a fertility rite that will ensure the community’s survival. But where The Wicker Man had subtlety and a well-judged sense of impending doom for its central character, The Wicker Tree lacks both these elements, and struggles to establish itself as a worthy successor. Part of the problem is the central character of Beth (Nicol), an evangelical Christian from Texas. Thanks to Hardy’s script, and Nicol’s performance, Beth is a character we never get to really know or sympathise with. With no one to root for, or get anxious about, the movie lacks tension as a result.

There’s also a problem with another character, Sir Lachlan Morrison (McTavish). Originally meant to be played by Christopher Lee, the role is this movie’s equivalent of The Wicker Man‘s Lord Summerisle. But Hardy doesn’t do enough with the role to give McTavish a chance of making him as mesmeric as Lee, or as quietly chilling. McTavish was originally meant to play the role of Morrison’s butler, Beame (Russell), but when Lee was unable to fill the part, McTavish was “promoted”. In doing so, Hardy appears to have recast the part without rewriting the character to match the actor’s skill and ability (McTavish isn’t a patch on Lee). This leads to scenes where McTavish looks uncomfortable, and where his credibility is often in question.

The actions of the community lend themselves to some unfortunate moments of unintended levity, and the May Day celebrations that will culminate in another sacrifice. There are too many of these moments for comfort, and Hardy seems unable to recognise that these are hurting the movie rather than supporting it. Echoes of the first movie abound, but lack a similar effect: where Britt Ekland’s naked dance is rightly remembered for its eerie, yet uncompromising sexuality, here we have Honeysuckle Weeks topless in a river; with apologies to Ms Weeks, it doesn’t evoke the same response.

Tonally the movie is all over the place, with scenes not having even the barest impact and the plot being propelled forward without any sense that there’s a real through line. As it moves forward, the movie struggles to maintain a sense of the impending horror that awaits Beth come May Day, and although knowledge of the first movie isn’t necessary, the fact that it does exist, and that it is so good, makes Hardy’s mistreatment of his own material so hard to understand. He’s like a man adrift, failing to connect with a story that he’s spent so much time developing, and that translates to the screen. In taking so long to get his movie to the screen it appears that he’s lost sight of almost everything that made The Wicker Man so compelling.

Rating: 3/10 – a movie that makes you wonder just how its creator could have got it so badly wrong, The Wicker Tree is a lumpen, dreadful mess full of equally dreadful performances, and a storyline that defies logical appreciation; that it tarnishes the memory of The Wicker Man is bad enough, but being a bad movie through and through is worse still.

Ride Along 2 (2016)

23 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Atlanta, Benjamin Bratt, Comedy, Crime, Drugs, Ice Cube, Ken Jeong, Kevin Hart, Miami, Olivia Munn, Review, Sequel, Tim Story

D: Tim Story / 102m

Cast: Ice Cube, Kevin Hart, Ken Jeong, Benjamin Bratt, Olivia Munn, Tika Sumpter, Bruce McGill, Michael Rose, Sherri Shepherd, Tyrese Gibson

Overheard at a cinema in Boise, Idaho (or somewhere like that – you get the idea):

Assistant: Hi, how can I help you today?

Customer: Hi. I’d like two tickets for Ride Along 2, please.

Assistant: Two tickets? Why?

Customer: I’m sorry?

Assistant: Why do you want two tickets? Don’t you like the person you’ve come with?

Customer: I beg your pardon.

Assistant: Look, it’s no skin off my nose, but wouldn’t you rather see something else? Like Norm of the North perhaps?

Customer: No, we’d like to see Ride Along 2. We like Kevin Hart. He’s funny.

Assistant: He is, yes. But unfortunately the movie isn’t.

Customer: Well, that’s your opinion. Now, can I have two tickets to see Ride Along 2? Please.

Assistant: Well, okay, I guess you’re old enough to know what you’re doing.

Customer: You know, you’re being very rude. I don’t think I’ve ever been so insulted before.

Assistant: Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? Wait until you’ve seen the movie, then decide, huh?

Rating: 3/10 – a dire sequel that recreates several of the first movie’s so-called “funniest moments”, Ride Along 2 proves that recycling isn’t as good for the environment (and particularly a cinema screen) as we’ve all been told; formulaic in the extreme, and low on real laughs, this is the kind of movie that studios make when they can’t think of anything that’s better/more original/more entertaining to make.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

08 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Amy Adams, Batman, Ben Affleck, Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Daily Planet, Diana Prince, Doomsday, Drama, Gal Gadot, General Zod, Gotham, Henry Cavill, Jesse Eisenberg, Justice League, Lex Luthor, Metropolis, Review, Sci-fi, Sequel, Superheroes, Superman, Wonder Woman, Zack Snyder

D: Zack Snyder / 151m

Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Gal Gadot, Holly Hunter, Scoot McNairy, Callan Mulvey, Harry Lennix

$250 million budget + uneven script + wayward direction + awkward performances + Jesse Eisenberg (“The red capes are coming, the red capes are coming”) + Doomsday looking too much like the Abomination from The Incredible Hulk (2008) + Batman and Superman being upstaged by Wonder Woman = the longest, most uninteresting, most bloated and unwieldy Batman and Superman movies yet. ‘Nuff said.

Rating: 4/10 – dreary, overlong, and lacking a coherent storyline, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is neither a DC Universe movie that works, or a superhero movie that gives viewers anything new; with too many short cuts in the narrative to help overcome its sluggish construction, the movie provides further evidence – if any were needed – Snyder should move on, David S. Goyer shouldn’t be an automatic choice for DC screenplays, and Henry Cavill is still so awfully po-faced as the son of Kal-El.

The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016)

05 Tuesday Apr 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Drama, Dwarves, Emily Blunt, Fantasy, Goblins, Ice Queen, Jessica Chastain, Magic, Mirror, Nick Frost, Prequel, Review, Rob Brydon, Sequel, Sorcery

D: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan / 114m

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt, Jessica Chastain, Nick Frost, Rob Brydon, Sam Claflin, Sheridan Smith, Alexandra Roach, Sope Dirisu

Once upon a time there were two sisters. One, Ravenna (Theron), lusted for power, and used her dark magic to take over kingdoms and rule them with an iron fist. The other, Freya (Blunt), had yet to find the magic gift she possessed, but Ravenna assured her the day would come when her power would assert itself. And then Freya fell pregnant, and had a baby. But then a tragedy occurred and her baby died in a fire, apparently caused by her baby’s father, her one true love. Her powers exerted themselves then, and Freya’s gift was to be able to control ice in all its forms. She exerted her revenge on her one true love, then left Ravenna’s care to make a kingdom for herself in the North. She became known as the Ice Queen, and she was feared by all.

Her pain found expression in a strange way. She would order the children from the villages in her kingdom to be rounded and trained as warriors for her growing army. All these children had to do was swear allegiance to her and foreswear any notion of love. In return she would give their lives meaning in their service to her. But love will out, and two children grew up to love each other, despite Freya’s law. Eric (Hemsworth) and Sarah (Chastain) made plans to leave Freya’s stronghold and their roles as huntsmen. But Freya learned of their plans and saw to it that they didn’t come to fruition. Eric saw Sarah killed, and he was knocked unconscious and thrown into the river to die.

But Eric survived. Time passed. Seven years, during which time he helped Snow White rid her kingdom of the villainous Ravenna. But now a new threat is in place. Ravenna’s mirror, a source of very powerful magic, has been stolen, and Eric is tasked with finding it and taking it to a sanctuary where it can be made safe. He agrees to the task, and is joined by two dwarves, Nion (Frost) and Gryff (Brydon). Soon they discover that Freya is trying to find the mirror as well. They seek help from two female dwarves, Mrs Bronwyn (Smith) and Doreena (Roach), and journey into a hidden forest inhabited by goblins to take back the mirror. But once they do they find themselves caught in a trap of Freya’s devising, leading to the mirror’s capture, and only one course of action left to them: to follow the Ice Queen back to her stronghold and destroy her and the mirror once and for all.

Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) was an unexpected success, trading on Theron’s evil hearted queen and Kristen Stewart’s take on Snow White as a fantasy version of Joan of Arc. It had an impressive budget – $170 million – and made back nearly $400 million at the international box office. A sequel was always on the cards, it was just a matter of when. But here’s the rub: The Huntsman: Winter’s War isn’t just a sequel, it’s also a prequel. In it we see the Huntsman’s back story, his childhood years as a trainee in Freya’s huntsman army and his eventual love affair with Sarah, whom he marries in secret. When she dies, fate spares his life and the movie skims over the events of its predecessor with a single line of narrated dialogue (courtesy of Liam Neeson).

Then we’re fully in sequel mode, as Sam Claflin’s earnest prince convinces Eric to look for the mirror. And Freya, who has been adding nearby kingdoms to her own over the past seven years, gets wind of the mirror and its magical properties. A race against time, then, to see who reaches the mirror first. Alas, no, not really. Instead, after an eventful and encouraging first half hour, the movie settles down into fantasy adventure mode, with humour provided by Frost and Brydon. Freya’s threat is put on the back burner and Eric is confronted with a figure from his past who provides complications for his quest. It’s all serviceable enough, and despite everyone’s best efforts, all entirely forgettable.

The problem lies both with the script by Evan Spiliotopoulos and Craig Mazin, and Nicolas-Troyan’s direction. The script lumbers from one unconnected scene to the next, straining the audience’s patience thanks to semi-amusing quips and snide remarks courtesy of Brydon, cowardly assertions from Frost, an drab, wearing performance from Chastain, and Hemsworth’s assumption that a big grin can pass for acting when he so desires (sorry, Chris, it doesn’t). Ravenna remains the primary adversary, despite being off screen for two thirds of the movie, and Freya’s delusional take on love and its inability to offer true contentment is recounted so often it’s as if the makers weren’t sure an audience would grasp the idea the first time around.

But if the movie’s storyline and plotting are a cause for alarm, spare a thought for Nicolas-Troyan, bumped up from second unit director on the first movie, and a poor second choice after Frank Darabont, who was attached to the project for some time before he dropped out. He’s not so bad when it comes to the action sequences, but in between times, when the characters have to display their feelings, or the script calls for another bout of humorous insults (which are pretty much all of Brydon’s lines), his lack of experience shines through. Too many scenes fall flat or fail to make much of an impact, and the cast are left to inject whatever energy they can, but with the script and their director seemingly working against them, it’s an uphill struggle for all of them.

This being a big budget fantasy movie, however, it does score highly for its production design, its costumes, and its special effects (though an encounter with a goblin isn’t as effective as it should be, thanks to its looking like an angry ape with a liking for bling). The ice effects are cleverly done, and there’s a pleasing sense of a real world lurking behind all the CGI, while James Newton Howard contributes a suitably stirring score to help prop things up when it all gets a little too silly (which is most of the middle section). And of course, the makers can’t help themselves at the end, and leave a way open for a further (full-fledged) sequel. But if anyone really cares by that stage, then the movie will have truly worked its magic.

Rating: 5/10 – a superficially appealing prequel/sequel, The Huntsman: Winter’s War isn’t the most memorable of fantasy movies, and chances are, viewers will have forgotten most of its content a short while after seeing it; it’s not a bad movie per se, but then it’s not a good movie either, and sometimes, that’s the worst anyone can say about any movie.

Allegiant (2016)

03 Sunday Apr 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Ansel Elgort, Bureau of Genetic Welfare, Chicago, Divergent Series, Drama, Jeff Daniels, Literary adaptation, Miles Teller, Naomi Watts, Providence, Review, Robert Schwentke, Sci-fi, Sequel, Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Thriller, Veronica Roth

D: Robert Schwentke / 120m

Cast: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer, Jeff Daniels, Zoë Kravitz, Ansel Elgort, Miles Teller, Keiynan Lonsdale, Daniel Dae Kim, Maggie Q, Bill Skarsgård, Jonny Weston, Ray Stevenson, Mekhi Phifer, Ashley Judd

And so Jeanine is dead, killed by Four’s mother, Evelyn (Watts). Everything’s okay and peace has been restored. Except that Evelyn is making sure it comes at a further price: everyone who was on Erudite’s side has to be put on trial and their “crimes” answered for. This means executions on a wide scale, and although Tris (Woodley) has disowned her brother, Caleb (Elgort), he faces the same fate. With the message from outside Chicago still indicating that there are more answers to be found outside the city than in, Tris and Four (James) opt to breach the wall and go in search of those answers. Four decides to help Caleb escape, and the trio are joined by Christina (Kravitz), Tori (Maggie Q), and Peter (Teller). Despite an attempt to stop them by Evelyn’s lieutenant, Edgar (Weston), they climb over the wall and down to the other side.

There they find a toxic wasteland, where the earth is a scorch blasted red. Having been followed by Edgar, the group are relieved when they reach a force field that opens to reveal an armed force. This group protects Tris and her friends from Edgar, and with his threat neutralised, they take Tris and company to their base far out in the wasteland, the so-called Bureau of Genetic Welfare, where Tris in particular is welcomed by the Bureau’s director, David (Daniels). With Tris being the fruit of an experiment to right a wrong perpetrated long ago, David is keen to run tests on her, while keeping Four and the others occupied and away from her as much as possible. But Four is quick to suspect that David isn’t as honest as he makes out, but Tris doesn’t see it.

Meanwhile, back in Chicago, Johanna (Spencer) has formed a group she calls Allegiant, and who are at odds with Evelyn’s way of running things. Another war of attrition is about to take place between the two factions, and though Tris wants David to intervene – after all, he has been monitoring Chicago for a long time because of the experiment – but instead of doing so, he sends Peter back with a nerve gas that will render everyone who comes into contact with it, unable to remember anything that happened to them before they were exposed. And while David takes Tris to meet the Council who ultimately decide everyone’s fate, Four discovers what the gas has been used for in the wasteland. And when Tris finally becomes aware of David’s duplicity, she and Four, along with Christina and Caleb, return to Chicago to stop Evelyn from using the gas on Allegiant.

Three movies in and the Divergent series is showing serious signs that it’s running out of ideas. Allegiant is superficially entertaining, but in comparison with parts one and two, it lacks anything fresh to entertain either fans or newcomers. It’s also the first time that the series gives up on Tris as an independent, strong-minded female, and instead hands over leadership duties to Four – which wouldn’t be such a bad idea if he wasn’t written as a bit of a pompous told-you-so kind of character. (Throughout the series, Four has been the gloomiest character of them all, unable to smile or express his feelings about anything without a frown.) And with Tris relegated to a secondary role, there’s only Daniels left to pick up the slack, as everyone else (James excepted) is afforded only enough screen time to either provide any relevant exposition, or keep the plot ticking over (Spencer and Watts are wasted, while Judd is brought back yet again to add some more of her character’s turgid back story).

The problem with the movie is twofold: one, it’s the first half of the third book in the series, and as such, doesn’t have a credible ending, just another narrowly avoided cliffhanger that leaves things open for part four (or should that be part three-point-five?); and two, the action seems more than usually contrived once Tris et al leave Chicago. The wasteland is less than threatening, and the Bureau is predictably shiny on the surface (and in David’s “office”), while the barracks Four and Christina are assigned to are remarkably similar to those inhabited by Dauntless in the first movie. It’s all brightly lit and commendably shot by esteemed DoP Florian Ballhaus (returning from Insurgent (2015) and already hired for the next instalment), but it’s becoming hard to care what happens to anyone.

At its heart, the Divergent series is about DNA profiling and the perils that can follow on from it. It’s a concept that’s been there in the first two movies, but which hasn’t been addressed directly. But now that it has, and through the medium of video no less, the truth behind the use of Chicago as a test ground, and the true meaning of being Divergent, all sounds quite dull and unexciting. The movie fails to make Tris’s nature important to its own story, and instead opts for being yet another race-against-time thriller, abandoning the ethical and moral debate it wants to engage in and relying on tried and trusted action movie clichés to wind up its narrative.

It’s no surprise that the movie has underperformed at the box office (leading to the final movie, Ascendant, due next year, having its budget cut), because even though Tris makes it out of Chicago, once she does, the movie doesn’t know what to do with her, and for a character as intriguing and interesting as Tris, that’s a terrible decision to make on any level. And it doesn’t help that your central villain is ultimately a harried bureaucrat, a futuristic pen-pusher if you will. That’s another stumble, and especially bad after having Kate Winslet fill the villain’s shoes for the first two movies. It all adds up to a movie that coasts on the success of its predecessors, and feels and looks like a stopgap before the real conclusion in part four.

Rating: 5/10 – another series instalment that will have newcomers wondering what all the fuss has been about, Allegiant is a movie that has little to offer in terms of its characters’ development, or in terms of expanding the wider narrative; Woodley – this series’ biggest asset – is sidelined for much of the movie, and though James is a competent enough actor, he doesn’t have his co-star’s presence on screen, which makes large chunks of the movie something of a chore to sit through.

Mini-Review: Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)

11 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Alessandro Carloni, Angelina Jolie, Bryan Cranston, Chi, China, Comedy, Dragon Warrior, Dustin Hoffman, Famous Five, J.K. Simmons, Jack Black, Jennifer Yuh Nelson, Kai, Master Shifu, Po, Praying Mantis, Review, Sequel, Seth Rogen, Spirit Warrior, Spirit World, Tiger

D: Jennifer Yuh Nelson, Alessandro Carloni / 95m

Cast: Jack Black, Bryan Cranston, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, J.K. Simmons, Seth Rogen, James Hong, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Jackie Chan, Kate Hudson, Randall Duk Kim

In the Spirit World, Master Oogway (Kim) has his chi stolen from him by the villainous Kai (Simmons). With Oogway’s chi and those of the other denizens of the Spirit World, Kai can regain his human form and seek out the only warrior who can defeat him, the Dragon Warrior, aka Po the panda (Black). Meanwhile, Po has his own problems. Master Shifu (Hoffman) has given him the role of teaching the Famous Five, and subsequently he meets his real father, Li (Cranston). When Kai sends his emissaries to challenge Po, the Famous Five intervene but aren’t strong enough to defeat them; one by one they have their chi’s taken from them. Only Po has the strength and skill to best Kai, but first he must travel with his father to the village of his birth, and take instruction in how to become a Chi master; only then will he be able to defeat Kai and banish him back to the Spirit World.

Sequels with 3 in the title are often tired, limited affairs that trade on former glories while lacking the energy and freshness of their predecessors. However, Kung Fu Panda 3 bucks the trend and delivers a movie that is as energetic as 1 and 2, and proves to be just as entertaining. The kung fu moves are as impressive as ever, and the animated stylings that go with them are particularly exciting, especially in the Spirit World, where physics is a concept that’s easily ignored. In the real world, Po’s dilemma at discovering his real father after being raised so faithfully by Mr Ling (Hong) is played out amidst a strong mix of comedy and pathos, and the depiction of the panda village is bursting with wonderful characters and visual humour.

Kai is a villain in the mold of the first movie’s Tai Lung, and as a result is the movie’s weakest link, but Simmons is obviously having fun with the role (as is everyone else), and in comparison with the rest of the story, the character’s familiarity is not a major flaw. The burgeoning relationship between Po and Li is a definite bonus and has been handled well by scriptwriters Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, their inclusion of Mr Ling doing justice to the relationship established in parts one and two. The visuals are as stunning as ever, and the colours have a photo-realistic sheen to them that haven’t been seen in previous outings, making it all the more superb than before.

Rating: 8/10 – a treat for the eyes (and as rewarding for the mind), Kung Fu Panda 3 is something of a retread of the first movie but in this case, it’s not a bad thing; with a superb voice cast and stunning animation throughout, this sequel proves that putting a lot of heart and soul into a movie pays off every time.

London Has Fallen (2016)

04 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

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Aaron Eckhart, Action, Alon Moni Aboutboul, Angela Bassett, Babak Najafi, Drama, Funeral, Gerard Butler, Heads of state, Morgan Freeman, Revenge, Review, Sequel, Terrorism, Thriller

D: Babak Najafi / 99m

Cast: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Alon Moni Aboutboul, Robert Forster, Jackie Earle Haley, Melissa Leo, Radha Mitchell, Sean O’Bryan, Charlotte Riley, Colin Salmon, Waleed Zuaiter

Three years have passed since the events of Olympus Has Fallen. Benjamin Asher (Eckhart) is in his second term of office as the US President, and Mike Banning (Butler) is still his most trusted Secret Service agent. Mike and his wife, Leah (Mitchell), are expecting their first child, and this newly approaching responsibility has prompted Mike to consider resigning from the Secret Service. But before he can make a final decision, the unexpected death of the British Prime Minister means a state funeral and the attendance of around forty heads of state from around the globe, including Asher.

In London, their arrival at the funeral triggers a series of terrorist attacks on some of the various heads of state: a barge explosion on the Thames that kills the French President, bombs going off at either end of Chelsea Bridge where the Japanese Prime Minister is held up in traffic, a further explosion at the Houses of Parliament where the Italian Prime Minister is canoodling with his latest girlfriend, and gunfire outside Buckingham Palace where the German Chancellor is mowed down. A firefight between the Secret Service and heavily armed terrorists ends with Asher, Banning, and Secret Service director Lynne Jacobs (Bassett) escaping by car and then by helicopter. But soon their helicopter is shot down, and Asher and Banning have to find safety before they’re found by the terrorists.

They find temporary sanctuary at an MI6 safe house, along the way learning that the main target of the attacks is Asher himself, and that he’s wanted alive so that he can be executed, live on the Net, for everyone in the world to see. At the safe house they also discover the reason why: two years before, Asher ordered a drone strike on a notorious arms dealer, Aamir Barkawi (Aboutboul). Barkawi survived, as did his son Kamran (Zuaiter), but his daughter was killed in the blast. This is his revenge. Aided by MI6 agent Jacquelin Marshall (Riley), Asher and Banning also discover that someone is aiding Barkawi by providing access to the British security systems.

With the safe house compromised, Asher and Banning escape but they’re ambushed, and Asher is taken. Banning learns the terrorists’ location at the same time the US and British security services do, and together with an SAS unit, he makes a last ditch effort to rescue Asher and put an end to Barkawi’s plan.

Olympus Has Fallen was a surprising success back in 2013, a thick-eared, jingoistic action movie that took its premise seriously and wasn’t afraid of being occasionally brutal and uncompromising (Banning’s interrogation technique). That it was also hugely absurd and as dumb as a bag of nails didn’t seem to hurt its performance at the box office, and it was helped immensely by Butler’s no-nonsense attitude in the role of Banning. Here he’s similarly resolute, only cracking a smile when discussing being a parent, or delivering occasional wisecracks as and when the script requires him to. And the rest of the returning cast all retain that poker-faced sincerity, pulling horrified faces when needed and looking shocked the rest of the time (except for Freeman, who remains passive pretty much throughout).

The narrative is predicatably inane, the kind of illogical mix of coincidence and haphazard plotting that sees perfectly orchestrated attacks occur in a matter of minutes, but which would have had to rely on the alignment of too many variables to ever work in reality (and yes, of course this isn’t reality, it’s escapism, but even escapism can keep a foothold in the real world). There’s a degree of fun to be had in seeing so many iconic London landmarks blown up or strafed by bullets or suffering incidental damage due to car chases, but it’s all strangely unimpressive. The first movie was made for $70m, but this time round it feels as if the budget was lower, and as a result, the CGI employed looks rougher and less convincing. And the action sequences have that speeded-up, over-edited approach that makes everything happen in a blur, and robs them of any impact.

London Has Fallen crams a lot into its relatively short running time, but most of it is to little effect. Once London has “fallen” the movie doesn’t really know what to do, and resorts to having Asher and Banning running around and killing bad guys at every turn. Barkawi is a better villain than Olympus‘s Korean antagonist, his personal vendetta a better reason for events than any political ideology, but his son Kamran is soon reduced from being his sister’s avenger to just another thug spouting anti-Western sentiments. Back home, Leah’s expecting a baby is meant to show that Banning isn’t all dour looks and grim forebodings (at one point he even suggests their baby has a Kevlar mattress), but with no likelihood of any threat being aimed in their direction, and with Banning being practically indestructible, all talk of his getting back safely to be a dad is redundant. And the subplot involving the mole? You’ll know who it is the moment they appear on screen.

The change of location means a further devaluing of the premise, as the series charges around London (and Romania) with all the subtlety of a Pamplona bull, and the city’s iconic landscape gives way to a series of nondescript back alleys and buildings that have all the character of slum dwellings. You can see the movie getting cheaper and cheaper as it progresses, and by the end you could be forgiven for thinking you were watching a DTV movie made entirely in Romania (something with Steven Seagal in it perhaps). And the freshness and creativity of the first movie’s action scenes is abandoned in favour of an abundance of hallway shootouts where Banning seeks cover behind every available nook and cranny, while the bad guys stand out in the open so they can be more easily despatched.

Replacing Frederik Bond in the director’s chair, Najafi makes a half-decent fist of things, but he doesn’t bring anything memorable or enticing to the movie, shooting it in a flat, perfunctory way that keeps things from getting too exciting or involving. But with a script that never tries to be anything more than simplistic or pedestrian, Najafi was unlikely to be able to elevate the material, and the result is a movie that stalls far too often on its way to its inevitably dreary conclusion. Scenes rarely connect one to the next, and the movie’s one attempt at tragedy is ruined by the predictable outcome attached to the phrase, “Yes, I’ll be a godmother”.

If there is to be a third movie – and it’s possible, Asher still has two years in office to see out – then it’s to be hoped that a better story can be found than this one to suit the needs of the series. Butler continues to be the main draw, dishing out punishment with a viciousness that few action heroes indulge in, and he also dishes out a handful of one liners with the appropriate acknowledgment of how corny/risible/absurd they are in the given circumstances. Eckhart has only to keep up and get punched repeatedly when captured, while Freeman dons his Mantle of Gravitas with all the enthusiasm of an actor given nothing to do that’s different from before. Forster, Leo, O’Bryan and Haley all get occasional lines of dialogue, and the British contingent, led by Salmon as a befuddled Chief Inspector(!), has its ineptitude made plain until Riley’s appearance as a smart, methodical, and cynical MI6 agent.

As action sequels go, London Has Fallen isn’t going to set the box office alight, and it isn’t going to impress many viewers with its uninspired plotting, featherweight storylines and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it direction from Najafi. With most of its final forty minutes shot at night, it’s also one of the murkiest, most visually unrewarding movies made in recent years, and by the time Butler as Banning is making googly-eyes at his son, audiences will have been moved to lethargy. All of which makes the final shot, where Banning decides whether or not to resign, one that carries a tremendous amount of hope with it – and not that he stays in the service.

Rating: 5/10 – not so bad that it should be avoided, and not so good that it should be applauded, London Has Fallen sets its stall out early on and doesn’t deviate from its intention of being as thick-eared as its predecessor; laughable in places – especially to anyone who lives in London – but determined to ignore how absurd it is, the movie lumbers through the motions and never shows any sign that it wants to be any better than it is.

Monthly Roundup – February 2016

29 Monday Feb 2016

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5th birthday, Action, Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Animation, Athletics, Batman, Batman: Bad Blood, Batwing, Batwoman, Benson Fong, Bruce Wayne, Charlie Chan, Crime, Detective, Dracula, Drama, Fast Girls, Genndy Tartakovsky, Hotel Transylvania 2, Jason O'Mara, Jay Oliva, Kevin James, Lenora Crichlow, Lily James, Mantan Moreland, Morena Baccarin, Murder, Mystery, Nightwing, Noel Clarke, Phil Karlson, Radium, Regan Hall, Relay team, Review, Robin, Sean Maher, Selena Gomez, Sequel, Shanghai, Sidney Toler, Sports, Steve Buscemi, Stuart Allan, The Heretic, Thriller, Yvonne Strahovski

Batman: Bad Blood (2016) / D: Jay Oliva / 72m

Cast: Jason O’Mara, Yvonne Strahovski, Stuart Allan, Sean Maher, Morena Baccarin, Gaius Charles, James Garrett, Ernie Hudson, Robin Atkin Downes, Travis Willingham, Geoff Pierson

Rating: 7/10 – when Batman (O’Mara) is missing believed dead after an encounter with The Heretic (Willingham), it falls to Nightwing (Maher), Robin (Allan) and newcomer Batwoman (Strahovski) to discover if he really is dead, or if his disappearance is part of a bigger plot; continuing Warner Bros. impressive streak of animated Batman movies, Batman: Bad Blood is as moody and psychologically sombre as its live action counterparts, even if some of its characters behave like children in their attempts to get along.

The Shanghai Cobra (1945) / Phil Karlson / 64m

Cast: Sidney Toler, Mantan Moreland, Benson Fong, James Cardwell, Joan Barclay, Addison Richards, Arthur Loft

Rating: 5/10 – the Oriental detective is tasked with finding the murderer of several bank employees, but the mystery turns out to be connected to an old case Chan was involved in years before in Shanghai; another conveyor belt Monogram/Charlie Chan movie, The Shanghai Cobra is hardly distracting, or distinguishable from any of its Forties brethren, but it’s entertaining enough in its way, and Toler still seems to be enjoying himself in the role (which is no mean feat).

Fast Girls (2012) / D: Regan Hall / 91m

Cast: Lenora Crichlow, Lily James, Lorraine Burroughs, Noel Clarke, Lashana Lynch, Dominique Tipper, Rupert Graves, Philip Davis, Bradley James, Emma Fielding

Rating: 3/10 – Olympics wannabe sprinter Shania Andrews (Crichlow) makes it onto the UK team but finds her progress hampered by a rivalry with fellow athlete Lisa Temple (James), as well as personal problems of her own; for Fast Girls, writer and star Noel Clarke has fashioned a cliché-strewn drama that lacks cohesion between scenes and is laden with unconvincing dialogue, not to mention the paper-thin plotting and some extremely wayward performances.

Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015) / D: Genndy Tartakovsky / 89m

Cast: Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, David Spade, Keegan-Michael Key, Asher Blinkoff, Fran Drescher, Molly Shannon, Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman, Dana Carvey, Rob Riggle, Mel Brooks

Rating: 6/10 – Count Dracula (Sandler) has a grandchild – but will the little sprog turn out to be fully human, or will he sprout fangs and make his grandfather eternally happy?; a serviceable sequel, Hotel Transylvania 2 lacks momentum in the first hour and then pulls it together to provide a fun conclusion, which makes it okay for children, but adults will probably be wishing they were watching the first movie instead.

The Condemned 2 (2015)

20 Saturday Feb 2016

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Action, Drama, Drones, Eric Roberts, Explosions, Gambling, New Mexico, Randy Orton, Review, Roel Reiné, Sequel, Steven Michael Quezada, Thriller

D: Roel Reiné / 90m

Cast: Randy Orton, Eric Roberts, Wes Studi, Steven Michael Quezada, Bill Stinchcomb, Alex Knight, Dylan Kenin, Michael Sheets, Morse Bicknell

The world of The Most Dangerous Game gets another hackneyed, played out already diversion in the form of The Condemned 2, yet another WWE Films exercise in low budget stupidity. You can imagine the meeting where such a movie is discussed and agreed: men in sharp suits sitting around asking themselves which WWE superstar they should employ in their latest cheaply produced action thriller, and which already expired concept should they put him in. And though Randy Orton has already paid his dues in 12 Rounds: Reloaded (2013), someone clearly felt that one embarrassing WWE movie on his CV wasn’t enough.

But what further movie to shoehorn him into? And then someone had the idea, the creative challenge that would make all the difference, and that would show a solid commitment to enhancing Orton’s onscreen career: a sequel to a movie made eight years before, and which had an actual budget and a degree of in-built credibility with its casting of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Vinnie Jones. Yes, someone said, let’s make a sequel to The Condemned (2007).

But then someone else must have interrupted all the cheering and the backslapping and the hearty congratulations for solving such a weighty issue. And that person must have said, “hang on, before we get carried away, we haven’t got the same kind of money to make a sequel that we did the original”. And everyone would have nodded their heads in agreement, acknowledging that the studio’s run of action movies over the last five years had underperformed spectacularly, and that as a result, budgets had been trimmed to within an inch of a WWE Diva’s waistline. So what to do? Come up with another idea?

The answer was clearly no. The answer was to scale back the production values of the original – obviously – and scale down the size of the original’s plot. Instead of a nationally televised manhunt taking place on a remote island, and Jones’s twisted psycho hellbent on killing Austin’s noble hero, how about a twisted psycho putting pressure on the team of an ex-bail bondsman to take part in hunting him through the dusty arroyos of New Mexico? Cue more nods of agreement, a phone call to Orton’s agent, the drafting of a production schedule, and hey presto! one more movie out of the starting (Lions)gate.

As quickly and as cheaply made as The Condemned 2 is though, it’s still a masterpiece in comparison to some of WWE Films’ other releases – Knucklehead (2010), and Leprechaun: Origins (2014), yes, we’re talking about you guys. But it does push the boundaries of credibility from the very start, as Orton and his team of heavily armed bail bondsmen infiltrate the hideout of a very bad man indeed (played by Studi), who’s worth a million if they bring him in alive. After much gunplay and a standoff between Orton and Studi, Orton kills the very bad man and is subsequently convicted of involuntary manslaughter (but he’s given a two year suspended sentence, so that’s okay). But Orton quits the bail business and decides he’s having nothing more to do with guns or criminals or running around in the middle of the night chasing bounties.

Of course, that’s what he thinks. In the meantime, Studi’s second in command, a shifty-looking sleazebag called Raul (Quezada) has set up a bizarre gambling casino in an abandoned industrial plant, where high rollers can bet on the outcome of the latest game in town: hunting the ex-bail bondsman. Having coerced/threatened/blackmailed his team to try and kill Orton, Raul encourages his bloodthirsty clientele to bet heavily on each encounter. But Orton proves unsurprisingly difficult to kill (note to WWE execs: how about that for a movie title?). As he struggles to get to the bottom of why his friends suddenly have murderous intentions toward him, Orton looks perplexed and confused, and often seems to have forgotten he has lines of dialogue. In comparison, while Orton underacts, Quezada takes up the shortfall and overacts like a ramped-up kid with ADHD.

Soon though, Orton finds out what’s going on thanks to one of his team showing some balls, and aided by his father (played by Roberts) and another of his team that he convinces to help him, Orton heads for Raul’s casino-cum-hideout, and against a backdrop of several dozen explosions, comes face-to-face with his nemesis. Yes, it’s not exactly Shakespeare, and nor should it be, but aside from its use of a drone as a way of Raul keeping track of what’s happening with Orton, there’s very very very little that either makes sense or shows any sign of an inventive approach to the material or the narrative. The script is credited to Alan B. McElroy, and if that name rings any kind of a bell, then it’ll be because he wrote Wrong Turn (2003), The Marine (2006), and way back, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988). (You should now have a pretty good idea just how bad the script is.)

Thankfully though, McElroy’s script has been put in the hands of low-budget action movie specialist Roel Reiné, whose recent career has seen him wrestle equally unwieldy storylines and plots to life, and often for WWE Films. One thing Reiné is good at is injecting energy into often tired screenplays. He’s also adept at boosting them by virtue of a visual style that allows for unexpected camera angles during fight scenes, and particularly here, some stunning overhead (drone-PoV) shots that look amazing, and show off the New Mexico landscape to impressive effect. They’re not enough to outweigh the dreary predictability of the script, or the muted performances of the cast (Quezada’s aside – he really needed a moustache to play with to complete the portrayal), but they do add rare moments of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy offering.

There are more WWE movies waiting in the pipeline to be released on an unsuspecting audience, and while there’s no sign that any of them will be better than The Condemned 2, one thing can be taken for granted: they’ll follow WWE Films existing template for making these kinds of movies: take one WWE superstar, add a few fight scenes and a handful of explosions, throw in a psychotic bad guy, and combine all these elements into a less than compelling whole, and on the stingiest budget possible. Next up? Dolph Ziggler and Kane in Countdown (2016). Now how can anyone pass that up?

Rating: 4/10 – there are worse WWE-backed movies out there, but this still takes some explaining in terms of its stitched-together script and performances that make no effort to connect with each other; not even strictly a sequel to the original, The Condemned 2 ambles awkwardly to its pyrotechnic-heavy conclusion, and provides further evidence that rather than enhancing its superstars’ careers, these kind of outings seem more of a punishment than a reward for their work in the ring.

Creed (2015)

15 Friday Jan 2016

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Adonis Creed, Apollo Creed, Boxing, Championship bout, Drama, Light heavyweight, Michael B. Jordan, Review, Rocky Balboa, Ryan Coogler, Sequel, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson

D: Ryan Coogler / 133m

Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, Andre Ward, Anthony Bellew, Ritchie Coster, Jacob “Stitch” Duran, Graham McTavish, Gabe Rosado

The Rocky series has been a recurring staple of moviegoing since Sylvester Stallone first introduced us to the Italian Stallion back in 1976. The first movie had so much heart it sometimes felt like it would burst, and Stallone’s performance was a perfect match for the character. Rocky II (1979) was the inevitable sequel, and Stallone was canny enough to replicate enough of what made the first movie so good with newer elements that complemented the original. But then he made an unnecessary third movie, Rocky III (1982), and suddenly Rocky was fighting for an uneasy mix of revenge and morality. And then we had the blatant jingoism of Rocky IV (1985), with the Italian Stallion representing American pride at its most unseemly against a near unstoppable Russian opponent (thank God the Cold War was nearly over).

That seemed to be it, but then Stallone came up with Rocky V (1990), an attempt at scaling back the stylistic excesses of the previous two movies, but which lacked an interesting story. By then, Stallone was forty-four and age was beginning to make its point (as the movie recognised), and the chances of Rocky Balboa still stepping into the ring and taking even more poundings was quickly dismissed. But just as you can never keep a good fighter down, a sixth movie appeared, Rocky Balboa (2006). It showed more of a respect for the series than parts III – V, and it gave Stallone a chance to show just how much affection he had for the character, and that Rocky could be rescued from unintended parody. And that, surely, everyone felt, was that.

Well, almost. Now we have a seventh movie and a sixth sequel, except that this time around, the focus isn’t on Rocky Balboa but instead it’s on the illegitimate son of his most famous opponent, Apollo Creed. He has the appropriate (and unfortunate) name of Adonis, and when we first meet him he’s a young boy in a childcare facility. He’s also beating up one of the other boys, so right away we know he’s got anger issues. And we know that these issues will resurface later in the movie to provide an obstacle to getting where he wants to be, and if by chance he meets someone significant, in being with the person he wants to be with. He’s given an unexpected reprieve from a young life busting other kid’s noses by the arrival of Apollo Creed’s widow, Mary Anne (Rashad), who takes him home with her.

As an adult, Adonis (Jordan) is conflicted: he has a well-paid office job but he also fights down in Tijuana where he’s undefeated after fifteen bouts. He’s self-taught, self-motivated, but knows he needs a proper coach to help him make a name for himself in the ring. And that name needs to be Johnson, his mother’s name, because he doesn’t want to make it on the back of his father’s legendary status. So he resigns from his job, and moves from Los Angeles to Philadelphia, home of another boxing legend. There he approaches Rocky, who after the usual demurring, agrees to help him train to be a better, professional fighter. And he meets someone significant, in the form of wannabe musician and downstairs neighbour, Bianca (Thompson).

Adonis is focused, and when he wins his first US fight against local boxer Leo ‘The Lion’ Sporino (Rosado), the cat is soon out of the bag in terms of his heritage. And with World Light-Heavyweight Champion ‘Pretty’ Ricky Conlan (Bellew) needing a fight in the next six months, the stage is set for the kind of fairytale ending that only happens in Hollywood boxing movies, and which includes highlights of a highly physical, hugely punishing twelve round bout (basically the kind that rarely happen in the real world).

If some of the summary above sounds a little cynical, then it is. Creed is a movie that follows a well established template, and is incredibly easy to predict, right down to the outcome of Adonis’s bout with Conlan. There’s nothing here that you won’t have seen before, and there’s little that’s new or innovative. But fortunately, this is a movie where all that doesn’t matter, because what it does have is a fondness for and a charity towards the characters that allows them to feel like old friends even though you’ve only just met them. Adonis is the eternal child trying to find a place for himself in the world, and with only a single means to do it. He’s matched by Bianca, whose progressive hearing loss means she has to concentrate on her music almost to the exclusion of everything else. They’re both sympathetic characters and easily likeable, and both Jordan and Thompson have no trouble investing them with the kind of emotional honesty needed to avoid their becoming stereotypes.

And then there’s the man himself, Rocky Balboa, aged, resigned to running his restaurant, and staying adrift from the world that made him famous. This is a character that Stallone has played for nearly forty years all told, and this is finally the movie where he gives his best performance as the Italian Stallion. It’s a modest, surprisingly complex performance, with delicate shadings that haven’t been seen in a Rocky movie before, and Stallone appears so at home in the role that it really does seem difficult to separate the two: is Stallone Rocky, or is Rocky Stallone? Either way, the much maligned actor is excellent in his signature role, and he reminds us of just how much heart and soul the character had back in the beginning.

Away from Stallone, much of the movie’s success is down to the direction of Ryan Coogler. Coogler adopts a slightly unconventional visual approach to the movie which pays off during its quieter moments as the widescreen image is used to highlight a range of emotions. He’s also adept at keeping the camera in the ring, having it circle the boxers (and sometimes getting in between them) and prowl around every punch and blow. It’s a fluid performance by the camera, and superbly orchestrated by Coogler and DoP Maryse Alberti. The editing by Claudia Castello and Michael P. Shawver is also a plus in these sequences, interspersing the fluid camerawork with quick cuts and flourishes when the action needs to get in tight.

There are references to the earlier movies throughout, though bizarrely, Rocky’s early morning training run is transformed completely, with Adonis trailed and then overtaken by local youngsters on a variety of souped-up bikes. Bill Conti’s iconic score is in there as well, though you might not always recognise it, and of course, those steps outside the Philadelpha Museum of Art get a visit, but in a way that’s less majestical and more realistic. Fans will be pleased to see so much effort being put into what is the seventh movie in the series, and with the torch being passed from Stallone to Jordan, there’s always the possibility that we’ll be following Adonis Creed’s career for some time to come.

Rating: 8/10 – on a par with the first two movies, Creed is hugely enjoyable, and benefits from a script – by Coogler and Aaron Covington – that puts the characters first before the fight scenes; if there still remains a lack of development in some areas (the various subplots), there’s more than enough here to keep old, new and non-fans alike happy and satisfied.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (2015)

20 Friday Nov 2015

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District 13, Donald Sutherland, Drama, Francis Lawrence, Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Julianne Moore, Katniss Everdeen, Liam Hemsworth, Literary adaptation, Panem, Philip Seymour Hoffman, President Snow, Review, Sci-fi, Sequel, Suzanne Collins, The Capitol, Thriller, Woody Harrelson

D: Francis Lawrence / 137m

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Donald Sutherland, Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Willow Shields, Sam Claflin, Elizabeth Banks, Mahershala Ali, Jena Malone, Jeffrey Wright, Natalie Dormer, Evan Ross, Elden Henson, Wes Chatham, Michelle Forbes, Patina Miller, Stanley Tucci

Picking up after Peeta’s failed attempt to kill Katniss, the final instalment in The Hunger Games series begins with a problem for both the makers and the audience to consider: should the movie launch straight into the rebels’ expected attack on the Capitol, or should it hold back and spend some time reiterating the relationships between Katniss and Peeta and Gale, and begin to explore the similar machinations of President Snow and his potential successor, Alma Coin? The answer is the latter, and while this decision allows for further layers to be added to Katniss’s ever-present self-doubt (and sets up the ending), it also has the effect of reminding the viewer that we’ve been here before – and in each of the three previous movies.

One of the series’ strengths has always been the way in which Katniss appears to be a stranger to herself while everyone around her finds her actions entirely predictable. It’s an idea that continues here, with the Mockingjay being used at every turn, even when she acts independently. But it’s in danger of becoming as unwieldy a plot device as the idea that President Snow has a camera in every home in Panem (as well as in every shop, and on every street corner… you get the idea). We get it. And if the decision to split Mockingjay the novel into two parts was so that the final movie could be all about the rebels’ final push on the Capitol, then why are we still going over old ground?

To be fair, it’s the price the movie makes for being faithful to Suzanne Collins’ source material. But what it also does is to make The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 longer than it needed to be, and curiously sapped of urgency once Katniss et al begin their progress toward the Capitol. There are too many scenes where characters stop to muse on their individual plights, and Peeta tries to sort out if his memories are real or lies constructed by his torturers in the Capitol. At first glance it’s all meaningful, and yet another indication of how careful the makers have been in grounding the action, but do you know what? It’s Part Four – we already care about these characters. All we want now is for Katniss to come face to face with President Snow, and for the promise of all those booby traps we’ve seen in the trailer to give us a thrilling, rousing, edge-of-the-seat kick-ass end to everything.

What we’re looking for is the kind of series’ ending we got with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011), but the action sequences, though expertly staged and choreographed – and which winnow out the surplus characters – just… don’t… bring it. It’s a strange awareness to have, to realise that the best action scenes have all appeared in the earlier movies, but there it is: even the underground fight against the Capitol Mutts suffers from over-familiarity as Katniss shows off the same bow skills we’ve seen before from Legolas and Hawkeye. And as mentioned before, there’s a distinct lack of urgency to it all, as the movie’s rhythm is maintained at such a steady pace that even when Katniss and her comrades are out-running a booby-trap at full pelt, you can sense the editing team of Alan Edward Bell and Mark Yoshikawa making sure it’s not shown at too full a pelt or their hard work elsewhere might be jeopardised.

And yet, somehow – somehow – the movie overcomes these drawbacks and proves to be a fitting end to the saga. It’s still an intelligent, and intelligently made, movie, and the effort in maintaining the good work achieved in the previous movies is clear to see, with returning director Lawrence once again steering things to tremendous effect. He’s aided by a returning cast who all clearly want to be there, and who are committed to ending the series as best they can. And for the most part, they succeed. Lawrence doesn’t put a foot wrong as Katniss, miring her in doubt and misplaced guilt, and keeping her insecurities to the fore in a performance that becomes all the more impressive for having been sustained across four movies. Hutcherson impresses the most (four words I didn’t think I’d ever write), his PTSD Peeta being a difficult role to pull off, but he makes short work of it, and in doing so, makes Peeta the most sympathetic character in the whole series.

Completing the “romantic threesome” is Hemsworth as Gale. Four movies in and he’s still the series’ one weak link, an actor so stiff he could throw himself at the enemy instead of shooting them, and still score a death. (Now if Sam Claflin had played Gale, then the often tepid romance with Katniss might have been more compelling.) Sutherland continues to play Snow with effortless malice; without his silky venom to play against, the rebellion would have appeared less than necessary. As his rival for power, Moore strikes a more strident note as Coin, and as Coin’s true nature becomes more and more clear, the actress withstands the temptation to become the series’ answer to Cruella de Ville (the clue’s in the hair).

Further down the cast list, Harrelson is sidelined early on; the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman has a few scenes that hint at a bigger, if obviously curtailed role; Claflin brings his trademark smirk to playing Finnick Odair, as well as a much needed sense of fun; Banks hangs around on the periphery of things as Effie; and Tucci is shoehorned in as Caesar Flickerman in a TV segment that goes against an earlier scene where Snow (very severely) chastises an underling. Everyone is present and correct, and director Lawrence coaxes good performances from everyone, making it incredibly easy for the audience to continue rooting for their favourite characters.

Whatever your feelings about The Hunger Games franchise – and there are plenty of nay-sayers out there – this has been one of the most surprisingly intelligent and well produced projects of the last ten years. Jennifer Lawrence has proved to be an inspired choice as Katniss Everdeen, and the world of the Districts has been so convincingly constructed that the plight of their inhabitants has been echoed by events taking place in the real world even now. And even though Suzanne Collins originally wrote her novels for the YA market, these are remarkably adult movies, with a strong sense of moral culpability and responsibility. A triumph then, and when all is said and done, one that few of us could have seen coming.

Rating: 8/10 – narrative hiccoughs aside, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 is still head and shoulders above any other dystopian YA sci-fi series out there, and is a great showcase for what can be achieved if the intention is not to soft pedal any serious themes inherent in the material; thrilling (just) and chock-full of great performances, this is a fitting swansong to a series that has surprised and entertained audiences for four years and this despite getting increasingly bleaker as it’s gone along.

Trailer – Finding Dory (2016)

11 Wednesday Nov 2015

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Disney, Pixar, Preview, Sequel, Trailer

There are three types of Pixar sequel: the first is the assured, perfectly realised sequel that works on all levels and shows the company’s creativity isn’t hampered by there being a number in the title – like Toy Story 2 for example (or even Toy Story 3). Then there’s the sequel that occupies the middle ground, the sequel that is warmly received, enjoyable even, but which ultimately doesn’t add much to the lustre of its predecessor – like Monsters University for example. And then there’s the third type, the sequel that really shouldn’t have been made, and should have been filed away in John Lasseter’s head as “one trip to the well too far” – like Cars 2 (the only example, actually). Which category Finding Dory will fit into is yet to be seen, and the trailer doesn’t really give us a clue (maybe the next one will), but if it’s as good as Finding Nemo then Pixar will deserve every plaudit coming to them. Fingers crossed!

Spectre (2015)

10 Tuesday Nov 2015

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007, Action, Adventure, Andrew Scott, Ben Whishaw, Christoph Waltz, Daniel Craig, Dave Bautista, Eon Productions, Franchise, Ian Fleming, James Bond, Jesper Christensen, Léa Seydoux, M, MI5, Miss Moneypenny, Monica Bellucci, Mr Hinx, Mr White, Naomie Harris, Q, Ralph Fiennes, Sam Mendes, Sequel, Thriller

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.)

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.

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.

Vacation (2015)

25 Sunday Oct 2015

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Beverley D'Angelo, Chevy Chase, Chris Hemsworth, Christina Applegate, Chug run, Comedy, Ed Helms, Griswold Springs, John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein, Leslie Mann, Reboot, Remake, Review, Road trip, Seal, Sequel, Skyler Gisondo, Steele Stebbins, The Griswolds, Walley World

D: Jonathan M. Goldstein, John Francis Daley / 99m

Cast: Ed Helms, Christina Applegate, Skyler Gisondo, Steele Stebbins, Chris Hemsworth, Leslie Mann, Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, Charlie Day, Catherine Missal, Ron Livingston, Norman Reedus, Keegan-Michael Key, Regina Hall

Q: When is a movie a remake, a sequel and a reboot all put together?

A: When it’s Vacation!

With movie franchises being extended or rebooted at every turn, it was only a matter of time before we started to see an influx of movies made from comedies out of the Eighties (there’s a Police Academy reboot in the works, and Kevin Smith is still keen to make another Fletch movie). But while we anxiously await the arrival of a further Lemon Popsicle or Porky’s installment, we have this latest attempt at producing a contemporary version of a much-loved comedy favourite.

The set up is clever enough: now grown up, Rusty Griswold (Helms) has a family of his own: wife Debbie (Applegate), teenage son James (Gisondo), and pre-teen son Kevin (Stebbins). Each year he takes them all to the same cabin in the woods that everyone except Rusty is tired of. But when he overhears Debbie complaining about it to one of their friends he realises he needs to come up with a different destination this year. Remembering the trip he took to Walley World with his dad Clark (Chase), mom Ellen (D”Angelo) and sister Audrey (Mann) when he was a kid, Rusty decides the best way to get his family to be more excited about going away is to plan a road trip to the theme park that he recalls so fondly.

It’s at this point that the movie casts a knowing wink at the audience, and does its best to sound cleverer than it actually is. In response to James’s statement that he’s “never heard of the original vacation”, Rusty replies confidently, “Doesn’t matter. The new vacation will stand on its own”. It’s a bold though far from oversold moment, and one that will have fans of the original saying to themselves, “Really?” And that particular word will be one that viewers will come back to time and again as the Griswold family road trip unfolds from Chicago to Santa Monica with all the grim inevitability of an influenza outbreak in an old folks’ home.

With the original framework firmly in place, Vacation relies on a mix of modern day gross out humour, old fashioned puerility, and laboured jokes to provide the comedy while asking its cast to take a back seat and not do anything too funny. It’s a strange circumstance, but watch the movie closely and you’ll find that Helms, Applegate et al aren’t that funny in themselves (or as their characters), and that the script by Goldstein and Daley has the Griswolds acting largely as observers of their own road trip. On the few occasions when one of them is directly involved in a comedic situation, such as Rusty helping Stone Crandall (Hemsworth), his sister’s overly endowed husband, to round up some cows, the initial joke of his killing one is outdone by the one that follows, when one of the other cows chows down on the remains (yes folks, it’s a movie first, cannibal cows).

Elsewhere we’re treated to a paedophile trucker, a side trip to Debbie’s old alma mater, the Griswolds bathing in raw sewage, a rental car called the Prancer that comes with a remote control that includes buttons labelled with a rocket and a swastika (wisely, Rusty never presses that button), Stone showing off his “six pack”, a love interest for James, a white water rafting trip that goes wrong thanks to just-jilted guide Chad (Day), and the sight of Kevin trying to suffocate his older brother with a cellophane bag – twice (though, admittedly, the timing of this makes it a whole lot funnier than it sounds). There are various subplots: Rusty and Debbie’s attempts to put the spark back into their marriage by having sex wherever and whenever they can; Kevin’s bullying of James; Rusty’s run-ins with rival airline pilot Ethan (Livingston); and the whole notion of a family trying to bond over a trip only one of them wants to make (again).

If you’re easily amused, and don’t mind how uneven the movie is, then Vacation will seem like a great movie to sit down with a few beers and watch on a Saturday night, but the reality is that it’s hard to tell if writers/directors Goldstein and Daley were either in a rush with the script, or felt constrained by having to follow the original in terms of the movie’s structure. Whatever the case, the movie coasts along without making too much of an impact, and mixes gross out humour with long stretches of quiet amiability, and some very awkward moments that can’t help but feel out of place e.g. Rusty’s uncertain knowledge of sexual matters leads to James wanting to give the girl he likes a rim job (he thinks it’s kissing with your lips closed).

The cast cope well enough, and it’s good to see Chase back as the Griswold patriarch, but equally it won’t be long before you’re wondering what’s happened to his eyelids. There are some cameos dotted here and there, and a certain singer appears in the closing credits, but there’s no standout character or performance. What this movie really needed was someone like Cousin Eddie to come along and really stir things up.

Rating: 5/10 – not as amusing as the original movie it tries to emulate, Vacation suffers from trying too hard to be funny, and not having the conviction to be as subversive as its predecessor (watch it again to see how dark it is); beautifully shot however, and with a great soundtrack that features Seal’s Kiss from a Rose, this is technically well made but not a movie you’ll want to watch more than once.

Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015)

28 Monday Sep 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Ass Blasters, Burt Gummer, Cradle of Humankind, Don Michael Paul, Drama, Graboids, Horror, Jamie Kennedy, Michael Gross, Pearl Thusi, Review, Sequel, South Africa, Thriller, Wildlife reserve

D: Don Michael Paul / 99m

Cast: Michael Gross, Jamie Kennedy, Pearl Thusi, Daniel Janks, Ian Roberts, Zak Hendrikx, Nolitha Zulu, Rea Rangaka, Brandon Auret, Sello Sebotsane

After successfully hunting down and restricting Graboid outbreaks to the south-western United States, Burt Gummer (Gross) is restyling himself as a survivalist. He films his treks into the wilderness with the aid of a cameraman, but when his regular cameraman is replaced by bike-riding, smart-talking Travis Welker (Kennedy), Burt isn’t too pleased by his attitude or his suddenly showing up out of the blue. While Travis tries to tell Burt how he can improve his profile, they’re interrupted by the arrival of a South African called Erich Van Wyck (Janks). Van Wyck tells Burt there is a problem with Graboids in a wildlife reserve, and he wants him to travel there to help solve the problem. Naturally, Burt agrees, and Travis goes with him to document everything.

At the wildlife reserve, Van Wyck introduces them to their guide, Johan (Auret), and the facility’s doctor, Nandi Montabu (Thusi). An attack on an archaeological dig reveals the existence of a different form of Graboid, and while Burt tries to figure out how these particular creatures have come to exist and why they don’t behave in the same way as their American counterparts, the attacks become more frequent and claim more lives. The discovery of an egg leads to the realisation that somewhere there’s a nest, and if they’re allowed to hatch then the area will be overrun. But Burt’s plan to eradicate them is foiled by Van Wyck who reveals a different plan for the Graboids – one that has the potential to put a lot more people in danger, and not just in South Africa.

Eleven years after we last saw Michael Gross as a member of the Gummer family, in the wonderfully left-field Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004) (where he played Burt’s ancestor, Hiram), the trigger-happy, gun-loving “survivalist” is back, and though as expected this fourth sequel to the 1990 original is severely let down by a lazy, focus-lite script, it’s good to see the man back again, and doing what he does best: blasting Graboids, because he can. It’s a good thing too, because without him the movie would be a complete disaster, with only some unexpectedly impressive creature designs to save the day. (Forget about the rest of the cast, who range from perpetually annoying – Kennedy, Auret – to mildly embarrassing – Thusi, Janks – to just plain woeful – the couple at the archaeological dig.)

Any film with a 5 in the title is always going to be a bit suspect when it comes to quality, but here, with the participation of series’ creators Brent Maddock and S.S. Wilson reduced to providing the storyline only, the finished script by Woodrow Truesmith, M.A. Deuce, and John Whelpley is a hodgepodge of dreary dialogue, lazy character motivation, clumsy nods to the other movies in the franchise, a blatant steal from Jurassic Park (1993), and a couple of moments of casual racism. It’s all put together in unconvincing style by Paul, who’s made a career (of sorts) out of directing rubbish sequels such as Lake Placid: The Final Chapter (2012), Jarhead 2: Field of Fire (2014), and the upcoming – God help us all – Kindergarten Cop 2 (2016). Between Paul and DoP Michael Swan, the movie looks like it was shot by someone with very bad Parkinson’s, and Vanick Moradian’s editing is so uneven it looks as if the footage used in the final cut was chosen at random.

It’s a shame, as the Tremors series has, by and large, been a source of surprising thrills and sometimes wicked humour, as well as introducing us to a monster that exists with a clear set of boundaries as to its behaviour. This movie abandons that idea, but in trying to expand the threat – flying Graboids anyone? – it merely reinforces how lazy it all is. And even though Gross is the icing on the cake in the previous movies, here he’s the icing, the cake, and the cake stand as well.

Rating: 3/10 – bottom of the barrel stuff that “ass blasts” over the series’ legacy, and doesn’t even have the courtesy to pretend to care, Tremors 5: Bloodlines is far and away the worst instalment yet, and should remain the last; dead in the water from the word go, this gets by on Gross’s professionalism and little else, while every frame serves as a reminder of just how good the original movie was.

The Absent One (2014)

06 Monday Jul 2015

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Boarding school, Cold cases, Conspiracy, Crime, David Dencik, Denmark, Department Q, Drama, Fares Fares, Jussi Adler-Olsen, Literary adaptation, Mikkel Nørgaard, Murder, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Pilou Asbæk, Review, Sequel, Thriller

Original title: Fasandræberne

D: Mikkel Nørgaard / 119m

Cast Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Fares Fares, Pilou Asbæk, David Dencik, Sarah-Sofie Boussnina, Danica Curcic, Nikolaj Groth, Søren Pilmark, Beate Bille, Marco Ilsø, Philip Stilling, Kristian Høgh Jeppesen, Johanne Louise Schmidt, Hans Henrik Clemensen, Peter Christoffersen, Katrine Rosenthal

At a police awards ceremony, cold case investigator Carl Mørck (Kaas) is accosted by a retired policeman who begs him to look into the case of his two children who were both killed in 1994. Mørck refuses, and later the man commits suicide, prompting Mørck, supported by his partner Assad (Fares) to look into the case. They learn that the siblings both attended the same boarding school, and that there was a call to the police – made by a young woman – alerting them to the crime. With this as their only clue, Mørck and Assad visit the school where they learn that the young woman was probably Kimmie Lassen (Boussnina); but unfortunately for them she hasn’t been seen in twenty years.

Learning also that Kimmie’s friends at the time included now reputable businessmen Ditlev Pram (Asbæk) and Ulrik Dybbøl (Dencik), and that the man who confessed to the crime, Bjarne Thøgersen (Jeppesen), was represented by the best criminal lawyer in Denmark, Bent Krum (Clemensen), and only served three years in prison, Mørck and Assad sense a conspiracy. They visit Thøgersen who alerts Pram to the new interest in the deaths. Pram hires a man named Albjerg (Christofferson) to look for Kimmie, while Mørck endeavours to find her first. But an older Kimmie (Curcic) is also a very wary Kimmie, and with the help of her friend, Tine (Rosenthal), she manages to stay one step ahead of everyone when she becomes aware that people are looking for her. But Albjerg tracks her down, and though she gets away, she also has a run in with Mørck that leaves him bruised and battered.

Meanwhile, Pram and Dybbøl use their political contacts to put pressure on senior police in an effort to get Mørck and Assad taken off the case. Furious, Mørck confronts his immediate boss (Pilmark) and makes enough of a case from the evidence that he’s amassed to show that it should be pursued further, and that Kimmie Lassen holds the key to what happened twenty years ago. When she is finally caught by the police, it seems that Pram and Dybbøl’s arrest is only a matter of time. But Kimmie has other ideas: she escapes and goes after them herself, as much to kill them first, and as much again to make up for her involvement in the deaths of the young brother and sister.

As much a riveting crime thriller as its predecessor, The Keeper of Lost Causes (2013), The Absent One is another triumphal adaptation of a novel by Jussi Adler-Olsen. With almost everyone involved in the first movie returning to make this one, the movie is like a seamless addition to what is an ongoing series. The tone, the feel, the pace, and the sensibility of The Absent One is such that anyone who has seen The Keeper of Lost Causes can slip into the series’ bleak, gloomy mise en scene with ease, sure in the knowledge that what follows will be of an equally high standard, and equally as satisfying (if not more so).

There are several reasons for this, not least the taut, gripping screenplay by Nikolaj Arcel and his writing partner Rasmus Heisterberg. In distilling Adler-Olsen’s novel they’ve kept the focus on the ripple effect the murders have had over the years, as well as Mørck’s inability to let something go once he’s got a grip on it. The detective’s persistence and dogged nature – which are pretty much all he has to keep him going – is beautifully expressed through Kaas’s beleaguered performance. This is a man who keeps his pain externalised to stop it from eating away at him inside, but the payoff is a lack of compassion and sympathy for others; he only takes on the case in the first place because he can’t deal with the guilt of refusing the retired policeman. Kaas gives a wonderfully fractured portrayal of Mørck, growing further into the character and inhabiting him completely.

Ably supported by Fares, whose Assad is never a foil for Mørck, Kaas heads up a cast that never puts a foot wrong, even in the smaller roles. The script supports them all the way, assembling the pieces of the plot with skill and precision, letting the viewer glimpse the events of twenty years ago without spoiling the true nature of the killings, and allowing the mystery surrounding those killings to remain in place almost until the very end. It’s a bold, confident approach, and allows the tension inherent in the story to build to a quietly devastating denouement (and which puts Mørck through the ringer once more – but then he probably wouldn’t have it any other way).

Retaining his place in the director’s chair, Nørgaard keeps things tightly focused and highlights the psychological toll felt by Kimmie over the course of twenty years (she has a terrible secret of her own that, when revealed, is the most upsetting thing seen in either movie). It’s to Nørgaard’s credit that Kimmie’s humanity is never downplayed, and in the hands of Curcic, she’s a character so far removed from her younger self (also extremely well played by Boussnina) that the sadness of her situation is almost palpable. (In a better world, she and Mørck would make for an interesting couple.)

While the villains of the piece aren’t as effectively drawn, their callous natures are given plenty of screen time, as well as the slow disintegration of their self-confidence and eventual hubris. Asbæk and Dencik are appropriately cold and uncaring in their roles, revealing the innate hostility towards others that privilege has bestowed on them, and providing strong counterpoints to Mørck’s own disdain for others. It’s all reflected in the somber, unforgiving violence and shadowy dangers that permeate the movie and which help to make it such a rewarding (if slightly downbeat) experience.

Rating: 9/10 – a sequel that is as equally good as its forerunner, The Absent One is a dark, atmospheric thriller that is as uncompromising as it is compelling; with two further movies in the pipeline, let’s hope that the makers can maintain the quality shown so far.

Mini-Review: Queen & Country (2014)

29 Monday Jun 2015

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Army, Caleb Landry Jones, Callum Turner, David Thewlis, Drama, John Boorman, Korean War, National Service, Pat Shortt, Regimental clock, Review, Richard E. Grant, Sequel, Tamsin Egerton, The Fifties, The Sphinx, Vanessa Kirby

D: John Boorman / 110m

Cast: Caleb Landry Jones, Callum Turner, Pat Shortt, David Thewlis, Richard E. Grant, Vanessa Kirby, Tamsin Egerton, Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Sinéad Cusack, David Hayman, John Standing, Brian F. O’Byrne, Julian Wadham

Nine years after the events depicted in Hope and Glory (1987), eighteen year old Bill Rohan (Turner) is nurturing a desire to get into movie making. But National Service comes along and Bill is conscripted into the Army, where his skills lead him – and his friend Percy (Jones) – to teaching other conscripts how to type. With the threat of being transferred to the front line in Korea hovering over them, Bill and Percy make the best of their lot, including continual run-ins with their immediate superior, the punctilious Sergeant-Major Bradley (Thewlis). They find a comrade in skiver Private Redmond (Shortt), and resolve to steal the regimental clock as a two-fingered salute to one of their senior officers, the pompous, overbearing RSM Digby.

While Bill and Percy circumvent the rules with seeming impunity, they also find love: Percy with nurse Sophie (Edwards), and Bill with emotionally distant Ophelia (Egerton). But the course of true love fails to run smoothly for either of them, with Ophelia proving complicit in an abusive relationship, and Percy showing no signs of committing to Sophie. Their run-ins with Sgt-Major Bradley escalate to the point where they turn the tables on him, a decision which has unforeseen consequences. The search for the regimental clock leads Private Redmond – suspected by Digby and Major Cross (Grant), the officer in charge – to ratting on Percy to avoid being sent to Korea. With his friend facing a court-martial, and his affair with Ophelia offering no comfort, Bill’s rite of passage to adulthood proves a rockier experience than he ever expected.

Widely reported as John Boorman’s swan song movie, Queen & Country is a largely disappointing end to a career that has had some tremendous highs – Point Blank (1967), Deliverance (1972), The General (1998) – and one incredible low – Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977). What’s disappointing is that Boorman has failed to inject the same kind of nostalgic bonhomie that made Hope and Glory such a joy to watch. And though the movie is based on Boorman’s own experiences in the Fifties, there’s little here that resonates as effectively as his experiences of World War II. It’s a shame, as the movie will generate a lot of interest due to the warm regard held by its predecessor, but anyone persuaded to watch this as part of a Boorman double bill with Hope and Glory would do well to choose something else (the undervalued Leo the Last (1970) perhaps).

This isn’t to say that the movie is a complete disaster – Boorman is too good a director for that, and the material does have moments where it’s both affecting and heartfelt. Bill’s despair at the actions of Ophelia tugs at the heartstrings, while Bradley’s officious nature hides a man struggling to maintain his sanity. The performances range from the credulous (Jones, all sniggering, body-wracking obnoxiousness), to the pantomimic (Grant, operating at a level of high-strung anxiety that would look less out of place in a drawing-room farce), while Egerton strikes a chilling note as an upper-class object of desire who has no idea of her own self-worth. Turner is okay as the older Bill, but thanks to Boorman’s script, is hampered by being too likeable throughout, and isn’t allowed to show any other facets of the character. But the standout is Kirby as Bill’s rapacious sister, Dawn, a force of nature that the script – thankfully – fails to keep a lid on. References to Bill’s family living near to Shepperton Studios hint at his future endeavours and there’s a lovely final shot that is as succinct as it is emotive. If Boorman is persuaded to continue making movies, his take on starting out in the industry would be well worth waiting for.

Rating: 5/10 – awkwardly irreverent in its dealings with the Army, but on surer ground in its more emotional relationships, Queen & Country is a mix of drama and comedy that never quite gels; with some scenes that feel extraneous, and others that seem burdened by the need to harken back to Hope and Glory, this is a movie that – sadly – promises more than it actually delivers.

Mini-Review: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

18 Monday May 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Action, Australia, Charlize Theron, Chase, Drama, George Miller, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Immortan Joe, Imperator Furiosa, Max Rockatansky, Nicholas Hoult, Nux, Review, Sequel, Thriller, Tom Hardy, Water

D: George Miller / 120m

Cast: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Josh Helman, Nathan Jones, Zoë Kravitz, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee, Courtney Eaton, John Howard, Richard Carter

Captured by men under the command of Outback warlord Immortan Joe (Keays-Byrne), Max Rockatansky (Hardy) is held prisoner in the Citadel, Joe’s fortress hideout. When one of Joe’s lieutenants, Imperator Furiosa (Theron), helps five of Joe’s “brides” escape, Joe sends everyone after her, including Nux (Hoult), a war boy with little experience and who’s been given Max as a “blood bag”. Forced to take Max with him in the pursuit, Nux catches up to Furiosa, who is driving a large petrol tanker. He and some of the other war boys attempt to stop Furiosa, but are unsuccessful. And in the melee, Max – who was chained to the front of Nux’s vehicle – frees himself and joins the fleeing women.

Quickly earning their trust, and still being pursued by Immortan Joe, Max learns that they are heading for the “Green Place”, where Furiosa was born; there they will be safe and able to live freely. Joe succeeds in catching up to them and in their efforts to elude him, one of the brides is killed. They manage to get away from him and further along the way, they meet up with a band of women called the Vuvalini. The women plan to carry on across a vast salt flat but with no guarantee that they’ll reach the other side alive. Instead, Max convinces them to go back the way they came, through Joe’s forces, and take the Citadel from him while it’s undefended.

Let’s get the superlatives out of the way, shall we? Thrilling, exciting, stirring, incredible, jaw-dropping, amazing, breathtaking, magnificent, gripping, mind-blowing, superb… the list goes on and on. Thirty years on from the frankly disappointing Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985), George Miller has returned to the barren future world inhabited by Max Rockatansky, and he’s come up with one of the best action movies you’ll see for some time to come. Mad Max: Fury Road is simply stunning, from John Seale’s exquisite cinematography, to Jason Ballantine and Margaret Sixel’s impressive editing techniques, to Jenny Beavan’s wonderfully expressive costume design, the movie has all this and more going for it, and in a year with so many action thrillers coming our way, will prove very hard to beat.

It’s a major triumph for Miller, hewing to a simple formula: don’t let up on the pace and don’t let up on the mayhem. There are some astonishing stunts performed in this movie, and they leave the viewer open mouthed in admiration for the various stunt teams who put all this together, and also for the sensational vehicles that have been designed and created (and endlessly destroyed). The cast are impressive as well, and if Theron steals the movie it’s mainly because Miller has amped up Max’s taciturn nature and made him more of a physical presence than an intellectual one. But everyone’s a winner, not least the audience, and this is one movie that deserves every plaudit coming its way.

Rating: 9/10 – with not an animated penguin in sight, George Miller returns to doing what he’s always done best: providing the kind of over-the-top, automobile anarchy that has the viewer watching with undisguised awe; filmed with undeniable passion – and with a lovely nod to Peter Weir’s The Cars That Ate Paris (1974) – Mad Max: Fury Road is a cause for joy and exultation, and is possibly the only time a fourth movie in a franchise has proven to be the best of the series.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (2015)

17 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Action, Andy Fickman, Comedy, Convention, Father/daughter relationship, Kevin James, Las Vegas, Neal McDonough, Raini Rodriguez, Review, Robbery, Sequel

D: Andy Fickman / 94m

Cast: Kevin James, Raini Rodriguez, Neal McDonough, Eduardo Verástegui, Daniella Alonso, David Henrie, D.B. Woodside, Nicholas Turturro, Gary Valentine, Ana Gasteyer, Loni Love, Shelley Desai, Shirley Knight

INTERIOR. DAY. THE OFFICE OF MICHAEL LYNTON, CHAIRMAN & CEO OF SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT. THE OFFICE DOOR OPENS. HIS SECRETARY COMES IN.

LYNTON: Yes?

SECRETARY: You’ve just had a call from Kevin James.

LYNTON: Okay. What was it about?

SECRETARY: He said he had a great idea for Paul Blart: Mall Cop 3.

LYNTON: Have you seen Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2?

SECRETARY: No, I haven’t.

LYNTON: Well, pray you never have to. And after we pass on number three, pray no other studio picks it up instead.

SECRETARY: Is 2 that bad?

LYNTON: Bad? It makes Zookeeper look like it should have won Best Film at the Oscars.

SECRETARY: Okay, that is bad. What shall I say if he calls back?

LYNTON: (thinks for a moment) Tell him I’ve died – No, that won’t stop him. No, tell him we’re only making horror movies from now on. And pray he doesn’t come up with an idea for one of those instead.

SECRETARY: Got it. Will do.

LYNTON: Hell, I wish he would.

THE SECRETARY LEAVES. LYNTON GETS UP FROM HIS DESK AND WALKS TO THE WINDOW. HE LOOKS OUT AND SHAKES HIS HEAD REPEATEDLY IN A WEARY, RESIGNED MANNER.

FADE OUT.

Rating: 3/10 – so bad you wish you could forget it the moment you see it, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 is an appalling, unfunny mess that mistakes pratfalls for the height of humour, and makes continually desperate attempts to inject real mirth into proceedings; an early front runner for Worst Sequel of 2015.

Insurgent (2015)

08 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Abnegation, Action, Amity, Ansel Elgort, Candor, Dauntless, Drama, Erudite, Kate Winslet, Literary adaptation, Naomi Watts, Review, Robert Schwentke, Sci-fi, Sequel, Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Thriller, Veronica Roth

D: Robert Schwentke / 119m

Cast: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Kate Winslet, Ansel Elgort, Miles Teller, Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer, Jai Courtney, Mekhi Phifer, Zoë Kravitz, Maggie Q, Daniel Dae Kim, Jonny Weston, Ashley Judd, Ray Stevenson, Tony Goldwyn, Janet McTeer

In the aftermath of the attack on Abnegation, a search reveals a box that contains all the faction symbols. It’s taken to Erudite where Jeanine (Winslet) reveals it holds a message from the city’s elders, but only a Divergent can open it; this leads Jeanine to order that all Divergents are rounded up. Meanwhile, Tris (Woodley), Four (James), Caleb (Elgort) and Peter (Teller) are hiding out in Amity, under the protection of their leader Johanna (Spencer). Tris is all for returning to Erudite and killing Jeanine but Four warns against acting so hastily: they need to be a stronger force before they can attack the ruling faction.

Matters are brought to a head when Dauntless leader Max (Phifer) arrives to look for any Divergents. Peter reveals their presence but Tris, Four and Caleb manage to escape on a train that takes them into Factionless territory. There they meet Evelyn (Watts), the Factionless leader who, it turns out, is Four’s mother. She advocates a coalition between Factionless and the remainder of Dauntless. The next day, Tris, Four and Caleb leave to visit Candor, where the remainder of Dauntless have taken refuge. On the way, Caleb tells Tris he can’t go with them and they part. In Candor, their leader, Jack (Dae Kim) arranges a trial to determine the truth of Four’s insistence that Jeanine is lying to the other factions. A raid by Max and Eric (Courtney) leads to Tris being tested and found to be 100% Divergent. The raid is unsuccessful though and Tris is rescued by Four and Candor. At Erudite, Peter tells Jeanine the best way in which she can trap Tris. With the lives of all in Candor at risk because of Tris’s presence there, she determines to turn herself in.

At Erudite, Tris is apprehended and taken in front of Jeanine. She explains about the box and has Tris hooked up to it. In order to open it, Tris has to pass each Faction test, something none of the other Divergents abducted by Jeanine has managed. With Caleb having rejoined Erudite, and Peter also on their side, Tris can only hope that whatever message the box holds, that she will survive the ordeal long enough to learn what it is, and what it means for the city.

After the prolonged set up and introduction of each Faction and the world they support that made up most of Divergent (2014), you’d think Insurgent would be less reliant on large chunks of awkward exposition. But it’s not the case, as this instalment introduces new characters and broadens the original’s scope. This leads to more explanations for everyone’s behaviour and more occasions where the not-exactly-complicated story has to be explained every step of the way (as if the audience wouldn’t be able to keep up). Which is a shame, as this time around, Tris’s newfound place in her world is much more interesting and exciting to be a part of.

Weighed down by the expectations that come with cinema’s version of “middle child syndrome” (and even though Allegiant will be released in two parts – damn you Harry Potter!), Insurgent gets a lot right. It ups the action content, makes the heroes more heroic, the villains more villainous, and ends with the news that we’ve all been waiting to hear: next time we go outside the wall. The movie couldn’t be more designed to please its audience, both existing and new. And that’s another factor that makes the movie work: you don’t have to have seen Divergent to work out what’s going on. Such is the care that’s been taken with the adaptation of the book, that even though there are huge chunks that are missing (including whole storylines), it’s a tribute to screenwriters Brian Duffield, Akiva Goldsman and Mark Bomback that this is a well constructed, and surprisingly streamlined version that holds its own and isn’t reliant on the first movie.

It also moves the characters forward in unexpected ways. Tris is hell-bent on killing Jeanine which isn’t the usual approach in a YA movie (you’d never expect to hear Katniss Everdeen sound so vehement about President Snow as Tris is about Jeanine). It’s refreshing to see someone be that blunt and not harbour any deep-seated guilt or reservations about the rights or wrongs of such a thing; Tris is resigned and more importantly, she can’t wait to do it. As for her love interest, the taciturn Four, we get to see him deal with a greater authority than Eric or Max, or even his dad: his mother, presumed dead all these years and as determined to get Jeanine almost as much as Tris. While he wrestles with his emotional scars, Tris gets down to the task of taking out Jeanine; it’s like he’s not even supporting her anymore.

Of course, true love overcomes any dispute or disagreement and Tris and Four leave their differences behind when it comes to overthrowing Erudite, and although the message in the box is one that only readers of the novel will have seen coming, it’s still a treat to see it revealed in such a dramatic, world-upsetting way. It’s yet another way in which new director Schwentke keeps things interesting and the viewer on their toes. He makes judicious use of the new cast members, with even Watts (who has Big Villain written all over her) required to keep it simple and not detract from the main storyline, that of Tris learning to forgive herself for the deaths of her parents and the turncoat Will. Woodley, still the best thing in both movies, shades her emotions with ease and presents a version of Tris that is still learning but who’s also streets ahead of her rebellious companions (but then she is Divergent).

The rest of the cast offer and provide excellent support, with special mention going to Courtney, Spencer, Watts and Teller, though Elgort is still stuck with possibly the blandest character in the whole series, and suffers as a result; he just can’t make him interesting. Winslet is icy and controlling and strangely attractive because of all that, and steals each scene she’s in. The final scene robs us of a major character and is a great way to end this movie and set up some of the dramatics of the next, but it also feels like a bit of a cheap shot at the audience’s expense. What, do we ask, does that mean for Tris and Four and all the rest? Well, to find out, tune in next year!

Rating: 7/10 – better than Divergent, and better assembled, Insurgent shows the franchise gaining in confidence and moving ahead in the right direction; not without its flaws – Peter is still an annoyingly underwritten character – the movie packs a lot in and, on the whole, makes it all work with a great deal of panache.

Bad Asses on the Bayou (2015)

09 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Action, Bad Ass, Baton Rouge, Bayou, Bernie Pope, Carmen, Craig Moss, Danny Glover, Danny Trejo, Drama, Frank Vega, Green machine, John Amos, Kidnapping, Review, Sequel, Thriller

D: Craig Moss / 85m

Cast: Danny Trejo, Danny Glover, John Amos, Loni Love, Jimmy Bennett, Carol Sutton, Sammi Rotibi, Davi Jay, Judd Lormand, Jeff Pope

Pensioners with attitude Frank Vega (Trejo) and Bernie Pope (Glover) are still the best of friends and still annoying each other. When their friend Carmen (Love) calls to say she’s getting married, and she wants both of them to come to Baton Rouge for the wedding – with all expenses paid by her father Earl (Amos) – they head on down for the festivities. They meet Earl’s wife, Lois (Sutton), Carmen’s brother Ronald (Bennett), and Carmen’s wheelchair-bound fiancé, Geoffrey (Rotini). But on their first night at Earl’s mansion home, intruders break in and kidnap Carmen, despite Frank’s best efforts to stop them. The next day, Earl receives a ransom demand for $5 million, due in thirty-two hours.

The local chief of police, Broussard (Jay) takes charge of the investigation, but he’s aware of Frank and Bernie’s notoriety and warns them against getting involved. In no time at all they ignore Broussard’s advice, and using a clue found by Ronald, track one of the gang of intruders to a local club. There they force him to tell them the name of another gang member, Landry (Pope), who is more “connected”. While Carmen remains imprisoned in an abandoned factory, and her family struggle to deal with her kidnapping, Frank and Bernie ignore a further, more serious warning from Detective Williamson (Lormand) and track down Landry who tells them where Carmen is being held. At the same time, Carmen manages to escape from the room where she’s been imprisoned. She ends up in an office where she’s able to fax her location to the police.

However, the fax is intercepted by one of Broussard’s deputies who takes it to his chief. On their way to the abandoned factory, Frank and Bernie are forced to stop by uniformed police. Broussard is with them, and it becomes clear that he’s behind the kidnapping. He knocks Frank unconscious; when he comes to he and Bernie are on their way to an airstrip. Broussard’s plan is to have them thrown out of a plane to their deaths. But Frank and Bernie have other ideas…

The first Bad Ass movie, released in 2012, was based on the real-life exploits of Thomas Bruso. It was an uneven mix of wish fulfilment action beats and cornball humour that did enough to warrant a sequel, Bad Asses (2014). This upped the humour, thanks largely to the involvement of Glover, and showed that there was mileage to be had from a pensioner – or two – who wasn’t prepared to take any shit. With no sign that the series is stopping any time soon, and with the budget getting bigger with each instalment, Bad Asses on the Bayou shows the series stretching credibility and common sense in its efforts to provide a good time.

Lacking a cohesive script, the movie opts to play out like a Seventies low budget actioner, with dreadful leaps in both narrative and characterisation, and with writer/director Moss clearly having assembled his script from the bottom of the bin marked “clichés”. So we have Frank and Bernie bickering in a bank and foiling a robbery. We have Frank and Bernie taking out purse thieves at a gas station (actually well choreographed). We have Frank dispensing wisdom to a bullied Ronald, Carmen played as a sassy, high-energy stereotype, Bernie hitting on women around three times younger than he is, and the odd moment of sadistic violence (Frank pushing Landry’s face into a fat frier). And to cap it all we have intermittent scenes where Bernie’s recent liver transplant causes him pain at the wrong time (but which is never developed any further than that).

There’s also some poorly executed attempts at humour – Bernie: “I ain’t running” – and Moss hasn’t decided if he’s spoofing his own creation yet, but with Trejo’s performance bordering on tired already, and Glover playing Bernie exactly as he did in Bad Asses, the series is in danger of disappearing up its own absurdity. It’s not enough this time round for the movie to flirt with plausibility and then leave it high and dry like a forgotten bride at the altar, or for it to include moderately well executed action sequences that show off where the bulk of the budget has been used. Instead of using the extra money to strengthen, expand or add depth to the original concept, Moss and co have taken Frank and Bernie out of their comfort zones and relocated them to the Deep South – and fallen back on the same approach they used in the first two movies, thus making the change of scenery no real change at all (and Frank and Bernie never actually spend any time “on the bayou”).

With Baton Rouge proving a poor, unfriendly backdrop to the main storyline – a short montage of the sights of Baton Rouge shows very little that could be considered attractive about the area – and a visual style that highlights blandness each time, Bad Asses on the Bayou is the least interesting of the series to watch in terms of its look and feel, and is a movie propagated with too many similar-sounding rap songs. If there is to be another Bad Ass movie, and this one promises a next instalment titled Bad Asses in Bangcock (yep, that’s how they’ve spelt it), then let’s hope that Moss works from someone else’s (better) script, and Trejo and Glover are given more to do than beat people up and make cheap wisecracks.

Rating: 4/10 – the law of diminishing sequels kicks in with a vengeance, leaving Bad Asses on the Bayou looking and feeling like a half-finished idea that sounded good at the time; with a sense that everyone involved is treading water, or just going through the motions, keeping the series going may not be the best way forward for both the makers and for future audiences.

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015)

04 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Bill Nighy, Celia Imrie, Comedy, Dev Patel, Drama, Hotel inspector, India, Jaipur, John Madden, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Marriage, Relationships, Review, Richard Gere, Ronald Pickup, Sequel

D: John Madden / 122m

Cast: Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Dev Patel, Celia Imrie, Ronald Pickup, Tina Desai, Diana Hardcastle, Richard Gere, Tamsin Greig, Penelope Wilton, Lillete Dubey, Shazad Latif, Claire Price, Rajesh Tailang, David Strathairn

With the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel a success, and extra rooms being added due to its popularity, owner Sonny (Patel) and his manager, Muriel (Smith) travel to San Diego to meet with Ty Burley (Strathairn), the owner of a string of hotels that cater to the elderly. Their plan is to purchase another hotel in Jaipur, but while Burley is enthusiastic about their plan, he tells them that any agreement will be dependent on his sending an anonymous inspector to the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel; it will be their recommendation that wins or loses the deal.

Back in Jaipur, Evelyn (Dench) and Douglas (Nighy) have yet to make a commitment to each other. They skirt around their friendship, too afraid to confess or reveal their true feelings for each other. In the meantime, Douglas works as a part-time tour guide (though he’s terrible at it), while Evelyn works for a company sourcing local fabrics. Another resident, Madge (Imrie), is having trouble deciding which one of two suitors to accept if they propose, while Norman (Pickup) and Carol (Hardcastle) are adjusting to being a couple after years of casual relationships. And preparations for Sonny’s impending wedding to Sunaina (Desai) are well under way.

The arrival of new guest Guy Chambers (Gere) has Sonny in a fluster as he thinks Guy is the anonymous hotel inspector. He goes all out to impress him, even to the point of showing him the nearby hotel he’s looking to buy. But a problem arises: an old friend of his and Sunaina’s, Kushal (Latif), has bought the hotel as an investment opportunity. Angered by this, and jealous of the time Kushal is spending with Sunaina arranging the wedding, Sonny puts his marriage in jeopardy. His problems are further added to when Guy shows a romantic interest in Sonny’s mother (Dubey).

Evelyn and Douglas continue to avoid committing to each other, and the arrival of Jean (Wilton), Douglas’s estranged wife, adds confusion to the mix. Madge finds her feelings for her suitors moving in an unexpected direction, and Norman begins to suspect that Carol is having an affair. With Guy and Sonny’s mother hitting it off as well, and Muriel receiving some unwelcome news following a check-up at the clinic, it’s left to Sonny and Sunaina’s wedding to bring everyone together, and to help everyone resolve their issues, and seal the fate of the second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

The continued health and well-being of its stars permitting, the unexpected success of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) was always likely to inspire a sequel – or, in this case, a follow on – and it’s a relief to find that the elements that made the first movie such a hit haven’t been ignored or forgotten about. And so, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, like its predecessor before it, is by turns funny, dramatic, sad, hopeful, colourful, affecting, and undemanding. This last isn’t a negative, however, but a recognition that this is a movie that doesn’t have to try too hard to be entertaining or provide its audience with anything more than they’re expecting. It does what it needs to do with the utmost confidence, and it doesn’t disappoint.

It’s a movie with a great deal of heart, and a great deal of affectionate humour too; and, for a movie with such an predominantly aging cast, a lot of energy. Madden directs Ol Parker’s script with an eye for the subtle moments in amongst the more farcical elements (Norman trying to “save” Carol), or those that seem too unlikely (Guy being attracted to Sonny’s mother). And he gets them: Douglas’s wistful wedding speech; Madge’s tearful recognition of the relationship she really wants; Sonny’s doorstep apology to Sunaina; Evelyn’s uncertainty about meeting Douglas in Mumbai; the manager of the Viceroy Club’s comment about their bedrooms: “They’re for guests when they’re tired… or fortunate”; and Guy’s quietly moving speech to Sonny’s mother.

Helped tremendously by its returning cast, writer, and director, the movie has an advantage right from the start: everyone knows what to do. If things seem too reminiscent of the first movie, then that’s a plus on this occasion, as familiarity breeds endearment and acceptance. It helps that actors of the calibre of Dench, Smith and Nighy are so loved by audiences around the globe, and that they rarely put a foot wrong or try to sell an unconvincing emotion. They’re past masters at this type of movie and their roles, and they inhabit their characters with ease. And if the main plot and various accompanying storylines seem a little obvious or straightforward – predictable even – then, again, this isn’t a negative. Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.

The various Indian locations are used to good effect and remain a perfect backdrop for such an unlikely tale of success (both the hotel and the movie). The peace of the hotel is contrasted nicely with the din and the hubbub of the street scenes, and Ben Smithery’s cinematography adds a painterly sheen to everything, making the sights seem even more colourful than they are. There’s a well-choreographed dance routine to round things off, as well as a more sombre farewell to one of the characters, and the sense that if there were to be a third movie, the recognition that it might struggle to keep matters as interesting as the first two.

Rating: 8/10 – a sequel that’s as effective as its precursor, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is an enchanting, appealing return to Jaipur and some much-loved characters; while not pushing any boundaries (or needing to), it remains guaranteed to put a smile on the face of even the most indifferent of viewers.

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