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The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014)
The revolution will be televised!
With the presumably thrilling conclusion to The Hunger Games series just over the horizon, we return to last year's Mockingjay – Part 1 in an attempt for my reviews to maintain at least some contemporary relevance. There are two ways to look at a film which is part of a series. One is to view it as a chapter in the larger story, making this one little more than the calm before the storm. The other way is to see if the narrative works as a standalone film, and sadly here it does not.
The Hunger Games has followed the now 'traditional' trend of turning the last part of a young adult novel series into a two part picture (Harry Potter, Twilight, to an extent The Hobbit) so that Part 1 becomes so much preamble and set-up for a 'missing' final act. Is it a cynical cash-grab to stretch the franchise out for another year, or sincere attempt to do justice to the literature? Who can say?
With Mockingjay – Part 2, this effect is thoroughly in place, moving from one relatively unsatisfying cliff-hanger at the end of Catching Fire to another at the end of itself. It somehow manages to be another big ol' film of (just) over two hours, although it's almost half an hour shorter than Catching Fire, which took over half its running time to actually get to the bloomin' Hunger Games.
Though the full title retains the series banner, there are no games here, so the arena combat angle that provided a clear structure to the first two films is gone. Maybe that's for the best. The second film was in many ways a retread of the first, though the pre-game ruminations I've just lamented were really about the seeds of rebellion, and our heroine Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and her Mockingjay becoming the symbols of the revolution (the Mockingjay starts life as a symbolic token Katniss is given by an elderly neighbour in the first film, which gradually takes on greater and greater significance).
So it's not a standalone story, but what's this film about, and where does it take the characters we met in the last two films? At first glance, not very far. Most of the movie takes place in an underground bunker where the rebellion is based, safe below District 13 (a mysterious place previously believed to have been long destroyed), while the two sides throw propaganda back and forth at each other. Katniss does get out into the field, but she only fires one arrow (although granted, it does quite some damage).
But at the film's core is this media warfare of hearts and minds, and Katniss' initial reluctance to play into it. Her struggle is to weigh the needs of the many, who see so much in her, against her own personal losses and dissatisfaction with how the revolution is being run. She is always asking who should have been saved, and at what cost?
The film inherits the great cast of the series, from Jennifer Lawrence herself, whose name is now synonymous with the franchise and characters, to the continued presence of Woody Harrelson and Elizabeth Banks, who play off each other nicely after their frosty relationship of the last two films. What is good is that as we spend more time out of the area with the rebels, somehow-third-billed Gale (Liam Hemsworth) finally has a little more to do, getting out into the field with Katniss and even leading one of the film's few action sequences, a daring raid on the capital to liberate the captured victors of Catching Fire.
Similarly, Philip Seymour Hoffman, who tragically died during filming, manages to maintain a complete and worthy presence as the games master turned rebel propagandist. He receives a dedication at the end of a film, and one wonders how his absence will affect Part 2. His more reasoned encouragement of Katniss brings a subtle reserve to offset the fiery determination of District 13 President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore) who is all rousing speeches and lack of compromise, continually at loggerheads with our heroine. Much of the first third of the film is her coercive (and Hoffman's measured) attempts to make her agree to participate in the propaganda; though we ask ourselves how different this really is to the gaudy reality TV of the first film.
Everybody has their own two cents to say on how the revolution should be run, but on the other side of the coin (see what I did there?) President Snow (Donald Sutherland) abandons his affable façade in the face of all out war to snarl and gloat from the video screen.
I have said that true action sequences are few and far between; they are dispersed like raisins in a bowl of porridge through the film's inflated length, but they come as a re-engaging wake up call. I particularly enjoyed the scenes of open rebellion in other Districts, as it is always exciting to see such a well realised world explored in more depth, all the more so when a large chunk of the movie is set underground.
These scenes also show how returning Catching Fire director Francis Lawrence has finally shaken off the assumed atmosphere of his predecessor Gary Ross' first film to deliver the darker sequel suggested by his back catalogue (Constantine, I am Legend). Of note is the apocalyptic sequence in which Katniss breaks down while exploring the ruins of her former home, District 12. The Hunger Games universe has always come with a high human cost, but never has it been so graphic.
So while the film is well made and there are many standout scenes, the pacing still feels slow and the dramatic narrative is far from satisfying. After all, it's really only half a film and will only work when we're marathoning that stuff on box set next year.
Interstellar (2014)
Some films are stellar. This film was Interstellar.
Interstellar came at the end of 2014 to give us a Christmas blockbuster worthy of leaving our warm hearths for. I saw it late after a stretch abroad, but I'm glad I caught it on the big screen, even if it was the 'Bijou' screen of my local cinema. Some films excel at spectacle, and this really deserved to be seen on the biggest, loudest screen possible, so count yourself lucky if you managed it.
The film is a science fiction epic, but it's not an outlandish fantasy. Forget Avatar. Has anyone watched Avatar recently? Interstellar feels grounded in possibility with ideas full of personal conflict and universal philosophy. The story begins some fifty odd years in the future on an Earth devastated by crop blights. The world is becoming a barren dustbowl as humanity struggles to feed itself.
Our hero is Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) a widowed former pilot turned farmer who ekes out a living with his father-in-law and two children Tom and Murphy. The film does well to establish this world; a parent-teacher meeting where children are denied a college application so they can become farmers and an early action sequence where Cooper salvages a downed Indian drone for parts hint at the environmental, technological and geopolitical situation of this future world.
The main narrative starts when a mysterious signal leads the ever inquisitive Cooper to the remnant of NASA, helmed by Cooper's old professor Dr. Brand (frequent Nolan-collaborator Michael Caine) who offers him the chance to join a secret mission to find a new homeworld for humanity. A wormhole has been discovered near Saturn which leads to a system of potentially habitable planets orbiting a supermassive black hole.
Here begins the struggle and the decisions Cooper and his family must make. Should humanity continue to fight the losing battle on Earth, or abandon it? Should a man leave his family for the future of humanity, or live out what life he can with them, as best he can on a dying world?
At the heart is Cooper's relationship with the daughter he leaves behind (Jessica Chastain) and her struggle to forgive him as she grows up to become a scientist herself. The relationship is paralleled with Brand's daughter Amelia (Anne Hathaway) who joins the mission to look for something else among the stars.
Christopher Nolan is a twenty-first century auteur and his films are always ambitious, complex and engaging. Even if that ambition is sometimes stretched, he never shrinks from a bold idea. But it's not just a philosophical narrative. While emotional through and through, the film also explores its conflict through gripping action and spectacular visuals, and its pioneering attitudes through the inclusion of cutting edge scientific thought.
Okay, so you don't have to understand every part of the physics; some artistic licence has undoubtedly been taken for the sake of story or spectacle, and there are 'Star Trek' times when characters with a scientific background explain their complicated plans to each other with a simple analogy (a technique immortalised by Fry in Futurama), but we're here to watch a movie, not a lecture in theoretical astrophysics.
The result is that the characters not only explore foreboding new worlds of ice and oceans but deal with the vaguely realistic implications of exploring wormholes and black holes, such as time dilation and intense space-time-warping gravity. This is used to great emotional effect; imagine communicating with your family at home when hours of your time is years of theirs and your messages can 'only' travel at the speed of light.
It's enough that theoretical physicist Kip Thorne was present as a consultant to know we're in safe hands. Thorne collaborated with Carl Sagan on the latter's novel Contact, which became a film in 1997 and dealt with the communication between a father and daughter across the void of space and also happened to feature Matthew McConaughey in a supporting role.
Interstellar seems like a spiritual successor but stands on the shoulders of another giant, that unforgettable epic journey to the edges of the solar system and beyond: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); although that film's astronaut Dave had no family keeping him on Earth. It's worth mentioning here that the cubic robots that assist on the mission are markedly less homicidal. The robots have been brilliantly realised with inventive simplicity as real puppets played by actors and not CGI.
The effects as a whole are a cinematic experience; the spaceship blasts through the void to ludicrous organ overlays and emerges overlooking the black hole, a magnificently realised singularity of ultimate light and darkness simulated using Thorne's mathematics. Then a moment of peace, all the more accentuated after the volume, allowing us to ponder the 'gravity' of the situation in more ways than one.
I read an article explaining that the pipe organ was for a long time the world's most complex man-made device, this scientific significance a possible reason behind its inclusion, aside from the obvious spiritual associations. Organ pipes also have a visual similarity to spaceship engines, reminding me of Boston Third Stage album cover where the band's signature organ is presented as just that.
My only word on the film's ending is that it comes very close to undercutting Cooper's sacrifices by letting him have his cake and eat it, but after the mind-bending finale, we're on board enough just to go along with the ride. So I'll leave it there.
The word 'stellar' is sometimes used to describe something of an extremely high standard, but it's hard to say now without sounding like you're quoting Stanley Kowalski. I think it's time for a change, so this film gets full marks because it was Interstellar.
Gone Girl (2014)
A powerful, suspenseful horror-thriller with great turns by Afflek & Pike
I saw Gone Girl when I was home for a week last Halloween, a time during which I was watching a combination of old James Bond films and schlocky slashers like Scream (1996) and Freddy vs. Jason (2003) all films which are more cheesy than scary. During my one trip to the cinema that week, Gone Girl was the film which kept me on the edge of my seat. It was a real thriller with horrifying scenes making it almost a horror film itself.
I'm not going to spoil details of a plot which works best as a mystery, but the premise is that Midwestern everyman Nick Dunne (Ben Afflek) returns home one day (his fifth wedding anniversary no less) to find his glamorous wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) missing. The ensuing media circus then throws Nick into suspicion.
The film's strength is its manipulation of the viewer. We follow and side with Nick initially; Ben Afflek plays him as fairly neutral, a blank slate. Maybe he's too passive in the face of his wife's disappearance. Is he guilty or does he simply not know how to react? He seems likable enough, but there's something just behind it.
During the first act the couple's relationship is told through flashbacks, incorporating segments of Amy's diary, and we gradually begin to side with her. These dual narrative strands are apparently from the original wildly popular novel by Gillian Flynn, who wrote the screenplay. We must be in safe hands.
David Fincher, whose last film was the English-language remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, retains something of the Nordic noir to Gone Girl. The film is full of darkness, sex and violence. Camera angles are sweeping and the scenery both bleak and beautiful. At the heart of the film is an exploration of humanity which is divisive and ambiguous.
Though a long film, it is never boring. There was a point around halfway through when some kind of resolution seems to have been reached, but the film keeps going and the pace and intensity increases. Rosamund Pike's role increases as the story progresses and without giving too much away, her performance is powerful.
Role and image are major themes. On some level, everyone is playing a part, deliberately projecting or hiding behind a facade. Amy has been fictionalised by her writer parents in the overblown, saccharine Amazing Amy books which she has never been able to live up to. She has a place in the public eye and this is why the press descends so rapidly on the case.
As the audience struggles to understand his psyche, Nick is struggling to appease the exploitative media. He hires Tanner Bolt (Tyler Perry), a lawyer specialising in image and defending suspected husbands. Perry's role is dramatic but played with a much needed balancing touch of humour. Of note too is Neil Patrick Harris's rare straight role as Amy's ex-boyfriend Desi.
The music, from serene yet ominous ambient soundscapes to throbbing electronica was composed by Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor and his producer Atticus Ross who have collaborated on Fincher's last two films. In keeping with the theses of this film, they have created a score which is simultaneously soothing and unnerving.
I'll finish by acknowledging that there are some plot holes in the decidedly complicated narrative, particularly paper trails, alibis and the possible existence of exonerating security footage. Again, I won't go into too much detail, but at one point a detective begins to question such a hole but is quickly shot down.
Presumably these details would come to light sometime later during the inevitable long investigation. The case ends far from closed. But the film is more than just the plot, which is nevertheless engaging. As a piece of film making, the themes, music and visuals remain powerful.
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Forget the MCU baggage and enjoy this entertaining, fantastic looking sci-fi romp.
The latest in Marvel's Cinematic Universe
hold on, is it still the latest? I'm reviewing these things too late for even the DVD release. Anyway, yes, it is still the latest. Avengers: Age of Ultron isn't out until May, so I'd better get writing.
So this is the film I eschewed last summer in favour of Inbetweeners 2. I didn't see Guardians of the Galaxy until it came out on DVD in December and quite honestly it's the better of the two. I didn't really know what to expect. I knew it was adapted from a lesser known Marvel title that's appeared in various incarnations since the '60s. I knew that I know next to nothing about comic books beyond the fact that Superman, Batman and Spiderman are a thing.
The vast interconnected multimedia project known as Marvel's Cinematic Universe is a tangled web indeed, and Guardians of the Galaxy is only one small strand. People talk about these comic book movies as though they just couldn't wait for this beloved classic to hit the big screen, but this particular team of Guardians are only from 2008, so they're hardly cherished childhood companions.
Forget about that. See Guardians of the Galaxy as a standalone sci-fi romp. See planet spanning empires, sprawling sci-fi cities, celestial worlds, fantastic alien races, spaceships, space prison-breaks, an atmosphere informed by the big leagues like Star Wars and Star Trek, but with none of those franchises' inherent baggage.
Well almost; we do have Star Trek's Zoe Saldana and Doctor Who's Karen Gillan, suitably aliened-up in green and blue body paint as the duelling adopted 'daughters' of galactic arch-villain Thanos (Josh Brolin), a who employs a genocidal enforcer called Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) to do his dirty work.
The story follows the Han Solo-esque Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), a scavenger, smuggler and all round space scoundrel who finds a MacGuffin while searching an ancient temple. It's a mysterious orb of unprecedented power, and soon everybody's after him. Along the way, he acquires a disparate crew of bounty hunters and outlaws, including deadly assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana), genetically experimented-on raccoon Rocket (Bradley Cooper), taciturn tree-being Groot (Vin Diesel) and vengeful warrior Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista).
The cast is further padded by bit players including Glenn Close and John C. Reilly, although here we hit a slight snag in that the large cast of heroes and villains is almost too much for one film and many of them don't receive adequate focus.
Under the titular moniker of the Guardians of the Galaxy, they are forced to put differences aside and team up against the much more despicable warmongers Thanos and Ronan. It might nominally be a superhero movie, but with such fantastic surroundings, it hardly feels like one. The characters too are not naturally noble, but outsiders and oddballs who have to really rally themselves to fight the good fight. Well, maybe that part's not too different from the internal struggles or your average gritty 21st Century superhero.
A little like Futurama's man-out-of-time Philip J. Fry, Pratt's character Quill keeps it grounded with plenty of well timed 20th Century references (In fact the whole gang keep it light with plenty of well timed comedic interplay), as does the soundtrack which is all '70s and '80s rock pop and soul. In universe, it's the playlist from Quill's Walkman, a cassette tape labelled 'Awesome Mix, Vol. 1' which he listens to while speeding through the galaxy. Needless to say, I swiftly downloaded said playlist.
It all looks fantastic and more importantly is great fun throughout, with plenty of light hearted comedy balanced with the action and a solid cast who work well together. I'm sad to have missed the spectacle on the big screen.
The Inbetweeners 2 (2014)
Crass, and not as good as the TV show, but a fine outing with the boys.
The camera swoops through grey clouds, flashing with lightning. Ominous throbbing orchestral music plays as jagged, archaic titles float into view and are blasted apart. We pan over a suspension bridge towards three cloaked figures walking through a forest. An owl hoots. A full moon. A raised finger, pointing towards the skyline. Have I wandered into the latest Harry Potter film?
No, of course not. Harry Potter ended years ago; that's the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, and we're watching The Inbetweeners 2 for another round with our favourite hapless teens. Simon (Joe Thomas) and Neil (Blake Harrison) have come to visit Will (Simon Bird) at university, and quickly find him alone and snubbed by his peers.
It's a marvel that the first minute presents us with this sequence, and before five minutes are out, we're treated to another (presumably expensive) fantasy wherein renowned fabricator Jay (James Buckley) outlines the details of his fabulous life in Australia, where he is spending a gap year.
We see everything the average Brit would imagine of the land Down Under: beaches, bikinis, cricket, boomerangs, surfboards, Sydney nightclubs, kangaroos & koalas, 'Strayan slang (bonzer, rooting); allusions to celebrities from Kylie & Dannii Minogue all the way to Steve Irwin, via Mel Gibson, Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman; served up with the crass sexual humour that typifies the bawdier end of the Inbetweeners spectrum.
It screams: "Here we are, we're back, we've got a bigger budget, and this time, we're going to Australia!" Love it or loathe it, you know what you're going to get (The film's tagline: "Soz, Oz." is an astounding five letters of witty brevity) and they're fully aware they don't have to impress anyone who isn't already a fan. Okay, it's not quite as good as the first film, and nowhere near as original as the TV series, but I'm always going to be somewhat sympathetic to this franchise*.
I've been with The Inbetweeners since the beginning, when as a sixth former myself I laughed my head off at the antics of Will, Simon, Jay and Neil, as they muddled through a uniquely British adolescence that we could all see reflections of ourselves in. Maybe I didn't watch the first broadcast of the first episode, but I duly caught up on 4oD and eagerly anticipated the second and third series.
The reset button has been pressed again as the boys' girlfriends have ditched them in the interim (with series creators and writers/directors Damon Beesley & Iain Morris tearing up the neat little package with which they ended the last film). We all want our characters to grow as people, but in the case of The Inbetweeners, not too much. But they're not all forgotten: Simon's still hitched, though his girlfriend has become disturbingly obsessive, and Jay's fruitless pursuit of his ex, Jane, turns out to be the whole reason he's gone to Australia.
The best gags are at travelling in general, particularly the distinction between 'travellers' and 'tourists' made by pretentious, faux-spiritual backpackers, 90% of who seem to be Australian the world over (when they're not from British public schools like Will's new love interest, Emily). This culminates in a cringe worthy, but somehow brilliant campfire guitar performance by Will as he tries to fit in with this world, followed by a battering diatribe to the group when he realises he doesn't.
Some of the humour, especially that involving excrement, is fairly lowbrow, but The Inbetweeners has always juggled teenage vulgarity with more nuanced shades of friendship and heartbreak, and it's rather poignant to watch the four friends, who we've shared three TV series and almost two films with, holding hands as they dehydrate in the Australian outback after another ill-conceived and impulsive adventure. And there's just enough room for a bit of toilet humour here, too.
Is the end nigh? For these characters, probably so; some of the actors are in their thirties now, and no longer 'inbetween' anything. But we can still live vicariously through Fresh Meat and Friday Night Dinner.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
An entertaining film with a decent story and characters, and special effects at the top of their game.
As an unashamed fan of the original Planet of the Apes films (which I once picked up for under a fiver), I am more than happy to enjoy this Sequel to the Reboot of the Remake of the Planet of the Apes. What's been delivered is another entertaining film; almost, but not quite the equal of its predecessor, with a decent story and characters, and special effects at the top of their game.
This is the eighth film in a franchise rich with possibilities, which has always reflected the concerns of society, from nuclear war, slavery and segregation in the 1960s and 70s, to the 21st Century concerns of animal testing, genetic engineering, global pandemics and our relationship with the environment, always with the chilling edge that comes from displacing humanity from its comfortable position as the planet's dominant species.
As a quasi-prequel to the first Planet of the Apes (1968), we get to see this process in action as we return to the titular planet (spoiler: it's Earth!) some years after the aforementioned pandemic which appeared as the end sequence of Rise, killing 90% of the human population. With no humans seen for some time, the thought in the now thriving society led by ape liberator Caesar is that the last survivors have perished, but a chance encounter on a hunting expedition reveals the truth.
An expedition of humans has ventured deep into ape territory with the intention of restarting a hydroelectric dam to restore power to the ruins of San Francisco. With a deep mistrust of humans at the very core of ape doctrine, the plan becomes a tense diplomatic mission as the humans and apes negotiate to avoid another brutal conflict and needless loss of life.
Caesar is played by master of motion capture Andy Serkis and amazingly, the motion capture was largely filmed on location in the forests of Vancouver, the CGI seamlessly integrated with live action. As a character, Caesar is rare among apes in that he was raised by a human and can see the good in them.
Our human hero is Malcolm (Jason Clarke), a survivalist and engineer, who is in charge of the expedition, but is not much of a leader. Neither is he a diplomat, but he is level headed enough to develop a relationship with Caesar, with whom they share a common goal which transcends the interspecies squabble – each has a family they would do anything to protect.
The real leader of the humans is back in San Francisco: the militaristic but pragmatic Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) who has already lost his family (he swipes through their pictures on a prominently placed iPad – in shops now!) and has little desire to understand or relate to the apes.
The previous director Rupert Wyatt is replaced here by Matt Reeves, who gave us found footage monster movie Cloverfield, where the tantalising excitement of citywide destruction just off-screen was undermined by the idiotic decisions made by the protagonists. There are shades of this frustrating characterisation here with one member of Malcolm's team, Carver.
He is nothing more than a catalyst; right from the opening scene, where he shoots first and thinks later, wounding Caesar's son Blue Eyes in the process, everything about him screams "I'm the arsehole who's constantly going to jeopardise this fragile diplomacy" – which is barely saved from the brink of collapse more than once before the inevitable final showdown.
Koba fills this role for the apes, but he is a stronger character and an established personal rival of Caesar, who tries to corrupt the younger apes, including Cesar's impressionable young son Blue Eyes.
We also remember the dramatic "No!" – The first words spoken by an ape in both Conquest and Rise, when Caesar flexes his vocal chords to deliver an ultimatum to the humans, but the apes here tend to converse in sign language amongst themselves. Perhaps they see spoken language as a hallmark of humanity, but they prefer to save their English skills to dramatically intimidate humans, reminding them that they share a level of intelligence which apes may even have surpassed with their sense of community. While the apes have built a new society from the ground up, the surviving humans continue to scavenge in the ruins of their decaying civilisation, relying on old technology.
There's a great scene about halfway through the film. Power is restored to an old petrol station in the woods, and as it flickers into life a song plays from a stereo: The Weight by The Band, a song which is both religious allegory and an exploration of the music which flows from the American South. Its thematic relevance extends to include references to Judgement Day and the American civil rights movement.
Hearing recorded music and seeing artificial light, symbolic of humanity's legacy, offers a spot of hope, which is inevitably undercut by the melancholy of the world lost and the inevitability of an impending finale, which I'm going to talk about now, so stop reading to avoid spoilers. Hey, I've already told you that they managed to get the power back on so Gary Oldman can charge his iPad.
The audience wants a fight, we've paid to see apes with machine guns, and a fight is what we get, courtesy of the hot headed Koba and unrelenting Dreyfus. Lamentably although hell inevitably breaks loose, credibility is stretched. The previously pacifist apes are far too good at using the machine guns they have only recently stolen from the humans.
We know the apes have both intelligence and physical strength on their side, but it's hard to explain hold their own so well against the trained human guards. Ultimately, they overwhelm the humans with sheer numbers, when they might have concocted a strategic assault using some kind of unique and established ape advantage, such as their non verbal communication, or climbing ability.
22 Jump Street (2014)
It's a sequel, but it's an entertaining meta-comedy.
How many sequels have been accused of basically repackaging the last film we saw and charging us the price of a cinema ticket once again? That's Hollywood, but at least Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, the directorial duo behind the first 21 Jump Street and the seminal The Lego Movie (which also came out this year – these guys have been busy), are acutely aware of this and unafraid of letting us know that they know.
The first 21 Jump Street (2012) took its name from the address of the old church in which the operation was headquartered. Right off the mark, the Ocean's Eleven-style sequel numbering lands us across the street at number 22 which, mocking the often inflated budget of Hollywood sequels, is an even bigger church, kitted out with a king's ransom in expensive looking surveillance equipment, and a chief's office that looks like a 'giant cube of ice' – cue the derisive Captain Dickson (Ice Cube).
Our 'heroes' Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) are cops and buddies, as close as two straight guys can be, and their bromance is truly something to behold. Their relationship was solidified on screen in the first film and provides the central conflict of the sequel – all other characters in the film are sent to test it.
The whole thing's pretty consistently hilarious. Hill and Tatum are fine comedic actors who carry the film well. It's not perfect, but there are some great gags peppered throughout (from Jonah Hill's impersonation of a Latino gangster to Ice Cube losing his cool at a buffet), and a slew of more subtle shout-outs for the perceptive film-goer.
A lot of the humour is drawn from the general self-aware ribbing, and even when it's not directly commenting on the budget or the sequelitis, it's ripping apart the clichés of college movies, action movies, and buddy cop movies.
Much is made of the fact that the characters are going to have to do the same thing once again: infiltrate an educational establishment to root out drug dealers. They're looking a little old for high school now, so they're off to college in all its clichéd frat partying, football playing, hard drinking, spring breaking glory.
Their emotional strife pans out similarly to last time, but with some role reversal. Jenko's natural jock status was subverted in 21 Jump Street, when he found that the modern high school student is more receptive to the book smart sensitivity embodied by Schmidt. Here it's played straight, as he effortlessly slides into the frat boy dynamic and finds a new best bro, leaving Schmidt by the wayside.
The plot might be formulaic, but this film revels in it. It's a very easy film to watch and plays like a farcical lesson in making a comedy sequel. As the main goal of a comedy is to make you laugh; to this end, it delivers.
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Tom Cruise has still got it in this superior time-loop sci-fi action extravaganza.
When the trailers for Edge of Tomorrow first appeared, they deceptively showcased a generic sci-fi blockbuster awash in a flood of similar fare with zippy names like Divergent or Transcendence. It didn't stand out. A friend quipped that someone should just invent a mech-suit so people don't have to keep making movies about them.
I could see where he was coming from – we've seen it all before in Elysium (2013), Avatar (2009), District 9 (2009), The Matrix Revolutions (2003) and even Aliens (1986). Meanwhile, what appeared to be a sci-fi D-Day scene caused my brother to dismiss the film as Saving Private Ryan (1998) with aliens. This is absolutely true; there's no coincidence that Edge of Tomorrow was released the week of the 70th anniversary of the D- Day landings.
So it seems derivative, but it is surprisingly creative. It manages to bring the best of these elements together and successfully decant them into what is, after all, an original film. It's not a sequel to anything else, it's not part of a franchise, and that's always something to be happy about. It comes from director Doug Liman, who has directed many original action and sci-fi films, including The Bourne Identity (2002), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) and Jumper (2008).
As suggested, the conflict is evocative of the world wars (including both the D-Day landings and references to a decisive battle at Verdun) with a futuristic twist. An alien menace has decimated Europe and is poised to invade the United Kingdom, and we're thrown into the action on the eve of the last desperate attempt by NATO to push back into France.
Tom Cruise stars as Major William Cage, showing us once again that he still knows how to star in a blockbuster. Cage is not a real soldier; he's a PR man who thinks he's there to sell the war to the public. He begins with typical Cruise charm and confidence, which then shatters when he's sent to the front line by NATO commander General Brigham (Brendon Gleeson, the first we see of the film's solid supporting cast).
He ends up in a squad of oddballs (squadballs?) under Master Sergeant Farrell (Bill Paxton, who was in Aliens). Everyone has mech-suits, because it's the future and it's cool. Cage can barely operate his, and swiftly ends up on the receiving end of an alien mandible. The alien special effects are high quality; they are scary, inhuman and move smoothly but unpredictably.
But it's not all over, he's entered a time loop, which resets to the night before the battle each time Cage is killed in action, which he is, again and again. Ultimately, he is able to use this ability to turn the tide of the battle and the war by incrementally improving each day, both by developing his skills and finding out how to beat the aliens.
However, he couldn't do a thing without Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), who was doing the same thing until she lost the ability. She's a believably hardened veteran, and a hyper-competent warrior compared to the initially bumbling Cage. Though Cruise is the star, she takes the lead in the developing relationship between the two characters, even if he has to meet her for the first time every day.
The time loop inevitably draws comparisons further potential source material, in this case the classic Groundhog Day (1994). It's also evocative of playing a video game; loading from a previous save point and attempting to beat the same impossible level over and over.
The film plays off the natural humour created by such a scenario, but it is often very dark, as Cage must die each time to reset the loop. Yet the humour works well and is perfectly balanced with the action and desperation of the larger campaign.
Edge of Tomorrow is based on a popular Japanese novella called All You Need is Kill, and some of the aesthetics, including the mech-suits and Vrataski's impossibly huge sword evoke this origin. There's another nod when the incompetent Cage gets his suit's language stuck in Japanese.
Indeed, it is a global film, not just the American affair featuring Tom Cruise that it might have been. There are plenty of European actors, including Blunt, Gleeson and many of Cage's squad. The opening sets the scene quickly with a composite of BBC News footage, and the film is exclusively set in England and France, with deserted, destroyed and military occupied scenes of London and Paris among the most powerful.
Cage's character development is an excellent deconstruction of what we expect from Cruise as an actor. He starts out with a confidence built on cowardice, but is thrown completely out of his comfort zone. Over the rest of the film, the character works hard to attain a typical Tom Cruise level of action hero, which he doesn't attain until the climax.
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
Entertaining, time-travelling adventure with a great cast!
Once again, it's time for another superhero movie – another superhero sequel to be precise. There have been a lot of these lately, but that seems to be the way of the world. Now, counting all spin-offs and prequels, we're on the seventh X-Men movie, with an eighth confirmed to be on the way, continuing the franchise that started it all back in 2000. We've even got the original director Bryan Singer back in the chair, who previously abandoned the franchise to make the quickly forgotten Superman Returns (2006).
However, rather than take the easy route and reboot it, this film is an ambitious attempt to reconcile the existing storyline, tie up some of the loose ends of X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and bring it all together with the cast of prequel X-Men: First Class (2011). The result ends up a little jumbled, and there are loads and loads of characters, and multiple actors playing certain characters, but perhaps that's to be expected in any film involving time travel as a major plot point.
That's right, as the title heavily implies, in a Back to the Future- style confusion of tenses, this film is largely set in the '70s, sometime after the events of First Class. It's very easy for me to get behind such a film, chock full of retro vibes, cool cars, leather jackets, burgundy suits, sideburns and Richard Nixon.
Meanwhile in the future, the post-Last Stand world has decayed into a bleak apocalyptic landscape as a result of amazingly advanced mutant- killing robots, which have decimated the population by being too effective – not only do they kill mutants, but they kill those who recessively carry mutant genes and could give birth to mutants in the future.
Naturally, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) must go back in time to the '70s and stop these robots from being developed and mass-produced, ironically by preventing the assassination of their inventor, Bolivar Trask, as it was his death that made the US government see mutants as a credible threat and commission the robots. The delightfully sinister and manipulative Trask is played by Game of Thrones' excellent Peter Dinklage.
Indeed, the cast as a whole is excellent, even if it is large. I never saw First Class, so 'my' X-Men remain that classic cast of thespians including Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, et al. Happily, they're all back after so many years, which is great to see, even if they are only given limited screen time. The exception is Hugh Jackman, who inexplicably remains the closest thing to a leading man despite having two spin-offs of his own. Of course, Wolverine's effortlessly cool, and he's our temporal fish out of water, so who really cares anyway?
In the past, Wolverine runs into younger versions of all his comrades and nemeses, rounding out the ensemble to include Professor X (James McAvoy), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence). The lines between friend and foe become blurred as Wolverine works hard to redeem the latter two whilst forcing the young Professor X to confront his demons.
Of note is the first appearance in the X-Men saga of the supersonic Quicksilver (Even Peters) who provides one of the most high-octane, humorous and entertaining sequences of the entire film, a super-fast prison break witnessed in slow motion. It's a shame his character disappears shortly afterwards; probably because his presence would make everything else far too easy for the protagonists.
The mutant saga is skilfully interwoven with mid-20th Century US history, including the Kennedy assassination and the Vietnam War. This sets the scene for a retro globetrotting adventure from Vietnam, to the Peace Conference in Paris, to a final showdown in Washington, D.C. All in all it's an entertaining thrill ride, which (as its main raison d'être is storyline reconciliation) may alienate newcomers to the saga. However, as I said, I haven't seen an X-Men film since The Last Stand and I still enjoyed it. It certainly makes me want to watch both First Class and the original trilogy once again. Maybe even the Wolverine spin-offs. Maybe.
The Lego Movie (2014)
Fantastic film, everything you could want from a Lego movie.
What we've got here is a fantastic film, which could genuinely be enjoyed by anyone. That might be an obvious thing to say, but The Lego Movie might be the closest we've come to the elusive story which explores realistic, down to earth problems while being completely off the wall and swarming with magic robots. And there are plenty of robots.
Ironically, for a film based on a lucrative product owned by a giant corporation, The Lego Movie appears to bite the hand that feeds it and actually deconstructs (here come the puns) the corporate world. Who cares if the film will probably make a killing in tie-in Lego sets and video games? At least they decided to tell a compelling and engaging story instead of just palming us off with a heartless cash-in or an overblown explosion-fest.
Similarly, it feels like it's far too easy these days for film makers to knock out a bunch of cheap CGI movies every year, at the expense of the increasingly neglected but labour intensive art of stop-motion. It's understandable why this route has been taken, and there are a few gems in the cascade, but outside of Pixar, CGI films are not something I routinely seek out.
Apparently 90% of The Lego Movie was CGI, and a little bit of stop motion, but apart from the facial expressions and fluid movements which would seriously push the limitations of a plastic Lego man, you could easily have convinced me that it was the other way around. Everything looks like it's made from Lego, even the oceans and the explosions.
It's both sobering to have reached a point where the two become almost indistinguishable and satisfying to see CGI being used to make a great film which works as both a satire of modern consumerism and an exploration of that age-old Lego dilemma: should one build according to the instructions, or just smash everything into a big pile and build whatever.
Our main man is Emmett (Chris Pratt), your generic Lego man, right down to his classic Lego smiley face. He's a construction worker living in a huge Lego city, who has very few ideas of his own. He follows his instructions, smiles and waves to everyone he meets, pays through the nose for coffee on the way to work and does whatever the vaguely Orwellian government says is the right thing to do.
In a typical narrative fashion, events kick off after a chance encounter with funky punk girl Wildstyle (Elizabeth Banks) who is a member of the resistance. Emmett is dragged along for the ride and passes through the masquerade, leaving the regulated order of the big city and discovering the crazy and colourful potential of Lego in the world of the master builders, exiled lords of creative construction who believe Emmett to be the chosen one to bring balance to the force and end the days of instruction-based oppression. The trouble is he's never had an original thought in his life.
The film is rounded out with a great cast of characters and some cracking cameos, both showcasing some solid vocal talent. The enemy and instigator of the repressive order is a suitably zany Will Ferrell hamming it up as the Lego universe's 'President Business' who is assisted by the conflicted split-personality of his chief enforcer Good Cop/Bad Cop. voiced by Liam Neeson at his Irish tough guy best.
With a wry nod to his frequent typecasting, Morgan Freeman plays a wise old sage and among the cameos are Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum (from directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's other movie of the moment, 22 Jump Street).
The film really embodies the spirit of Lego, and as such is a huge nostalgia trip for anyone who's ever encountered the stuff. Once they leave the city, the characters traverse the length and breadth of the Lego-verse, making their way through the many themes Lego has released over the years, providing settings as diverse as western, medieval and pirate.
There are some tender and serious moments, but most of it is a merciless but affectionate parody of whatever transpires, be it city life, epic destiny, overblown villainy or blockbuster action. Everything's funny and a little wacky, riding easily and successfully on the inherent humour that comes with having everything made out of Lego.
There are even nods to unpopular, ill-conceived, or just plain random Lego themes, and references small and large to various other franchise tie-ins (Star Wars, Harry Potter, Superheroes, etc.) showcasing the kind of mad-cap crossovers you can cook up when you have the licence. By this token, Batman himself (Will Arnett) along with a character from the classic 1980s Space theme (Charlie Day) are major players in the plot.
The ending, which I won't spoil, does get a little schmaltzy, but it's forgivable. Otherwise, nothing disappoints, and everything one might want or expect from a Lego movie is delivered in spades. Oh yes, and I managed to get through an entire review of this film without using the word 'awesome'. Dang. Good soundtrack, though.
A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)
Bold themes running through this slasher sequel.
It's been a few years since Freddy Krueger first returned from the dead and began killing teenagers in their dreams. Then he was defeated by Nancy Thompson, who pulled him into the waking world for a final showdown. Now he's back for some
revenge?
Bizarrely, even though Freddy's motivation from the get-go has been revenge and all the other films in the series are specifically about Freddy's Revenge, this is the only one that isn't. Freddy usually targets the Elm Street children, the surviving children of the parents who first killed him, but here he pick on the new family has moved into Nancy's old house.
Still, this is a very minor gripe, as this is the first sequel and the series could have gone in any direction at this point. What the film makers decided to do with this one ended up being unique, and has a lot more going for it than your average slasher sequel.
Freddy's plan this time is to inhabit the body of his primary victim, Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton) whose family has moved into the house. In his first face-to-face encounter with Jesse, Freddys says 'I've got the brains, and you've got the body.' Cue some classic Freddy body horror as he rips apart his skull to expose his brain.
This means that Freddy spends more time breaking into the real world to kill people in the flesh than he does setting up the elaborate and ironic dream sequences that would come to define the rest of the series. He slowly takes over Jesse's body to achieve this, creating a more potent and personal journey than characters in other Nightmare films experience. This film is about Jesse's dilemma, and his feelings of confusion and isolation.
Specifically, this is that Freddy's manipulation of his body represents a latent homosexuality, which Jesse is confused and terrified by, and as a result resists. He exhibits self-hatred, and is continually torn between whether his actions are the result of an uncontrollable possession, or something else inside himself.
Certainly the openly gay actor Mark Patton and screenwriter David Chaskin have acknowledged these themes. Director Jack Sholder was apparently naïve to this, and unwittingly accentuated the subtext when surrendering to the movie's naturally camp aesthetic.
There are many scenes in the film which suggest this, most significantly the death of Jesse's gym coach, who he runs into in a leather bar. The coach comes across as very predatory, forcing Jesse back to school to run laps. Jesse/Freddy's response to this is to strip ad whip the coach in the showers, before killing him with Freddy's glove.
Not only is the main character in the film a male, but the only characters who die in this film are male. This is a significant reversal of the established slasher formula. The only major female character in the film is Jesse's girlfriend Lisa. They never consummate their relationship the way they might in a bawdier slasher movie, although it is their love for each other which eventually defeats Freddy.
Another recurring motif is of heat, which could tie into the film's other theme to represent an increasing heat of sexuality. During some of the film's few dream sequences, Jesse experiences intense heat as objects in his room, such as vinyl records and candles, melt around him. The film is bookended by dreams where Freddy appears as a bus driver and drives Jesse's school bus through the desert and into what looks like hell.
In the real world, the house's thermostat is broken, and the toaster bursts into flames. Finally, in a hilarious and surprising real world event, the family's lovebirds become crazed and cause chaos in the living room before exploding in a ball of flame.
A highlight of the Nightmare on Elm Street series is its role as an '80s time capsule, more so than other slasher franchises, and this instalment is no exception. Notable moments include Jesse's room-cleaning montage wearing ridiculous sunglasses, and the pool party scene, in which Freddy appears to wreak havoc and terrorise the partygoers en masse. I also love Jesse's car, 'The Dinosaur,' a beaten-up convertible that he has to hotwire every time he wants to start it.
In conclusion, there is something very complex running through this film. The fact that such feelings manifest themselves as Freddy and are ultimately destroyed could be seen to undermine this film's exploration of sexuality by suggesting it is something that is destructive and must be defeated. It could be that Freddy represents not overt homosexuality, but a general teenage confusion surrounding sexuality. Defeating Freddy therefore means Jesse has reconciled his confusion and acknowledged his feelings for Lisa.
Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
The bloodshed continues as we return to Camp Crystal Lake for the second time
This is the first sequel to Friday the 13th (1980) and in many ways it's a retread of the original. We're back in Camp Crystal Lake, where a new gang of teenagers have had the less than sensible idea to try and become camp counsellors. Most of the films in the series follow a basic formula, and there are about ten more of these, each with their own idiosyncrasies that define them, for better or worse.
Friday the 13th, Part 2 stands out for a number of reasons. For one thing, it's the first sequel, and the first to directly feature the killer who would go on to define the franchise: Jason Voorhees. Notably, he hasn't even acquired his signature hockey mask yet, and instead obscures his face with a sack.
Unfortunately, it looks a little stupid and impractical, and it's nowhere near as iconic as the hockey mask or even the white mask of Michael Myers in the competing Halloween franchise. But otherwise clad in a plaid shirt and dungarees, this Jason comes across more as a shady backwoods killer than the relentless undead monster of later sequels.
The story is set up quickly and simply. After a direct flashback to the ending of the previous movie, we get a tense, jump-filled introduction which ties up the one loose end from the first film, the lone survivor Alice. Back at Crystal Lake, new counsellors are attending pre-camp training, led by Paul (John Furey) and his girlfriend Ginny (Amy Steel), who are the main protagonists. The other counsellors are merely fodder for Jason.
This fact is obscured at first, as Paul takes most of the counsellors out for a last night on the town before camp begins. As a result, we see little of Paul and Ginny until later in the movie. Unsurprisingly, those who choose to say behind at the camp are sitting ducks, and for the next act, there is no clear protagonist.
The director, Steve Miner, retains the atmosphere of his predecessor, but with slightly tighter pacing. He would direct the third instalment in the franchise; as a result, the first trilogy has some of the strongest continuity in the series. Thematically, this film is linked with the original in ways that the other films aren't.
I liked the way that the story of Jason and his mother was told around the campfire early in the film. This tale encourages the characters to head into the woods to find evidence of Jason or the original Camp Crystal Lake, and it does not end well once Jason realises they have trespassed on his hallowed ground. This Jason is still haunted by the ghost of the late Mrs. Voorhees and we also see where he lives: in a ramshackle cabin in the woods behind the lake, and this is where the final chase and fight end up.
Ginny is revealed to be studying child psychology and discusses the effect Jason's upbringing and the death of his mother may have had on his behaviour. Cleverly, Ginny eventually uses her knowledge to manipulate Jason in the finale and buy time.
Another recurring theme is that characters mention what they're going to do with the rest of their lives (using those words) which is deeply ironic, considering the fate that will likely befall them. One character declares she needs a couple of months to sort her life out, one idly muses about what he'll do for the rest of his life, another promises that she will never be 'late' again, and a disabled character declares he doesn't intend to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
Save a hockey mask, there's here everything that a Friday the 13th film suggests, including some good action (at one point, Ginny attempts to fend Jason off with a chainsaw), inventive and gory death scenes and plenty of neglectful sexcapades which lead to the arrival of Jason. So it does the job.
Halloween II (1981)
A bit more over the top than the first film, but a decent enough slasher sequel.
Halloween II (1981) Halloween II hits the ground running and throws us back into the action right where the first film left off to deal with the fallout of what's just happened: masked serial killer Michael Myers is still on the loose and the injured Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is rushed to hospital as psychiatrist Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) desperately searches the streets of Haddonfield, Illinois for the murderer.
Creators John Carpenter and Debra Hill returned to write, and the new director, Rick Rosenthal (who would later direct further Halloween sequels) deliberately strove for continuity by emulating much of Carpenter's style. Carpenter even re-shot some of the movie himself.
Like many sequels, it doesn't have quite the freshness of the original, and it's worth remembering that this film came after a few of the spiritual successors of Halloween (1978) had already been released, such as Friday the 13th (1980).
There's less of the understated menace of the original; where the first film kept to the shadows, the sequel shows more explicit gore and violence. Whether this is simply a reflection of the larger budget facilitating better makeup effects, or a pandering to the new slasher demographic is unclear.
The hospital setting is a fairly common horror movie location, whether a psychiatric hospital, ground zero for a zombie outbreak, or the lair of a mad scientist. It's even revisited in later Halloween movies. It's not a bad choice, but it's unoriginal compared to the previous film's deconstruction of idyllic suburbia. Hospitals can be creepy with little creative effort, naturally playing on our fears of injury and mortality, and providing Michael with more inventive weapons such as syringes and intravenous drips.
Here, Haddonfield Memorial Hospital is almost deserted, evoking post- apocalyptic abandonment. The stalking of empty corridors also calls to mind admittedly superior horror movies such as The Shining (1980) which was released the previous year.
Aside from Laurie, the only other patient we see is a young trick-or- treater in the Emergency Room. He has a razor blade lodged in his mouth, an early excuse for some wince-inducing gore which reminds us that it's still Halloween night and plays on the unsettling urban legend of dangerous objects hidden in Halloween confectionery.
The ludicrously small night staff number just one doctor, one security guard, two paramedics, and three nurses. This cast become the new set of victims for Michael. Unlike many slasher films, they are not hedonistic teenagers, and based on their jobs, they should be intelligent and responsible members of the community.
They do demonstrate typical horror movie naivety: the security guard is bumbling, the doctor is a drunk (and his disappearance symbolises the removal of any competent authority from the setting). Some of their behaviour; a nurse and a paramedic slacking off and having sex in a therapeutic hot tub for example, is exactly the kind of reckless teenage abandonment which draws a serial killer in this kind of film. Sure enough, Michael is right around the corner to deliver some post-coital homicide.
Even though Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence are back, their characters don't have a huge amount to do. This is a shame as their characters and performances are among the best in the series. While all the above has been happening, Laurie's been lying helplessly under sedation, and Dr. Loomis has been running around town with the sheriff following red herrings.
Pleasence does get to give some passionate speeches on the supernatural origins of Halloween, which are suggested to be the source of Michael's near-immortality. The other revelation ties this in with Michael's bloodline; these themes would be explored in later, inferior sequels.
Lack of our heroes is rectified in the final act when Loomis arrives at the hospital. Laurie's on the run, and everything thing goes down as you might expect, although the final fight has some unexpected elements. Dr. Loomis's act of self sacrifice seems fairly conclusive, but the eight other films in the franchise suggest otherwise.
Trivia: Dana Carvey appears in this film as an extra. He would later team up with a different Michael Myers in Wayne's World (1992) playing Garth.
Skyline (2010)
There are some special effects and some aliens, but this film wasn't very good.
I'm not going spend a huge amount of time on this one, because it came out four years ago, and honestly, it's really not worth it. But it's not often that I'd rate a film so low. I've seen a lot of films that would be easy to criticise, but I always salvage some kind of entertainment value. At the very least, you're along for the ride. With Skyline, I can't even say that.
This film just happened to be on TV this month; I'd heard of it, and I saw that it had Donald Faison in it, who was always funny as Turk in Scrubs. Skyline isn't a comedy, and he's wasted, although he's clearly the most engaging member of the cast. As if to rub salt in the wound, he disappears fairly early on, but not before setting up a trite soap-opera love triangle, the tension of which is completely destroyed when all the parties are unceremoniously offed. The rest of the cast is even more forgettable.
The film opens with a mysterious blue light filtering through the window as our characters wake up in a penthouse apartment. Just as something interesting might be about to happen, we flash back to the previous day for some character exposition. We have to sit through everyone partying in the penthouse the night before, meeting each other and even more unnecessary extras that will vanish completely come morning.
I understand why they wanted to have an intriguing credits sequence. Nobody would sit through twenty minutes of inconsequential partying if they film started that with without any other explanation. We'd have no idea where it was going or what the film was even about. The problem is that we still have to sit through the inconsequential partying in order to find out what it's all about.
The answer is that it's an alien invasion film. The blue light has a kind of enticing beauty that causes anyone who stares into it to walk willingly into the aliens' death machines. I do think this is an interesting idea. The concept that the aliens possess intelligence so superior to our own that they can manipulate us as easily as we draw moths to a deadly electric lamp (or how deep-sea fish lure their play with a glowing lure) is truly chilling.
The effects are good, as they should be considering that the directors are really visual effects artists by trade. The visuals cost $10 million of the film's budget, while the live-action stuff was done on the cheap, shot in the directors' apartment building for half a million, almost as an afterthought. There are big monsters, alien spaceships swooping around, tentacles grabbing people and all the rest.
The film just falls down completely on any kind of convincing plot or characters. You simply do not care about anyone. They behave unpleasantly towards each other and formulate ludicrous plans, such as making for a boat to escape the flying aliens, or driving across town in loud, high-powered sports cars. You spend more time questioning the stupidity of these half-baked choices than invested in the story. But this is just talk: the characters barely leave their apartment, and don't even die as the result of their bad decisions. They seem to be dispatched at random, as if nothing matters.
Conceptually, everything's incredibly derivative. Some aliens fly around trailing tentacles like the machines from The Matrix (1999), the large monsters stumble around and crush cars like in Jurassic Park (1993) and climb buildings like King Kong (1933), and the government unsuccessfully tries to nuke the mother ship like in Independence Day (1996).
Similarly, it can be no coincidence that the film came out around the same time as Battle: Los Angeles (2011), a higher profile LA-set invasion film. I haven't seen that one, but the effects for both were done by Hydraulx Entertainment – the visual effects company owned by Greg and Colin Strause: the directors of Skyline.
If the characters blandness wasn't egregious enough, you even question the logic or motivation of the aliens. They possess invincible ships with regenerative abilities and lights with the ability to utterly entice humanity. They can suck billions from the streets of a city in minutes, but need to devote resources to sending scouts door to door to pick off every last individual human, and they feel the need to supplement this with a pack of gigantic monsters whose motivation is to wreck up the place. Finally, they want to harvest our brains, which for some reason can perfectly interface with their technology.
The simplicity of the name 'Skyline' carries a certain amount of elegant gravitas which it utterly fails to capitalise on. It may have some merits as a special effects exercise, but nothing more. There's nothing here that isn't done much more successfully in other movies. If you want tune out your brain (before the aliens abduct it) and watch an overblown invasion, do yourself a favour: go back and watch Independence Day (1996).
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
The Amazing Spider-Man 2! Another Superhero Movie! Another Sequel!
I've said it before, but it feels like an overwhelming number of mainstream films these days are superhero films. Better yet, the Amazing Spider-Man 2 manages to tick the box of being a sequel in a franchise that has already been rebooted since the millennium.
With the open-ended conclusion of Spider-Man 3 still fresh in our minds, this retelling of a story we've already heard reminds us what the future probably holds for superhero movies; a series of reboots with unsatisfying conclusions when the franchise loses steam – something which I suppose is directly reflective of the unbroken series of arcs and reinventions that actual comic book fans have been experiencing since the 1960s, so really, it's just another way in which these films are staying true to their sources. Well done, guys!
Criticism aside, Harry's arc here is different. He suffers from a debilitating genetic disease, and the anger at Spider-Man is not due to the death of Norman Osborn at the webslinger's hands (this Harry hated the guy), but because Spider-Man refuses to contribute his unique DNA to the project.
I am a James Franco fan, but the new guy (Dane DeHaan) gives a compelling performance. He's great as a troubled rich kid, who's just inherited the company and has to deal with the sneering disapproval of his board of directors. His complete absence from the first film is a little jarring when he's supposed to be one of Peter Parker's oldest and dearest friends: 'Hey dude, it's me, Harry, remember? That guy who you haven't seen in ten years? Remember the good times? Yeah, the good times were good, weren't they buddy?' Remember that good old Franco was there from the beginning.
Harry does get one of the most satisfying moments in the film though – a brilliant comeuppance (albeit temporary) for the corrupt corporate executive who ousted him from control of Oscorp. Harry's set up as a villain, but he's one of the most sympathetic characters in the film, certainly more so than the main villain, Electro (Jamie Foxx).
Electro started life as a downtrodden and introverted technician at Oscorp, who was given electrical superpowers in a freak accident. Oscorp's definitely the place to start hanging around if you want something to give you superpowers. He teams up with Harry, whom he sees as a kindred spirit, I guess, and while it's hugely satisfying to see him calling the shots for once, after all the trouble everyone's been giving him, he does act a little creepily in his spare time, and has a misguided sense of what the world owes him.
Foxx does well, although it's not as compelling a performance as some of the highlights of his career (Collateral, Miami Vice, Law Abiding Citizen, Django Unchained, he's had quite a ride, and I haven't seen all of his movies. It's a shame I missed White House Down, but I digress). To be honest, you can barely tell who's playing the character once the accident turns him into a computer-generated cloud of sparks.
The final fight with Electro, amongst the transformers of a high-tech power station massively over-exploits the contrast between orange and blue which is used so often in film, especially in posters, to the extent that it's become a cliché. Here, they're almost the only two colours on screen. The soundtrack during this fight however, is really inspired; a rock and dubstep influenced score with a huge, satisfying power chord echoing through the cinema every time Electro destroys a transformer. He even teases Spider-Man by using this musical ability to play The Itsy Bitsy Spider.
While I've waxed about how the 'new' (or as the producers would have you believe 'amazing') Spider-Man is just like its predecessors, I haven't touched much on the differences. They've drawn fresh villains from the existing rogues' gallery, so that all five Spider-Man films pitch the titular hero against a unique villain, the one exception being Harry Osborn's goblin. His appearance immediately after the fight with Electro does feel a little tacked on; Sam Raimi's trilogy spread the Osborn arc over three movies, with Harry's vengeance bubbling in the background for quite some time.
Andrew Garfield is a more self assured Spider-Man than Tobey Maguire was, at least at first. He approaches crime fighting with a teenager's light-hearted humour, frequently improvising and dropping mid-fight wisecracks. There's a great moment when he disappears for a few moments and then blasts Electro out of the sky with a fireman's hose – when the camera cuts to Spidey, he's wearing a fireman's helmet.
There's a lot going on in this film – in addition to everything I've mentioned, there's a clock tower, an abandoned subway station, eels, a mental asylum complete with evil scientist, and one of those investigative walls of crazy where keywords are drawn on post-it notes and everything is connected by lengths of red string.
There's also a romance in there somewhere – Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone) and the dilemma of the promise that Spider-Man made to her late father are at the forefront of Peter Parker's human dilemma. It's got problems, but this is mainly baggage associated with the superhero/reboot/sequel world the film inhabits. Treat it as a standalone piece of work, and it's still a decent film, and I forgive it everything for the director being named Marc Webb. That's got to be providence.
Neighbors (2014)
Bad Neighbours? Bad Movie.
Bad Neigbours (2014) Directed by Nicholas Stoller; Starring Seth Rogen, Zac Efron, Rose Byrne
Rating: 2/5
This film was simply called Neighbors in the US, but was renamed Bad Neighbours in the English speaking commonwealth to avoid confusion with the popular Australian soap of the same name. The international title's more on the money. The neighbours are bad, and the movie is bad.
It's not atrocious, there are a couple of laughs, but there are only a couple, and that's hardly enough to justify forcing yourself through all the dildo, condom and erection-based humour the movie throws at you. We know sexual comedy can be done well – just look at the American Pie series, which remained consistently well written and hilarious over four films and for over ten years – so what's going wrong here?
The basic premise is that of a young family (Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne) who are unlucky enough to have a college fraternity (led by Zac Efron and Dave Franco) move in next door. The frat boys want to party all night, and the couple want them to keep the noise down so they, and their daughter, can sleep.
It's a decent enough if simple premise, further developed by the family's desperate attempts to remain 'cool' and down with the kids, even attending a few of the frat parties, and the frat boys legitimate attempts to build bridges, even if they refuse to stop partying.
Once the family call in the cops with a noise complaint, all bets are off, and what ensues is a chronicles of steadily escalating one- upmanship which makes bitter enemies out of both parties. What's slightly jarring is that there are plenty of occasions when there is a genuine chance to bury the hatchet, but both sides often chose the pettier, and more destructive option. We're supposed to go along with it all; although it's not clear which side we're supposed to take (it could depend on your own generation), rendering the conflict inconsequential.
This is part of the deconstruction the film is attempting of fraternities in general: that they are essentially a bunch of overgrown children with little to no maturity – and this extends to the characters played by Rogen and Byrne. Ultimately, it all feels a little too despicable, and alienates all the characters from the audience.
The film also brings the relatively dated atmosphere of Animal House (1978) into the 21st Century, making the fraternity setting contemporarily relevant and showing its effect on the wider community. If you think that means more drugs, more drink and more sex, then you'd be half-right, but there was plenty of that in Animal House to begin with. Here, it essentially translates to more neon, and to an extent, more fireworks.
While it's very much a film of the moment, there are a number of currently chuckle worthy references which will severely date the film in years to come. Of some note is Lisa Kudrow's brief appearance as a truly useless college dean.
I went to see this movie for some comedy and to keep my head in the modern world. It's just shy of okay, but if I wanted something that fit that glove, I should have stayed at home and continued watching the cheesy vampire and zombie movies I've been watching for the past couple of weeks. What is a relief is that it's not too long. That's not because I was desperate for it to end, but because so many films these days simply don't know when to rein it in. This restraint is commendable.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
A slick modern conspiracy thriller.
There's no point in denying that the new Captain America movie is anything less than another instalment in the superhero saturation of the last ten years, but although the Captain himself has been considered the blandest of the bunch, at least as far as The Avengers (2012) is concerned. It's still a fantastic world of unbelievable stunts and perfectly timed one-liners, but the new film offers a lot more depth than some of the weaker superhero fare on offer.
In addition to the ambitious Marvel Cinematic Universe, the rich tapestry of interwoven stories that Disney's Marvel Studios has been crafting at the rate of about two blockbusters a year since 2008's Iron Man, we have seen everything from the unrelated narratives of Marvel's Spiderman and X-men series, to the gritty reboots of rival DC classics like Superman and Batman. The Marvel Universe alone is an unprecedented shared universe multimedia franchise, extending from the silver screen to various short films, television series and tie-in comic books.
Wanton American patriotism is far from internationally popular, and the challenge with Captain America as a character is to give this bastion of United States glory modern appeal. The first film took the character back to his roots, giving us a brilliant pulp action adventure, set during the character's 1940s heyday.
This was an easy place to be Captain America, but after being dragged into the twenty first century in time for The Avengers, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) must work out what America stands for today, and decide what he represents. The temporal displacement is a rich vein to be mined for soul searching and character interpretation.
As a pawn of SHIELD, the superhero intelligence organisation: our Nazi- punching hero has been reduced to a shady covert operative who is unsure if the missions he is sent on are aiding or abetting the forces of evil. This insecurity comes to a head when he learns of SHIELD's Project Insight, a sinister initiative which operates under the twin axes of surveillance and pre-emptive strikes, undeniably referencing drone controversy and the concerns over US internal surveillance. Thus The Winter Soldier is an espionage thriller, firmly rooted in modern day concerns, but with a style heavily influenced, according to the directors, by cold war conspiracy thrillers from the 1970s.
Events are still very much rooted in the events of the first film, mysterious forces have been working in the background since the end of the war, and the Captain finds himself battling enemies both old and new. Symbolically, he trades his brand new twenty first century black and navy blue uniform for his bright red, white and blue wartime clobber before the film is out.
As is the case with many comic book movies, I am impressed to learn that much which transpires on screen, no matter how incredible or brief, is in fact distilled from the original comics over their seventy year history. I'm certainly not the one to personally notice all this detail, but it's apparently crammed full of nods to various eras, arcs and character backgrounds.
To someone unfamiliar with the source material, the Icarus-like wingsuit/jetpack used by The Falcon struck me as a trifle ridiculous at first glance, at odds with the more serious tone of the film. I was quick to dismiss his presence as a poor substitute for the absent Iron Man, but The Falcon is a legitimate Marvel superhero.
Despite my misgivings, the characterisation of Falcon, real name Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), was strong. An Air Force veteran, he shares Rogers' military background and helps him adjust to the modern world. Later, he demonstrates his loyalty when he is called upon once the Captain becomes a fugitive.
Of course, the question having over every post-Avengers solo movie is why characters neglect to call in their superpowered chums to save the day in a fraction of the time. In whipping out his veritable army of automated armour suits at the end of Iron Man 3 (2013) Tony Stark proved that he didn't need to assemble the Avengers even to save the President.
There is a slight aversion in that Captain America does spend the whole film working closely with fellow Avenger Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), who has been largely sidelined in her previous appearances. The truth is that having fewer lead characters mean more attention can be given to others, and Johansson is finally given some significant screen time. Black Widow's alluring presence is welcome throughout, her moral ambiguity and chequered past providing a stark contrast to the Captain's clear cut integrity.
Similarly, SHIELD director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is much more important to the story than the cameo status he has held until now. By contrast, the eponymous Winter Soldier, a bionic badass bearing Soviet livery has little screen time, initially filling the role of unbeatable enforcer to the villains, and the only individual strong enough to challenge the Captain, but his tragic presence is vital to the overarching saga. Also noteworthy is Robert Redford's appearance as a sinister SHIELD executive.
Freedom, the most American of values, nevertheless carries a global relevance, and remains a major theme, but any overt patriotism is relatively, and wisely downplayed, despite the character's name and apparent raison d'être. What's left is a solid conspiracy blockbuster, with the superhero status incidental aside from enabling higher octane action sequences than a subtler spy movie.
Non-Stop (2014)
An average thriller, but still engaging.
Non-Stop (2014) Directed by Juame Collet-Serra; Starring Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Michelle Dockery
Rating: 3/5
Modern day action man Liam Neeson is back in Non-Stop, a fairly generic mystery thriller set almost entirely aboard a transatlantic flight from New York to London where Neeson must root out a terrorist who has vowed to kill a passenger every twenty minutes until his demands are met.
Even if the plot is a little contrived, it does have unexpected twists and turns; including the methods through which the killer carries out his murders. There is plenty of suspense, and Neeson bring his natural gravitas to the role.
It may seem grandiose to apply such analysis to an obvious B-movie such as this, but there's something elegant in its adherence to the classical unities of drama, which are rarely explored in mainstream works. Indeed, the film is almost set in real time, each twenty minute increment of the film roughly corresponding to each twenty minute ultimatum given by the antagonist.
The initial sequence in the airport is an engaging opening; a collage of disorientating images which emphasise the disconnection Neeson's character feels from the world around him. Once aboard the aircraft, we are treated to a less subtle series of shots introducing us to the motley crew of passengers, who invite suspicion with their mysterious aside glances. You can tell already that these characters will later become the major suspects in the investigation.
Neeson's as forlorn and enigmatic as ever, though his character is unlikely: a jaded alcoholic US Air Marshal who's terrified of flying, when he really needs all his wits about him. In contrast to other films which cast him as an American with no explanation, Non-Stop takes a rare opportunity to justify his Northern Irish accent by listing his birthplace as Belfast, and even making a small plot point out of the revelation.
Indeed, despite the very American themes which ultimately come to define the picture, this is an inspiringly international affair. It was produced primarily as a French-American collaboration, but helmed by Juame Collet-Serra the Spanish director of Neeson's previous action outing, the Berlin-set Unknown (2011). In addition to the Northern Irish leading man, there's a British vein running throughout by virtue of the plane itself being a British staffed flight to London, providing the chance to cast some UK talent as well as some Americans feigning over the top faux accents.
When he's not working furiously against the clock, Neeson's character humanised with a few compulsive characteristics: a shameless tug at the heartstrings each time Neeson interacts with the terrified child aboard the flight, a weakness for smoking in aeroplane toilets, presumably as a stress relief, and a ribbon he ties around his fingers during takeoff.
Naturally, the latter provides an icebreaker, sparking a conversation with fellow traveller Jen (Julianne Moore). The ribbon is also an all important connection to the character's daughter, whose story will later become an important plot point, paralleling the sadness in Neeson's own life.
The cabin lights are dimmed, bathing everything in an ominous blue colour palette. The atmosphere is emphasised by the slow and intoxicating soundtrack, under which lies the heavy throb of the aeroplane engines. Though the wall of sound can become grating at times, this weaves an appropriate tapestry, undoubtedly highlighted by the complete absence of dialogue during this first stage of the flight as Neeson converses with his unseen adversary for the first time through an instant messaging conversation; a thoroughly twenty first century touch.
Non-Stop is nothing special, but it delivers a competent if uncomplicated thriller, even if it does take some liberties with our disbelief, and indulges in some eye-rollingly gratuitous slow motion action shots near the end. Still, it comes in to land a few increments above trite.
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Leo strikes back with his latest Scorsese collaboration.
The fifth collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street tells the true story of the rise and fall of Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio), a New York stockbroker who made it big in the wake of the financial crisis of the late '80s by shady and frequently illegal means. More interesting is what he does with his new found fortune: what follows is a heady tale of excess and debauchery based on Belfort's own memoirs.
Despite the more recent financial turmoil, or perhaps because of it, the image of the '80s stockbroker has resurfaced for a new generation. Belfort's story strays into the early '90s, but the general aesthetic of the era has the same nostalgic feel, and the messages seem to be the same. Even if we openly loathe bankers, there's a voyeuristic fascination in watching their decadent lifestyle – or what we imagine such a lifestyle to be like: high stress, fast living, dubious morality and plenty of drugs and sex to boot. The Wolf of Wall Street gives its audience a welcome window into this world.
The story begins when Jordan arrives in the city as a bright eyed, newly qualified broker; having already achieved his youthful dream of working on Wall Street. After an initially unwelcome brief induction into a life of cocaine and lunchtime cocktails by his new boss Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey) the rug is pulled out from under his feet, and he soon swaps blue chips for penny stocks, trading shares worth a fraction of a dollar from a Long Island brokerage on a strip mall.
Upon realising that these unlisted stocks can fetch a much higher commission than blue chips, he decides to go into business with a bunch of unscrupulous buddies who know a thing or two about sales, using their silver tongues to make millions by trading them on a massive scale, all the while trying to stay one step ahead of the law. For in truth he is committing outright stock fraud – the details of which are fairly complicated; even Belfort himself chooses not to bore us with the details with his tongue in cheek narration.
The stellar cast is rounded out by players including Jonah Hill, as Belfort's toothy associate Donnie, Rob Reiner as his complicit accountant father Max Belfort, and Jon Favreau as lawyer Manny Riskin.
The movie treads a thin line between satire and glorification, but Jordan is undoubtedly the hero of the piece, and the FBI agents on his trail the antagonists he must outwit. As an audience, we are invited to his party, and we witness nothing of the effects that Belfort's deceptions have had on those who were duped into buying his shares – bearing in mind these 'customers' are average people parting with their savings, not huge companies dealing in huge sums of money. This disconnection effectively puts us in Belfort's shoes: much as they must have appeared to him, they are mere voices on the end of a phone.
But Jordan is not portrayed as completely heartless. No matter how large his company grows, swelled with a never-ending number of skilled and promising applicants, his loyal gang of hometown reprobates are never left behind, and maintain high-ranking positions until the end. Even when arrested, and forced to wear a wire by the FBI, he attempts to warn Donnie, rather than let him incriminate himself.
Gratuitous drug use and sexual content aside, the film's vulgarity can perhaps be summed up by its smashing of the record for the most uses of the f-word in a mainstream non-documentary film, at the rate of around three a minute. The only film scoring higher is a documentary devoted to the word.
Much of the decadence is played for laughs, or at least as a showcase of extravagance, but coupled with the basic shock value of the actions themselves. One memorable sequence sees Belfort snorting cocaine to counteract the effects of a powerful sedative, paralleled with the Popeye cartoon playing on the television in the background.
The film does little to condemn Belfort – although his lifestyle unravels, and he is ultimately incarcerated, any true comeuppance is minimal. This is a reflection of the truth: Belfort's sentence was just four years, of which he served less than two, which, if the film is to be believed, were in a comfortable minimum security environment for white collar offenders.
These days, he still makes a handsome living as a motivational speaker lecturing on sales technique, and of course, anyone who gets their autobiography made into a Scorsese picture starring Leonardo DiCaprio must have lucked out in the long run.
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013)
It's really not so bad, but just try and remember that the original still exists.
Perhaps it was inevitable that the long anticipated sequel to the cult film that, along with similar contemporary classics such as Meet the Parents (2000), Zoolander (2001) and Dodgeball (2004) all but defined early 2000s comedy, cementing the already burgeoning careers of its stars and making household names out of Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, et al, would have very high expectations, and be met with a certain amount of disappointment.
This doesn't have to be the case with all comedy sequels, and indeed some of the most beloved and re-watched films in my collection over the years have been back to back comedies, such as the Ace Ventura (1994, 1995) or Bill & Ted (1989, 1991) films, both of which feature sequels easily as good as the originals.
Trilogies, such as Austin Powers (1997, 1999, 2002) or The Naked Gun (1988, 1991, 1994) have their ups and downs but maintain a certain level of quality throughout. Meanwhile, Ghostbusters II (1989), Men in Black II (2002) and Wayne's World 2 (1993) are perhaps not as strong as their predecessors, but retained their talent and remain integral parts of the narrative that are by no means cast aside by posterity.
Hype easily breeds disappointment, and I'm unlikely to be overexcited or giddy with anticipation when this kind of release occurs, so I'm rarely underwhelmed or otherwise. A lacklustre sequel is not a personal affront on my loyalty to the original, and Anchorman 2 is a competent enough film, a well produced, big budget Hollywood comedy vehicle for its stars.
Yet as a sequel, bearing the uninspired and unnecessary subtitle The Legend Continues no less, Anchorman 2 is more like the relatively reprehensible Airplane II: The Sequel (1982) which paled in comparison to the golden original which is still enjoyed today. Both sequels carbon copy classic sequences from the original almost shot for shot, attempting to conceal their originality behind purported homage and call-backs.
Though the cast was reunited, at least Airplane II had the excuse that none of the original creative talent returned. Anchorman 2 was written by leading man Will Ferrell and returning director Adam McKay, so they're only letting themselves down.
They've clearly tried to go bigger, under the assumption that it will mean better, making for a film that is even more surreal and absurd than the original. Even more so than the first film, Anchorman 2 is only feebly anchored in the real world, and the story shoots for a laugh so often that the whole picture becomes more of a hit and miss sketch show than a coherent narrative. Of course, this merely reflects the Saturday Night Live format under which most of the talent involved cut their teeth. This doesn't mean it's not funny or entertaining; far from it. The hits, after all, are still hits. At least they still have a ton of fun exploiting the ludicrous period fashion and hairstyles.
Ron Burgundy himself was always an endearing buffoon, but this time around he is utterly incompetent at everything he does, including being a father. This is offset only by his relatively inspired invention of sensationalist news to win a ratings war and apparently, ice skating (an allusion to 2007's Blades of Glory?).
The rest of the returning cast continue to tread the same path as before, but as caricatures of themselves which appear even more conceited and despicable than usual, although sex-crazed Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) seems to have mellowed, remaining evermore the only sane man.
Ron wins it all and loses it all about three of four times over the course of the movie, but the driving force is a critique of the aforementioned 24 hour rolling news which typifies the excesses of the American media, eschewing true journalism in favour of car chases and patriotism.
The film is strongest during this satire, and weakest during the more derivative subplots which bulk to length to a rather overlong two hours. The final act comes out of nowhere just as the film is starting to drag, and then generates an entire separate arc, and the climax is yet another news team battle even longer than the first, with celebrity cameos coming thick and fast. So while Anchorman 2 still delivers a few solid laughs over the course of a couple of hours, my advice to anyone who finds it utterly unpalatable is to just try and remember that the original still exists.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
The last of the big three slasher franchises, a unique villain and a unique protagonist.
The third of the big three slasher franchises came latest, well into the '80s, and has ended up being my favourite. Like Halloween it's suburban, taking place in and around a few houses on the titular Elm Street as teenagers are picked off by a sadistic killer (with a relatively low, early instalment body count).
What sets A Nightmare on Elm Street apart from its rivals is Freddy Krueger, who again became a horror icon. With his trademark hat and clawed glove (long razor blades attached to each finger), he has a striking silhouette, which is played with during the first act of the film until his face is later revealed – and a grotesque, burned visage it is.
Writer and director Wes Craven creates an altogether different villain. He does not stalk the woods with a machete, but is wholly supernatural, and inhabits the world of nightmares, playing off a typical childhood fear – that things in your nightmares could become real.
This film is largely rooted in these childhood concerns; Freddy's arrival is heralded by skipping children who sing an ethereal, unsettling rhyme, and another major theme is that of disconnection between children and parents.
Typically, the adults are worse than useless, dismissing the concerns of heroine Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) as mere dreams, even when her friends start dying in their sleep, and she pulls Freddy's hat back into the real world with her.
But there's more to this than meets the eye; hints are dropped throughout that Nancy's mother knows more than she's letting on, and it is later revealed that the erstwhile Freddy, a child murderer, was burned alive by the parents of Elm Street. Freddy's plan is one of pure revenge.
As a character, Freddy is certainly unhinged and despicable, but is prone to more gags and wisecracking. In the dream world, he's the boss, ands he likes to play around. He is not merely a lumbering stunt man in a mask, but is played by an actual actor, Robert England, who is now an established horror veteran as a result of his work on the series (he has played Freddy in nine Elm Street films between 1984 and 2003).
Unbound by the limitations of physical reality, he scares his victims with acts of self mutilation, which are not just body horror but also sight gags, another element of the series' more tongue in cheek take on the horror genre.
He toys with his victims, slicing his gut to reveal maggots and green goo – at one point, a victim grabs his face, and the flesh simply comes away. Freddy lets this happen, to display his control and the hopelessness of the situation.
All of this provides the opportunity for some great practical special effects to showcase Freddy's dream manipulation, which may well be lost in a modern production (I've yet to see the 2010 remake, so the validity of this remains to be seen).
Freddy stretches his face through the wall above Nancy's bed, and makes the staircase melt into quicksand. A scene where Freddy's glove attacks Nancy in the bath (part of a limited scattering of sexual imagery) was achieved by building the bathroom set above a larger tank of water. Other gravity defying effects were shot on upside-down sets.
One of Freddy's victims is a young Johnny Depp in his very first cinematic role, and his death scene reputedly holds some kind of record for the sheer volume of fake blood used in a single movie (500 gallons, according to IMDb).
If Freddy is a unique villain, Nancy Thompson is a refreshingly different final girl. She does not spend the entire film fleeing in terror, or cowering in cupboards like some of her predecessors, but is altogether more pragmatic and determined. She sets out to defeat Freddy, and constructs a gauntlet of Home Alone-style traps throughout her house before pulling Freddy into reality for the final showdown.
The nightmares themselves are a high point. If Halloween was set in suburbia, and Friday the 13th in the woods, A Nightmare on Elm Street really takes place in the mind. Wes Craven blurs the line between dreams and reality; although the nightmares have a darker atmosphere in terms of lighting and colour palette, the transition is almost unnoticeable until Freddy appears. Dreamlike location switches are also used – Nancy leaves a boiler room, and appears on her front lawn.
The ending is strangely ambiguous, although slasher films frequently end with a final confusing shock or sequel hook. With this final scene, it is not clear how much of what we have witnessed was real, and what was just a dream, so while it's a head scratcher, that's really the point.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
We're still waiting for the three-part adaptation of Tom Bombadil...
There was a time, during the early years of the twenty first century, when each December would herald a new Lord of the Rings (alongside a new Harry Potter film and maybe a Star Wars, if we were lucky). The height of this lasted only as long as the three years over which Peter Jackson's original trilogy were released, but was already becoming something of a tradition.
With ITV serialising Harry Potter over the Christmas period, and a brand new epic trilogy in the Hunger Games series coinciding with the release of The Hobbit, it really does feel like it did all those years ago. Certainly, Peter Jackson wants to do it all over again, and why not? It's a treat to indulge in almost three hours of fantasy on the big screen, and there can be no denying that The Hobbit is indulgent.
Much has been made of the seemingly unnecessary decision to stretch a meagre prequel out to the length of the epic three-book Lord of the Rings trilogy. Strictly speaking, this series rounds out Peter Jackson's version of Middle Earth as both an adaptation of The Hobbit and the numerous appendices and preambles that were cut from The Lord of the Rings.
It's been a long time since I read The Hobbit – so long, in fact, that it may have been read to me by my parents. I can't quite remember what's original, and what's just filler, but these films are ticking all the boxes for me. Last year had the encounter with trolls and Bilbo's riddles with Gollum, and this time around we visit the foreboding gloom of Mirkwood, the distant settlement of Laketown (where Stephen Fry appears as the greedy master) and the lair of the dragon Smaug.
The star of these films as always been the visual effects and epic scope, and this instalment is no exception. CGI spectacle integrates seamlessly into the breathtaking New Zealand landscape. While largely flawless, some of the green screen shots are regrettably obvious, and the final sequence, involving much molten gold, is decidedly lacklustre.
Martin Freeman shines as the unassuming Bilbo Baggins, who has much greater confidence, a result of both his experiences in the first film and the slow but steady corruption of the ring. Similarly, the deposed king Thorin (Richard Armitage) appears to come under the influence of his lost wealth as the party nears the ocean of gold below the mountain.
New material includes the presence of Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Jackson's original character Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly, providing the film's only female lead) who flesh out the scenes in the Elven kingdom and provide some intrigue into the relationships between Elves and Dwarfs. They also help drive the film's most high paced action sequence, the famous barrel escape.
With a hindsight that Tolkien himself was not afforded, the film is tied neatly to Lord of the Rings continuity by Legolas, along with references to his future companion Gimli and the Eye of Sauron. The latter is the focus of an expanded sequence with Gandalf (Ian McKellen, delivering a typically winning performance) in the spooky ruins of the fortress which casts a pall over the surrounding region. The final sequence, a battle with Smaug through ruins of mighty Dwarven industry, provides another thrill ride, and prevents the film from ending with an otherwise unsatisfying cliff hanger.
Inevitably, with thirteen dwarfs and one hobbit in the main party (and countless other wizards, elves and humans filling up the story) the cast is too large, and many of the characters slip into the background. Thankfully, Bilbo receives a lengthy scene one-on-one with the film's most stunning special effect, the dragon Smaug, voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch. The performance drips with ham and cheese and the beast occupies every inch of the cinema screen.
So while this film strays occasionally into overblown fantasy dialogue, and it can be a challenge to keep up with all the characters and everything that's going on, this is an enjoyable, if lengthy movie, at least the equal of its predecessor.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
What do they call The Hunger Games in Paris? Battle Royale with cheese!
The best dystopian fiction holds a mirror up to our own society, extrapolating current trends to extreme endpoints. Here, in a grim future America, the gaudy citizens of the Capital lead lives of leisure amid the glittering spires of their neo-classical metropolis while the Appalachian miners of District 12 carve a meagre living straight out of the Great Depression. Every year, they are forced to participate in their oppressors' sadistic version reality TV (with brilliantly over the top X-factor style commentary): the titular Hunger Games, an annual gladiatorial combat between children, in which the sole survivor emerges as victor.
The face of the revolution is the teenage Katniss (Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence) whose strong performance drives a film which is otherwise far from subtle. Yet there's no doubt that this film is thoroughly exciting and engaging. For a start, the young actors here are miles better than the cast of the cheesy '80s slasher flicks I've been watching lately.
The visuals are fantastic and the cast is rounded out with both old and new blood, including Wood Harrelson as Katniss' grizzled mentor, and Patrick Seymour Hoffman as the smooth talking new games master. Donald Sutherland returns as the villainous President Snow, his soft spoken exterior belying the brutal stranglehold he maintains on the populace.
One year after Katniss and her fellow 'tribute' Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) won the last Hunger Games, the president decrees that this year's competitors will be drawn from the existing pool of victors (who believed they had earned their freedom); as if to deny that the games are anything more than a ritual execution.
So Katniss and Peeta must head back into the arena for a second round, facing twenty five years worth of combatants who've murdered their way out once already. While more time is devoted to the Games social impact and the brewing rebellion, there is a feeling that Catching Fire treads familiar ground. Much of the thematic material held true for the first film, and this instalment is little more than a continuation of the narrative. The biggest difference is that the battle is between veterans and not children.
Gary Ross hands the directorial reigns to Francis Lawrence, whose back catalogue, including Constantine (2005) and I am Legend (2007) suggests a darker sequel, though Lawrence inherits much of the design and atmosphere directly from his predecessor. This is ultimately delivered, yet we are treated to the inevitably unsatisfying cliff hanger as the narrative heads towards its presumably epic conclusion in next year's Mockingjay.
The weakest part of the story is the attempted love triangle between Katniss, Peeta and Gale which started in the last film. It pales in comparison to the wider struggle of the story and is perhaps wisely downplayed. Gale (Liam Hemsworth, who somehow has third billing) is a childhood friend of Katniss, but feels like a redundant character, appearing in very few scenes to give the TV a jealous glance whenever he sees Peeta, who has infinitely more screen time, but says and does less than he did in the last film.
The new police uniforms, a departure from the more standard half-visors seen in the first film, are a little too much like Star Wars storm troopers crossed with The Stig, and look downright bizarre when worn without a helmet. This undermines some of the intensity of the new police chief of District 12, who is otherwise brutal and intimidating.
As far as run time is concerned, so many of these epic fantasy novel adaptations are a little on the long side. At 146 minutes, Catching Fire is only quarter of an hour shorter than the somewhat bloated The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, the other film I saw this week. How much of a problem this becomes depends on your investment in the source material. I've not read any of the novels, so as a casual viewer, this felt a lot longer than The Hobbit, but I can imagine a lot of people feeling the opposite. That's fine, but it can alienate those on the periphery of the fan base.
Alternatively, while I felt that some of the Harry Potter films had the potential to flash past in a series of semi-confusing vignettes for anyone unfamiliar with the books, I never felt lost in the narrative of this film, or the one that preceded it.
Saving Mr. Banks (2013)
Very good if you like Mary Poppins, Tom Hanks or Emma Thompson.
Comes just in advance of the film's fiftieth anniversary is the story behind one of Walt Disney's most beloved pictures, Mary Poppins (1964), and negotiations between Disney and the author of the original books, P. L. Travers.
If history is written by the victors, then there's bound to be bias when the Disney Company tells a tale surrounding their beloved Uncle Walt, but the film portrays the powerful personalities of Travers and Disney as equal in strength and single mindedness. Ultimately, both are flawed.
Tom Hanks has had a good year, appearing recently in the critically acclaimed Captain Phillips. As Walt Disney, he appeals to Travers with a promise he made to his daughters: that he would adapt their favourite book for the silver screen. He claims Travers' creations are as much his family as hers, but at heart, he is a shrewd businessman, and a man who is absolutely used to getting what he wants.
Travers (Emma Thompson, who has experience starring as her own magical governess in Nanny McPhee) views the art of film and the fantasies of Disney with utter contempt, and has spent twenty years vehemently denying him the rights to her work. But financial constraints force her hand and she agrees to fly to California, where pre-production is already well underway, to finally hammer out a compromise.
While the clash of two big characters is enough for a solid story, Saving Mr. Banks is an ensemble piece. The cast rounded out with Travers' good natured chauffeur Ralph (Paul Giamatti) providing her introduction to American culture, and Disney's team: scriptwriter Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford), and songwriters Richard (Jason Schwartzman) and Robert Sherman (B. J. Novak).
Much of the humour in the film comes from Travers' altercations with DaGradi and the Sherman Brothers as they edit the script and score. Travers' is infinitely insufferable, rejecting their suggestions outright, frowning in disapproval at their songs, and chiding them for lack of manners when they attempt an informal atmosphere.
One stipulation she makes is to record all of their meetings. These were used extensively as source material by the film makers and an authentic excerpt from one of these tapes which plays over the end credits reveals just how accurate Thompsons's portrayal is – Travers really was that overbearing.
As a period piece, the film indulges in the meticulously portrayed eras of early '60s Hollywood, and turn of the century Australia. Here, flashbacks to Travers' youth and her father (Colin Farell), a struggling alcoholic bank manager, reveal the reasons behind her haughty demeanour, and the inspirations for her novels. With Mary Poppins, she gave the Banks' family a redemption that her own life never had.
The film is unashamedly saccharine at times. Travers is not alone: every character, from Ralph to Robert Sherman to Disney himself, has a tale of hardship to tug at the heartstrings. The audience is played like a fiddle by director John Lee Hancock, who knows a little about strung out sentimentality from his previous film, The Blind Side (2009). The film is long, clocking in at just over two hours, but is well paced, and does not feel especially bloated.
Naturally, a certain amount of knowledge and appreciation for Mary Poppins is required for this film to mean anything. While I am no Travers biographer, I'm aware that some elements of her personal life have been streamlined, or indeed omitted, to make them more cinematic.
The bare bones are the truth, and are indeed a powerful story. The biggest difference is that although she allowed it to be filmed, Travers never came around, and hated the Disney film for the rest of her life.
Friday the 13th (1980)
A deadly excursion to Camp Crystal Lake
Friday the 13th was one of the first films to follow the formula laid out by Halloween (1978), and writer Victor Miller has admitted that he was 'inspired by' (read: piggybacking on the success of) the earlier picture. It's even got a title which bears little relevance to the plot beyond providing a suitably spooky date for events to take place. Surprisingly, this film would spawn the most sequels (eleven). It is the equal of Star Trek and second only to James Bond in the sheer number of cinematic releases for a single franchise.
No prizes for guessing that a group of teenagers (including an early film appearance by Kevin Bacon) are stalked and picked off by an unseen adversary. Slightly unique is the setting: deep in the woods, ten miles from the nearest junction, let alone the nearest town, lies Camp Crystal Lake, site of a brutal double murder in the fifties. Some twenty years later, the curse rears its ugly head when a new generation of entrepreneurs decide to reopen the venue.
Summer camp is a benchmark of American culture, bringing a level of isolation almost unfathomable for anyone who has spent their entire life less than six miles away from three major towns (that's me). It has long been the inspiration for ghost stories and campfire tales, but Friday the 13th helped cement the setting as a staple of backwoods horror.
The otherwise forgettable Sean S. Cunningham directs, with little of John Carpenter's subtlety. Aside from involvement in later Friday the 13th films, Cunningham produced a number of other horror pictures, including the controversial Last House on the Left (1972) directed by Wes Craven (who would go on to make A Nightmare on Elm Street).
Like Halloween, pacing is slow, highlighting the intensity of the murders by comparison, but Friday the 13th is slightly more boring than its predecessor. In other ways, Friday the 13th is more extreme – the body count is higher, and the deaths are more gruesome.
Nobody dies off screen save the penultimate victim, and Kevin Bacon's demise stands out as particularly gory. Cunningham does make effective use of point of view throughout, forcing the audience to inhabit the voyeuristic killer, as they peer through leaves and branches.
Also intriguing are times when victims greet the killer with recognition, letting their guard down before being murdered. A continuing exercise in misdirection, the choice is made to follow a decoy protagonist during the opening scenes. Her demise provides an effective shock, but also underlines how undeveloped the other characters are.
An interpretation of these early slashers is that they are a criticism of hedonistic 70s and 80s youth, and their weakness for drink and drugs and particularly sex. Thus the various killers punish the teenagers, yet fail to defeat the more celibate final heroine.
Psychologists have written more academic analyses of this than the overviews that I can offer, but in this vein, Friday the 13th is no different and the thematic ground trod in films like Halloween is more explicitly covered. The flashback murder is once again inspired by sex, and later murders are indeed post coital.
Slasher film makers are rarely vocal about their true intentions in this regard, usually preferring to deny or remain ambiguous about their themes. But with franchises so long, and each film so subsidiary to its predecessors, it's easy to lose sight of what the original statements may have been.
More practically, the less promiscuous could be argued to survive merely through virtue of not being distracted while a killer's on the rampage. At any rate, the juxtaposition of a sexual scene with a violent one provides effective mood whiplash, maintaining high emotion throughout the film.
Apologies if I've already revealed that some characters die, but stop reading if you don't want the big twist spoilt. For while the enduring horror icon of the Friday the 13th franchise became the hockey masked machete wielding Jason, this first instalment features his mother, Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) as the killer.
Locked in a kind of reverse Psycho arrangement – although she was not responsible for Jason's death, she channels the spirit of her son through asides in his voice. It becomes clear what the chilling musical score was foreshadowing with its echoing vocal chorus: "ki-ki-ki-ma-ma- ma"
This film is thus unique amongst the genre for featuring a female murderer, with a general vendetta against camp counsellors, specifically those who would dare to tread upon the hallowed ground where she lost her son all those years ago. She believes Jason drowned whilst his counsellors were distracted having sex, and thus punishes the frivolous shirking of responsibility.
It's ridiculous and over the top, and while there are some genuine jumps and scares that make Friday the 13th an entertaining thrill ride, and enough unique material to prevent it from becoming a simple Halloween clone, it ultimately falls slightly flatter than its spiritual predecessor.