Author Archives: The Red Dragon

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes  (2014)    65/100

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Rating :   65/100                                                                   130 Min          12A

The sequel to 2011’s very successful, and very good, ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ continues with the story a decade further down the line, with Caesar and his motley bunch of intelligent apes living free in the wild whilst humanity attempts to deal with the deadly ‘Simian Flu’ virus unleashed at the end of the previous film. In a nutshell, this is nowhere near as good (although it is still a country mile better than Tim Burton’s take on the story back in 2001) but it does just about enough to pass mustard as the next chapter in the franchise.

This has a significantly increased action quotient compared to its predecessor, and in terms of the script it’s much more, ahem, primitive – at times it even feels like scenes must have been omitted that were necessary to explain certain things, and at various points the characters feel a little forced and silly. The plot centers on what’s left of the human populace in San Francisco trying to access a hydroelectric dam in the ape controlled forest in order to restore power, which proves to be a diplomatic nightmare for both sides, eventually setting precedent for relations between the two species in the future.

The human protagonists are played by Jason Clarke, Keri Russell and Gary Oldman, with Andy Serkis returning to play Caesar and Toby Kebbell (who’s slated to play Doctor Doom in the Fantastic Four reboot, incidentally) giving a very good performance as the other main monkey, I mean ape, Koba. This has a similar feel to the original series of films which started with the magnificent ‘Planet of the Apes’ (68) and kind of then went steadily downhill with ‘Beneath the Planet of the Apes (70), ‘Escape from the Planet of the Apes’ (71), ‘Conquest of the Planet of the Apes’ (72), ‘Battle for the Planet of the Apes’ (73) and a couple of TV series before the eventual appearance of Burton’s aforementioned attempt which choked and died instantly. Interestingly, the original film is based on a novel by French author Pierre Boulle, who also penned ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’, which of course then inspired another of the most famous movies of all time. This particular outing in the Apes series is reasonably entertaining, but I think it’s best to go in with pretty low expectations …

Begin Again  (2013)    75/100

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Rating :   75/100                        Treasure Chest                    104 Min        15

Keira Knightley’s latest sees her as a young singer/songwriter, Gretta, somewhat awash in New York City after a break up with her long time boyfriend, played by Maroon 5’s Adam Levine, who has just been singed to a prestigious record label and whom she herself helped launch into stardom by writing many of his songs. Enter down on his luck record producer Dan, played by Mark Ruffalo, who is at the bottom of a particularly destructive curve after the break up of his marriage and the parallel nosedive of his career, when he hears Gretta play one of her songs and something in it stirs up long forgotten hope within him. This is where the film opens, as we watch Gretta reluctantly being pulled onto the stage during an open mike night to perform, and as anyone who has ever played or sang in front of people for the very first time will know – you feel like a TOTAL KNOB, and Keira plays out the scene with the perfect mixture of nerves, anxiety and the frustration of being put on the spot.

It is her actually singing throughout the film, with a combination of live and dubbed recordings (she has sung on film before in ‘The Edge of Love’ (08), and was due to play Eliza Doolittle in a modern version of ‘My Fair Lady’ before the project fizzled out), which was a tremendously brave decision and although her voice is soft and tinged with uncertainty, The Red Dragon LOVES IT – it is affectionately sweet, and it also fits her character perfectly, as we learn Gretta simply writes and sings for her own pleasure and has no real interest in putting her work on the likes of Facebook and so on for commercial purposes, preferring to simply entertain her cat with it instead.

Herein lies a central aspect of the film, and one which I really love – the idea of taking music away from the stranglehold of large record companies and back into the hands of the musicians themselves. It’s revealed that the standard rate of return for an artist is about ten percent with their label taking the rest, and a comparison is made with the publishing industry where authors get about the same. This always seemed outrageous to me – in reality I’d be surprised if it weren’t below ten percent, and it’s great that the internet and technology in general have started to dismantle this monopoly. Keira herself is uniquely placed within this scenario as she’s married to the Klaxons’ keyboardist and co-vocalist James Righton.

Gretta and Dan decide to record their own album (the latter having effectively been kicked out of his own company) using creative guile and various locations around the city as backdrops, which is a great idea, and on the way they rediscover how to enjoy themselves and what music means to them, minus the pretension that can sometimes accompany films about the industry. The acting is universally great, including from supporting players Hailee Steinfeld, James Corden, Catherine Keener, CeeLo Green, Mos Def and the aforementioned Levine. I actually appreciated this more the second time around (I admit it, I’ve seen it three times now – each time it feels like a different movie somehow), and it managed to not only convince me to dust down my guitar (it was practically white) and finally put some playlists into the ‘Song‘ section, but also consider sorting out the large digital blob which is my music collection.

Written and directed by John Carney, the creative talent behind the indie favourite ‘Once’ (06), this is an uplifting film in which it looks like the actors had as much fun as the characters themselves, further advancing Keira’s penchant for choosing varied and interesting roles, in this case one that absolutely made The Red Dragon fall in love with her just a little bit more …

(for the film’s official website click here, and you can also currently download Keira’s version of ‘Lost Stars’ for free from Amazon)

 Begin Again 2

Boyhood  (2014)    63/100

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Rating :   63/100                                                                     166 Min        15

Writer and director Richard Linklater’s study of childhood that took twelve years to make – focusing on central character Mason growing from the age of five to eighteen and unusually actually waiting for Ellar Coltrane, who portrays him, to grow himself before filming the sequential scenes. This is what the film has garnered a lot of attention for, and it is interesting to watch all the actors age in time with the story – the other members of his immediate family are played by Lorelei Linklater (the director’s daughter) as his sister, Patricia Arquette as his mother and Ethan Hawke as his biological father.

It’s a fictionalised drama, and follows various sociological important events in Mason’s life, from the mundane (his sister tormenting him and then bursting into tears when their mother comes to investigate, for example, will be something a lot of people can relate to) to the dramatic for someone that age, his first break up and exposure to various amounts of peer pressure and so on. Alcohol and alcoholism play a strong role throughout, and the film very successfully shows the potentially devastating effects of both.

Other areas, however, don’t stand up so well – we learn that his father is massively against the war in Iraq and is a huge supporter of Barack Obama, but then years down the line he is taking his kids out to shoot guns in the countryside as a nice family thing to do. Now, given the film was edited together after Obama publicly asked the movie industry to take more responsibility over how it portrays the use of guns in the wake of various horrific massacres in the States, this scene not only doesn’t really make sense for the character but also seems in pretty bad taste, it’s not like Linklater is making a documentary on contemporary views toward guns in American culture, it’s all far too casual.

Similarly, once Mason makes it to college he is shown to immediately make some new friends and one of the females pops what appears to be some kind of sweet into his mouth, but then she says ‘I’ve timed them perfectly to kick in once we’re up there’, referring to the small mountains they are about to climb. He’s totally fine with this, not in the least concerned with ingesting a mysterious narcotic, and the ensuing scene plays out in an idyllic fashion where they all ‘bond’ and he gets to share a moment with a ridiculously hot girl, heavily suggesting he can now ‘find himself’ and his life will be all roses and violets as he’s made it to college and can have drugs for breakfast and encountered the people he was always ‘meant’ to meet. In reality, the situation could easily have been ‘four freshman students plunge to death in horror accident after tripping balls for hours and thinking rocky summit was bouncy castle’, and although I’m all for going into higher education and hopefully meeting like minded people that can be friends for life, the scene is just cheesily ill conceived.

The acting is consistently very good, and there is a lot in there of value concerning the difficulties one can encounter in life, not just boyhood, but overall there is a distinct depression to the film with fairly mixed messages, especially on the issue of drugs, and rather than feeling like a genuine encapsulation of contemporary living, it just feels like the personal stamp of the director and his own agenda. Maybe if filmmakers like Linklater weren’t so overly concerned with how ‘hip’ they think doing drugs is, then they wouldn’t have developed such a negative view of life in general, and then felt the need to bring that across in their work like some kind of secret truth that only their egos had the insight to unearth.

Transformers : Age of Extinction  (2014)    56/100

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Rating :   56/100                                                                     165 Min        12A

Aaargh, what a disappointment. Perhaps it was foolish to get my hopes up for the fourth instalment in the Transformers franchise (after ‘Transformers’ 07, ‘Transformers : Revenge of the Fallen’ 09 and Transformers : Dark of the Moon’ 11) but having grown up with them, and as a fan of the new series so far, it was kind of difficult not to. Essentially, all of the things that were wrong with the previous films have been taken to excess here, with worthy moments to counterbalance this few and far between.

The story takes place several years after the battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons which annihilated parts of Chicago (which has, incidentally, recently won a competition to be the venue of a large new movie museum. I’m sure it’s because of Transformers), a direct result of which sees the US Administration trying to handle their own security affairs with the Autobots effectively made into outcasts, whilst a covert CIA military outfit is secretly hunting them down for their own nefarious purposes. Shia LaBeouf, his family and various girlfriends are nowhere to be found and the central human characters are this time fleshed out by Mark Wahlberg, playing a hard up mechanic tinkering with old junk in his idyllic garage that always has the sun setting or rising outside whenever he’s working in it (no surprises what he’ll come across one day), Nicola Peltz, his overly hot jail bait daughter, and Jack Reynor, her fake Irish boyfriend.

The dynamic between the humans really couldn’t be more contrived and it’s hard to imagine it won’t grate on all but the youngest of audiences, but the film really starts to fall apart when Optimus Prime learns something which sends him into A COMPLETE FROTHING RAGE and he winds up to go on the warpath, which certainly had me thinking ‘AWESOME!’ but then they deflate this build up far, far too quickly, and right before the audience knows they would have discovered something critical. From then on, it just becomes an endless series of pointless explosions with terrible dialogue before the Dinobots are eventually introduced and Prime rides one like a donkey, but really they do so little they could have been any bit of new, slightly more powerful tech for all the difference it would have made.

The film has the feeling of director Michael Bay having been too influenced by his critics. Gone, for example, are the overt shots of his lead actress poised on a bike for no reason as if willing all spectators to jointly penetrate her in her every orifice, instead we have brief takes of flesh here and there, one second shots from between the daughter’s legs …

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… for example, but Bay has to either go for it or not bother – half measures don’t come off well at all, and the whole film feels like he’s almost making the movie he wants to, but with too many concessions. There are still, however, some really nice moments – such as one character memorably getting their brutal just deserts, scientists playing with a My Little Pony and a few decent set pieces. Unfortunately, however, below standard special effects here and there and more silly moments (the creation of the chemical element ‘Transformium’, for example, is unlikely to give chemists much inspiration for future nomenclature) continue to ruin the whole, and its length leaves it as one extended headache more than anything else. The early teenage bracket are probably the most likely to get something out of it. Also starring Sophia Myles, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, T.J. Miller and Bingbing Li.

Tammy  (2014)    20/100

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Rating :   20/100                                                                       96 Min        15

Written by Melissa McCarthy and her husband Ben Falcone, and directed by Falcone in his debut behind the camera, this features McCarthy as central character Tammy, whose life goes into meltdown and inspires her to go on a road trip with her alcoholic grandmother, played by Susan Sarandon. I think McCarthy is a great actor, but her balls out improvised approach to comedy is wayward from the start here, as she tries to set up the whole initial premise almost in one breath – we watch as Tammy quickly loses her job, her marriage and her head in the space of a couple of hours, setting her up as the traditional comedy screwup that we will nevertheless feel sorry for and root for. Unfortunately, it all has a nervous, awkward and amateurish quality to it, and it never really manages to be funny, with obvious and inevitable jibes at the protagonist’s expense, brief treatment of alcoholism, and a traditional, predictable and largely pointless outcome.

The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared  (2013)    60/100

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Rating :   60/100                                                                     114 Min        15

An adaptation of Jonas Jonasson’s 2009 debut novel of the same name that flits between English and Swedish, and has garnered a lot of praise from its domestic run and on the festival circuit, but my goodness does it take a long time to get going. The first forty to fifty minutes are so brain deadeningly dull that there are a couple jokes that might normally elicit a laugh or two, but your focus feels like it’s been hit by a sledgehammer so they don’t register at all.

The story follows the adventures of Allan Karlsson (Robert Gustafsson), who is indeed one hundred years old and does climb out the bedroom window of his retirement home and effectively disappear as far as his carers are concerned, but we the audience witness him accidentally acquire a suitcase full of money from a gang of hardened criminals, who chase after him and his growing entourage of unlikely friends that accumulate throughout the movie as chapters of his eventful life are relived for us whilst they are on the run – a life which just so happens to have played an important role in several historically pivotal moments over the last century.

It has many, many similarities with lots of other films, most notably ‘Forrest Gump’ (94) and ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ (08) and the works of Tarantino, but it also suffers from Allan in the current time frame looking rather like Johnny Knoxville under prosthetics in ‘Bad Grandpa‘. It constantly has the feeling of something derivative and a little in love with itself, but it eventually gets going and becomes more endearing and even funny on occasion, although not as often as director/writer Felix Herngren would like. It’s also quite frequently gory, for anyone put off by that kind of thing.

Walking on Sunshine  (2014)    53/100

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Rating :   53/100                                                                       97 Min        12A

A musical which features various hits from the eighties, most of which are tortuously murdered by the young relatively unknown cast whose musical and acting abilities run the gamut. Oddly, said cast includes Leona Lewis in her film debut – and as the ace up the production’s sleeve not nearly enough of her is made, especially as she’s the strongest singer by quite a margin. It’s very obviously taking the majority of the leaves out of Mamma Mia’s (08) book, set as it is in an idyllic seaside location in Italy with three female friends as central characters (pictured above and played by, from left to right, Hannah Arterton {sister of Gemma Arterton}, Annabel Scholey and Katy Brand) and the context of one of their weddings as excuse for them all to be there. Scholey is the one to be wed after a five week whirlwind romance, although it turns out her husband to be (played by Giulio Berruti) used to be the lover of her sister (Arterton) who elects to keep this secret and hide the fact she is still in love with him, meanwhile Scholey’s ex (Greg Wise) is determined to win her back, but what could the outcome of all this possibly be …. ?

Most of the first two thirds is abysmal – indeed the opening rendition of Madonna’s ‘Holiday’ is probably the movie’s lowest point, but eventually it does get a little better, with maybe two or three scenes working as intended. One features Arterton singing live in a church and she does a great job – which makes you wonder why they didn’t do more of the same thing, à la ‘Les Mis‘, instead of dubbing the rest of it. Some of the other songs used include ‘Eternal Flame’, ‘Faith’, ‘The Power of Love’ (Huey Lewis and the News), ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ and of course ‘Walking on Sunshine’.

How to Train Your Dragon 2  (2014)    57/100

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Rating :   57/100                                                                     102 Min        PG

The Red Dragon feels the need to debunk the hubris of this animated franchise (this of course follows up on 2010’s successful, and quite enjoyable, ‘How to Train Your Dragon’). Dragons cannot, point of fact, be trained, least of all by humankind. At best we might lead you on a little for our amusement, or because we enjoy toying with our food before we devour it, but the idea that someone can push the right bits of our bodies and mystically have us at their beck and call is, I’m sorry to say ladies and gentlemen, an erroneous construct of the movie industry in an attempt to satiate those such as myself and supply us with a never ending stream of playthings. The possible exception to this would be the case of particularly attractive human females who like to engage in the activity of dragon riding bareback for private reasons, as this strokes our egos as well as said reasons.

Oddly, the film’s main problem also concerns this aspect. Having well established with the first film (where everyone was originally engaged in conflict with one another) the notion that dragonkind and mortals can exist cooperatively by virtue of each being reasonable entities, this foundation is then turned on its head with the introduction of an ‘Alpha’ dragon which can effectively tell the other dragons what to do and they will obey zombie like each command. This does not work. It completely obliterates the previously central concepts of friendship, morality, reason and, most importantly, free will. Imagine what the sales pitch to create an accord between the species must now become – ‘Yes, seriously they can be trained and become your new best friend that will be loyal until the very end. Unless there is an Alpha in the area in which case YOU ARE TOTALLY FUCKED, and should find the nearest cave to hide in unless you want to watch your family being barbecued’. Worse yet, this concept is used to deploy one of the most hackneyed plot devices for upping the ante and drama in a sequel (no spoilers).

The movie eventually tries to atone for this egregious error of balance but it’s too late by then, and it’s symptomatic of a lot of the loose writing going on. The trailer shows the appearance of main character Hiccup’s long lost mother (played by Cate Blanchett with one of the weirdest pseudo Scottish accents ever) but it turns out she was swept away by a dragon (yes, she too likes to ride dragons, Cate Blanchett could also definitely fit into the exceptions category mentioned above) during an attack on the Viking village leaving her infant son and husband (chief Stoick the Vast played by Gerard Butler) to assume she was eaten. She wasn’t. Her flimsy excuse for allowing her family to think she was dead for twenty years is that the dragons became her friends and she didn’t believe the rubes in the village would change their ways. C’mon. She obviously found something she wasn’t getting at home.

The central storyline focuses on the discovery of an old long forgotten bad guy who’s building an evil dragon army, and our young hero will once again try to find a peaceful solution. Jay Baruchel returns to bring Hiccup to life but, as he speaks predominantly through his nose, he does not make a natural choice for voice acting, and he also plays him in the exact same way he does all his characters – the hopeless geek routine that will have you wanting to gouge your eyes out at points as he tries to tell people utterly crucial things that they need to know and continually lets them interrupt him – spit it out for God’s sake!

There are nice moments, and the animation is colourful, detailed and slick. All of which makes this exactly the same as most of Dreamwork’s output – skilled but with everything undermined by woeful writing. It’s not even morally robust enough to recommend for family viewing unfortunately.

Cold in July  (2014)    70/100

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Rating :   70/100                                                                     109 Min        15

A film that begins in darkness and yet still becomes relentlessly more and more opaque. Michael C. Hall plays a husband that shoots dead an intruder at the witching hour in his livingroom, without really meaning to. The police tell him he has nothing to worry about, but he is rather understandably shaken up by the ordeal and things start to intensify when it is revealed that the perps father (Sam Shepard) has just been released from prison and isn’t too thrilled at learning his son has been popped off, irrespective of the circumstances.

A few of the character choices will have you asking questions, but mostly it holds up quite well – although the wife (played by Vinessa Shaw) is incredibly irritating. Hall fits bars on the windows the day after the incident and buys a new sofa since the old one has been splattered a new shade of crimson, all of which seem like perfectly reasonable things to do, and all his wife can offer in support is to give him a hard time about not consulting her about his interior decorating choices, the fist of a few out of place whines and gripes.

Adapted from the 1989 novel by Joe R. Lansdale and directed by Jim Mickle (‘Stake Land’ 2010) the film is set in the early eighties and sports a retro synthesized score, giving it a slightly unique feel for a contemporary piece, and with its fast pace and decent if not fantastic acting it should prove compelling throughout, just expect to encounter some pretty horrid stuff while you’re in there. Also with Don Johnson.

Chef  (2014)    69/100

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Rating :   69/100                                                                     114 Min        15

Jon Favreau writes, directs and stars in this feel good film about a divorced chef experiencing creative restraints at work and trying to connect properly with his young son. A showdown with the biggest critic in town (played by Oliver Platt) leads him to embark upon a self employed adventure with his own food truck, where he bonds with his son (Emjay Anthony) by showing him some of the tricks of the trade as they travel from Miami to California.

Sumptuous shots of food being prepared feature heavily throughout – from the never to be underestimated classics like cheese on toast to dishes which, as far as I’m concerned, have no name, with meats and vegetables ranging from the common to the exotic, and a similar infectious passion for some of the locations shines through, especially Miami and New Orleans. It’s a convincing and enjoyable drama that, bar a couple of slightly contrived moments of confrontation, simply focuses on the story it’s trying to tell, with the acting and character interactions feeling grounded and real, and just enough moments of comedy thrown in for relish on top. With Dustin Hoffman, John Leguizamo, Sofia Vergara and Favreau’s chums Robert Downey Jr. (at one point, during a brief father-son montage, we can tell from the sound effects that they are watching Iron Man at the cinema) and Scarlett Johansson in support.