After Earth (2013) 20/100

Posted on June 8, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 20/100 100 Min

A ridiculous story matched by ridiculous acting. Planned as a trilogy that will now most certainly not be happening, this film never really gets past the main problem of knowing that Will Smith has cast his real life fourteen year old son to play the son of his central character onscreen and, although I do feel a degree of pity for Jaden Smith’s situation here, his son’s acting ability simply isn’t where it needs to be for a huge blockbuster like this. This issue is compounded by Will Smith himself actually having come up with the story (though not the screenplay), and it’s hopelessly contrived to allow the character his son plays to conquer his fears and in effect become a man. His heart was likely in the right place, and it has the feel of Mr Smith senior trying to pass the acting gauntlet onto Mr Smith junior, but it absolutely needed a better script.

Set in the future after we’ve destroyed our planet by abusing its resources, although this is actually nonsense as the two central characters end up on a crash landed ship (wherein the entirety of the ship’s crew have conveniently otherwise perished) that warps back to Earth (this is not a spoiler by the way), and it is displayed as abundantly full of vegetation and megafauna. There’s a volcano, if that is supposed to denote global warming, but we do actually have volcanoes at the moment Mr Smith (admittedly, it is set one thousand years after we left for pastures new, but hardly enough time for every species on Earth to more than double in size, especially in their supposedly resources limited environment).

Anyway, Will’s legs are also conveniently broken, or as his character puts it ‘Both my legs are broken. One of them really badly.’, hmm yes, which thus forces his young mini me to go on a trip through the perilous forest to find the tail of the crashed vessel with the emergency distress beacon. And therein an enormous problem with the story rears its ugly head – since there are only two of them it is abundantly obvious that young Mr Smith is in fact not going to be annihilated by the several things that he encounters which will, of course, try to annihilate him. Though he does pretty much ask for it by smacking a baboon in the face with a rock for no apparent reason. Fortunately, he is so super fit, despite Earth’s gravity being stronger than on his home planet, he is able to outrun an entire pack of angry baboons in their native forest. Did. Not. See. That. Coming. Sarcasm.

O there’s an alien bad guy that may or may not have survived the crash too, see the above line, all that being said, some of the visuals and cinematography are quite good. Indeed, the production design on the spaceship is interesting, with an aesthetic that appears to be a hybrid of an old sailing ship and a beehive/organic structure on the interior, and a more Star Trek esque hull on the outside. With the start of the final credits and the revelation that the director is M. Night Shyamalan (his name was removed from trailers after they performed badly) there was a moment of, ‘O, of course, it all makes sense now’, as there was one part when our young hero looked as if he were going to try to outrun the weather as well as the baboons, and one couldn’t help but think of Shyamalan’s ‘The Happening’ (08) when Mark Wahlberg and co did actually try to outrun the wind and the airborne evil that came with it, and here we find similar veins of trashy nonsense throughout the story. There are a lot of good films out at the moment, don’t waste your time and money on this.

Populaire (2012) 66/100

Posted on June 4, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 66/100 111 Min

A fairly decent French language film set in the late 1950’s that very much apes the feel of Audrey Hepburn’s ‘Funny Face’ (57) but which isn’t quite as enjoyable as that classic musical number, in fact it’s almost too light and fluffy for its own good, but with a warm heart that ultimately just wins out over predictability and comedy that never really does more than tickle lightly. It stars Romain Duris as insurance salesman Louis Échard looking for a new secretary – enter Déborah François as the young and very beautiful small town ingenue Rose Pamphyle who will fill the position after demonstrating excessively rapid typing skills, to the extent that Louis feels compelled to enter her into regional speed typing tournaments, and to train her to realise her full typewriting championship potential.

It’s immediately obvious that a romance can hardly fail to develop, and Duris’ character fills the boots of the ‘douche bag guy who will inevitably come good in the end’, but whilst Duris’ performance nor his character are particularly convincing, Déborah François is what really sells the picture, giving a strong and very affable portrayal of the clumsy and yet determined Rose, and surprisingly the fairly dull sounding competition of speed typing becomes reasonably interesting – they even manage to fit in a ‘Rocky’ style training montage at one point.

Bérénice Bejo plays a supporting character that aids in no small way the budding romance, but also teaches Rose to play piano – ostensibly to aid her digital adroitness, but also nodding to the most famous roles of both lead actors to date; ‘The Page Turner’ (06) for François, and ‘The Beat that my Heart Skipped’ (05) for Duris, in which he also played an angry twat who somehow gets the girl by shouting at her in a fit of rage at one point, if memory serves. Indeed, in one scene here Rose gives him a good slap, and he’s just as quick to give her a good one right back – it’s very French, but also perhaps another nod to a moment in ‘Funny Face’ with a Parisian couple sitting outside a nightclub, the female member of which is angrily shouting at her male partner, who, naturally, slaps her across the face, and she promptly responds by hugging and kissing him passionately. ‘Populaire’ takes its name from the brand of typewriter Rose uses, and marks the feature film debut of Régis Roinsard.

The Purge (2013) 60/100

Posted on June 2, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 60/100 85 Min

A film that ironically purges itself of any real satire or commentary, despite its promising setting. Opening in the near future in America, the country’s crime rate has dropped to almost zero due to an ongoing successful social experiment whereby, for one day of the year, any and all crime is legalised, with no emergency services available for the twelve hour period concerned, and no repercussions of any kind allowed to follow activities undertaken during the anarchic period. The exceptions to this rule are a weapons grade restriction, and immunity for political figures who have a ranking of ‘ten’ or above, for reasons of national security of course, not because they don’t want to be targets for rape, murder and mutilation. Also, restricting their own illegal activities to just one day in the year may have been a little far fetched even for the film.

It’s from Blumhouse productions, the studio behind the ‘Paranormal Activity’ franchise whose last output, ‘Dark Skies’, did leave Red Dragon wondering what direction they would take their work hence, in order that it survive the endless repetition of their trademark techniques. So, the beginning of this attempt certainly had a lot of promise, a sanctioned explosion and indulgence in anything the human psyche could conceive, one even publicly encouraged by society’s leaders and law makers, suggesting everyone revel in order to ‘purge’ themselves of natural primitive desires – especially intriguing with the billing of lead actors Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey, who is an actor that certainly doesn’t shy away from twisted character portrayals, as evinced by her work on ‘Game of Thrones’ and as lead villain Ma-Ma in last year’s ‘Dredd’ (which was really good incidentally, even though no one went to see it).

Unfortunately, what unfolds is yet another ‘family under peril in their own home’ scenario, exactly like all of Jason Blum’s previous films. It even still features more overuse of security cameras, with the young boy in the house operating a remote controlled one in several scenes, to very little effect in terms of the tension. Everything pans out very, very predictably as it devolves into a simple action movie with the family trying to survive. Some of the action is very pointedly set up at the beginning with one of the neighbours complaining that the new extension to Hawke and Headey’s house has effectively been paid for by the rest of the neighbourhood, them all having bought security systems from the family’s business, and that a lot of them are not happy about it. It’s completely ridiculous, as if they only sold security to that one street, or everyone else in their enormous houses are so poor they can’t afford to do the same thing, or that they were even forced to buy from them for that matter – it’s not like the basic principles of business have changed in this jointly dystopian and utopian future.

It is successful in creating a certain amount of dark atmosphere, and the initial story was a great place to start, but everything else is pretty disappointing, and it still features main characters doing ridiculous things sure to endanger everyone, in true horror film style. Michael Bay is also listed as one of the producers (he co-owns the production company Platinum Dunes which predominantly works on horror films), and it is difficult to say how much overall influence Blumhouse had over the final cut, but given the end product, and the fact they make a big deal of marketing ‘from the producers of Paranormal Activity’, it’s probably fair to assume they had the lion’s share of influence on the film. They certainly found a writer/director with a suitable name to tie in with their image – James DeMonaco, for whom this is his second time behind the camera, though he has notable previous writing credits with ‘The Negotiator’(98) and ‘Assault on Precinct 13’(05).

Byzantium (2012) 52/100

Posted on June 2, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 52/100 118 Min

Easily the two best things in this film are Gemma Arterton’s breasts jumping gallantly around for most of the film, occasionally winking out of their hopeful constraints toward us like two giant, mischievous mountains, whilst lesser beings gravitate around them and, as soon as they prove to be no visual challenge to Arterton’s alluring curves, are promptly killed. This is because the lady in question plays a vampire, Clara, quite fully endowed to helm the film solo she is nevertheless enjoined by her moody vampire daughter Eleanor, played by Saoirse Ronan. The two both began as human and despite both being around two hundred years old, Eleanor picks this particular moment to enter her teenage rebellious phase, queue lots of staring meaningfully into the distance, capriciousness and melancholy pangs of no one else understanding her, and pops at her mother’s guardianship and choice of vocation.

This is one of the many faults of the film, but the list is rather a long one. Said mother’s vocation, for example, is harlotry. Now, given we’re told they never forget anything and have been around for two centuries it doesn’t take a huge leap of imagination to consider she could have come up with something better to do than offer shaft maintenance at fifty pounds a go. In fact, since we also find out her and her daughter, who does not turn tricks incidentally (at least, not so far as we are aware), are the only female vampires in existence, she must effectively be the best prostitute the world has ever known. I mean, her pelvic floor muscles must be so damn powerful that she can prevent ejaculation at all times, maintain erections indefinitely, and she’s immune to disease. Together with her eternal beauty, she should be sleeping with world premiers not moaning and mumping about how she’s so hard up and she’s simply doing what she can to support her family, as if she’s some washed up dockland missy with broken teeth, whose closest friends are crawling around in her undergarments. She blatantly enjoys what she does, why can’t the writer (Moira Buffini, based on her play) just be honest with her characters?

Eleanor promptly finds a young male to chow over teenage angst ridden romance with, and naturally she is torn by whether or not she should tell him she’s dead, although she’s already decided she will of course, she just wants to dramatise the wait as much as possible, and frankly the male character she chooses is way creepier than any of the vampires are. As the only female vamps, they are being pursued by some of the ruling male hierarchy who wish to ‘have words’ with them. Among their number is Sam Riley playing Darvell, and he is pretty convincing in the role, until he starts to do his gravelly voice thing that he used to such bad effect in ‘On the Road’. For goodness sake, you are a vampire, your character does not need to pretend to be hard.

A vampire film daring to be released into the saturated market nowadays really has to have something original and compelling about it – this doesn’t. It doesn’t make any sense, the characters are unreal in more ways than one, I sort of got into the back story that’s told throughout the film but even that is done in a very awkward and disjointed manner. Indeed, with Ronan’s character there are shades of her last release, ‘The Host’, and the final film is just as lackluster – a major disappointment from director Neil Jordan, amongst whose past credits lies the very fine indeed ‘Interview with the Vampire’ (94). Incidentally, the title comes primarily from the name of the guest house Clara sets up business in, though there is a brief reference to the city – Byzantium was of course the precursor of what would later become Constantinople, and then, later still, Istanbul in modern day Turkey.

The Big Wedding (2013) 56/100

Posted on May 29, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 56/100 89 Min

Completely silly. Featuring the stellar cast pictured above, this remake of the French film Mon frère se marie (My brother is getting married) is comprised of very predictable comedy and farce, as everyone invited to the wedding of the youngsters Alejandro and Missy, played by Ben Barnes and Amanda Seyfried, turns out to be intimate with one another, whether in the present or past tense. Robert De Niro’s Don is currently in a live in relationship with Bebe (Susan Sarandon), but was previously married to Ellie (Diane Keaton), with whom he had two children and adopted a third, who is now to be married. The only problem is, Alejandro’s biological mother is coming to the wedding, and she is deemed so devoutly Catholic that all evidence of the foster parent’s divorce must be covered up, meaning Ellie and Don pretend to be married again and Bebe goes off in the huff.

This primes most of the material, as infidelity is trivialised and yet the film absurdly still attempts a few scenes of serious drama, mostly surrounding Don’s daughter Lyla (Katherine Heigl), though they are at least kept to brief interludes. There are a few laughs in there, and if you like the cast and are in the mood for some irreverent inanity then it might be worth a look in, just don’t expect to be rolling around in the aisles at any point …

The Hangover Part III (2013) 33/100

Posted on May 24, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 33/100 100 Min

Being somewhat hungover whilst going to see this film, I was looking forward to sharing a degree of pathos with the protagonists, a knowing wry smile on my face as I sipped my super strong coffee and compared my antics the night before to those of the returning ‘Wolfpack’ onscreen. Surprisingly, mine were the more riotous, as this film DOES NOT feature drinking, and by its absence neither does it also feature shared hangovers and a plot to unravel what happened the night before. It should have been entitled ‘Phil, Stu, Alan and Doug go on an absurd and pointless adventure to recover money that their old buddy Mr Chow stole from some drug dealer, even though it has nothing really to do with them, and in between dull excuses for action, Alan will do random stupid things to which Phil will say ‘What the fuck?’ and this will constitute the one gag that is repeated throughout until you almost fall asleep, despite your super strong coffee, and Doug will be kidnapped and disappear again like in the first film as he is the most boring character’. False marketing to say the least (there is actually a hangover scene, but you have to wait through the start of the credits at the end of the film to see it). All the original cast return for this, with the addition of secondary roles for John Goodman and Melissa McCarthy, but none of them can lift the inane script out of the trash can it must have accidentally been taken out of. Even features Alan luring a small child into a tent to be alone with him so he can pretend to be his real father and talk about how he used to like holding him close to his chest. Just plain wrong.

Fast & Furious 6 (2013) 60/100

Posted on May 22, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 60/100 130 Min

For a quick recap, this is the latest in The Fast and the Furious franchise, following on from ‘The Fast and the Furious’ (01), ‘2 Fast 2 Furious’ (03), ‘The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift’ (06), ‘Fast and Furious’ (09), and ‘Fast Five’ in 2011, all of which possibly makes this the worst named film franchise in history, so much so the marketing campaign for this instalment included a fan based vote on what to actually name the new one, and it seems the fans have a bit more common sense than the previous lot’s producers.

It’s primarily set in London, with the film imagined as a sort of bridge between the series focusing on underground racers and becoming an action platform that simply has fast cars, hot girls (including the quite stunning Gal Gadot, Miss Israel 2004, and Gina Carano, the mixed martial artist that went on an ass kicking rampage in Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Haywire’ two years ago) and many, many cheesy one-liners – most often courtesy of Dwayne Johnson’s returning character, Luke Hobbs. Here we see a team up between Hobbs and Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto, as their combined forces are required to take down a highly skilled team of heist drivers led by Welshman Luke Evans (who played Zeus in ‘Immortals’, and will appear as the hero Bard in the forthcoming Hobbit films) and just maybe save an old colleague they had previously given up for dead in the process.

It starts off promisingly, with tight action from director Justin Lin (who helmed no’s 3,4 & 5), but eventually it just becomes too far fetched, and with a lot of the sequences taking place at night it’s visually a little tiresome and repetitive to watch. It also suffers massively from predictability in terms of dialogue, story, and what will happen to most of the characters, and has been to no mean degree ruined by advertising a huge ten minute or so segment of the film with the trailers shown before other previous big name releases – certain screenings of ‘Star Trek – Into Darkness’ and I think ‘Iron Man Three’. I’d already seen the same footage three times prior to seeing it in the actual film, and other frequent film goers will doubtless have the same reaction of ‘Argh not this bit again!’, especially as it comes toward the climax of the film, a climax also featured in some of the film’s normal trailers.

One of the best bits actually appears at the very end – after a screenshot of text warning people not to try any of the stunts they’ve seen at home, a tad unnecessary really, the story continues and sets up the next film, tentatively entitled ‘Fast & Furious 7’, with a surprise appearance from someone you might just recognise… Some of the shoots took place in Glasgow doubling as London (though filming took place there too whilst the Olympics were on) something which prompted Vin Diesel to state his claim to Scottish heritage and that one of his ancestors, he won’t say who, is in fact buried at the mysterious Rosslyn Chapel (the one from ‘The Da Vinci Code’). An interesting bit of trivia, but, whether or not it’s accurate, what isn’t in doubt is that he has been confirmed as the person to play Kojak in the planned big screen adaptation of the titular detective’s crime stopping antics, ironic as he used to watch Telly Savalas (the original Kojak) coming in and out of the building he grew up in whilst they were filming the tv series in his neighbourhood of New York City.

Epic (2013) 73/100

Posted on May 21, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 73/100 102 Min

Initially, this shapes up to be a very clichéd and obvious animation with little to nothing of interest for adult viewers, and with far too many parallels with Disney’s ‘Tinkerbell and the Secret of the Wings’ for its own good. However, after the swishing and swooshings of its stereotypical young hero have faded, together with the setting up of the equally stereotypical motivations for the other characters, it actually becomes a lot of fun – and at least one adult felt the need to give it a quick, slightly self conscious, burst of applause at the end, which The Red Dragon endorsed in spirit if not quite in action.

The story revolves around the Leaf Men, tiny humanoids that move incredibly fast to the human eye (faeries for all intents and purposes) who are charged with safeguarding the natural environment of the forest against their enemies, the Boggans, who thrive on darkness and death, and who seek to prevent the Leaf Men from selecting their new queen who would use her powers against them for another generation. Enter cute redhead human Mary Katherine (voiced by Amanda Seyfried) whose mother has just passed away and is now forced to live with her estranged father in the forest, estranged due to his obsession with finding evidence of the Leaf Men’s existence. One quirk of fate later, and MK finds herself shrunk down to, ironically, not so epic proportions and entering the miniature world for herself, as the future of that world hangs in the balance.

It’s from Blue Sky Studios and based on the writing of Louisianian author William Joyce, a fairly prolific creative talent who’s previous adaptations for the big screen include Disney’s ‘Meet the Robinsons’ and Dreamwork’s ‘Rise of the Guardians’, and who won the Oscar for best animated short film, along with Brandon Oldenburg, in 2012 for ‘The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore’. The writing helps immeasurably, with a decent amount of comedy in there, and the animation for the most part appears lively and slick, which, together with the combined voice talents of the cast including Colin Farrell, relaxing into his natural Irish brogue, Christoph Waltz, as the bad guy, Josh Hutcherson, Chris O’Dowd, and big names from the world of music in the guise of Beyonce, Steven Tyler and, in his first big-screen role, Pitbull, ensures everything is brought to life successfully, creating an enjoyable film that should suit families and grown ups alike.

The Great Gatsby (2013) 63/100

Posted on May 18, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 63/100 143 Min

Baz Luhrmann’s take on the classic 1925 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald begins as a hectic, malformed mishmash of what should be feature film editing, and eventually becomes something resembling a story. Just as many modern action films are shot with ultra fast cutting between different camera angles and shots, much like music videos, here Luhrmann applies the same technique, accentuated with glamour and flare, to drama, resulting in a nonsensical kaleidoscopic headache, and just as he applied modern music to Bohemian Paris in ‘Moulin Rouge!’, which worked well, here we find pop and r&b where we should be listening to the big bands of the Roaring Twenties in New York City. It jars badly. Not until the director actually decides to let his actors act after about forty five minutes does the film get in the slightest bit interesting, and although the set design up until then is indeed spectacular, quite why they opted to go for authenticity with the look of the era, but not the defining music or the dancing (a little does find its way in), is a complete mystery.

How true to the source material the story is The Red Dragon cannot say, but this is ultimately the same core idea from Luhrmann’s previous films rehashed, that of a sweeping love story, here a triangle between Leonardo DiCaprio (Jay Gatsby) and Joel Edgerton (Tom Buchanan) over the affections of Carey Mulligan (Daisy Buchanan). Both the male leads are strong and work well opposed to each other as they are, but Mulligan barely registers an emotional response throughout, perhaps playing her somewhat hopeless character a little too close to the bone. Within this context the themes of obsession and fidelity, pride, arrogance and romantic idealism are explored in a reasonably interesting manner, managing to re-engage most of the audience after the overly indulgent beginning, but it sadly remains too little, too late, especially with a running time of 142 minutes.

The story is being told to us via the disaffected writing of Nick Carraway, played by Tobey Maguire, which to an extent can justify artistic licence with the film’s presentation, but not taking it to the gaudy extremes that are thrust upon us from the word go. In the sense that this is a tale told by a reluctant, introvert character admiring, and bedazzled, by another male full of showmanship and mystery, and yet still fundamentally flawed, this is very reminiscent of another, later, American classic novel – ‘On The Road’, with Sal Paradise there writing about Dean Moriarty. Similarly, both recall the dichotomy of the wonderful novel ‘Steppenwolf’, from Hermann Hesse and published not long after ‘The Great Gatsby’, with the insinuation that each of the sets of characters represent two parts of one man, his essence divided. Click here for a review of the even less worthy film adaptation of ‘On The Road’ with Kristen Stewart.

One of the better songs from the film …

Star Trek – Into Darkness (2013) 79/100

Posted on May 17, 2013 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 79/100 132 Min

The follow up to J.J.Abrams’ bold forage into the Star Trek universe continues where the first film (‘Star Trek’ 09) left off, with the crew of the Enterprise a couple of years farther down their alternative timeline to the original series, and The Federation trying to come to terms with the rather brutal and abrupt events of the last film. It bears a lot in common with its successful predecessor, and it fulfils its mission statement perfectly: remaining true to the essence of Gene Roddenberry’s creation (replete with the music from the sixties playing at the end, mention of Tribbles, Mudd, and Christine Chapel – a.k.a. Nurse Chapel, one of the most commonly recurring secondary members of the original crew) whilst still standing on its own two feet as something creative in its own right and encapsulating the blockbuster outlook the new films have been conceived with.

It’s immensely entertaining, looks fantastic, and is filled with the prerequisite spirit of camaraderie that all great adventure films have in common. Indeed, it is certainly one film to see on the big-screen, and the bigger the better (some scenes were shot on IMAX), and there are relatively few sci-fi films nowadays that display the ‘final frontier’ of space in such an awe inspiring cinematic way, in fact I’d like to see more time spent on this in the third instalment which must surely follow on from the immediate success of this one, and there are a lot of appreciable nice touches, like the flair added to the warp trail effect from the Enterprise. Michael Giacchino returns once more for the score, his music fitting perfectly into the list of memorable and atmospheric Star Trek themes, as does Leonard Nimoy for another brief cameo, his character surely busily preparing New Vulcan and her allies for the arrival of a certain none too friendly cybernetic race in circa one hundred years or so….

The story is captivating, but is also one given to debate afterwards as to whether or not several plot elements hold up under scrutiny. This is exactly the same as ‘Star Trek’ which seen bad guy Nero witness his home planet being destroyed and then going back in time, which would have allowed him to forewarn said planet and possibly prevent its annihilation, or at least evacuate everyone, but instead he decided to go on a mass genocidal killing spree with his advanced ship, for no logical purpose other than to create drama on a suitable scale. The story here riffs very heavily off several elements from its canon of Star Trek source material, and also fits in a sizeable nod to The Godfather part III in the process.

It would perhaps be wise to have Abram’s flair for action and entertainment combined with a bit more of the Star Trek ethos in the next one, but there is no doubt he has injected new life back into the wonderful characters that helped create one of the most enduring legacies in the history of the big and small screen, and the future for this incarnation is wide open, in fact it was a stroke of unfettering genius to break the timeline and take us back to where it all began. Performances are good all round, including from new cast members Alice Eve, Benedict Cumberbatch and Peter Weller (most famous previously for playing Robocop), Simon Pegg has also largely improved his Scottish accent. If you enjoy this, most certainly watch the second of the original series of films, which was arguably the best of the bunch.

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