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Pacific Rim  (2013)    55/100

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Rating : 55/100                                                                       132 Min        12A

Despite the low rating, the action in this film is pretty darn good, it’s just that the story is both ridiculous and predictable, and the characters and acting largely follow suit. Set in the immediate future, humanity finds itself under constant threat of attack from alien invaders (the Kaiju), alas not from space above, but from the depths of the Pacific Ocean, wherein lies a previously dormant portal to another dimension. Every six months or so an aquatic behemoth comes through the portal and attacks, Godzilla style, a seemingly random coastal city. Our most obvious solution to this crises is to build enormous robotic warriors to fight the beasties with, each one controlled from within its head by two mentally linked humans whose consciences merge, which allows the story to digress down various emotional tangents.

There are multiple immediate problems with this of course, such as any real explanation as to why our current military capabilities aren’t enough to take down the enemy, or why since we know their point of origin it isn’t mined to high heaven. The robots themselves, or Jaegers as they call them (German for hunters), despite having huge plasma guns and an array of missile explosives, seemed to favour running up and smacking the aliens in the face as their weapon of choice, which naturally allows for the possibility for them to be, well, eaten. The chain of command in their outfit is at best flimsy, and at several times it’s easier to be against the protagonists than behind them.

An oddity that manages to be quite enjoyable and yet at the same time determinedly difficult to really like, it’s from director Guillermo del Toro and has very much the same feel and pace to it as his 2008 film ‘Hellboy II’. This, and del Toro’s continued determination to stick to real sets and props as much as possible, together with the visual effects, are the films strongest assets. It’s a real shame that, as is often the case, a money laden blockbuster is critically let down by basic conceptual errors and a hackneyed screenplay. If you like the look of the trailer, then this might still be worth a go on the big screen – watch out for the Optimus Prime lookalike truck that is no doubt deliberately crushed at one point, and there is a very brief post credits scene too.

Chasing Mavericks  (2012)    73/100

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Rating : 73/100                                                                       116 Min        PG

Gerard Butler stars in this ‘Karate Kid’ esque (both also star Elisabeth Shue, coincidentally) true story about how one man’s lifelong love of surfing helps inspire a similar desire in his young neighbour, Jay Moriarity, whom he reluctantly takes on as his protege in order to train him to tackle the giant, dangerous waves at the North California location of Mavericks, waves that have claimed the lives of some of the biggest names in surfing and are formed by an unusual rock formation under the water (the name comes from that of the dog who accompanied the location’s founding surfers). The film does stray dangerously close to Nicholas Sparks level melodrama, with the small town, the small town bully, the small town cute girl the protagonist wants to get with, and the ever present danger of the waves, but it eventually sidesteps this dead end territory and fleshes out as a pretty decent drama.

Newcomer Jonny Weston does a good job as the wave hungry Jay, and the film’s visuals of the surfing, and the fact that it’s a true story, are its biggest strengths, with the waves at the end looking sufficiently catastrophic – projecting surfing as at once deadly (Butler himself almost drowned and was hospitalised whilst filming after a succession of waves pulled him under for forty seconds), and a lot of fun. Co-helmed by respected directors Michael Apted (‘Gorillas in the Mist’ 88) and Curtis Hanson (‘L.A. Confidential’ 97), the shoot was difficult and dangerous, going on for a lot longer than expected thanks to bad luck with the weather – all the surfers featured, bar the two leads, are professionals.

Have a peek at the interview below with Butler and Weston, with one of them constantly interrupting the other …

The Bling Ring  (2013)    57/100

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Rating : 57/100                                                                         90 Min        15

A bunch of idiots rob another bunch of idiots, in an idiotic fashion, in Sofia Coppola’s latest indie satire on modern celebrity culture. But do we care? Well, it is difficult to. Based on the real story of a group of teenagers that went on a robbery spree in Beverly Hills, targeting their celebrity idols and using the press to find out when they would be out of town. We watch them repeat the same thing over and over again throughout the film, with them leaving a profiler’s dream worth of fingerprints each time and being caught on CCTV on several occasions, with the only male of the group repeatedly saying ‘C’mon guys, we should really get out of here, now!’ and being completely ignored each time resulting in him casually continuing with what they were doing. Too little effort has been made with characterisation, with an emphasis placed on drink, drugs, and music. Having said that though, a large part of this is necessary to illustrate the world they are a product of, indeed to show the only things that are deemed important to them, with fashion and celebrity taking a high precedence, but we know right from the beginning that they do end up in court, even though we only get the briefest glimpse of the aftermath of the criminal proceedings for one of the characters, giving the piece a decidedly flimsy feel to it.

The group of young larcenists represent one side of the symbiotic see-saw that bobs up and down with the vagaries of fame and celebrity. They most notably, and frequently, target the house of Paris Hilton, who allowed the film crew to use her actual house in the movie, effectively letting her use ‘The Bling Ring’ as another publicity vehicle, and no doubt making a nice profit from the shoot in the process. It’s a clever move for her, so long as it doesn’t result in copycat robberies, or a sort of rite of passage for young bratlings to break into her house. A great deal of irony in the film itself then, but overall it simply becomes very tedious watching the group do the same thing over and over again for the duration of the film, something which wasn’t overly interesting in the first place.

Now You See Me  (2013)    69/100

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Rating : 69/100                                                                       115 Min        12A

This film is a lot of fun, but it is let down by the trailer to a large degree, and the suspense it successfully builds begins to decidedly peter out toward the final act. Dave Franco (younger brother of James Franco), Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher and Woody Harrelson all play magicians who come together to form an ensemble act, cumulatively, and bombastically, calling themselves the Four Horsemen. After one of their shows sees them use their powers to commit theft on a grand scale, the authorities are called in (here in the guise of Mark Ruffalo, joined by the sultry Melanie Laurent), but who is behind the group and what is their ultimate goal? Equally, how real, or how magic, is the magic? Well, I won’t ruin that element, but the film doesn’t take itself too seriously, and the twists and turns aren’t all that hidden – we’re given hints to what’s coming all the way through, but we’re also told that most magic is simply misdirection …. (also with Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman in support).

The Internship  (2013)    3/100

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Rating : 3/100                                                                         119 Min        12A

Wanting to both scream and vomit at the same time, I simply sat in outraged stupefaction, as Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson regurgitated their tried and tested formula onscreen in this, their latest offering of comedy which is about as funny as weaponised Ebola. It follows the pair’s wildcard entry into the internship program at Google, after their sales company went under, wherein everyone is divided into groups to compete in a number of tasks, with only the overall best performing team being selected to work at the company – presumably to then find the best way to avoid paying tax and snoop on unsuspecting members of the public. Despite the pair knowing nothing about computers, will their maturity and enthusiasm somehow win out against the odds, and will Owen Wilson somehow seduce the super hot Rose Byrne in the process? No prizes for correctly guessing the answer.

The problem is, the formula they’re using does work. It’s easy for the audience to eventually get behind the underdogs, it’s easy to get carried along by a happy ending, and we’re led by music telling us we’re happy and having a good time all the way. It is the encapsulation of the much touted ‘feel good factor’, and even I left a little under its influence, but that does not stop it from being an extremely thin veneer on what is ultimately, and definitively, trash, and it most certainly does not compensate for the inherent lack of laughs. Part of the plot is that Vince Vaughn’s character is some kind of super salesman, but he’s about as smooth as an electrocuted porcupine – I don’t think I’d buy water off him if I was dying of thirst in the desert. The pair of them need to ditch this potboiler routine of theirs quickly before their audience is permanently turned away, but I can easily see Vaughn still attempting to do it from his wheelchair thirty years from now.

The East  (2013)    70/100

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Rating :   70/100                                                                     116 Min        15

Written by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, and directed by the latter, the two spent some time investigating and experiencing the ideals of freeganism – whereby one only eats food which has been discarded, usually by restaurants and supermarkets who are required to do so by law, but which is essentially perfectly edible. Using their hands on research for how their characters might live day to day, they created the story of a group of anarchists calling themselves ‘The East’, who have taken it upon themselves to teach large, corrupt corporations a lesson, and give them a taste of their own medicine, quite literally in the case of one pharmaceutical company. We perceive events through the eyes of Sarah (Brit Marling), a former FBI agent attempting to infiltrate the cell and alert the authorities about their forthcoming attacks, as per her current employment with a private intelligence firm.

The film is a sort of conjoined twin – a spy thriller spliced with sociopolitical polemic, with each element good, but not strong enough in its own right to bear witness to the best fruits of their genre. Ellen Page, Toby Kebbell, and Alexander Skarsgard (son of Stellan Skarsgard, here initially looking very much like Viggo Mortensen in ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’), play the most recognisable members of ‘The East’, and most of the screen time focuses on the group, and Sarah’s interaction with them. It is at pains to show they aren’t just a bunch of hippies, none of them take any drugs for example, and it is shot in an authentic location – the house they all live in is used in real life by a band of people attempting to live outwith society’s norms. However, focusing so much on a group with an alternative lifestyle that for many will have negative shades of cultism, or the stereotype of Eco-terrorists, but who are active against issues that the vast majority of the populace in today’s world share a common sense of inept outrage about, kind of feels like a betrayal against the film’s primary hook.

The tactics used by the organisation are grounded in their own moral code, but one that is balanced enough to bring the audience into the debate. It is essentially a well put together film, but we see exactly what we expect to, and the climax manages to be both a little messy, and a little obvious. Indeed, bar an appearance in ‘Arbitrage‘, Marling is most well known for staring in, along with co-writing, 2011’s ‘Another Earth’ and although her character there is markedly different from Sarah, they walk similar paths in terms of the narrative and their function toward concluding the story. With a little more incendiary risk, and a little more tightness to the writing it could have been both more thought provoking, and more gripping.

With regards to the pharmaceutical company targeted by The East, scroll down to the end of the review of ‘Side Effects‘, and have a listen to an important, eye opening TED talk delivering a real world insight into the industry.

This Is the End  (2013)    73/100

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Rating :   73/100                                                                     107 Min        15

The latest offering from the new wave of comedy writers, actors and directors that have dominated Hollywood for the last few years, this time all playing parodies of themselves. Jay Baruchel meets up with his old comedy buddy Seth Rogen (they are both Canadian) and they all go to the number one party hangout in L.A. – James Franco’s house. Jay wonders how close he and Rogen really are anymore, but before he can find answers to this and other quasi-existential problems, disaster strikes. An actual disaster, that is, with earthquakes galore and a hefty mortality rate, and North America’s funniest are forced to band together in an effort to survive.

Initially, the first thing that comes to mind in the opening quarter is ‘Shaun of the Dead’ (04), with the mixture of comedy and bloody violence that we are greeted with. Given the team behind that zombie-comedy hit have their new film coming out in a matter of weeks, and that it’s called ‘The World’s End’ with the definite appearance from the trailer of a doomsday scenario, it hardly seems like a coincidence. First out of the blocks then, how does this one perform? Well, once it gets going it’s not long before it establishes its own voice, and it becomes a lot of fun, with good performances from everyone and some nice cameos from the likes of Emma Watson and Michael Cera, and indeed a certain famous band from the nineties, along with a fantastic appearance from Channing Tatum.

Look forward to gory, sweary violence, and, well, everything else you might expect to find at a party held at James Franco’s humble abode….

Despicable Me 2  (2013)    65/100

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Rating :   65/100                                                                       98 Min        U

A reasonable sequel to 2010’s ‘Despicable Me’, featuring the voices of Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig and Steve Coogan. From Illumination Entertainment (who’s other films to date are ‘Hop’ in 2011 and 2012’s ‘The Lorax’, with a release planned for next year based entirely on the Minions from this series… ) it’s easy to watch and just as easy to forget, but should be fine for families and for fans of the original. Also introduces a love story arc for main character Gru. Not very despicable.

Before Midnight  (2013)    72/100

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Rating :   72/100                                                                     109 Min        15

The continuation of a story focusing on a relationship under the microscope, in this case all before midnight on a certain day, and previously ‘Before Sunrise’ in 95 and ‘Before Sunset’ in 2004. The couple are Jesse and Celine, played respectively by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, both of whom helped write the screenplay along with the director Richard Linklater. The vast majority of the film is a dialogue between the two characters, whilst they holiday in Greece with their two twin daughters, with the only real notable exception being a dinner table scene with friends, but even if you haven’t seen the previous two films and are unfamiliar with the characters, as I was, this is still easily accessible. Both central performances are engaging, and though there are shades of whiny melodrama, the story touches on just enough common relationship issues and overarching themes of transience and mortal companionship to keep us interested. It’s not Bergman (Ingmar), but it is charming and involving, with a decidedly bittersweet aftertaste.

World War Z  (2013)    67/100

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Rating :   67/100                                                                     116 Min        15

This is a reasonably good zombie film, but one massively hindered by a director who hasn’t learned from previous mistakes. The man in question, Marc Forster, was criticised on a grand scale for his ultra fast editing of the action sequences on the Bond film ‘Quantum of Solace’, and here the same problem all but ruins the opening section of the film, where we are granted our first visual treatment of the zombie hordes (they are effectively the same as the zombies infected with the rage virus in 2002’s ‘28 Days Later’) and everything is so completely frenetic we can’t make out what on Earth is going on. The idea was to put the audience in the situation as much as possible, but ironically it has the very opposite effect, deadening our perception of events, in much the same way as watching a tense scene in fast forward would do.

It’s based on the novel by Max Brooks (the son of Mel Brooks), and after the first half an hour or so things start to pick up, and the story gets going. Brad Pitt does a good job of playing the central character, Gerry Lane, employed to investigate the source of the outbreak due to his military connections with the U.N. At one point he awakens to find himself tied to a stretcher and facing none other than Malcolm Tucker (well, Peter Capaldi) from ‘The Thick of it’, which is potentially far scarier than any of the zombie attacks. Decent, but never as tense as it should be.

The film is already famous throughout Scotland for being partly filmed in Glasgow, doubling up as Philadelphia, most notably in the city centre for the aforementioned starting attack. It is great to see the city on the big screen, and it’s obvious not just because of its architecture, but also because it looks decidedly coooooold and dreich (for anyone not familiar with Scots, this word is almost always used in connection with the weather and means dreary and miserable, we use it a lot) and I wonder if local business won’t be able to milk that to some degree, a zombie cafe perhaps, or the occasional zombie flash dance on unsuspecting tourists would be interesting …

The film is planned as part one of a trilogy, so the studios may return to Scotland’s largest city in the future. On a similar vein, Neil Marshall’s ‘Doomsday’ (08) revolved around a deadly killer virus which, naturally, began with one person coughing on the streets of Glasgow city centre. England’s response to the outbreak is to build another wall to keep us out, much like the Romans did, and the rest of the world pretty much leaves Scotland to die. Being a hardy bunch we don’t, of course, but we do degenerate into cannibalism and tribal warfare. All, that is, except for Dundee, which essentially carries on as normal.