The Rover  (2014)    47/100

Rating :   47/100                                                                     103 Min        15

Continuing Australian film’s long standing love affair with outlaws in the Bush, David Michôd’s latest directorial effort following 2010’s ‘Animal Kingdom’ lands us in a dystopian Outback ten years after the world has gone to hell (we never really learn the details as to how, why, or to what full extent) as we watch Guy Pearce stop at the surviving remnants of a bar for sustenance, his soul exhausted and heavy with despair, barely noticing the liquid he consumes as his car is nicked in the background, instigating his search for both it and the perpetrators for the rest of the film. The thieves are already making a getaway after a robbery gone awry, with the sibling, Robert Pattinson, of one of their number left inured behind, thus becoming the primary lead for Pearce to follow up on.

Ultimately this is simply a very ill conceived ‘buddy’ film, as the two leads begin to bond and look out for one another, despite it originally being a hostage situation, but as time goes on we realise that these characters are basically both scumbags with an approach to violence not justified by the setting – we learn, for example, that law enforcement still operates in the country generally and indeed in the remote settlements where the action takes place. The main point behind this post apocalyptic future is that it sets up Pearce’s character arc – when everything went south globally he committed a horrific crime and nobody chased after him for it. The idea is that his conscience has been tormented by this ever since (both the deed and the lack of ensuing consequences) to the point that now acts of brutality against anyone in his way are done almost without having to think twice about them, as if he were trying to fast-track his own way to hell for the punishment he craves, punishment necessary for the absolution that he hopes will somehow accompany it.

In this respect, the film does have some success and a few notable moments, largely due to another great turn from Pearce (he is consistently impressive, in fact he had back to back cameo appearances in two best picture winners at the Oscars a few years ago with ‘The Hurt Locker’ 09 and ‘The King’s Speech’ 10), but the difficultly lies with every other aspect of the film. I wouldn’t describe Robert Pattinson as a particularly natural actor, in fact I think his spattering of roles since Potter and Twilight have been justified not by his prior work but rather the media status that stalks him, and although it’s true that whilst watching this I did have a large internal debate as to whether or not I was being too harsh on him, I was similarly continually bombarded with the feeling that ‘something just isn’t right here’, eventually coming to the conclusion that his performance is … well, laughable actually, partly because I did laugh at it at the precise moment when the story called for a polar opposite response.

He sports what passes for a good American accent from somewhere in the South, and he is supposed to be not quite mentally handicapped but not too far off it either, but it just constantly feels like he’s trying way too hard, and why after presumably a number of years in Oz (I think he offers some explanation for their current appearance in Australia but he was mumbling so badly I couldn’t make head nor tail of it) is his accent still that strong? Not to mention the fact that his brother sounds nothing like him. Did he fail to pull off an Australian accent during the interview and this was his alternative? When one half falters the whole must suffer, especially when it’s both the character and the actor playing them – and things aren’t helped by the pace and music, which starts off by nicely setting up tension and anticipation but then just becomes monotonous and at times silly (a number of people walked out of the screening, possibly because of the gratuitous violence but likely because it is also peppered with tediousness).

I suspect writers Joel Edgerton and Michôd started with Pearce’s character and his issues as a core concept and then just contrived the rest around it, leaving a hollow feeling, as if some of the violence is in there for its own glory’s sake, and when you finally find out exactly why the protagonist is so ruthlessly hunting his stolen car, well, let’s just say it probably would have provoked more unintentional laughter from The Red Dragon if I hadn’t been beyond caring by that point.

Step Up 5 Million : All In  (2014)    47/100

Rating :   47/100                                                                     112 Min        12

Ok, so this is Step Up 5 (aka Step Up : All In) not five million, but really it’s so formulaic and derivative of its predecessors that they could rinse and repeat and get up to that number without any real effort. It has been billed as the film reuniting cast members from the other films, but what they really mean is that Moose (Adam Sevani) and Andie (Briana Evigan) are back in it – there is no Channing Tatum, for example, and although a few other semi familiar faces appear they, just as before, receive so little character development and so few lines that they might as well be new blood for all anyone is likely to care. The acting is terrible, and the screenwriting is offensive to writers everywhere, with possibly the worst element being lead male character Sean (Ryan Guzman), who does return from the previous film but who seems to have retained none of the life lessons he bored us with last time, managing to be both an indistinguishable carbon copy of all the leading male characters in the franchise as well as the least likeable of the lot.

The dancing, at least, is for the most part very good and has been well choreographed, but even the biggest fans of the series are going to struggle sitting through the garbage comprising eighty percent of the film to get to it. The story is the usual ‘some crew will try to bond in order to win a dance competition against the bad guys and the hot leads will fall for one another, even though one of these leads did the same thing a few films ago and that didn’t seem to work out too well for her and the other one would clearly rather make love to himself’ – eighty percent dancing with twenty percent story would have been far better. Evigan is by literal leaps and bounds the best thing about the film – and indeed it wasn’t until I sat and tried to remember the other four films that I realised her shaking her ass in ‘Step Up 2 : The Streets’ (08) is pretty much the only thing I remember about any of them. Bring on ‘Step Up 6 : All Out’, when Andie tires of male dancers breaking her heart and must now seduce the hottest girl in town through erotic, sweaty street dance – the girl is tempted, but what will her Republican Senator daddy who’s about to fund the state ballet have to say ..?? Only Moose knows …

The Raid 2  (2014)    47/100

Rating :   47/100                                                                     150 Min        18

The sequel to Indonesia’s smash martial arts/action hit ‘The Raid’ back in 2011 returns Iko Uwais to once again fill the shoes of Jakarta’s hardest cop Rama, this time sending him undercover to deal with organised crime families that have eluded the long arm of the law for too long. Director and writer Gareth Evans has returned to deliver the second instalment, but things have gone very, very wrong this time around. Previously we were taken into the tense environment of a single tower block that the police were infiltrating and then had to fight for their lives to escape from – it was a pretty solid action film. Here, with the story expanded significantly it’s all over the place, with loose direction, editing and screenwriting meandering from the word go, degenerating into essentially a big-screen version of GTA but without the enjoyment of being in control. It even comes dangerously close to aping a scene from ‘The Godfather’ (72) and, by extension, one of the most famous scenes in all of film history.

This is all negative. However, it’s worst trait is the level of deplorable violence it smashes onto the screen constantly, which is not only unnecessary but goes much darker to the point of revelling in its own blood soaked gratuity. It’s pretty disgusting to watch, and often difficult to follow it’s so badly put together. Indeed, the main character at the beginning is dead against the killing of a bad guy who is tied up, wanting instead to bring him to face justice, but I’m pretty sure about twenty minutes later he can be seen bashing someone’s skull in with a rock for no good reason – I can’t be certain because it’s been filmed in such a scrappy way, all with relentless hues of grey used throughout the film which absolutely doesn’t help, in fact the one or two moments of real light and sunshine are a massive welcome relief from the enforced dreariness of the film.

It absolutely glorifies violence, but then it’s so horrific that it also manages to negate that effect at the same time. Some of the scenes are well choreographed and work as intended, and Tio Pakusodewo and Arifin Putra are good in their roles as one of the Kingpins and his son, but this is ultimately disastrously misjudged.