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.
The second instalment in Sony’s Spider-man reboot, one of the most pointless restarts in the history of cinema after the hugely successful Sam Raimi Spider-man films which have hardly faded from the public consciousness at all. One possible reason for the decision may be the limited number of Marvel characters that Sony have the rights to, and if that’s so we can expect to see another reboot in four or five years time, but they most certainly based much of their premise with the first film on the success of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films. Here, once again, we see echoes of that trilogy, but with another action orientated and largely forgettable storyline (as I was watching this I was surprised how difficult it was to remember what happened in the previous one).
The bad guys are Electro and the Green Goblin, played by Jamie Foxx and Dane DeHaan respectively, with a little extra help from Paul Giamatti having a lot of fun as Rhino, and Emma Stone reprises her role as love interest Gwen Stacy, Spidey’s occasional bit of stuff when MJ wasn’t around. Helming the web slinging hero himself is, once again, Andrew Garfield who looks the part of the geek but who has all the charisma of a brick swinging its way through the streets wrapped in spandex, even his jokes leave you feeling embarrassed for the criminals that have to suffer them. Spider-man was my favourite comic growing up, but even though I read it as a child the Peter Parker it featured was in his twenties, more grown up and masculine (and he actually was funny) and it still worked, I really wish they’d ditch this coming of age hopeless geek routine that was already plotted across Spider-man 1-3 with Tobey Maguire, they should simply have carried on where they left off and made it ten times more interesting.
One of the film’s biggest selling points is the technology behind it. As one would expect from Sony, the picture quality is great and in fact it might be one of those rare cases when it is slightly better to view it in 3D (this is conjecture rather than a comparative suggestion) with fairly inspiring visuals of Spider-man flitting and diving between buildings. The rest of the acting is fine, and the special effects are pretty good. Essentially it’s a polished superhero film that although lacking anything distinctive or special, it does do the basics well enough to be worthwhile, and although it is a little corny to say it, I think you do always get something out of almost any film in the genre. It also sets up the ‘Sinister Six’ – a collective of various supervillains which were great in the comics, something which has no doubt been inspired by the success of the Avengers film, much like the upcoming Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman flick from Zack Snyder. Interestingly, there is a post credits scene that is actually from the upcoming X-Men film – could a cross company collaboration be on the cards … ?
I really wasn’t expecting to enjoy this, after all who doesn’t know the story? There seemed little point in exploring the biblical/mythical flood, a story that is found in many ancient texts not just those of the old testament, and so it was a very pleasant surprise to find that the film was not only visually interesting, but quite entertaining to boot, which is absolutely the creative stamp of the director, Darren Aronofsky, who fought a long, hard, and ultimately successful battle against his producers to have his final edit of the movie be the one shown in cinemas.
Russell Crowe plays the titular Noah and he is on top form here, carrying the film in no small measure, whilst Jennifer Connelly plays his wife and Logan Lerman and Douglas Booth his two sons, with Emma Watson along for the ride as a random girl they pick up on their journey to meet Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins), from whom they hope to gain wisdom and guidance after Noah has a vision presaging the great flood. There is allegory of our modern day world, as we see clear signs of metallurgy that would be more fitting in today’s time frame, and the film plays very heavily on all things done in the name of religion without thought to their simple and distinct morality, which I think was a perfectly legitimate path to go down, especially since it’s not like we’re dealing with matters of historical record here – interestingly, a long proposed geological theory explaining the myth is that the stories may have originated after the Bosphorus broke, flooding the Black Sea with the waters of the Mediterranean and submerging the civilisations there. This is also one of the prime candidates for the Atlantis myth, although there are many others, the ancient volcanic eruption on the island of Thera, as another example.
The somewhat ridiculous nature of the story in that one family are supposed to repopulate the Earth is played on too, with one of Noah’s sons complaining that he will have no female companion (the eldest having already claimed Watson who is barren anyway) and demanding that Noah go and get him one. If only Ray Winstone, who plays the villainous leader of the mob who want the Ark for themselves, had explained it to him in his distinctive Cockney accent : ‘You will have to fuck your fucking muva boy’.
Losing a little to melodrama, and lacking in the acting department with the fresher faced members of the cast, this is still worth going to see as an enjoyable spectacle with generous helpings of morality to chew over.
Teenage fiction that is very obviously hoping to ape the success of ‘The Hunger Games’ (12), which is no bad thing, and it largely does a good job with only the cheesier elements of the writing letting it down. The film is based on Veronica Roth’s debut novel of the same name, part one of a trilogy, whilst Neil Burger (‘The Illusionist’ 06, ‘Limitless’ 11) directs. The immediate difference between this and The Hunger Games is that whilst both have a preposterous central storyline the other franchise makes it work on film in a very believable way, whereas here it takes a while to settle and doesn’t work to the same degree.
The world of Divergent is a dystopian future where mankind has struggled to survive after global war ruined everything. We are specifically taken to Chicago which is surrounded by enormous defences (beyond which no one is quite sure what exists anymore) and where the people are divided into factions when they are young, denominations they will belong to for the rest of their lives. These factions are : Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), Erudite (the intelligent), Abnegation (the selfless), and Candor (the honest), with each supposed to represent your nature and where you’ll be happy and productive and essentially ‘belong’. If you exhibit personality that fits in to more than one then you are a freak, divergent, and are to be killed instantly before you mess everything up. Getting this notion across to the audience in a way that doesn’t sound ludicrous is the first major challenge of the film and it remains one of its biggest pitfalls.
It does, however, immediately remind The Red Dragon of playing countless role playing games and trying to get ranks in as many different classes or disciplines as possible, one just never seemed enough. Guess I’m divergent, or schizophrenic, or GREEDY mwahaha! Our protagonist ‘Tris’ (Shailene Woodley) finds herself in a similar spot when her time to choose her faction arrives. Inevitably, her split personality disorder and strength of character will see her life put in danger, but also allow her to resist and fight against the sinister plot at work within faction management and inevitably attract the amorous attention of the male lead ‘Four’, Theo James. Kate Winslet appears as one of the faction chiefs but even though she was used heavily in the marketing it’s little more than a cameo role for her.
The style has been chosen to make it look as realistic as possible, and they’ve made it quite a lengthy piece, again much like The Hunger Games, and this all works in its favour, but it’s really the strength and charisma of the two leads that sell it overall. Decent, and good enough to merit a sequel.
I’m torn on this one, I was never completely sold on the original ‘Captain America : The First Avenger’ back in 2011, and I would say this one is better, but it kind of smacks of contractual agreements for some of the cast and a very determined view towards Marvel’s spin-off TV series ‘Marvel : Agents of Shield’, featuring story elements aligned with both these agendas and which very much flit around the borderline between interesting and idiotic. First and foremost it is enjoyable though. We begin with Captain A (Chris Evans) and Black Widow (the enigmatic Scarlett Johansson) sent to deal with pirates that have taken the crew of a large military vessel hostage, and the info they retrieve there will lead them and Shield onto a much larger and far reaching plot.
The action sequences throughout the film have clearly had a lot of thought and effort put into them, but some are marred by a jerky aspect to the motion of the camera which is a shame, though a number of them are definitely heading in the right direction in terms of creating real tension, just as some of the aerial shots are obviously still playing it a little safe but do create a bit of vertigo in the audience. The superhero genre still has the fundamental problem of avoiding the trope of good guy and bad guy duel it out in the end and good guy wins because either he has the moral high ground or he is smarter than the bad guy, with the occasional flourish of bad buy squishes someone the good guy cares about in the process, and here there are still too many moments of the hero achieving something at the last possible second etc.etc. and of all the Marvel superheroes Captain America probably has the least appeal outside of the States, partly because of the inherent jingoism, which to be fair they have done a good job of keeping to a minimum, but also in a general sense as his powers are in many ways comparatively less interesting, so his personality really has to shine through and the story really has to bite.
It is in this sense that the film doesn’t work so well, even for a souped-up soldier some of what he achieves is too over the top and the most off-putting aspect is when Fury (Samuel L Jackson) shows him early on the new airborne defences that Shield have been constructing and we hear C.A. moan about how unethical it all is, much like he’s done in the past, but it just doesn’t work. Earth has just been invaded by aliens who were narrowly prevented from annihilating everything (see ‘Avengers Assemble’ 2012), it would be ludicrous for every government in the world not to be working on new defence measures, but he could quite easily have approached the same moral perspective from a more believable angle, perhaps worrying about safeguards and things like that. As a supposed strategic genius he himself should really have been coming up with plans for national and international security, rather than just still being on the frontline for the military.
The camaraderie between Black Widow and C.A. is a bit stilted, and despite the wonderful character and the actress playing her, I wonder if she isn’t a bit too cutesy for a deadly assassin, but then Marvel are owned by Disney. As a curious aside, the take down she performs in ‘Iron Man 2’ (2010) where she wraps her legs around her opponent’s neck and then uses her body weight to bring him to the ground has been aped by films countless times since then, but I believe that was where the trend began.
Ultimately worth going to see but with a few provisos regarding believability, and as usual there are two end credit sequences to wait for, and if my suspicions are correct it looks like one of these scenes introduces two characters (Stephen Strange is also mentioned during the film, incidentally) who are the offspring of another Marvel character currently owned by a different studio …
Interestingly, here is the symbol of the bad guys in the first film, Hydra, compared to a coin originating in Eretria (the ancient Greek city, not modern day Eritrea in Africa) circa 500 BC
Adapted from the computer game of the same name – a fact alone that sounds a fairly deafening alarm bell, and sure enough we witness a concept that is fine on a console but does not work at all on the big-screen. It was always going to be a dubious attempt with the Fast and Furious franchise already well established within the niche market of motorhead fuel injected action, and doubtless the makers here were hopeful of a franchise of their own, with only bad acting, poor scriptwriting and tensionless directing standing in their way.
The central character is Tobey Marshall (Aaron Paul) who is of course the most talented driver ever to have lived but for some reason is working in a garage in financial arrears, forcing him into the sphere of influence of bad guy Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper), who despite being evil to the core is remarkably successful and is the reigning driving champion, but deep down he suspects Tobey could beat him. Inevitably juvenile egos clash and a street race takes place between the two and Little Pete (Harrison Gilbertson), one of Tobey’s good guy buddies, and we see them dodging oncoming traffic at a million miles per hour in flashy sports cars as they heedlessly drive down the wrong side of the road until bad guy Dino commits a dastardly deed and sends Little Pete careering off to a spectacular crash and immediate cremation. GOOD RIDDANCE. If they are going to drive like madmen in public and put the lives of hundreds of innocent people at risk then, frankly, they all deserve to die as far as I’m concerned and the intention to gain the audiences sympathy at this point is woefully misplaced, plus Lil Pete was so completely artless and innocent it was entirely obvious he was about to splattered all over the place anyway.
Bad guy Dino pegs it when he realises he might have made a boo-boo, leaving Tobey to take the blame and go to jail as unfortunately for him it seems his lawyer was too lazy to interview the many countless witnesses they almost killed who could testify to there being three cars, and they were going too fast for any cameras on their journey to have recorded them. Eventually he gets out and so begins his long and very tedious journey to right this wrong as well as try and win a highly secretive race that’s in fact so secretive all the security forces and police know exactly where it is and try to stop it, just so he can rub it in bad guy Dino’s face that yes, he is in fact the better driver as well as being the innocent guy (though he also deserves to die) who will somehow prove his innocence. Oh, and bad guy Dino is banging Tobey’s ex-girlfriend, because they obviously felt they didn’t have enough clichés in there already.
The action isn’t completely dire, but it’s very run of the mill and the way the camera continually cuts from a first person view to a shot of the driver from around the gear stick, constantly destroys any real involvement or tension in the driving scenes. Morally bankrupt central character behaviour continues to the point of lunacy, the supporting characters are tragic and poorly delivered, Aaron Paul acts throughout like a grown angry baby, and really the only things of any value in the entire film are Michael Keaton’s supporting role as a radio disc jockey and race organiser, and Imogen Poots with her infectious smile and a stunt that she is obviously performing herself. Alas, neither of these two actors are enough to give this any appeal other than to perhaps undiscerning teenage boys with nothing better to do.
The sequel to 2006’s phenomenally successful ‘300’, this time with director Noam Murro replacing Zack Snyder (who acts as producer and writer here) and focusing on the Athenian’s story, in particular their leader Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton), during the Greco-Persian wars in ancient Greece, with events primarily unfolding both during those of ‘300’ as well as immediately afterward. The story is burdened somewhat by an untruth told in the first instalment where Leonidas is shown to be more or less acting of his own accord when he marches 300 Spartan hoplites (soldiers) to the ‘hot gates’ of Thermopylae. In reality, a confederation of Greek city states had selected Leonidas to lead the ground forces in defence against Xerxes’ invasion, and in unison with the army a Greek fleet (of which Athenian ships were to form the bulk of) would engage the vast Persian navy at the pass around the cape of Artemisium, preventing Leonidas’ troops from being flanked.
After the infamous deeds at Thermopylae and the battle of Artemisium, there was to be a third conflict around the isle of Salamis near the Isthmus of Corinth, which forms the climax of the movie and was to prove one of the most important battles in the history of western civilisation. Technically, Themistocles wasn’t actually in charge of the Greek navy – for diplomatic reasons a Spartan, Eurybiades, had been elected overall commander as Sparta had but a handful of ships and Corinth, another seafaring city, did not want to see her Athenian rivals in charge, but in reality Themistocles seems to have called all the shots.
The film misses the chance to put all of these events into the proper context, and instead we end up with a much more contemporary action orientated, attempted spectacle. Although a lot of the details do fit into the real story somewhere, just not necessarily in the order or way that they are presented to us. One of the most egregious inventions is when we are shown the battle of Marathon, 490BC (Thermopylae, Artemisium & Salamis took place in 480BC), which is where the Athenians triumphed against the odds to defeat the first attempted Persian incursion into Attica (and of course where our modern day Marathon run originates as Pheidippides supposedly ran from Marathon to Athens to tell the people of the victory {having just ran to Sparta and back}. Admittedly, he collapsed dead from exhaustion immediately afterwards) and we see Themistocles kill the Persian king Darius I, who was in fact not even present for the battle. It is, however, true that after this Darius planned a full scale invasion before an Egyptian revolt prevented it, and that his son Xerxes would fulfil his plans after his death due to ill health, whilst Themistocles would climb ever higher within the political structure of Athen’s greatest gift to the world, its democracy, to convince the people that the city needed a navy to better protect itself from the Persians he was sure would return. Interestingly, their democracy was a direct one, wherein the people did not elect representatives to vote on their behalf, but rather voted on each issue themselves – sadly the renaissance does not seem to have reinstated this virtue in the west.
A fascinating and exciting backdrop for the film then, but unfortunately its biggest problem is the fairly childish overuse of blood effects which splatter over the screen in ever increasing amounts, which is bad enough, but what they have used looks absolutely nothing like blood and more like some sort of purple, thick, goo that splurges out of bodies over the screen constantly, more akin to raspberry jam than someone’s insides. An element of this would be ok, and fitting with ‘300’, but its obvious some scenes have been orchestrated purely with this effect in mind, rather than any focus on tension or the audience’s suspension of disbelief.
The same cinematography and stylisation from its predecessor is used once again, and it mostly looks as good as before, although there are a number of scenes with ropey CGI soldiers milling about – some of the action is reasonably satisfying, but then other elements are far too over the top. ‘300’ was the perfect blend of stylised filmmaking with a story based on truth, but here there are a lot of moments where you can say with certainty that never in a million years would what we’re watching be feasible. Stapleton has a difficult job to do, following in the footsteps of Gerard Butler’s iconic turn as Leonidas, but he does quite well overall, though it is difficult to fully get behind him, partly due to the obvious character conflict with his Australian accent (much like Sam Worthington’s as Perseus in ‘Clash of the Titans’ 2010 and its sequel) and partly because unlike in 300, we never really see the protagonist not in ‘battle mode’ as he is effectively waging war from start to finish and, ultimately, it is a bit tiring to watch someone constantly trying to look stressed, shouting and giving rousing battle speeches. In terms of Greek history he is one of the most important characters, and more of a back story and characterisation would have been much better, perhaps focusing on his rise from the poor quarter to the heights of Athenian society.
The naval battles are once again a mixture of real tactics thought to have been used on both sides (not always the correct ones though) and pure invention. Estimates for the forces involved put the Persians setting sail with 1200 ships versus the Greek navy of about one third of that, and the scale in itself is fascinating, with the film exhibiting both great artistic detail and yet tactical execution that is at once enthralling but also dubious. One of the best aspects, which the film actually gets correct, is that the Persian fleet was commanded by a female, somewhat ironically named Artemisia, the Queen of Halicarnassus. Played onscreen by the wonderful Eva Green, she was held in high esteem by Xerxes and by generals on both sides, indeed the film sees her challenge the other commanders under her to impress her and in real life the legend is that during Salamis she was being chased down by a Greek vessel and so hoisted the Greek flag and rammed into one of her own general’s ships (one she had recently disagreed with) shaking off her pursuer having convinced him she was a defector, and apparently watching from above Xerxes and his generals were equally convinced that she had just sunk an enemy ship causing the ‘god king’ to infamously comment “My men have become women, and my women men”.
The movie plays with the rivalry between Themistocles and Artemisia turning it into sexual tension – perhaps not so unmerited given the Greeks had put a high price on her head for a live capture, ostensibly, history argues, because they were so offended at being outmatched by a female, but in reality what could possibly make a greater prize and conquest for a male general? Sadly, she is treated with perhaps the greatest historical disdain with what occurs at the climatic battle.
Returning to reprise her role as Gorgo, queen of Sparta, is Lena Headey, who incredibly looks EVEN BETTER than she did in the first one, and she sizzles onscreen with a reinforced confidence that success with ‘Game of Thrones’ has no doubt brought her. Another strong and wonderful character from antiquity, she delivers lines like the one below with such relish that it is impossible not to love her.
Overall, it is a little disappointing but still reasonably fun, and it does inspire interest in the subject matter, perhaps even more so than the already well known story displayed in ‘300’. If you don’t mind much of it being ruined to some extent by self indulgent and silly effects then it might still be worth a look in, and the story is yet to be completed with the events of the following year, 479 BC, required to conclude everything. They will need a better team to helm the project if they take it that far though.
“Themistocles. You’ve come a long way to stroke your cock whilst watching real men train.” Lena Headey/Queen Gorgo
“Artemisia whispered the seed of madness that would consume him … He surrendered himself completely, to power so evil and perverse, that as he emerged no part of a human man survived… Artemisia watched her flawless manipulation take shape.” Lena Headey/Queen Gorgo
“Only the gods can defeat the Greeks. You will be a god king.” Eva Green/Artemisia
“Today we will dance across the backs of dead Greeks.” Eva Green/Artemisia
“SEIZE YOUR GLORY!” Sullivan Stapleton/Themistocles
“Let it be shown, that we chose to die on our feet rather than live on our knees!” Sullivan Stapleton/Themistocles
Liam Neeson continues his winning streak of action films, following in the successful footsteps of the likes of his ‘Taken’ (08), ‘Unknown’ (11) and ‘The Grey’ (11), and this is another taught and very enjoyable thriller, predominantly sold by a trademark commanding performance from the leading man himself, here playing an alcoholic air marshal who begins to receive mysterious threats to his passenger’s lives whilst in mid-air. He knows that someone onboard is sending them, but who? The plot thickens when the instigator’s demanded money is requested to be transferred to Neeson’s own bank account …
The tension is held throughout, and, all in all, it’s a satisfyingly involving mystery.
A completely mirthless and soulless cop buddy film featuring Ice Cube and Kevin Hart, the latter of whom is a rookie trying to prove his policing chops to the hardened veteran of Cube – who also happens to be the disapproving brother of his fiancée. Despite an energetic and committed performance from Hart, there really isn’t anything of any interest or comedy value throughout the entire film, with the rudimentary attempts at humour matched by the equally pathetic attempts at an original story.
Richard Thorpe’s Cinemascope (MGM’s first),Technicolor and somewhat over the top and fanciful take on the myriad legends of King Arthur takes the story in his own direction, as is tradition, and does likewise with history in the process. Despite Arthur Pendragon sporting various images of yours truly throughout, the entire first half of the movie is entirely woeful, with horrid set design even for the era, lacklustre action and swordplay sequences, corny pious dialogue and strikingly bright costumes that begin as eye catching but eventually become lurid, as the somewhat irritating music plays throughout with barely a pause for breath. The action picks up in places, only to be swiftly let down again – such as when some of the knights casually push over one of the stones at Stonehenge and a fairly convincing cavalry charge sees their efforts rewarded by an accompanying volley of arrows from their own troops. Groan.
Only when the saucy gaze of Ava Gardner, playing Guinevere, finally appears and espies the gallant Lancelot, Robert Taylor, do things get more interesting, but even then the pace continues to rise and fall. Lancelot is essentially the main character here as he befriends Mel Ferrer’s King Arthur, and then uses his strong commanding American accent to woo every maiden in his path. Uninventive and probably best left for fans of the principal leads or the genre.
