Tag Archives: Adventure

The Martian  (2015)    73/100

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Rating :   73/100                                                                     141 Min        12A

Ridley Scott’s latest returns to space for a film steeped in science, and one which sees explorer Mark Watney (Matt Damon) left behind on Mars after the rest of his team (sent from NASA to establish a base on the planet) leave him behind when a storm forces them to abort and they assume him to be toast. Possibly sending into the popular domain phrases such as ‘I’m going to have to science the shit out of this’, and, ‘Nobody gets left behind, except Matt Damon’, the film begins sloooowly as we’re mostly dealing with Mark by himself wondering how to survive and indeed we’re greeted by multiple moments from the trailer, but at least that gets them out of the way and it’s not too long before the story flits between ground control on Earth and the other crew on the Ares III who are on their way home, which finally brings us back onboard as an audience (interesting if they had found life on the planet and had to explain coming in peace and yet naming their mission after the Greek god of war {Mars is the Roman equivalent of Ares}).

The science doesn’t always hold up; it’s been said the atmosphere wouldn’t actually be able to generate the initial storm, for example, and we see a manual docking procedure in space which is unlikely (after the collapse of the USSR the Russian space agency decided to save money by not paying for the now Ukrainian automated guidance system for supplying the Mir Space Station, with the resultant manual attempt a devastating crash that shut down half of the power to the station and left the Spektr module inoperable), but all these things are minor details and don’t ultimately matter – the science critical to the plot, especially relating to survival, is often both sound and interesting, although certain characters do seem to keep ideas to themselves for a questionable amount of time.

Adapted from Andy Weir’s 2011 novel by screenwriter Drew Goddard (‘World War Z‘, ‘The Cabin in the Woods’ 12) and with several big names in support: Jessica Chastain (who actually gets to go into space this time after ‘Interstellar‘), Kate Mara, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sean Bean and Benedict Wong as the head of the Jet Propulsion Lab (not wise – apparently no one remembers Danny Boyle’s ‘Sunshine’ {07} come the 2030s) and they, together with Damon and great visuals of Mars (Martian scenes were filmed in Jordan, and visors were commonly omitted for the astronauts – they had to be made digitally afterward replete with reflections which is no mean feat) all create an involving human drama on a par with the memorable ‘Apollo 13′ (95). Look out for the bit with the sticky-tape, so annoying.

A Walk in the Woods  (2015)    61/100

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Rating :   61/100                                                                     104 Min        15

Adapted from Bill Bryson’s 1998 novel that recounted his expedition along the Appalachian Trail, which runs from Georgia to Maine, and starring Robert Redford as Bryson and Nick Nolte as his mate Stephen Katz, who turns up for the trek in a less than ideal physical state. Both the leads deliver very likeable performances and, along with the occasional vista of wonderful scenery, they are what make an otherwise far too light, breezy and unremarkable film quite reasonable, if underwhelming, entertainment.

Along their journey they meet various other people – none of whom seem in any way real, rather they have been accentuated to an extreme for the sake of comedy, and yet we’re supposed to be watching a retelling of a real adventure for the pair so it does largely detract from what the film could have aspired to be, and indeed it’s been done so heavy handedly that it also ruins what should have been decent comedy.

Having said that, it never really goes so far as to be completely off-putting, but relating to Bryson’s remarks – that his initial jolt of excitement at having the work adapted and himself played by Redford quickly gave way to foreboding that the story was about to be taken out of his own hands (it was adapted by Rick Kerb and Bill Holderman, each making their screenwriting debut, with ‘Big Miracle’ {12} director Ken Kwapis at the helm), this indeed definitely has the feel of a much diluted version of the source material. With Emma Thompson and Mary Steenburgen briefly in support as respectfully Bryson’s wife and a random hot innkeeper they meet on the trail, and in the end it’s not great but remains a pleasant enough Sunday afternoon film to watch and relax with.

Everest  (2015)    96/100

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Rating :   96/100                      Treasure Chest                       121 Min        12A

This is an absolute powerhouse of a movie that thunderously announces the start of the awards season, boldly dominating IMAX theatres a week before its theatrical release and, having now watched it twice on IMAX and once on a normal 3D screen, this is definitely one film where the larger format makes a big difference. In fact, even if for some reason you weren’t taken with the story, the visuals of Everest and its surroundings alone make it worth going to see (sections were filmed on the mountain itself, others in the Italian Alps, and then variously at Cinecitta and Pinewood studios).

It’s often the mark of a great film when the more you watch it, the more you actually appreciate and enjoy it – I’ve answered some of my initial criticisms and uncertainties and not only is this easily the best film I’ve seen this year, I actually just wanted to go and watch it again immediately after the credits rolled for my third time (I’d even recommend sitting through them, there are no extra scenes but it’s fascinating to see all the various people and departments involved, and indeed how few stunt performers there were given the nature of the film, and the score from Dario Marianelli {‘Pride and Prejudice’ 05, ‘Atonement’ 07, ‘Anna Karenina’ 12} plays out the film and the credits perfectly – indeed, it’s definitely one of the main highlights throughout, setting exactly the right stirring tone for both drama and adventure).

The story details the events of one particular ascent of Everest in 1996 and as always with this kind of film, it works best if you know absolutely nothing about it going in so I’ll just summarise what the opening credits relate – namely that in the nineties professional climbers, beginning with high profile mountaineer Rob Hall and his company Adventure Consultants, started to organise trips to the summit of Everest as a business, and that between the beginning of organised and successful commercial operations and Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s first ascent in 1953, one in four climbers died whilst trying to defeat the mountain. Indeed, the film makes sure to run through the various horrible things that can happen to you humans whilst you try, mostly due to the area being in the ‘Death Zone’, an altitude where the air is too thin to survive for long without a mixture of serious training and artificial aid.

The film is remarkably successful in several key areas, and as always those of principal importance concern the writing which here addresses all of the pitfalls screenwriters Simon Beaufoy (‘Slumdog Millionaire’ 08, ‘Salmon Fishing in the Yemen’ 11, ‘The Hunger Games : Catching Fire‘) and William Nicholson (‘Shadowlands’ 93, ‘Gladiator’ 2000) must have been very aware of – they make us care about each of the characters, for example, and artfully deal with the unavoidable ‘what on Earth made you go up there in the first place?’, and although moments like these are in many ways obvious concessions for the benefit of the audience they, asides from the occasional incidence of someone randomly writing squiggles on a board in the background, have been handled really well.

Even though they’re mostly all together, we get to know and appreciate each character through a series of vignettes which are knitted together to form the story – each not only has us guessing what might ultimately happen, but most of them can also be read into in a number of different ways and the writers have been very careful to apply an even handed approach to events with regards to what occurs, leaving plenty of room for discussion afterward and, crucially, making the drama feel very, very human, and it all does an impressive job too of actually making us feel like we’re there, like what we’re witnessing is as we’d experience it if we were on the same, or perhaps any, climbing trip, rather than something stylised or augmented for cinema.

Anyone who’s ever engaged in any kind of outdoor activity may well know that feeling you have when everything is going well and then all of a sudden you realise you might be in a spot of trouble, and as Jason Clarke (playing Rob Hall) says near the beginning of the movie you can’t compromise on safety. When you’re in charge of something and have to make the big calls you’ve got to be brutal and unwavering with them each time (whenever you feel that cold sensation of ‘it’ll probably be fine …’ then you know you’re in a bad spot and should put an end to it right away), and essentially hope that people realise it’s for their own good – in my experience that’s usually a bit of wishful thinking but you’ve got to be ready and prepared for it nonetheless and like all the best films of this type Everest really brings this concept into focus, as well as the audacity and vulnerability of attempting to embrace the natural world on its own terms.

The editing by Mick Audsley and direction from Baltasar Kormákur work perfectly with the writing, as for much of the first half the views are scenic and mostly relaxing and it’s not until the film really gets going that the dramatic, vertigo inducing shots come into play – and although not every moment has the impact that you wish it had, the balance between scaring the audience and not making them vomit is finely achieved, cue moments of ‘is the camera going to carry on moving so we’re looking straight down … yup it is eeeeeeee’, and indeed when you’re filming, panning and rotational shots are some of the easiest to mess up as you always have to move slower than you think you do otherwise it just becomes a blur for the viewer. Sinfully absent, however, are any outstanding shots of the night sky – from Everest the view on a clear night of the Heavens and the Milky Way must be truly a sight to behold and it’s really surprising it doesn’t feature here, and indeed there are two scenes that are shot in the same manner with a static camera, and I can’t help but wish they’d done a more traditional shot for one of them, although they may have been accused of sensationalism that way, or being too cheesy or perhaps even disrespectful to the story.

The acting is universally great from an impressive lineup of stars: the aforementioned Clarke, Josh Brolin, Jake Gyllenhaal, Emily Watson, John Hawkes, Martin Henderson, Sam Worthington, Robin Wright, Michael Kelly and non other than the inimitable Keira Knightley. Both Brolin and Clarke are really impressive but especially so with regards to Brolin – the way he’s brought the subtleties of his role to life is one of the biggest and most effective anchors for the entire movie. I love the fact that Keira is in a film about the coveted pinnacle of the physical world as I kind of draw numerous parallels between them and, all obvious jokes aside, here, although her role is very much a supporting one, she is absolutely fantastic in it with a nigh on perfect Kiwi accent, and although there is one line I wish they hadn’t given her character as it sounds like something Elizabeth Swann would say and I wasn’t initially convinced by some of the direction for her scenes (tight frames on her face may suggest playing to her looks over tension etc.) but each and every time it’s her performance that really gets the audience going in a very audible way, so I have to concede the director was right on the money there.

Even Sam Worthington who very much exhibits his familiar ‘I am ON and ready for a FIGHT’ style actually sees it work really well for the film and for me this is currently deserving of an Oscars sweep next year, although it’s very early days yet. I’d love to see Clarke, Brolin, Kormákur, Nicholson, Beaufoy, Watson, Marianelli, cinematographer Salvatore Totino and, indeed, Keira nominated as although her screen time is really small, if the film manages to gain any traction with the Academy then we might see a repeat of what happened with 1976’s ‘Network’, which was a fantastic film that deservedly won a raft of Oscars but also landed Beatrice Straight one for best supporting actress and whom I think still holds the record for shortest screen time, at circa five minutes, for a win in the category and yet provided moments of emotional connection for the audience in a memorable way, and Keira’s scenes here along with her delivery have that same emotive quality and are certainly statuette worthy, but it will only stand a chance of happening if the film itself makes it to the finishing line.

Unusually, I’m not researching anything about this film; partly because, although I may live to rue this, I trust them with the details of the story in this scenario, and also because I don’t want the illusion to be shattered just yet by finding out things like my favourite moments were actually shot in a cosy studio somewhere etc. I’m also looking forward to watching it several more times and getting stuck into the extra material that’s bound to be on the DVD – I remember watching the bonus features for ‘Vertical Limit’ (2000) which wasn’t a particularly great film but after the featurettes and seeing what they went through to film it I had a great deal more respect for the filmmakers, in particular with things like Scott Glenn climbing up the ice with picks and no safety equipment, if memory serves.

There’s something about being able to watch a film detailing people climbing Everest and realistically taking you there with them all from the comfort of your chair in the theatre, something that goes to the very heart of one of cinema’s greatest strengths.

A fantastic film that will stay with you for a very long time.

Vacation  (2015)    55/100

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Rating :   55/100                                                                       99 Min        15

You have to applaud the premise behind this – to continue National Lampoon’s run of comedy vacation films from the eighties (of which, probably the ‘Christmas Vacation’ from 89 is the one most familiar to audiences now – the ‘National Lampoon’ moniker having likely been dropped from the title here as the magazine sadly bit the dust at the end of the nineties) which featured the Griswold family, with Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo as the father and mother each time, as they embarked on a number of determined but disastrous family adventures. Here, Ed Helms plays the male kid of the Griswold clan Rusty, now all grown-up and married to Debbie (Christina Applegate) with a family of their own – James (Skyler Gisondo) and his younger brother Kevin (Steele Stebbins), all of whom are about to attempt a repeat of the bonding road trip to theme park extravaganza Walley World (originally a thinly veiled Disney World) that begat the film series with the first ‘National Lampoon’s Vacation’ (83).

The first and perhaps most noticeable overall difference is that Rusty seems to have shed a regular amount of intelligence quotient in the interim period from his childhood, and is barely recognisable as the same character anymore (although arguably this had already begun to happen by ‘National Lampoon’s European Vacation’ in 85). As the central character he is simply too dim to believe and indeed Helms’ portrayal isn’t all that far away from some of his other comedy roles, in the likes of ‘The Hangover’ trilogy for example, and this ungrounded feeling permeates, and detracts from, all of the jokes in the film (gone are great and indelible scenes like Clark’s first ‘break down moment’).

An effort to maintain continuity with the original has been maintained throughout, even though this wasn’t strictly necessary, and both Chase and D’Angelo appear briefly – it probably would have been a much better idea to have them as the central focus, taking both their kids and their grandchildren on holiday this time to … the Middle East perhaps? ‘National Lampoon’s Intervention Vacation’. Despite very few real laughs the family are still likeable enough and the film is by no means a complete failure, simply a big disappointment. With Leslie Mann, Chris Hemsworth and Charlie Day in support.

North Sea Hijack / Ffolkes / Assault Force  (1979)    75/100

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Rating :   75/100                     Treasure Chest                      100 Min        15

I LOVE this film. Roger Moore gives a fantastic performance, in fact it’s the best I’ve ever seen him deliver, as an unashamedly misogynistic, whiskey-toting, iconoclastic, ex-navy, freelance, anti-terrorist trainer operating out of Scotland when he and his men are called upon to try and neutralise a hostage situation in the North Sea which threatens several of the oil rigs there – a crises masterminded by a decidedly unhinged Anthony Perkins (not that he was typecast or anything), with James Mason’s far from convinced navy admiral overseeing the unorthodox counterplay.

From veteran director Andrew V. McLaglen (son of early Academy Award winner Victor McLaglen – who took home the best actor Oscar for John Ford’s 1935 classic ‘The Informer’) and penned by prolific writer Jack Davies as his last ever cinematic screenplay, fittingly adapted from his own novel ‘Esther, Ruth and Jennifer’ (also released in 1979).

This is by no stretch of the imagination a well known film nowadays but it has the unique talent of getting the comedy value spot on (listening to Moore flip out whenever a woman is mentioned is very amusing) and also creating an incredibly decent story out of something that, given the low-key look of the film and its under-the-radar status, certainly primes low expectations (often a significant boon). Indeed, it’s amazing how well the story is written from a number of angles, and if people are looking for a film to rework in light of the success of ‘Captain Phillips‘ then this is absolutely perfect – just so long as they stick to the writing and delivery that give the film its charm, an injection of the kind of tension the likes of Paul Greengrass can deliver would be perfect.

Definitely still one to search out and become a disciple of as it stands though!


Quotes

“You see, I, together with my five elder sisters, was raised by an maiden aunt – both my parents died tragically in childbirth. Until the age of ten, I was forced to wear my sisters’ hand-me-downs. Then when I married I discovered, to my horror, that my wife also had five sisters. All unmarried. And all expecting my support. I find cats a far superior breed. Just on the off chance, I have made a will – I’ve left everything to my cats. I want it testified that I’m sound of body and mind. Well go on!” Roger Moore/Rufus Excalibur ffolkes

Max  (2015)    48/100

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Rating :   48/100                                                                     111 Min        12A

Preposterous little film supposed to showcase and extol the value of the bond between man and dog as Max (a Belgian Shepherd) is adopted by a rather introverted, and somewhat disconnected from his family, young kid in his early teens, Justin (Josh Wiggins). It does have some success in that regard and the central performances, including Thomas Haden Church and Mia Xitlali as justin’s father and new friend respectively, are fine but they are all completely buried under the ridiculous story that falsely moves the drama along, a plot that sees Max witness the murder of Justin’s brother by his best friend whilst on a tour of duty in the Middle East (the suggestion is that it’s murder concealed by a firefight, although it is far from clear what actually happened) – a traitorous friend who also happens to run a heavy-duty illicit arms operation, replete with corrupt police official, in Justin’s small home town which will ensnare the family who will then, of course, have to rely on Max to help save them. Features supposedly fake combat between Max and some pit bulls although it really does not look like they are play fighting, as well as the father locking Max up in an open-air metal cage in their garden, leaving him to his own devices out in the hot sun for several indeterminate periods of time with no food, water or shelter. Nice.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.  (2015)    55/100

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Rating :   55/100                                                                     116 Min        12A

Guy Ritchie’s movie adaptation of the extremely popular sixties TV show of the same name sees Henry Cavill take on the role of suave American spy Napoleon Solo, with Armie Hammer as the much more stoic KGB operative Illya Kuryakin, all with the kind of stylistic touches that are immediately reminiscent of his Sherlock Holmes adaptations (back in 09 and 11). The director’s approach here isn’t as unreal looking as in those previous films, but it is what eventually ruins the movie – indeed, this is one of the best examples of how overuse of music in a film can be destructive: his choice of tracks is very good, but they are essentially used as a constant vehicle for narrative removing any sense of story or characterisation from the film. Cavill has been aptly cast as Solo, but Hammer’s initial Russian accent delivery is enough to make entire continents cringe aghast, although it does become less annoying as time goes on – I’m not sure if that is because it improves, or just because he has less lines to deliver as the music dominates over everything.

The pace is adequate, if a little ponderous, and the opening does suggest a lot of promise – which is unfortunately never delivered, as the two spies are lumped together for the first time by their respective governments in a mission that will be a precursor to the founding of U.N.C.L.E.: together they must attempt to thwart a nuclear threat on the world in general, from spurious bad guys up to no good as usual. An attempted emphasis has been placed on creating a light-hearted, fun action film with a focus on comedy, largely via the abrasive union between the two agents destined to become friends, and visually in this sense the film finds some success but alas the jokes never fully fire off the way they were intended, it’s all a little obvious and a little stilted. Hopefully Ritchie doesn’t repeat the same mistakes in his upcoming ‘King Arthur’ flick, as his track record disappointingly suggests it may be aimed as just another vacuous and irrelevant franchise anchor.

Fantastic Four  (2015)    0/100

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Rating :   0/100             COMPLETE INCINERATION           100 Min        12A

Easily the worst superhero film in memory and in fact a very strong contender for one of the worst films I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s as if they asked a nine-year-old fanboy to scribble the entire story on the back of a milk carton and then accidentally put the entire thing into production. It’s so bad it almost parodies itself – but not in an amusing way, rather the movie sends you through a Dante-esque descent through seven hells of depression before you finally manage to climb out in a torrent of rage just in time to kick the chair in front of you during the one-dimensional finale. You could probably make a better Fantastic Four film with your mates, a Handycam and twenty quid for special effects (try if you like – call it the ‘FakeFour Challenge’).

This is 20th Century Fox’s latest attempt to the milk their Fantastic Four intellectual property which they bought from Marvel years ago and then proceeded to do nothing much of value with thereafter: 2005’s ‘Fantastic Four’ and the 2007 sequel ‘Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer’ far from doing the source material justice. Here, they’ve foolishly eschewed any input from Marvel legend Stan Lee and instead relied on a screenplay from the film’s director Josh Trank (‘Chronicle’ 2012) but rumour is Trank not only behaved erratically onset, he also published a critical tweet slating the final version of the film the day before its international release before quickly deleting it – his treatment ultimately having been rewritten by the producers themselves.

Whatever the truth of the matter the existence of behind-the-scenes issues really, really shows and indeed it would hardly be the first time meddling producers had helped torpedo their final product – although it’s interesting that you rarely hear of producers stepping in and making large-scale positive changes, and directors saying ‘hmm, actually I like what you did there’ … In any event the story concerns itself with the four youngsters: Reed Richards (Miles Teller), Sue Storm (Kate Mara), Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan) and Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell), as they gain their superpowers by travelling to another mysterious world all before having to combine their talents to defeat their arch-enemy and old friend Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell), and they will of course learn the value of working together in the process in order to avoid the aforementioned certain Doom.

The film opens with primary school age Reed actually developing the prototype inter-dimensional doohickey that he’ll eventually be paid to develop, so it doesn’t exactly get off to a believable start, but as the film progresses there are really only two locations used throughout – the lab (which then gets moved to a military base, but for all intents and purposes is the same place) and the other world they visit, but they explore no more than, say, one hundred metres of the place and it contains nothing other than volcanic primordial superhero-making goo. They leave Doom behind because nobody likes him, and so he tries to exact brutal revenge by destroying the entire Earth and everything living there, which makes no sense whatsoever but there you are (he says he’d prefer to live with the goo).

Arguably pointlessly controversial, asides from the innate terrible nature of the movie, is the casting of a black actor, Michael B. Jordan, to play a white character (they changed that aspect obviously, it wasn’t a reversal of ‘blackface’ although they could have had a lot of fun with that – ‘what’s your superpower?’, ‘I ignite myself, Oh and I’m black now – and yep, it’s completely true what they say about black men. Now, where’s that white chick? Oh, I guess she’s still my sister. Hmm..’). This is hardly the first instance of this happening – Marvel famously did the same thing with Nick Fury in its cinematic universe of course, but there he was played by Samuel L. Jackson and nary a peep of complaint was heard due to the respect carried by the performer, which is ultimately the point – if they have the right actor for the part the colour of the skin is essentially irrelevant unless it pertains to the story somehow.

It’s interesting, however, that the argument used for the character change is that it’s more reflective of modern day American society in terms of ethnic diversity. I mean, that is a valid point in general terms, but for the Fantastic Four, really? Is there a person alive from any background at all that gives a damn that Richard Reed and co are/were white? Seems unlikely…. but when we consider that Trank also directed Jordan in their biggest success at that time, Chronicle, and that Jordan and Teller starred together as buddies in the equally loathsome ‘That Awkward Moment‘, it seems rather likely that they simply wanted to cast their buddy and used this somewhat flimsy racial argument to justify it when really ‘That Awkward Moment’ ought to have been the justification for not casting the two of them together in anything again (they are equally poor in tandem here, in fact Kate Mara is the only one who doesn’t suck tremendously in this).

Having Jordan play Johnny Storm is also curious – seems somewhat daft when the character is not only originally white but also has a sister, who is oddly enough also white, thus forcing them to break two original character traits (they make Sue Storm adopted here) instead of the one that would be broken with either Ben or Reed, ah but would casting him as Ben leave them open to attack given what happens to the character and would casting a black man as the lead who gets the white girl, as Reed would represent, be too big a risk for their predominantly white main market? Does this suggest that this is effectively still a ‘token black guy’ character?

Ultimately, the film isn’t good enough to care a jot about, but for an interesting take on this concept watch ‘Suture’ (93) where two brothers are played by a black and a white actor but they are described onscreen as looking identical by all the other characters – it’s quite a nice little exploration of the theme.

Mission : Impossible – Rogue Nation  (2015)    72/100

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Rating :   72/100                                                                     131 Min        12A

Great fun, and coming as the fifth instalment in the franchise (after ‘Mission : Impossible’ 96, ‘Mission : Impossible II’ 2000, ‘Mission : Impossible III’ 06 and ‘Mission : Impossible – Ghost Protocol’ 11) it perfectly mirrors the trademarks of its predecessors – fast pace and fantastic stunts with supporting characters that essentially just pass muster, and a take it or leave it story that exists to primarily facilitate the action. This time around Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) must do battle with an elite super-secret nefarious organisation hell bent on seemingly random acts of evil – a group so secret that even the CIA disbelieve its existence, forcing Hunt to go dark and avoid capture himself as the IMF (Impossible Mission Force) are annexed by the Agency at the bequest of its director (Alec Baldwin) who apparently also thinks it more likely Hunt himself may be to blame for the aforementioned acts of terror.

Cruise has well and truly outdone himself on the action front here. Always one to step up to the plate and perform his own stunts, this film will absolutely be remembered for the set-pieces involved, chief among them the opening scene which was well reported in the media prior to the film’s release but I shan’t ruin it in case you remain unawares, suffice to say they filmed the thing eight times with naught but a single wire used as safeguard for the film’s star, and given the nature of the stunt I wouldn’t exactly be keen to put all my trust in that solitary wire. Indeed, not long after this Cruise puts to shame everyone who’s ever been handcuffed to a vertical object in a film before, and numerous impressive displays of acrobatics are spread throughout the movie.

Accompanying Cruise’s showmanship as one of the main attractions is Rebecca Ferguson (‘Hercules‘) as a mysterious female member of the shadowy organisation who is nothing short of completely fantastic in the role, imbuing it with physical prowess, sex appeal and solid acting to boot. There are the perhaps to be expected parallels with the Bond franchise, ‘Skyfall‘ in particular, and indeed look out for the several nods to the earlier M.I. films, but this is a very strong, entertaining blockbuster in its own right and it would be surprising not to see the cast and crew return for a decidedly merited number six. Indeed, this is also the fourth collaboration between Cruise and the film’s writer/director Christopher McQuarrie after he directed ‘Jack Reacher‘ and worked on its screenplay, along with that of ‘Valkyire’ (08) and ‘Edge of Tomorrow‘. With Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Jeremy Renner, Sean Harris and Simon McBurney in support.

Tom Cruise chats about his infamous stunt (spoiler alert) :

Inside Out  (2015)    62/100

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Rating :   62/100                                                                       94 Min        U

Disney Pixar’s latest is unsurprisingly ambitious and technically accomplished, but on this occasion they’ve overshot their own creative mark and landed a little too close to the dead zone of thematic ambiguity for comfort. The plot is theoretically about one family: father (Kyle MacLachlan), mother (Diane Lane) and young eleven-year-old girl Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) who relocate from Minnesota to San Francisco, causing Riley to suffer numerous quite natural insecurities and regrets as she waves goodbye to several friendships and a hallowed place on her ice hockey team.

In reality, the movie is focused on what’s going on inside Riley’s brain as we see Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and Fear (Bill Hader) brought to life as individual entities at the helm, ‘Headquarters’, of Riley’s entire personality and normal function. Herein lies problem number one – an attempt to personify characters as representative of one distinct and solitary emotion but also as characters in their own right who must necessarily exhibit more of a range.

The whole motif behind the movie is that it’s OK to feel sad sometimes, as this can be a visual signal to others that we are in need of help. Sadness initially messes everything up before her place in the grand scheme of things becomes apparent, and as her chaotic influence sweeps throughout the labyrinthine corridors of Riley’s grey matter we watch as entire elements of the host’s personality are completely and irrevocably annihilated by mistake, whilst in the real world her life is equally devastated as a result. All of which has the effect of largely distancing Riley from being in any way in control of herself and her own state of being, which in turn is conceptually very alienating for an audience.

Similarly, there are a lot of very eerie goings-on; we see a large creepy clown lurking around in locked away memories, entire characters begin to fade into nothingness as Riley starts to forget them. Notwithstanding this, there are funny moments and the artwork involved is top-notch, as we’ve come to expect, just as the adventure the central personality profiles go in does more or less hold interest until the end. Still, the film’s premise hasn’t been satisfactorily fulfilled and The Red Dragon is by no means convinced this is a good film to be taking youngsters to go and see.