Hector and the Search for Happiness (2014) 43/100

Posted on August 17, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 43/100 120 Min

A crummy, sentimental, almost boorishly stilted ‘life affirming’ film centred on yet another bumbling and repressed central geek character from Simon Pegg and one which will deliver no surprises whatsoever in terms of its resolution, although having said that the ending was quite nice – indeed that, a wonderful albeit too brief cameo from Christopher Plummer, and Rosamund Pike slapping her ass on Skype are the only things that saved this from incineration.

This is basically Britain’s take on ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty‘, with Pegg living out the same daily routine with his smoking hot girlfriend (Pike) and going through the motions with the patients at his psychiatric clinic. Essentially having a boredom induced mid life crisis he decides to go travelling, partly due to a boyhood obsession with Tintin (ironic, as Pegg also starred in ‘Tintin : The Secret of the Unicorn‘ and it was also terrible). This obsession fits the story well as it uses many racial stereotypes that wouldn’t be out of place within the pages of the comic (Tintin was one of the most popular comics of the Twentieth century for those unfamiliar with the Belgian boy detective, but initially it contained various caricatures that would never make it into print today), most notably when he goes to ‘Africa’, not a country within the continent mind, just ‘Africa’. Reason being his destination is shown to be run by drug barons and random people with guns who seem to have been educated at Cambridge and speak the Queen’s despite none of their goons knowing a word in English.

Seems a bit strange, travelling to but a single destination in Africa and yet picking one that is completely unstable and commonly plays host to Western abductions. The fudge to facilitate this is Pegg’s old uni buddy who seems to have been there the whole time and naturally as a white Westerner is the only thing stopping all of ‘Africa’ dying from disease or gunfire as the lions prowl quite literally ten yards away from the outdoor operating table, then, in a two pronged attack, this friend painfully creeps his arm around his black bodyguard revealing that he is also the man’s gay lover and that he has stayed as it’s the only place where he feels accepted as himself, despite the fact that the West has very effective and largely victorious gay rights movements and he clearly felt the need to run away and hide as far away as possible from everyone he knew to live out his repressed colonial fantasy of bumming an armed black man and was at great pains to keep this relationship hidden from everyone in the region until they and Pegg were in the middle of nowhere by themselves – I mean, that is both a politically correct and incorrect sandwich gone completely berserk, I’m surprised he didn’t have an offshore dolphin retreat for feminists recovering from troll bashing that doubled as the continent’s first pro bono transgender surgery.

Pegg’s other destinations are Shanghai, where he gets it on with a prostitute who then claims he used her which I still don’t understand, a monastery in an undisclosed location, and …. Los Angeles, that top destination to visit when you are searching your soul for a higher meaning and keeping a journal, as he is, of what makes different people happy. Alas he doesn’t ask any gangbangers, but whilst in ‘Africa’ he does get kidnapped, which at least brought a level of consideration into things, but then he gets out of it via another hopeless fudge.

Although the ending was done quite well for what it is, the fact that the girlfriend he leaves in limbo whilst travelling is both a nice person and very beautiful means there was only ever going to be one outcome to his ill conceived meanderings and one inevitable conclusion to what it means to be happy – sex with Rosamund Pike, and a considerable amount of money that allows you to live in posh splendour in London meaning you never, ever have to think about the hellholes you foolishly decided to travel to and get kidnapped in and where you can quickly turn a blind eye to the problems in the rest of the world as your near death experience has finally convinced your lady to accompany you whilst you engage in your hobby of flying remote controlled planes. Watch ‘Mitty’ instead.

The Unbeatables / Metegol (2013) 53/100

Posted on August 12, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 53/100 97 Min

Animated tale featuring a foosball table whose players all come to life in order to help their owner, Amadeo (Rupert Grint), defeat his town’s returning tyrant who is desperate for vengeance after Amadeo beat him at the table when they were kids, the only time he was ever beaten at anything, and despite becoming a real life international football star he hasn’t been able to come to terms with the humiliation ever since. This is an Argentinian film that has been dubbed in English and bizarrely, the people in charge of doing the English language version have taken the opportunity to play politics by making the winning foosball team English, with a few foreign players, and the side that is always beaten (Amadeo has never lost a game and seems to always play the same side – one could be forgiven for thinking the table was rigged) is entirely comprised of Scotsmen as far as we can tell. The English captain suggests that they have to work as one and are stronger together, which couldn’t be more obviously referencing the upcoming independence referendum next month, and the heavy suggestion that ‘we are better together because you are shite by yourself’ is unlikely to have the desired effect on voters. Why even go there? They could easily have mixed up the nationalities and kept this ‘better together’ theme going, and their direct referencing is surely going to fly over the heads of their young target audience anyway.

It reminds me of a perfectly pleasant and thought provoking debate on the matter I had with a young gentleman from England in the pub the other day, pleasant, that is, until he put his hands on his hips and triumphantly declared ‘And we both know who gets the most money out of the union,’ he smirked, ‘Scotland, haw haw’. Needless to say he wasn’t looking so pleased with himself when I burned him alive and scattered his ashes around Edinburgh Castle. I mean, it’s possible he’s right – but that’s the point, no one really does seem to know for sure.

As a worthy aside since the film attempts to also dis Scotland’s footballing credentials, England’s media love to laboriously mention they won the World Cup in 1966 (although many of you might have picked up on how little they mentioned that fact during this year’s Brazilian tournament – this is a direct result of the looming vote), but they are less inclined to remind people that during the following British Home Championship it was Scotland that was the first to beat that very same team. Nor were they terribly happy when we beat them at the last ever international to be played at the old Wembley Stadium, in fact they were so miffed they fudged in another international to avoid the humiliation (which they also lost anyway, one nil to Germany). Indeed, the Unofficial Football World Cup actually has Scotland sitting at the top of the all time rankings table, and England’s worst home defeat ever was to Scotland, 6 – 1 way back in 1881.

Although it is fair to say Scottish football at this precise moment in time leaves a lot to be desired. Personally, The Red Dragon thinks they should ban foreign players and managers and just focus on the game for the people of the country – levelling the playing field, increasing domestic support and promoting home talent until we have a decent international team again, get rid of the reliance on business and money and focus on the game. They should promote women’s football as much as the men’s too – it’s just as good, in fact they should have a friendly between the two national teams every year.

Anyway, back to the film – you can often tell the quality of the animation you’re dealing with by looking at how well they render the humans, and here that quality is definitely running at a minimum. The foosball players look much better, but backgrounds and secondary characters are predominantly basic and sometimes even garish, although the creative camera flourishes of director Juan José Campanella do occasionally shine through (Campanella directed best foreign film Oscar winner ‘The Secrets in their Eyes’ 09). The story plods on uninterestingly until the finale is set up – an actual football game between the residents of the town against villain Flash (Anthony Head) and his professional teammates. A match which is to decide the fate of the town, and one that is oddly not as one sided as the recent Germany vs Brazil semi-final. Here the film picks up and delivers a rewarding ending, but there’s not much of value in the rest of the movie, and the animated players spend most of the time just trying to find each other before giving a prep talk to Amadeo, ultimately not doing a great deal over the course of the film.

The Nut Job (2014) 63/100

Posted on August 11, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 63/100 85 Min

Not sure if ‘The Nut Job’ is really a suitable title for a kids film, but nonetheless it refers to the antics of various squirrels and woodland creatures living in a park in the middle of fictional Oakton City as they try to secure winter food for themselves by stealing nuts from a nearby shop, the owners of which are themselves using this as a cover whilst they try to dig a tunnel under the bank across the street. The animation is essentially quite good and the voice acting from the likes of Will Arnett, Brendan Fraser, Katherine Heigl and Liam Neeson is fine, with the film playing out rather like an extended version of an episode of ‘Tom and Jerry’ as the story is primarily delivered via an endless series of chase sequences. There is a slightly questionable good guy/bad guy set up as the hero, Surly (Arnett), is mainly concerned with gathering food for himself and ultimately he is vindicated in this (although he of course ends up helping everyone else and realising the errors of his selfish ways), as the powers that be, the evil Raccoon (Neeson) and his ‘angry bird’ clone henchman, turn out to be hoarding food to control the masses rather than to make sure they are all well fed. Should entertain children, but might struggle to ever become a family favourite.

Planes : Fire & Rescue (2014) 70/100

Posted on August 11, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 70/100 83 Min

Following up on the financial, if not critical, success of Planes, the Disney machine have realised they have a new potential franchise on their hands and have put more effort into this one – resulting in a much better story than before, though it’s still released by DisneyToon Studios who are relatively new at producing theatrical films and not straight to DVD sequels. Again aimed at a young family audience, parents might nevertheless find it quite enjoyable, despite being lighter on the occasional subterfuge of adult comedy compared to most of Disney’s output. The graphics are top notch as one would expect, but probably its biggest boon is the introduction of some solid voice acting from the likes of Ed Harris and Wes Studi, and a screenplay that deviates, thankfully, from regurgitating another race related contrivance and instead sees primary hero Dusty Crophopper (Dane Cook) effectively disabled at the beginning, forcing him to consider a change of career.

The somewhat antiquated fire department at his local airport provides him with the inspiration he needs to come to terms with his injury (his gearbox can’t handle really high speeds and conks out) as the popular terminal faces being shut down unless they can upgrade it, and thus he enlists for fire and rescue training (crop dusters were actually some of the first planes modified and used for fire fighting in the 1950s) introducing a raft of new characters, predominantly more interesting ones than in the original, and a new primary location. It’s a polished and morally strong animation for kids, with occasional moments of unexpected class, like the rescue team talking about how thunder and lightning can start forest fires as they are summoned to put one out, and then AC/DC’s ‘Thunderstruck’ playing as we watch them do just that, slightly à la ‘Iron Man 2’ (10) – although Marvel are actually owned by Disney, and indeed what is alluded to right at the end of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy‘ also manages to sneak its way into a scene here ….

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) 70/100

Posted on July 31, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 70/100 121 Min

An odd film, in that the entire first half is completely flat but the second is the polar opposite – ultimately transforming itself into a reasonably soulful and entertaining sci-fi adventure. Certainly, if you’re going to tell a tale of two halves then that is the right order to do it in. Guardians is the latest from Marvel Studios and the first outing on the big screen for some of their lesser known superheroes, namely ‘Star-Lord’ (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), Drax (Dave Bautista) and Root (Vin Diesel), lesser known, perhaps, because their escapades are set in our current time frame but in another galaxy, allowing access to previous story threads in the Marvel film universe involving Thanos and Benicio Del Toro’s ‘The Collector’, both seen in post credit sequences at the end of ‘Avengers Assemble’ (12) and ‘Thor : The Dark World‘ respectively.

Star-Lord (Peter Quill is his somewhat less egotistical name) was abducted from Earth when he was a kid in the eighties, and he still religiously listens to the mixed tape he had with him at the time whilst conducting his present occupation of scavenging rare goods and then flogging them. One day, he is sent to collect an orb which will see a bounty put on his head and Gamora, daughter of Thanos, sent to retrieve the item from him by force, just as bounty hunters Rocket (a raccoon genetically modified to be really sarcastic) and Root (a tree) also come across their prey, all resulting in them being lumped together by the authorities in prison where they can begin to bond with one another and meet the final cog in their increasingly unlikely ass kicking outfit – Drax, who interprets everything literally and is built like the proverbial brick shit house.

This protracted and other worldly backstory is the film’s major setback, and a lot of it fails initially. It’s not really until they form a group and meet The Collector, also linking everything to what fans of the previous films will be familiar with, that it starts to cohere together and become more interesting. Thankfully, this still leaves a lot of time for things to pick up, as the action becomes more lively, the jokes funnier, and the characters more, ahem, root worthy, with a suitably dramatic finale and wonderfully villainous performances from Lee Pace and the demoniacally sultry Karen Gillan (who committed to having all of her hair shaved off for the role).

It’s directed by James Gunn (see the wonderful ‘Super’ 2010), who also co-wrote the screenplay alongside Nicole Perlman and, all in all, it is a worthy addition to the Marvel canon, but for a while it looked like it was heading for disaster. As usual, there are two new post credit scenes, but unusually the last one has a reference that most of the audience didn’t appreciate – it relates to a certain old superhero film that was so badly received it ended the careers of many of the people involved with it, Tim Robbins being one of the few to rise from its ashes (The Red Dragon, incidentally, passed him on the street in Edinburgh a few months ago – he didn’t recognise me), although I kind of remember it as funny, maybe for the wrong reasons, but I would love it if Gunn were to integrate it into the sequel to this, which has already been greenlit by the studios with him to take on the reins once more …

The House of Magic (2013) 65/100

Posted on July 27, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 65/100 85 Min

Animated adventure aimed at younger children and featuring an abandoned ginger cat, later nicknamed ‘Thunder’ for no especially good reason, who ends up taking refuse within a spooky old magician’s house. Once inside, the magician turns out to be able to do real magic, not just conjuring, and has a small devoted retinue of animated trinkets dotted around the house, all de facto led by the performing mouse and rabbit who do not take kindly to the arrival of the newest member of their troupe, the former primarily concerned she is about to become a tasty snack at any moment. Thunder is put upon to prove his worth to the rest of them and try to find a place for himself within this new family, and although it would have been most amusing if he had achieved this and then turned around and ate the mouse anyway, before turning his attentions toward the rabbit, this is not the direction the film goes in.

The primary villain is the magician’s nephew – who once loved magic but has since become a real estate agent and is now only interested in money, tsk tsk, eyeing up the old manor with dollar signs in his eyes. The animation is a little basic and rudimentary, but it is quite likeable, and similarly the automatons in the house initially seem garish and liable to scare little ones but they are quickly humanised and presented as friendly creatures, greatly ameliorating their image. Not a huge deal of magic is performed as the owner of the house ends up spending most of the film in the hospital, leaving the other occupants to fend off the nephew, and although there is nothing in here for adult viewers it should prove to be a pretty decent film for the intended audience. A conspicuously large number of famous names provide small voiceover parts – including Emily Blunt, Ewan McGregor, Kiefer Sutherland, Ron Perlman and William Shatner.

The Rundown / Welcome to the Jungle (2003) 67/100

Posted on July 26, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 67/100 104 Min

A surprisingly fun action film with equally surprising audacity when it comes to the set pieces. Dwayne Johnson (or, ‘The Rock’ as he was billed as back then, before a transitory period of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, and now just Dwayne Johnson) stars as a debt collector for a local personage who you do not want to get involved with, but he wants to get out of the racket. No problem, but he has to do one last job – go get his employer’s son, currently faffing around in the Amazon jungle (played by Seann William Scott) and drag him back home. Upon arrival he’ll meet the local hottie (Rosario Dawson), the gringo exploiting the land and its people (Christopher Walken) and realise that the son in question is actually looking for a rare, and thought to be lost forever, treasure, whereupon things get more complicated.

The fight scenes are good fun to watch, as pretty much everyone wants a piece of Johnson but he stoically refuses to use any firearms, instead relying on being awesome together with a little bit of wire fu. Some parts are just plain silly, and the editing is often borderline woeful – especially in the opening fight (which is immediately preceded by a cameo from Schwarzenegger just before he entered the world of politics, in an almost ‘passing of the baton’ moment with his real life friend Johnson) situated in a nightclub which has the worst excessive use of strobe lighting I’ve seen … well, ever I think, but armed with low expectations this can still be a little known, entertaining action frolic in the Brazilian rainforest.

Hercules (2014) 68/100

Posted on July 25, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 68/100 98 Min

Dwayne Johnson stars as the titular hero of Greek mythology (it should be entitled Heracles though, Hercules being the romanised version of the demigod) and he was pretty much the perfect choice for the role. He’s come a long way since the days of ‘The Scorpion King’ (02), delivering a slew of entertaining performances to become a dependable leading man and command one of the highest fees in Hollywood (Forbes currently places him in second place overall) and here his onscreen presence serves the character perfectly, as he stands on two tree trunk legs, each wider than the nearest warrior behind him, wielding his giant olive-wood club and adorned with the skin of the Nemean lion.

Rather than following in the footsteps of the likes of ‘Clash of the Titans’ (10) and ‘Immortals’ (11), this is more concerned with Hercules the man and how the myth is wrapped around him, and it is essentially a battle film with pretty decent set pieces and costumes – there’s nothing outstanding or brilliant about the movie but it is pretty good overall, notwithstanding the cheesy dialogue and historical inaccuracies (Athens is shown to have a king, for example, when at this time, circa 350 BC {which is actually way too late for Heracles’ era anyway}, her democracy was flourishing and kings had been done away with, and indeed they are using the misplaced king, Eurystheus, of variously Argos or Tiryns depending on which source you read) that we expect to find anyway. It’s based on a graphic novel and it has that kind of feel to it – similar as well to ‘King Arthur’ (04) in that we follow Hercules and his friends as they are hired to help defend the kingdom of Thrace from an usurper (Hercules is a mercenary, one tormented by a brutal personal event in his recent past), and we don’t get to know them in any great depth – but well enough to like them and care if they get cut to pieces or not.

There’s a host of good supporting actors – some of them regulars of the genre such as Rufus Sewell, John Hurt and Ian McShane, but also Peter Mullan, Aksel Hennie, Reece Ritchie, Joseph Fiennes and Ingrid Bolsø Berdal – playing the Amazonian Atalanta and looking very much like a young and super fit Nicole Kidman. It’s good fun with some nice locations and sets and it’s a lot better than the likes of the Conan reboot and the aforementioned ‘Immortals’ (truly, an episode of ‘Total Spies’ is more worthwhile than that film), and although it is lacking any kind of spark to really ignite it, enough has been done to merit a sequel and it probably won’t disappoint if you’re in the mood for a weekend action film.

Oddly, Johnson’s real life buddy Arnold Schwarzenegger had his first movie role playing the same part in ‘Hercules in New York’ back in 1969 (one of Schwarzenegger’s inspirations, Steve Reeves, also played the Grecian hero on two occasions). The two friends managed to share a brief onscreen moment together in ‘The Rundown‘ 03, which is also worth a watch incidentally.

Earth to Echo (2014) 57/100

Posted on July 25, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 57/100 91 Min

The handheld genre finds its way into the family film market here, with very similar results to previous experiments with it: contrivances to always have multiple cameras on the go (bizarrely including a hidden camera in one of the kid’s specs, which seems like a particularly nifty bit of kit for them to have access to) and fairly irritating central performances as they constantly try to sound excited, telling us we should be too. The plot has us following three young boys (played by Teo Halm, Reese Hartwig and X-Factor contestant Brian ‘Astro’ Bradley) around on their bikes as they trace a mysterious map that has appeared on their phones – a map which leads to the discovery of a small alien, Echo, that they will try to help collect the fragmented bits of his spacecraft so he (or she I suppose, its sexual organs are not noticeably examined) can go home before some evil ADULTS find it, play football with it and dismember it.

Echo has no real personality, it essentially looks really cute and can beep once for yes and twice for no, and that’s it, so the focus is on the adventure of the kids with at least an attempt to explore the strength of the bond between them, but mainly just watching them track down things and trying to avoid capture, with the very typical fantasy of the hot uptight girl from school (Ella Wahlestedt) somehow getting involved and coming along with them . For kids around the age of the main characters (fourteen?) it might be quite good, but for anyone else it’s a far cry from E.T. (82). One of them learns to drive a car in, literally, ten seconds. That’s the sort of level of production and believability you’re looking at here.

Transformers : Age of Extinction (2014) 56/100

Posted on July 20, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 56/100 165 Min

Aaargh, what a disappointment. Perhaps it was foolish to get my hopes up for the fourth instalment in the Transformers franchise (after ‘Transformers’ 07, ‘Transformers : Revenge of the Fallen’ 09 and Transformers : Dark of the Moon’ 11) but having grown up with them, and as a fan of the new series so far, it was kind of difficult not to. Essentially, all of the things that were wrong with the previous films have been taken to excess here, with worthy moments to counterbalance this few and far between.

The story takes place several years after the battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons which annihilated parts of Chicago (which has, incidentally, recently won a competition to be the venue of a large new movie museum. I’m sure it’s because of Transformers), a direct result of which sees the US Administration trying to handle their own security affairs with the Autobots effectively made into outcasts, whilst a covert CIA military outfit is secretly hunting them down for their own nefarious purposes. Shia LaBeouf, his family and various girlfriends are nowhere to be found and the central human characters are this time fleshed out by Mark Wahlberg, playing a hard up mechanic tinkering with old junk in his idyllic garage that always has the sun setting or rising outside whenever he’s working in it (no surprises what he’ll come across one day), Nicola Peltz, his overly hot jail bait daughter, and Jack Reynor, her fake Irish boyfriend.

The dynamic between the humans really couldn’t be more contrived and it’s hard to imagine it won’t grate on all but the youngest of audiences, but the film really starts to fall apart when Optimus Prime learns something which sends him into A COMPLETE FROTHING RAGE and he winds up to go on the warpath, which certainly had me thinking ‘AWESOME!’ but then they deflate this build up far, far too quickly, and right before the audience knows they would have discovered something critical. From then on, it just becomes an endless series of pointless explosions with terrible dialogue before the Dinobots are eventually introduced and Prime rides one like a donkey, but really they do so little they could have been any bit of new, slightly more powerful tech for all the difference it would have made.

The film has the feeling of director Michael Bay having been too influenced by his critics. Gone, for example, are the overt shots of his lead actress poised on a bike for no reason as if willing all spectators to jointly penetrate her in her every orifice, instead we have brief takes of flesh here and there, one second shots from between the daughter’s legs …

… for example, but Bay has to either go for it or not bother – half measures don’t come off well at all, and the whole film feels like he’s almost making the movie he wants to, but with too many concessions. There are still, however, some really nice moments – such as one character memorably getting their brutal just deserts, scientists playing with a My Little Pony and a few decent set pieces. Unfortunately, however, below standard special effects here and there and more silly moments (the creation of the chemical element ‘Transformium’, for example, is unlikely to give chemists much inspiration for future nomenclature) continue to ruin the whole, and its length leaves it as one extended headache more than anything else. The early teenage bracket are probably the most likely to get something out of it. Also starring Sophia Myles, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, T.J. Miller and Bingbing Li.

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