Absolutely Anything (2015) 25/100

Posted on September 20, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 25/100 85 Min

Simon Pegg is granted the power to do absolutely anything by a bunch of aliens and then proceeds to do absolutely nothing with it of any interest whatsoever. What. A. Surprise. This is the latest in a lengthy list of Simon Pegg led films that have no real point to them – soft comedies that feel sanitised and apologetic from the offset, much like the characters he relentlessly plays, and where the laughs effectively have someone standing there with a sign saying ‘This is funny. You can laugh now’, and are greeted with silence.

Naturally, the core concept is Pegg’s character is a dork who can’t get the woman he likes (Kate Beckinsale), or rather he thinks he can’t and that by ultimately doing the right thing everyone will live happily ever after. Watching this it’s impossible not to feel ashamed at the amount of money that must have been spent on gags which are beyond terrible, with acting that’s just a complete waste of biomatter. Speaking of which, things we see the superpowers used for range from some dog excrement being told to clean-up after itself, and then it promptly forms into a pair of legs and marches into the bin, lovely, to helping out his mate by having the girl he is infatuated with fall head-over-heels for him, which sees him run off immediately in the opposite direction. LAME. I mean, come on – you wouldn’t get tired of that scenario for a pretty, long, time.

Sad beyond sad is that the aliens in question, who are testing mortals to see if the Earth should be annihilated or not, are actually played by the entirety of the extant members of Monty Python (Terry Jones directs the film, and co-wrote it along with non-Python Gavin Scott), and when the protagonist’s dog is made to speak he is voiced by none other than Robin Williams in his last ever acting role, but their combined talents are drowned by the indulgent drudgery running rampant onscreen. Pegg recently had the audacity to launch a public tirade against the ‘dumbing-down’ of the movie industry and more specifically the success of superhero films, movies beloved by millions, but then I suppose he is an actor/screenwriter who has been mired in gritty, surrealist/realist exposés of the human condition and has struggled for recognition and to have his work shown in more than a few thea… Oh no, wait a minute, he’s made millions effectively becoming the live-action equivalent of Jar Jar Binks and continues to headline vacuous, inert, twaddle. Hmm.

Trainwreck (2015) 63/100

Posted on September 19, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 63/100 125 Min

Judd Apatow’s latest effort behind the camera, after ‘This is 40‘, is based on a screenplay from comedian Amy Schumer and indeed stars Schumer as the eponymous trainwreck – Amy (Schumer has acknowledged autobiographical input), a young girl working as a journalist in NYC and happy to have numerous casual love affairs whilst most of the people around her have things more ‘nailed down’, so to speak. Really, though, none of this makes her different from huge swathes of the populace, thus the film’s hoped for appeal, and so it hardly seems justified to refer to herself as a trainwreck, and indeed a number of her co-workers at the magazine’s HQ would probably do the title much more justice.

Schumer’s work is strongly reminiscent of Greta Gerwig’s, as in the likes of ‘Frances Ha‘ for example, and indeed there are nods to Woody Allen here and there as we watch Amy try to start something meaningful with sports injury doctor Aaron (Bill Hader), whom she is sent to interview one serendipitous day despite her protestations (she hates sport). In this sense the film ends up becoming a very traditional romantic comedy, and its long running time does leave you with the sense a lot of the slightly self-indulgent and predictable dramatic meanderings in the second half could easily have been removed – although much of the comedy that remains is quite fun, making Schumer one to watch for the future. With strong support from Tilda Swinton, John Cena and NBA star LeBron James.

Pixels (2015) 53/100

Posted on September 18, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 53/100 106 Min

Opportunity squandered. Adam Sandler’s latest comedy sees an alien race test the human species to deadly combat via an invasion of 80’s arcade games come to life on a large scale (Pac-Man flits about eating cars for example), leaving Sam Brenner (Sandler) as humanity’s best hope for survival and conveniently giving justification and meaning to his and some of his friends’ lives (although to be fair, one of them has also become President of the United States) wherein much time was previously wasted/invested playing classic arcade games.

The film has very obviously taken huge inspiration from the wonderful documentary ‘The King of Kong’ (07), which charted the rivalry between two contending Donkey Kong champions (although there is suggestion it may have sacrificed facts for drama in the process which would be a shame if true). Here, the characters are all pretty lame and the actors: Sandler, Kevin James, Josh Gad, Peter Dinklage, invest in them with varying degrees of success but none succeed in creating anything with enough screen presence or workable comedy to be worthwhile. Indeed, Michelle Monaghan is arguably the most successful with her fairly run-of-the-mill romantic interest for Brenner, but the film’s largest drawback is that, despite convincing effects, they have managed to make the concept unbelievably dull and tedious. It perhaps wasn’t all that great for comedy to begin with, but coupled with plodding and ungrounded character and environmental interplay it just grinds ever downward into predictable and irredeemable pointlessness.

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

Posted on September 17, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 55/100 116 Min

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.

Inside Out (2015) 62/100

Posted on August 23, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 62/100 94 Min

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.

Hot Pursuit (2015) 70/100

Posted on August 20, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 70/100 87 Min

Perhaps alarmingly, I quite enjoyed this. It’s a buddy film with two female leads in place of the usual male ones – indeed, most of the chatter surrounding its release has revolved around this element combined with its being helmed by a female director: Anne Fletcher (‘Step Up’ 06, ‘The Proposal’ 09). This combination of the sexes, earth shattering as it is, has seen several criticisms lain at some of the jokes, but in each instance there often equally appears to be a unique omittance that the screenplay was written by two men – David Feeney and John Quaintance. These socio-political elements aside, the story follows Reese Witherspoon’s extremely-by-the-book cop Cooper as she attempts to both protect Sofia Vergara’s Riva and to also make sure she testifies against a criminal heavyweight, as without her testimony the case is set to collapse.

The first third or so will probably make you want to kill yourself, but eventually the corny story is buried in the infectious fun the two leads are clearly having together and their chemistry alone gives the fairly run-of-the-mill comedy the lift it needed to actually generate some laughs. Indeed, I found myself sniggering away several moments after some of the jokes had been delivered, and any film that can do that and then finally send me away from the cinema in a good mood deserves some credit. Flawed to be sure, and by the end it has begun to peter out a little again, but very likeable and some lovely stealth laughs in there for those not too proud to admit it.

The Legend of Barney Thomson (2015) 55/100

Posted on August 20, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 55/100 96 Min

A reasonably solid first attempt behind the camera (notwithstanding an episode of Stargate) for Robert Carlyle, but sadly one let down by a common fault within the black comedy genre – over reliance on a concept to be continually be amusing in its own right; much like filming squirrels going rogue and deciding to collect human nuts for the winter could be quite funny, but it may also become incredibly tedious watching the little critters continuously emasculate runners in the park (actually, I think this concept would work no matter how it was done). Here, Carlyle plays nondescript local Glasgow barber Barney Thomson (he only knows two different styles of cut, although this is already one more than most of the barbers in Scotland) who accrues a habit of accidentally killing people who would otherwise have been in a position to cause him significant hardship. Alas, he spends most of the film whining and stressing about it and we simply don’t care – it’s not a terribly amusing concept to begin with, better if he laughed manically every time it happened and then started to create scenarios that induced a high likelihood someone he doesn’t like might ‘accidentally’ bite it.

The film is based on the novel ‘The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson’ by Douglas Lindsay and there are a number of nice comedy moments but unfortunately the majority were spoiled for us by the trailer, and whilst Emma Thompson as Barny’s mum and both Ray Winstone and Ashley Jensen as the cops investigating the murders all give really strong performances, everything just becomes increasingly humdrum as the film progresses, the story continually bogged down by the protagonist’s lugubrious outlook and demeanour turning everything as stale and depressing as indeed the choice of cinematography, with its hazzy late-fifties vibe, had always been suggesting we could expect throughout. With Tom Courtenay, James Cosmo and Martin Compston in support.

Ted 2 (2015) 49/100

Posted on July 11, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 49/100 115 Min

Underwhelmed by the first Ted? Then you’ll despise this, writer/director/actor Seth MacFarlane’s sequel to his 2012 hit comedy featuring the talking and foul mouthed Boston teddy bear. Ted (MacFarlane) ties the knot with Tami-Lynn but finds marital bliss takes a little work – though he is faring miles better than his buddy John (Mark Wahlberg) who is now divorced from his beau last time round (Mila Kunis probably realising the script for this one was awful) and is now spending most of his time watching porn and smoking weed. Indeed, an inordinately large amount of the focus of the movie is on weed, so much so that it goes past the sake of comedy or character traits or story and enters the egotistical realm of a filmmaker glorifying the thing in an effort to appear hip but limiting the film’s appeal in the process. Some of the jokes are funny but the majority are too gratingly infantile and many were spoiled by the trailer, although the movie’s cardinal sin is that an enormous chunk of it is taken up with Ted fighting a legal case to try and set precedent for his human rights in law despite being non-human. It’s really, really tedious (ahem), and not in the least bit funny, nor does it function effectively as allegory so the majority of the film is simply time wasted even if you love MacFarlane’s comedy. With Amanda Seyfried as John’s obligatory new love interest.

Magic Mike XXL (2015) 75/100

Posted on July 3, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 75/100 115 Min

I did have concerns about this when the film started and I realised I was the only male in the audience (the story focusing on the world of erotic male dancers as it does) – the original ‘Magic Mike’ (2012) was directed by Steven Soderbergh and I remember it as one of his typically intimate films rather than something that could have easily degenerated into flashy nonsense. Soderbergh did at least stay on to produce the sequel and although Matthew McConaughey is absent this time around, leading man Channing Tatum (whose autobiographical tale the first film was, having been a stripper in real life before beginning his film career) returns to reprise the titular role, along with his crew Tarzan (Kevin Nash), Big Dick Richie (Joe Manganiello), Tito (Adam Rodriguez), Ken (Matt Bomer) and Tobias (Gabriel Iglesias), and director Gregory Jacobs manages to keep the film very true to the feel of the original, albeit with a screenplay less drama heavy than before (Jacobs’ long standing experience as Soderbergh’s assistant director, including on ‘Magic Mike’, no doubt has a lot to do with this).

Mike is lured back to the adrenaline fuelled world of stripping off in front of hordes of flustered, aroused women (there were reputedly close to a thousand female extras used for the final scenes) for wads of cash and assumed fringe benefits (to be fair, he didn’t require much persuasion), tempted away from his carpentry business for one last trip with the Kings of Tampa to compete at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. It sounds like another ‘Step Up’ film but the narrative is well balanced between really well choreographed and superbly delivered dance sequences, on and off stage, and believable scenes of camaraderie with moments of reflection as they all take stock of where their lives are heading. A solid amount of comedy, great performances and some fantastic individual scenes easily make this the match of its predecessor – be prepared for a lot of dancing led from the hips and not always aimed there shall we say. With support from Amber Heard, Jada Pinkett Smith, Andie MacDowell, Elizabeth Banks and Donald Glover. The current ratings discrepancy on the IMDB between the genders is also quite amusing, seems you mortals are easily intimidated by size …

Minions (2015) 33/100

Posted on June 27, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 33/100 91 Min

Early marketing for this looked promising, with one ad for broadband showing the Minions eagerly awaiting a picture to download in the early days of the internet, three of them salivating in anticipation, and it’s a picture of a banana – hopes were raised for some level of adult humour and engagement. Alas, no such luck. This is the spin-off film from the ‘Despicable Me’ (2010) franchise featuring the eponymous Minions who were a big hit in the original films whilst they served their evil master with a soft side Gru. Here we see a brief origin story that leads to America and then England in the 1960s where the wide eyed yellow wannabe Igors are in search of someone suitably despotic to follow, and they decide upon Scarlett Overkill (Sandra Bullock) who is determined to steal the Queen’s crown jewels (her monarchic crown jewels).

She is erroneously referred to as the Queen of England – she is the Queen of the United Kingdom, there hasn’t been a king or queen of England in the sense the film means for many centuries, and indeed the numerous vaguely offensive stereotypes of Englishness which permeate the film may have been responsible for a BBC journalist’s pretty horrid interview with Ms Bullock at the premiere in London – from memory (it’s mysteriously absent from the BBC’s website) it began ‘As an older woman in Hollywood …’ imagine saying that to anyone, never mind Sandra Bullock (who can still easily pass for someone in her thirties) on live TV at the premiere of her new film, I was originally outraged but after seeing the film, not so much. Similarly, Napoleon is presented as an evil overlord at one point – why? For proliferating the metric system?

For adult audiences there really is nothing here worth watching at all, no matter how much you may have liked the characters from the other films. Its much younger target demographic will hopefully get more out of it, but there are still some garish bad guys in there (an evil clown on a unicycle at one point for example) and there were a mere couple of titters throughout from the family dominated audience at the screening I was in. Pretty disappointing all in all, with voice support from Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Allison Janney, Steve Coogan, Jennifer Saunders and Geoffrey Rush.

The Red Dragon

Movie Reviews

Tag Archives: Comedies