Tag Archives: Movies

The Raid 2  (2014)    47/100

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Rating :   47/100                                                                     150 Min        18

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

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

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

The Amazing Spider-Man 2  (2014)    67/100

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Rating :   67/100                                                                     142 Min        12A

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 … ?

The Love Punch  (2013)    30/100

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Rating :   30/100                                                                       94 Min        12A

The title encapsulates the only striking or interesting thing about this film, in fact the whole thing plays out like a long winded joke with no punch line, told by a friend that you only listen to until the end out of politeness. It’s a comedy crime caper that sees a separated couple, played by Pierce Brosnan and Emma Thompson, forced to join forces again to try and recapture their financial loses after Brosnan’s company is bought over and then immediately liquidated, annihilating the family savings. This leads them on a jaunt to Paris and a life of crime as they opt to try and steal the money back any way they can, helped out by their mutual friends, played by Timothy Spall and Celia Imrie. Will the ex-lovers also manage to recapture their passions of yester-year?

Indeed.

Calvary  (2014)    72/100

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Rating :   72/100                                                                     100 Min        15

Another film featuring Brendan Gleeson and a healthy dose of Irish black humour (see ‘In Bruges’ 08 and ‘The Guard’ 11 for good examples of more) and once again featuring topical satire at the expense of the Catholic church, here courtesy of Gleeson’s central character, father James Lavelle, who is told during the film’s introduction he will be killed in a week’s time by a victim of child abuse at the hands of a different Catholic priest in years gone by. The setting is a small Irish town in County Sligo (Easkey was the main filming location) so Lavelle knows who his would be assassin is, but we the viewers do not. This mixture of dark comedy, serious issues and not quite whodunit but who is going to do it, creates a unique film with another predictably great leading performance from Gleeson, but also very solid support from the likes of Dylan Moran, Chris O’Dowd, Kelly Reilly Isaach De Bankolé and David Wilmot. The title is taken from the name of the site just outside of Jerusalem where the Bible tells us Jesus was crucified, and it’s written and directed by John Michael McDonagh who’s last project was the aforementioned ‘The Guard’ – here he has maintained the same level of humour as before, but injected it with a memorably dark and astute portmanteau of the often scandalous situation the Catholic church finds itself in worldwide, combined with ever relevant questions, and tests, of faith.

The Last Days on Mars  (2013)    56/100

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Rating :   56/100                                                                       98 Min        15

A zombie film set on Mars, not unusual in terms of the genre but slightly so in terms of its general release at the cinema and not straight to DVD.  Mankind has recently established a base on the red planet and the present crew are due to be shipped back to Earth for the next staff rotation when one of them happens upon sings of microbiological life. This life form, as one would expect, starts to turn the humans into flesh eating zombies that are impervious to the atmospheric conditions of Mars and the laws of science and nature in general. You can tell who is going to meet their undeath first based on their acting calibre. It’s not all that bad, is just isn’t interesting, original or tense enough to be particularly worthwhile, nor is it sadly bad enough to be especially good fun. Watch ‘Mission to Mars’ (2000) instead, which was also ropey in places but was great to watch, or the Mars episode of Doctor Who with the aliens in the water which was also good apart from the completely nonsensical ending. With Liev Schreiber, Olivia Williams, Elias Koteas, Romola Garai and Johnny Harris.

Noah  (2014)    73/100

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Rating :   73/100                                                                     138 Min        12A

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.

Divergent  (2014)    67/100

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Rating :   67/100                                                                     139 Min        12A

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.

The Quiet Ones  (2014)    ?/100

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Rating :   ?/100                                                                         98 Min        15

I had an unusual experience watching this one – I actually felt it was so completely without worth that, upon seeing the gentleman in front of me get up and leave half way through, I thought actually that’s a pretty good idea.

This is the latest example of what I term the ‘Battery’ genre, see Devil’s Due, and here the story is completely pathetic, a young girl is effectively kept as a prisoner in a house in Cambridge/Oxford (I don’t remember which, it’s quite irrelevant) whilst a group of scientists attempt to ‘cure’ her psychosis and film the procedure even though it is completely obvious to us that there is a ghost haunting/possessing her, one of the quiet ones presumably. So we have lots of blah blah blah not at all interesting plot with zero acting BANG blah blah blah BANG blah blah blah BANG! And so this pattern repeats itself constantly. The thing is, these jump moments are not suspenseful or a shock, or a surprise – we know where they are coming with certainty, and yet we still jump at them, not because they are scary but because the decibel level is so high that it’s a physical thing, bordering on the painful.

I don’t see why anyone would want to pay money to be subjected to visual and sensorial abuse, and circa forty five to fifty minutes worth was all I was willing to put up with.

The Double  (2013)    65/100

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Rating :   65/100                                                                       93 Min        15

The second film written and directed by Richard Ayoade (probably best known for playing Moss in ‘The IT Crowd’) and starring Jesse Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowska in the central roles with many of the cast from his previous film, the wonderful ‘Submarine’ (10), appearing in support. The story is an adaptation of the novella of the same name by Dostoyevsky, first published in 1846, concerning the appearance one day of a man’s exact physical double, here at his place of work, who embodies everything he isn’t – the double is confident, the double is admired, the double is brassy to the point of being criminally indulgent and offensive but people love him for it, and so on.

It’s great to see a new filmmaker experimenting with their own ideas, as is the case here, with plenty of room for personal interpretation opening open as we see the double zero in on the original character’s love interest. Is this imposter what he would become if he were to drastically change his personality to become more of a traditional alpha male? Would such an attempted change result in an almost schizophrenic interim period, or perhaps even a corruptive downward spiral?

Shot within a fairly constrictive local environment of workplace/tower block/diner and with consistent dark hues of yellow and green, the piece has the vibrant ambivalence of feeling both clinical and accessible – largely sold to us by terrific acting from Eisenberg himself, no mean feat when we consider to pull it off he had to do each take twice and continually match the timing with his invisible counterpart to perfection.

Unfortunately, experimenting too wildly can easily go awry, and here Ayoade has admitted that he struggled the most with the ending, which alas comes across onscreen as something which had up until then been interesting and thought provoking descends into a series of fairly nonsensical events and it ends up just being too whimsical and loose. Asides from the final furlong, it shows a lot of promise for the fledgling writer/director though, and it should still prove fairly interesting if you’re looking for something a little bit different.

Muppets Most Wanted  (2014)    66/100

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Rating :   66/100                                                                     107 Min        U

The sequel to 2011’s ‘The Muppets’ and the 8th theatrical release to feature Jim Henson’s hand puppet creations (the other six for the trivia minded among you are ‘The Muppet Movie’ 79, ‘The Great Muppet Caper’ 81, ‘The Muppets Take Manhattan’ 84, ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol’ 92, ‘Muppet Treasure Island’ 96 and ‘Muppets From Space’ 99, as well as a number of TV and direct to DVD releases) follows directly on from the previous story, here with the Muppets touring show being used as a vehicle for several high profile robberies after Kermit the frog is replaced by CONSTANTINE, a Russian criminal master mind who happens to look almost identical to poor Kermit, who is ousted from his position at Muppet mission control and forced into the Gulag under the supervision of Tina Fey, who is admittedly sporting quite a sexy Russian accent.

As before, the film is directed by James Bobin and jointly penned by him and Nicholas Stoller, and it once again features a raft of cameo roles from well known actors – some of which are amusing, Ray Liotta and Danny Trejo as singing prisoners in the Gulag for example, and some of which are so brief there was precious little point to them (though this is in keeping with the show). Overall, there is a little less singing and dancing than last time around, but the same feeling of a show on display and its family friendly orientation is very much at the forefront here again, it’s just a little too safe and a little too bland, with large sections that don’t deliver much, such as the two detectives, one Muppet and one human, following the trail of thefts which just drags on. Constantine is probably the film’s strongest element, an amusing character with an accent that is a lot of fun to try and mimic, but he’s not used to full potential and he’s paired up with Ricky Gervais who seems to almost be trying to atone for previous sins, as if he’s been cuckolded by Tina Fey’s superior run at the Golden Globes and feels the need to be the but of a few sparse jokes rather than attempt to really make any.

Essentially the film is pleasant, but completely lacking any sting. ‘Muppets Tonight’ had the capacity to absolutely hit the nail on the head from time to time – I remember sitting in a friend’s living room with his entire family, none of whom I had ever met before, whilst he finished off masturbating or whatever he was doing, and everyone was watching the show in silence when the Baywatch sketch came on, featuring two fairly hopeless pigs as lifeguards who discover a mysterious object lying on the beach and decide to play volleyball with it, thoroughly enjoying themselves, unfortunately this object is very obviously shown to be a land mine which promptly blows up and kills everyone on the beach. This had me in stitches laughing. None of the others in the room, however, found it amusing which, heightened by the awkwardness of meeting someone’s family for the first time, made it EVEN FUNNIER. Shortly after I calmed down and they started desperately talking about something that was so completely unrelated that I couldn’t help but burst out laughing again, in fact, I think I was actually crying it was so funny whilst they all ignored me as the growing gibbering elephant in the corner of the room until my friend arrived to rescue me. I mean, that’s funny right?   {This also reminds me of the time another friend told me he was so obsessed with a mortal female that he’d started to see her everywhere, including presenting the weather on TV and reading the news. I laughed at him FOR FOUR HOURS}

Neither of these two recent films feature any kind of real hilarity, and the Muppets need that, they need the sort of devilish risqué humour that works so well because they are puppets and are ostensibly aimed at a younger audience. Hopefully the next one will focus more on comedy than fluff and padding – we want brazenly impish revelry, not plodding run of the mill storytelling.