Inherent Vice (2014) 60/100

Posted on February 22, 2015 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 60/100 148 Min

Paul Thomas Anderson (‘The Master’ 12, ‘There Will Be Blood’ 07, ‘Boogie Nights’ 97) directs and adapts for the big-screen Thomas Pynchon’s 2009 novel of the same name, about dope addled private investigator Larry ‘Doc’ Sportello in 1970’s Los Angeles who is sent on an abduction case, against the backdrop of a cultural kickback taking aim at the ‘free love’ of the hippy generation. The novel is comedic as well as serious and Anderson’s writing sometimes hits the mark with the comedy but it fails on every other point, neither giving us a realistic or engaging sense of the issues of the day nor making the noir style detective story comprehensible or engaging. Even the actors, Benicio Del Toro especially at one point, look irked by the lack of structure around them and if you are looking for an involving story then you can absolutely forget this.

The director’s skill behind the camera, however, has allowed to him to create a very unique quasi-surrealism, in fact just watching it makes you feel as if you are on drugs which is a singularly impressive feat, if at times an uneasy one. Similarly, sex appeal is littered around the movie but when, at one moment in particular, there is a deliberate attempt to be erotic it falls pretty short of it. Joaquin Phoenix is brilliant as Sportello and he is accompanied by Josh Brolin, Katherine Waterston, Owen Wilson, Hong Chau, Martin Short, Reese Witherspoon and Joanna Newsom who narrates the story but unfortunately the style of narration adds to the underlying soporific nature of the film and is a major hindrance. Anderson has successfully recreated the same feeling that must have inspired him to adapt the novel in the first place, but failure to properly fire the comedy more often and the complete absence of a decipherable plot leaves the film’s appeal unnecessarily limited.

Horns (2013) 46/100

Posted on December 27, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 46/100 120 Mins

So turgid with its own premise it misses the point spectacularly, with even the actors looking bored come the finale. It’s adapted from the 2010 novel of the same name by Joe Hill (son of Stephen King) and stars Daniel Radcliffe as the hopeless sod who is accused of murdering his girlfriend and is so enraged by this that he sprouts horns from his temples and with them gains the innate, and completely without off switch, ability to bring out the worst in people, inducing them to not only speak the truth but also to give in to whatever base and carnal whim happens to be floating around their subconscious at the time. This aspect sounds quite promising, unfortunately the film only plays with it about circa fifteen percent of the time – the rest is spent watching Radcliffe moan endlessly about his horns instead of using them to have fun, and us the audience being forced to endure a constant traipse through the dullest murder mystery ever when it is painfully obvious who committed the crime in the first place, and we don’t really give a monkey’s about it in the second. Culminating in wasted special effects and dull acting in what is altogether a pathetically watered down version of what could have been. Also with Juno Temple, Max Minghella, Joe Anderson and David Morse.

The Maze Runner (2014) 65/100

Posted on December 17, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 65/100 113 Min

Ah mazes! Who doesn’t like a good Labyrinth to get stuck into every now and then – speaking of which, why aren’t there more of them around? The Red Dragon has planned for the future his wedding celebration wherein the unsuspecting and specially chosen guests will find themselves propelled from their seats into a maze from which there is no escape unless they can solve the various riddles and defeat the multitudinous oozing monsters they will encounter, whilst I and my pristine yet equally black hearted bride will watch from a hilltop and record events for posterity. Something which isn’t all that different from the premise of this film, which sees a host of youngsters shoved into the heart of an enormous maze over the period of some years, each with no memory of their lives before this ingress and equally with no apparent way to get out. Their section is fairly large with fertile land to farm, but it is surrounded by enormous walls and outwith the sanctuary they find themselves in the maze harbours dangers which routinely claim the lives of the brave and intrepid amongst them who attempt to find an exit.

It’s based on the 2009 young adult novel by James Dashner, and there is an interesting difference between this and the likes of ‘The Hunger Games’ and ‘Divergent‘ in that with those two franchises, at least early on, the larger universe is glossed over – The Hunger Games the novel is very weak on explaining in a believable way how North America is now reduced to thirteen disparate districts controlled by a remote hub, for example, and so the film more or less just dispenses with addressing the issue, much as how in Divergent we know nothing about what lies beyond the city borders and yet it seems all but impossible that the residents wouldn’t know themselves. Here there is an attempt to explain the scenario within a larger context, and it’s this revelation that undermines much of the rest of the film as it just seems daft to say the least.

Nor does it seem likely that one of the sprightly young things couldn’t find a way to climb the maze walls, especially since some of them are draped in foliage, and to make matters worse the moment when the hero (played by Dylan O’Brien) really establishes himself is just really flimsy – in terms of the story it works, the sequence of action shots showing it doesn’t though. Despite these faults it’s still reasonably entertaining and has some good visual work to enjoy, as well as some ‘Lord of the Flies’ moments that you’ll never see coming (sarcasm). With Will Poulter and Kaya Scoledario in support along with Particia Clarkson in an identical role to Kate Winslet in Divergent and Meryl Streep in ‘The Giver‘. Look out for legendary effects creator Stan Winston’s name etched into one of the walls too (noted for his work on the Terminator, Jurassic Park and Predator franchises as well as ‘The Thing’ 82, ‘Aliens’ 86, … ).

Gone Girl (2014) 70/100

Posted on December 17, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 70/100 149 Min

David Fincher teams up with screenwriter and author Gillian Flynn as she adapts her own smash hit novel of 2012 for the big-screen, with Ben Affleck in the main role of a husband who’s wife has disappeared, the titular gone girl, but we don’t know if she has been abducted, murdered by intruders, or if her husband cut her into bits with a potato peeler for turning off his Playstation and then fed her to the squirrels in the back garden. We do know there was a violent scene with some blood for the detectives to find in the couple’s home …

As we might expect from Fincher, this is a long and drawn out mystery which serves it well – and it is equally well suited to Affleck’s acting style as you genuinely can’t tell if he’s lying or not (make of that what you will) as we are pulled this way and that along with the other spectators in the escalating media frenzy surrounding the case. It holds attention from start to finish and develops at a rewarding pace, but Fincher has missed a bit of a golden opportunity – he is so used to the sort of narrative maze that he has been crafting in films for years that he over indulges in it to an extent, so when some very, very interesting human relations are brought to the fore they aren’t given the time and treatment they are deserving of. Shame it didn’t dare to tread a lot more heavily on the dark earth it treads, but well crafted and executed all the same.

A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014) 66/100

Posted on November 25, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 66/100 114 Min

Gestating for many years, Lawrence Block’s 1992 novel finally reaches the big screen with Liam Neeson as central character Matthew Scudder, a recovering alcoholic operating as a private detective some years after deciding to leave the NYPD. Neeson was apparently Block’s top choice for the role (Harrison Ford was reportedly attached to the project at one point) and it’s easy to see why, with a string of very successful ‘Liam Neeson versus’ films in his recent back catalogue, Non-Stop being the most recent example, and this time he’s up against COMPLETE SCUMBAGS in the guise of crooks that abduct girls and collect the ransom money but then butcher their captives anyway, so there is a somewhat gleeful element of – ‘Liam Neeson is on your case, you are totally fucked’.

The film opens very strongly, with a visceral scene of violence that fits completely the rather macabre title and sets up what is to follow very promisingly indeed. As the mystery unfolds it’s easy to get caught up in it, although unfortunately it never again reaches the intensity of the opening ten minutes. Come the end, it feels like the story is clutching at straws – trying to remain interesting whilst delivering something original, but only really succeeding at very average padding to round the film off with. Part of the problem is it begins with a very Dirty Harry esque character who then goes on a redemptive arc, which may be realistic, considerate and even gritty in its own right, but it’s also a little tedious when the narrative is trying to create scenarios to then justify the retribution or violence that the character is trying to avoid. Good enough to merit future adaptations of Block’s work though (Jeff Bridges previously played Scudder in ‘8 Million Ways to Die’, back in 1986), and a decent directorial effort from Scott Frank, better known for his work on screenplays, such as ‘Malice’ 93, ‘Out of Sight’ 98, ‘Minority Report’ 02 and The Wolverine. Also with Dan Stevens and David Harbour.

Before I Go to Sleep (2014) 60/100

Posted on September 10, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 60/100 92 Min

This is the second feature film directed by Rowan Joffé, son of legendary director Roland Joffé (‘The Killing Fields’ 84, ‘The Mission’ 86), after his 2011 adaptation of ‘Brighton Rock’ and once again he has returned to the realm of literary fiction for inspiration, ‘Before I Go to Sleep’ being S. J. Watson’s 2011 debut novel of the same name, written in his spare time whilst working as an audiologist for the NHS. The story centers on Christine Lucas (Nicole Kidman), who suffered serious head trauma many years ago and has since been left with the living nightmare of anterograde amnesia, which means her mind can’t record new memories and the events of any given day are effectively wiped whilst she sleeps, very much the opposite of the more traditionally portrayed retrograde amnesia that erases all memories recorded before trauma. She lives with her husband Ben (Colin Firth – whom Kidman requested to work with again after a successful collaboration on ‘The Railway Man‘) and we enter the story as a mysterious new man, Dr Nash (Mark Strong), who claims to be trying to help her, requests that she keep a video diary that she can watch and add to each day, only she should keep this secret from Ben …

It’s a mystery thriller that leads us to question what the circumstances surrounding the primer for her illness could have been (no one around her seems to know), and it’s well acted by the experienced cast, but it is immediately limited by the lack of depth for the setup and somewhat by the lack of experience of the director, who never really manages to create any sense of real tension or excitement. It’s an interesting concept but one also a little forced, and there are only so many different permutations to consider. Managing nonetheless to at least tread water throughout, there must surely be more to the novel than has been transferred to the big screen here as the book became an international bestseller and you would never guess it from this adaptation. We are also treated to a candid view of Kidman’s derrière in the opening scene as she looks at the bathroom wall covered with pictures of her life put up as memory aids, and one can’t help but wonder why this particular angle was selected, or indeed why it was necessary to have her naked at all – it kind of feels like a desperate lack of anything original to grasp the audience with, and the film never quite escapes from a continued similar sense of weak structural integrity.

Whiteout (2009) 0/100

Posted on June 24, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 0/100 COMPLETE INCINERATION 101 Min

This is one of those rare films that has left The Red Dragon genuinely quite sad at the couple of hours of life wasted watching it. Normally, even if a film is bad, I may not necessarily regret having given it a go, but here there really is nothing good to say about the film whatsoever, it’s just a solid block of endless shit. Kate Beckinsale stars as the law official at an Antarctic outpost who must solve the mystery of bodies turning up in the snow, despite being so poor with her firearm she might as well be wielding a banana, all occurring a couple of days before she was due to leave for civilisation again. It’s primary sin is that the story is catatonically dull, but it soon degenerates from boring to gratingly daft, with Beckinsale at all times looking more like she’s just left a beauty parlour than been braving extreme arctic conditions. Whiteout itself deserves to be blotted out of history.

Sabotage (2014) 55/100

Posted on May 24, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 55/100 109 Min

The latest film from director David Ayer, who continues with similar themes from his last film ‘End of Watch‘, although he has largely ditched the hand held camera aspect this time around. We once again are put in the midst of American law enforcement, this time a squad of hard as nails DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) operatives led by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, with Sam Worthington, Mireille Enos, Joe Manganiello, Terrence Howard, Josh Holloway, Max Martini, Kevin Vance and Mark Schlegel rounding out the rest of the group. Catchphrases like ‘high octane’ and ‘adrenaline fuelled action’ could probably be used to describe the action but really I think the term ‘sick’ is the most accurate descriptor for the piece. The team are caught up in a scandal when they all decide to steal some of the bad guy’s money before they burn the majority of it, but it’s not waiting at the point of egress as it should be – so where has it gone?

One by one we see the group brutally murdered, and we have to guess if it’s an internal thing, if the hits are being planned by the drug cartels, or if the rest of the department aren’t too happy about a rogue unit planning thefts of millions. The level of bloody violence has really been taken to the nth level here, which is just indulgent and silly – the same as in End of Watch when the officers uncovered all sorts of stuff when they were on the beat, things that you would normally expect to see in horror films. Olivia Williams turns up as the FBI agent assigned to investigate the assassinations and the acting is fine overall, but the plot, as well as being soaked in buckets of blood, just doesn’t add up in several places. Ayer has the skill to make an exciting action film, but he has to learn to ground it in reality, not the darkest regions of hell.

Transcendence (2014) 73/100

Posted on May 18, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 73/100 119 Min

A lot better than I was expecting, in fact they’ve done quite a clever thing with the trailer as most of what we see in it appears onscreen near the beginning reducing the amount of spoilers left to come. Will (Johhny Depp) and Evelyn Caster (Rebecca Hall) are completely devoted to each other as husband and wife, but they both also happen to be brilliant scientists working together on artificial intelligence projects – projects that will bring them to the attention of terrorist group RIFT, who deem their work a threat to all of humanity and plot to put a permanent end to their efforts. After Will is mortally wounded, Evelyn desperately tries to save him by transferring his consciousness digitally onto computer data banks.

One of the film’s strongest points is that it doesn’t waste any time mulling over the details and the far flung plot elements, it just gets on with it, which not only makes it more enjoyable but it also helps it seem more plausible. Hall is great as the doting and determined wife whose emotions blind her to the possibility that she has become a modern day Frankenstein, as Paul Bettany and Morgan Freeman provide the perfect foil of concern to her unshakeable devotion as they question whether or not the Will they knew could possibly have ‘transcended’ as completely as they hoped. As with all good sci-fi, even though this takes us in leaps and bounds forward, the beginnings of the basic story are now a matter of science fact, from work on nanobots to our ability to transfer the electrical signals of our brain digitally – see the end of the review for The Zero Theorem.

Well paced and directed by Wally Pfister in his directorial début (he is best known as Christopher Nolan’s long running cinematographer, who won the Oscar for his work on ‘Inception’ 2010), an interesting story from Jack Paglen (also his first screenplay) and brought to life by a wonderful group of actors, this is enjoyable sci-fi with plenty of hooks to follow up on in the real world (click here for a few examples).

Non-Stop (2014) 73/100

Posted on March 16, 2014 by The Red Dragon

Rating : 73/100 106 Min

Liam Neeson continues his winning streak of action films, following in the successful footsteps of the likes of his ‘Taken’ (08), ‘Unknown’ (11) and ‘The Grey’ (11), and this is another taught and very enjoyable thriller, predominantly sold by a trademark commanding performance from the leading man himself, here playing an alcoholic air marshal who begins to receive mysterious threats to his passenger’s lives whilst in mid-air. He knows that someone onboard is sending them, but who? The plot thickens when the instigator’s demanded money is requested to be transferred to Neeson’s own bank account …

The tension is held throughout, and, all in all, it’s a satisfyingly involving mystery.

The Red Dragon

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