New Release Review: 'The World's End'

Ageing is weird. Acting older and wiser, when you're probably not, is weird. It's that idea that's the springboard for The World's End. Gary (Simon Pegg), a man with no interest in becoming older and wiser, is set on reliving the past by completing the Golden Mile: twelve pubs, five friends, and a lot of pints. Except that his friends have no interest in reliving they're youth, and when Gary gets them all back in the twee town they grew up in few people seem to remember them. Maybe the town moved on too. Or maybe something altogether stranger is going on.

Like Edgar Wright's previous films The World's End is another genre mash-up. It's part comedy, part action, and part sci-fi; roughly in that order of importance. So it's surprising that during the film's midsection it almost drops the comedy entirely and gives straight-drama a go. Gary and his friends have been carrying their disappointments with them for years, buried deep down; watching them bubble back up as the characters regress with each pint is easily the best thing about the film, but the more they open up the less it feels like a comedy, and since that's the backbone of the film, the less I laughed the less cohesive the film felt.

Wright calls The World's End the last of his 'Cornetto Trilogy' (the previous two being Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead). It isn't. It just makes the film easier to promote. The main connecting tissue between each film - besides their cast - is a fondness for fence-based physical humour, men with arrested development issues, genre-mashing, pubs and, of course, cornetto ice cream. (Although the set-up and structure is so reminiscent of Shaun of the Dead that it's almost a warped remake.) Wright will make a fourth, a fifth, and sixth film dealing with much the same because that's his wheelhouse. That's what interests him. I don't have a problem with more of the same, so long at it's funnier. Much funnier.

Overall: 6/10

Minor Spoiler!:
(highlight to read)
The rather odd ending coda seems to exist solely to create a world in which Gary can revel in the past, refusing to change. Which feels like a get out clause; an overly elaborate way to avoid making him face up to his inability to change. Even if it had worked for me The World's End had tried on so many different genres by that point that when it switched again it had exhausted all the goodwill I had for it.

New Release Review: 'The Wolverine'

Huh. The Wolverine actually seemed... Okay. Yet I'm pretty sure it wasn't. I have three working theories to explain that:

1) It actually was okay, and I should just get over the shock.
2) Every blockbuster this summer has been so stunningly mediocre that The Wolverine is doing little more than failing upwards.
3) It's a sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and everything, ever, looks good compared to that film.

Hugh Jackman was great, the action scenes were actually properly thrilling (a surprise considering how monotonous the action was in James Mangold's last film Knight & Day), the love interest didn't feel forced,  and the action was great. (Yes, it's worth repeating.) I'm inclined to go with theory one; except there's the whole everything-else-about-the-film. The plot, which sees Wolverine travelling to Japan to say goodbye to an old acquaintance only to find himself caught up in a feud between the government, the Yakuza, and the family of said acquaintance, doesn't make any sense. At all. The various peculiar allegiances can (almost) be explained away, but nothing else stands up to scrutiny. The chief villain's maneuvering only makes sense in the world of The Middleman, a little seen show that was cancelled before its time, in which villains concocted the most insane and convoluted plans they could, then explained them away as being perfectly logical despite all evidence to the contrary. In that world the plot makes sense. In the one we're presented it's just nonsensical.

Unfortunately the film's problems don't end there: there's a comic book villain (a flunky to the main Big Bad) so over the top comic villain-y that I can't think of a single comic writer who'd deign to use her; there's the middle-of-the-road cinematography that utterly wastes Japan as a location; and there's the slight problem of the complete lack of characterisation of anyone who isn't played by Jackman. Which is a longwinded way of saying I'm probably leaning towards theories two and three.

The Wolverine is (mostly) serviceable. It's just that it's really close to being better than that. Well... Two or three rewrites away, perhaps.

Overall: 6/10

Or

First 70mins: 7.5/10
Last 50mins: 5/10

Mixed Feelings Review of the Week: 'Robot & Frank' (2012)

Robot & Frank is frustratingly close to being a great film. The central concept is intriguing enough, a robot helper is tasked with looking after an ageing jewel thief (Frank Langella) who's maybe not quite done with his old career; the cast is great (even Liv Tyler is... mostly okay); and it has a relaxed unhurried way of telling its story that I rather liked.

So it's a shame that the film can, at times, feel like a mildly entertaining nap. It's subdued to a fault. Langella, who's supposed to be irascible and curmudgeonly, comes across as little more than mildly impatient. The film needs a counterpoint to its relaxed nature; it needs someone abrasive and distant. When Langella rebukes his grown children (Tyler and James Marsden) for a perceived slight the words are supposed to hit home. They're supposed to leave a mark. Instead they bounce off, leaving his children, and us, unscathed. As written on the page, Frank is a hair's breadth away from being Eastwood's Walt Kowalski in Grand Torino; and he'd probably have been offered the part if he hadn't already done its equivalent many times before.

Jake Schreier (a first time director) kees his focus on the central pairing, but there's less to that relationship than the title would suggest. It's supposed to be a study of how technology could, and to some degree already is, impacting our lives - but the observations are no more than skin deep.

It's not till the film's end is in sight, when it pulls an audacious little plot manoeuvre that resonates emotionally in a way nothing before had, that it finally makes us understand what Frank has lost because of the ravages of time. It hints at a more interesting film, but it's one it's only ever been half interested in telling.

Overall: 6.5/10

New Release Review: 'Pacific Rim'

Let's spend a moment on the good: I could tell what was happening during the fights. The kaiju (the big bad beasties) were immaculately designed, and they get a more interesting backstory than the usual a-turtle-got-a-bit-irradiated. We get straight into the story. It was shiny.

As for the rest... The only way the writing and the performances make sense is if you picture everyone as anime, wherein lines are often shouted, require little to no nuance, and can be somewhat incomprehensible. Pacific Rim is Evangelion spliced with Godzilla, just without character or depth. A good rule of thumb for a director might be: if not one of my human characters is as interesting or layered as Godzilla then I might have a problem. We meet ten different jaeger pilots (a 'jaeger' being the immense robots that punch the kaijus) and not one of them leave an impression. Throughout the film they have to have the most basic information spelled out to them, not because they need to know it but because we do, but this has the side effect of making them look rather dim. The writers don't trust the audience much more than they do the pilots. If we're told something important that's going to have a pay-off further down the line it usually gets paid off in the very next scene, lest we have to use our brains to recall information.

The spectacle in Pacific Rim really is spectacular, but what does it matter if you don't care? Guillermo Del Toro (who's previously created the amazing worlds in Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy) likes his world building, and has fun showing the uses the kaiju carcasses are put to, but he's spent more time and energy working out how much a kaiju gland will sell for on the black market than on whether he needs a character arc for... Anyone. Real Steel was silly, but it understood how to work a human and emotional element into a story about a robot hitting other robots. Del Toro, a man lauded as a visionary, achieves significantly less.

Overall: 5/10

SPOILERS!:
(highlight to read)

THE RADIATION
Elba's radiation sickness storyline is twaddle is many ways, but principally because his getting into a jaeger again shouldn't have any effect at all since the jaeger would need to be of the nuclear variety and have no safeguards (which Elba's suggested they now do) keeping the radiation in check. Why even bother introducing this when he's going to sacrifice himself anyway?

UM... SWORD?
Shouldn't they start by using the sword? Or, even better, the plasma canon? Or that chest blast-thing? If they're one time use weapons and need to be kept in reserve shouldn't we have maybe been told that? And, most importantly, should I really be worrying about these things in a film about big robots hitting big aliens?

New Release Review: 'Despicable Me 2'

I found Despicable Me (number one) to be a fairly well animated, but not terribly diverting, 95-minutes aimed entirely at small diminutive creatures. This time, taking note, I took a diminutive creature of my own, Zeno (age 7), but still hoped that the film might offer up something for the adults corralling their progeny. It didn't. Unless you find the word 'bottom' quite funny, and I've been assured that it is funny, so feel free to discount a lot of what follows depending on where you sit on 'the bottom spectrum'.

Gru (Steve Carrell) is again forced to operate outside his comfort zone and connect with the world, all because a villain is stealing laboratories round the world to do... Something. Honestly, the film doesn't really care about the villain or what he's up to, so let's not worry about it here. Gru's story, which mostly revolves around dating, is fine, but it's the only thing going on in the second act, stalling all plot momentum. The girls from film one are still in his care and get even less to do this time round. Margo starts to notice boys, Edith stands around filling space, and Agnes continues to do her cute thing (which, I'll admit, is cute enough that it even worked on my cold, scabrous, adult heart). The minions have been given a more prominent role ahead of their own film next year, but do little besides make random 80s and 90s references, talk gibberish, and get turned into sort-of-Gremlins. Despite all their extra screen time there's no attempt to flesh them out beyond affirming that they're just The Three Stooges. But Smaller. And Yellow. I get that they're clones and all much of a muchness, and that that's part of the gag, but there's nothing to them as characters. How are they going to a carry a whole film? (Perhaps there's a dark tale to be told about their strange, possibly forced, segregation into groups of three - which never includes clones from their own batch. By keeping them to the same group dynamic Gru stops them from learning and changing so that they're always under his control... No, they won't make this film, but God knows what they'll make instead.)

I am not the intended audience for this. Clearly. So let's check in with the target demographic:

Me to Zeno:
What'd you think? 'It was funny' Why? 'There was loads of action.' Which was the best bit? 'The purple bit.' But it was devoid of character. 'Don't care.' *sigh* I'm going to have to teach you about character. 'Nope.' Well what would you give it out of ten? 'Ten.'

Overall: 3.5/10
Zeno's mark: 10/10

Overlooked Gem of the Week: 'Bernie' (2012)

Bernie opens with the legend ‘A true story’. Not 'Based on', just 'True'. Which is an intriguingly brash statement, but you'll forget it pretty quickly, or assume that the film's teasing you (as Fargo once did); but it's not, and it's worth remembering. When scripwriters adapt true stories they have it drilled into them that life can sometimes be too strange for fiction, so they have to finesse it. Less politely known as ‘lying’. Richard Linklater (director & co-writer) has found his own way to lie without lying.

Bernie, probably best (and oddly) described as a tale about murder and kindness, mixes fact and fiction using one-on-one interviews with the actual townsfolk of Carthage, Texas. The happenings around the town aren't strange to them because they lived through it. It's just life. Why question what's fact? We get caught up in their colourful accounts and don't once question if it's true, because it must be. Right? Well... Since some of the townsfolk are actors and some are the real deal - and it's never clear which is which (except for the main cast) - nothing is ever certain. Which makes the film neither documentary nor fiction. The interviews work so well that they end up being one of the best parts of the film. The townsfolk are opinionated, colourful, well meaning and funny (even if it's not always intentional). In fact the film as a whole is funnier than its ad campaign suggested. Pitched as a black comedy, the humour is actually much lighter; not so much black as off-grey, playing like a spiritual sequel to Pleasantville, just with murder.

The casting is immaculate, Jack Black (as Bernie) and Shirley MacLaine (as his 'companion') are eerily good fits as the not-quite-couple at the centre of the story - how good a fit isn't fully clear till you see the end credits. Matthew McConaughey, as the local District Attorney, continues to have fun being cast against type, and gets what might be my favourite scene from last year, sat in a church squirming as he realises all is not well in Carthage. The film only loses its momentum in the courtroom scenes towards the end. The rest of the film subverts our expectations so well that when the closing act goes (mostly) as expected it's a slight letdown. It's hard to complain, as that's what happened. I suppose I'm too used to being lied to by films. I think I can live without an over the top denouement this one time.

Bernie: quite possibly the most amiable film about murder that you're likely to see.

Overall: 8/10

Oscar Disappointment of the Week/DVD Review: 'Flight' (2012)

Click to enlarge

If Flight's opening were a sign of how it meant to go on, it'd be a thrilling film. Denzel Washington's airline captain has to wrestle his plane out of a nose dive that, according to all the rules of physics, is impossible to get out of. It's a great sequence, but it's undercut by cutaways to Kelly Reilly's heroin addict, who's about to have her own very bad day. Every time we see Reilly it's like the film's admitting 'Yes, this plane stuff is quite interesting, but unfortunately that's not really the film you're going to be watching, it's this bland one over here with the strangely good looking addicts.' If Robert Zemeckis (directing live action for the first time in more than a decade) had managed to put us in Washington or Reilly's headspace for even the briefest of moments, giving us a chance to understand what their addiction means to them then the following 120-minutes might have had some worth. Instead we get a barrage of christian imagery and a lot of talk about God's plan; which apparently consisted of both felling the plane and saving the plane. (Shouldn't he have just picked one?) It's not even clear why there's all this talk of God, since at no point does Washington pay any of it much mind.

There's an interesting film hidden under Flight's framework: a question that's asked throughout is whether Washington's mental state had anything to do with the crash, but what's more interesting is whether the state he was in had anything to do with the second somewhat more important part: not crashing. No other pilot would have even considered doing what he did, but since it was God that helped Washington achieve the impossible there's apparently no point asking if there were any non-God based factors.                  

Despite spending all 139-minutes with Washington we never get an idea of what's going on under the bonnet. For comparison watch Smashed with Mary Elizabeth Winstead. It's not a perfect film but the normally pretty and pristine Winstead looks tired and harried (unlike Reilly and Washington) and her decline is completely believable; possibly because Smashed was written by someone who'd been through it and knew what they were talking about. Watching Flight you can't help but feel Zemeckis et al haven't a clue what they're talking about.

Overall: 4.5/10
     or
Opening: 8/10
The Middle-Bit: 2/10
Final Act: 5/10

New Release Review: 'Now You See Me'

"Come in close, pay attention" - that's how films that traffic in illusion begin. They're up front with you, at least after a fashion. They tell you to expect twists and turns, so you do as you're told, and pay attention; but when the twists happen you miss how it was done precisely because you leaned in close, not noticing the trick that was going on around you. Or at least that's how it ought to be done, but when most final reveals come round, and the trick is explained, the answer to how they did it is almost always: 'we cheated'. A film that plays straight with you in the way it fools you is rare. Now You See Me is a far from perfect film, but one thing it does, is play straight with you. Shame about everything else.

Now You See Me is all about the show. The razzle-dazzle. A quartet of magicians - Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, and Not-James Franco (who also goes by Dave Franco) - are selected to pull off the greatest trick the world has ever seen, and in doing so, maybe even set a few things right. Strangely none of them are the protagonist. In fact the film doesn't seem to have one, although there are a half-dozen people vying to take up the mantle (particularly Mark Ruffalo's cliché spouting cop). There's also no antagonist ('villain' to the layman), although the film does think to throw one in at the half-way point, but then we never see them again. Nothing really happens in Now You See Me, it just seems to happen. No one changes/goes on a journey/learns anything about themselves, the world/city/local township isn't altered by anything anyone does. None of it matters. If you don't mind that, and you can let yourself be carried along by the spectacle, then it'll pass the time just fine.

Louis Letterier, he that directed it, reigns in his irritatingly frenetic editing style (if you need examples then put yourself through: Clash of the Titans and The Incredible Hulk) and allows the film to move along at a steady clip; for the most part keeping you from realising that you're going nowhere fast. The magicians at the centre of the film are passably kooky but you get the impression that the characterisation only went so far as giving each one a single adjective and then hoping they could form a fully realised human being from it. The rest of the cast don't fare much better, they're all asked to be little more than enigmatic. On the bright side that keeps you guessing who's pulling the puppet strings, downside: you won't care whether anyone gets shot, stabbed, crushed or put in jail. Does't work out very well on balance.

To steal a line from Usual Suspects: the greatest trick this film ever pulled, was convincing the world it exists.

Overall: 5.5/10


MINI-SPOILERS! 
(highlight to read)
Although the plot machinations make sense, they only work because the characters are cyphers. They don't respond in any way that would be called logical. Or even human. They just do what the writers need them to do. When incited to rob a bank by a semi-mythical organisation none of the magicians question who's pulling the strings, they just go along with it. At the end of the film the magicians are among the most wanted in America - even if someone else has taken the largest part of the wrap, they're still going to jail as accessories to the crime, which they're bizzarely okay with (maybe 'cause they're cyphers?) - and they're inducted into an organisation which, best as I can tell, really doesn't exist; and they're probably its only members. They're also fine with that, because: cyphers.

Overlooked Gem of the Week: 'Warrior' (2011)

Knowing the twists and turns a story is going to take isn't always a bad thing. There can be a simple pleasure in watching a familiar story retold, and told well. Silver Linings Playbook did that last year, working to the structure of Rocky, but with added mental health issues. (Not that big a change considering Rocky often came across like he was one hit away from life in a wheelchair.) Warrior's tweak to the underdog movie structure is to have not one, but two Rockys: played by Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy. Not only are their characters both underdogs, coming out of nowhere to take a shot at a purse of 5 million dollars in a mixed martial arts tournament, but (CUE VOICEOVER MAN) they're also brothers!

There's nothing in Warrior that will surprise you: the estrangement between the two brothers, the conflicted and acrimonious relationship between them and their father (the ever-gnarled and grizzled Nick Nolte), Edgerton's mounting mortgage repayments, Hardy's personal debt that he has to honour; all of it is very much by the numbers for the genre. The reason the film's worth highlighting is that it does it all so well. The principals might not look like family, but the physicality with which they imbue their characters comes from the same place; as does their bullheaded willful approach to life, in and out of the ring. It'd be easy to imagine the film lazily recast with Jason Statham and The Rock as stepbrothers, and Bruce Willis as the paterfamilias; and that's the film most people take Warrior to be.

It's not like the film flopped or went unseen - a good few people rushed out to see it, but that was the crowd that was already hooked on the idea of one large man hitting an even larger man. Warrior deserves an audience outside of UFC and MMA aficionados. The fights are impressive, brutalising, and adrenaline inducing - but the reason I was grabbing hold of my seat and wrenching against it, willing Hardy to survive another round/hoping that Edgerton would manage to get up despite the beating he'd taken, was because I cared. I wasn't caught up in it because of the violence; I was caught up in it because of the script, the directing, and the performances.

It doesn't surprise, but it doesn't have to. Sometimes a film just has to pull you in.

Overall: 8.5/10

New Release Review: 'This Is The End'

It's not imperative that a comedy have an abundance of plot - Anchorman proved that - but it's helpful if there's some. A small character arc, a theme, maybe a recurring motif would also do in a pinch, just so long as we're given something. If there's a motif of any kind in This Is The End, it's penises. (Doesn't matter how you pluralise 'penis' it never looks quite right. Turns out 'penes' is also acceptable.) Instead of giving us a second act, which is what we've learnt to expect from films over their 120 year history, we get jokes about penises and all things penis related; and instead of a conclusion we get the Backstreet Boys. Which is weirder and less interesting than it sounds.

There may have been the outline of a script ahead of filming, but what we get is all improv. Improv which goes on and on and on. The plot, or what passes for it, has Jay Baruchel visiting Seth Rogen in LA to catch-up (they play themselves, as do the rest of the cast). They go to James Franco's house party where numerous B-list American comedians are behaving badly. Also: Rihanna's there. Then the apocalypse happens. Everyone remotely amusing or interesting dies or ascends towards the sky in a UFO-like blue light. The six most self-involved actors survive and take refuge in Franco's very sound stage-looking home. At which point This Is The End becomes Frank Darabont's The Mist, just without plot or character.

Even if the film had something resembling narrative momentum, it still wouldn't work. Rogen and Evan Goldberg (the co-writers and directors) have assembled a cast that's far too similar in their irreverent, scatological approach to humour. They have the same delivery, the same style of riffing, and, more often than not, the same supposedly amusing jowly features. There's no group dynamic, no variety, no tension or chemistry. There's mileage in creating twisted versions of actors most of us know, but Franco et al don't do much more than behave selfishly. Everything about the film and the cast is inert. It just sits there doing nothing, staring blankly back at you.

Overall: 2/10
Both points go to Michael Cera - the only actor in it who manages to nail playing a warped version of themselves. Unfortunately he isn't in it long.