Quick Movie Reviews Go!

Hey all. Sorry I’ve haven’t posted for a while, I’ve mostly been helping Kitacon run another kick-ass anime convention up in Birmingham and also been covering Kapow for Geek Planet Online. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t watched some films recently. Here is some brief nuggets of Genre-Giant wisdom.

Rio (2D Version) (2011)

Director: Carlos Saldanha

Stars: Jessie Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, Jamie Foxx, George Lopez

Domestic bird put in a place he can’t handle. Yep, it’s the good old fashion fish out water storyline. Just with birds and set in Rio. Despite some lovely looking animation and solid voice work from Eisenberg, Hathaway and even Flight of The Concords Jermaine Clement, Rio is just lazy with a formula we’ve seen in countless films; animated or not.  Talented the vocal cast is at singing, the musical touches don’t help it fly from its stale generic birdcage either.

Hop (2011)

Director: Tim Hill

Stars: Russell Brand, James Marsden, Hugh Laurie, David Hasselhoff

The moment when James Marsden is revealed as the first human Easter Bunny, the words that came out of my mouth were “seriously?”  This hybrid animated live action fest is a weird creature indeed. Easter Bunny to be, E.B (Brand), doesn’t want to be Easter Bunny and goes to Hollywood to become a famous drummer. Jobless James Marsden accidentally runs him over and hilarity begins. Er, kinda of. Hop is marginally better than Rio simply because Marsden move into comedic roles like Sex Drive, Death At A Funeral Remake, and Enchanted to name a few has been entertaining to see so watching prattle about again for 90 minutes isn’t a bad thing.  Oh yeah and that Russell Brand meta moment where actor and animated character meet might have been an attempt to blow the kids tiny mind when in fact it’s just weird. That word perfectly sums up what I think of Hop.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams 3D (2010)

Director: Werner Herzog

This is my first encounter of a Herzog documentary so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. His subject for Cave of Forgotten Dreams is the recently discovered centuries old artwork in The Chauvet Caves in southern France. Armed with 3D cameras, he succeeds in showing off these fascinating drawings and on the other hand, completely alienates me with his barking mad metaphors. Those with Herzog experience will be happy, newcomers might get a little confused at the 3D albino crocodile bobbing in front of your eyes.

Your Highness (2011)

Director: David Gordon Green

Stars: Danny McBride, James Franco, Natalie Portman, Zooey Deschannel

On paper, it sounds like it could have been a laugh. However, when that proposed idea is taking a mystical fantasy quest and putting a swear word in every spout of dialogue, I’m not pleased. There are some genuine chuckles in this farce but again it’s all about being crude with the humour. It’s all about the sex jokes, the fart jokes, people swearing over and over again thinking it’s always funny.  It might be from the same talent as Pineapple Express, but Pineapple Express was an Apatow clan film. Tells you something, doesn’t it? You want a fantasy quest film with actual humour; check out The Princess Bride instead. This will infuriate many.

I did also check out Scre4m (or Scream 4) (which briefly I'll say here that I liked it...a lot) and will get a full in-depth review posted up soon.

Now if you excuse me, I have to go see Winnie The Pooh! That honey junkie fiend

Can you smell The Rock going Faster?

Faster (2010)

Director: George Tillman Jr.

Stars: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Billy Bob Thornton, Oliver Jackson-Cohen

It was only a matter of time before Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson decided to return to the action fold. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s creditable for someone who started out as a wrestler looking to stretch his acting skills a little. Southland Tales, Be Cool to name a few plus those silly kid films, Dwayne’s been using that great charisma and presence in different ways.

But everyone just wants to see him kick ass. He’s back for Wrestlemania in April so it’s about damn time he returned to layeth the smacketh down. And with April nearly here, you’ve got two barrel loads of his action skills. First up is Faster.

Though to call Faster an action film is an outright lie. It’s more of a revenge thriller with a perpetual sense of continuous movement.

From the first moment you see Johnson’s Driver pacing about angrily in his jail cell, you get that theme of always going forward in the revenge tale. Within moments, he gets out of jail and just starts jogging down desert roads to find a car and a swish looking snub revolver. Then Driver goes to layeth the smacketh down on those who’ve wronged him and killed his brother in the process years ago.

While Driver goes off on this vengeful rampage, there’s a Cop (Billy Bob Thornton) trying to follow the murderous crime spree and also a Killer (Jackson-Cohen) a multi-millionaire who has decided to excel himself at bumping people off. They start tracking Driver’s movements and eventually like all good revenge films, their paths will cross.

Now while I don’t mind an array of colourful and OTT characters in this sort of B-movie fluff, the fact that these are three very different characters makes it a bit of an oddity. You have Johnson who is supposed to be the real driving force of the movie, the wronged man committing acts of horrific violence against those who wrong him and seemingly satisfied he’s walking the dark path. Thorton is a ex-junkie cop who’s days near to retirement and trying to provide for his family. And Jackson-Cohen seems to be emitting a mid-life crisis for a billionaire who’s done everything and wants to satisfy his ticks before marrying his beautiful girlfriend. The balance of characters is just weird here in this triangle.

There is this theme of redemption and forgiveness that runs throughout and that’s fine here. But I still think the mixture of these three characters is a little too much.

I personally would have liked to see things just kept focused on Johnson and it would have been a great dark revenge thriller. Johnson has the presence and his small amount of dialogue lets him convey emotion more visually in his facial reactions and he’s still the best of the WWE bunch to ever grace the big screen. It’s a nice role to get him back into the genre we all know he belongs in.

While I’ve got no issue with Thornton’s presence, only to add some sort of gravitas to a usually cardboard character, and while I know that Jackson-Cohen’s British hitman might grate some people, Faster would have worked so much better focused on one character. Driver, it’s actual main character.

Faster is visually pleasing and it has its entertaining (even though predictable) moments but when the main character has to play third fiddle to the other characters, it seems a bit diluted in the end and the revenge tale becomes somewhat like a weird urban dream.

Well, on the plus side, it isn’t named Faster: Action Revenge Film like Dwayne’s next production.

Archipelago - The Middle Class activity of watching paint dry...sort of....

Archipelago (2011)

Director: Joanna Hogg

Stars: Tom Hiddlestone, Kate Fay, Amy Lloyd

I’m going to come out and say it right now, I don’t know who out there would enjoy Archipelago. I don’t know anyone close who I could recommend it too and when people at work have asked me about it, I put on a brave smile and say it’s “interesting.”

Only during two scenes does Archipelago becomes “interesting” but when the majority of the film you’re put as a standing observer to the breakdown of this middle class family and their issues, you don’t really feel engaged in the film.

And I’m not trying to say that Archipelago is bollocks because it isn’t and I know that people out there have had different reactions to it. A friend of mine is quite to say that film is subjective and everyone’s viewing experience is different.

We differ here already. Byron Pitt can’t stop thinking about it. I’m trying to recall what actually happened.

This is a very very very slow film and is designed for viewers who have patience with their cinematic screenings. I am perfectly fine with slow burning films providing that there is something to be engaged with. 

For me, I just don’t get it with Archipelago.  There are interesting themes of class between the social interactions of Tom Hiddlestone’s Edward character with the hired chef Rose (played by Amy Lloyd ) and Edward’s family turning their nose up at the simple request of asking a hired hand to eat with them. There’s also difficult family dynamics of broken communication and the eventual realization that the words unsaid and actions unseen speak more than the simple conversation over dinner.

Now if this is your thing, Archipelago is something to reap in. Byron Pitt has found elements to draw out and think about. My trouble is that the slow pace, the unlikeability of nearly every character and the fact that not much seems to go on is the nail in the coffin to me. I would have been open to the film more if I felt more connected to the characters and the scenario. 

But however simplistic and beautifully minimalistic Joanna Hogg has presented this film, I simply cannot connect. only during two heated conversations during a family trip to a deserted restaurant and at their holiday home debating the future of one of the members of the family does Archipelago become interesting. Perhaps if it was staged for the theatre it might have been a more rewarding viewing and its themes more accessible to take in and evaluate.

However, when it’s nearly two hours long and very isolated to its own devices, I rather be somewhere else than dealing with this troubled and miscommunicated family.

Don’t get checked into The Ward, it’s already dull.

The Ward (2010)

Director: John Carpenter

Stars: Amber Heard, Jared Harris, Lyndsy Fonseca, Sali Sayler

Me and ghost horror films don’t get on well. It’s not that I’m shit scared of watching them. They just don’t really seem to catch my imagination, excitement, and enthrallment. Very rare cases do.

There’s nothing different about most of them  especially when most of the reasons they lurk about is from being the deceased remains of someone who was wronged or evil. Or both.  Or maybe, a Scooby-doo villain.

A good movie memory was when I watched What Lies Beneath when I was 15. Scared the fucking shit out of me in the cinema, perhaps I didn’t expect it but hey I remember the viewing experience fondly. It may not stand the test of time, sure. But when I look back at that film, I have happy memories of good cinema experiences.

And that’s the thing with most ghost films. I try to find the positives in them but when they’re all about loud shunting noises, annoying characters, and a repetitive ending. I don’t tend to go out wanting to see them. I remember watching The Grudge US (hated it), Reeker (hated it), Boogeyman (hated it) to name a few and still don’t find these sort of films entertaining. It doesn’t make me want to go watch the original Ringu, or Grudge, or similar films. I know I should but when I have repeated bad experiences, it’s not a genre that screams out to me immediately to watch.

And I’m sorry for that god awful pun.

And The Ward is yet another aggravatingly bad experience.

I’ll be honest. I’m not a familiar voyeur of John Carpenter films and this is probably the wrong one to start viewing if I wanted to get into watching the films of a very renowned and respected horror director. But I think I really should have just asked someone to borrow their copy of The Thing, I’d likely enjoy that a bit more. Probably tons more than The Ward. 

The problem with The Ward is that it’s uninspiring, unoriginal, and quite frankly…dull. It’s like it’s trying to mesh Girl Interrupted with Identity with say any recent ghost movies. And it fails. It splats against the small hole it was supposed to be melded into in the first place. It sadly plays out more like a TV movie than anything else considering Carpenter’s association with Masters of Horror.

It’s a group of mentally unstable girls locked up in a ward where the ghost of one of their former patients is stalking and killing the girls one by one. Leaving the naturally sane, yet also unbalanced, good girl played by Amber Heard, to question what on earth is going on. Obviously, like all normal horror tales, no one is inclined to believe her including the head doctor played by Jared Harris.

It really doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happens. 

Then they decide to be really, really, smart and throw in a twist that is eye rolling bad.

Then they add that traditional never ending ending. 

Well done, everyone involved. You’ve just annoyed me for another 90 minutes.

I really don’t want to be mean but when I’ve seen it all before, it’s hard to be positive about my experience with The Ward. The acting isn’t as bad as other films. Amber Heard and Jared Harris actually are really watchable in the flick. It’s just annoying that the same potholes of horror logic just come into effect and considering this is from a revered director who brought us the original Halloween (not the Zombie crap), The Thing and other cult titles, it just feels disappointing.

Can someone lend me the copy of The Thing now and show me how good Carpenter is, please?

The coin flipping Dilemma of…um…The Dilemma

The Dilemma (2011)

Director: Ron Howard

Stars: Vince Vaughn, Kevin James, Jennifer Connelly, Winona Ryder

I was in a bit of a muddle on Friday night. I had finished worked, The King’s Speech and Black Swan technically decimated our cinema for another night and I had finished my shift. Sure, it was 11pm, but I thought I’d unwind by going watch a film at the late show multiplex a mere 20 minutes away.

But the problem in my head was what I was going to watch. I was intending to see The Ward (which I have done and will review later) but wasn’t in the mood for a horror. I wanted something light and my choices came down to either Morning Glory (where grumpy Harrison Ford makes me chuckle) or The Dilemma (A Ron Howard directed comedy…hmmm…intriguing and I had not seen a trailer either).

I couldn’t make a clear cut decision so I did what any filmgoer would do in this situation.

Flip a coin.

Heads, I watch Morning Glory. Tails, The Dilemma.

It landed tails.

So here are my thoughts of The Dilemma. On the surface looks like a typical, usually not that very funny, Vince Vaughn comedy. This time, he’s a unlucky plebe who spots the wife of his best friend, played by Kevin James, getting it off with Channing “the male block of wood” Tatum. Suffice to say, the dilemma (see what they did there?) of the situation for Vince is does he tell Kevin James what he saw? And what will happen if he does? Will it scupper their motorcar building dreams? Will it prevent Queen Latifah from getting a female hard-on?

Yes, that last line is what the Oscar nominated Queen Latifah continually spouts out in this film. We’ll get to that soon.

What’s odd about The Dilemma is at times it’s typically Vince Vaughn fair. There’s loud screaming, pratfalls, idiotic spouts of behaviour, and the world’s worse anniversary speech to give to a girlfriends parents celebrating 40 years together. If you like that sort of stuff, you’ll be happy. And how it’s done here, I didn’t mind it. I did laugh a good laugh ratio as Byron Pitt would put it. It makes up for some of the past crap Vaughn has done….Couple Retreat maybe? Four Christmases? Yeah, The Dilemma is head and shoulders above those.

Then at times, The Dilemma veers into drama territory – you’d expect it from Ron Howard I guess. You get these dark moments of problematic pasts like a gambling addiction, failed marriages, and it’s at that time, you feel the film is strangely unbalanced at times. Trying to market your film as a flat out comedy and then thrown in the occasional moment of reflective thinking and crying to God in a more sombre tone is quite a curveball. Some audiences might like it. I think it tries to make itself different from the norm and I respect its attempt to do so.

But when your counter balancing it with comedy that is completely out of place and characters that belong in an Apatow clan film, The Dilemma is still worryingly uneven. And that’s a shame. The central performances are likeable. Vaughn and James make a good double act. Winona Ryder is building on her recent performances of evil or batty woman here. Jennifer Connelly is normal here. Nothing special. Channing Tatum plays up to that block of wood character nicely.

I wouldn’t whole heartily recommend it. Perhaps to all those curious, give it a rental.  If you’re looking for a flat out comedy, find a flat out comedy. The Dilemma provides 50% of it. The other 50% is something from another film.

Tron Legacy - Quick! Someone give it an story file update!

Tron: Legacy (2010)
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Stars: Jeff Bridges, Garret Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, Michael Sheen

Disney have been pushing this one heavily over the last year promising something on equal par with Avatar and delivering a film many fans of the original would be very happy to see. I think they might want to reconsider that prediction.

Let's get this out of the way first, Tron: Legacy looks brilliant. It features the best 3D since Avatar and it certainly looks like they spent a lot of time creating this updated computer world with top notch special effects. Complied with an electronic epic score from Daft Punk, which I'd easily write here and now is one of the best soundtracks of 2010. So, at a casual glance, Tron: Legacy could get a comfortable good box office haul over Christmas for its first week at least. It's perfect for all men who like a good sci-fi tale, from the teenagers to the grown ups.

Yet, somehow, Tron: Legacy will not be able to hold a candle anywhere near the staying power of Avatar and the many audiences that came to see it over and over again. The reason? The great fault that plagued Avatar despite the film's success - story.

The first half of Tron: Legacy is very entertaining. Sam Flynn (Hedlund) gets zapped into the Tron universe after trying to find his missing father (Bridges) and ends up taking part in the deadly games this universe knows and loves. Crazy disc flinging games, light cycle showdowns, this is great.

Then he goes to the digital mountains to find his father...where not much happens and a lot of exposition gets dumped on everyone. If you know your technobabble, this might be a nice moment of computer fun. Everyone else could get bored out of their skulls.

And this is where Tron drops the ball big time despite shifting its story in the second half to stage a great escape from the computer world. Now if I look at Avatar by comparison, yes the story was a little hokey and all the jokes about Pocahontas in Space aside, actually had some fun moments in its bloated runtime. Plus there was an appeal for all audiences, a love story, science fiction, robots, aliens, monsters, battle scenes. All the boxes were ticked despite the flaws and I hate to admit that!

Tron doesn't tick all those boxes. It has a few moments after the promising first half but it never recovers. It's just too serious.

You can't fault the cast, they try the best they can. Jeff Bridges, now pretty much putting The Dude into any role nowadays, is always watchable. Hedlund makes good typical generic male lead, yet I think he might have benefited from a better director that deals with actors. Olivia Wilde makes fine eye candy and Michael Sheen pretty much goes into overboard in his brief fifthteen minutes of fun at a nightclub.

You know you're a badass when your playing a mock electric guitar as a fight breaks out around you. That or possibly easily distracted by noises.

I don't regret my time with Tron: Legacy. I'm happy with the visual aesthetic and Daft Punk's amazing score. The problem is that there's just no joy to be found anywhere else. And considering the lengths they went to make this film for the fans, for the geek community that thrived with films like Avatar, it really doesn't work. There's something way too serious about this nostalgia and not a lot of audiences are going to like it. Especially from a big blockbuster. That's why it won't get a continuing audience after opening weekend. How can you appeal a film like this to every audience?

Saying the words Tron and 3D just doesn't cut it.

When all of 2010's Xmas releases look dull, dire, and unexciting, you'd hope Disney would have downloaded a fun patch to keep this film head and shoulders above the others.

The download failed.