So this is going to be spoilers all the way, but since I am only going as far as the opening credits and much of that is in the trailer, I am not going to feel guilty about it. Also if you still choose to go and see the film after the slating I am going to give the first 4 minutes then it is your own fault.
So we start with a crowd scene in Mexico at a celebration of the dead that looks very much like a rip off of the New Orleans segments from Live and Let Die. Obvious bad guy in a white suit gets a tracking shot and as he passes in front of Bond, literally inches in front but more about that later, we switch directions and track with Bond. He and a hot brunette make their way through a dense crowd up a lift to her hotel room. A bit of smooching then he takes off his jacket to reveal a folded up rifle, steps out of her window and we follow him along a couple of balconies so he can spy on a room full of men, where our bad guy in the white suit appears.
OK, so far, so normal. Bond then sights on the guys in the room with a blue laser. Stupid, the reason red lasers are used is so that you can see where you are pointing them. We hear a bit of conversation from inside the room, without any explanation of how, I wonder if we are meant to figure out that the blue light is doing harmonic detection on the window? So one of the bad guys blows some cigar smoke, spots the laser light, and the shooting starts.
Still, with it. OK, so he shoots the first two bad guys cleanly. Then misses the guy in the white suit. Instead hitting a bomb in the middle of the room. The bomb takes out half that building, but the guy in the suit, who was still in the same room, walks away unmarked. That building then falls onto the building Bond is on and takes out a huge chunk of it. So he has to drop his rifle and jump. He then does a quick bit of Parcour to get down a couple of floors before falling onto a sofa which has conveniently survived intact exactly where he needs it, despite having had a building dropped on it.
Now that little bit I could write off as a silly joke. Things is that he has just dropped two buildings on a crowd, and not only are we meant to ignore the civilian casualties but when he starts chasing the guy in the suit again they are immediately back into 'normal' crowd, in less than a block. No-one seems to have even noticed the demolition work going on 30 yards away!
If your suspension of disbelief is still going then we have Bond chase the guy through the parade, while a helicopter is landed in the middle of a crowd and they both get in and continued fighting hand-to-hand. Punch the helicopter pilot a couple of times and he manages two barrel rolls (actually one barrel roll but they obviously had two good shots of that sequence and wanted to get value for money so they stick it in twice), then while Bond tries to choke him he loops the helicopter over the crowd before falling out of a locked door, allowing Bond to climb in the front and safely take control, inches before hitting the crowd. Although I have to wonder how many crowd members died under the two bodies he dropped on them.
So I had already given up by this point. Everything from here just got worse.
The gadgets were stupid super-tech, exactly right for situations that could never possibly be predicted. He had everything short of a Star Trek transporter, just when he needed it. I thought that post-Brosnan Bond was beyond this stupidity.
The bad guys are so stereo-typical that they are actually lifted straight from other films. The original Oddjob and Whisper were great but bringing back Dave Bautista as a straight copy of them, right down to the mutism is silly. And somehow they take Christoph Waltz (double supporting Oscar winner for playing bad guys!) and Andrew Scott (the brilliant Moriarty from Sherlock if you don't recognise the name) and somehow turn them into cheap B-movie villains is beyond me.
The story was written by someone with a dog. The only way that they can have approved that script is that they read it, green lit the project and then his dog ate all of the bits of that made sense in between the explosions.
I didn't hate the song. A lot of other people don't seem to like it. I don't mind it.
The torture scene with the drill/needle gadget? Which somehow releases all the clamps for no conceivable reason? I almost got up and walked out at that point.
I didn't hate the stunts and the fight scenes. I just don't think the links between them make any sense. And a few of them were just too Brosnan for words.
They seem to have decided that the supporting characters need to be moving forward with the franchise. I can't really see why after they haven't moved for the last 53 years, and neither has Bond for that matter. Anyway that resulted in chunks of wasted time while we follow all their arcs. Maybe the sensible bits of the story were cut to fit these in?
I tweeted before I even left the cinema that this was the Worst. Bond. Ever! I stand by that.
I have given it 4 out of 10. I still feel generous about that.
Wednesday, 28 October 2015
Saturday, 17 October 2015
Film Review - The Program
Last minute decision to go and see this one.
It is a fairly average docudrama re-enactment of The Armstrong lie.
Ben Foster does a very good look-a-like job. So much so that they are able to cut in and out of historical footage of the man himself pretty seamlessly. Unfortunately, for the most part, his impression is not as accurate. Having seen several of the scenes in their real format the sheer confidence / arrogance of the man just doesn't come across.
Some of the cycling is a bit rubbish as well. Where they use original footage it is obviously going to be boring as they pull a few seconds out to a 20 day race. So instead they film their own with cyclists suddenly sprinting away from groups at minimal effort. American Flyers used the same filming techniques for cycle racing, but executed slightly better, 30 years ago. It is disappointing that modern film-makers can't do anything better.
The story itself is lacking as well. And this is really a bit strange because the material is there and they just seem to choose not to use it.
Betsy Andreu is glossed over in two tiny scenes. Wiggins attachment to Festina is never mentioned. Travis Tygart appears but never even gets named. Contador may actually be a dick, I am not a great fan myself, but he isn't as much of a dick as the film suggests. Ullrich is seen in cycling scenes but never mentioned. Landis' potential to benefit financially (in terms of multi-millions of dollars) from outing Armstrong is not mentioned. The moped courier is seen but never explained.
And those choices aren't all biased in favour of Lance. They also do a strange scene where a mechanic adjusts a cable tensioner on his bike that is made to look like it is some kind of mechanical cheating. They gloss over the fundamental changes of approach and tactics that US Postal made to the sport. Tyler Hamilton gets a passing mention as an ex-team-mate, but Hincapie never appears at all. They skip over the death of Casartelli, and the following stage win. They skip over his pre-dope World Champs win (unless you know enough about cycling to recognise the stripes).
So it is a strange telling of the story. Too sympathetic to the cheat, whilst too dismissive of some of the other great achievements. Almost as if the director was scared of portraying such a fantastical story that many of the audience might then consider unbelievable, at the same time forgetting that truth is stranger than fiction.
The director also seems to have misunderstood his audience. The core audience for this film are going to be people who know the story, so we know how outrageous some of it is. We have watched the real Walsh / Armstrong press conference. So playing it down for us was pointless. The other possible audience was people who don't know the story and want to be entertained, so why play down all the entertaining features?
It really is a poor film. A much better idea is to just go back and watch the Armstrong Lie and see the original footage in a purer documentary format.
Scores 5 out of 10. And I like cycling and knew what was going on. If you don't it is probably a 4.
It is a fairly average docudrama re-enactment of The Armstrong lie.
Ben Foster does a very good look-a-like job. So much so that they are able to cut in and out of historical footage of the man himself pretty seamlessly. Unfortunately, for the most part, his impression is not as accurate. Having seen several of the scenes in their real format the sheer confidence / arrogance of the man just doesn't come across.
Some of the cycling is a bit rubbish as well. Where they use original footage it is obviously going to be boring as they pull a few seconds out to a 20 day race. So instead they film their own with cyclists suddenly sprinting away from groups at minimal effort. American Flyers used the same filming techniques for cycle racing, but executed slightly better, 30 years ago. It is disappointing that modern film-makers can't do anything better.
The story itself is lacking as well. And this is really a bit strange because the material is there and they just seem to choose not to use it.
Betsy Andreu is glossed over in two tiny scenes. Wiggins attachment to Festina is never mentioned. Travis Tygart appears but never even gets named. Contador may actually be a dick, I am not a great fan myself, but he isn't as much of a dick as the film suggests. Ullrich is seen in cycling scenes but never mentioned. Landis' potential to benefit financially (in terms of multi-millions of dollars) from outing Armstrong is not mentioned. The moped courier is seen but never explained.
And those choices aren't all biased in favour of Lance. They also do a strange scene where a mechanic adjusts a cable tensioner on his bike that is made to look like it is some kind of mechanical cheating. They gloss over the fundamental changes of approach and tactics that US Postal made to the sport. Tyler Hamilton gets a passing mention as an ex-team-mate, but Hincapie never appears at all. They skip over the death of Casartelli, and the following stage win. They skip over his pre-dope World Champs win (unless you know enough about cycling to recognise the stripes).
So it is a strange telling of the story. Too sympathetic to the cheat, whilst too dismissive of some of the other great achievements. Almost as if the director was scared of portraying such a fantastical story that many of the audience might then consider unbelievable, at the same time forgetting that truth is stranger than fiction.
The director also seems to have misunderstood his audience. The core audience for this film are going to be people who know the story, so we know how outrageous some of it is. We have watched the real Walsh / Armstrong press conference. So playing it down for us was pointless. The other possible audience was people who don't know the story and want to be entertained, so why play down all the entertaining features?
It really is a poor film. A much better idea is to just go back and watch the Armstrong Lie and see the original footage in a purer documentary format.
Scores 5 out of 10. And I like cycling and knew what was going on. If you don't it is probably a 4.
Sunday, 11 October 2015
Film Review - Sicario
Bit rubbish really.
Sicario is billed as a thriller, but nothing thrilling happens and the supposed twist, isn't really a twist at all. The trailer also bills it as an action movie, which it tries to be in a couple of scenes, but doesn't really do enough of all round.
There is some overly graphic violence which makes little sense but does add significant shock value. There are some overly stereotyped Spec Ops soldiers, right down to the stupid beards.
Emily Blunt is fine in it. Benicia Del Toro, hmm ok. Josh Brolin, how does he keep getting work? And no-one else says more than a few lines.
There were half a dozen other films to see this week. This was almost certainly the wrong choice.
Overall 6 out of 10.
Sicario is billed as a thriller, but nothing thrilling happens and the supposed twist, isn't really a twist at all. The trailer also bills it as an action movie, which it tries to be in a couple of scenes, but doesn't really do enough of all round.
There is some overly graphic violence which makes little sense but does add significant shock value. There are some overly stereotyped Spec Ops soldiers, right down to the stupid beards.
Emily Blunt is fine in it. Benicia Del Toro, hmm ok. Josh Brolin, how does he keep getting work? And no-one else says more than a few lines.
There were half a dozen other films to see this week. This was almost certainly the wrong choice.
Overall 6 out of 10.
Saturday, 3 October 2015
Film Review - The Martian
Castaway 2: Left in Space. At least that much is given away in the trailer, and the book is famous enough that it is really hard to avoid knowing big chunks of the story going in. There are still some good surprises though.
The film is packed with famous faces, many of them making token appearances rather than actively contributing. They do make appearances though. This is somewhat helpful as it means we aren't treated to a straight Castaway rip-off with an hour or so of Matt Damon trying to do a Tom Hanks impression but are instead given a rounder story with some development of the other characters.
This does manage to distract a little from the main character. We see each of his exciting adventures and his solutions to each of the problems he is presented, but we don't actually see any development of his mental state. Several months of being completely stranded and then a year or so with no human contact, including 7 months living out of the back of a truck, never seem to take any toll on his mental health.
Ridley Scott's direction is competitive against some of his earlier work, although I caveat that as a single cinema viewing. I do wonder if the extensive CGI will hold up to repeated viewings.
There are plenty of other good things going on though. The 70's music is very fitting and that manages to survive despite the repeated internal referencing. Some of the humour that pops up allows the viewer to laugh along, despite the ridiculous seriousness of the situation there is a lightness.
There are some bugs. The JPL wunderkind scientist is a ridiculous stereotype who makes a seemingly inspired genius discovery which any first year mechanics student could have predicted and most second year's could have calculated. The hero astronauts taking 2 minutes to decide to go and save their friend, against the advice of a whole planet of experts is so 'Merican that it doesn't even warrant discussion. The Chinese decision to intervene is a nonsense Deus Ex Machina which is disappointing in a film which otherwise relies on relatively good science to solve complex problems.
Overall this is one of the better Sci-fi films that has been out in a long time. 9 out of 10.
Spoiler Alert: Sean Bean doesn't die! But they do make a very good scene out of his appearance in the film, fortunately the fact that he can barely contain his own laughter is covered well by the humorous nature of the scene.
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