One of the basic rules of cinema in the 21st century is that if you are an adult going to watch a cartoon, make sure you go to watch a Pixar cartoon. (And stay for the after credits scenes!).
Once again Pixar deliver.
The premise is simple enough, anthropomorphise the basic emotions in a pre-teen head, subject them to a traumatic event in their live and off we go.
There are some segues that could have been kept for sequels or left out entirely, the abstract thought section being the obvious one. There are also some ideas that are thrown away and could have gone much bigger. When they spill the boxes of facts and opinions and then just throw them back in together with the line "these are so hard to tell apart" that line shouldn't have just been thrown away.
As always with Pixar, they will poke around in your emotions, and they have no qualms about digging around in emotionally deep areas and even killing off well-developed characters to advance the plot.
They also have no fear of putting in risqué jokes at levels they can be sure that children and many adults won't understand. The joke about all the 'bears' wandering around San Francisco is so subtle that I had to explain afterwards why I nearly wet myself when no-one else in the cinema was laughing.
Well worth a trip to see this one.
Overall 8 out of 10.
Tuesday, 28 July 2015
Tuesday, 21 July 2015
Film Review - Self/Less
This is quite a good idea for a story and there is a decent amount of work put into the execution. The scenery, clothing and general demeanour of the uber-rich in particular are fantastically executed. The idea behind the story is clever enough, a slight twist on the basic questions of immortality and what would you be willing to give to extend your own life.
Ryan Reynolds doesn't bother to do much of an impression of Ben Kingsley so it doesn't have the same age-swapping or body-swapping qualities of Face/Off or Big or Vice Versa or even Looper. Kingsley sets the character up as being a fairly nasty, win-at-all-costs, narcissist who is willing to destroy the lives around him out of pettiness. Reynolds doesn't carry any of this across so his 'journey' to a nicer personality is pretty much instantaneous.
Ultimately though the downfall of this film is that it is much too predictable.
What should be intriguing little twists, are actually obvious long before they arrive. That takes it's toll as before half way you start to wonder when things will happen rather than what will happen.
It is worth a watch if you have nothing better to do some afternoon but I wouldn't recommend going out of your way for it.
Rating 6 out of 10.
Film Review - Ant-Man
Another Marvel movie. I didn't have particularly high expectations for this one though. I am not a particular fan of any of the major cast members. Michael Douglas is hit or miss. Paul Rudd is too often the butt of jokes rather than the instigator. Evangeline Lilly ok, I like her, but WTF is with that horrid bob? And the list goes on. Even when they draft in an existing Avenger they pick my least favourite when they draft in the Falcon for a couple of scenes. And biggest disappointment of all was watching a Stan Lee interview about 6 weeks ago where he said he was unfortunately too ill to travel to make a cameo appearance.
That same Stan Lee interview did give me some hope though, as he said that this was the first time since the origin of the character that he felt the shrinking superhero had been properly brought to life.
I needn't have worried though. Paul Fiege continues to develop the Marvel universe by somehow adding completely unique characters to their world in new and interesting ways, while tying the whole universe together.
Michael Douglas is far from his spectacular best, but is further from his worst in a solid journeyman role fairly distinct from his normal fayre. Paul Rudd is pretty good, he manages a good mixture of jokes at his own expense without taking any of the respect away from the character. Evangeline Lilly is ... no I just can't get away from being distracted by the horrid haircut, really the hairstylist on this movie needs a slap. And the rest of the supporting cast are pretty standard. The surprise appearances from Hayley Atwell and John Slattery alongside a younger (possibly CGI-ed but very clean) Michael Douglas added to both the Marvel Universe completeness and the appeal of the movie.
The story itself is a fairly simple Marvel origin tale to get the character up and running in time to slip him into the upcoming Civil War and Infinity War storylines.
I think I missed all the subtle easter eggs on the first viewing, but I caught all the blatant ones. I may have to go again before it leaves the cinema to see if I can pick some of them out.
Overall 8 out of 10.
That same Stan Lee interview did give me some hope though, as he said that this was the first time since the origin of the character that he felt the shrinking superhero had been properly brought to life.
I needn't have worried though. Paul Fiege continues to develop the Marvel universe by somehow adding completely unique characters to their world in new and interesting ways, while tying the whole universe together.
Michael Douglas is far from his spectacular best, but is further from his worst in a solid journeyman role fairly distinct from his normal fayre. Paul Rudd is pretty good, he manages a good mixture of jokes at his own expense without taking any of the respect away from the character. Evangeline Lilly is ... no I just can't get away from being distracted by the horrid haircut, really the hairstylist on this movie needs a slap. And the rest of the supporting cast are pretty standard. The surprise appearances from Hayley Atwell and John Slattery alongside a younger (possibly CGI-ed but very clean) Michael Douglas added to both the Marvel Universe completeness and the appeal of the movie.
The story itself is a fairly simple Marvel origin tale to get the character up and running in time to slip him into the upcoming Civil War and Infinity War storylines.
I think I missed all the subtle easter eggs on the first viewing, but I caught all the blatant ones. I may have to go again before it leaves the cinema to see if I can pick some of them out.
Overall 8 out of 10.
Sunday, 5 July 2015
Film Review - Terminator Genisys
Another of this years big budget summer blockbusters. Another risky reboot? (I haven't really liked anything since T2 but I haven't really hated them either). Last week we went to watch the original Terminator movie, that turned out to be a great choice as the refresher meant that many of the really great bits of the new movie were linked back to the original.
Some spoilers included.
There are a couple of bugs that I didn't like and I am going to start with them. The helicopter chase, I hated. The CGI was poor and the whole idea of a helicopter chase and the stunt flying involved was well beyond the acceptable limits of suspension of disbelief. It is purely a directorial choice to spend his CGI money, when they could just as easily have driven down the street. They should just have stripped out that entire scene.
My other minor bug was the forward time jump. There is no need for it. Their original plan is to go 13 years forward, that is well within the realms of just waiting and planning and even acting early so why would you build a risky time machine rather than just spend your effort hiding and preparing. Their revised plan is to go 33 years forward. OK, so that would make her 53(?) and gives future terminators a lot of chance to hunt her down, but compared to the supposed risks of jumping forward it still doesn't really seem like the best strategic choice, and it is dedicated on having already built a time machine for the smaller jump.
There are also some paradoxes that were really getting out of hand and are not solved by the trick of alternate timelines. John Connor (Terminator version) shouldn't be able to time travel as his external cellular structure isn't living tissue. This is how they kill him so how did he survive a time jump already? And why didn't the dozen future tech marines kill him and Matt Smith anyway? He then apparently writes much of the complex code for Skynet, who programmed him, that loop gets a bit silly. Think about it too much and this is starting to turn into the Bill and Ted Bogus Journey ending. Whoever eventually wins the war can set up whatever tricks they want to.
On to the positives though, and there are plenty of them. The future sections are pretty faithful to the originals. The 1984 section is fantastically done, to the point that I was struggling to tell which bits were reshoots and which bits were just remastered and digitally updated. I suspect it was all reshot, but with such fabulous attention to detail that even seeing the original last week left me unsure as to whether they were.
The 2017 section has some subtle messages about how people are addicted to their phones and are sleepwalking into being indirectly ruled by machines anyway. And the writing as a whole is very good. The quirky paradox problems noted above excepted.
Arnie himself is excellent throughout. Playing both the 1984 and 2017 versions perfectly. Turning almost half of his lines into potential future catchphrases. Producing some of the funniest moments in the movie, almost by accident. Fighting himself! Fighting a helicopter?! He will be back, and I suspect in a more arced story this time as the role he plays in this film is definitely non-standard for a Terminator and that gives them room to develop.
And the rest of the cast are better than expected. I didn't expect much from Jai Courtney or Jason Clarke. I don't like either of them. But they are solid enough in their roles. Emilia Clarke is a lot better than I expected, and not having the ridiculous Game of Thrones blonde wig on meant that I wasn't distracted looking for he pet dragon to turn up. JK Simmons does a decent job with what little he is allowed to do, I expect him back for a larger role in the next instalment. And we will see more of Matt Smith as well, but if you watched until after the credits you already knew he will be back.
It isn't perfect, but it is the best of the Terminator sequels.
8.49 out of 10. (Just a teeny bit short of scoring enough to round to 9 out of 10, if the directors cut gets rid of the helicopters it is a 9).
Some spoilers included.
There are a couple of bugs that I didn't like and I am going to start with them. The helicopter chase, I hated. The CGI was poor and the whole idea of a helicopter chase and the stunt flying involved was well beyond the acceptable limits of suspension of disbelief. It is purely a directorial choice to spend his CGI money, when they could just as easily have driven down the street. They should just have stripped out that entire scene.
My other minor bug was the forward time jump. There is no need for it. Their original plan is to go 13 years forward, that is well within the realms of just waiting and planning and even acting early so why would you build a risky time machine rather than just spend your effort hiding and preparing. Their revised plan is to go 33 years forward. OK, so that would make her 53(?) and gives future terminators a lot of chance to hunt her down, but compared to the supposed risks of jumping forward it still doesn't really seem like the best strategic choice, and it is dedicated on having already built a time machine for the smaller jump.
There are also some paradoxes that were really getting out of hand and are not solved by the trick of alternate timelines. John Connor (Terminator version) shouldn't be able to time travel as his external cellular structure isn't living tissue. This is how they kill him so how did he survive a time jump already? And why didn't the dozen future tech marines kill him and Matt Smith anyway? He then apparently writes much of the complex code for Skynet, who programmed him, that loop gets a bit silly. Think about it too much and this is starting to turn into the Bill and Ted Bogus Journey ending. Whoever eventually wins the war can set up whatever tricks they want to.
On to the positives though, and there are plenty of them. The future sections are pretty faithful to the originals. The 1984 section is fantastically done, to the point that I was struggling to tell which bits were reshoots and which bits were just remastered and digitally updated. I suspect it was all reshot, but with such fabulous attention to detail that even seeing the original last week left me unsure as to whether they were.
The 2017 section has some subtle messages about how people are addicted to their phones and are sleepwalking into being indirectly ruled by machines anyway. And the writing as a whole is very good. The quirky paradox problems noted above excepted.
Arnie himself is excellent throughout. Playing both the 1984 and 2017 versions perfectly. Turning almost half of his lines into potential future catchphrases. Producing some of the funniest moments in the movie, almost by accident. Fighting himself! Fighting a helicopter?! He will be back, and I suspect in a more arced story this time as the role he plays in this film is definitely non-standard for a Terminator and that gives them room to develop.
And the rest of the cast are better than expected. I didn't expect much from Jai Courtney or Jason Clarke. I don't like either of them. But they are solid enough in their roles. Emilia Clarke is a lot better than I expected, and not having the ridiculous Game of Thrones blonde wig on meant that I wasn't distracted looking for he pet dragon to turn up. JK Simmons does a decent job with what little he is allowed to do, I expect him back for a larger role in the next instalment. And we will see more of Matt Smith as well, but if you watched until after the credits you already knew he will be back.
It isn't perfect, but it is the best of the Terminator sequels.
8.49 out of 10. (Just a teeny bit short of scoring enough to round to 9 out of 10, if the directors cut gets rid of the helicopters it is a 9).
Sunday, 28 June 2015
Film Review - Minions
No spoilers this time.
I was fairly keen for this one.
I like the Despicable Me series and I think the minions were a nailed on case for a spin off.
One of the problems with this movie is that they have tried to use the Minions language as a tool. Bits of it you can actually understand, sometimes it steals just enough French to make sense, sometimes Spanish, often it is just a funny sounding noun that doesn't quite fit. Then they use the other characters for exposition, which means everyone around them is spending time trying to explain what is going on, rather than just get on with it.
The other major issue I have is limiting it to just following the three minions. Part of why they work is their sheer number and the interchangeability of them all. That means you can do silly crowd activities like their special 'banana' videos or you can have them all dress up differently or act stupidly, without it reflecting on a single minion personality. Picking three of them means they have to have individual personalities.
The plot is also a bit patchy, the villain, just isn't very villainous, the best bits are all in the trailer, New York and Orlando and London are all wasted as locations. The historic sections are all in the trailers and the 60s are wasted as well, I do wonder if the date was chosen just for the one useful pay off in the last scene and no-one thought to sit down and consider what else they could include.
It was just a little bit average all round.
Overall 6 out of 10.
I was fairly keen for this one.
I like the Despicable Me series and I think the minions were a nailed on case for a spin off.
One of the problems with this movie is that they have tried to use the Minions language as a tool. Bits of it you can actually understand, sometimes it steals just enough French to make sense, sometimes Spanish, often it is just a funny sounding noun that doesn't quite fit. Then they use the other characters for exposition, which means everyone around them is spending time trying to explain what is going on, rather than just get on with it.
The other major issue I have is limiting it to just following the three minions. Part of why they work is their sheer number and the interchangeability of them all. That means you can do silly crowd activities like their special 'banana' videos or you can have them all dress up differently or act stupidly, without it reflecting on a single minion personality. Picking three of them means they have to have individual personalities.
The plot is also a bit patchy, the villain, just isn't very villainous, the best bits are all in the trailer, New York and Orlando and London are all wasted as locations. The historic sections are all in the trailers and the 60s are wasted as well, I do wonder if the date was chosen just for the one useful pay off in the last scene and no-one thought to sit down and consider what else they could include.
It was just a little bit average all round.
Overall 6 out of 10.
Thursday, 11 June 2015
Film Reviews - Spy and San Andreas
I am going to squeeze two reviews into a single post mostly because they were so terrible they don't deserve a whole post each.
San Andreas is a standard outing for Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. Lots of action, lots of CGI, stupid story so full of stupid holes and bad characters. Alexandra Daddario provides a fairly efficient distraction, particularly in her bikini at the start and then doing her Lara Croft swimming impression near the end. If you don't understand that reference, I am not going to explain it to you.
4 out of 10.
Spy is a Melissa McCarthy / Paul Feig vanity project. A third rate James Bond spoof with very little going for it. Some notable names throw their hand in at trying to save it. Jason Statham has some funny lines, but also a lot of crap to wade through. Miranda has her first Hollywood film role but is basically just in as a foil for all the lines that weren't funny enough to give to McCarthy.
4 out of 10.
Film Review - Jurassic World
I was really looking forward to this one, about a year ago. Then the trailers took the edge off that interest as they gave away too much of the plot and the effects, and none of it was particularly good. All they should have done for a trailer was to show the first 45 seconds of the actual film.
In hindsight the trailers are even more annoying as bits of the trailer (Vincent D'Onofrio shouting about the lack of boats, guns etc) are not even in the final cut of the film!
The whole of the rest of the movie is just a bit of a let down. I didn't really care if the kids got eaten, they were dicks. I didn't really care if she got eaten, she is a heartless snob with no personal skills. I might have been upset if Chris Pratt got eaten, but more because I like Chris Pratt than because I liked his character. The one trick pony Mososaurus was so predictable as Deus Ex Machina that it was a total let down.
Then there are all the soldiers. The amateur park rangers who are armed with non-lethal weapons manage to score hits all over the place but the I-Rex is apparently immune to their weapons. So why are they carrying them? The professionals they then helicopter in with the heavy weapons have all the shooting skills of your average storm-trooper and the tactical skills of a mouse in a room full of traps.
Then there are just the basic stupid failures. You know what happened in the previous parks. You have the technology to tag and track every dinosaur. Why does that tag not have at least a tranquilliser, and more sensibly a small fatal poison in it that you can trigger to kill a single rogue dinosaur? Why aren't the walls alarmed? Why don't they check the tag location BEFORE they go into the cage?!
And the story holes just get worse: They have sold thousands of advanced tickets. They have built a massive specialist research enclosure. They have grown the thing to full size over several months. They have even sold the sponsorship rights to it. But at no point has the dinosaur training expert heard anything about it?
The few good bits come from the references to the original. Returning to the old site, the computerised gene character on the videos, some of the original dinosaurs on the holo-images, the Jurassic Park t-shirt*, letting out the original T-Rex at the end. Those bits are all good but purely from a nostalgia perspective. None of them actually add to the story.
Overall a disappointing 6 out of 10.
*Actually that one is a let down as it is over-played. As is Larry the character as a whole who is just in there as meaningless comic relief.
In hindsight the trailers are even more annoying as bits of the trailer (Vincent D'Onofrio shouting about the lack of boats, guns etc) are not even in the final cut of the film!
The whole of the rest of the movie is just a bit of a let down. I didn't really care if the kids got eaten, they were dicks. I didn't really care if she got eaten, she is a heartless snob with no personal skills. I might have been upset if Chris Pratt got eaten, but more because I like Chris Pratt than because I liked his character. The one trick pony Mososaurus was so predictable as Deus Ex Machina that it was a total let down.
Then there are all the soldiers. The amateur park rangers who are armed with non-lethal weapons manage to score hits all over the place but the I-Rex is apparently immune to their weapons. So why are they carrying them? The professionals they then helicopter in with the heavy weapons have all the shooting skills of your average storm-trooper and the tactical skills of a mouse in a room full of traps.
Then there are just the basic stupid failures. You know what happened in the previous parks. You have the technology to tag and track every dinosaur. Why does that tag not have at least a tranquilliser, and more sensibly a small fatal poison in it that you can trigger to kill a single rogue dinosaur? Why aren't the walls alarmed? Why don't they check the tag location BEFORE they go into the cage?!
And the story holes just get worse: They have sold thousands of advanced tickets. They have built a massive specialist research enclosure. They have grown the thing to full size over several months. They have even sold the sponsorship rights to it. But at no point has the dinosaur training expert heard anything about it?
The few good bits come from the references to the original. Returning to the old site, the computerised gene character on the videos, some of the original dinosaurs on the holo-images, the Jurassic Park t-shirt*, letting out the original T-Rex at the end. Those bits are all good but purely from a nostalgia perspective. None of them actually add to the story.
Overall a disappointing 6 out of 10.
*Actually that one is a let down as it is over-played. As is Larry the character as a whole who is just in there as meaningless comic relief.
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