Film Review - Batman vs Superman

The shortened version of the title BvS still has a letter too many. This film is pure BS. 

The story wanders all over the place as they try to twist their way to the fight at the end. 

Is Zack Snyder colourblind? Really someone who knows him should go and check. His films are all shot in this stupid monochrome that he obviously thinks is arty and clever but is actually just dull.

The guys at Marvel must be wetting their pants at this disaster coming on the heels of Man of Steel. The fanboys will go to see Justice League whatever but unless Suicide Squad is absolutely stunning I won't be joining them.

Overall 5 out of 10.

Film Review - The Revenant

Inarritu has spent a lot of time polishing this turd. Some of the artistic shots are absolutely fabulous. They have obviously had the second unit out in the snow for a great long time shooting scenic trees, snow, and sky. Lots and lots of sky.

The rest of the film is a half-written 30 minute script, packed out with some nice scenery and some hyper-violent scenes to make sure you don't fall asleep. There is no need for a lot of the extremity of the violence. Human vs Human, Animal vs Human, Human vs Animal, all ridiculously bloody and disgusting for no real reason. 

The damage done to several of the characters would be unsurvivable in a modern well-staffed emergency room with a full surgical staff on hand. Instead these characters have almost zombie-levels of un-kill-ability. Huge amounts of blood loss, broken bones, field surgery with darning needles, 100ft falls that kill a horse, even being castrated by teeth looked to have been a survivable event. And through all of this no-one even gets an infection.

Also there is so little in the way of story development that I don't even know where to start. Maybe with the first scene. Where a fully armed team of about 40 professional hunters are completely shredded by 20 native americans with bows and arrows, some of the natives even having managed to penetrate right in to the middle of the camp and climb trees while no-one in what amounts to a small village even noticed them. Rather than fight back the well armed professionals all run away, leaving the equivalent of millions of dollars of furs and most of their compatriots on the beach.

Leo picking up an Oscar for this film is an absolute travesty. It is a perfectly average performance. It is not his worst work, but it isn't even close to his best. He got votes based on his body of work rather than this role. All four of the other nominees can rightly be offended. (Although in Cranston's case he might struggle to make any better a case than Leo). 


Overall 6 out of 10.

Film Review - Creed

All in all it is a very suitable successor to the Rocky franchise. 

Rocky himself is in. The training montage is in. The soundtrack is in.  The boxing plays a large part but the story is still dominated by the characters rather than their circumstances. The references back to previous films are tastefully done rather than being shoved in your face. Anything that makes a Rocky film is in there somewhere. 

Michael B Jordan is fairly believable as the pushy kid trying to make his own way in the world. His girlfriend is unfortunately styled a bit too much like Denise Huxtable and her role is limited but she holds her place. And most of the supporting cast do efficient jobs. Tony Bellew is the only one who is a bit out of place. He always seems to be trying to act. Even playing himself, right down to his own football club fandom doesn't really help. 

But none of them really matter, they are all window dressing for Stallone himself. He is the stand-out of this entire movie. It is a fantastic reminder that 40 years ago, before the excessive action violence of the 80s got hold of him, he could actually act. And putting him back in a character that was his own original creation gives him freedom to inhabit the role in a way that probably isn't available to anyone else in the Hollywood machine. 

His nomination for an Oscar was absolutely deserved, his failure to win was a shock to me. I can understand him losing out to Network for both his Best Actor and Best Writer nominations in 1976, although Rocky then taking Best Film over Network shows that the Academy were stuck somewhere in trying to reward both films. I have yet to see Rylance's Bridge of Spies Best Supporting Actor performance but if it was truly better than this work from Stallone then I am in for a treat.

And they have been quite smart about how they have set up for future movies. If Stallone wants to get out they can let the cancer or the chemotherapy beat him and still be consistent with the way they have previously treated Adrian and Paulie. If he wants to stay in they can size his part to suit, anything from a single sick bed scene to the same major supporting role that he plays here. 

I want to give this 10 out of 10. Bellew almost costs it that score on his own, but it is some of the jive talk between Creed and his girlfriend that just seemed too forced and was the final nudge to cut a point off.

9 out of 10. 

Film Review - Star Wars: the Force Awakens (no spoilers version)

Cheers JJ. Feel free to show that to George as what he should have done in 1999.

Film Review - Hunger Games 4

Finally we get to the end of another over-length trilogy built on an under length book, and once again the whole thing makes no sense. 

The premise is not quite as full of holes as the Divergent series. The story isn't as drawn out as the Harry Potters. The CGI is not as bad as the Hobbits. It is better acted than the Twilights. So all those seem like it won't be the worst series. And it certainly isn't but at the same time it is not a good series either.

The first 90 minutes or so is pretty much a match for the previous 3. Lots of set piece action scenes, minimal sensible story tying them together.

Another huge weapon cache in a military base under a mountain, completely undermining stated 'facts' from the first two stories. The two boyfriends suddenly sorting themselves out by one of them being good at his job, that skill being abused by someone else, completely outside his control, and somehow this makes everything his fault.

There is no explanation of how the rebel armies of the Districts, who we are repeatedly told are under-armed and outmanned by the existing Capitol forces manage to make any ground at all. How they do so against the ridiculous devastation of the defensive 'pods', is never even discussed. Some of the traps are so devastating that even our team of special forces superstars well behind the front line can't handle them without huge loss of life, so how are your average untrained farmers making any sort of progress?!

They finally come towards a point where they almost, nearly, just about, explain how and why the Hunger Games exist in the first place. Four movies after that explanation was really warranted.

Then they tack on not one, but two unnecessary endings. The credits could have rolled straight after the Presidential assassination. Job done, film finished, victory and democracy assured. They certainly should have rolled after the next 'real or not real?'. Happy ending for everyone. Instead they stick in a very strange scene, not just for it's meaningless tacky content but more so for the freaky CGI baby. It is weird. Up to this point the CGI has been fairly un-noticable, however ridiculous the effect that is being created it is still smoothly, but suddenly it is like they gave the office junior the job on this scene.

In the midst of that they throw in Woody Harrelson reading a letter from Plutarch which is obviously bodged in due to the death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Not only is that whole scene a mess but it ruins the whole tri/quadrilogy. Instead of the message that none of the President's ever really held the power, it was always in the hands of the media, we are treated to an apology and an excuse for why the alternative new President that the media has selected instead is somehow going to be 'better'. 

It is certainly no worse than the previous 3 and it does at least finish off the story of the trilogy. I have rated each of the others as 5/10 and this one is no worse. 

Film Review - SPECTRE

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. 

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.