Review: Gold

Runtime: 2hr 1min

Director: Stephen Gaghan

Release Date: 3rd February 2017

Rating: 15 (UK), R (USA)

Matthew McConaughey reprises his role from The Wolf of Wall Street to present us with a repetitive storyline which doesn't make the most of its source material.

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I kid, of course; Kenny Wells (McConaughey) is not actually the same character as Mark Hanna from The Wolf Of Wall Street. However, if you were to put the film side by side with Gold, then there would be many moments I would be unable to tell the difference; bar McConaughey's receding hairline in the more recent movie.

Gold has a plot loosely following a true story; two men who find a gold mine in Indonesia which was predicted to be the largest gold find of the decade. The sequential events involve big-time stockbroker involvement and multi-billion dollar investments into Kenny Wells' company following his discovery along with Michael Acosta (Edgar Ramirez). The plot doesn't offer much else, and has tendancies of being repetitive throughout the storyline.

The trouble with the adaptation of a true story into a movie is that films are not often representative of real life in many ways; directors are often tasked with a perplexing decision: stay as true as possible to the story or dramatise and exaggerate for the sake of the audience's enjoyment? Gold does not achieve an effective balance at all, in an attempt to remain as true as possible to the real life story of the Bre-X mining scandal (all bar a couple of scenes added in to create tension).

As a result, the movie shows an up-down-up-down relationship with the plot, unable to decide where the storyline is actually going to go, and while this is much like how reality operates, no one has a sublime story arc in real life - it does not make for a great film. The amount of times in the film that Kenny Wells is celebrating how rich he has become, then losing all of his money, then getting it back again only to lose it once more... you get my point.

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It is a shame that this was the case because it seems like this role was practically written for McConaughey, he clearly relished his opportunity to perform as Wells, but his character does still lack originality. To mention it again, moments of the film where the company are celebrating the fact they've made a lot of money on the stock market floor and when

the main cast are calling up potential investors and essentially lying to them to obtain a greater investment, look basically ripped from The Wolf of Wall Street. 

Gold is not a bad movie - it is merely mediocre. When I find myself not caring about the characters during their times of need or desperation, they must not be written very well. In fact, most are completely forgettable other than the main two cast members. I can't particularly justify a reason to go and watch the film other than to kill time, it didn't have a great deal to offer. 
 

6/10

Review: Sing

Runtime: 1hr 48min
Director: Christophe Lourdelet & Garth Jennings
Release Date: 27th January 2017
Rating: U (UK), PG (USA)

From the pure standpoint that this movie is designed for children, Sing absolutely serves its purpose; however adult viewing sees a cliché, cringeworthy picture that leaves much to be desired. 

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A clear cash-grab, with its release sandwiched between Moana and LEGO Batman (both awesome!), I deemed Sing very dull and obvious. The plots' reality-TV/talent show model didn't overly appeal to me, and I feel if it weren't for the characters being members of the animal kingdom, it wouldn't appeal to many others either; an unoriginal decision for an animated kids' movie.

Scraping together some sort of storyline, Sing trails Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey), a theatre-owning koala, whose attempts at staging a city-wide singing competition in order to try and save his business from bankruptcy go far from smoothly. Despite the title and premise, I was disappointed to learn how overlooked the dialogue was - the vast amounts of poorly-performed pop music covers saturated the almost-two-hour-long screening (seriously, they must have forked out a fortune on rights).

Each creature that enters Busters' show has an unoriginal backstory and there is minor storyline lead-up to their reasons for entering; the constant switch back and forth conveys fear of losing the viewers' interest. Johnny the Gorilla's (Taron Egerton) father is a robber and wants his son to be part of his gang, when all Johnny is obsessed with is singing; Mike (Seth MacFarlane) is a loud-mouthed mouse, living on the streets performing jazz and swing numbers; and Meena (Tori Kelly) is too shy to perform in front of anyone despite being an elephant. The list of yawn-inducing, eye-roll-worthy character profiles go on - not a single differentiator from many a children's movie before it.

The performances the actors give are barely of note, nothing provided was particularly engaging or enchanting at all - most gave it their standard presentation and nothing more; the voice-acting wasn't horrible, but it certainly wasn't great either. 

On the other end, as far as animation quality goes, Sing is definitely up to scratch with the modern day; there was no point in the film where something looked unnatural in any way, so that can certainly be commended. Character movement and reactions are organic and fluid - the animation team are the ones to praise the most for this movie. 

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As harsh as I may have been to Sing, I cannot deny that children will love the movie - it is intentionally tailored to the under 11s of this world, of which it more than meets expectations: but unlike other children's movies which understand that parents will watch the movies with their kids, Sing does not decide to throw any adult humour in to make the movie more of a family film; Sing will leave any adult with common sense with a lot to be desired.

What Sing leaves us with is a movie which (most importantly) isn't very enjoyable. If I was forced to poke fun at the film in order to make my viewing time entertaining, there is certainly an issue with the film put before me. Watchable (barely) but hardly a classic.

3.5/10