Show Me The Movies

Sunday, 12 March 2017

Review: Kong - Skull Island

Runtime: 1hr 58min
Director: Jordan Vogt-Roberts
Release Date: 9th March 2017
Rating: 12A (UK), PG-13 (US)

Better than expected, a not-too-shabby attempt at yet another (insert eye-roll here) King Kong picture, starring Tom Hiddleston, John C. Reilly and the beloved Samuel L. Jackson.

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Predominantly set in 1973, the flick follows a purpose-built team of soldiers, scientists and stragglers as they head for the undiscovered Skull Island in search of the unknown. Here they stumble upon a beast trapped on the island known as Kong - a potentially misjudged anti-hero.

Highly-anticipated by many, this sequel was - in my mind - always going to be either a complete masterpiece or bucketful of disappointment. To my surprise(/delight/sadness), it turned out to be neither. Whilst on the most part I would praise its' solid cinematography (some beautiful landscape and action shots), as well as Kongs' expert-use of CGI throughout, these couldn't save it from what appeared to me a watered-down premise with fortune-cookie-cliches being pulled out of a hat and inserted into every appropriate crevice.

The acting standard as a whole is admittedly not bad - I have to give particular nod to Samuel L Jackson for finally producing a well played-out character (seriously, name me a role he's played well since Django Unchained and I'll be a monkey's uncle) - but I can't particularly criticise much of the performances throughout. Toby Kebbell (yes, that guy that's been in everything recently that you never remember the name of) and Brie Larson were probably the most bland - with Tom Hiddleston outshining most of his fellow cast members.

The fight scenes were indeed the most entertaining part - well-timed, well thought-out and, at times, epic! Other than a slight overuse of slow-motion features, and a couple of ridiculous shots, I honestly quite enjoyed seeing not only the fights with Kong himself but the other internal exchanges (no spoilers, I promised!).

Also, entirely blameless of the creators, but yet another movie this season with the insertion of JFK, Vietnam and 60's culture was really not needed (sorry guys!). Despite this, it redeemed itself slightly with some fairly enjoyable music throwbacks. Alongside these were plenty of well-utilised sound-effects and editing that I found rather enjoyable (a complete renunciation from the script).

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I was pleasantly surprised to find Kong: Skull Island didn't leave me wanting 2 hours of my life back; that said, given the choice I wouldn't waste another two rewatching it. Okay to pass the time, Kong exists. If you're after something more worthwhile, perhaps skip this and shove on Predator (terribly brilliant) or Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus (brilliantly terrible).

6/10

Saturday, 11 March 2017

Review: Fences

Runtime: 2hr 19min
Director: Denzel Washington
Release Date: 10th February 2017
Rating: 12A (UK), PG-13 (USA)

Style really does take priority over substance for Denzels' one-man-band; a whole lot of fuss for a film quite ordinary.

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Fences in many ways mimics a 1989 film, Do the Right Thing, which essentially tells a tale of life, with no intentions to over-dramatise or show a Hollywood filter over events. The idea of Fences is paved with good intentions - it is not a cash-grab like past Denzel Washington movies have been, and the plot does flow at a consistent rate. That consistent rate in question happens to be, however, a sluggishly slow rate.

The movie seems to make a big fuss out of every little event that occurs; the opening of the film is a twenty minute conversation between Troy (Washington), his wife Rose (Viola Davis) and his best friend, Jim Bono (Stephen Henderson), with little context or connection to the rest of the film, with no other purpose than to make the characters appear more relatable - but this scene was far too drawn out to be a Tarantino-esque dialogue masterpiece.

Despite these attempts, Troy is not a relatable character at all either, in fact most of the decisions he makes throughout the movie are completely unreasonable and yet as the main character he is painted out to be the moral authority. The idea of excusing him for his actions simply because he is from a troubled background with many difficult situations to deal with at once, is not how the movie should deal with his character. A character can only be excused for their unrelatable actions if their reasons for their actions are relatable, which in this case, they are not.

Troy was played well by Washington, and most actors did a great job as a whole. Viola Davis was excellent in her role, and was essentially perfectly cast; Cory (Jovan Adepo) was good as Troy and Rose's son, attempting to impress his father constantly, and the emotions he conveyed whenever Troy would do something he disagreed with were authentic and natural as a performance.

The problem Fences has is that it doesn't really go anywhere. The film has great actors, and environment for those characters to be in, but no opportunity to make a fantastic film out of a worthy script, which has some lines which even repeat during the movie.

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Fences does not really have a premise, there isn't a moral of the story and it appears like the film was put together as an idea before the script was even written to be able to simulate 'real life' action and conversation, but there was no need for all of this self-celebratory pretentious style which made the movie irritating to watch.

I never found myself engrossed in the plot at all, and I couldn't recommend this since I barely found myself caring about how events would unfold or what would happen to the characters.

5.5/10

Friday, 10 March 2017

Review: The Great Wall

Runtime: 1hr 43min
Director: Yimou Zhang
Release Date: 17th February 2017
Rating: 12A (UK), PG-13 (US)

An attempt at a bombastic creature-feature resulting in a pathetic excuse for a film, with little bother for pacing or any form of decent storytelling, The Great Wall does not keep up with modern-day CGI or acting quality in the slightest.

Basing a movie around one type of enemy; that being one creature in this film, is entirely dependent on whether that monster poses a threat to the protagonists at all. Creating a creature which appears threatening or terrifying is not a simple task, the likes of a huge franchise like Alien took an entire movie to build the Xenomorph into the icon it is today - and The Great Wall does not manage this. At all.

The reptilians that are known as the Tao Tei in the film are not threatening at all, their presence in the film is so prolific, they behave more like rodents rather than any form of adversary for the protagonists. The first attack upon the wall is within the first 30 minutes from tens of thousands of the Tao Tei (so this isn't a spoiler at all), and they all simply retreat because Matt Damon manages to kill one of the beasts, despite the fact it appears as if they are beating the humans.

The greatest threat to the Nameless Order (the army and defenders of the Great Wall) is Ballard (Willem Dafoe), who is only interested in deserting the wall to save his own life, and that seems to be conveyed as the worst crime anyone could ever commit and is worth far more focus and screentime than any monster that could be a 'real' threat.

The acting and character writing in the film is on par with films like Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones or Star Trek: Nemesis. Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal's characters are supposed to be best of friends even if they seem to disagree with each other consistently throughout the film on whether it is worth staying to defend the wall with the Nameless Order, which implies that William (Matt Damon's Character) believes that his contribution among an army of tens of thousands will make a measurable difference.

The only decent performance is that of Willem Dafoe, who does the best job he can with what role he has been given - which honestly isn't a great deal. The portrayal of General Lin (Tian Jing) is not unique at all, and Matt Damon didn't really play a character at all. Ideally, the film would have had a main character with some form of relationship with any other character and would show some actual emotion rather than murdering monsters and pretending to do the 'honourable' thing by staying and fighting them, all whilst being praised as a hero for literally managing to kill one beast alone.

The truth is that this movie does not make sense, the ending is as unsatisfying as anything that came before it, and the only parts of the movie that look visually impressive in the slightest are the shots of the wall from afar, which are plentiful by the end of the film. There is some obsession with using slow motion to a ridiculous extent mid-action to the point that it is jarring to watch at times in this movie, and the pacing is so basic that the film is repetitive by the end and it's only just over 90 minutes long!

To spend this much money on creating a movie like this is basically laughable, and the intent to blend Eastern and Western film isn't a success here at all; purely an eastern-influenced, poor-quality Hollywood picture. I'm certain it is very much possible to merge influences from genres and cultures both east and west, but this pitiful film certainly feels forced.

I could not recommend this laughably-rushed movie to anyone, and frankly I wouldn't watch it again if you paid me. Essentially a boring, badly-delivered joke with barely enough substance to even call itself a movie.

1.5/10

Review: The Founder

Runtime: 1hr 55min
Director: John Lee Hancock
Release Date: 17th February 2017
Rating: 12A (UK), PG-13 (USA)

Despite high quality performances among seasoned acting veterans, The Founder is a missed opportunity in biographical cinema.

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The Founder is a movie which tells a story of the creation of the McDonald's restaurant chain and how it came to be, following Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) and his acquisition of the brand from the McDonald brothers (John Carroll Lynch & Nick Offerman).

What this movie holds to its' advantage is that the portrayals of the main characters do not water down their personalities, Ray Kroc is shown to be opportunistic and devious without apology; Dick McDonald is calculating and uptight, and Mac McDonald is conveyed as too forgiving. The screenplay for these characters played to the actor's talents; Nick Offerman was particularly entertaining in his role, but the main cast's performances could not save this semi-biographical script.

The movie has some interesting cinematography, one particular scene has the McDonald brothers explaining the creation of their restaurant, with cutaway shots going through the events being explained whilst simultaneously being described by the brothers; not to mention that they finish off each other's sentences in a slick manner. All of this adds to an alluring start, but really its' all just style over substance.

Besides the atypical camerawork and skillful performances, The Founder does not have much left to offer. The way the story flows is far from perfect, focussing on Kroc much more than necessary which pushed aside the credible supporting cast, which could have likely told a more accurate plot with greater inclusion of the McDonald brothers.

The movie suffers from being in the middle ground, not taking enough risks to be credible as a great movie, but playing it safe enough so that the film isn't terrible either. There is not much that can even be said about The Founder other than that it has interesting moments and good acting, but I could never say that I didn't find my attention wavering during the picture.

The trailer of the movie does give away most of the important events during the film, I left the cinema getting exactly what I expected; a mediocre-to-good biopic with decent costume design for the era, and not a great focus on attention to detail or actually making the film more interesting than the bare minimum.

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If I was asked if I could recommend this film, I would only be able to do so if you're interested in biographical movies as a whole; the movie does project the characters in a realistic light but the story that they are placed in is far from perfect or interesting.

The Founder hired the right people for the acting jobs, but from the man who directed acclaimed biographical drama The Blind Side, this could have been much more than just a vanilla motion picture.

6/10

Thursday, 9 March 2017

Review: Logan

Runtime: 2hr 17min

Director: James Mangold

Release: 1st March 2017

Rating: 15 (UK), R (US)

The final X-men picture goes out with a depressing whimper instead of the emotional rollercoaster that was intended.

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Over time, X-men movies have grown more and more inconsistent in terms of tone and pacing between films; maintaining consistency is a difficult task with such a vast franchise (particularly one with multiple timelines), but Logan manages to be one of the 'odd films out' in that it is far more grounded than its' predecessors. In making the movie more grounded, the film is far more dark and brooding than any other X-men movie, portraying Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) as a jaded and depressed mutant and even the presence of a child throughout doesn't lighten the tone.

There is no doubt that having Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart in their usual roles is the best the movie has to offer, it is clear that they are completely comfortable in their roles to such an extent that one cannot imagine anyone else performing. Their presence on-screen is fierce and captivating; and I could not praise Logan enough for this.

The movie however is riddled with faults throughout, starting with the primary plot point of the film, the most important character involved: Laura (Dafne Keen). The introduction of this character is key to the entire fabric of how the film runs and functions as a storyline, yet she is unlikable and irritating. I have pictured a version of the film's events without her presence, and she does not add to the story as a single entity at all, despite the fact she is among the centre of events. To put it simply: the film revolves around her as a character, but if not present, the film would not lose an entertaining or vaguely interesting on-screen performance. This is not down to acting talent, but script writing which paints Laura as a damsel in distress despite the fact she can clearly handle herself during action scenes.

The action is undeniably entertaining, yet comes few and far between. Some dramatic moments include Logan having to deal with Xavier having a seizure, which causes the surroundings to be affected perilously and Logan must stop the seizure by calming Xavier down with an injection, which just involves Wolverine walking toward Xavier in slow motion, disposing of a couple of enemies who are frozen and cannot move. This doesn't particularly constitute its' own 'action' segment, and detracts from the real moments in the film in which the protagonists really can entertain the viewer with some incredible bloodthirsty scenes.

Logan is a bloodthirsty film overall, at no point is there a pause in the violence that the movie shows, which again, changes the tone from most of the other films within the franchise. This film is not for the light-hearted, and those that find themselves huge fans of the series are definitely going to enjoy the movie; this is not the first X-men film which I can say has flaws, and while I know that the film isn't perfect and I personally did not find the plot captivating (in fact the plot is not anything we haven't seen before), I know that a lover of the X-men series is going to find that this movie will tug on their heartstrings time and time again.

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The need to thrust the important parts of the story upon Laura is completely unnecessary, when this film tries and fails to get the audience to enjoy her as a character, it then attempts to make her relatable by placing her opinions and feelings towards Logan in line with that of the audience: of admiration. This didn't work on me at all, and I still found her an annoyance as the film began to close, and due to the fact the main focus was shifted slightly from Logan and greatly from Xavier to this new character, it meant these beloved characters did not get the chance to really relate like they have done in other films before their exit.

Is Logan a good film? At least partially. Is it a good X-men film? Absolutely. The vast inconsistency with other X-men movies puts it above many others, naming The Wolverine and X-men Origins: Wolverine as the main movies that Logan has managed to top (which wasn't particularly difficult). I can recommend the movie to anyone who loves X-men and Marvel, but definitely not to anyone else.

6/10

Saturday, 4 March 2017

Top 10: Superhero Movies

2017 is going to be filled to the brim with superhero action, from the impending Guardians 2 release to the much-anticipated Justice League later on in the year. So here are my highly-recommended top 10 superhero movies...

10. The Incredibles (2004)