Cowboys & Aliens: Extended Director’s Cut (2011)

Posted on December 24, 2012 by badblokebob

This review contains spoilers.

We all know the saying “too many cooks spoil the broth”, and it can’t help pop into one’s mind during the 85 seconds of company logos that kick off this genre mashup. Here the “cooks” are Paramount (serving non-US distribution only), Dreamworks, Universal and Imagine Entertainment — I can’t remember the last time I saw a Hollywood blockbuster begin with so many individual logo animations. It’s unsurprising that no one wanted to take a solo punt on a Western-with-a-twist after the failure of the last one anyone can remember, and after this (it barely reclaimed its production budget at the worldwide box office) it looks unlikely many will want to again.

Unlike that Will Smith vehicle, however, Cowboys & Aliens isn’t an appallingly bad film. It’s not a particularly great one, true, but its lack of success is due in part to someone agreeing to spend too much money on it — it made $175m and looks like a failure for Chrissake! Looked at objectively, that’s a pretty fine number, especially when its “Indiana Jones and James Bond fight aliens” selling point is tarnished by the recent films in both those franchises being poorly received.

But enough about money, what about the film itself. The story concerns Indiana Jones and James Bond fighting aliens. Sadly, not literally — it’s Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig as cowboys faced with an alien invasion. Sounds like pulpy fun, right? That’s what the title implies. Unfortunately, director Jon Favreau and the team of seven writers (that’s right, seven) decided it would be better to make it Serious. Ugh. Well, I say “ugh” — I’m not adverse to the idea of serious-minded renditions of initially-daft concepts; but not using the daft version of the concept as your final title might be a starting point.

Thing is, what the film gives us doesn’t quite sit right, even if you’re expecting it to be non-pulpy. It’s still an action-adventure summer blockbuster, but with pretensions at times to be a Western drama. I think that’s the fundamental problem with the entire film, and probably why it feels slow, especially in the middle. A lot of that is character scenes, despite which the characters feel underdeveloped and under explored. One wonders if these particular writers, versed in the art of the blockbuster, don’t really know what they’re doing. Sometimes you can see what they were going for, for instance in how they set things up and pay them off (like the alien with a grudge against Craig), but somehow it doesn’t come off.

And the outcome is: maybe some of the pulpy thrills the name promised would’ve been better. It doesn’t need to be a comedy, it just needs to stop trying to be so grandiose and get on with the cowboys-fighting-aliens action. Which in this version, when it finally gets to it right at the end, is no fun because it’s too busy distracting us elsewhere — literally, the fight is a distraction for some of the other heroes to get on with the plot. Which I guess is why it feels so unsatisfying and you just want it to go away — we’ve nothing invested in that fight, other than it has to keep going on, and even that isn’t made clear (the aliens certainly aren’t desperate to get back inside their base, for instance).

Also note that this climax lasts a full 25 minutes. It may not sound a lot for the big finish — it’s the whole third act after all — but it felt it (especially as the build-up begins 40 minutes out), with constantly shifting goal posts and Favreau’s attempts at making a skirmish feel like an epic battle. Other parts are just straight wasted opportunities, like the extended sequence in an upturned riverboat. For one thing, no effort is made to explain its presence. For another, it’s all so darkly shot that you can’t get a real sense of it. Could have made for some impressive sets — heck, maybe they were impressive sets — but it’s not well utilised. Makes it harder to work out just what’s going on at times too. Thank goodness it wasn’t in 3D!

Even without that gimmick, however, I really disliked some of the cinematography. Much of it is great, but then there are those dark bits, and even worse is some handheld psychedelically-graded stuff that just sticks out like a sore thumb. I can see what Favreau was going for, but it feels out of place, wrong, distractingly nasty rather than provocatively effective in a film that is mostly shot very classically, especially for a modern effects-packed blockbuster.

I could go on. For example, Craig loses the love of his life to the aliens, then loses the new woman he seems to have quickly fallen for to them too… but it’s OK because he saw a hummingbird at the end, so he’s happy. Or there’s the fact that the town is called Absolution — I believe, anyway, because I think one of the three guys at the beginning mentions it and it’s the title of a featurette on the BD. Other than that, no mention is made in the film, despite it arguably being one of the key themes. We don’t need to be battered around the head with symbolism, but a bit more effort might’ve been nice.

Remember when I said the film wasn’t bad? Honestly, it… well, it wasn’t really. There are good bits. British composer Harry Gregson-Williams offers a likeable score, especially the main theme (which plays over the DVD & BD menu, if you want to hear it quickly). It’s nicely evocative of familiar Western music while giving it a modern style too, at times sweeping when we reach an appropriate bit. One of the best elements of the film, in many ways.

As you may have noticed, I watched the Blu-ray’s extended cut of the film, which in this instance offers somewhere in the region of 17 minutes of new material. (Normally that website is reliable, but this isn’t their best guide in my opinion.) That’s quite a chunk of time, which makes me wonder if some of the pacing issues — the slow middle, as I mentioned — may be down to this being extended. Still, despite their relatively large total length, the extensions mostly come in tiny bits. Some I guessed (all the stuff with them exploring the boat), some it’s hard to imagine the film without (an early scene with Craig and the town priest, or stuff about the doctor and the kid coming along on the hunt — the doc they could’ve got away with, but the kid? Did no one watching the theatrical version question why they took him along?) Conversely, some of the extensions seem borderline unnecessary — so maybe the theatrical version wouldn’t be much better pacing-wise after all. On balance this feels like an extended cut where someone decided to save a work-in-progress edit and later deem it an “extended cut”, then kept trimming to craft a more streamlined theatrical cut, as opposed to the filmmakers dropping missed elements back in post-release.

For an ending, I’m actually going to cheat a little and turn to another review. Naughty me. But Blu-ray.com’s coverage of the US disc has a good section that I may as well just quote in (almost) full as paraphrase as a source, and it goes on to a conclusion I simply agree with. So:

President of Universal Studios Ron Meyers’ brutally blunt assessment of [Cowboys & Aliens]? “Wasn’t good enough. Forget all the smart people involved in it, it wasn’t good enough. All those little creatures bouncing around were crappy. I think it was a mediocre movie. We misfired. We were wrong. We did it badly, and I think we’re all guilty of it. I have to take first responsibility because I’m part of it, but we all did a mediocre job and we paid the price for it. It happens. They’re talented people. Certainly you couldn’t have more talented people involved in Cowboys & Aliens, but it took, you know, ten smart and talented people to come up with a mediocre movie.”

Such honesty is rare indeed. As Blu-ray.com’s reviewer Kenneth Brown goes on to say,

you have to admire a studio exec willing to address criticism head on and take responsibility for projects that should have taken off but, for one reason or another, crashed and burned. So is Cowboys & Aliens really that bad? “Mediocre” is fair, “disappointing” even more so. It isn’t a bad flick — it’s actually kinda fun, if you’re willing to abandon high expectations and switch off your brain for two hours — it just isn’t nearly as good as it could have and should have been.

Sad, but true.

And I’m sure that, in its wake, Disney haven’t made a mistake by spending a reported $250m ($87m more than Cowboys & Aliens cost; $75m more than it earned) on Western-with-a-twist The Lone Ranger, have they?

…have they?

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

The Court Jester (1956)

Posted on December 23, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #29
Melvin Frank & Norman Panama | 97 mins | TV | 1.85:1 | USA / English | U

On its release in 1956, The Court Jester was the most expensive comedy ever made, at a cost of $4 million. For that sum you could make precisely 2 minutes & 11 seconds of more recent most-expensive-ever comedy flop Evan Almighty. The Court Jester wasn’t a success at the box office either, though apparently it’s full of famous moments – and, at the very least, (and much to my amazement, because it’s a commonly uttered phrase in my family and I’d never heard of the film), it originated the saying, “Get it? Got it. Good.”

The plot is intricately farcical, packed with mistaken identities and items being passed from person to person which get mixed up for one another. That all works well comically but is inexplicable in print, so suffice to say Danny Kaye plays a member of a Robin Hood-a-like’s gang who ends up in the castle of their nemesis under the guise of the new jester (hence the title). Hilarity ensues.

And, actually, it does. Kaye is the focus of the film and, an experienced pro, he carries it with aplomb. The supporting cast offer no weak links, with an ageing Basil Rathbone making a fine villain. He isn’t required to do much in the comedy department, but his straight villainy and the association of his previous roles (particularly in Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood, of course) add to proceedings. This includes an amusing climactic sword fight, though for the most part the role of Rathbone’s character is played by the film’s fight choreographer, the 63-year-old star finding Kaye’s movements a bit fast for him at that age.

There are also some songs, though I can’t for the life of me remember a single one of them… with the notable exception of the opening title sequence. Not that I remember the song, I just remember there being one: Kaye pushes the credits around while singing said song. And apparently the lyrics relate to the credits that are coming up too, though I didn’t notice at the time. It’s very neat.

I’d never heard of The Court Jester before it popped up on on-demand while I had Sky Movies for the Oscars, but apparently it’s “a television matinee favorite”. Maybe just in America (note the spelling in the quote); maybe it just passed me by. Either way, it’s an entertainment worth catching if you can. Get it?

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

The Return of the Musketeers (1989)

Posted on December 22, 2012 by badblokebob

16 years after they first swashed their buckles for director Richard Lester, Michael York, Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay and Richard Chamberlain return as the titular swordsmen in an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ Vingt ans après, aka Twenty Years After. As feats of sequalisation go, there’s something inherently pleasing about reassembling a cast and crew the best part of two decades later to adapt a tale set at a similar distance.

Unfortunately, it didn’t go down so well: although it did receive a theatrical release in Europe, in the US it wound up as a cable TV premiere a couple of years later. This may in part be due to the fact that it looks like it was shot close to the early-’70s originals, not in the late ’80s. It’s also tonally similar, a scrappy style that perhaps didn’t sit so well in the multiplexes of a decade-and-a-half later, despite a pulpy structure and emphasis on fun japes rather than serious-minded storytelling.

Despite being sourced from an Old Novel, The Return of the Musketeers is — just like its two forebears — far from being a Literary Adaptation. It may not scale the same heights of fun and frivolity as the first Lester-directed Musketeers movie, but it’s more or less on a par with the second, with moments (such as a clever opening) that shine through. Rough around the edges certainly, but likeable heroes, hissable villains, and widespread irreverence keep it the right side of entertaining for those who enjoyed this cast’s previous adventures.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

Conan the Barbarian (2011)

Posted on December 21, 2012 by badblokebob

Conan was created by Robert E. Howard in 1932, but is probably best known to most thanks to the Schwarzenegger-starring 1982 film, which was successful enough to provoke a sequel in 1984. Having never read any of the stories or watched either of those films, that’s about where my knowledge of the character ends — except for this recent attempt at a remake/reboot/whatever “re”-prefixed word you want to use this week.

Here, at least, Conan starts out as a young boy in a village of warriors, who are then massacred by the villainous villain in his quest for some MacGuffin. Naturally our young hero is the only survivor and I imagine at that point he swore vengeance, so he goes off and grows up to become someone with more muscles than acting chops (played by Jason Momoa, previously seen as a non-English-speaking muscleman in Game of Thrones) and somehow or other gets on the trail of the villain.

If my poor description sounds like the film doesn’t make sense, that’s a tad unfair, because it is followable… I just didn’t really care at any point. The plot kind of pings about through some disconnected set pieces, few of them particularly inspiring with the exception of one featuring ninja-types who are formed out of sand. Whether the story is faithful to Howard or a reinvention I don’t know, but either he’s been heavily borrowed from down the years or the filmmakers ignored his work in favour of familiar bits and bobs from other sources. Visually it’s just as non-inventive, which is what you get when you hire the director of a middling Frankenstein TV movie, two horror remakes, and Pathfinder.

This new version of Conan isn’t a dreadful movie per se, it’s just sort of uninspiring. I didn’t hate it, I just don’t care to particularly remember it, and even when I do I’m not 100% sure if all the things I remember are even from this film. There’s now talk that the next attempt to use the character will be an Arnie-starring sequel to the first film, skipping both the original sequel and this version. Perhaps that’s for the best, for both the franchise’s financiers and fans.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

RoboCop 2 (1990)

Posted on December 20, 2012 by badblokebob

The consensus opinion seems to be that the RoboCop films exist on a steep downward trajectory of quality, starting with the pretty-good first film and ending with the nadir-of-humanity third. In this equation the second lands, naturally, somewhere in the middle — not that good, but not so bad. Personally, I enjoyed it more than the first.

As future-Detroit’s police strike over something to do with evil megacorporation OCP, ever-popular officer RoboCop fights a war on drugs, while OCP plot his replacement… Such is the barebones of a plot on which hang some solid stabs at satire and some nice boundary-pushing plot points, which at times left the film feeling still relevant today — something I felt the first RoboCop no longer was. Take the gun-toting pre-teen wannabe-drugs-baron, for instance, one of the film’s best characters who (spoiler alert!) they’re not afraid to deal a bloody death to. I’m not revelling in the death of children here, and I don’t think the film does either; instead, it demonstrates a kind of ballsiness and not backing down from the story and world they’ve created.

The satire is one of the most praised elements of the original film, but with new writers and a new director on board it would’ve been easy to ignore that in favour of a film in which a robot cop shoots lots of criminals. That is, obviously, not the case, and while at times some of the sequel’s jabs at society may be more on-the-nose even than the first film’s efforts, they’re not unwelcome or inaccurate. The screenplay was in part written by objectionably-right-wing comic book author Frank Miller, and though it was reportedly massively re-written after his work was done (to the extent that, decades later, there was a comic book miniseries that adapted his original version) I think his touch can still be felt at times.

I also criticised the franchise opener for poor special effects, and I think RoboCop 2 improves in that regard too. There’s still moderately obvious modelwork on display, but it doesn’t seem as cartoonish or juddery as the previous film’s. The climactic villain is a more genuine threat (it’s responsible for at least one massacre at any rate) and the battle with RoboCop, a mix of life-size props and stop-motion, makes for an exciting, well-matched finale, something the first film’s falling-down-the-stairs moment didn’t quite achieve.

I can’t say I’m overly enamoured with either of the RoboCop films I’ve watched to date. As a character and franchise it seems to have slipped from the consciousness a bit in the last decade or so, and I can’t say I find huge fault with that status. Plus, it’ll be interesting to see if the forthcoming remake can do anything to boost the franchise’s fortunes. Nonetheless, this sequel is a solid example of R-rated late-’80s action entertainment that, as noted on more than one occasion, I certainly liked better than its predecessor.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

RoboCop (1987)

Posted on December 17, 2012 by badblokebob

In a crime-addled future Detroit, cop Alex Murphy is gunned down by a gang of crooks, only to be resurrected by evil megacorporation OCP as the future of law enforcement: RoboCop. Obviously — that’s the title.

Hailed by those who love it as some kind of satirical masterpiece, RoboCop does manage to raise itself above other mindless ’80s action fare, at least to some degree. Equally, should you choose to watch it brain-off then I doubt you’ll be too troubled by its criticisms of corporate greed or the privatisation of public services (at least, I assume those are the targets — this is an American film and don’t Americans love privatisation? But then, Verhoeven is European, so who knows). There’s gory action and the odd one-liner to enjoy, as well as Murphy’s battle with identity once he becomes the robotic enforcer.

At this point, I think RoboCop has become a film you had to be there for. Viewed now, 25 years after release, it looks dated. The stop-motion rendering of big bad robot ED-209 appears jerky and cartoonish now, like something from a kids’ action/adventure film rather than an 18-rated satirical thriller. RoboCop beats it by making it fall down some stairs, after which it can’t get up, wiggling its legs in the air comically. Maybe that was Verhoeven’s intent, to make it laughable, but I’m not sure. I’m loath to criticise old-fashioned effects because, a) that’s all they had access to at the time, and b) they can often look better than today’s CGI-obsessed major movies; but where the likes of Back to the Future or Star Wars still stand up to scrutiny, I don’t believe RoboCop cuts the mustard.

There’s a remake coming soon which has seen a lot of criticism levelled at it by fans, especially over leaked photos of the new costume. I’m not exactly looking forward to it, but nor am I dreading it — the concept’s a good’un and could withstand a refresh. Plus the version of RoboCop presented here, all stompy and bulky and slow, wouldn’t cut the mustard in an era that’s decades on from the T-1000 and can see small, streamlined technology every way we turn.

In the meantime, there’s this, but I do think it’s rather had its day.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

Passchendaele (2008)

Posted on December 16, 2012 by badblokebob

Despite winning a bunch of Canadian film awards, this First World War drama seems to have been really poorly received by critics — the Radio Times even saw fit to award it just 1 star! I must dissent, however, because I thought it was very good.

The story concerns a Canadian soldier who is invalided out of the war, returns to Canada to recuperate, falls for a local outcast woman, and eventually returns to the front in time for the titular battle. There’s more to it than that, but I’ll leave that for you to discover. Sandwiched between the two battles, the stuff in Canada makes up the bulk of the film, making this more of a period social/romantic drama than a war film. You could class this bit as a melodrama, something that never seems to go down well with critics, but I don’t think is necessarily a bad thing. In the ’40s, say, that would probably be considered the height of cinema. I appreciate we’re not in the ’40s any more, but that kind of epic feeling is still welcome to some, in the right place. That said, it does get a bit cheesy at times — the climax in particular is a bit heavy-handed with its symbolism.

On the whole, however, the bookending battle scenes are suitably evocative. The opening owes a lot to Saving Private Ryan & co in its style (the film’s relatively low budget makes it look distinctly like something from Band of Brothers), but many things owe their style to many other things, so I don’t think this is a problem either. Besides, that look has become the visual shorthand for This Is A Gritty Real War, that’s all. And besides, the sequence does its own thing with it. It’s quite a chilling, effective opening.

The later scenes at Passchendaele itself have more of their own feel. This is the muddy, rain-soaked First World War, and the fighting is chaotic, brutal, messy. Some have criticised it for not showing the scale of the event, which confused me because I thought it had a grand scale. And even if the scale isn’t big enough, the up-close-and-personal fighting surely gives an indication of what it was like to be there. If you were there, you wouldn’t have got an aerial shot of a huge battlefield with thousands dying, would you.

Serving triple time as star, writer and director, Paul Gross’ work as the latter is very good — see again comments on the battle scenes. Cinematographer Gregory Middleton also gives the Canadian scenes a painterly style, making a pleasant contrast. Gross’ screenplay… well, see the comments on the melodrama again. I think it’s mostly fine; we’ve all witnessed a lot worse — there’s nothing clunkingly bad here. His acting is equally solid.

For all the apparent critical bile you’d expect there to be obvious flaws, like terrible acting, but I really don’t think that’s the case. Again, like with the melodrama, some of it is occasionally a little mannered and some of the smaller roles are a fraction below par; but goodness, I’ve seen much worse performances in bigger roles in much better-regarded films.

Passchendaele may not be an exceptional achievement in cinematic quality, but it is very good and I really don’t see why some have such apparent hatred for it. In its own way it conveys well the lives and horrors of that time, and by being made from a Canadian perspective it offers a slightly different view to the one we normally see. And to be honest, I appreciate a film that remembers and in some way honours those that fought in the First World War — thanks in no small part to the Americans, we’ve had an endless stream of World War Two pictures, but the very particular circumstances of the Great War are less often put on screen. I think Passchendaele does a solid job of rectifying that, at least a little.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

The Final Destination (2009)

Posted on December 15, 2012 by badblokebob

The best thing about The Final Destination is its title, because turning the series’ familiar name into a definitive article for the final entry is really quite a neat move. Sadly, it was a hit and they’ve made more. Why it was a hit… God only knows.

For starters, the story (such as it is) is a complete and utter rehash of the plot of every other film in the series. The only thing on its side is efficiency: it races through ‘plot’ scenes in a quest to find the next set piece. For example, the Rules are explained to this all-new cast because they Google “premonitions” and find out what happened in the previous movies. The overriding sense of familiarity makes for kind of depressing viewing. Previous films tried to find new twists on the rules, ways the cycle might genuinely be broken, etc, whereas this seems content to merely move from one death to the next. Aside from creative ways to kill people, literally the only new idea is that the premonition-haver sees two people die at almost exactly the same time and can’t remember who was first, meaning instead of traipsing to warn the next person they have to find two people. And that’s it.

Production values are low too, featuring very cheap CGI and very poor acting. I’d say both are below the standard of US network TV filler, so for the fourth entry in a fairly successful big-screen franchise that seems even more woeful. I know it’s only Final Destination, but still… The cast aren’t helped by the woeful screenplay, but I don’t think they could’ve enlivened a better one either. They’ve clearly been cast just for being Young and Pretty, but surely there are some Young, Pretty people who can act?

The focus is clearly on the deaths — at 11 it has the highest of the series, and with its short running time that means there’s a fatality every seven minutes. They’re also very gory, more so than in previous films I’d say, but they’re not commensurately more inventive. There’s a very thorough line in misdirection at times, but the whole enterprise feels painfully lacking in creativity. I’m not sure some of them even make sense. But then do they need to? Similarly, there’s some customary low-rent-horror-movie completely-gratuitous nudity too, which I’m sure delighted teenage boys even more in 3D.

None of the deaths matter because nothing is done to make us care about these characters, or even be broadly interested in them, unlike the best of the earlier entries. So there’s zero tension, zero emotion, just elaborate death after elaborate death. It’s one of the most hollow films I can think of. It may even have been better if they’d ditched the attempts at a plot and gone for a series of vignettes in which, unbeknownst to one another, the survivors were bumped off in order. That’s basically what this film wants to be anyway. At least it would’ve been something different. And shorter. And when you want an under-80-minutes (before credits) film to be shorter… oh dear.

The 3D factor was a large part of the film’s promotion, and it makes full use of stereo visuals in exactly the way you’d expect a schlocky horror to. Problem is, it’s so designed for 3D that some of it doesn’t work in 2D. It’s not just the usual array of stuff flying at the camera for no reason — that’s a sure sign it was meant for cheap 3D thrills, but otherwise fine — here, stuff pokes straight out. That means in 2D you see, say, the flat end of a pole, with absolutely zero sense of depth. This happened with one trap in Saw 3D, but in The Final Destination it keeps coming up. It might not sound like a serious problem, but again and again it jars as you try to work out exactly what’s where in the very flat straight-on 2D rendering. Maybe it’s good that 3D films are so thoroughly designed for their intended medium, but I’m not convinced.

As mentioned, this was sold as the final Final Destination — hence the definitive-article title — but it was a surprise hit (thanks in no small part to the 3D, back in the Avatar-hype era when it guaranteed anything a significant boost) and so the series has continued. What’s perhaps most odd, however, is that it makes no serious attempt to bring the whole series to a close. Sure, #3 ditched any links to the first two with a brand-new cast as well, but you’d think, knowing this was The Last One, they’d try to bring it full circle somehow. But clearly not.

Then again, I’m not sure anyone involved could have if they wanted too. The evidence for that is on screen: some of it is unbelievably boneheaded. “Where’s Lori?” “I dunno, I’ve been calling and texting all afternoon, she won’t pick up her phone.” Oh, maybe she’s, I dunno, in the film she told you she was going to see in the scene before last! Dear God.

Elsewhere, one character starts talking about déjà vu before getting killed in the same way as the first film’s most famous death. I suppose it’s meant to be Meta and Funny, and maybe it kinda is, but again the CG is so cheap that the half-trained eye will spot an effect is about to happen, and the manner of death once again doesn’t really make sense. Later, we learn that shopping mall sprinklers can instantly extinguish all fires — handy!

I could go on. I have half a dozen more examples in my notes. But no. It’s so woeful that it’s kind of frustratingly bad — you want someone with half a brain to come along and make the film work.

There’s a somewhat amusing way to judge the Final Destination series: its posters and/or DVD covers; and, specifically, what they tell us about the decreasing importance of character to the franchise. You see, the first prominently features head shots of the central cast (albeit half turned into skulls). The second offers either blurry head shots or full body shots, reducing their recognisability. In the third, the cast are still there, but reduced to near-facelessness seated on a roller coaster, often upside down. And by the fourth, they’re not even there at all. It’s true that Final Destination has never really been about the characters — it’s about how they die — but it’s also true that the more attached you are to them, however superficially, the better (as it were) their deaths are. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that the characters, deaths and films get weaker at about the same rate, or perhaps each really is connected to the others.

There’s potential in the concept of the Final Destination films, but clearly it’s either limited or the people in charge don’t know how to exploit it, because after making two quite-good films they’ve turned it into a repetitive, stale, uncreative, formulaic disaster. And there’s now a fifth too, and a sixth hasn’t been ruled out — surely it/they can’t be any worse than this? Based on form, maybe they can…

The Final Destination is on Film4 and Film4 HD tonight at 11:05pm, and again on Friday 21st at 11:10pm. Because I’m sure you really want to see it now.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

The Final Destination featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2012, which can be read in full here.

Fantastic Four (2005)

Posted on December 14, 2012 by badblokebob

In the wake of highly successful franchise launches for X-Men and Spider-Man, the next Marvel superheroes to be afforded the big-screen treatment were the Fantastic Four, a kind of family imbued with superpowers after a space accident. “Kind of family” translated to “family movie” for Fox executives, and they produced this dross.

“Family movie” does not automatically equal bad superhero film. Indeed, The Incredibles is one of the sub-genre’s best offerings. I don’t know much about the Fantastic Four comics, but it strikes me that Pixar more successfully hit the tone and style that the makers of this film were aiming for.

The problem I felt is that this incarnation of the FF doesn’t really have a story. They kind of meander through a few things that Happen, then a villain finally emerges and they defeat him. It leaves the film bereft of narrative drive; a series of scenes strung together without a common goal. When those scenes are populated with middling acting, unengaging characters, lacklustre humour, stalled drama, and both practical and computer-generated special effects that look about twice as old as the film is, then the experience you’re left with isn’t entertaining on almost any level.

An interesting footnote about this film is the list of weird, minor regional differences, which don’t bear repeating but are at that link if you’re interested. It also received a surely-unasked-for extended cut on DVD in the US, which included completely different (longer) opening credits; both promenade & planetarium scenes from the regional variations; and mostly new character scenes, as if the film didn’t have enough of those already, or plot extensions that help make more sense of stuff that, actually, more-or-less scanned OK anyway. I can’t imagine anyone wanting an even longer version of this, but it takes all sorts, eh.

They’re re-booting Fantastic Four soon (an unusual summer-season-dodging Spring 2015 release date was recently announced) and I wish them well — the characters have run in comics for over 50 years; there must be something to them. Hopefully those in charge can learn from this film’s mistakes, and the successes of family-friendly efforts like The Incredibles, and give us something so good we can forget this ’00s incarnation ever happened.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)

Posted on December 13, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #23
Brad Furman | 114 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | USA / English | 15 / R

Adapted from a novel by best-selling author Michael Connelly, The Lincoln Lawyer seemed to appear out of nowhere and garner an uncommonly high amount of praise. I’m glad that intrigued me, because, while not a revelatory experience, it’s certainly worth your time.

The story concerns hot-shot lawyer Mick Haller (Matthew McConaughey), who works out of the back of his car (hence the title), and his latest case, defending a rich playboy accused of murder. Essentially, it’s a solid crime/legal thriller; the kind of thing we’d probably get as a 90-minute TV episode over here, but thanks to America not really having that format, it gets the cinema treatment. Nonetheless, it’s well enough acted, with an interesting enough story, to sustain the grander status automatically afforded to something released theatrically.

As a thriller its plot is naturally packed with surprises, reversals, about-turns… in other words, twists. The big one plays at the halfway point, which is a nice change. It’s not exactly an unguessable turn of events, but the story may still have a few surprises up its sleeve. Of course, anyone who watches or reads enough crime fiction is rarely (if ever) going to be surprised by a thriller’s plot, as they all essentially re-arrange a selection of elements from the genre’s large grab bag in a way that makes them moderately unique. Connelly and adaptor John Romano make sure Lincoln Lawyer arranges its chosen selection in a way that indeed makes it unique enough, especially when buoyed by some quality acting and slick (but not show-off-y) direction from Furman.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen McConaughey in anything (nothing I remember, anyway), but my impression has been he’s not all that. Here, though, he nails the slightly-smarmy-but-kinda-likeable street-wise defence attorney Mick Haller. He’s buoyed by a quality cast: Ryan Phillippe is eminently plausible as a rich kid used to getting his own way, while the likes of William H. Macy, Marisa Tomei, John Leguizamo and Bob Gunton offer typically consummate support.

The array of small roles arranged around Haller once again make it feel like the setup for a TV series. There’s his ex-wife and their daughter; his investigator ‘sidekick’; his driver (important when you work out of the back of your car); a couple of detectives he butts heads with; the bale bondsman who gets him work; some regular clients… They do all have a role to play in this particular tale, but with so many it feels like setting up avenues to be explored in future episodes. I suppose all thriller authors do this nowadays – their heroes are designed to run for books and books (Haller’s only at four, but Connelly’s other main character has amassed 17+, and you can see similar numbers in other author’s series), so they need to be set up like a TV series. Plus it helps if they ever get adapted for TV… and just to cement such a view, NBC have commissioned a TV spin-off from this. (Lionsgate also talked of pushing ahead with a sequel. I haven’t heard anything about either project for ages so don’t know their current status.)

That may be the tip of the iceberg for Michael Connelly on screen. Though this is only the second adaptation of his work, he’s clearly successful in print and positioning himself for a big-screen future: after languishing in development hell for 20 years, he recently paid Paramount $3 million for the rights to his most prolific character. With said character being the half-brother of Haller, and that Lincoln Laywer sequel in development, maybe Connelly’s work is destined to become the Marvel Cinematic Universe of crime/legal film adaptations. This could be the time to get in on the ground floor.

One might argue that The Lincoln Lawyer doesn’t quite do enough to transcend the feeling of a TV procedural, and it’s a point of view I have some sympathy for. But even still, it’s a high-quality, well-made example of the genre.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

The Lincoln Lawyer placed 8th on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2012, which can be read in full here.

100Films.co.uk

100% movies. Except when it's about TV.

Category Archives: Decades

Cowboys & Aliens: Extended Director’s Cut (2011)

The Court Jester (1956)

The Return of the Musketeers (1989)

Conan the Barbarian (2011)

RoboCop 2 (1990)

RoboCop (1987)

Passchendaele (2008)

The Final Destination (2009)

Fantastic Four (2005)

The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)