Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013)

Posted on July 31, 2014 by badblokebob

A sequel to the suprisingly-good-in-spite-of-its-name animated comedy, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (innovative title; though better than its original moniker, Revenge of the Leftovers) begins mere minutes after the first film ended; so closely, in fact, that someone decided it would be wise to begin with what is essentially a “Previously on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs…” montage. Well, it has been four years in cinema-time.

Following the worldwide effect of Flint’s invention in the first film, the clean-up operation is being spearheaded by Californian mega-company Live Corp, founded and run by our hapless hero’s life-long idol, Chester V (can you see where this is going already?) The island of Swallow Falls has to be abandoned for the clean-up, but things only get worse when it turns out Flint’s machine wasn’t destroyed and is still churning out food. When his teams fail, Chester V persuades Flint to return to the island to destroy the machine (again); and, naturally, Flint ropes in all his friends — read: “your favourite characters from the last film!” Hijinks ensue.

That’s the quick version, anyway; though the film isn’t exactly slower: it moves at a restless rate of knots, much as the first one did. That’s not something to be sniffed at, as it throws plot and humour at the viewer with wild abandon. Sometimes such a methodology is a recipe for “chuck everything at the screen and see what sticks” — with the latter usually being “not a huge percentage” — but here it creates a pretty fine hit rate. It helps that new directors Cameron & Pearn (the original pair of Phil Lord and Chris Miller off furthering their career with 21 Jump Street and The Lego Movie) don’t just rehash the best-remembered jokes from the first film, instead forging into largely-new territory. The humour is mostly of the “silly” variety, never missing an opportunity for a pun or bit of daftness (including breaking the fourth wall, very briefly, but quite neatly). The result could be groan-inducing, but instead is quite delightful.

The villain this time is a thinly-veiled riff on Apple and its messianic founder, Steve Jobs. Here they become the aforementioned Life Corp, whose logo (and headquarters) is a giant lightbulb, and the equally-aforementioned Chester V, Flint’s childhood hero. As with almost all hero-since-childhood characters, you can guess where that’s going from the moment he appears at the start of the opening montage. Nonetheless, his storyline and relationship with Flint mostly works — it does take Flint a long time to reach the point of realising The Truth, but for viewers the reveal comes earlier and isn’t treated as an inappropriately big shock. Again, kids less familiar with movie tropes will be even more accepting of it. Plus there’s a Moral Message there for said kiddies (naturally), this time about trusting in your friends. It’s all familiar fare to an adult viewer, but doesn’t dominate to the point of boredom.

Elsewise, the film is visually and conceptually inventive, particularly in its array of Foodimals. There are far more racing around than the film can hope to feature in major roles, which creates the impression of a rounded world and boundless creativity to match the boundless energy. There’s also a nice array of nods and references to other movies — nothing too overt, we’re not in spoof territory, but you can spy bits of everything from Jurassic Park and its first sequel to Predator, and probably several other jungle-set adventure flicks to boot. Such things go over kids’ heads, I’m sure, but it’s another element for grown-ups to enjoy.

In the end, Cloudy 2 isn’t quite as good as the first film, but not in a “notably inferior” way. It remains relentlessly entertaining, with an admirable energy and drive, which is in part a desperation to not be boring, but not in a shallow way. It may lack the extra little something that the first one has, but if that was an 8-out-of-10 then this is a 7 — which, because it’s fun rather than disappointing, rounds up to:

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is available through Now TV and Sky Movies On Demand from tomorrow, and comes to Sky Movies Premiere a week Friday.

Ghost Rider (2007)

Posted on June 12, 2014 by badblokebob

2014 #45
Mark Steven Johnson | 101 mins | TV | 1.78:1 | USA & Australia / English | 12* / PG-13

Nicolas Cage fulfils his long-held wish of playing a comic book hero in this peculiar effort from the writer-director of Daredevil.

The MacGuffin storyline feels ripped from Constantine, but here executed via a screenplay written in Dairylea on a block of Stilton, shot on Camembert film with Cheddar cameras. Add a villain who looks like a Twilight reject, cheap CGI, DOA humour, and the bizarre centralising of disposable subplot-level romantic antics, and you get a result that’s not repugnant, but just a bit odd. A few surprisingly inspired moments, plus the farcicality of its blatant cheesiness, rescue it from vapidity.

Ghost Rider featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2014, which can be read in full here.

In the interests of completing my ever-growing backlog, I decided to post ‘drabble reviews’ of some films. For those unfamiliar with the concept, a drabble is a complete piece of writing exactly 100 words long.

* The UK theatrical release was passed at 12A with cuts to “Johnny’s face disintegrating into the Ghost Rider during his initial transformation”. The DVD is uncut but a 15. No idea which version gets shown on TV. ^

The Wolverine: Extended Cut (2013)

Posted on May 22, 2014 by badblokebob

aka The Wolverine: Unleashed Extended Edition

Rather than a sequel to the poorly-received X-Men Origins: Wolverine (which I mistakenly gave four stars back when it was in cinemas — hey, everyone else was too harsh), Fox’s X-Men film franchise here jumps back to the present day (after a ’60s aside for the excellent First Class) for the first time since 2006, to see what happened to fan-favourite Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) after he (spoilers!) killed the love of his life to save the world in poorly-received (though, again, it’s not as bad as most people think) X-Men trilogy-closer The Last Stand.

We catch up with Logan as a recluse in the wilds of his native Canada. He’s soon sought out by swordswoman Yukio (Rila Fukushima), who has been sent to bring him to Japan. There, a man whose life Logan saved in World War II (Haruhiko Yamanouchi) has become a technology giant, and wants to offer Wolverine the one thing no one else has: the removal of his healing factor, and with it the chance to finally die a normal death. Of course things aren’t all they appear, with numerous threats emerging to the old man, to his family — including his daughter, and Logan’s love interest, Mariko (Tao Okamoto) — and, of course, to everyone’s favourite beclawed mutant.

For the most part, The Wolverine feels refreshingly different to other superhero movies. That’s largely thanks to its Japanese setting and supporting cast, the primary element inherited from the acclaimed Chris Claremont/Frank Miller comic book miniseries that loosely inspired the film (not that anyone gets a credit for that). Those might sound like superficial differences, but the change of faces, scenery and culture seems to have infused the film’s attitude. Couple that with a plot that is more of a thriller than one of the usual three Superhero Movie storylines, and the end result is a moderately unique movie. OK, it doesn’t ooze originality, but nor does it feel quite like your run-of-the-mill powered-people-punch-each-other comic book yarn.

Indeed, in places it threatens to become a proper character study. Although almost all of the X-Men movies have focused on Logan, it’s debatable how much they’ve dug in to him as a person before now — they’ve not dwelt on what his mutation means for his life or personality, merely used his memory loss as the chance for a mystery. There’s lots more exploration of the former here, at least by the standards of a summer blockbuster; and alongside that, the plot incorporates issues of honour and familial responsibility, which are suitably echoed by the Japanese setting and culture.

While it may be Jackman’s film — something only emphasised by a sprawling array of new characters that there isn’t quite enough time for — he’s not the only one who stands out. It’s Fukushima and Okamoto who are memorable in particular, and having such effective female characters once again distances the film from the majority of its genre brethren. It seems a shame neither feature in Days of Future Past — not that there’d be room for them, I suppose — but if the mooted third Wolverine solo outing comes to pass, I hope one or both are back.

Talking of women, you can’t overlook Logan’s lost love, Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey. Considering the build-up pitched The Wolverine as a standalone film, with perhaps the occasional nod to the wider X-universe, including rumours of a Jean cameo, the final film is surprisingly tied-in to previous events: there’s actually loads of Jean (how? Well…), and Wolverine’s personal journey is very much grounded in the events of The Last Stand. I’m sure you could watch this without having seen or remembered a previous X-movie, because the bulk of the plot is indeed standalone, but the emotional journey is invested in what came before.

Unfortunately, a couple of things spoil the party — for starters, another woman: as Viper-lady, Svetlana Khodchenkova camps it up too much. When the rest of the film is more serious, almost plain dramatic in places, her OTT comic book stylings jar uncomfortably. It doesn’t help that the movie is bizarrely overstuffed with villains. Considering the general dramatic emphasis, it needs them even less than usual; plus, when it’s been observed for over 15 years (i.e. since Batman & Robin) that a superhero movie suffers under the weight of too many antagonists, there’s no excuse for it anymore.

More of a let down is the regular-superhero-schtick climax. A mix of muddled storytelling (things go unexplained, then are suddenly clarified in a rush of exposition) and a trashy “make the villain stronger, then punch him lots” escalation of action, it’s a disappointing end to a film that has otherwise felt on course for “genre classic”-level distinctiveness. Without seeing all the behind-the-scenes goings-on it’s difficult to know whose fault this was, but it’s equally difficult to imagine the screenplay that Darren Aronofsky (far from your regular blockbuster director) described as “a terrific script” could have concluded this way; and knowing that his replacement, James Mangold, fiddled with the script before shooting commenced… well, draw your own conclusions.

Still, other technical elements shine: there’s beautiful cinematography from Ross Emery, and Marco Beltrami’s score is nice — no bit particularly sticks in my mind, but it felt suitably evocative. Even if the climax disappoints, there’s a smattering of entertaining action sequences before that, including some great claws-on-sword duelling. Some of this has been amped for the twelve-minutes-longer extended cut, though a lot of that additional time actually goes to the dramatic side of things, as detailed here. There are 65 alterations in all, which frankly I couldn’t be bothered to read through. (However, I noticed at least three uses of the F-word, a number which I believe America’s tick-box classification system grants an automatic R. In the UK it seems such antics can be allowed to slide at a 12.)

The Wolverine isn’t quite the movie it could have been; nor, I think, quite the one the makers hoped they were producing. Jackman has intimated since that it’s studio interference that pushes for silly-big action sequences and the like, but that fan feedback might slowly be winning them around to the things viewers actually care about. Whether that’s true or not, I guess we’ll see in the next instalment…

X-Men: Days of Future Past is released in the UK today, the US tomorrow, and pretty much everywhere else at some point this week. The next Wolverine movie is currently scheduled for release on 3rd March 2017.

Solomon Kane (2009)

Posted on May 1, 2014 by badblokebob

The year 1600: British ship’s captain Solomon Kane is not a nice man, a mite too fond of pillagin’ and killin’ and quite possibly other not-nice things ending in —in’. That is until he has a run in with the Devil’s Reaper. Hell has claimed his soul, and its time to collect. Solomon does not plan on being collected, renouncing his former life and trying to hide at a monastery in England. But as a gang of possessed men lay waste to the countryside, burning its towns and enslaving its people, will Solomon be able to stick to his newfound pacifism? Yeah, we all know the answer to that…

Star of a series of pulp fantasy stories and poems by Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan, this version of Solomon Kane is inspired by those works rather than adapted from them. It’s an origin story, showing how Solomon came to be the man he is in Howard’s tales, though you’d be forgiven for missing that: writer-director (and lifelong fan) Bassett has managed to construct a story that feels entirely complete in itself, not mere setup for future adventures. Even though the ending is ready for the planned-but-unlikely sequels, it’s open for, rather than expectant of, them; a pleasing oddity in today’s franchise-driven blockbuster landscape.

The style is a fantasy-horror mash-up, recalling everything from the 1982 Conan to Witchfinder General, and plenty more besides. That’s not to say its a rip-off of those movies, or even some kind of cobbled-together reference-fest, but rather that its roots and inspirations — the previous works it aligns itself with — are discernible for those familiar with them. There’s some creepy creatures and sequences, no doubt thanks to Bassett’s previous directing horror movies, but also a more-than-requisite amount of swordfighting and the like — all told, Kane is more period action-adventure (with demons) than period horror.

Nonetheless, some viewers have found the pacing off. It’s true that after a big opening action scene the story slows down for a time, and that later on events become a tad episodic, but I think this gives the film more of a unique flavour than your usual action-adventure flick, where the action sequences are carefully designed to build in scale and are methodically spaced throughout the running time. The way Bassett plays things allows more time for character and mood to grow, and while his screenplay doesn’t always excel at uncovering those things, a first-rate cast brings the necessary.

In the titular role, James Purefoy is best as snarling action hero rather than when tormented and penitent… but that might just be because all-action Kane is more fun. Indeed, the less-nice version we meet in the opening sequence is perhaps the best of all. On his solo audio commentary, Bassett says that everyone on the crew fell in love with that incarnation, and suggests there might be room for a prequel starring the pre-heroic version of the character. If we’re not getting sequels then we’re certainly not getting that, but Kane’s anti-hero antics do promise entertainment value. (I’ve read that Kane isn’t actually all that nice in Howard’s original stories — perhaps, contrary to the film’s “origin story” aims, more like the movie’s opening version? The film has given me a desire to check out the original works, though I don’t know when I’ll get round to it.)

In support there’s the likes of Pete Postlethwaite, Alice Krige and Max von Sydow, all of whom bring instant heft to roles that need it. I don’t mean to say the screenplay doesn’t contain it, but the shorthand the actors bring with them certainly does favours. Cameo-sized appearances by Mackenzie Crook and Jason Flemyng are also effective, and watch out for a pre-Game of Thrones appearance by Rory McCann, aka The Hound.

Although made for a relatively tight budget on a swift schedule, every technical element sings. Dan Laustsen’s cinematography is gorgeous, whether it be the golden hues of an African throne room, the cold blue-whites of an English winter, or the muddy browns and rainy greys of later sections. I’m sure there’s a lot of digital grading involved in all this, but does it really matter how something was achieved when it’s achieved so well?

Full marks too for Ricky Eyre’s production design, David Baxa’s art direction and Lee Gordon’s set decoration. I don’t want this to read like the credits scroll, but the work done on the sets and locations is phenomenal and those responsible deserve the praise. Their work wouldn’t look out of place in something as crazily budgeted as The Hobbit — and hurrah to them for actually building it, whereas the majority of Jackson’s Middle-earth locales now seem to be CGI.

My praise also extends to those responsible for the film’s location shooting. Shot in the Czech Republic, for once that genuinely looks like Britain. OK, the style of some buildings give the game away occasionally (in particular the monastery), but until I read different, I just assumed the fields, forest and coastline had been found in our real South West, on the moors or what have you.

Further kudos to those responsible for the fight choreography (so good that even a deleted sequence (included on the Blu-ray) is better than many films can manage), for make-up, for creature design, for costumes, for the CGI… Rare is the element that lets this movie down. Indeed, my one real gripe is a final-act monster that seems to be beyond the scope of the filmmakers — between slightly jerky animation and a flatly limited choice of camera angles, it literally looks like a modern video game cutscene. Considering the excellent effects in the rest of the film (the opening sequence is a highlight in this regard, particularly the flaming sword that begins to melt Kane’s own), it’s a shame. That said, it’s not bad CGI, just not top-notch. If that’s the biggest complaint, there’s nothing to worry about.

Also, it’s permanently raining. Which looks great. Whoever was in charge of rain did a fab job.

At the end of the day, Solomon Kane is a period fantasy action-adventure, something which doesn’t seem to be everyone’s taste — it has relatively weak scores on the likes of IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes (though, in the context of how this kind of movie often performs in those arenas, they’re far from awful). For my money, however, it’s a great little film. It looks beautiful, it renders the tone of pulp fantasy brilliantly, its action sequences are exciting (so many swordfights! Heaven!) and its creepy bits unnerving. It may not be ‘trash’ elevated to art — it’s not a Tarantino movie — but it is pulp fiction treated with due reverence.

The UK TV premiere of Solomon Kane is on Film4 tonight at 9pm.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

Posted on April 7, 2014 by badblokebob

The Desolation of Smowg-not-Smorg begins in the same way the preceding part of the Hobbit trilogy ended: with a glaring logic hole. After the giant eagles carried our band of heroes many miles away from the party of orcs that have been stalking them — but not all the way to Erebor because… um… — we begin Part 2 with our heroes being chased by… that party of orcs that had been stalking them. You what now?

Unfortunately this is a sign of what’s to come: the ensuing 160 minutes (shorter than An Unexpected Journey, but feeling far longer) are littered with odd and borderline-nonsensical decisions. Thus we have a film that skips briskly past some parts of the novel it’s adapting, but later throws in massive new subplots all of its own. Unlike some audience members, I don’t have a problem with the very idea of Jackson embellishing this tale in its telling, but rushing parts of Tolkien only to find room for new asides strikes me as an odd choice.

And there is an awful lot of stuff in the film. If the first instalment was indulgent in setting up the adventure we were about to embark on, this middle part is restless to the point of distraction. It buffets us from action sequence to action sequence with barely a chance to catch our breath. Rather than making time fly, however, this has the unfortunate side effect of making everything feel much longer than it actually is. However, I accept that this may be “Two Towers syndrome”: a film that left me clock-watching the first couple of times, but which I eventually came to accept and enjoy on its own merits.

It’s my understanding that the originally-planned (and shot) two-part version of Jackson’s Hobbit adaptation was transformed into a trilogy by, essentially, taking what was to be film #2 and splitting it in half. That might explain why individual sections are allowed to go on so long here: to bulk up the running time to the kind of epic proportions audiences expect from a Middle-earth movie. Anything less than two-and-a-half hours isn’t going to cut it. But when your climax is a battle between a giant dragon (cool!) and a small army of dwarves (kick ass!) around a deserted underground city (hell yeah!), but my main thought afterwards is, “God that went on a bit”, then you’ve failed at something.

The other headline action scene is the dwarves’ river-based escape from an elf city, pursued by both elves and orcs, who fight each other over and around the river even as they chase our heroes. It’s a visual cacophony; a whirling dervish of elements that becomes hard to follow, much less enjoy. We’ve come a long way from the grounded realism of Helm’s Deep — this is full-on, cartoon-style, obviously-computer-generated bluster. This extends right to the climax: while most of the dwarves are having a runaround with Smowg-not-Smorg, Legolas fights some orcs — well, quite a few orcs; which is rather my point: it gets numbingly repetitive. Less can definitely be more, a lesson the filmmakers must have forgotten by this point.

The already hefty cast is padded out further here, several of the additions battling against strange new accents, particularly Evangeline Lilly’s elf warrior(ess) Tauriel, though at least Lee Pace’s elven king is supposed to be haughty. Meanwhile, Luke Evans’ Bard is as Welsh as the actor’s name suggests, which is a little bit of a surprise. But then the dwarves’ accents have all the rest of the UK covered, so why not. Benedict Cumberbatch sounds like Benedict Cumberbatch playing ‘big’ as Smowg-not-Smorg. It feels like this should be an iconic villain performance but, while good, I found it somehow lacking. Expectation may be scuppering him; maybe I’ll warm to it on future viewings.

Yet for all that, the most surprising thing, at least to anyone not versed in the original story, is where the film ends. Clearly there’s more tale to get through, but not two-and-a-half-hours’ worth, surely? Co-screenwriter Philippa Boyens has said she “got a shock when the audience got a shock” about where this part ended, adding that “if you can imagine what transpires next and what’s coming, it’s quite a huge chunk of storytelling.” I’ll take her word for it for now.

One thing you can’t fault these films on is their production design and the craft in bringing it to life. During production the studios were a 24/7 operation, dismantling, building and re-arranging sets overnight to be ready for the next day’s shooting; while the prosthetics department had to work continuously, and at a 98% success rate too, just to keep up with demand. I suppose that’s what happens when every actor in a large ensemble cast has at least some small thing stuck on them. As with Lord of the Rings before it, this is a fully-realised world, with Laketown being perhaps the most impressive setting… but then maybe that’s because I know they essentially built it for real, and I alway feel that’s more impressive than rendering a ginormous hall in a computer.

I haven’t picked apart everything that’s wrong with the film (what purpose is there switching from one made-up-for-the-film orc general to another?!), but then nor have I praised everything that works (there are some quality actors in amongst all that crashing and banging). It seems a fair few people liked this Hobbit instalment more than the first; the best explanation I can find is, “because it’s got more action”. Far be it from me to accuse other film viewers of being shallow, but… really? I genuinely enjoyed An Unexpected Journey as a return to the beloved realms and peoples of Middle-earth. The Desolation of Smowg-not-Smaug has some of that, and the charm of introducing us to new parts of the world too, but it’s drowned out by so much aimless noise. Here’s hoping it improves with repeat viewings and/or the inevitable extended edition, because this time I nearly slipped down to a lowly 3 stars.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is released on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK today, Monday 7th April, and in the US tomorrow.

My review of the Extended Edition can now be read here.

The concluding film, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, is in cinemas from December 12th in the UK, December 17th in the US, and a whole host of random dates everywhere else.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Extended Edition (2012/2013)

Posted on April 2, 2014 by badblokebob

Few would deny that Peter Jackson’s extended versions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy are the definitive cuts of those films, restoring passages initially cut purely for time. Naturally he’s pulling the same trick with The Hobbit trilogy; but whereas Rings had condensed huge tomes, leaving material on the cutting room floor (or never filmed) even after the extended cuts, The Hobbit is a much slighter work; one that has already been stretched to breaking point by adapting it across three movies. In fact, as I noted in my review of the theatrical version, that already felt like the extended cut — how much more do we need?

Jackson thinks 12 minutes and 53 seconds, to be precise. That’s an extension of 7.6% — not very much, really, but is what’s there significant? The short answer is: not really. While watching I spotted one all-new scene, a few extra bits here and there, and there was at least one part that the Blu-ray’s scene selection says is new but I thought I remembered.

Fortunately, this Amazon review has us covered with a full list of 10 extensions. A couple of bits contribute to where things will go in The Desolation of Smaug, which seems moderately essential to me, though I suppose only if you’re managing to follow every subplot across all eight or nine hours (unlikely when watching once a year at the cinema, perhaps). There’s a couple of character-building extensions, a couple of extra songs, and more of the dwarves having fun (much to the elves’ displeasure) at Rivendell. There’s not as much extra time with the dwarves as I expected, though, with most of the character time still going to Bilbo.

I’ve read at least one review that says the longer version makes the film lesser; that the theatrical cut is definitely superior. I don’t hold any stock in that opinion. Extended, An Unexpected Journey is not a better film, it’s not a worse film, there’s just slightly more of it. I know some people think the first version was too long as it was, but an extra 13 minutes on something already that length is almost neither here nor there. That said, looking back over what was added in the wake of seeing the second film, I can’t help but feel that, when viewed as a trilogy, the little extensions that feed into events of The Desolation of Smaug (and presumably this December’s third film too) make the extended edition a marginally preferable version.

Also, I think that a second viewing improves the experience of the film, whichever cut you watch. I liked An Unexpected Journey the first time round, of course, but I felt even more at peace with it on the second— I was able to just enjoy it, rather than constantly be comparing its scope and style to Lord of the Rings, or trying to assess how well it measured up as a decade-later return to a beloved world. I was also able to appreciate just how good the performances are. Series stalwarts Ian McKellen and Andy Serkis are as good as ever (even with McKellen’s widely-cited unhappiness at having to work alone on a green screen for many of his scenes with the smaller characters), but newcomers Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage and James Nesbitt shine too. This is Freeman’s film to be the centre of attention, but Armitage and Nesbitt will have much more to do in the follow-ups, and the groundwork is nicely laid here.

For those who hated An Unexpected Journey, watching again in any form might not be enough to bring about a conversion; but for the less sure… well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say watching it again can be revelatory, but I think it could be pleasantly surprising. Whether you have the patience for an extra 13 minutes of it is down to personal preference. I think that, in the scope of the entire trilogy, several of those few short moments will ultimately pay off.

In case you missed it, my review of the theatrical cut can be read here.

The second part of the trilogy, The Desolation of Smaug, is released on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK next Monday, April 7th, and in the US on Tuesday 8th. I’ll have a review soon.

HBO Binge Madness and the Art of the Spoiler-Free

Posted on February 23, 2014 by badblokebob

I could virtually have written this myself, so close is it to my thoughts. (Apart from the bit about Game of Thrones season 3, because I’ve not watched it yet. If anyone spoils what the Red Wedding entails, I shall reenact it on you. Once I know what it actually is.)

the ghost of 82

If you’ve seen it, you’ll know what I mean- there’s a point near the end of the ninth episode (its always the ninth episode with this show) of this third season when my jaw near dropped to the floor. “What?!” I cried out loud, stunned at what I was seeing; “What!?” And then the end-credits followed in sudden silence, as if sharing the numbness of every viewer who hadn’t seen the events coming.

Just how good is HBO’s Game Of Thrones?

I won’t discuss what it was that happened for fear of spoiling it; no-one , save someone who has read the books, should ever see this series having been spoiled of its secret delights, its twists and turns. Its something special. Readers of the books may say otherwise, but to me, this show is darn near perfect.

I love stuff like this. When something happens that takes…

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January 2014 + 5 Tom Cruise SF/F Films

Posted on February 1, 2014 by badblokebob

Pinch, punch, first of the month, and no returns.

Except to January — let’s return to January…

January’s films

#1 G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)
#2 The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009)
#3 Fast Five (2011), aka Fast & Furious 5
#4 The Big Lebowski (1998)
#5 Premium Rush (2012)
#6 Tower Block (2012)
#7 Oblivion (2013)

Analysis

Oh dear.

Simple maths tells us that to watch 100 films in a year you need to watch about eight per month. Seven is less than eight. It’s also my lowest January total in five years, which makes it disappointing in multiple ways.

On the bright side, as we have seen many a time, no individual month provides an accurate approximation of where my year will end up, and certainly not January. If I apply myself in February and March I can catch up easily; and as I usually do apply myself in February and March, I shall expect to.

What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?

One thing did go right in January, however, and that was the start of WDYMYHS 2014. Those of you with a surprisingly good memory may have spotted that The Big Lebowski is this month’s viewing from that list.

I nearly watched one or two more, but I’m trying to pace myself. Considering January’s total, maybe I shouldn’t be.

Milestone

Also this month, I reached the 800th film to be covered on 100 Films in a Year. That’s not #800, mind: thanks to alternate cuts and random reviewing of films I’ve seen before, I’ve covered 800 films but not counted 800 films. And because I’m behind on reviews, I haven’t even posted that 800th review yet… but I’ll be sure to mention it when I do.

(Incidentally, the official #800 will be this year’s #48.)

5 Tom Cruise SF/F Films

Tom Cruise is the kinda guy who does sci-fi movies, right? I mean, we can all name at least a few he’s been in, including one that was out last summer and one that will be out this summer — that’s one per year! Right?

Wrong. So wrong, in fact, I couldn’t even fill a top five with Tom Cruise sci-fi films. So here are five — the five — sci-fi and fantasy films that (have already been released and) star Mr Mapother IV.

Oblivion
This one was pretty obvious — it inspired the list, after all. Set in 2077, it sees Cruise working on a desolated Earth to repair drones that guard the planet from aliens. I won’t say too much more lest I spoil it, but you could also count… no, I’ll leave it here. Just watch it, it’s pretty good.

War of the Worlds
“Cruise. Spielberg.” So read the poster and/or trailer for this ’00s-set reimagining of H.G. Wells’ classic novel of alien invasion and domination. Despite the updating, and the sickeningly twee ending, it’s actually a damn good film. Post-9/11, US films were more positive than ever about how all Americans would band together in a crisis. Not so here.

Minority Report
Cruise is a copper who arrests people before they commit crimes, but what happens when it’s predicted he’ll commit one next? In the 12 years since Minority Report’s release I think it may’ve turned into a classic. Well, some people think so. I expect I’d be one of them if I’d watched it this decade. Which I haven’t. But I really should.

Interview with the Vampire
Ooh, another good one I’ve not watched for ages (maybe I should’ve picked something where I’d watched the films more recently…) Here, Cruise is a centuries-spanning vampire; so some would say that’s Horror, but it’s not really about the scares, it’s about the psychology. And Cruise and Brad Pitt looking Pretty.

Legend
Unlike the other films on this list (which I’ve seen, just not recently), I have never seen Legend. But it’s definitely a fantasy movie.

And then there’s…

Vanilla Sky

Vanilla Sky

Have I managed to miss any Cruise films that are actually SF or F? Should we be including the Mission: Impossibles thanks to some of their more OTT leanings? Lemme know below.

Next month on 100 Films in a Year…

I should watch nine films to make up for January’s shortfall. It’s good to have goals, right?

Macbeth (1948)

Posted on January 23, 2014 by badblokebob

2013 #79
Orson Welles | 103 mins | TV | 4:3 | USA / English | PG

Twelve years on from his innovative, acclaimed, career-bolstering ‘Voodoo Macbeth’, and with the infamous War of the Worlds radio broadcast and films like Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons and The Lady from Shanghai now under his belt, Orson Welles tried to interest Hollywood in something they’d only attempted a handful of times since the advent of talkies: a Shakespeare adaptation.

“Tried to interest” and “attempted” are not inapt phrases here. After failing to elicit interest in an adaptation of Othello, Welles switched to pitching the ever-popular Macbeth as “a perfect cross between Wuthering Heights and Bride of Frankenstein,” interesting Republic Pictures because of their desire to move from producing low-budget Westerns to being a prestige studio. The end result was Welles had to shoot his film in just 23 days for only $700,000. The end result was a movie that struggled against Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet, released the same year, and for which poor critical reception led to nearly 20 minutes of cuts and the remainder being dubbed to change the actors’ accents.

Restored in 1980, the original version is a compromised but interesting adaptation. Welles has chopped and changed the play, cutting scenes, transposing others, assigning speeches to different characters, even creating new ones. This array of modifications scandalised critics at the time, though nowadays it’s much more common for film (and stage) versions of Shakespeare to mess around with the text as needed, usually to make the works a manageable length. Macbeth is one of the more sensibly-sized plays, however, though I suppose this is the legacy of Welles’ 23-day schedule.

The low budget and quick schedule affect the film across the board, for good and ill. There’s much dramatic staging, with grand sets and doom-laden lighting. The shadow-drenched cinematography may well be a result of the cheap production, but the resulting effect is marvellous. Indeed, all the camerawork is great. There are some striking long takes, including the majority of the night of the murder occurring in one long unbroken shot. The costumes, on the other hand, look like a ragtag bunch of Past Clothing from the studio’s store… which is because they essentially were.

Welles chose to have the cast speak with Scottish accents, which unfortunately end up a bit squiffy. I suppose it’s an attempt at authenticity at least, and if you don’t allow them to bother you then they won’t bother you. I certainly wound up not noticing them after only a few minutes. In spite of that, many of the performances are quite strong. Of their era — they can be a little stagey and histrionic, lacking the subtlety we might expect today — but good. The dialogue was pre-recorded for the sake of the schedule, with the actors miming their lines on set. Seems like a ridiculous idea, and no doubt had an effect on performances, but I only noticed it once in the entire production.

Much of the score (by Jacques Ibert, after Welles failed to secure Bernard Herrmann for contractual reasons) is appropriately atmospheric, but at one point it goes all Comedy. Macbeth himself is hardly in possession of all his faculties at that point, acting like a drunkard; but rather than make the sequence appropriately sinister (it’s in this state that he orders the execution of Banquo and Fleance, for example), it plays up the silliness, which is a shame.

For a variety of reasons, stemming from both the production situation and Welles’ creative choices, this is a flawed film. That said, its successes outweigh its problems to create a memorable adaptation that is justly regarded as one of the more significant films in Welles’ oeuvre.

Man of Steel (2013)

Posted on January 17, 2014 by badblokebob

When Doctor Who returned in 2005, eager to find a new mainstream audience, can you imagine how well it would have gone down if it spent the first six or seven minutes on an alien world where old men with silly names wearing strange costumes argued about politics? Fastforward the best part of a decade and, buoyed no doubt by the various scales of success enjoyed by the likes of Avatar (strange alien world, silly names) and Game of Thrones (arguing about politics, silly names), that’s exactly how Superman reboot Man of Steel chooses to spend its opening 20 minutes. (In percentage terms, “6 or 7” is to Doctor Who’s brisk 45 minutes as “20” is to Man of Steel’s indulgent 143.)

Produced by Christopher Nolan and other creatives behind the uber-successful Batman reboot The Dark Knight Trilogy, this is intended to do a similar thing for Superman: a present-day, real-world relaunch. Which begins with a huge sequence on a crazy alien world. Well done, chaps. And that’s before we get into the merits of grounding clean-cut Boy’s Own all-American hero Superman in our ideologically complex modern world. Is that what Superman is? Based on critical and fan reaction to Man of Steel, your mileage may vary — some seem to find it fresh and invigorating, others a betrayal of what this archetypal superhero is meant to be.

Personally, I find it a valid thing to attempt. Rather than take the Superman mythology as read, here Nolan and co — including screenwriter David Goyer and director Zack Snyder — have tried to imagine what would really happen if an alien baby with incredible powers arrived in our world. So Clark Kent hides his abilities, goes on a trek around the world to ‘find himself’, and when he’s uncovered there’s mass media and military interest. Which is pretty accurate, I think. If some guy started stopping oil rigs collapsing single-handed, or flying around the place, the military’s hardly going to sit back and go, “oh OK then”.

Snyder emphasises this “it’s real!” tone with grainy handheld cinematography, which I’m sure is consciously designed to look like a ’70s independent drama. It’s also designed to mask a simple fact: such presentation details and a languorous first half aside, this is a pretty standard blockbuster. Shoot it with clean digital visuals and cut the “finding himself” segments back to a brisk first act and you’d have a completely standard array of big punch-ups and faintly ludicrous plotting. It’s interesting how much a ‘gritty’ sheen (as it were) can persuade people that what they’re watching is revolutionary across the board, but really it’s just a different way of presenting your common-or-garden blockbuster content.

The filmmakers have certainly bought into their own conceit, to a frankly laughable extent. The Blu-ray contains a featurette called All-Out Action, which the menu describes as follows: “The action in Man of Steel soars to new heights with a level of realism never before seen in a super hero film.” Hahahaha! Realism my arse. Once the action kicks in it’s positively comic book. Men are hurled around like rag dolls; Metropolis is destroyed in a huge flying punch-up, which just feels like a less effective re-hash of The Matrix Revolutions. There’s nothing wrong with comic book action in a comic book movie, in my opinion, but shooting it on desaturated grain-addled film stock with handshake and ragged zooms does not make your OTT computer-generated fight “soar to new heights with a level of realism never before seen”.

This is before we even get on to the morally divisive aspects of said fighting. Much talk focused on two elements (spoilers follow for the next three paragraphs): the large-scale destruction of Metropolis, and Superman killing Zod. Defenders say that destruction happens, that Metropolis was evacuated, and that Superman had no choice but to kill Zod to save innocent lives. Opposers say we don’t need to see so much disaster on screen (especially in the wake of other films, like The Avengers, showing similar city-level destruction), and that it’s out of character for Superman to murder someone in cold blood and it simply shouldn’t have happened. My view is split between the two.

As to the destruction of the city, I think the criticism is right. The city clearly isn’t evacuated before buildings start falling — it’s being evacuated, but no one even knew to start running before the Massive Machine Of Destruction (I forget what it was actually for) turns up and starts destroying things. People run into the streets as buildings fall on them. As a viewer, how can you miss that hundreds, possibly thousands, of innocents are dying? The cinematography makes it look like 9/11 — incredibly like 9/11, in fact. That was 12 years ago by the time of the film’s release, but is it OK to trade on such iconography in a blockbuster entertainment? Should we just ignore the notion that so many ‘extras’ are dying because, hey, it’s just a superhero movie? But aren’t we meant to be taking this as Real World, chaps?

The fate of Zod, on the other hand, is a different matter. I think it’s interesting to push heroes — heck, characters fullstop — in new and challenging directions. It’s all too easy to just avoid putting a character in a certain situation so you don’t have to see what they’d do; to give Superman an easy way to lock the villain up so he doesn’t have to make any other decision. But what if that isn’t an option? What if someone just as powerful is running around killing people at random; what if it’s within your power to stop him from imminently murdering a family with kids, but the only way to achieve that is to kill him? That’s the position Snyder, Goyer and Nolan put Superman in at the climax, and that’s the decision he has to make. Does he do the right thing? In fairness, I think that’s the debate the film is asking for. It’s not like Superman walks away fine with what he did, and I expect the idea is that his actions will have an impact on his values going forward.

There’s a lot else that Man of Steel plays with in the Superman legend besides the violence and cinematography. Some people will surely miss the bumbling Clark Kent, the burgeoning relationship with Lois Lane, and so on. These elements are eventually brought in, sometimes in a modified way, which makes it feel like they’ve been put in place — Superman Begins style — to be used in a sequel. Except we know the sequel is headed off in the Batman vs Superman direction, so how much ‘clumsy Clark’ we’ll get to see is questionable. I have to say, I don’t blame the makers going a new way — how do you compete with the Christopher Reeve classics? And if you try to emulate them, you end up with Superman Returns, which was a box office and critical success but for some reason is remembered as a failure in both regards.

A 21st Century reinvention of the oldest superhero is an interesting notion, and in some regards Man of Steel works; but those successes are regularly marred by superficial ‘innovations’ that don’t click. The final result is a standard blockbuster masquerading as something revolutionary; an adequate film that indulges itself, leading to a belief it’s something more, which is ultimately to the detriment of its audience.

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