Red Sparrow (2018)

Posted on July 9, 2018 by badblokebob

Jennifer Lawrence stars as Dominika, a Russian ballerina whose career-ending injury leads her down a path to becoming a “sparrow” — a highly-trained undercover operative for the Russian secret service. Used and abused throughout her training, when she’s sent after a CIA agent (Joel Edgerton) in order to find a mole within Russian intelligence, a series of double- and triple-crosses leave everyone in doubt about whose side she’s really on… including, er, us viewers.

Red Sparrow is set today. I think. It’s easy to forget. I had to check on a couple of occasions, including one final double-check before writing this review. The thing is, the politics of it all is very Cold War. Of course, given the current state of geopolitics, a neo-Cold War between Russian and the West is probably at its most believable since the ’80s, it’s just that this film’s handling of it doesn’t feel timely and modern, but like a Cold War story that someone decided should be set today. Partly that’s because a lot of the technology and tradecraft feels like it comes from a previous era too. I mean, one major sequence revolves around floppy disks. Floppy disks! I can’t even remember the last time I saw a floppy disk. Either that bit is based on something real-world (like, there’s a reason why someone stealing secrets would still be using floppies) — and, if it is, the film doesn’t bother to lay out why — or it’s the single most unrealistic thing in a movie that’s about a former ballerina being trained to be a Russian spy skilled in psychological influence and sexual manipulation in just three months — i.e. this is a pretty unrealistic movie all round.

Even if we ignore the inconsistencies of its temporal setting, it struggles with what else it has going for it. In its attempts to provide a twisty-turny plot, it’s not as clever as it thinks it is. As it flips and flops around about which side Dominika is supposed to be on really, clearly intending for us to feel wrong-footed every half-hour or so, the gears of how it’s setting up an inevitable final “reveal” begin to show through. Either that or I’m a genius for working it out ahead of time, whichever. One great well-disguised twist is better than endless back-and-forthing, but none of the filmmakers here seem to realise that, or don’t have the confidence to rely solely on that final reveal. Another side effect of this is it becomes hard to root for any particular character. Maybe this is the legacy of it being a US production: it can’t quite bring itself to ask us to fully invest in Dominika, a Russian spy, even as it tries to keep her the heroine. Plus the supposed twists wouldn’t work if we were actually let in on what she was plotting.

And away from the plot, the whole movie is sort of… seedy, but without owning it. It wants to be about sex and to somehow be honest about that, while also trying not to titillate in any way. It wants to be realistically violent, while merely being nasty in just one or two scenes. Conversely, it also wants to be a grown-up, labyrinthine Le Carré-esque thriller, but it’s so busy trying to repeatedly fool you that it forgets to properly engage you. It certainly doesn’t succeed in being plausible, with the elaborate plan Dominika supposedly concocted relying rather too much on crossed-fingers-type logic — or, I’m sure the filmmakers would say, her unparalleled ability to read people.

I’d rather it had picked a side: either go all out schlock — more violence, more tits — or go full intelligent thriller — rein in the seediness, rein in the superhuman foresight. As it is, Red Sparrow is not trashy enough to be titillating, certainly not clever enough to challenge Le Carré as the go-to example of intelligent spy thrills, and not stylish enough to get away with it either. It kind of sits in an awkward middle ground between all those things. I didn’t actually dislike it, but it didn’t thrill me either.

Red Sparrow is released on DVD, Blu-ray, and UHD Blu-ray in the UK today.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (2015)

Posted on September 24, 2016 by badblokebob

The artificially-extended Hunger Games trilogy-turned-tetralogy climaxes here. Presumably you’ve seen the first three and so know what you’re into by this point — either you’re invested or you’ve given up. Unless you want to know “does it end well?” before embarking on the whole thing, of course. While Mockingjay Part 2 is not the series’ finest instalment, it brings things to a decent head… eventually.

In my review of Mockingjay Part 1, a film much criticised for feeling like half of a whole — or, rather, half of a part of a whole — I argued it does actually function as a film in its own right. I mean, all of these films are part of one long narrative, so that’s par for the course, and I didn’t feel like Mockingjay Part 1 was any less a ‘standalone’ chunk of that narrative than the two films that preceded it. Specifically, I asserted that “the focus on using Katniss as no more than a propaganda figurehead… has been fully explored — and so I think this instalment will feel much more like a fully-fledged film in its own right if they just move on. I hope the final film give us new themes, new subplots, new arcs to follow”.

With that in mind, Part 2 begins with a degree of disappointment, as it tackles some propaganda-related holdovers from the last movie. Maybe I was putting too much stock in the idea of them moving on from that theme and establishing something new, though — especially as it does soon do that anyway. What develops is a “men on a mission” war movie, as Katniss and a small band of soldiers make their way through the deserted-but-boobytrapped Capitol on a mission to assassinate President Snow.

What follows isn’t perfect — in particular, the storyline could’ve done with tightening up — but it does have a lot going for it. There’s strong characterisation: Katniss is as confused, conflicted, and incapable of engaging with her emotions as ever, while Peeta’s PTSD is well-handled, with an effective device where he repeatedly makes a statement before asking, “real or not real?” There are other nicely developed thematic points too, like expanding further on the rebels not being perfect good guys (as initiated in Part 1), which plays a central role in the denouement. The action sequences are well staged and occasionally inventive, but best of all is that the climax doesn’t lean on being the biggest fight scene yet — it’s driven by the story, and the characters and their decisions, rather than being a ginormous shoot-out.

Speaking of the film’s finale, complaints that the endings go on too long bug me, just as they bug me when people bring it up about Lord of the Rings. In both cases, you’re getting a capstone to a 9+ hour saga, not the 2- to 3-hour section of it you just watched. Rings’ endings feel completely suitable if you watch all 12 hours of the extended editions in one sitting, and I’d wager Hunger Games’ do too. Rush it and you end up with something like Harry Potter’s finale, which comes to a crushing thud of an ending as soon as the battle is won. What both Rings and Hunger Games are doing, actually, is showing that these characters are people who exist outside of the context of their war. They’re not just combatants, who evaporate into thin air once the battle’s lost or won; they’re people who have to either return to their old lives or establish new ones.* It’s a richer, more realistic, more human way to end a story than “plot’s over, action sequences are finished — we’re done here!”

Mockingjay Part 2 is not the best instalment of the Hunger Games, a series whose second half didn’t quite live up to the developed potential of the excellent Catching Fire. That said, I think it largely works as a whole, with conflicted and complicated characters living in a world that initially seems straightforwardly dystopic but develops many moral greys. That’s particularly welcome from a Young Adult series, a sort-of-genre where some of the most famous examples are lacking in intellectual — or (considering the target audience) educational — heft. In fact, based on the scores and comments I’ve seen on some websites, Mockingjay Part 2 may yet turn out to be the most underrated of the Hunger Games films.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 is available on Netflix UK as of this week. Mockingjay Part 1 is also on there; the first two films are not.

* Potter does do the “back to a life” thing, but the details of it are found in ancillary texts. ^

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 (2014)

Posted on September 16, 2015 by badblokebob

If you’re not au fait with the first two Hunger Games movies, there’s nothing for you here. Why would you want to join a story halfway through anyway?

Even for those of us who are, Mockingjay Part 1 — the first half of a two-part finale that, for my money, plays more like its own standalone movie than most first halves of two-part finales manage (I’m thinking of Deathly Hallows 1 or The Matrix Reloaded here) — throws us in at the deep end, starting a little while after the end of the last film and challenging us to keep up. It’s a little frustrating at times — if you’ve not watched the previous movies into the ground, there are points where you wonder if you’ve forgotten something or just not been told it yet — but ultimately helps make for an engrossing, mature movie.

Naturally I mean “mature” in the sense of “grown up”, not in the oft-misused sense of “for adults only, wink wink”. This is a thoughtful film, one which has more time for examining issues of politicking than for bang-bang-a-boom fight scenes. Indeed, if you’ve come looking for an action movie — as, it seems, most critics did — then you’ll definitely be disappointed. If, however, you’re looking for a film to continue the series’ rich vein of sci-fi political allegory, well, you’re in luck. This edition: propaganda.

In the previous films, heroine Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) inadvertently inspired a rebellion against the ruling Capitol, which has been bubbling away without her knowledge. Now, having been targeted by evil President Snow (Donald Sutherland), she’s been transported to the underground locales of District 13, where they want to put her in films to continue spreading dissension among the other districts. At the same time, the Capitol are putting Katniss’ captured lover Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) on the air, arguing for peace and maintaining the status quo. It’s a war of hearts and minds, essentially, as both sides attempt to rally ordinary people to their cause through the power of the media. It’s a tale that’s as timely as ever, surely.

One of my favourite elements here is the distrust that both sides engender. The rebels Katniss has found herself with are certainly the good guys, battling to overthrow an abusively oppressive regime, but they aren’t whiter-than-white — they won’t always do everything our hero would like; she’s not always sure she can trust them. There’s no doubt about which side is the right one to be on, but it’s at least a little more complex than the norm.

Katniss herself remains a refreshingly un-self-assured heroine. She doesn’t always know or do what’s right, she isn’t always sure of her purpose or her goals, or even her own feelings. That’s so much more human than so many movie heroes, no doubt in part thanks to having an Oscar-able actress to carry the role. True, we’ve seen these facets before from her in both of the previous films, but hurrah to author Suzanne Collins and to the filmmakers for not taking the simple route of having her transform into something she didn’t start as. There’s still a whole outstanding film to bring about such a change, of course, so we’ll just have to wait and see how they follow this through to the end.

The fact there will be another film is an undoubted point of contention. The Hunger Games is the latest to follow in Harry Potter’s footsteps and split the final book of a series in two when filmed. Indeed, since Twilight latched onto that bandwagon it’s become de rigueur, with the final-book-split usually announced as soon as the first film in a wannabe-series is a box office hit — see the Divergent series, for example (or The Maze Runner for one that supposedly won’t succumb to this). Despite the complaints from many other critics and viewers, I must say that (as someone who hasn’t read the book) it didn’t feel overly like the first half of something longer to me. Of course there’s a cliffhanger and stuff, but there was at the end of the last film as well. This is no worse than that. If anything, I felt Mockingjay Part 1 built to its ending more successfully — I was quite surprised when Catching Fire stopped, whereas here the ending felt like a natural stopping point. In fact, given the point some of the storylines reach, it’s difficult to imagine them feeling anything other than rushed if they’d been executed in half the time. Maybe the film is a little drawn out in places and some storylines could’ve been condensed (how many propaganda films do we need to see Katniss make, really?), but that’s a niggle about perhaps wanting a minor trim, not a complaint decrying the need for full-blown editorial intervention.

Whether or not this Part 1 stands alone will be cemented by the next film, I feel. If the focus on using Katniss as no more than a propaganda figurehead isn’t continued in Part 2 then, well, that’s the part of the story that this film is about. It doesn’t feel like it needs to be continued next time — that particular propaganda angle has been fully explored — and so I think this instalment will feel much more like a fully-fledged film in its own right if they just move on. I hope the final film give us new themes, new subplots, new arcs to follow; I hope it feels like Part 4 of 4, in the way this currently feels like Part 3 of 4, and doesn’t play as Part 3B of 3 and retroactively transform this into Part 3A.

If you like a lot of Hunger Games action from your Hunger Games movie, Mockingjay Part 1 will certainly be a disappointment. On the other hand, if you more enjoy the political satire side of the series, it may be your favourite instalment so far (and you wouldn’t be alone in that view). For me, Catching Fire is the best of the three because it crystallises both of those constituent elements; and if the first film was purely the action side (with a bit of the politics), then here we find its mirror image: purely politics (with a bit of action). Either way, perhaps the ultimate fate of all these films rests on how well the next, final part can bring all their action, themes, and plots to fruition.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 is available on Netflix UK from today.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

Posted on November 17, 2014 by badblokebob

Jennifer Lawrence (who, depending on your mileage, is either “the most charming young movie star in, like, forever” or “actually kind of a little bit irritating”) returns as the totally-plausibly-named Katniss Everdeen in this super-successful follow-up to the super-successful ~~kids’~~ young adult novel adaptation that’s kinda like the new Twilight only actually quite good.*

Having struck a PR blow to the ruling elite by forcing their hand at the end of the previous Hunger Games, joint winners Katniss and Peeta (pronounced “Peter” (Josh Hutcherson)) are back home. But not for long, because in an attempt to reassert control it’s decided the forthcoming 75th Hunger Games will feature previous combatants — and Katniss and Peeta are their District’s only choice. Cue an almost-rehash of the first film, but with different burgeoning political undertones, and the added twist of the competitors all being previous winners. There are much bigger twists than that coming, though…

Indeed, perhaps the most striking part of Catching Fire is its ending. That’s not to say the rest of the film isn’t entertaining — it really is, but it’s a variation on a theme; that theme being “the first one again”, even if this is arguably a superior version. The ending, however, suggests things are about to be launched off in a radically new direction, as well as casting a new light on the film we’ve just watched. These closing moments most literally remind me of The Matrix Reloaded: following a surprise world-changing development, our hero lies recuperating on a spaceship with new-found allies among the resistance, while outside in the rest of the world a final showdown brews…

Tonally, however, it’s more similar to The Empire Strikes Back** — indeed, the Star Wars comparison applies to both Hunger Games films and their relationship to each other: the first is the story of an unwitting small-town kid becoming a hero and landing a decisive blow against the evil ruling body in a standalone adventure; but our heroes have only won the battle, not the war, and the evil empire rolls on… Cue Film #2, in which we get a wider view of the world, the bad guys seek our heroes more directly, and everything comes to a head in a blatant “to be continued” cliffhanger that unavoidably draws us on to the next instalment.

On The Dissolve, Tasha Robinson goes so far as to assert that, not only are they alike, but “Catching Fire’s ending is the most daring “to be continued” since Empire Strikes Back”. She argues that they are executed in a style which none of the multitudinous other cliffhanger-ending-ed films made since (including everything from Back to the Future to The Lord of the Rings) can claim to have achieved in quite the same way. To take her final sentences: “Most serial films end by spelling out exactly how the characters are headed into disaster, and in some cases, exactly what they plan to do about it. Empire and Catching Fire closes [sic] with a sense not just of something continuing, but potentially, even more thrillingly, of something new beginning.” Her whole piece is worth a read.

Of course, to an extent the tone of this ending comes from it being an adaptation: the filmmakers haven’t looked at the history of movie cliffhangers and chosen which to emulate, but instead brought someone else’s ending to the screen. Adapting doesn’t mean you have to take the original work faithfully, mind — you could go the Game of Thrones route and rearrange exactly where one book ends and the next begins; or the James Bond / Jason Bourne route of doing just whatever the hell you want. I haven’t read Suzanne Collins’ original novels, but I get the impression the films are pretty faithful.

Indeed, perhaps the real strength of Catching Fire being an adaptation of a novel is that it’s bedded in one author’s voice. My point being: it wasn’t written and constructed by committee, meaning we’re not subjected to the over-familiar beats of an action-adventure movie. There aren’t regularly-spaced action sequences of ever-increasing scale throughout, for instance — it’s not until halfway through that we end up in the arena, and up to that point it’s all story, the only action being ‘events’ rather than your traditional Action Sequence. This is no bad thing. If it’s adaptations of young adult novels that we need to save us from predictability, to deliver us a story rather than a thin excuse for the delivery of evenly-spaced action sequences, then so be it.

When the Games do arrive, director Francis Lawrence makes the most of it: as Katniss finally rises into the arena, the aspect ratio subtly shifts from filmic 2.40:1 to IMAX-derived 1.78:1. It’s remarkable how much impact this has even on a TV screen; nothing like what it must have in a proper IMAX theatre, but striking nonetheless — it really feels like things have just gotten bigger, both in terms of events depicted and the cinematography, which seems richer, more detailed, despite no genuine increase in resolution. I guess it’s true what they say: if you start with a higher quality source, it filters all the way down. The “bigger screen” effect probably wouldn’t work for a film entirely shot on IMAX — it’d just fill your TV from the start — but, after an hour-or-so of black bars, it really feels like the screen has grown.

Last year was one of mixed fortunes for the blockbuster, when films that one might deem well-received actually had an equal number of detractors; but Catching Fire stands apart as an engrossing, entertaining, intelligent and invigorating success. I guess it too must have its detractors, but I suspect not as many, and not as deservedly.

The first Hunger Games is on Film4 tonight at 9pm. The next (and penultimate) instalment, Mockingjay: Part 1, is in UK cinemas from this Thursday, 20th November.

* I’ve still not seen any of the Twilight films, but I remain confident that, when I do, I’m not going to like them. ^

** I’m certainly not the first person to notice this: Googling “Catching Fire Empire Strikes Back comparison” brings up about 66,000 results — it used to be more, and obviously it misses anyone who’s making the comparison without using the world “comparison”. ^

I Am Legend: Alternate Theatrical Version (2007/2008)

Posted on July 29, 2008 by badblokebob

2008 #47a
Francis Lawrence | 104 mins | Blu-ray | 15

This review contains spoilers.

I only watched the theatrical version of I Am Legend earlier this year (it’s #35), but, for reasons I won’t elaborate on for once, I’ve found myself watching this alternate version already.

Most of the comments in my original review still apply, as this cut only has minimal differences: there are a couple of very short new scenes in the third act, which were presumably excised because they primarily feed into the different ending, the main attraction of this version. Personally, I prefer it. The whole butterfly thing is too God-messagey, recalling the weakest elements of Signs, but if one can put that aside then the new content fits in much better with several threads that develop in the rest of the film (in both versions — in the original cut they’re just ignored). It feels like this was the intended conclusion but, for whatever reason, someone decided it needed changing. Perhaps it wasn’t explosive enough; or, indeed, conclusive enough, as it dispenses with the safe-haven epilogue and its pathetic attempt at justifying the title — another pleasurable loss as far as I’m concerned.

One other element I’ve reconsidered thanks to this repeat viewing are the CGI humans. They’re good enough in and of themselves, and would make more than passable foes in another action film, but here they ruin the ambiance that’s so carefully built up before their first appearance. Yes, the CGI lions are also clearly fake, but with limited methods to create such scenes they seem more acceptable. The arrival of the Dark Seekers, on the other hand, barges the film from thoughtful sci-fi drama into horror action blockbuster stylistically, in a way that using real actors simply wouldn’t. The not-real Dark Seekers may have superhuman jumping abilities, but the film doesn’t need those either, and could easily have crafted a similarly action-packed climax with real performers.

I Am Legend is still as middle-of-the-road as before, with very little to choose between the two versions. However, thanks to a less irritating final few minutes, this version just has the edge — if you ever intend to watch I Am Legend, be it a repeat viewing or your first, I recommend you plump for the alternate cut.

The theatrical version of I Am Legend is on Watch tonight, Tuesday 14th October 2014, at 10pm.

I Am Legend (2007)

Posted on June 2, 2008 by badblokebob

2008 #35
Francis Lawrence | 96 mins | DVD | 15 / PG-13

This review contains major spoilers.

Will Smith stars in this adaptation of Richard Matheson’s classic sci-fi novel from the director of Constantine. The latter is a film I personally enjoyed (and which features a relatively early appearance of the currently prolific Shia LaBeouf) but received some mixed reactions on the whole. By a broadly similar token, I Am Legend has received a fair share of negative reviews, though my opinion is a little more divided.

Things go very well for the first half. It’s nicely paced, concentrating on a depiction of one man’s loneliness taken to the extreme. The script, and Smith’s acting, handle the material well. The deserted and destroyed New York looks as stunning as the trailers promised, while the CGI animals that roam it are as good as any. The flashbacks that punctuate the film are well executed too, drip-feeding clues to what happened while maintaining some mysteries of their own. There are some other good sequences: Neville’s exploration of a pitch-black Dark Seeker-infested building is tense, and the death of his pet dog — his one remaining companion — is moving, even if it was given away in the trailer. That scene is effectively played and shot, showing only Neville’s face as he is forced to euthanize the diseased animal by suffocation.

Sadly, this is where things begin to go down hill. The Dark Seekers — the film’s vampires/zombies/whatever — are crafted with pretty good CGI, but they’re still not life-like enough to work. If it were a mindless blockbuster they would’ve been more at home, but as it’s managed to be an effective drama they feel entirely out of place. It’s true that real actors couldn’t have managed the physical feats the creatures are made to pull off, but do they really need to do those things? I suspect not. The film also leaves several holes in the Dark Seeker’s actions — for example, they copy Neville’s trap, a move apparently beyond their intelligence, but the film neglects to explore why or how they did this.

Instead it moves on to the arrival of some more survivors. Quite where they came from, or how they got into the supposedly isolated Manhattan, is another inadequately explained set of circumstances. After they arrive, the film’s climax comes out of nowhere. It’s as if the screenwriters ran out of ways to keep things going so just bunged on a big climactic action sequence. And what happens in it is pretty silly too, especially Neville’s self sacrifice — why not get in the Magic Safe Hole too and then chuck the grenade out? Perhaps he just has a death wish by that point. It would seem most of the audience did. There’s also a pathetic epilogue, and an even worse final line that attempts to make sense of the title.

I Am Legend is something of a disappointment. The considered and effective first half gives way to an increasingly nonsensical second, marred by numerous flaws that stack up til a near-laughable conclusion comes from nowhere. I’ve been told that the ‘alternate theatrical cut’, with a handful of additional scenes and a new ending, is marginally more effective. I’m sure I’ll watch it someday and share my thoughts. For now, I Am Legend’s two halves of differing quality just leave it in the middle of the road.

I Am Legend is on Watch tonight, Saturday 11th October 2014, at 9pm. It’s on again on Tuesday, when I’ll (re-)share my thoughts on the so-called “Alternate Theatrical Version”.

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