Run All Night (2015) REVIEW

“Taken 4 beats the previous two instalments.”

SPOILER FREE “Oh no! Not another Liam Neeson thriller.” ‘Schindler’s List’ is really what got him known, I just wish he’d do more projects like that. I actually thought the trailer was for ‘Taken 4’, which immediately filled me with dread; although despite my joy when finding out that it wasn’t, still didn’t give me enough drive to make me feel excited to see ‘Run All Night’.

The film begins rather well, introducing us to a few characters that will be taking the story forward – and thankfully they have some relative depth unlike the horrible ‘Taken 3’. The tone of the film is an unrelenting grimy and dirty one. From planting its flagpole within the first 5 seconds, it certainly has a ‘like it or lump it’ feel to it. I’ve always had issues with films being unnecessarily grimy and depressing for only its own sake, but I was rather willing to give the film a try since it opened rather well. It’s similarities with other thrillers starring Liam Neeson such as ‘Taken’, ‘The Walk Among The Tombstones’, ‘Unknown’ and ‘Non-Stop’ are blatant and as subtle as a brick through a window – but once again, entertaining nonetheless. ‘Road To Perdition’ is certainly another influence that cannot be excused. I commemorate the film’s ability to be compelling, interesting and well performed by its cast – but its glaring errors of being so ghastly unoriginal can by no means be overlooked.

Although not established enough as he should have been, Ed Harris does a fine job at portraying the lead antagonist as Shawn Maguire, former boss to deadbeat Jimmy Conlon (Liam Neeson). What I liked most about ‘Run All Night’ apart from its ability to be rip-roaringly entertaining, was the relationship between Jimmy and his son Mike (Joel Kinnaman). We find out as the film progresses, why their relationship is so awful, but you generally start to care for their wellbeing. Throughout all of the gunfights and car chases, I felt desperate for the two to succeed in their efforts, and for that reason I would say for the most part that ‘Run All Night’ is partially successful.

With glaring holes so large that it would be impossible to read the script, ‘Run All Night’ fails at being an original thriller – but succeeds at being interesting, entertaining and surprisingly strong in its ability to make the audience care for its characters. Liam Neeson may have done too many films with the same plot, but we shouldn’t be done with him just yet.

★★★

Chappie (2015) REVIEW

“Depressingly grimy and with no strong characters – Neill Blomkamp’s latest is very disappointing.”

SPOILER FREE I must have watched the trailer about 20 times and just listened to it another 20. Being a fan of District 9 and appreciating the subjective view that Neill Blomkamp CAN direct science-fiction – although after viewing ‘Chappie’ it may be best to leave this fantastical genre to the pros. To say that I was looking forward to this film would be an understatement – by being a huge fan of Neill Blomkamp and science-fiction (especially those with an exploration of artificial intelligence) it seemed like a dream come true – it was only when the movie was being shown that the light at the end of the tunnel was actually just the train. I was ready for something powerful, something so engaging and beautiful that showed an extraordinary connection between Chappie and his creator; as well as everybody else – only to have my expectations being shown the door.

We’re back in District 9 territory in terms of the film’s style – with fake archival news footage and characters hanging around grimy parts of the US, it was easy for Blomkamp to give us the illusion that we were right at home. After being presented with a new breed of Police Robots, We’re then introduced to Deon Wilson who’s played by Dev Patel, of whom I like very much; it’s then revealed that Deon has managed to create a robot (at this point, only theoretically) which can think and feel. It’s at this moment where the film begins to go severely downhill. The balance between Deon’s world of science and artificial intelligence and the life of the gang members is both irritating and sloppy portrayed. After the gang members abduct Deon and take his creation away from him, Chappie has to learn how to survive like a child; and on the one hand you have Deon who is trying to teach Chappie how to be good, and then you have the gang members that only want Chappie because of personal gain.

One of ‘Chappie’s most overwhelming problems is that it has no interesting characters. There are moments throughout the film’s duration that try and encourage an emotional response from the audience based on characters that aren’t well developed enough. The gang members that abduct Chappie are seen mostly as the antagonists and although the actors do a good enough job of convincing us of their vulgarity; there is nothing particularly interesting about them. I wanted to see so much more of the relationship between Deon and Chappie, and although Deon was a likeable enough character, there wasn’t enough about him that we were introduced to that make him particularly engaging.

I was reminded of District 9’s griminess as I watched ‘Chappie’ and even though the film has grounds to be difficult to watch because of its tough subject matter; it was overwhelmingly depressing. District 9 is similar and in my opinion was let down because of it – Chappie is as negative as it is flawed, and I hoped for much better. Just because a film tackles tough subject matter doesn’t mean that it necessarily has to be depressing or negative – Chappie lacked any kind of heart or sentiment that is often so vital in science-fiction. When an audience is presented with an idea that is out of this world, we need some way into the characters and the situations – something that we would recognise. Unfortunately ‘Chappie’ ditches a lot of the good things that science-fiction has presented for many years.

You can’t deny that the cinematography is well done, as are the performances by most of the unknown actors. But with gaping holes in the story and a real lack of heart, ‘Chappie’ inspires little sympathy and teaches none that we don’t already know. Can this new ‘Alien’ project that’s starring Sigourney Weaver please just go back to Ridley Scott or James Cameron please? They knew what they were doing – or just leave it alone, that would be cool.

★★

Focus (2015) REVIEW

“Small moments of interest, but we’ve seen it all before.”

SPOILER FREE Another con movie. Really? The only people actually being conned are the ones who are paying to see it without reading the film’s reception. I viewed the trailer at least a month before the film’s release and didn’t think it looked particularly impressive then, although after seeing Margot Robbie’s terrific performance in Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, I was very interested in seeing her again. I like Will Smith as much as the next crowd, but I was more intrigued in seeing him in something a bit more out of his comfort zone – as opposed to the quiet, ‘looking around the room and speaking only when needing to’ type. We’ve seen him play similar characters in ‘I Am Legend’, I, Robot and ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’ – although he’s rather good at playing the insecure husband/father.

As charismatic as Will Smith’s performance is, the film really starts to go downhill after the first 10 minutes – we’re quickly introduced to Nicky (Will Smith) and Jess (Margot Robbie) – a relationship which appears to be rather strong but with little depth at the centre. Nicky is obviously a very talented and skilled thief, and the film did well in explaining that. Through the film’s glaring inaccuracies and misfires, it’s certainly entertaining witnessing everything that Nicky and his crime gang can do; and with that, teaches mostly everything he knows to Jess. As mildly entertaining the film is; unfortunately it never showed me anything particularly new. It seemed that every scene was an imitation of previous films that had a better outlook on crime and wild living.

The film progresses from slightly enjoyable to rather boring throughout the duration. ‘Focus’s biggest problem apart from its lack of originality is that it doesn’t have any interesting characters. Even though we’re introduced to the two leads rather quickly, there isn’t a lot to latch on to. Their relationship is rather irritating and unrealistic, with the only thing coming to mind of ‘that would never work’ or ‘they’re not going to last long’ – is it a surprise that their relationship is so up and down when it appears to be so early on? ‘Focus’s attempt at being interesting doesn’t completely fail – I thought the scenes of Nicky teaching Jess how to be a criminal were satisfactory and the story certainly had moments that took me by surprise… Although, because it’s a film about con-men, I was ready for there to be twist after twist, and I was right… The greatest irony is that the twist is something that you never expect; however with ‘Focus’, I was shocked at the content of the twist but not the fact that the film had several of them. For strong fans of crime films, maybe you’ll want to see how ‘Focus’ misses almost everything that is good about the genre – other than that, you’re only conning yourself.

★★

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015) REVIEW

“Unnecessary sequel proves to be rather strong, sweet and interesting.”

SPOILER FREE After seeing the first film and be adamant about it being rather satisfactory and nothing more – I was rather surprised that a sequel was being released since the reception of the original wasn’t outstanding. But even with the British Film Industry, money needs to be made, and I’m sure that the sequel will take just as much, perhaps even more at the box office – even if the film is mostly aimed at the couples, the middle-aged and the elderly.

Sonny (Dev Patel) is behind the idea of the hotels stretching all across India, and has a vision of many people enjoying Indian hospitality. The charm of the first film still lingers across this instalment as we’re introduced to some familiar faces – a cracking cast featuring Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, Dev Patel, Richard Gere and many more. It was a complete surprise to me how sweet and interesting the film was turning out to be – I went into the screening with the mindset that it was just going to be another film added to an extremely long list of unnecessary sequels; and as much as I still believe that it doesn’t add a lot more to make it worthy, it’s touching nonetheless. What I like about both instalments is that all of the characters seem to be rather well developed. It plays a dangerous game on introducing the audience to a lot of characters, but none ever seem to slip beneath the cracks and become unknown or unnecessary.

I was ready to dislike many aspects of ‘The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ based firmly on the principal of unnecessary sequels, but I have to say that the film rather won me over. It’s not life changing by any means, but it has a real heart and it does it without being preachy or overbearing. I realise that I’m not the target audience; but it’s difficult to not to enjoy beautifully shot and choreographed dancing, and a large list of characters that still don’t seem to overstay their welcome. As much as I think that the film overstayed its welcome slightly on the duration, the love story between Sonny and his fiancé Sunaina could have been better developed and more interactive – it’s rather good. Fans of the first one will claim it’s the best thing since sliced bread and others… well! It may win you over too! I rather enjoyed it.

★★★

The Wedding Ringer (2015) REVIEW

“A typically stupid, dumb and brainless comedy.”

SPOILER FREE I have to be honest, when I first saw the trailer for ‘The Wedding Ringer’ it made me completely lose my mind – mainly for realising that this was going to be a film that I would have to eventually see. I had in my mind that “it’s your typical trashy, unfunny and stupid American comedy” and I was certainly not disappointed in this regard. The first so-called ‘gag’ is the lead protagonist Doug falling through a glass table as he leans backward – nobody in the cinema, including myself laughed at this; and thus set the tone for the entire film. As much as there are some American comedies that I still like to this day, much of it seems to be all about repetition. The reason why so many of these comedies get negative reception is not just because the characters are undeveloped, the scripts are badly written and the actors are badly directed (although all of these may be true) – it’s because the film is NOT funny!

Throughout the film’s duration, we get to know the characters of Doug and Jimmy better, and how they’re going to pull the wedding off with the fake best man and groomsmen – whilst trying to fool everybody else including the bride that it’s all genuine. Of course; the groomsmen provided by the best man are a bunch of crazy misfits, including a man that has a serious stammer – they play the same joke of this guy not being able to get his words out about 6 times.

In the film’s defence, there were a couple lines of dialogue that made me snigger quietly for a few seconds, it’s the stupid and loud jokes that don’t work. It made me think back to ‘The Inbetweeners 2’ and how they didn’t get it completely right with all the jokes. The funniest thing about ‘The Inbetweeners’ were the excellently written lines of dialogue that were delivered in hilarious ways that only forced you to laugh at the characters. The stupidly ridiculous ‘monkey humour’ (as I call it) that ‘The Wedding Ringer’s cursed with, requires no intellect or cleverness in understanding what is supposed to be ‘funny’.

It’s a really dumb film, although not as hateful as I was expecting it to be – 95% of it is stupid, crass and boring, but there were some small moments that were either funny or interesting. All round, it’s a really stupid piece of work that makes you look to Hollywood and say “really?… this again?!”

★

Project Almanac (2015) REVIEW

“Irritatedly unoriginal – but hugely entertaining.”

SPOILER FREE There’s only so many times that we see a film of the science-fiction genre that focuses on the fantastical idea of time travel without really thinking “You’re going to seriously think of something new here, because this idea has been done so many times.” I had seen the film’s trailer several times and actually thought that it looked very interesting until I saw a title that said ‘Produced by Michael Bay’ which instantly have me the heebie-jeebies. Without going into too much detail I think that the film’s Michael Bay directs are crass, stupid and utterly hateful but thankfully he doesn’t have too many of his fingerprints on this; otherwise it would have been a disaster. The film’s theme of ‘all being told through someone filming on a video camera’ is interesting but also as unoriginal as the time machine idea. It’s a miracle that the film is as decent as it is, with all of the flaws that already surround it.

‘Found footage’ filmmaking is certainly a concept that is interesting, and seems to sell a lot of money, although at the same time remain rather unpopular to general audiences. What’s important about ‘Project Almanac’ is that it remembers how a film needs to work i.e. strong character development, good writing etc. I have to say that throughout all of the film’s narrative and ‘we’ve seen this before’ flaws; it was a film that I thoroughly enjoyed. It definitely references ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Cloverfield’ and ‘Chronicle but the film’s characters are really what drive the narrative forward. From the get-go we’re introduced to inventor David Raskin, his sister and friends – and really, these people are the only ones that we really get to know well, with the addition of a love interest.

‘Project Almanac’s’ biggest problem is that it doesn’t present us with anything new. I can’t write about the film’s lack of originality too much, but it never really took me by surprise. I loved the characters – throughout the adventure’s that the team face, you really feel part of it, and generally want good things to happen to them. It’s the too familiar ‘time travel – lets go back in time – we messed up scenario which is the film’s biggest downfall.

Overall I liked it. I enjoyed the story and really felt attached to the characters throughout the film’s duration. It’s funny, hugely enjoyable and actually rather sweet – it’s just a shame that we’ve seen it all before.

★★★

Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) REVIEW

“It’s script is cleaner than the novel – but where is it all going?”

SPOILER FREE Adapted from E.L. James’ poorly written erotic novel comes Sam Taylor-Johnson’s new feature telling the story of a sadomasochistic relationship between a young business man and a college student. After hearing so much about the book and the sort of themes that it delved into, I was perhaps vaguely interested in seeing the film that everyone seems to be talking about. As much as you can believe that the ideas behind ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ are immoral, disgusting and just plain wrong, you can’t help but show a little interest to the film’s subject matter because of all the controversy that surrounds BDSM and sadomasochism.

The film begins rather well in which we are transported into a world where Anastasia (Dakota Johnson) a college student interviews business man Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) and immediately feels a spark between them – it’s only then that Christian finds interest in Anastasia and begins to pursue her on what she feels as first is purely romantic. As much as I feel that the film doesn’t completely work on many levels, such as its writing, pacing and characterisation – I found the romantic chemistry to be rather strong between the two people. Even though we get to know Christian Grey more as the film progresses, he makes himself more and more vulnerable to the audience at the same time he does with Anastasia. I can commemorate the film’s grasp and how it doesn’t seem to let you go throughout its duration, and for the most part I really found myself enjoying the company of the two together. Although you could feel that the path for Anastasia was going to take a downturn, nevertheless it’s a chemistry that I would call enjoyable and interesting.

The film’s controversy as well as the book’s stems from people think that the content permits sexual violence as being ‘okay’. I can’t speak for the book because I haven’t read it, but for the film’s part, it certainly doesn’t do that. As the film progresses, we begin to understand more of Christian Grey and why he is the way he is, and his need for sexual domination. As much as I think that the practises that he partakes in with women are rather disturbing and distasteful, every act carried out in the film is permitted and allowed completely by Anastasia. As much as Christian Grey encourages these sexual practices to be carried out between them – he never forces himself upon her.

I thought ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ wasn’t too bad. I enjoyed the company of the characters and felt like their chemistry worked as well as the film being entertaining and beautifully shot for the most part. The film’s pacing was a little off and perhaps the film’s duration was too long but all-in-all it made me interested in the characters. The film’s biggest problem is that you wonder what it’s all adding up to. The film had an opportunity to really romantic, funny or sexy and it wasn’t really any of these things. The book from what I understand is poorly written erotica. This is about as mediocre drama as they come.

★★★

The Gambler (2014) REVIEW

“Good first act, but overall it’s rather dull and unconvincing.”

SPOILER FREE Mark Wahlberg stars in the remake of the 1974 original about a guy who gambles in his spare time, and therefore has 7 days before he has to repay a huge sum of money to several mob bosses. I’ve liked Mark Wahlberg in a lot of things, but recently I’ve felt that he hasn’t been as strong as he used to be – or at least the quality of the film’s that he’s been in has been decreasing. Quite soon into the film’s beginning we find a simple way into the character, although we don’t know much about Jim Bennett (Mark Wahlberg), the opening scenes in the underground seedy casino I found rather compelling. The film quickly takes a rapid downturn when you realise the character’s main occupation. Jim Bennett is a University lecturer… what??? Played by Mark Wahlberg, I don’t think so! The way Mark Wahlberg plays the role is so unconvincing, the scene itself becomes very needless and rather boring.

The tone is set straight from the first University Lecture of being rather unbelievable. The biggest problem about ‘The Gamber’ is that I didn’t believe any aspect of it – Mark Wahlberg’s acting I didn’t particularly find convincing or interesting, neither did I feel that way about the character. All the way through, I felt that the film opened up many ideas but never fully developed them. The relationship between Jim and his mum is brief and has very little depth. There’s also a bizarre relationship that Jim has with one of his students that he lectures about being a genius; Amy Philips (Brie Larson) that we as an audience don’t really to see anything of. The gangsters that are getting impatient for their money back from Jim are nowhere near threatening enough – a couple of punches to the face isn’t really going to inspire sympathy.

It’s not a terrible film, neither is it particularly good. I found the whole story rather dull and just plain unbelievable. There weren’t really any more established characters other than Jim, and even he wasn’t someone who was particularly interesting or likeable – with this opinion; I didn’t find any approachable way into his personality. Joan Goodman plays Frank (another loan shark) rather well and it was good to see his performance; however it’s not enough to distract completely from the film’s stand-out errors. It’s rather silly and unenjoyable – if you love this sort of genre, maybe go and see it just to have your own viewpoint. Otherwise… You might as well give this one a miss.

★★

Mortdecai (2015) REVIEW

“Stupid, ill-disciplined and irritating.”

SPOILER FREE Is anyone else getting absolutely sick of Johnny Depp? His drunken performance of Jack Sparrow in Disney’s drawn-out ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, and since doing negatively received films such as ‘The Tourist’, ‘The Lone Ranger’ and ‘Transcendence’, he’s becoming a bit of a bad egg. There’s certainly been some things that he’s in that I like very much, bit recently I haven’t had many good things to say about him. Although as much as I thought Tim Burton’s ‘Alice In Wonderland’ was a big miss, Johnny Depp’s performance was very good. ‘Mortdecai’ however is not at all…

Within the first couple of minutes, we are very aware of the over-exaggerated British accent that Lord Mortdecai is speaking – it seems to be the joke throughout the entire film that he and many others seem to speak this way – it wasn’t funny when I first heard it, and it’s certainly not funny throughout the rest of the film’s duration. It’s a complete narrative mess from beginning to end, and fails to explain where the story is trying to head. When I was asked a couple of nights ago what the film was about, I was actually lost for words – the film’s narrative hadn’t at all crossed my mind, and I actually couldn’t say exactly what it was about. The biggest shame, is that I like Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Bennett and Ewan McGregor (in particular) very much, but due to the film’s overall poor quality, no-one has a chance to have any kind of stand-out performance. It was mainly down to the film’s poor explanation which made me feel like I was suffering rather than watching ‘Mortdecai’ – at many times I was wondering what was going on and who the characters were. The character development is so awful, I couldn’t care less for any of the characters – or indeed their fate. ‘Mortdecai’ seems to be a prime example of Hollywood studios becoming bored, and also realising that they feel like they have to make something…

The truth is – they don’t – if you don’t have a good idea, just don’t bother! I feel like ‘Mortdecai’ was a huge waste of everybody’s time. It’s boring, stupid and it’s supposed story is extremely ill-disciplined. I’ve been irritated by a single character all the way through a film before, but Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Lord Mordecai may have just made my top 10. As predicted – it’s hideous.

★

Ex Machina (2015) REVIEW

“Stunning, cathartic, smart and beautiful. Alex Garland’s directing debut is extraordinary science-fiction.”

SPOILER FREE Science-fiction seems to mean different things to different people. To those who are generally opposed to the idea; they think it’s all about space, black holes, ships and confusing plots – but to the lovers of sci-fi; it says an adventure in a world different than our own or… in the not too distant future. ‘Ex Machina’ like some before it, studies the idea of mankind and robot interaction – can a robot have feelings and emotions? I admired Steven Spielberg’s ‘A.I.’ greatly in the way he toyed with these confusing ideas and portrayed it in a way that was remarkably entertaining and well scripted. From the guy who wrote the original book ‘The Beach’ and the screenplays of ’28 Days Later’ and ‘Sunshine’ it’s clear that the director understands great science fiction and strong stories. I was so looking forward to seeing this when I heard about it, and in no stretch of the imagination was I disappointed.

Although he’s been around for quite some time in British television/cinema; Domhnall Gleeson is an uprising star that seems to be rather good in every role that is thrown his way. I could speak all day about how important it is for a film to have believable performances; but in a film that has for the most part only 3 cast members – it’s extremely important that we like, understand and care for these characters, seeing that we’re in their company for a long period of time. Alicia Vikander plays the role of Ava the robot, created by Nathan (Oscar Issac) and for the duration of a week is being tested by Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson). From the moment that you first see Ava, she is beautiful. Although only just a face is seen, there’s an immediate sexual tension between her and Caleb as well with the majority of male audience members I would argue. Throughout every conversation with Caleb and Ava I could not take my eyes off the screen. The chemistry was absolutely extraordinary that with every piece of well constructed dialogue; took my breath away. When I think of David Fincher’s ‘The Social Network’ it makes me think of how well the film is written – extraordinary dialogue that is so realistic but so brilliantly clever. ‘Ex Machina’ is every bit as strong as I was hoping it to be. What Alex Garland did, was he got the audience to become emotionally invested in a machine, as Caleb does at the start of the film. Becoming emotionally attached to a robot that is nothing more than metal and smart programming is of course irrational, but nonetheless the performance by Alicia Vikander is so believable, there’s nothing more that you can do but to fall in love with her character and be desperate to see more of her face in the future of cinema.

All told through performance, the film did nothing for me but leave me totally breathless. Every scene through the film was paced in such a way that led us wanting more from each character. The conversations between Caleb and Ava were not too frequent that it lost its novelty – but all the more, I felt like I couldn’t get enough of the chemistry between them. Many times the film lulled me into a false sense of security that I was watching a film about a man and a female robot talking, but of course it’s so much more than that. With ’28 Days Later’ and ‘Sunshine’ both Directed by Danny Boyle – if there’s one thing that Alex Garland can write, it’s tension between characters and haunting situations. ‘Ex Machina’ is a lot more chilling and haunting than you’d expect, whilst asking some big and very deep questions. For a film that very rarely leaves its four walls, it has one of the most fascinating questions on artificial intelligence I’ve ever witnessed.

Told with stunning performances, and with the scenes of Caleb and Eva that are beautifully cathartic in every measure – gorgeous cinematography and special effects that would maybe surprise fans of the British Film Industry. Apart from a couple of moments that perhaps stretched it’s limit, it’s turned a new page in British Cinema. Alex Garland has created something that is beautiful, stunning and haunting. This is gorgeous science-fiction exactly how it should be.

★★★★★