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.

★★★

Still Alice (2014) REVIEW

“‘Still Alice’ is both moving and powerful; mainly down to a stunning performance by Julianne Moore.”

SPOILER FREE After having its world premiere at Toronto Film Festival on September 8th and then a US release on December 5th 2014, you could say that I was looking forward to see whether the film was going to be as amazing as all the hype led it to be. As soon as the first scene found its way onto the cinema screen, I can truly say that I was hooked into the Birthday dinner conversation between Alice Howland (Julianne Moore) and her immediate family. Since the film is delving into tricky subject matter, it’s stance on characterisation needs to be one of great accuracy.

‘Still Alice’ completely succeeds on making every character and situation as real as it can possibly be. Every film needs to be believable enough in order for the audience to fully engage in their own escapism, but ‘Still Alice’ has to try extra hard; only because of how real its subject matter is to so many people. It’s certainly not a bad thing for a film to dread on dangerous territory, but sensitivity is so important – although when the credits roll; ‘Still Alice’ only wants you to stand up and clap for achieving an outstanding goal, and trust me it deserves it. When Alice is first diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, she seems to discover so many different things about how it affects her. The genius of this storytelling is that its completely synchronised with our discovery. The film is as compelling as it is strong in its portrayal of family struggles and on-off relationships. ‘Still Alice’ succeeds in being entertaining, even though its subject matter is tough to deal with. By no means does it every become dark or depressing, but only real to the core of how you believe people to act in a situation such as hers.

After winning her Academy Award for Best Actress; the hype surrounding the film was large, but its only when you see Julianne Moore in action that you really begin to understand how much she deserved it. The film takes you on a journey that feels extremely real, but strong in its efforts to convince you of it. Julianne Moore shines in this by being very believable which is exactly what the film needed. It’s entertaining, devastating; but also rather wonderful.

★★★★

The Boy Next Door (2015) REVIEW

“Jennifer Lopez shines through the mess of a technically shoddy and poorly written thriller.”

SPOILER FREE Not ‘The Girl Next Door’ as I referred to it once, being some bizarre spin-off about Mary Jane Watson finding herself as Spider-Man’s girlfriend in NYC. Although I would have much preferred that to what ‘The Boy Next Door’ had to offer which is few and far between. It’s grossed near ten times the $4 million dollar budget, but received a fairly negative reception both from critics and audiences – I wonder why? I think it’s easy to go into the screening of the film ready to hate it because of Jennifer Lopez on the front cover. Thankfully after careful analysis I’ve made up my mind that Jennifer Lopez isn’t actually the problem with the film. The film is the problem with the film.

Thrown instantly into some really dodgy editing depicting a marital separation, we’re presented to Claire (Jennifer Lopez), her son and ex-cheating husband who is still on the scene and a hunky next door neighbour. Despite the director (Rob Cohen) doing some rather popular work in the past such as ‘Dragonheart’, ‘The Fast and the Furious’ and ‘xXx’, I was thinking rather frequently of how the film managed to make its way to theatres. The quality was obviously rather amateur and seemed to fit a straight-to-DVD structure much better, but I guess Jennifer Lopez and the director’s previous work probably pulled most of the leeway.

After creepy, psycho next-door neighbour Noah (Ryan Guzman) seduces and has sex with Claire, he becomes noticeably more persistent at attracting her attention through harassment. As much as I think the film was rather badly directed with weak performances and stupid dialogue that could have been written by a schoolgirl; I really think Jennifer Lopez kept the film going! Her character was surprising appealing and interesting, and she was certainly believable. The film borders between thriller/horror without going one way or the other – in other words, the film has no idea exactly what it is trying to be. Different scenes are totally different genres and the film doesn’t have enough strong characters to keep us interested in everything that we’re meant to be paying attention to.

There’s no doubting that ‘The Boy Next Door’ is rather a mess, but having said that; I do commemorate Jennifer Lopez’s performance. It could have been completely hit or miss, and for a script that was badly written, she was the only thing that shined. The element of threat carried throughout; although completely unoriginal and something that many will have experienced before, was believable enough. All in all, it’s worth a miss – but if you ever stumble across it, take a look at Jennifer Lopez’s performance…Not bad.

★★

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.

★★★

Jupiter Ascending (2015) REVIEW

“Dumb, stupid and sloppily written.”

SPOILER FREE After making a line in the sand between science-fiction and fantasy; the creators of ‘The Matrix’ make a comeback with Jupiter Ascending – although I wish they would have it back and keep it. Forever. After seeing the trailer, I was actually looking forward to seeing the film, and although I actively dislike the Matrix sequels; the first film will always be a classic. ‘Jupiter Ascending’ is although so bad that it makes me think whether the Wachowskis have ever been able to grasp real filmmaking. The answer to that question is that obviously they have, because they’ve done some strong work in the past – but I think anyone will be thinking something similar after being a victim to such a poor attempt at fantasy cinema.

We’re soon introduced to Jupiter (Mila Kunis) who on a far distant planet is actually royalty, whilst she scrubs toilets in a hotel on Planet Earth. From the moment that we’re introduced to her character, there is no attempt to actually understand her or go deep into her psychology because the film doesn’t seem to elaborate on anything. As the film progresses with characters that are ridiculously undeveloped, and with sequences that are full of special effects – it’s very clear what the film’s main focus point is. Although the special effects are well designed and beautifully conducted – it doesn’t mean anything. Something may look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside; there’s just a desolate wasteland. The film attempt at moments to be clever and help the audience understand what’s going on – but I never feel like it’s at all successful.

As a massive fan of science-fiction and space opera, I’m always looking forward to seeing a film of that genre – but all the more so disappointed when a film turns out to be as bad as ‘Jupiter Ascending’. Even though the performances aren’t necessarily bad and the special effects have the ‘WOW’ factor, it all adds up to absolutely zilch. Eddie Redmayne sounds like he has a frog in his throat as he plays the villainous Balem with an army of Dinosaur-army-things… The villain is as poorly undeveloped and unbelievable as the rest of the characters.

All in all there isn’t much to say. It’s an advert that is telling you exactly where you’re money is going and what they’re probably going to do with it next…(make another film that’s as dumb as ‘Jupiter Ascending’). Due to its poor narrative, undeveloped characters, sloppy dialogue and beautiful special effects (yes, that’s a negative, because it’s just there for financial gain) – it stinks of $176 million dollars. Be assured that there is no depth or cleverness here.

★

The Interview (2014) REVIEW

“Apart from a few funny gags; it’s crass and rather boring.”

SPOILER FREE After the serious controversy with North Korea, and leakage all over the internet – I have to admit that I still wasn’t particularly looking forward to seeing the latest ‘Seth Rogen and James Franco comedy’. As much as I enjoyed and still rather like Judd Apatow’s ‘Knocked Up’ and David Gordon Green’s ‘Pineapple Express’ – this type of crass, slapstick and rather stupid sense of humour has way overstayed its welcome. With this in mind, it was no surprise to me that ‘The Interview’ was a rather failed attempt. We are introduced to Dave Skylark (James Franco) who is a talk show host in the United States for Skylark Tonight – and alongside him there is his producer Aaron Rapoport (Seth Rogen).

I like James Franco rather a lot, particularly stemming from his performance as Harry Osborne in Sam Raimi’s ‘Spider-Man’ trilogy and his cameo’s in some of Judd Apatow’s work, but in ‘The Interview’, his character made me lose my mind. With stupid sarcasm, unfunny jokes and ridiculously rude statements that NO-ONE ever says made him to me one of the most irritating characters presented on-screen in a long time. For the majority of the film I felt like I just wanted to assassinate Dave Skylark and forget what the rest of the film was actually about. As much as I felt the film was a complete narrative mess, it had moments that kept me interested. The balance between Skylark Tonight and Dave and Aaron keeping in contact with the CIA to assassinate Kim Jong-un was well done and certainly the chemistry between the characters – although irritating at times was believable enough.

Am I the only one that is so fed up with these comedies? I can find myself enjoying rude humour if I feel that it’s well placed, but there’s nothing about this film which is a supposed comedy that I found particularly amusing. The chemistry between Seth Rogen and James Franco (although the characters are noticeably different in each film) is exactly the same from feature to feature. The love-hate-slapstick-gag relationship works well enough in ‘Pineapple Express’ but again and again only seems to appear lazy and more boring. The film made me snigger on a couple of occasions, but the laughs are really not as much as one would expect. As offensive I can imagine the film is to North Korea, it was fairly obvious that before you go and see the film you’ll be wondering what on earth the fuss was all about – you’ll think the same when you exit. With a couple of fun parts along the way ‘The Interview’ is overall crass, unoriginal and actually rather boring.

★★