IT: Chapter Two (SPOILERS. NO REALLY, DESCRIPTIVE SPOILERS.)
Cert: 15 / 169 mins / Dir. Andy Muschietti / Trailer
And so, two years on from the beginning of Andy Muschietti's re-adaptation of Stephen King's clownathon, we skip forward 27 years from the original 1989 setting*1. While most of the Losers' Club members moved away from Derry long ago, Mike remains in the town. Over the intervening years, he's become obsessed with the legend of Pennywise the clown and the raft of child murders associated with his appearances. Now that strange occurrences are beginning again as predicted, Mike gets in touch with his old comrades. They made an oath to destroy the creature should it return, and their time is approaching...
THINGS And it works. Largely. Despite the things I'm about to go on and list. It's not always a smooth ride and certainly not a short one, but despite my misgivings this is certainly a counterpart to Chapter One and a proud sibling to that film. While there are pacing issues in the second act, the movie never drags and never feels too long. The casting is strong*2 and it's paid off as the generational links between protagonists is near seamless, with all of the players taking things seriously enough to paper over any small cracks. Bearing in mind that I'm probably not the target audience for this, It: Chapter Two has many things working in its favour.
But rarely before have two halves of the same story felt so strongly interactive, yet like completely separate entities. It's all sourced from Stephen King's original work*3 obviously and Andy Muschietti returns to direct, but whereas Gary Dauberman was one of three credited screenplay writers for Chapter One, here he shoulders that burden alone. And it is something of a burden. While the sequel is definitely a worthy continuation of the Losers' Club story, this feels like it's abandoned a lot of what made the first entry solid, rather than building upon it. We're in more contemporary 'jump-scare and nightmare-logic' territory this time, at the cost of Chapter One's charm and focus.
TIDES By its very definition this isn't a tween adventure. The film, like its central characters, is now more jaded - more cynical. Also like the characters, it seems to have forgotten what held the first movie together. Namely, the clown. Pennywise is almost relegated to a footnote in his own story while we spend time with the grown-up-gang. And that would be fine if the screenplay explored their re-bonding after so many years apart, but what we get instead is a reunion meal, then them literally being sent off on their own for a series of micro-adventures, which by necessity do not involve the fellow club-members.
It's at this point where the movie really begins to sag with the heavy use of interwoven flashbacks*4. These utilise the cast from the first movie (which is great, obviously), and while some have been filmed at the time of Chapter One's production, others have clearly been shot late in the production cycle of the sequel, since the kids have really, noticeably aged. As Muschietti has no doubt learned, you get a narrow production-window with a cast that young so use it wisely (it's all very well going 'yeah, this bit is like a hallucination not a memory', but young Ben there looks like he needs to leave the set and have a shave).
THIEVES As much as IT buzzes along at a gamely rate, the movie is plagued with inconsistencies. The line between reality and illusion isn't just blurred, it's actively ignored. Young Henry Bowers was incarcerated in a psychiatric institution after the events of the first movie, and is now being haunted by his deceased teenage cohort Patrick. Zombie Patrick appears like a figment of the imagination, yet has physical agency in the real world. Then we see Zombie Patrick literally driving a car to break Henry out of jail. Henry continues his reign of psychotic terror, unsure in his own mind exactly what's real anyway. This in itself is arguably a more interesting story than the return of the clown. And then we don't see Zombie Patrick again, as if he'd always just been a manifestation of Henry's mind. But can a manifestation cut a five-foot slit up a chain-link fence? Don't worry about that, it won't be explained*5.
What's more worrying is a running joke established in the first act, that Georgie's older brother Bill has now become a writer of horror fiction and the endings of his books and screenplays are consistently bad. At first this seems like a self-effacing gag on the part of Gary Dauberman or Stephen King. Then around the third or fourth time they make this crack, the feeling arises it this may in fact be a pre-emptive apology for the film the audience is watching. A sort of 'guys, don't say we didn't warn you'. The finale, when it arrives, is more a series of interlinking callbacks designed to produce short-term nostalgia, but that actually make little sense within the context of the story*6.
RIVILLIGE GOLFAREN And so we arrive back at the sewer for the climactic showdown. How is the Losers' Club going to defeat this malevolent force*7 which has been terrifying the town for centuries? That's right, they bully it to death! YAY! With a steadfast 'you're not going to push us around any more', a gang of kids who first met through being picked on by their peers, families and townsfolk - the gang of kids whose collective power should by all rights be unity and compassion - decide to back the creature into a corner and literally shout belittling abuse at it until the thing withers to almost nothing. At this point they step up to physical harm by removing its heart and crushing it to a pulp. The underdogs become the oppressors in a tale as old as time, having finally tasted for themselves the intoxicating liquor of power.
I'm not sure if that's supposed to be the moral of more than five hours of cinematic run-time, but fair play to Dauberman/King for the unflinching realism...
Either that or we'll enthusiastically agree at-length.
There isn't.
Level 1: The voice of BB-8 is in this, and he makes a Jabba The Hutt reference.
Because with the best will in the world, I don't think this is as strong as Chapter One. And while I know every movie has to stand on its own merits, it'd be a bit odd if a viewer didn't compare this to its immediate predecessor...
*1 No, really though. If the child disappearances of IT move forward in 27-year cycles and if Chapter One takes place in 1989, why are we getting this movie in 2019 and not 2016? We didn't even get the opening-half in 2016. How is this brand-synergy? Who's in charge over there? [ BACK ]
*2 Now my first reaction on seeing the full trailer for Chapter Two was 'Wow, James McAvoy and Jessica Chastain? That is some fucking casting!' Then I remembered that both of those were happy to turn up in the execrable Dark Phoenix earlier this year, and that was that little flame of excitement firmly quenched... [ BACK ]
*3 And I know that King has a longstanding tradition of making cameo appearances in screen adaptations of his work, but the five-minute turn he puts in here is bordering on M. Knight Shyamalan levels of 'okay please stop talking now and cut to the next scene thank you very much'. Christ on a bike... [ BACK ]
*4 Wait, when the fuck did this 'underground clubhouse' thing happen?? The gang got together when the clown-shit was beginning to escalate in 1989, and Beverly left town the day after it was over. When did they all have the time to hang around in Ben's woodland bunker (y'know, like a secret, isolated underground location is a sensible place to go when you're being group-stalked by a magical force who can appear fucking anywhere)? You were doing this for weeks during the Summer of 1989 and didn't think to even mention that during the story which took place in the Summer of 1989? Okay mate, okay... [ BACK ]
*5 Typical exchange:
"Right, you can't bail because we need all of us to perform the ritual to destroy the clown."
"But... Terry isn't here because he killed himself rather than star in this film, so what does it matter if I just-"
"THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT AND YOU KNOW IT, BRIAN. I SAW ALL THIS IN A DREAM WHILE I WAS OUT OF MY BOX ON MUSHROOMS, JUST BRING THE DAMN SHOWER CAP."
And yes, of all the 'tokens' used to represent heroes, I notice they use a quick aside about spiders to give the Jewish kid a shower cap. A fucking lot to unpack there, and this isn't really the place so...
[ BACK ]
*6 Okay look Gary/Stephen, I'll give you the fairground/hall-of-mirrors setpiece. We've already had a brilliant one of those this year, but you started this with the clown-motif so fair enough. But the talking severed head is just an Evil Dead nod isn't it? And you've recreated the Dianoga sequence in the water from Star Wars? And you've thrown in a 'don't look into the Ark' reference from Raiders? Oh, mate.
(like I've said previously, I have not read IT and I don't really remember the 1990 TV version in any detail. If all of these things are in the originals then fair play, but three of the above references still pre-date the 1986 book so my point still stands.
Do not @ me. [ BACK ]
*7 Which is shown earlier to be an alien, by the way. Pennywise may be the current physical projection of the creature's manifestation in the world, but we see through Mike's mushroom-induced vision that 'IT' came to earth and has nested in its own crash-site, hibernating for 27-year stretches between feeding. What ever righteous method the gang use to defeat this threat, it's not a supernatural or metaphorical adversary, but an actual, telepathic, shape-shifting, literal alien. Just keep that in mind...
[ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
So, genuine question: Is Angry Birds still a thing, then? I don't mean 'are people still playing it', because I know that as long as some version of the game is available in the online marketplace, procrastinators of the world will idle away the hours flinging digital birds at digital pigs. I just mean is Angry Birds still enough of a thing to make a movie of? Because even the first entry back in 2016 felt like the window had been missed somewhat (I know animation isn't a quick process, but still). Anyway, the fact that I have no idea what the franchise has been up to for the last three years goes some way to explaining how I approached The Angry Birds Movie 2.
We open on Bird Island, where the war between its avian inhabitants and their porcine nemeses over on Pig Island has cooled to the level of playing constant pranks on one another, albeit pranks with no small level of vigour. But when a mysterious third island suddenly appears and begins hurling giant ice boulders at the other two, the pigs and the birds realise they have to join forces to save their homes and thwart their new enemies - the eagles.
PRESENT The good news is that if you did enjoy the series' first cinematic outing, the sequel should present no significant problems. Once again the U certificate means the writers have to work harder to get the laughs from silliness and slapstick, and there are solid visual gags throughout. While the packed script doesn't quite have the wryness of its predecessor, it still zips along at an accompanying rate. The story itself is more prone to meandering however, not least because the main narrative is punctuated by a side adventure that feels for all the world like a ten-minute short has been edited into the movie. They both come together at the finale, but you're definitely left with the feeling that each was originally written without the other in mind.
The voice-casting is solid once again, with the characterisations matching their vocal performances almost perfectly. The visuals are as great as you'd want for an animated feature, although it's perhaps notable that there's no 3D option available this time round. Meanwhile, there's some thematic study of teamwork and confidence, but that's a pretty basic lesson for a kids' movie and it only features here to serve the plot. Speaking of which, the film waits pretty much until its third act to actually introduce the specific game-mechanics as being relevant to the birds achieving their goal. Which means that until that point it's been a standard animated kids flick with Angry Birds characters pasted in over the top.
SINGER While 97 minutes is a respectable run-time for this type of thing, that comes pre-loaded with a predictably preachy script in its final minutes - although again, that's perhaps understandable given its appeal to a young audience. Because with soundtrack nods to Lionel Richie, Europe and Dawson's Creek, this movie may not be aimed at people in their 30s and 40s, but it was sure as hell made by them.
The Angry Birds Movie 2 is fun but definitely feels like a tacked-on sequel that should have landed two years ago to maintain brand momentum. It's not trying to reinvent digitally simulated physics, but it's sweet and diverting fun for the Summer holidays…
As above, this will be a good one for future rainy afternoons.
Let's not go mad.
That's possible.
Not that I heard.
Level 1: Well, I'm taking the sudden appearance of a snow-covered landmass containing a geothermal-powered superweapon (and its subsequent infiltration by the team of heroes) to be a direct homage to The Force Awakens' Starkiller Base, but that's for a longer analysis of the film which you'll be thankful to learn I'm not going to write.
But this has the voices of the LT-319 and BB-8 (okay, voice "consultant" in roundie's case) in it.
Oh, and Catherine 'Clone Wars' Winder is an exec producer.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Full disclosure, this film wasn't really made for me and I'm absolutely fine with that. By the time Power Rangers started airing on UK television in the mid-90s, I was already going to work down the pit for sixteen hours a day (and more importantly, getting back into obsessing over Star Wars), so other than a bare-bones knowledge of its existence, I was bringing little in the way of baggage to this particular gathering. However, I like to think I know enough about movies to spot the difference between world-building and box-ticking. Most cinematic reboots don't become really heavy-handed fan service until their second or third instalments. Power Rangers waits around forty-five minutes. More amazingly though, it sort of works.
So. Something-something group of disparate teenagers; Something-something asteroid crash site; Something-something evil forces awakening; Something-something super-powers awarded to worthy heroes. Think the Sword in the Stone meets Guardians of the Galaxy. Classic hero's journey stuff, no problem there. A gently-paced opening act introduces the five teenagers who will go on to be trusted with tools of unbelievable destruction, before its successor arrives bearing over-generous amounts of exposition and training montages. The by-the-book origins story is solid enough, the super-powered Breakfast Club bonding feels more laboured. The young central cast themselves are good form, but any performer older than twenty or so comes off as patronising at best. Scoring the most highly in that round are Mr Bryan Cranston and Ms Elizabeth Banks*1, both of whom blithely continue to devalue their own showreels.
As well as satisfying all the checklist items required of a throwback movie, the thematic nostalgia is furthered by referencing visual beats from The Lost Boys, Ghostbusters and perhaps more notably, the first Avengers flick. But as the film goes on, it shifts in tone from moody-teen pouting to the brightly coloured, super-camp finale which is at least fitting for its televisual roots.
As hero origin-stories go, Power Rangers is surprisingly reasonable, if somewhat unremarkable (considering it's a shameless series-opener and two hour action-figure advert). And as much as it pains me to admit it, the film has more focus and unabashed self-awareness than DC seem to have managed recently. Still, we live in hope. Obviously, this film will be sequelled to death, inevitably diluting the fun and feasibility with each new entry (for those interested, there's a mid-credits teaser scene, but nothing at the end).
But fair play to Lionsgate for putting out a 12A certificate film when the core target demographic is aged around 7. And Power Rangers is definitely at the lighter-end of 12A, but the rating still stands. Approach with caution.
Not necessarily, unless you want the multi-coloured carnage to be bigger.
Y'know what?
It does.
With the best will in the world, I should hope not.
Nope.
There is.
Level 1: The voice of Alpha 5 is performed by the voice of BB-8, Bill Hader.
^^ And a 4 seems harsher than it's intended to be, it's just not strong to be a 5 round these parts. The film was relatively enjoyable for its duration, but by this time tomorrow I'll be struggling to remember most of what happened in it, apart from admirable work with the Blue and the Yellow Rangers, and Elizabeth Banks letting herself down again. I'm not the target audience, and it had pretty much no impact on me either way.
*1 I know that the Power Rangers' nemesis hasn't been newly named for this movie, but an antagonist named Rita further strengthens my theory (following on from last week's Elaine and Maureen) that prominent female roles in 2017's movies are being screen-written by my Grandma's friends. [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Hot on the tail of some less-than-stellar publicity comes Sausage Party, the all-animated comedy from the minds behind Bad Neighbours and This Is The End. And yeah, they're films I didn't particularly love. Luckily, it's also from the minds behind Superbad; a movie chiselled into my all-time top ten. I may moan about some of the crap they churn out, but I do have a lot of time for Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. And who doesn't want to see a film with a swearing frankfurter, right?
Life in the supermarket is pretty rosy for the groceries. Every day is spent gleefully hoping they're chosen by the gods and taken into The Beyond, to be looked after forever more. But when a returned jar of Honey Mustard tells Frank (the frankfurter, Rogen) and Brenda (a bun, voiced by Kristen Wiig) of the awful fate that awaits them beyond the automatic doors, the fabric of their belief-system is torn apart as they have to fight to escape, to survive and to convince the other groceries to work together for an uncertain freedom rather than accept an assured doom…
Yes, it's that heavy-handed. It's funny, but not at all delicate. The film has three levels of gag in its arsenal. 1) Food-puns and dick-jokes, often combined, 2) Broad racial/cultural generalisations based on the origin of any particular food, and c) Socio-political and socio-religious satire. This is all well and good in itself and executed with the subtlety (and accompanying foul-language) you'd expect. But the screenplay has already reached the third rung of its ladder by the end of the first act, meaning everything which follows is just rehashing the same points, but more loudly each time.
Tonally, the film is a little like a 22-minute South Park episode that got out of hand. The animation's great, the voice-work is mostly seamless in tandem with that, and the film holds the audience's attention throughout. While this will be a great film to watch with some friends after getting in from the pub, there's not enough there to warrant re-watching in the future. Superbad has a surprisingly soft-centre, but this is hard-candy all the way through.
Sausage Partyis consistently funny, but it's nowhere near as clever or insightful as it repeatedly thinks it is; just the effortless master of the single-entendre…
South Park: The Movie is its closest spiritual cinematic relative.
Only to marvel at the high-res texturing.
There's nothing else that won't work equally well at home.
Oh, probably.
Nope.
Nope.
You bet your ass, there is.
Level 1: Bill 'BB-8' Hader's on voice-duty here.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Finding Dory (3D)
Cert: U / 103 mins / Dir. Angus MacLane & Andrew Stanton / Trailer
Okay, it's Sunday night and like a kid putting off their homework, I've been sitting on this one since Friday afternoon. I have, however, been giving it some thought and the fact is, I just don't have that much to say*1 about Finding Dory.
That's not to say this isn't a very competently written, produced and performed piece, nor that I didn't enjoy the film thoroughly. I smiled and laughed my way through it, as did the sizeable audience. But at the end of it all, I got up and left the cinema accompanied only by the satisfied feeling that it hadn't been time wasted at all (which, in itself, is actually an understated compliment).
Sauntering into town a mere thirteen years after its progenitor, Finding Dory uses many of the characters from the first film and many of the same gags as a result. The fact that they're always well-intentioned and sincere works in its favour, as does the film's relentless sweetness. The central plot strand itself also isn't a million miles away from what's come before, so if you're a cynical parent who's been force-fed Finding Nemo to the point where the Stockholm Syndrome's worn back off again, you may want to bundle your youngsters off with their friends (and associated cinema-going guardians) for this one.
At just under an hour and three quarters, it's slighly too long for the story it's telling, made more prominent by a third-act which keeps extending itself into More And Bigger Crescendos Before The Credits Can Roll. A couple of the younger patrons got a bit fidgety by this point in the movie; something to bear in mind if you're paying for them all to sit in the flicks. And to make matters worse, I'm also going to tell you to stay until the end of the credits for a great reference to Finding Nemo. The scene's over a minute long, so it's worth hanging around for if you're a fan of the first film. As for the saccharine-level? Well, it's a U-rated Pixar movie, so you should know what to expect by now ;)
But in all seriousness, there's very little to dislike here. Finding Dory is consistently funny and thoughtful, and manages to raise disability issues in a way that's relaxed and ideal for youngsters and parents alike.
It's just a film that I was able to appreciate completely, then file as watched…
…Finding Nemo?
Only if you're passing that way and you want something emotionally pleasing and in 3D.
Other than that, this will be just fine to watch at home.
The film's been a long time coming and it hasn't really brought any new ideas with it.
So in that respect, actually yes.
Ellen DeGeneres is reliably fantastic once again, everyone else just about keeps up.
Nah.
Not that I heard.
Level 1: Bill 'BB-8 Voice Consultant' Hader does vocal-work here, as does John 'Derlin' Ratzenberger.
^^ And it's actually better than 'quite' good, but it's not as good as the 'pretty awesome' it'd get if I awarded it a 6.
But I don't do half-marks, and I don't like marking out of ten, so there we go.
*1 No, really. Not like other times when I'll say I don't have much to say and then go on to write 1,500 words about someone repeatedly using the wrong accent, etc, all the while skirting around the central issue of me picking up on entirely the wrong thing(s) whilst watching the film.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
