Come back awards-season, all is forgiven. Here to usher out the end of the cinematic graveyard shift is the latest offering from Zach Braff, somewhat ironically dragging his directorial career in precisely the opposite direction. I can't work out what's more insulting: that this weak, formulaic comedy is a straight mashup of Tower Heist and Last Vegas, or that it's actually a re-imagining of an existing film. Either option is lazy and both are insulting to the audience and industry alike.
So, in the midst of their twilight years, three grumpy old cynics decide to demean themselves by committing an offence in order to get the vast amounts of money they feel is rightly owed to them… and that's also the plot of the film!!*1 For ninety-six laborious minutes, there are jokes about belligerence and the aches/pains of getting old, the thoroughly insincere disapproval of the capitalist status quo*2, and lashings of self-indulgent forced-nostalgia and mawkishness. You've seen this shit a hundred times before, and it probably wasn't even better then, either.
Haha, it's funny because the old men are grumpy!
Normally I'd say that a cast this strong should know better. The problem is, I don't think that's the case, here. With Alan Arkin effectively phoning-in his role from Stand Up Guys, Morgan Freeman having recently partaken in Lucy, Transcendence and Ted 2, and Michael Caine being the kind of actor who routinely appears in guff like The Last Witch Hunter, there's a strong chance that this comfortably paid barrel-scraping is now the default setting for these guys. Christopher Lloyd also embarrasses his legacy in a background role; then again he's doing stuff like Piranha 3D in the 21st century, so that's no real surprise. Collectively, the film feels like the death-rattle of a creature that stopped caring long, long ago.
Haha, it's funny because the old man puts a tin of hot dogs down the front of his pants!
In the film's defence, it had amassed a reasonable-sized audience*3 for a weeknight showing, and they laughed with startling regularity. But they were also hooting through lines which were demonstrably Not Jokes™. I suspect this could have been some sort of autosuggestion-response to going out to see what had been marketed as a comedy film. "I am determined to laugh loudly and enjoy myself throughout, refusing to consciously admit that I have been sold a banger".
Haha, it's funny because there's an old lady and she gets a shock and says the fuck-word!
Everyone's allowed the occasional slip of course, but Warner Bros have put out this film and C.H.i.P.s. in the same quarter. At the rate things are going, I expect Gazza to turn up at 3400 Riverside Drive with some chicken and a fishing rod before the end of June...
Last Vegas. Tower Heist.
Pretty much any Warner Bros/Universal comedy of the last ten years.
No you should not.
No it does not.
Well it's directed by the guy who made Wish I Was Here, and stars people from The Shawshank Redemption, Argo, Get Carter and Back To The Future, so what do you think?
*1 Yes, I am hilarious, thank you. Although that is funnier than anything in the film, I promise. I smiled once during this, when there was a puppy on-screen (I'm not a complete monster). Although I didn't smile when the same puppy was brought back later. What the hell kind of film hardens its own audience into puppy-fatigue? [ BACK ]
*2 Y'know, that same capitalist system without which the film wouldn't have been financed or made, nor would there be a room-full of people shedding their disposable income to watch the result. The only things this film rebels against are thoughts of cinematic creativity. [ BACK ]
*3 Although it's noting that this studio-comedy was preceded with trailers for no other comedy films. Instead we got the promo-reels for Dunkirk, Their Finest, Rules Don't Apply, The Sense of an Ending and The Promise. Even accounting for the varying scales of those, they're all period-pieces and 'fogey-flicks'. The UK distributors of Going In Style clearly think that no-one in the audience is going to be under age 50. Although after looking around, they weren't too far off the mark, admittedly… [ 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.
And so, it was after a 10 minute break following part one that the lights dimmed in Oxford's Magdalen Street Odeon and Back To The Future Part II began. And that was only the second time I've seen this movie in a cinema, stat-fans.
Although they're still generally regarded as a part of the whole, both the second and third installments of Robert Zemeckis' time-travelling trilogy come in for a fair amount of stick, especially from people who loved the first film, bizarrely. My own peers are split between disliking two and three (although I don't think I know anyone who dislikes them both). Me? Yeah, I love 'em. Okay, not as much as I love BTTF, but that's in no way the fault of the films; things were just different by the time 1989 came along.
Yet as much as I enjoy BTTF2, even I have to admit that the essential spark which made 1985's film such a hit isn't quite there. The writing is far more plot-based this time around, with the intricacies of time-travel taking centre stage. The audience knows the mechanics of the film's causality by now, so rather than coasting along to deliver another box-ticking adventure, the screenplay doubles back on itself and interacts with its predecessor. The fact that Doc Brown literally draws on a blackboard to explain the story to Marty and the audience, yet never comes off as patronising, is an astounding feat of film-making. But what the film gains in narrative complexity, it seems to lose in warmth. The story isn't humourless at all, but the scripted gags seem to fall flatter than last time around, and it lacks the spontaneity and wit of the original.
Another hurdle the film can't quite clear is the absence of Crispin Glover as George McFly, following failed negotiations to secure his return. Re-used footage from Back To The Future and a remarkably capable body/rear double just about plug the hole, but it means his character can't contribute anything new, despite his presence. And while I'm on the subject, Thomas F. Wilson is fantastic as the three ages of Biff Tannen, but overacts to pantomime levels in this film, which is why so much of the humour feels forced. And while I'm on the subject of being on the subject, if Claudia Wells' Jennifer Parker had been given more screentime in the first film, would she have been as annoying as Elisabeth Shue's version from the second one?
Most peculiarly, the woman sat in the row behind Mrs Blackout and I did find the film laugh-out-loud funny, which is great. Her audible amusement was frequent and vocal (throughout this and the previous BTTF, in fact). However, she kept laughing when there weren't any jokes happening on screen, then after a while I noticed that she was laughing a short time before a scripted or visual gag. To the point where I began to think she had her own time-machine and was watching the film 45 seconds in the future…
Oh, and a question for you: In the first movie where Marvin Berry And The Starlighters are playing Earth Angel, the song ends on this orchestral flourish as George and Lorraine kiss and the timeline is set right. Now as there's clearly no string-section on the stage, I'd just assumed this was where the in-movie playlist and Alan Silvestri's score combined for cinematic effect. But in BTTF2 when Marty ends up at the 'Fish Under The Sea; dance again hiding under a table, Earth Angel is playing and ends on this sweep again - even though the focus isn't on George and Lorraine this time around. There's not really any need for the romantic crescendo to the song as the McFly-parents plot point is secondary in the revisited scene. A cynic might even suggest that it was dropped in like that as the sound editor didn't want to remaster the band's performance without the bolstered ending.
So, since the 'full' version of Earth Angel is used as background (being given the same narrative status as a song the characters would hear on the radio), where's the bloody orchestra, hmm?
Well I think so, your mileage will vary ;)
You can't buy the first one without buying the trilogy (and rightly so) so you should already have it, hmm?
Not particularly, sadly.
It does; whether you like that or not.
Not as long as you can justify your insane beliefs.
There ain't.
BttF2's visual effects supervisor was Mr Ken Ralston, who also provided visual and optical effects for the original Star Wars trilogy.
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.
Well, if I can't enjoy one of my favourite trilogies in my favourite cinema, I suppose I'll just have to watch two-thirds of it in one which is 'alright, I suppose'. And that's not to be too harsh on one of Oxford's two Odeons, but as Magdalen Street's Screen 1 is converted from a theatre, the ceiling is way too high, meaning the sound bounces around everywhere. That's not really their fault, of course, but when both films begin with the sound half a second out of sync? That is. Added to that is the fact that the other Odeon (less than five minutes walk away) was also showing the exact same double-bill half an hour later, so there were less than 40 people in this massive room. It wasn't my intention to start this review on a downer, but the venue robbed the atmosphere of the night, somewhat.
Never mind, though. October 21st, 2015 was Future Day, and the assembled faithful had braved the elements to celebrate 66% of Robert Zemeckis' timeless trilogy. In exactly the same way as the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies, I can't disengage and watch Back To The Future objectively. I've seen it too many times and in various states of sobriety; it's become a part of me, and I wrote a piece in 2011 about why it means so much to me. I still stand by everything I said, there.
That said, Back To The Future is one of those wonderful films which just keeps on giving; whether it's a previously un-noticed visual reference to other parts of the trilogy, or a recurring theme which finally clicks into place when you weren't looking for it.
Future Day was no different, and tonight I noticed two things for the first time…
One: How come two of my three favourite trilogies have inadvertent incest*1 in them? In Back To The Future, Lorraine kisses her son Marty in the car outside the Fish Under The Sea dance; and in The Empire Strikes Back, Leia plants one on Luke - the full awkwardness of which wouldn't be felt until the Ewok-village conversation in Jedi. I suppose I should be relieved that Last Crusade doesn't feature a comedy-aside where Indy ends up bumming his dad…
Two: I know it's a time-travel film, but what's going on with the passage-of-time (not to mention the weather) when Marty arrives in 1955?
And if that's the level of nit-picking I indulge in with a film I love, you can imagine how lesser fime-travel movies fare...
Anyway, I've been to see Back To The Future in the cinema, and I grinned like an idiot throughout the whole damn thing. If only my past self could have imagined that on Future Day, he'd go to watch BTTF in a cinema, and see trailers for the new Bond and Star Wars films beforehand! What a time to be alive…
Well, I've got it in the house - in several formats - and I still did, so…
You should already have it.
If you haven't, I'm not sure if we can be friends any more.
That's a tricky one. They're certainly the casts' most iconic performances.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Didn't hear one.
Well, other than the clanging great Darth Vader reference and the film's effects being done by ILM, one of the film's exec-producers is long-time Lucas/Spielberg cohort Kathleen Kennedy, who now runs Lucasfilm of course.
*1 Well, it's not incest-incest, but you know what I mean. It's a bit odd. And it's inadvertent on the part of the character themselves but not on the writers, which is more what I'm getting at.
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.
