Disney don't seem to have much confidence in their family-comedy, Alexander and the Title Which Is Too Cumbersome and Unwieldy To Be Actually Memorable. Released in the UK just after the half-term week, and with a contractually-watertight minimum of fuss, you get the impression that they've already given up on hoping it's going to make money, so they've just shoved it out to fend for itself. I watch more Kids' Films™ than most adults (especially considering I'm not a parent), and even I've only seen the trailer for it once. This might be understandable if the film wasn't based on a very well known children's book, and if Disney hadn't paid Hollywood mainstreamers Jennifer Garner and Steve Carrell to star in it. But y'know, it is and they have.
It might also be understandable if the film was rubbish. That's not the case; it's really rather good.
It's always a live-action Disney Family Comedy™ of course, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, and I can't dislike any protagonist who wears a Star Wars t-shirt in their first full scene (subliminal marketing from The Mouse, there?). Opening with a brief, third-act mid-carnage wraparound, before resetting the film's clock to 'the previous day', AatTHNGVBD*1 has a surprisingly slow build-up for such a short film, although it's this build up which allows young Ed Oxenbould to shine as the titular Alexander Cooper. He's a fantastic, expressive actor; with a deadpan subtlety that reminds me of Paul Rudd's better roles, and does quiet exasperation better than many adult comedy actors. Along with the rest of the young cast however, he's sometimes let down by a clunky script; almost as if the kids' dialogue has been written by adults who have heard of children, but never met any.
The film's adult characters (so, largely Jennifer Garner and Steve Carrell) fare better with feeling more suited to their lines, even if they're far more twee than those of their young counterparts. The film really belongs to the youngsters. Carrell is great as usual, and while Garner gives a more-than-acceptable performance, she's ultimately quite forgettable (although maybe that's down to the character). The unevenness of the script could be because we're seeing everything from Alexander's point of view, of course, and this is how he views and experiences his contemporaries. Or it could just be slightly shonky writing for a live-action family comedy.AatTHNGVBD*2 seems to be a stronger movie once the carnage of the second act and "The Very Bad Day" kicks in, although this is at the price of having Alexander become a bystander, watching his family become enveloped in the bad luck he's become inured to.
It's also worth noting that the reason the Cooper family have the worst day of their collective lives, is a benignly petulant wish made by young Alexander on the eve of his birthday, fed up after a crappy day at school. Considering this is the backbone of the story (and considering this is a Disney film we're talking about), this plot-point is all but buried, so the realisation, apology and redemption at the end of the film loses some of its weight. That doesn't matter too much, though, because for its execution and target audience, AatTHNGVBD*3 works very well indeed. Keep in mind that if this film was a 15 Certificate, it'd star Jason Segel as Alexander and he'd be saying the fuck-word every third line; other than that it'd be almost unchanged.
A very amiable comedy for those who don't mind a saccharine binge every now and again, what Alexander And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day lacks in marketing prowess it more than makes up for in spirit. Ed Oxenbould has a great career in comedy ahead of him, and you'll have seen mainstream comedy flicks this year with far fewer gags than there are here.
It captures the comedy of the film, but not the heart.
Pretty much, yeah.
Probably, but I still think there's a more connective film to be made here.
This is a DVD for a Sunday afternoon.
Nah.
At some point, but it's not really re-watch material for my demographic.
Didn't hear one.
Come on, when was the last time you saw a Disney™ family movie where someone (and a human, not an animal) pisses on the kitchen floor for comic effect?
*1 I'm pretty sure this is what all the cool kids are calling it.
*2 This is what the cool kids are calling it, I've checked.
*3 No, you shut up. You give me a better movie title and I'll give you a better acronym.
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.
Interstellar (SPOILERS …ish)
Cert: 12A / 166 mins / Dir. Christopher Nolan
You see, I'd wondered what I was missing in the trailers I'd seen for Christopher Nolan's space-epic Interstellar. People were getting very excited for this film, but try as I might, all I could think was "Okay, so Earth's dying, Mumbler McConaughey goes into space to find another home, and then what?". Because that seems like an initial setup rather than a plot in itself, and the trailers seemed to be deliberately coy with the film's USP. After watching the just-under-three-hour flick, I now understand that if the trailer had explained the level of moral and metaphysical pondering that was going to accompany the space-travel, the film's casual audience would be reduced dramatically. That's not to say that Interstellar is a brain-numbing minefield of Inception proportions, but it clearly wants to be.
After a series of crop-droughts in Earth's not-too-distant future due to irreversible atmospheric mutation, a NASA programme is developed to explore new worlds fit for human habitation. Farmer and ex-astronaut Cooper is called upon to head the culmination of the programme on what could turn out to be a one-way flight, but reconciling the continuation of the human race with losing his family is something that will haunt his journey for years to come...
With a lot of navel-gazing and a lot of star-backed docking-sequences, Interstellar seems to be reaching for the visual effects of Gravity and the philosophy of 2001, but ends up not quite achieving either*1. Nolan's use of time-differentials (think of the dream-layers in Inception) also goes some way to muddying the waters, even if there's a sound scientific reason for it being present. The film does a fantastic job of building characters, but the plot (and backstory in particular) is left to amble along at its own pace. Luckily Nolanesque stalwart Michael Caine steps into the trousers of Captain Exposition, as an elderly academic who in a film by any other director would be played by Morgan Freeman.
The performances are solid enough, even if many of the characters' motivations seem a little hysterical at times, and the production design is great, but without being remotely revolutionary. There's the feeling that with the themes being explored and the run-time to explore them, the whole thing should hold more weight, somehow.
Interstellar does a lot of things well but ultimately feels unfocused, mixing science and philosophy without being prepared to fully explore either. Crucially, it didn't leave me wanting to watch it again, so any callbacks and plot-points which my brain didn't piece together by the end look to be staying unstuck for some time, yet (and because of the erratic structure of the plot, there are plenty of those). Although with the best will in the world, the reveal™ in the third-act seems to have surprised Matthew McConaughey and Jessica Chastain's characters far more than it did anyone in the auditorium…
I think Nolan's vision may be grander than the film, this time.
The film's a lot more ponderous than the trailer, and that's a ponderous trailer.
Kinda. ish.
Not quite.
If you're going to see it, see it big.
Nope.
At some point, but I feel no burning need.
Not that I heard.
Why isn't this film called Relativity? That'd make far more sense for both the plot and the themes, surely?
*1 And interestingly - as in the film Gravity - NASA still seem to be prepared to send people into space who are completely psychologically unequipped to deal with it. It doesn't seem to have previously occurred to the any of the astronauts that they may not be returning; that the mission they're carrying out is clearly far more fucking important than them returning to Earth with rock samples and a tan.
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.
Nightcrawler (second-pass)
Cert: 15 / 117 mins / Dir. Dan Gilroy
Dan Gilroy's Nightcrawler is the perfect movie for a second-pass viewing (my first review is here). Knowing what the plot holds means you can linger more over Robert Elswit's cinematography, which feels far more at home in the dark yet harshly-lit streets of Los Angeles than it ever does during the infrequent daylight scenes. You can also spend more time watching Jake Gyllenhaal's performance as Louis Bloom. His masterful performance.
Every awkward smile, nervous twitch and sideways glance creates a character who - crucially, in great cinema - acts like he doesn't know he's being watched. The sequences alone with Louis in his apartment are when we get the closest to the core of his personality, as conflicted and scattershot as that may be. Gyllenhaal brings a childlike enthusiasm to the character, but with absolutely no innocence or naivety. Calculating without being outright malicious, he genuinely makes the best of whatever hand he's dealt (well, the best for himself, at any rate). The opening of the film sees Louis embarking on a new chapter in his life, and like the supporting characters in the film, we never learn about the previous chapter(s). As far as Bloom is concerned, they don't exist.
As the story progresses and our anti-hero transforms himself from petty thief to media mastermind, he displays enough paradoxical traits (no remorse, though; never remorse) that the viewer isn't sure if Louis himself even knows who he really is, only who he wants to be. But how many of us couldn't help being summed up in exactly the same way?
You can't approve of Louis Bloom's ethics, aims or methodology, but you have to admire his tenacity.
"I believe that communicating your goals clearly is more important than trying to relay them in a non-confrontational manner…""
~ Louis Bloom, using the words that people in my office at work are going to wish I'd never heard.
Well, it's not as fast-paced as that trailer might suggest, but it nails pretty much every other aspect of the film, yes.
Yep.
Yep.
Worth paying to see at the flicks.
Maybe just a little; but I will ask you to explain why.
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.
The trick with supernatural horror as a genre is making your audience believe in the threat, at least for the duration of the film. If they go into the theatre already convinced that the angry spirits of the netherworld are waiting to pounce upon the living via wooden SMS messaging, then that's fine. If hardline skeptics emerge blinking into the foyer afterwards, shrugging off an hour and a half of solid scares, that's also fine. But if you make no attempt to convince the doubters, even through characters in your film, then it's going to be an eye-rolling ride. There are no cynical characters in Ouija, just a bunch of teenagers who appear to be auditioning for Final Destination 6.
Ouija is a film for the emotionally vulnerable people who, in the wake of the unexplained death of a close friend, think that the best way of dealing with that grief and confusion is by waving a flag into the spirit world and seeing who's up for a chat. Ouija is a film for people who, when reacting to an unknown intruder on the other side of a door, hide in the closet. Ouija is a film for people who have a stern old Puerto Rican housemaid who appears only three times; once to establish her character, once to tut and frown at the ouija-board, and finally to tell them how to destroy it*1. Ouija is a film for anyone born in the last twenty years who absent-mindedly toys with a plastic penguin on a ball-chain not realising that it's a novelty USB-drive, despite it looking exactly like a novelty USB-drive. Ouija is a film for people whose unlit house at midnight is perfectly navigable, but who need an actual torch to see in a short underpass with daylight streaming in from both ends. Ouija is a film for any teenager in this actual day and age who'd approach their grieving friend holding a spirit-board and ask, without an iota of irony, "…what's that?"
Ouija is a film which realises it's been staggeringly lacklustre in its build up, so for its third-act revelation not only employs an attic and a basement, but also some old black-and-white photographs, a creepy child's doll and wheels out (literally) Insidious's Lin Shaye to explain the last sixty minutes and set up the next twenty five.
Ouija is a film for the chronically lazy.
Not as outright hateful as some of this year's horror flicks, the film is at least reasonably effective in what it does; the problem is that What It Does is lazily rehash every mid-budget horror made in the last 30 years. If this had been released straight to video in 1985 then it might have been good enough to make the grade.
But, y'know. It wasn't.
And, y'know. It isn't.
"And don't forget kids: messing around with makeshift spirit-boards invariably has bad consequences for the psychologically vulnerable, as this film goes to show!
There are a few nice shots in the film's climactic scenes, but that's pretty much it.
Oh Michael Bay's one of the film's producers, so it probably does, yes.
If anything, this is a DVD for a bunch of teenage girls to watch and shriek over.
I just might.
I just won't.
There just isn't.
How come when doe-eyed Laine is creeping around a dark attic with the torch/flash on her smartphone it illuminates a radius of approximately two feet, but when some fuckwit four rows in front of me checks their texts during the movie, the light from the screen alone makes the auditorium wallpaper visible?
*1"The connection's too strong, you won't be able to break it by destroying the board! Oh, but also, you've got to destroy the board."
*2 Nope. Not even fucking kidding. There's a plug for it in the film's end-credits. They've actually managed to top Battleship. Next stop, Hangman, I shouldn't wonder…
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.
