Once again, the passage of time and semi-detached retrospect conspire to raise my eyebrow, as I re-read old reviews and marvel at how much I enjoyed the firstPurge film and really didn't care for the second. And I'm only surprised because The Purge: Election Year is - against all expectations - quite a lot of fun.
The film takes place nineteen years into the annual Purge*1 where a progressive US senator, who wants to see the legalised crime-spree abandoned, is targeted by the powers who would rather it continue in perpetuity. Here be carnage…
Now, assuming you've watched the previous movies (and writer/director James DeMonaco is very much making that assumption), two things have changed this time around. Firstly, the screenplay doesn't actually bang on about the in-movie reason The Purge happens (Patriotic™, guilt-free, cathartic cleansing, etc). This is only the third entry in the series and already everyone concerned knows they're playing strictly to their established audience. Secondly, the screenplay doesn't spend time banging on about the perceived morality (or lack, thereof) of The Purge, which has been thusfar rendered even more patronising given how much the core-concept Just Wouldn't Work™*2. As a result, The Purge: Election Year quickly becomes a fairly effective survival-thriller, evoking The Walking Dead in its better moments, and a gleeful revenge b-movie in its lesser ones.
The overly smarmy conspiracy theory motif rears its head by the third act, of course, excitedly laying-in to conservative, capitalist conformity with all the gusto of a movie which isn't produced by one of the largest film studios in the world and hasn't charged you an exorbitant rate to sit and watch it ;) That said, it's part of an actual plot-point rather than the heavy-handed setup used on previous occasions, so it's forgivable. And sure, the film's climactic battle descends into ridiculous macho brawling, but the gunfire and melee are actually what the film does best, so again: no foul.
Best line: an ageing (ie Wise™) woman watches a TV report about young people visiting the US with the sole intention of taking part in The Purge. "Murder tourism… what's happened to our country, Joe?" she asks, apparently forgetting that The Purge (which has always been about All The Murders™, remember) is about to enter its nineteenth year. Like this is only a problem when All The Foreigners get involved...
All in all: far better than I expected it to be, largely because the series has stopped taking its own premise so seriously.
Anyway, if The Annual Purge takes place in March as noted on-screen, how come these movies are released in the Summer months (in the UK, at least)? What the hell kind of bullshit marketing is that?
It's a little bit Hostel, a little bit Walking Dead.
Only if you really can't wait the requisite three months for the DVD/BRD.
This one actually does, yes.
Cast: hopefully not, although it's solid enough work.
Director: could well be, yes.
I will not.
There is not.
Level 2: That Frank Grillo's in this. And if you remember, he was in that Captain America: The Winter Soldier along with Sam 'Windu' Jackson.
*1 I think it's nineteen. The "fifteen years later" flashback in the trailer is replaced with an "Eighteen years later" card in the final movie, implying that The Purge has been taking place for nineteen years (providing this earlier scene occurred during the first Purge, which isn't explicitly stated to be honest). Either way, that's a metric shit-ton of The Murder™ on an annual basis. Who's doing all the paperwork? I mean, I'm not saying I'd be great at that job, although I am and I would. Just leave me a message in the Comments, we'll go from there…
*2 Short version: all crime in America is legal for 12 hours. As if all the crimes which could be committed within a 12-hour period could be just swept under the carpet the following morning. It's a Friday Afternoon concept if ever I've heard one...
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 lo, did the distributors spake, "In ye Summer-time, specifically in ye monthe of Auguste, just after ye A-Level resultes are borne forth, ye shall release a filme which hath been made from a thing off ye tellye."
9 "Whether it doth be Ye Lemonne, Ye Partridge, Ye Inbetweeneres or even ye blaggard Whitehall Himselfe, thou shalt adapt the small screen to the large. For, 'tis the formula."
10 "And so it shall be that ye kiddes who scoreth badly in their exams shalt want to go out, and taketh their mind off despaire with laughter. Verily, those kiddes who passeth with flying colours shalt want to celebrate with goode feeling and merriment." Thus, the cinema shalt be all thinges to all children, the melting-pot and the force which bringeth together. And they shalt remember it fondly and with greate kindness.
~ The Book Of Film, Chapter 6, v8-10
Okay, various IRL events and time-management issues mean I've been procrastinating over this one for a week (with the exception of the pre-written introduction, above) and have now lost all momentum*1. These are my thoughts in brief on David Brent: Life On The Road, in no particular order of preference or severity…
• Like most of these things, this isn't really a film. More a TV special which has been strung out to a length that would be deemed acceptable for a cinema release.
• The mockumentary format is tried and tested, and Ricky Gervais inhabits his most famous creation with unique and practiced ease. But there's the feeling that all this is around ten years too late (the Office Christmas Specials, a coda to the two full TV series, aired in 2003). Although he's been continuing sporadically to expand the Brent canon in the meanwhile, the comedy landscape has changed a lot. While the original series is still held as a high watermark of TV comedy, it's done so in a historical context; ie you wouldn't get away with exactly the same format in 2016. And guess what…
• Life On The Road is always very watchable but never really felt like something i could laugh at, largely because by guffawing I was either going along with the awful jokes and mistakes Brent makes, or mocking the misguided fool making them. It feels like 'punching down', either way. In Gervais' directorial hands, the lead character's failures become an unironic swan-song that's more uncomfortable than amusing.
• Ultimately, the film's not that funny. The faux-pas*2 and awkward silences are there in abundance, but what made The Office so great was the reactions of every other character to Brent's excesses. Life On The Road has to introduce everyone other than Brent very rapidly, so we're never fully seeing events from their point of view. And apart from anything else, the audience wasn't rooting for Brent in The Office, they were rooting for Tim and Dawn. The closest this film has to their detached exasperation is Ben Bailey Smith's rapper/sidekick, Dom, who is underused as a comic foil at best.
• The closest comparison I could make in terms of tone, era and comic-persona would be Alan Partridge. And while it's funny watching Partridge fail because he's a terrible person reacting in exaggerated comedy situations, Brent is just a terrible person in an everyday one. David Brent has become a real version of a real thing (and that's a compliment to the acting and the writing, if anything). If I want to see people trying their hardest to politely ignore racist comments? It's 2016, I don't need to go the cinema, that shit's everywhere…
• Those awkward silences were probably exacerbated by an audience of around 20 people scattered over a 270-seat auditorium. The laugh-gaps in any movie feel more hollow in that situation. Maybe this would have worked better in a later (ie more populated) screening? Then again, the beauty of the TV series was that it was immersive even if you watched it alone.
• The script even throws a few 'oh, it's not as good as the TV series' jibes in its own direction, as if pointing out the obvious somehow makes it less true.
• On an even more nit-picky level, there are far too many shot-angles for this to pose as an actual documentary (unless the standard docu-crew comprises four camera operators, these days?).
• By the time the closing credits come round, the lead character has done nothing to earn the social and moral awards given to him, nor the bittersweet ending which accompanies them, other than perhaps 'not giving up', which wasn't really an option open to him anyway. It has its moments, certainly, but I think the biggest problem with Life On The Road is that the writer, director and headlining performer are all the same person. Restraint is everything in comedy, and that's in ironically short supply here. Plus, you can't build up a nostalgic glow for someone who's meant to be a dick in the first place…
Well, The Office I suppose.
Although if you use that as your benchmark, you may come away emptyhanded.
No, it's not a film.
With the best will in the world, no.
Given that the director essentially is the cast and what that person's back-catalogue consists of, no.
Probably not.
Definitely not.
Level 2: Well, this movie stars Ricky Gervais (and won't let you forget it), who's worked on several projects over the years with Warwick 'Wicket' Davis.
*1 All week it's been 'and after I've done that I'll type up my Brent-review'. Don't even get me started on the words I haven't written for Swallows and Amazons…
*2 What's the plural of 'faux-pas'..?
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.
Act I: "What, me? Oh, I'm just working late and alone in a poorly-lit industrial unit full of mannequins on a deserted business-park. Yeah, I'm sure nothing could go wrong…" A curiously late entry this far into the season for David Sandberg's Lights Out, this is a strict 'genre-flick'. Based on his short film by the same name, I have - to be brutally fair - seen vintage steam engines that were less mechanical. That's not to say it's an inherently bad film, but it feels like someone's done a paint-by-numbers horror movie, and just ended up using black for most of the colours, anyway. A surprisingly capable cast cruise through this tale of a traumatised woman and her mildly dysfunctional family, as they're plagued by a creature known as Diana, who exists only in the darkness and has a penchant for destroying the light.
This is a very efficiently made movie, but the scares are overly-telegraphed and the plot unfurls itself without building up the tension required for any kind of reveal (although at a lean 81 minutes, there really isn't time for holding anything back). As far as the writing goes, the screenplay uses mental illness and a primal fear of the dark as a clever analogy for mental illness and a primal fear of the dark. Yeah.
Act II: "Oh, I seem to have conveniently stumbled across an old filing-box full of photographs, case notes and an audio-recording of the time when our nemesis was a patient in a psychiatric unit. Well now that mystery's fully unravelled, I'm sure nothing could go wrong…" Credit where it's completely due though, the premise of Lights Out means the film's budget is used excellently, with the most tense scenes relying on little more than lighting-states and acting. Because when your antagonist only appears in silhouette, you can achieve a hell of a lot with a hell of a little. The make-up box is broken out for the climactic showdown, but the film's earned it by that point. In fact, the fundamentals of lighting and acting are executed so well that it underlines how much they're propping up the pick'n'mix screenplay.
Teresa Palmer heads up the cast as a Movie Metaller*1 who has to deal with the recurring trauma of her mother and protection of her younger brother, played by Gabriel Bateman (who's still young enough to play all this shit with a straight face and not look bored with his lines, unlike the rest of the cast). Still, it's no relief to realise that after two thudding Silent Hill movies, Maria Bello's role in Lights Out as the scared/bewildered/psychotic mother means that her career hasn't moved on a single iota.
Act III: "Well, I guess I'll just have to venture alone down into this cellar to restore the power and lighting we so desperately need. I have a completely non-brittle UV tube with me though, so I'm sure nothing could go wrong…" I think my favourite aspect is that a character dies in the first five minutes (a character who knows the film's three central characters and is shown to be in regular contact with at least one of them), and nobody even notices until about two minutes before the end. Which in plot-time is about two whole days.
Bulletproof, Dave; bulletproof…
All Of The Horror™.
Not particularly.
Not particularly.
I should hope not.
Doubtful.
There isn't.
Level 2: Lights Out features Andi Osho, who appeared in three episodes of Holby City back in 2012 which also starred Hugh 'Panaka' Quarshie.
*1 The kind of Metaller who's Demonstrably Metal™ because she a) wears black-mesh tops, b) lives in a flat above a tattoo-parlour and c) has an Avenged Sevenfold poster blu-tacked at an unconventional angle in her largely mainstream flat. I think there's supposed to be some subtext that because she had some poorly-explained childhood trauma, this turned her All Metal™. But it's that kind of Metal™ where someone appears to have ram-raided Hot Topic before borrowing Trivium's greatest hits, rather than adopting any kind of alternative ethos at all…
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.
Bad Moms Cert: 15 / 101 mins / Dir. Scott Moore & Jon Lucas / Trailer
I'd long suspected it, of course, but it appears that The Hollywood Corporation™ actually has a dedicated department (of rolling-staff) whose sole function is to pen distinctly substandard screenplays, then title them with the word "bad" followed by the description of the main character(s) in a self-effacing attempt to just ride that shit out. Neighbours, Grandpa, Teacher, Education. Each one with the adjective-part of the title serving as a direct warning.
Is it a warning I heed..? Of course not.
I'll be completely upfront, while that trailer didn't fill me with confidence, I really wanted to like Bad Moms as it's got a great central cast. Mila Kunis and Kristen Bell are on top form*1, and Kathryn Hahn deftly steals every scene she's in. Christina Applegate tries her damnedest to make the most of 'generic evil PTA mom', and pretty much everyone else is a cardboard cut-out with the words "Insert characterisation post-prod" written where the face should be.
As is par for the course these days, the aforementioned trailer outlines the film far more thoroughly than it should, but far from spoiling the best gags, the final cut actually features many less-funny variants and ad-libs*2 of the lines we've seen several times, undercutting its own attempts to bring the trailer-watching audience something fresh.
Perhaps the most insulting thing about this ode to dysfunctional motherhood is that it's actually written and directed by two guys. Not just any two guys, but the two guys who wrote The Hangover. Now, I like the Hangover movies, but they are very much what they are; blokey films for blokes by blokes. So there's a part of the equation in Bad Moms which doesn't really hang together. It appears that Messrs Moore and Lucas toyed with crafting a spiritual cousin of Bridesmaids, but ended up knocking out an oestrogen-flavoured Hall Pass instead.
Now obviously, this film wasn't aimed at me, and I by no means hated it. But it loses a point for the final twenty minutes, which are so excruciatingly patronising that they make Emma Roberts' anarchist-mollifying crescendo in Nerve look like James Dean spitting at a vicar's mum. Every misty-eyed, head-tilting, single-tear, standing-ovation-sparking, group-hugging, forced-nostalgia moment, (from Mila's rousing appearance at the PTA election night to the credits-accompanying footage of the cast sitting on sofas with their real-life mums and talking about how simply wonderful everything is) has been calculatingly laid out to convince the audience they've watched something emotionally worthy, rather than just over an hour and a half of dick-jokes and chronically lazy stereotyping.
Credit where it's due though, the rest of tonight's advance-screening audience found the film audibly and regularly amusing. They're either nowhere near as jaded as I am, or the glue-fumes blowing through the air-conditioning units just didn't reach as far as seat F11.
The Bad Moms DVD will, of course, be a staple fixture on the 'Mother's Day Gift Ideas' supermarket display-stands from next year until around the time the Earth goes hurtling into the Sun. And after the last twenty minutes of this movie, I probably wouldn't mind if that was sooner rather than later…
Bad [x] films.
And bad films.
Only if you're desperate to see it as soon as possible and can't wait until it's on the £3 DVD rack.
No.
No.
Amazingly, no.
No.
Level 2: This film's got Jada Pinkett Smith in it, who also starred in 2008's The Women alongside Carrie 'Leia' Fisher.
*1 Although the placement of Kunis and Bell in particular is the second time in as many days that I've been reminded I'd rather be watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
*2 Several featuring my second-favourite kind of ad-libbing, where one character delivered a combination feed/punch-line, then someone else on-screen basically describes what just happened and why it's funny. To wit, one character falls over while another stands and winces, saying "oh, that hurt!", their role existing purely to deliver the explanation. Alternatively, one character repeats what another character says for comic effect. The second character berates the first character for repeating them, also for comic effect. Then twenty minutes later, the whole thing is re-enacted again in a different scene. #Comedy
*3 And let's look on the bright-side here. With Jupiter Ascending now fully out in the wild, it's not like any new movie can be Mila Kunis' worst one, right..? (and if you're reading this Mila, that's not a challenge)
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.
