Spies In Disguise Cert: PG / 102 mins / Dir. Troy Quane & Nick Bruno / Trailer
Reader, I seem to have two states of mind when it comes to non-Disney studio animation movies. I'm either viewing the trailer for some saccharine nightmare and rolling my eyes at the caption-card listing which musical artists appear on the soulless, thumping soundtrack, as if the inclusion of sanitised, corporate techno could lend the feature any more individuality - or I'm watching an actual movie in 2020 with Snow's Informer and Rob Base's It Takes Two in the soundtrack, in which a character makes a scripted reference to the members of New Kids On The Block while I'm thinking 'wait...is this an old person's idea of what a young person's movie sounds like?'.
As you know by now, there is no pleasing me.
BLUE SKY So, failing to please me today is Blue Sky Studios' latest offering, Spies In Disguise. Based on an idea from an award-winning animated short from a decade ago, it's effectively a body-swap / odd-couple comedy, set against the backdrop of a spy-caper. Will Smith and Tom Holland provide the central voices, and it's fine. By which I mean the animation is bang-on-standard (shiny but bland), the rest of the voice-cast are interchangeable with similar jobbing actors*1 and while the central message of pacifism in a violent world is by no means a bad thing, it's rammed home so ham-fistedly that this derails any genuine nuance or debate on the subject*2.
It's absolutely Fine™.
The best moments arise from Smith's Agent Lance Sterling as he's transformed into a pigeon and undergoes a comedic Cronenbergian psychological duality-shift to match. Although he's a pigeon who can actually talk, he also understands other pigeons and begins to make friends with them, with some newly-avian mannerisms filtering through to Sterling's human form after a species-reversal in the finale. This is arguably far more interesting than the spy-flick.
BRIGHTSIDE Unfortunately, the editing process seems to have provided a bumpy road to the cinema. There's a 'pigeons can't see glass' routine from the one of the film's trailers*3 which has been completely excised from the completed movie, so that when this is used several times as a punchline there's no preceding set-up. This isn't the worst gaffe a film could make, but it's indicative of the haphazard final product. By the time this reaches its third-act, the cumulative effect of all the characters and plot threads waiting to be tied up results in what can only be described as an incoherent crescendo.
Blue Sky Studios have been dining out on Ice Age for too long, now. Don't get me wrong, Spies In Disguise is basically okay, but it's a well-meaning Happy Meal of a movie; the young ones will be attracted by the bright colours, additives and play-value, and it won't poison those taking them along for the outing. It's short-term energy for a day out, but you couldn't live on it. Nor would you want to...
Pretty much any mid-tier animation of the last ten years.
If your padawans are tugging at your sleeve, you could do worse.
Stream it.
It is not.
Likely.
Not that I heard.
Although the last twenty minutes of this movie is pretty much white-noise, so there could be one in there.
*1 While Ben Mendelsohn always gives a spirited performance, the likeness of super-villain Killian (solid name, guys) matches the actors voice is precisely no way. Karen Gillan is also on hand as kooky tech-sleuth Eyes, with a volume of dialogue suggesting it was recorded in a ten-minute session during post-production - they just wanted her name on the poster. [ BACK ]
*2 Namely in one surprisingly heartfelt scene, where Will Smith's "...because the bad guys don't care how nice you are" may be the wisest words of the entire movie, shortly to be lost in a fog of CGI glitter. [ BACK ]
*3 No, since you ask, I can't seem to find it on YouTube. Look, I've definitely seen it, it was definitely there at one point. I just don't want to waste more hours of my life watching more of Spies In Disguise, thanks. [ 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.
Jojo Rabbit (second-pass)
Cert: 12A / 108 mins / Dir. Taika Waititi / Trailer
Like most movies with a comedic element, Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit isn't as funny the second time around. Having already watched the film, knowing the rhythm of the setups telegraphs the punchlines somewhat, lending a reassuring familiarity which removes the element of surprise that made them so resonant to begin with. The guffaws still sounded around the auditorium, but my own had been replaced with throaty chuckles, wry smiles and a deeper appreciation of the film's raw, heartbreaking and unflinchingly savage beauty.
The central performances from Roman Griffin Davis, Thomasin McKenzie stand out just as strongly, but a closer examination shows Scarlett Johansson and Sam Rockwell to be on absolute awards-worthy form here; a duetting-masterclass in physical emotive acting and piercing subtext, made all the more weighty with the knowledge of where the movie is headed. Tragedy is sewn into every frame by cinematographer Mihai Malaimare Jr, in a lesson about seeing simple beauty in the darkest of times without ever ignoring those horrors which surround. It's a story about childhood, trust, indoctrination, questioning what we see around us and knowing truth when it's staring us in the face.
This is all projected through the liberal-lens of 2020 of course, but then it's a movie made for a 2020 audience. Even documentary footage can be subjective in its framing, Jojo Rabbit wears its colours defiantly and with good reason. A tale in a vintage setting which will never get old, yet has arrived at just the right time. Since the official UK release date is January 1st, this is your film-of-the-year, right here.
I didn't laugh as much the second time I watched Jojo Rabbit.
Cried more, though...
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 Gentlemen (second-pass / spoilers)
Cert: 18 / 113 mins / Dir. Guy Ritchie / Trailer Ah, that's better. Ever one for a convoluted yarn which becomes clearer with repetition, Guy Ritchie plays true to form and a second viewing of The Gentlemen is a much more jaunty ride. The web is tighter, the violence is weightier and the bad language is every bid as gloriously, needlessly lurid as it was the first time. I'm not saying that any cinematic reveals appear miraculously or that the score gets notched up for a second-pass, but this is definitely now a movie I can envision enjoying with regularity (and with alcohol) in years to come.
Is The Gentlemen Ritchie's best work to date? It is not. Does it show him developing his style as a filmmaker and using old tools to new effect? It does not. But is the film worthy of shelf-space with Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch and RockRolla? Most certainly. And is The Gentlemen the fourth part of a spiritual tetralogy with these earlier films? Well not quite...
GUY The Gentlemen is never as grimy as its predecessors. And that's fine because like Guy, we're moving in a different world, now. We don't see the sex-shop-magnate's office, the East End pawn shop or spend too much time in a dingy crack-den. All of our players here have money and power from the off, they're just squabbling over each others. There's no real chase, just a fight for survival. There's no MacGuffin.
Now. The MacGuffin (alternately McGuffin or Maguffin) is a plot device, usually an object or person, which draws the tale's disparate characters together. It's the thing which everybody's after, which would solve all their problems if it fell into their possession, despite usually being the source of those problems at the same time. Whether it's the The One Ring, the Death Star Plans or Doug from The Hangover, the MacGuffin is a classic storytelling device, and for good reason.
What's more, Mr Guy Ritchie is no stranger to this. Each of his three previous geezer-flicks have had their characters racing around London after treasured items. In Lock, Stock it was a pair of antique shotguns, Snatch boasted a huge diamond, and in RocknRolla the object of everyone's affections was Uri Omovich's lucky painting. All of these are old-school artefacts, still sought after as hard currency by the modern criminal businessman, very much a window into Ritchie's psyche at those points.
DOLL In 2020 however, Mickey, Matthew, Fletcher and Dry Eye forego these trinkets. We open with a pivotal feint, then a legthy establishing scene in a kitchen-diner that's worthy of a stage-production. The introduction of Fletcher's screenplay brings us kicking and screaming into the ethos of cinema and a catchup/flashback for the first two acts, structuring the story that way instead. Along with Charlie Hunnam's Ray, we're listening to a shaggy-dog story rather than chasing the dog itself (another of Guy's earlier MacGuffins).
There's the small matter of a van-full of stolen weed, not to mention the missing child of a wealthy family who's fallen into a pit of substance-abuse, but these are red herrings. Both have appeared in earlier movies by the writer/director, and serve here only as tonal callbacks. Potentially, Mickey Pearson's dozen underground farming outlets are the MacGuffin - they're certainly the prize being vied for by Matthew Berger and Dry Eye - but since actual control of these is never wrested from Mickey, they're more of a narrative finish-line. And it's the absence of this panic, this pursuit, this race against the clock which hobbles Ritchie's latest offering as a very good movie, rather than a truly great one.
The MacGuffin is by no means essential to a great screenplay, but it's a solid start. You'd think an aspiring screenwriter like Fletcher would know that, and you'd expect it from Ritchie. I am loving the ride of The Gentlemen, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the chase...
Ritchie's earlier geezer-features, if you took out anything which could be hidden in the back of a van...
If you're a fan of Ritchie's gangster-oeuvre, yes.
As above.
With the best will in the world, it is not.
With the best will in the world, we very well might.
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 Gentlemen Cert: 18 / 113 mins / Dir. Guy Ritchie / Trailer
You can take the boy out of London but you can’t take London out of the boy. And so Guy Ritchie returns to the mockney wide-boy swagger that made his name in the 1990s with The Gentlemen (formerly Toff Guys, formerly Bush), a well-worn knotted yarn of gangsters, guns and the grinning sociopaths of the capital’s underworld.
However. The hurdle Ritchie seems to keep snagging is that each time he waits a decade to make the pilgrimage, he never quite comes back to that same sweet spot. Laden with slightly too much baggage for better or worse from more mainstream projects, the writer/director is hostage to his own better and worst excesses. And so it proves.
CHARMING
In The Gentlemen, minder and enforcer Raymond (Charlie Hunnam) is paid a late-night visit by the charming but weasely private investigator Fletcher (Hugh Grant). The sleuth has been tasked in uncovering the secrets of Raymond’s weed mega-entrepreneur boss Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey), but knows he can probably score a larger payday by using this dirt as blackmail leverage instead. With key characters coming in the guises of Michelle Dockery, Henry Golding, Jeremy Strong, Eddie Marsan and Colin Farrell, it’s a star-studded, sprawling and deliberately labyrinthine tale.
And as is so often the case with Ritchie’s gangster oeuvre, this works both for and against it. Our auteur conflates confusion with cleverness and slapstick with style. The screenplay is brimming with the harshest of needless expletives, its pacing all over the place like a first-draft written in a pub. Around a third of the actors do well, another third are fine but mis-cast and the rest of the roles could be played by anybody to similar effect.
Reader, I enjoyed it.
DARKNESS Make no mistake, The Gentlemen is not a return to the heady days of Lock, Stock or Snatch, but if you liked the much-underrated RocknRolla then there is fun to be had in this manor. The weaving plot will reward repeat-viewings, as will the more gaudy punchlines and the performances of an established cast trying their damnedest with a script that reads like a live-action cartoon. This is definitely the film you would expect Guy Ritchie to make.
Back in the day, the director came under fire for being a posh-boy playing dress-up in the East End. As time went on and he demonstrated his weaknesses at mainstream cinema, Guy was called out as an imposter at that party, too.
The Gentlemen is very much where Ritchie finds himself now. Clearly too well-heeled for Chicken Cottage, but looked down upon at Nando’s. Guy Ritchie is the KFC of British film-making. And that’s absolutely fine, London is big enough to embrace all of these outlets and for each to thrive.
The problem is that Guy Ritchie is trying to work all of these restaurants from one menu...
The intensity of Layer Cake with the ADHD of Smokin' Aces.
If you're already aboard The Good Ship Ritchie, hell yes.
It is.
It is not.
That's likely.
There is not
And it's not like there aren't two ideal opportunities.
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.
Reader, I seem to have two states of mind when it comes to non-Disney studio animation movies. I'm either viewing the trailer for some saccharine nightmare and rolling my eyes at the caption-card listing which musical artists appear on the soulless, thumping soundtrack, as if the inclusion of sanitised, corporate techno could lend the feature any more individuality - or I'm watching an actual movie in 2020 with Snow's Informer and Rob Base's It Takes Two in the soundtrack, in which a character makes a scripted reference to the members of New Kids On The Block while I'm thinking 'wait...is this an old person's idea of what a young person's movie sounds like?'.
Like most movies with a comedic element, Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit isn't as funny the second time around. Having 
You can take the boy out of London but you can’t take London out of the boy. And so Guy Ritchie returns to the mockney wide-boy swagger that made his name in the 1990s with The Gentlemen (formerly Toff Guys, formerly Bush), a well-worn knotted yarn of gangsters, guns and the grinning sociopaths of the capital’s underworld.