Non-Stop Cert: 12A / 106 mins / Dir. Jaume Collet-Serra
The advertising campaign for the latest Liam Neeson action-thriller has a 'suggested' hashtag at the bottom of the posters. Certainly not unusual in this day and age, and when you consider that hashtagging #nonstop would lead to all manner of subjects bleeding into the searched-thread, it makes sense to gather the buzz from the movie under another umbrella. So Studio Canal have gone with the rather magnificent #NonStopNeeson. I say magnificent because since I read it on a bus-stop three weeks ago, I can't get the image out of my mind of a 1970's vinyl party-album, consisting of pop/jazz/swing cover versions sang by Liam himself, wearing some manner of corduroy smoking-jacket on the cover: Non-Stop Neeson! And now I want this album to exist. Has anyone got Liam's number?
Anyhow, I know what you're thinking: "Just how is the latest LN 'grizzled man in a black jacket' gruntathon?" My answer would be 'surprisingly watchable, actually'. It's by no means a perfect film, and it's not necessarily a highlight for the genre nor Neeson himself, but it's very competent in what it's actually doing: ie, creating a twisty-turny thriller with claustrophobic atmosphere. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's especially well written, but it's certainly well made. There's nothing new about the performances we get here, with the possible exception of Scoot McNairy who's going to be a fine character actor when he gets the chance to climb up the ladder a little. Neeson growls, Moore winces, Dockery looks permanently stunned, and yet the whole thing works better than many in its class, at least for the first half.
What starts as a solid 'the guests, all strangers to each other, are assembled in a house, and then the murders begin' progressively builds and weaves an interesting, aviatory whodunnit. Naturally, in this post-911 age*1, things get ramped up when the film becomes a race against the clock (literally. you have to have a red-LED clicking down or there's no. tension.), layered with a few arch comments about the state of the post-911 age. This second-half is more what I was expecting the entire film to be, but while it's more pedestrian, it's still undeniably tense.
Oh, and fair play to them, they've worked in Liam's character being born in Belfast before moving to the USA at some unspecified point, so you don't have to worry about his wandering accent for the entire film: it's meant to sound like that. If only they'd do that for Sam Worthington, eh? Perseus: Son of Zeus. Place of birth: Australia*2
Go in expecting Bryan Mills, and you'll be pleasantly surprised. Go in expecting Henri Ducard, and you might not be...
I enjoyed the film more than that trailer.
Mostly, yes I did. Although I may well have laughed a couple of times more than the makers intended, too.
In some ways, yes.
Cinema or DVD. There is something nice about it on a massive screen....
No.
At some point, probably.
I didn't hear one.
If you were anywhere and you saw Liam Neeson in a black jacket and looking like he's got a hangover, you'd be shitting yourself, wouldn't you?
*1 That's not a criticism, by the way. The central conceit of the film is that we're in the post-911 age. Although it is laid on quite heavily.
*2 Yes, fact-fans, I know that Worthington was born in England; but that accent wasn't ;)
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 Lego Movie (3D) (Spoilers. Kinda.)
Cert: U / 100 mins / Dir. Phil Lord & Christopher Miller
You like Lego, yeah? Of course you do. Who doesn't? It's great. And the great thing about The Lego Movie is the number of levels it works on; from the batshit crazy Hero's Journey which drives the plot, to the themes of growing up, not growing up, and keeping to The Instructions. Some voices have derided the film as 'anti-capitalist' with its arch references to "hippy-dippy baloney" and gentle mockery of conformism, whilst others have pointed out that that's a difficult argument to make against a one hundred minute toy advert. While there's certainly some subtext at play, a more straightforward view would be to say that its bloody good fun for anyone who's ever played with Lego at some point. Plus, y'know, let's not look too deeply here: it's a kids' film.
The Kids' Film defence isn't one I use lightly, nor is it intended as a derogatory term. The Lego Movie is proudly intended for children of all ages, and is engaging, funny, smart and acutely self-aware. As an animated comedy-adventure set in the world of branded plastic bricks, it looks and feels gorgeous (particularly the wide-shots of the city; this is one to watch in hi-def), and pootles along nicely with its Matrix-esque story about an everyday guy who has greatness thrust upon him.
But the third act is where the film really punches out of its box, and lays on callbacks to previous plot-markers (some delicate, some not-so). Without going into too much detail, it's this segment which is the least steady of the three, relying on Will Ferrell to do more than his Comedy Shouty Voice™ which he's used to fine effect in the lead-up to it. Now I like Ferrell, but even I'm the first to admit he doesn't do 'sincere' as well as many of his contemporaries. The film doesn't quite seem to have the bottle to go full-on weepy, but I think that's probably for the best. Ultimately, the day is saved by the plastic population of the Lego city (and its various licensed parallel dimensions), and ends with smiles all round, not least from the audience.
The 3D is as gorgeous as you'd expect from a CGI movie, and the animation differs from most existing Lego-universe offerings (the Star Wars series, Chima etc) in that the character limbs aren't bendy, but move more like the actual toys they're based on. It's a little jarring at first, but there's an in-movie explanation which tops any aesthetic choices for it, so all is well. The voice-acting is marvellous all-round, as Pratt, Banks, Freeman and Ferrell lead the way with a supporting horde of cameos (but no Ian McKellen or Michael Gambon? For shame, Lego, for shame).
The animated kids film is better than most in its class; the heartwarming parable for adults, slightly less so. But The Lego Movie is still an outstanding achievement, and it'll be difficult for a sequel to be as unique as this, particularly the way the film bends reality for the characters*1.
For the most part.
I did.
Yes.
Cinema. 3D. Yes.
Yes.
I will.
THERE IS! The first this year, no less, AND within the first minute or so of the movie.
But don't you think that the sudden hike from £2 to £2.50 for the minifigs is a bit steep?
It reminds me of 2008 when Hasbro's Star Wars line went from £5.99 to £7.99, and they wondered why sales went through the floor, not that Lego are likely to have that problem…
*1 Yeah, I know I said I wasn't going to look too deeply. What of it? You can't riff on The Matrix and expect me not to look into it.
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.
Cuban Fury Cert: 15 / 98 mins / Dir. James Griffiths
Among the opening credits of the movie are the words "based on an original idea by Nick Frost". While I like Frost very much, this movie wouldn't know an original idea if one bit it on the arse. That's strike one. It'd be untrue to say I was disappointed by Cuban Fury as I was expecting it to be rubbish, but I at least expect the film to act like it's interested...
It appears that Mr Frost has examined his buddy's film Run Fatboy Run, and taken it as an Approved Formula For Mainstream Success™, rather than the Warning From History™ that everybody else remembers watching*1. The producers of Fury have assumed that their entire audience is so au fait with the mechanics of the underdog-romcom that they don't have to bother trying to inject any tension into the screenplay. At all. There's never any doubt that the former salsa dancing champion will become a great salsa dancer again; there's never any serious threat in the romantic stakes from Chris One-Note O'Dowd*2; there's never anything other than the glaring certainty that the former dancing champion and the recreational dancer he's besotted with will be together by the end credits as they're essentially "getting on really well" for the entire film; and there are fewer inevitabilities in this universe than when you book Ian McShane as a supporting character in your comedy, he'll turn up and play Ian McShane. That's strike two.
The best gags are all in that trailer, but if you've seen the trailer, you've seen the film, really. There are several chucklesome moments throughout the movie, largely due to the supporting cast in the shape of Olivia Coleman, Rory Kinnear and Kayvan Novak, but they're really just leaning over the side of a battleship with dinghy paddles. At best, the film is astoundingly average, and it's frequently not even that. For what it's worth, Nick Frost is good as lapsed salsa-star Bruce Garrett, and it's clear he's put the work into perfecting the dancing, but his path to redemption is more of a moving walkway, with minimal dramatic effort required from all concerned. Rashida Jones' part is so chronically underwritten that all she can do is play Female Lead In RomCom™ until a throughly lacklustre finale. It's not even a bad film; it can't even be bothered to do that right.
For a movie with an exercise-pastime as its central conceit, it's ironic that Cuban Fury can be so staggeringly lazy. I was expecting a by-the-numbers romcom, but this film just gives you the start and end numbers and asks you to fill in the rest yourself.
Frost, you're far, far better than this.
That's strike three. Get off my dancefloor.
The trailer is the film.
Nah.
No. And it doesn't set out to achieve that much, either.
Telly.
Yes.
Not of my own volition.
There isn't.
Was the Back To The Future reference a little heavy-handed?
I think it was. Discuss.
*1 I'm not even going to try and bolster this one. Run Fatboy Run is a fucking lazy film for fucking lazy audiences.
*2 Even though O'Dowd usually plays Affable Idiot™, and in Cuban Fury he plays Irritating Idiot™, he's still just Chris O'Dowd™. Feel sorry for Dawn Porter; she's got to live with it. No wonder she keeps sending him off to do films.
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 Monuments Men (SPOILERS)
Cert: 12A / 118 mins / Dir. George Clooney
There's an impassioned speech, early on in George Glooney's The Monuments Men, in which Lieutenant Frank Stokes (Clooney) explains why, in 1943, countless works of priceless*1 art mustn't be allowed to fall into the hands of Hitler for his planned über-gallery, and why he should be allowed to hand-pick a team of men*2 to locate, liberate, and eventually return them. George explains that while you can kill people, a society will rebuild itself; but by destroying their achievements - their history - you're destroying their future. If you're not onboard by the end of this speech, you'll feel like you're trailing behind for the rest of the film.
I wasn't onboard by the end of that speech. Nor when he made it again half way through the film. Nor when he made it at the end while justifying why two of his team were killed*3. As "a creative" person myself, I can certainly see why the team existed, but it seems to me to be part of a cleanup operation, not something you do while people are still dying (although we do get a shot towards the end of the film where artworks are being destroyed, just to visually indicate that they are working in a timeframe).
But, my war-effort-resources-based gripes aside, is it any good as a film? Well, casting director Jina Jay has gathered together some of Hollywood's leading lights so that Clooney's screenplay can keep them apart for most of it. Shortly after the Aesthetic Avengers are assembled, they're scattered in teams of one and two around mainland Europe for Plot Reasons™, giving them little scope for development as their respective plates are spun haphazardly. The separate sub-threads mean a lack of overall screentime for all the characters*4, leading to a gross underuse of both Bill Murray and Cate Blanchett, and a general failure-to-bond with the cast. Thankfully, the exposition's trowelled on at regular intervals, so letters to loved ones and stirring speeches deliver what character interaction doesn't.
I did find that the film frequently reminded me of the best bits of Indiana Jones, Inglourious Basterds and Return To Castle Wolfenstein. But only in a way which left me vaguely disappointed that I wasn't engaged in one of those, instead. The Monuments Men seems too flippant to be a true story, and too formulaic to be fictionalised*5. In fact, the moment where Stokes' team finds a two barrels - full of the gold pulled from teeth of murdered concentration-camp prisoners - carries more emotional weight than the rest of the film put together, and if anything just serves to undermine the self-righteousness of the plot. A real plot which did actually happen.
Proof that truth really can be more mechanical than fiction, George Clooney has masterminded a thoughtful action caper which is light on both the action and the caper. By no means a bad film, it's just far more bland and ineffectual than an account of the Second World War has any right to be.
The film's better than the trailer, I'll give it that.
Not really.
Not in my opinion.
*shrugs*.
Only a tiny bit.
Nah.
There isn't.
How screen-accurate are those Aviators that Clooney wears during the film? I know that Aviators were a thing during the Second World War, but would they have been worn by someone who's not a pilot?
*1 And artworks of lesser, more measurable, value as well, to be fair. But the film spends so much time concentrating on The Famous Paintings™ that you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise.
*2 Who, for reasons which aren't properly explained, aren't already on the front lines in Europe getting shot at.
*3 One of them was killed because he'd gone to look at a statue all on his own when he shouldn't have been there - fair enough, I suppose - but let's not forget that the other one was killed because he stopped to say hello to a horse and smoke a fag. No, seriously.
*4 Except George™, obviously. George™ is in this all the way through.
*5 What's that? The paintings you've been going on about for the last two hours and the statue you've been going on about for the last two hours are both hidden in the same mine at the end of the film, and the Russians are coming so you're racing against the clock, and the final bit of the painting is upturned and being used as a table which you discover at the last minute, and you've all got to push the minecart with the heavy statue in it together as a team towards a light at the end of a tunnel? Oh, right.
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.
What's it going to take to get someone to write a decent time-travel comedy these days, animated or otherwise? Last year's Free Birds had little-to-no idea how to mine the format properly, and now Mr Peabody & Sherman fails in the same areas for the same reasons. The film is an affable enough adventure-yarn for the first two acts, but lacks anything remotely special. By the time the writers have remembered that a central conceit of the story is a time machine, things actually start to become interesting, albeit in their final push.
The animation's pretty sweet*1, (even if the character and set-design are strictly generic) but the unambitious story and scripting left me with the feeling that the film just isn't trying. There's plenty here for an undemanding audience with slapstick and chase sequences, but the deadpan puns and one-liners delivered by Mr. Peabody fall distinctly flat. Even the knowing asides from various historical characters feel like they've been shoehorned in as an attempt to resonate with the parents/guardians, or Make History Cool™ (although the Oedipus reference was good, I'll give them that).
If you're looking for an animated comedy with something for all ages, the Despicable Me, Monsters Inc and Wreck-It Ralph series still rule the roost. If you're looking for zany time-travel cartoon, you should probably give Bill & Ted or Back To The Future a try.
I suppose it is, yeah.
Not really.
Not by a long shot.
This is a Sunday afternoon DVD with your small ones.
Nah.
Doubtful.
There isn't. I'm starting to think it's been outlawed, or something.
*1 For those of you who've seen it in 3D: was the ghosting really bad on background objects for you? I thought it was a projector-fault at our cinema (it's happened before), but the staff member I told swore blind it was displaying properly. I'm used to badly rendered 3D in live-action, but I've never seen it this sloppy in an animated feature before.
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.
