Pompeii (3D) (SPOILERS*1)
Cert: 12A / 104 mins / Dir. Paul W.S. Anderson
So, I usually get a coffee when I'm at the cinema. A soft drink will be too big if I'm on my own, and I don't eat any of the food they serve there. So, just a coffee. As with any drink in the cinema, those holders built into the seats are a godsend. It appears, however, that some bright spark decided to deposit their chewing gum at the bottom of my particular drinks-holder recently. Not seeing this in the dark, I put my coffee in there, where the heat melted the hardened gum and reanimated the confectionary, like some sort of spearmintint zombie*2. But it was dark, and I wasn't seeing this. The heat from the cup meant I didn't feel it transferring to my hand, either. The first I realised was when I I felt something sticking my hand to my phone as I ensured it was on silent. By this point the film was about to start, so I picked off what I could and resolved not to touch my face for the next hundred minutes*3. So now, I've not only got someone's hepatitis-C-laced gum on my hands for the duration of the film, but also my phone (since cleaned), and also on the inside of my phone-sleeve (currently in the freezer for gum-removal, later).
And this was still the best thing that happened in Screen 3 tonight.
I wasn't expecting much from Paul W.S. Anderson, because while I quite enjoyed the Resident Evil films, his recent Musketeers adaptation left much to be desired. The opening few minutes of Pompeii promise some rather nice cinematography and a bold, stirring score, setting the tone for the arrogance of the Roman Empire at its height. And then the cast begin to speak. Oh. The script...
Imagine a pantomime written by a twelve-year-old, but with all the jokes taken out so that you're just laughing at unintentionally funny parts. Throw in some decent fight-choreography, but set over half of the film at night so that the dimly lit sets are made even murkier by the audience's 3D glasses. Get your American actors to affect British accents which they have no hope of maintaining*4. Then just for a laugh, make sure the final scene of your film couldn't be more telegraphed if it was printed on the bottom of the cinema ticket.
Normally, I'd say that I can't remember the last time I was so bored and annoyed by something that looks so visually spectacular, but sadly I can.
Utter, utter shite.
I was happy when everyone died.
Oh, you think the trailer looks bad..?
Well, I laughed too much, but soon I even stopped doing that.
There were only fifteen people in the entire screen on the film's opening day (Orange Wednesday, as well), and the guy in the row in front went to the toilet four times. So, no.
None of these options.
Yes, I will.
No, I won't.
I thought I heard one at a couple of points, but if it was there then it was well buried.
What the actual fuck is Kiefer Sutherland doing?
Seriously, though, what?
*1 Although Paul W.S. Anderson's the one who's really spoiled everything, by making the film in the first place.
*2 Actually, that's a great name for a strip club. Some good has come out of tonight.
*3 Some achievement with a movie as face-palmingly awful as this one.
*4 All the more pointlessly because their characters wouldn't have been speaking in English anyway, so their accents aren't making anything more "believable", just more "distracting".
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.
NB: My first-pass review without spoilers is here, and my second one with vague spoilers is here.
Not really much more to say about The Winter Soldier, other than my third viewing of it kept me every bit as engaged as the first two. As far as social observation goes, the film's a bit of a blunt instrument, and it's nowhere near as intriguing™ as it'd like to be. It is, however, a very solid two-hour-plus action thriller, with scowly faces and massive explosions aplenty. Spiritually, it feels more like a sequel to Avengers Assemble than the first Captain America movie, but that's by no means a bad thing.
Marvel-universe Easter-Eggs and namedropping abound here, and there are far more offhand references than I could keep up with (some presumably for future-use, others just for the hell of it). And I could be entirely wrong, but the first time we see the Insight heli-carriers, I could have sworn that one of the technicians on-deck is wearing a black Imperial Officer's uniform. It was pretty difficult to be sure even in the front-ish section of the cinema with the movie being digitally projected, so I'm not sure how the BluRay will illuminate matters, but that's what my brain highlighted, anyway.
For what it's worth, this was the first time I've seen the film in 2D, and yes, the action-sequences are a lot easier to follow visually without the darkening and ghosting. I'm not hating on 3D, that's just how it is for this movie.
With Spider-Man 2 currently doing the rounds, Days Of Future Past landing within a month and Guardians Of The Galaxy in the summer, if this year doesn't make the average cinemagoer throughly sick of Marvel, I don't know what will.
I, for the record, am not the average cinemagoer.
Bring it.
Lines of dialogue deliberately used out of context, but other than that, yeah.
Just about.
It does, although it may be setting out to do something that's not to your taste.
If you want to catch it on a big screen, you'll have to be quick.
A little.
I will.
The Winter Soldier's signature sound-effect seems to be an extended Wilhelm, yes.
You know the bit where they're in the bunker and they go down in the elevator to the secret underground bit and then it blows up (hey, I'm trying to be spoiler-free here)? How come when Cap throws off the rubble, they're basically at ground-level? What kind of crap underground bunker is that?
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.
Okay, you read that spoiler-warning at the top, didn't you? I wrote some words about the film which are completely spoiler-free in this post, but you're here because you want big dirty spoilers, right? Good, I won't warn you again.
More so than in the fim’s 2012 predecessor, here Spider-Man's major enemies and losses are inextricably linked with Parker himself. Notwithstanding Rhino, who's essentially a pawn in Osborn's game, Green Goblin and Electro represent either an inadvertent flaw or failure-to-act on Parker's part. Max Dillon clearly has (underdeveloped, cinematically) psychological issues that increase the ideological gulf between him and his hero. Parker's left wondering, as are the audience, if anything he's said or done could have changed that? No matter, things are the way they are, and he can only play the hand he's dealt. Similarly with Harry Osborn, we clearly see the reasons for Peter's reticence in helping his friend, but we're left unsure as to how many of his problems he could have solved, if any. When both characters have had their fill of the friendly neighbourhood vigilante, their combined hatred only spurs them on to a mutually beneficial partnership where they can focus their efforts on the subject of their disdain. As with his Uncle in the first film, Peter Parker learns that his most pivotal moments don't occur because he's there at the right or wrong time, but because he's there at all.
This is ramped further and further until the point where Gwen Stacy dies, meters away from Parker trying to save her. Because Parker tried and failed to save her. It's vital for the progression of Spider-Man's character not that she dies, but that he's effectively responsible for it (in the same way that it was cinematically vital that a late pickup shoot added in the scene beforehand, where Gwen emphatically states to Peter that she chooses to be involved. It's a little over-egged, but a wise move to put it there, nonetheless). Even watching the sequence a second time, it's not clear whether Gwen's head hitting the concrete kills her, or whether her sudden deceleration breaks her neck (in the comic universe, it was the latter). Either way, Parker has to live with the repercussions of his failure to keep a promise to Gwen's dying father (which to be fair, he wasn't really responsible for. For a change). The death of Gwen Stacy not only brings a sense of consequence to the storyline and cast-list of the next movie, but also irreversibly builds Parker's character. While the video of Stacy's graduation speech brings Spider-Man out of his self-imposed exile, how much longer can he be the city's sole vigilante protector? Where does the balance lie between the greater good of the people of New York, and the personal losses Peter suffers (and causes) as a result?*1 It’s a far more subtle way of illustrating the old axiom about power and responsibility than having Uncle Ben repeatedly spell it out.
And it's this final hammer blow to Parker's resolve that transforms the movie from good to great. The scene where Peter cradles Gwen in his arms could have been about a minute and a half shorter in any other adaptation*2. A director or editor could have chosen to fade-to-black early, and raise the sentimentality by laying Gwen's speech over the funeral scene. But Webb keeps us there, making us watch Peter's disbelief and growing acceptance, holding the scene until the expectation of Gwen opening her eyes has ebbed away from the young superhero and audience alike.
Peter's subsequent five months of mourning are covered very smoothly*3 and Spider-Man's re-emergence is handled spectacularly. A callback to an earlier, throwaway villain that represents the day-to-day supervillains he faces, the single-comic-stories if you will, and sees the return not of a darker, brooding hero, but a one who remembers his greatest weapon is hope, not fear.
And a little cheeky humour, of course.
Apart from those couple of moments which are in the trailer, but seem to have been cut from the film, yes. Perfectly.
I did.
For me, absolutely.
If you're going to see it, your cinema has a massive screen and matching sound-system which is ideal.
I will a bit, yeah.
I will, yeah.
Pretty certain there isn't.
As much as I love the movie (and I do), did I miss the bit where it explains how Max Dillon isn't just killed by falling into a vat of electric eels whilst also being electrocuted? I know he's an expert electrician, but biology is biology, and that's like saying the Gordon Ramsay wouldn't be killed if you locked him in a heated oven, he'd just emerge as Gas Mark Ten™, or something.
*1 How many more times can Stan Lee appear before Spider-Man stops what he's doing and asks "Look, who are you? I keep seeing you everywhere…"?
*2 Although it has been pointed out that the factory-floor where Parker and Stacy have their final, doomed embrace seems remarkably clear of the half-ton of debris which was falling down with them only seconds earlier. Hey, ho.
*3 Although at this point you've been sat on your arse for over two hours and you can see the finish-line, so you're a little anxious to skip over the moping.
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.
There are a few scenes in the opening act of Nick Cassavetes's new film where an emotionally stunned Leslie Mann ghosts around Greenwich Village with a glassy-eyed layer of disquieting melancholy, bringing to mind the classic work of Woody Allen, and the actress's hyperbolic performance backs this up, suggesting that a revealing, introspective movie may have been mis-sold in the trailer as a raucous Feminist-Lite™ comedy. This is soon forgotten, however, when we get a shot of a dog defecating on an apartment floor, and enough oestrogen-fuelled screeching to make us feel like we're trapped in a lift hurtling in free-fall toward the ground floor, with six different episodes of Loose Women playing on each surface at top volume...
Oh, not all the time, I should add that. But definitely some of the time. The script pulls some of the trailer's punches by having the 'reveal' of Nasty-Cheating-Man*1 be non-existent, and by letting the whole thing drag on for around 20 minutes too many, but all in all it's reasonably well done. I've seen two of the three leads in far worse, put it that way. Cameron Diaz and Kate Upton do well but seem frustrated in their roles as sassy-litigator and beach-bimbo, respectively, and everyone outside of the main trio of lead characters is purely cardboard; this really is Leslie Mann's film (even if some of her ad-libs do go on for 30 seconds longer than they're funny), and I'd like to see her in something weightier, if only to break her cycle of slighly-below-par-comedies.
The film just about scrapes though the laugh-test, but it'll be undemanding fluff at best, even for its target demographic. You've seen better, but you've seen way worse.
Oh, and it's official, now. Don Johnson and Trevor Eve have become the same swaggering, middle-aged, Blue Stratos wearing Lotharioid-Mechanism…
(Actually, that comparison doesn't really do it justice. You'll have to trust me, they are the same thing, now.)
Considering how much this isn't aimed at me, I found The Other Woman reassuringly watchable, although at the same time it's still thoroughly pedestrian and exactly what I was expecting. Some solid performances bolster a shaky screenplay based on a tried-and-tested premise. Come for Kate Upton; Stay for Leslie Mann.
The trailer's a bit snappier, if anything.
Mostly, but I winced quite a lot, too.
Oh, probably.
This is a £3 DVD and ooh look, the Lambrini's on 2 for £5*2.
No.
Not unless it's on at someone's house and I'm feeling too polite*3 to berate them.
There isn't.
I've never seen Nicki Minaj before. No, seriously. Is that actually her for real, or was it a comedic tribute to the late, great Kenny Everett?
*1 I watched a film about him for almost two hours and I don't know his name. His character was so unmemorable that I don't know his name. No, I won't look it up, why should the writer Melissa Stack get away with it that easily? The leads are Kate, Carly and Amber. He is 'the nasty man'. As opposed to 'the good man', whose name I also can't remember, but he's an incidental decorator, so yeah.
*2 Which tells you, I hope, everything I know about Lambrini. If 2-for-£5 is an realistic special-offer price, then I would like to point out that it was complete guesswork on my part. I do look for tramp-deals, but in the brown-beer department. Honest. Your Honour.
*3 Drunk.
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.
Transcendence Cert: 12A / 119 mins / Dir. Wally Pfister
There's something faintly ironic about the film industry's pre-occupation with scaremongering about technology, whilst delivering its message in digitally projected high-definition. Almost as if an audience that has nothing better to do on a Friday night than sit in a darkened room not talking to each other, is going to leave the auditorium and eschew the modern ways to live in a cave and grow sunflowers.
Actually, to be fair, that's not the message in Transcendence, if only because it hasn't really got a message, other than Johnny Depp turns into a bit of an arsehole if you plug him into the mains. I suspect that director Wally Pfister had grand visions of making a film about science, conscience, society and the nature of identity; sadly, writer Jack Paglen had other ideas. The latest Depp vehicle limps along for two hours after hamstringing itself in the opening scenes, having character name redacted narrate the story for us from the end of the film (so not only do we know how it ends, but we also know who's around to talk about it). So bang goes any real tension, throughout.
The film's approach to computer science, physics and biology is either staggeringly naive, or willfully stupid, and the occasional nods towards religious symbolism make Noah look positively agnostic. The only person with any real acting to do is Rebecca Hall (which she manages with ease), while Depp, Bettany and Freeman phone in the performances that their pay-checks allow for. At least Cillian Murphy looks relieved his role is a relatively minor one. This is a film which will be on few CVs, I imagine.
An interesting premise is clumsily handled, ticking every box on the techno-thriller checklist, albeit with illegible handwriting. Transcendence never goes so far as to be actively 'bad', but manages to maintain a constant level of 'not that good', which is somehow worse.
If you harbour a vague distrust of computers and have ever wondered if a programmed simulation of Johnny Depp is noticeably different to the real thing, 'Lawnmower Man 3' is the film for you…
The trailer works better than the film, largely because it doesn't attempt to explain itself at every turn.
Nowhere near enough.
Not likely.
This is a '3 DVDs for £10 at Asda' movie.
A little.
.
Didn't hear one.
Did anyone else want to punch some kittens when Evelyn checked into a hotel under the pre-arranged pseudonym 'Turing'?
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.
