Oh, ITV called. They said their Sunday night schedules are full for the foreseeable wondered if you might like to try the cinemas instead? Besides, they're probably going to need something to show over a week on the single screen that isn't running back-to-back Avengers…
ARRESTED So we open circa 2000, with the slightly curmudgeonly Joan (Judi Dench) being arrested on historical spying charges following revelations arising after the death of a government minister. As Joan is interviewed, we see her past as a wartime communist sympathiser unfurl in a series of lengthy flashbacks at Cambridge University and the Ministry of Defence, in which she's played by Sophie Cookson.
Now, since this is all based on a novel which is in turn inspired by an actual case, the immediate pitfall is one of maintaining dramatic tension when the audience could know how it plays out. Joan maintains her innocence throughout, on a moral level at least. But the problem is that the film is called "Red Joan", so we know she did it. To make matters worse the first act tells us how and even why she did it. All that's left for the following hour is a checklist of events which have been telegraphed from the word go.
I know little to nothing of the actual political machinery around and following the Second World War, and even I found this to be simplistic and heavy-handed.
PERSONAL Dame Judi does quite well for a performance which is essentially a series of very short monologues with people watching. But perhaps crucially, Old Red Joan never actually narrates or even presents the Young Red Joan segements - these are sparked in her memory by facts read to her by the police. As a result, the other half of her performance is essentially reaction shots.
Cookson has more to work with and comes out of the whole thing better, but it's an inescapable fact that she doesn't look like a young Judi Dench (even though her vocal mannerisms are spot on). It's not just a matter of the latter's outstanding career history, she's long since passed the line where she can disappear into a character. No matter how good Judi Dench is, you never forget you're watching Judi Dench™.
What's more odd is that Sophie Cookson often carries an air of Keira Knightley in her more animated performances. Not that there's much potential for character flashbacks there, of course.
THIRD-STAGE DISCIPLINARY HEARING With a theatrical name like Trevor Nunn helming proceedings, I'd been woried this would be quite a stagey affair. And while that definitely comes through with Dench's present-day (or as close as) scenes, the past-narrative is almost completely televisual. And not great, dynamic, better-than-its-ever-been television, just very ordinary Sunday night fare.
The story as it stands is now two decades old, and this telling doesn't seem to take any risks or challenge its audience in any way. You have to wonder who Red Joan was really made for, other than being a shelf-warmer in the £3 section of Asda's entertainment section.
Stream it, tops. Or wait for it to be on telly since that's clearly where it belongs.
It is not.
That's possible.
There isn't.
Level 2: Sophie Cookson was in that Kingsman film, with Mark 'Skywalker' Hamill, Sam 'Windu' Jackson, Ralph 'Garmuth' Ineson and even Geoff 'Frobb' Bell.
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.
While the opening day, 6PM screening of Shane Black's The Predator wasn't sold out at my local, there was nevertheless no room in the auditorium for my cautious cynicism, which stood relegated to the foyer, chastened for the duration. Reader, I cannot remember the last time I was this happy to be proved wrong.
From the opening frames, Black's movie goes straight for the money, knowing there's no sense in a gradual reveal at this stage in the game. We open in the depths of space as a frantic game of cat and mouse results in a scout-ship crash landing on Earth and its pilot crossing bloody paths with special-ops assassin, Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook). Having secreted some of the alien-tech away as 'evidence', Quinn finds himself shipped off by his governmental superiors to a special holiday camp for People Who Know Too Much, while his young son Rory (Jacob Tremblay) finds himself with a new box of toys to play with. And someone wants their toys back. The rest, as they say, is hysteria...
This production has a lot of love for the Predator series as a whole, and it shows. While there are nods in the script to the events of the first two movies specifically*1, Shane Black and Fred Dekker's screenplay also expands (or more fittingly, evolves) the ongoing mythology of the creatures visiting Earth for sport. Not that it's all heavy exposition by any means, the film gleefully earns its 15 certificate (ie the blood splatters but never pools) and hares along to its inevitable conclusion at a brisk rate. Interestingly, The Predator makes a point of beginning in a suburban environment following a ship-crash, moving through government/military labs and ending with a blazing woodland showdown. In other words, this is what Aliens vs Predator: Requiem could - and should - have been.
To its credit, The Predator never tries to be more than it is - a fun disposable sci-fi action callback to a purer, if slightly dumber, era. Which is what the property really needs to separate it from its morose stablemate, if we're being charitable. Henry Jackman's romping score is an homage to both the franchise itself and 80s action movies in general. All in, The Predator is funny, self-effacing and crowd-pleasingly explosive (a lot of loud laughter in the room I attended). It's not necessarily a smart piece, but since when has that been a requirement for the series? And it's almost brutally lean, too. Shane Black is not fucking about here, making almost precisely the movie he intended to, thankfully.
This could be the most fun we've had with a Yautja since Dead End.
But it's not all plain-sailing, of course. Although the storyline has a robust central (and more importantly, easily portable) macguffin, the screenplay has too many characters running around in its wake. The groups of which these people are a part (hero's family, band of mercs, various government agencies) are all well-established archetypes for a movie like this, but the sheer quantity vs run-time means that the audience has forgotten about some of the characters by the time they reappear for their inevitable farm-buying scene.
And speaking of the players, while Boyd Holbrook and Jacob Tremblay make the best of a script designed for ensemble delivery, there's the feeling that both actors have been cast for a 12A version of this movie, rather than the 15-rated one we got. Holbrook's basically fine but not quite suited to the 'rough diamond' role he's meant to be playing, being a little too screen-friendly. Similarly, having 11yr old Jacob as his genius son uncovering a box full of Predator tech feels a little 'Jurassic Park', and not in a good way. The safety-net of what you can and can't do with younger characters in harsher action movies means that things are never going to get too fraught, and although the claret (and the guacamole, to be fair) is on-tap here, everything's nerfed down to action-levels rather than ramped up to visceral.
On a presentation front, this is pretty much what the trailer was selling. The 'guy in the suit' Yautja in the first half looks and moves far better than the (necessarily) CGI version in the second. And a word of warning, the 3D is mostly pointless (a lot of this film takes place at night, so bear that in mind for your lenticular light-loss), although there are a handful of well executed moments in the first and third acts (mostly of people being well executed).
But above all else, The Predator remembers it's there to have fun as a love-letter to 1980s action cinema, and the value of that really can't be overstated.
How many other movies can you name which slip in blatant references to E.T, Blade RunnerandGhostbusters with a straight face..?
Difficult to say in Shane Black's case as he has a high bar already. The cast are all solid, but it's not the kind of screenplay where any of the characters can really shine.
Well that depends how wrong your opinion is.
Not that I heard. Plenty of opportunity, too. I mean plenty.
Level 2: Olivia Munn's in this, and she was in Iron Man 2 which was directed by (and starred) Jon 'Rio Durant' Favreau.
*1 The screenplay goes to the point of referencing the creature-visits of 1987 and 1997 (for obvious reasons the characters would have no knowledge either way of Predators which happened off-world), which means the Xeno-skull aboard the ship at the end of Predator 2 is still canon for this arm of the timeline. Which is like Shane Black going round to Ridley Scott’s house and putting a brick through the window with a picture of Michael Fassbender taped round it. [ 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.
Screenwriting Rule #1: You can't kill the dog. Screenwriting Rule #2: If a catalyst is needed to transform Ted Theodore Logan into an unstoppable, vengeance-fuelled murderer for a 100-minute rampage… okay, maybe you can kill the dog.
And so, the ever youthful Keanu Reeves grows out a scraggly-beard and has another shot at box-office resurgence with John Wick, the atrociously titled action flick*1 which feels like it should have been adapted from a cult graphic novel, although actually wasn't. Playing a retired hitman who's brought back to his old haunts when a group of Russian mobsters kill John's final memento from his deceased wife, Reeves has to work through the seven stages of grief before the ink's dried on the first act. And it has to be said, he's not really one for emoting sadness. Or emoting.
Fortunately, Keanu's action-chops are far more acceptable, and his anger-mode (read: punching, stabbing and shooting) is surprisingly above average. In order to capitalise on this, the aforementioned first act is thankfully compact, and as soon as KR has ruined a perfectly good garage-floor to recover his beloved firearms, we can begin with All The Shooting™, which I'll assume is why you'd be watching (I know I was). By the time the action moves from Keanu's secluded bachelor pad*2 and into the streets, hotels and nightclubs of New York, the floor is littered with shell-casings, the walls are decorated with plumes of blood and the red-mist truly descends.
For all the claret, the proceedings are certainly more action-oriented than gory, but it's still the most unapologetically violent 15-rated movie I've seen in a long time, and gloriously so. Many criticisms will be levelled at John Wick, mostly deservedly, but it's a film which knows how to have fun. Incredibly po-faced fun with a bodycount of 84*3, but fun nonetheless. Reeves is clearly enjoying himself, and his supporting cast are all taking things far too seriously, including Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist starring as Russian mob-boss Viggo, who ends the film with a police caution for failing to control an accent in a built-up area.
Truth be told, John Wick was never going to be a performance-piece, but it is great at what it does. And if you happen to enjoy watching a terrified-looking Alfie Allen being chased around by a crazed gunman for an hour and a half, that's a bonus, too.
If you like them big, loud, and almost indescribably daft… yes.
A rental should do you unless you're a glutton for repeated loud bangs.
Well that's a sore subject with Mr Reeves, but the honest answer is 'no'.
It almost certainly does.
I won't.
Not that I heard. Which seems ridiculous.
One of Keanu Reeves' earliest film roles was in 1986's Youngblood, which also starred Fionnula Flanagan, aka Catarine Towani from the Ewoks: Caravan of Courage movie.
Oh, yeah! OLD-SCHOOL!
*1 With, it has to be said, an atrocious tagline to accompany it. "Don't set him off…". I assume this is supposed to be a play on 'wick', as in the fuse for a bomb? Personally, I read it more like a fireworks-satefy-instruction-leaflet. "Once lit, do not return to John Wick under any circumstances…", or "For safety reasons, always keep John Wick stored in a biscuit-tin in a cool, dry place, out of the reach of children…" would be far better taglines.
*2 Not that it was a bachelor pad when he bought it, of course. What? Too soon?
*3 85 if you include the dog. WHAT? Anyway, John Wick himself only kills 76 people, the other 8 are killed by supporting characters. I think that's what they call 'balance'.
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.
Well, the events which the film's based on may be "real", but it seems like the people who carried them out watched as many gangster flicks and episodes of Hustle as the four (yes, four) writers did.
Director Julian Gilbey's opening gambit, a voiceover by head scamster Sam, sets a bar which the film largely fails to pass. "How things start shouldn't matter. It's how they end that's important…". Which is an interesting premise, because Plastic starts like a second-rate Lock, Stock clone, and by the end that hasn't changed.
Every bit as shallow and superficial as the title might suggest, Plastic has the indie-edged eye-candy you'd expect, but no real muscle to back it up. There's no weight to anything which happens in the film's 102 minutes, and Gilbey spends so much time showing you how unlikeable all of the characters are, that by the time the guns are drawn in the third act, you really don't mind who lives or dies either way.
On an individual level (with one exception), the young leads give a credible, if slightly underwritten, performance. That exception would be Alfie Allen as 'Yatesy', who seems to have embraced his part as chief-arsehole with a little too much relish. He over-eggs the 'bastard' pudding pretty much from the word go, channelling the spite and cowardice (and hair) of Trainspotting's Sick Boy, but with none of that character's charisma.
If Plastic had anywhere near the gravitas it thinks it has, it'd be a far more engaging film. As it stands, it's entertaining enough, but instantly forgettable.
A bunch of kids playing in Guy Ritchie's sandpit*1 *2.
Pretty much, yes.
Not as much as the writers intended, no.
Not nearly.
This is a £2.99 DVD on a Saturday night with some beers.
Nah.
Probably at some point, but it won't be the main event of the evening.
I didn't hear one.
Is the line "What kind of twat goes all in on two-pair?" intended as a surreptitious reference to Only Fools & Horses?
Because if it is I approve, wholeheartedly.
*1 To the point where the best scene in the film features Gorgeous George and Vinny from Snatch.
*2 I don't care what you say, Lock, Stock, Snatch and Rock'n'Rolla are masterpieces, I tell you. Masterpieces.
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.
