Gringo Cert: 15 / 110 mins / Dir. Nash Edgerton / Trailer
Gringo is the new all-star-vehicle from STX and Amazon Studios, the vast majority of whose budget appears to have gone on casting David Oyelowo, Charlize Theron, Amanda Seyfried, Thandie Newton, Joel Edgerton and Sharlto Copley for pivotal roles in the movie, and apparently leaving enough in the marketing pot that I watched it on its opening day in the company of four other people.
Oyelowo stars as Harold Soyinka, an admin-exec for a US pharmaceutical company which specialises in medical marijuana and a shady means of manufacturing it. When abrasive CEOs Richard (Edgerton) and Elaine (Theron) unexpectedly accompany Harold on a routine trip to their Mexican processing plant, malevolent forces and sheer bad luck conspire to blow the wheels off the latter's life. Stranded south of the border, our hero decides to take matters into his own hands...
I distinctly remember the first time I saw the trailer for this and thinking 'well, that looks... loud'. I may have harrumphed and eye-rolled my way through the awards season, but I'm pleased to report that my instincts remain on-target. As entertaining as it often is, Gringo is an erratic, undisciplined mess.
The main (or at least, recurring) problem is that the film feels like it has no idea what it wants to be. Touted as a black-comedy, there are certainly laugh-out-loud moments in there but they're not consistent enough to be a feature. Anthony Tambakis and and Matthew Stone's screenplay is too cynical to wear the badge of a comedy, but too flippant to be a thriller. With the disparate threads of supporting characters and their associated sub-plots, this feels like the intention was to make a sharp, sassy romp, reminiscent of Guy Ritchie's early gangster-oeuvre. If only.
Much of the scene-pacing feels improvised and ultimately there just aren't enough likeable characters to drive the whole thing forward. Oyelowo is as much fun as Nash Edgerton's direction will allow, while Theron and Copley are on their usual solid form, but playing thoroughly unsympathetic roles. Joel Edgerton never quite gets to grips with the corporate monster he's meant to be, while Thandie Newton and Amanda Seyfried just simper away in the background. As-and -when we get to Carlos Corona's 'Black Panther' (not that one) and his Mexican drug-empire, the actual central plot device seems like an afterthought, full of autopilot tropes and lazy stereotyping.
Gringo is distracting fun, but its sporadic successes feel far more like accident than design. It sort of works but could be so much better, especially with this cast…
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.
Oh. Is this where Diane Keaton and John Goodman are at, now? As actual actors? I expect this level of afternoon-whimsy from Ed Helms and Amanda Seyfried (and even The Voice Of Steve Martin™, to be honest*1), but even so.
Still, I imagine a guaranteed seasonal repeat-fee is a nice little earner, isn't it?*2
As four generations of the Cooper family congregate for their annual festive celebrations, we get an insight into their individual lives; their ups, their downs, their loves and losses. Yeah, it sounds like hard work, doesn't it? Don't blame me, I didn't write the film…
As is so often the case with Hollywood's Portmanteau-Lite™ subgenre of gentle comedy*3, Jessie Nelson spins far more plates than is feasible for a feature film, and only a couple of those feature anything worth picking over. Like any buffet though, you're not really supposed to like everything that's on offer (even though, crucially, you've paid for it all anyway). Like the film's metaphorical progenitor Love Actually, the viewer here can't spend enough time with the individual threads to build the emotional connection that the finale expects. Although you don't have to worry too much as the film will tell you what to feel, anyway.
Stylistically, not to mention narratively, the film is all over the place; barely even a first-draft of a screenplay, more a notebook full of ideas - good and bad - exorcised equally by releasing them onto paper. Only in this case, followed by no further revision process. Occasionally witty, charming and touching (courtesy of Marisa Tomei and Olivia Wilde's respective segments), two minutes later the film goes back to being mawkish, condescending and about as spiritually earnest as the Coca Cola truck…
Oh, and which casting director managed to sneak through the idea of Diane Keaton (69) and Marisa Tomei (51) playing siblings with a six-year age gap*4? Don't get me wrong, they're both fine actresses, but when Tomei finally referred to her 'sister' while looking directly at Keaton, I nearly choked on my mince pie. Both actresses look fantastic 'for their age'*5, but they don't look the same age. Even cinematographer Elliot Davis has noticed the visual disparity, and whenever Keaton's alone in a shot, the focus is so soft that I thought I'd developed cataracts. Which only insults everyone further, to be honest. And speaking of casting, at least none of the film's exorbitant $18m budget went on those expensive child-actors. Oh, there are plenty of children in the film of course, just not actors...
But despite my moaning (and this is the truncated version, believe me), the film never becomes completely unbearable, but it's an over attentive host making small-talk with all the guests while neglecting the meal they're meant to be serving.
Ultimately, Christmas With The Coopers is probably a passable analogy for the gatherings which fill the holiday season, where you'll tolerate a room filled with fifteen people you don't like just to catch up with two that you do.
Perhaps this is the perfect Christmas movie, after all..?
Nope.
Telly.
*looks over spectacles*
The film doesn't even fulfil its remit to itself, no.
I will a bit, yeah.
There isn't.
This disappointing movie features Olivia Wilde who also appeared in Cowboys And Aliens alongside Harrison 'Solo' Ford.
*1 And before anyone gets all pissy in the Comments Section about me taking Steve Martin's name in vain, let me remind you that he plays a talking dog in this film. And that's not even the lowest point of his career, okay?
*2 Even after you offset it against your credibility. Or dignity. Or soul.
*4 That's a rhetorical question. Venus Kanani and Mary Vernieu are responsible for the casting of the film, I just didn't want to name them in the main body of the review. Not that they deserve any less admonition than the rest of the crew, mind…
*5 And seriously, I feel fucking awful for even using those words, but since the bone of contention is the gap between their ages, it's kind of a necessary evil. Look, don't blame me; I'm not the one walking up to Keaton and Tomei in a bar and saying "why, you two could be sisters!".
*6 And hey, thanks for reading all these footnotes. That means a lot. Although if you're reading this one then you've just skimmed down them in one go because there's no corresponding *6 in the review above. Which means you've probably read the others out of context, too. Fine. Not judging, just saying…
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.
Pan (3D)
Cert: PG / 111 mins / Dir. Joe Wright / Trailer
Did you know that "James Hook" is an anagram of "Han Solo"? Well according to Garrett Hedlund, it is. In fact, there's so much of the Corellian smuggler in his portrayal of Hook that there's barely room to top it up with Indiana Jones; to the point where Hedlund's outfit may as well consist of a t-shirt featuring a head-shot of Harrison Ford. But wait, I'm ahead of myself…
And so, director Joe Wright firmly grasps the wheel of the Warner Bros. ship, bound for a prequel/origins-tale of Peter Pan. Beginning during the Second World War*1, the story follows young orphan Peter as he's abducted by flying clown-pirates and taken to Neverland to mine for crystallised Fairy-Dust™, a substance which serves as the elixir of life to the megalomaniacal pirate overlord, Blackbeard. All the while, hints of Peter's lineage and glimpses of his destiny are revealed, as the journey introduces the friends and foes which will define his life to come.
First things first, Pan looks fantastic*2, and the action set-pieces of the film are executed magnificently. Levi Miller carries the weight of the title-role easily and Rooney Mara is great as warrior-princess, Tiger Lily, his accomplished and intriguing counterpart in Neverland. But it's Hugh Jackman who appears to be having the most fun as Blackbeard, bringing the pompous-camp to the film in full-force, like a matter-transporter mashup of Frank N. Furter and Emperor Palpatine (with the Darth Vader rejuvenation chamber, but I'll get on to that). There's also a spot of product-placement for Fray Bentos, which is something you won't see in too many movies this year. Outstanding work.
The film's stumbling blocks are twofold, however. Most noticeably that Pan borrows far too heavily from other action/adventure/fantasy movies, even if it is a Hero's Journey story. Now my brain is always looking for visual nods to the Galaxy Far, Far Away anyway, but I swear that so many of Pan's beats come from Star Wars that it's barely got time for the Pirates Of The Caribbean tropes it wants to employ. It's honestly no exaggeration to say that either by character archetypes, recurring themes and plot points, or just the action sequences themselves, I was reminded of Star Wars every two-to-three minutes. And it certainly didn't make me enjoy Pan any less, but I don't even get that many Star Wars references when I'm watching Star Wars.
More disconcertingly, the screenplay seems to ignore the central themes of the established Peter Pan mythos, reasoning that they just haven't occurred yet so how can they be important? The film goes a long way to establish the How of the classic story that it ends up leaving the Why to future instalments*3 of this particular strand. The original Peter is a tragic figure who, although helping others through acts of heroism, petulantly refuses to grow up and adapt. And how do you develop a character who by their very definition resists change and urges their contemporaries to follow suit? None of these issues are even hinted at in Pan, meaning sequels to this film will either get a hell of a lot darker, or will just ignore the original subtext completely.
Visually, Joe Wright's entry to the canon is a finely executed fantasy adventure movie, but thematically its reach exceeds its grasp, somewhat. There are slightly too many knowing, post-modern winks for the film to be the classical adventure it aspires to, but Wright also relies too heavily on good old-fashioned derring do for this to be a fresh take on the mythos.
In terms of sheer entertainment however, this film is a notable success.
While I certainly wouldn't go so far as to call Pan the cinematic equivalent of fast-food, it's certainly a meal which has been prepared by looking at the menus of other restaurants…
For the casual audience, yes. Although fans of J.M. Barrie may want to wait for the home-release, to save them being thrown out of the cinema for yelling "You're doing that WRONG!" during the performance…
You'll lose a lot of the visual impact watching this at home, but it'll be a one to buy and watch back-to-back with other adaptations of the mythos, if only for contrast, not comparison..
Levi Miller's performance is occasionally heavy on the "child actor" front, but he handles the part very well and I look forward to seeing him in future roles. Or even just future-takes on this one.
Mythologically/thematically? Not particularly.
Nope.
Not that I heard, but I'd be amazed if there isn't one buried somewhere.
In addition to my opening snark above, Pan features Garett Hedlund, who appeared in Inside Llewyn Davis along with Oscar 'Poe Dameron Isaac and Adam 'Kylo Ren' Driver.
*1 In a move which may well boil the piss of continuity-hounds everywhere. My knowledge of the Peter Pan story itself is fuzzy admittedly, but I was under the impression it's set about forty years before this movie in late-Victorian times, and it's also heavily implied that Peter knew Wendy's mother when she was a little girl. Now, the film does establish that Neverland is dimensionally set aside from Earth-time, and that there are children 'from all places and times' there. And yet, I didn't notice anyone asking where all the Playstations are, or making jokes about Kim Kardashian. So if the film eventually segues into Peter Pan as is implied by the opening narration, you'll have a boy from one decade bringing a child from an earlier one into a timeless realm which nevertheless has its own chronological continuity, whilst also knowing her mother from a time earlier still, when he took her to the same place after the events of the Pan film. A place where they sing a capella Nirvana and Ramones songs (no, seriously). Frankly, it's a space-time continuum disaster waiting to happen. But not to worry; thematically, the film has far bigger issues which it's completely ignoring ;)
*2 Although for some reason the animation of the mermaids looks utterly dreadful. Like someone's printed a picture of Cara Delevingne's face onto a sheet and waved it about underwater...
*3 That's not me being cynical, by the way. This film is definitively written as the opening-chapter of a series, rather than a one-off standalone prequel. Besides, when was the last time you watched a 21st century family adventure movie which wasn't geared up for sequels?
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.
Ted 2 Cert: 15 / 116 mins / Dir. Seth MacFarlane / Trailer
Well, that wasn't awful. Damning with faint praise from the off, certainly, but I sat in Screen 5 tonight with apprehension and experience as my viewing partners*1, and despite giving Ted 2's predecessor cautious approval, I was less enthused by its spiritual successor. But no matter, because watching a cuddly bear say 'fuck' with a beer in one hand and a bong in the other is still funny, right?
Okay, so you've watched the trailer. That's the film, but with more swearing. The first act sets up a courtroom sequence, a road-trip and a visit to NY Comic-Con, over the course of which Ted has to prove he's 'human' to win the legal right to stay with his wife, Tami-Lyn (whose window-dressing role replaces that of Mila Kunis, who gets verbally written out in the film's first scene*2). To Ted 2's credit, there is more than just the stoner-jokes of the first movie, even if the first half of the script still confuses fuck-words for jokes with alarming regularity. Sadly, Seth MacFarlane is still struggling to write an evenly-paced screenplay, and his Ted sequel is little more than a few set-pieces punctuated with shoehorned-in comedy sketches, many of which fizzle out without a punchline (and around half of the ones which do have an ending still miss their target).
Continuity-nerds may be slightly irked by the number of inter-shot blunders, of props and postures changing position dramatically as the camera switches between characters, suggesting many, many ad-libbed takes and thousands of feet of footage on the cutting-room floor. Also occasionally sprinkled over this is Seth's old Family Guy trick of coming up with the most questionable phrase to put in a script (instead of a punchline), then inserting it anyway on the basis that he's the writer, star and director so who's going to tell him that having one of your black cast-members saying the n-word (oh, twice) still isn't advisable when there's no actual point to it?
But on the plus side (and there is a plus side), the animation of the bear is still absolutely flawless, and while MacFarlane's characterisation is still essentially 'drunk/stoned Peter Griffin', Ted's mannerisms match the voicework perfectly. Most importantly, the film features regular chuckles, a laugh every ten minutes or so and three or four of those are real guffaws. The courtroom scene*3 and Comic-Con sequence are quite marvellous; the rest is fairly amusing filler. Only you can decide if that's worth a trip to the cinema.
Seriously though, what's with the 'Sam Jackson being the black guy from every movie' gag? Everyone knows that mantle belongs more to Morgan Freeman who, ironically(?), appears in Ted 2 in that very perfunctory role. I honestly get the impression his lawyer character was written for Jackson who turned the role down (and it'd certainly make the joke about 'Samantha Jackson' work a lot better).
There's also a scene at the very end of the credits for those of you who want to wait for an extra five minutes. It's not a biggie, but a nice callback to an earlier, rather bizarre, gag.
Not really.
Probably best for a rental with a few beers.
That's a tricky question given the film features Mark Wahlberg, but I'll say no.
Oh, probably.
Not really.
There certainly is (Comic-Con brawl, bold as brass).
As well as a a plethora of visual references in the NY Comic-Con sequence, Ted 2 features an appearance from none other than Qui-Gon Jinn himself, Liam Neeson, and Patrick Warburton, the voice of G2-4T in Disneyland's Star Tours: The Adventures Continue.
*1 I didn't, really. The seats around me were empty. Very few people in my town give a shit about this film. Then again, it was a 20:15 exclusive-preview for a movie which opens at 12:40 the next day. Not exactly 'test-audience' stuff.
*2 During which Wahlberg's character complains that Kunis' character was "trying to change him". Which, as I noted at the time, is the polar-fucking-opposite of the film that I watched.
*3 By which I mean the first courtroom scene. The one with the jokes in. Not the second one where MacFarlane has realised that he's got to wrap up the film as well as get his money's worth from Morgan Freeman, so just has him deliver a standard courtroom monologue without wit, charm or indeed comedy, because there just isn't time for that shit.
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.
You've got to hand it to Seth Macfarlane, he knows how to get great value for money from his cinematographer and composer. Michael Barrett and Joel McNeely go to great lengths to make this film look and sound gorgeous. The sets and costumes are in great keeping with the film's frontier aesthetic, and it seems that everyone spent more time on making this feel like A Western™ than they did A Comedy™.
The film seems to have two jokes in its arsenal; 1) someone falls over, and 2) someone says The Fuck-Word where a punchline should be. The envelope of repetition isn't pushed as far as it was with Ted, but at least in Macfarlane's predecessor I could tell which bits were meant to be funny. His follow-up is full (full) of moments which have the pacing of jokes, but none of the content; just an awkward silence afterwards that tonight's audience didn't realise they were meant to be laughing over. Even the central conceit of the title and trailer seems to be forgotten after the first act, once the pedestrian plot kicks into gear. So not really a million, closer to about twelve.
The only part of the film which made me even smile was Christopher Lloyd's scene (and even that goes on for just a beat too long). Although while I'm on the subject, Ewan McGregor, Ryan Reynolds and Jamie Foxx? Yes, that's how you do a cameo. Macfarlane's botox-fuelled gurning aside, the performances are all strong enough, but the material they have to work with just isn't. Poor Liam Neeson looks like he's wishing for a better screenplay*1, while Charlize Theron seems to he hoping it'll all work out in the edit. If this is what's made the cut, I dread to think of the ad-libbed footage which hit the floor.
A solid idea, badly executed, all in all I found aMWtDitW tiresome. Not because of Seth's confusion between wit and expletives, but more that I got bored waiting for the fun to arrive.
There may be A Million Ways To Die In The West, but a laughter-induced rupture doesn't appear to be one of them. I get the joke, it just isn't funny.
The bottle/fence gag works in the trailer but not in the film.
The rest of it doesn't work to the same extent as it doesn't work in the trailer.
I did not laugh.
Not nearly.
You'll probably watch it on DVD/Sky hoping prove me wrong.
I look forward to our conversation, after this.
Only a little.
I'm looking forward to the Special Edition where they put The Jokes in*2.
Pretty sure I heard one, yeah. It was no consolation.
For those of you who've seen the film, would this have worked better with a different leading man? No, that's a serious question.
*1 And Neeson will do pretty much anything, remember?
*2 Although, true to form, there are a number of lines (and even scenes) in the trailer which don't appear in the film. Like they were overloading the comedic content, or something.
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.
