Review: Fast X

Fast X
Cert: 12A / 131 mins / Dir. Louis Leterrier / Trailer

As it hammers the pedal on on the cultural zeitgeist, all those actively engaged on either side of the ongoing WGA strike actions will be further polarised by the revelation that ChatGPT seems to have successfully completed its first full film script. Which is to say, this is technically a script because it's the words the actors are reading aloud, but the content carries an air of indefinable artificiality that cannot be truly recreated by organic beings. Whatever, this jumble of remixed clichés from previous movies is certainly in keeping with the chosen method for its delivery, and it's going to make money from an audience who haven't bought tickets for the wordcraft. Fair.

So, Fast X roars into cinemas at the starting line of Blockbuster Season™ and its sprawling, globe-spanning storyline cannot be coherently summarised in this traditional second paragraph; indeed director Louis Leterrier is unable to do that in two full hours. The main thrust is that Vin Diesel's Dominic Toretto (once again using the word "family" as punctuation to the point where you'd think he's the third Mitchell-brother) has fallen out with Jason Momoa's Dante (having the time of his life as a panto-villain effortlessly combining the Joker and Frank-N-Furter). Luckily, they're both psychologically grounded enough to know that the only way to settle this spat is through driving cars and destroying civil engineering infrastructure.

PUNCH

Yes there's races, there's chases and there's punch-in-the-faces. The three credited writers vie to maintain control in a built-up screenplay while the fuel budget and carbon-footprint goes through the roof, dropping leaden hints that the next movie will be the final one (it won't) and struggling to find dialogue that's not just expositing the indescribable. Cinema staff could have paused this at any point and asked who in the audience knew what exactly was going on, and not a single hand would have been raised. Fast X features enough separately filmed sub-plots to ensure that there are huge swathes of this cast who haven't needed to be in the same room this decade.

These strands are of course necessary as a means of showcasing the ever growing cast of A-Listers willing to pout fleetingly for status in a children's film*¹ reworking of Last Of The Summer Wine. Their characters' storylines may have ended in previous installments, but that won't stop them clocking back in for an appearance-fee the next time, a sort of Marvel Cinematic Universe with limited imagination (do bear in mind that Sung Kang's character died in the third entry and was ret-conned back to life in the sixth; it's also worth noting that Paul Walker actually died almost a decade ago and he's still showing up). The fact that the same faces return each time to deliver variations on the same plot with no variation on the formula suggests that the American studio system has finally cracked the essence of the Carry On series...

RICHARD

All of this sounds admittedly harsh for a film that nobody forced me to watch, but I'm old enough to remember Fast & Furious being genuinely good. To its credit, the cinematography, editing, stunt performing and choreography here are everything they need to be and more, and the cast are trying their best (albeit with varying levels of success) with the material they're given. You know that for an audience who loves going to the cinema but hates cinema, this will be ideal.

Fast X is loud, brassy, and seemingly happy to be filled with trite aphorisms while meaning absolutely nothing. It's hard to think of a more apt metaphor for the movie business in the 2020s...

*¹ Listen, Fast X is a 12A. The BBFC have reviewed this death-defying action thriller and decided that its levels of threat and intensity are suitable for children to watch. And if online wags can persist in sneering that the Marvel and Star Wars series are 'kids movies' then I'm more than qualified to point out the same of what is essentially Hot Wheels: The Movie, written by a trio of eight year olds who haven't studied physics at school yet. ^{[ 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.

Review: Bombshell

Bombshell
Cert: 15 / 109 mins / Dir. Jay Roach / Trailer

Oh, is it awards-season already? No sooner have the Golden Globes taken over Twitter discourse*¹ than we begin with the raft of Worthy™ films, released in January because voting committees have notoriously short memories when it comes to listing the favourite things they've watched.

And opening this year's lectures is Jay Roach with Bombshell, the Charles Randolph-penned screen rendering of 2016's media-scandal where everybody suddenly realised that Fox News was being run by some right old wrong'uns. Charlize Theron leads as presenter Megyn Kelly, with Nicole Kidman as outgoing host Gretchen Carlson and Margot Robbie as incoming harassment-target Kayla Pospisil. John Lithgow stars Roger Ailes, the touchy-feely Darth Vader to Malcolm McDowell's Emperor Rupert Murdoch.

CAST

And it's good in a sort of solidly linear fashion. The story is compelling (although this has more to do with the real-life actual events) and the cast are fantastic (although it's a fantastic cast, so we'd expect nothing less). Roach brings the social urgency of The Post and the wry outlook of The Big Short, always taking the subject seriously but with some of its aspects requiring a full fourth-wall-break to convey the required incredulity*².

But the film spends quite a lot of its runtime winking at the audience (whether that's the glaring "STAY IN LANE" road signs during Kelly's deliberations over how to react to the developing situation, or Ailes' withering line of "me too..." during his firing, followed by five seconds of pointed silence in the room). Bombshell often feels like the dramatised-reconstruction sequences of a documentary without the documentary and made for an audience who already know the story.

THE LA'S

Which brings us to Bombshell's biggest problem, a searing dose of Daniel Blake Syndrome. It's never entirely clear what point the film is trying to make which wasn't made by the 2016 news reports or the subsequent flow of reactions and think-pieces. And it's even less certain whose mind film is going to change.

There'll be no sexists watching this thinking "Hey, I've asked attractive young women to undress (and more) in my office before, but y'know that seems more than a bit creepy now I've watched Big Roger doing it!". Similarly, the liberal (and let's be fair, 'target') audience are already sympathetic to the cause. While there's plenty of justifiable outrage, there are few revelations here. With the very best will in the world, Bombshell is two hours of confirmation-bias*³.

Yet at the same time the central message of the movie is still very much relevant. The issues the movie addresses are still ongoing and show no real sign of being resolved*⁴. Bombshell exists in 2020 because it needs to exist.

Here endeth the lesson.

On the shelf with Vice, Spotlight and The Big Short.



Cinema's not quite its natural home, no.



Stream it. There's not really a lot of re-watch value here.



Not with a cast as solid as this one.



That's likely.



There isn't.



Level 1: NPR Radio Drama Yoda is in this. And he makes a Jabba The Hutt reference.





*¹ Okay, that's probably more the thrust of my social media feeds than your own. Yours probably have far more serious (ie depressing) subject matter to infuriate your lunch hour, but there's only one of us who can change that... ^{[ BACK ]}

*² I must admit that during Theron's opening whistle-stop 'to-audience' introduction of the Fox News building, the style and pacing had me believing we'd cut to a shot of Ron Burgundy any moment and it wouldn't be played for laughs. ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ Although to be fair, Bombshell does at least challenge the cosseted liberal audience in one regard, with its idea that Fox News apparently employs people who a) aren't absolute arseholes to begin with, b) somehow aren't aware of the absolute arsehole problem at Fox News, and c) are fine with putting a roof over their heads by actively contributing to the continued success of some absolute arseholes. Of course I know it's not that simple. But of course I'd still walk away from someone in a pub if they told me they worked for one of "those" outlets. In a movie about every single voice having an essential and cumulative effect, it seems odd to be forgiving people who go with the fetid flow for an easy life. Even the guy just mopping up the blood is still keeping the abattoir in business.

Although bear in mind that next week I'll be watching the new socio-political drama from Mr Clint Eastwood, so my leftie-righteousness will be stretched the other way as I'll doubtlessly sit going 'DO YOU THINK THIS POMPOUS CONSERVATIVE HOGWASH IS GOING TO CHANGE MY MIND?' for two hours. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ Because even in 2020 people are still awful, in case you hadn't noticed. ^{[ 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.

Review: Long Shot

Long Shot
Cert: 15 / 125 mins / Dir. Jonathan Levine / Trailer



If anything, I find it surprising that a politically-framed film so intent on recycling its joke about focus-grouping appears to have landed in cinemas without undergoing any test screenings itself. Or perhaps it did and what we saw tonight was a last-ditch attempt to fashion a hybrid which satisfies everyone before sacking the whole thing off and going to the pub, deadlines-be-damned. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

The phrase "all over the place" has become an easy go-to in recent times, round this parish as surely as any other. It can feel overused, in lieu of deconstructing the internal combative forces jostling for position within a movie, and when further analysis seems futile or overwhelming. But occasionally a title really steps up to the bar to claim full and rightful ownership of that sobriquet.

Long Shot really is all over the fucking place.

SECRETARY

So, Charlize Theron plays Charlotte Field, Secretary of State for the US government, ridiculously capable in her job but finding it increasingly difficult in a world which won't take female politicians seriously - especially if they're attractive. As she runs for President, this becomes a major problem. Seth Rogen plays Fred Flarsky, a recently-resigned investigative journalist who writes great copy, but has no social filters. The former used to babysit for the latter when they were younger. Work throws them together, a faltering, odd couple romance blossoms, the powers-that-be disapprove, politics gets in the way, some things explode, there's some crying, and Seth's character is shown jerking off into his own beard. Yeah, they didn't put that in the trailer.

Which leads us to the crux of the problem. That trailer isn't sure what kind of film it's trying to sell. A sassy romantic comedy? A political satire? A light action-movie? Who knows. It's reflective of the finished movie at any rate. It spins far too many plates in a bid to show how clever it is, coming off as an unfocused mess as a result. At its core, this is a comedy - and there are plenty of laugh-out-loud funny moments in there. They just feel like sketches which were assembled after the fact.

The political element is particularly worrisome. While Field's denomination is never openly addressed, the sitting President Chambers (Bob Odenkirk) is depicted as a terminally stupid TV star who's fumbled his way into the top job and is now bored half way through his first term and is looking to make the shift into movies. He's manipulated at every turn by the white-haired right-wing media mogul Parker Wembley (Andy Serkis), the owner of newspapers and TV channels who enjoys a direct line to the Oval Office and wants to keep things that way.

In terms of satire, Long Shot isn't so much delivered with a scalpel as a cricket bat.

CRASH

Seth Rogen is great, although Seth Rogen very usually is. Anyone likely to struggle with that aspect shouldn't bother at all, frankly. His bewildered everyman persona (if 'every man' just wants to get wasted and forget about how complicated the world is) is a constant thread throughout the haphazard fabric of the film. Similarly, Theron gives it her very best as the straight-man archetype to Rogen's clown. Viewers of Arrested Development already know Charlize has a natural talent for deadpan humour, and she displays it with perfection here. But that comedic performance requires building a wall between the character and the audience, a separate aloofness, a barrier to sympathy. And that becomes a bit of a problem when the character turns into a slightly repressed one-note gag.

And so we limp along as screenwriters Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah frantically try to find an appropriate gear, one step away from going full SNL, the early-90s nostalgia employing two full scenes soundtracked by the same Roxette song - as if overtly referencing a classic movie is the same as writing one. By the time we get to the third act, Long Shot actually has the audacity to lecture its audience on open political dialoguing and the crossing of social barriers. Almost as if it forgets that up until five minutes earlier it was quite content being a Liberal Hollywood™ wank-fantasy. Literally. All that's left is realisation, a heartfelt stick-it-to-the-man speech (complete with an actual mic-drop, naturally) and the race-across-town for this to be every piece of shit rom-com from the last thirty years.

The film has long since stopped trying and doesn't care when you noticed.

KEYS TO TULSA

Twenty years ago, Long Shot would have starred Adam Sandler and been absolutely dreadful. Going back ten, Jason Segel would have landed the role in a production which felt horribly misguided. The weird thing is, the Seth Rogen version of this film is probably the best that can be made. And it's still not good enough. It wants to be Forgetting Sarah Marshall meets Vice, but has the insight and commitment of neither.

Long Shot is so busy trying to be all things to all audiences in a desperate play for relevance that nobody involved seems to have realised there's no actual message at the core of it all. How very 2019.

Do you remember how scattershot and unfocused Gringo was? Well, that..



It is not.



Stream it, but if you give up after half an hour I'll completely understand.



For the cast? Fuck no.
For director Jonathan Levine? Still fucking no.

That said, Boyz II Men cameo as themselves here, which will leave you wishing for the hardest first-act nuclear strike since UB40 rocked up in Speed 2…



I'd say that's likely.



I thought there was at one point, but let's go with no.



Level 1: Supreme Leader Snoke is in this. Technically, Mace Windu is as well, briefly.







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.

Review: Gringo

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…

Layer Cake, War On Everyone.



If you've got a subscription-type card, voucher or 2-for-1 deal, sure.



Definitely stream, maybe buy when it comes down to under a fiver.



Nope.



Nope.



Nope.



Level 1: Strong game, this film's got Agent Kallus, Val and Owen Lars in 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.

Review: Atomic Blonde

Atomic Blonde (vague spoilers in the footnotes)
Cert: 15 / 115 mins / Dir. David Leitch / Trailer



If only the film industry could learn to adapt violent video games for the cinema as well as they do violent comics. I think we'd all be better off.

Working from 2012's The Coldest City, Atomic Blonde follows Charlize Theron as British special agent Lorraine Broughton, assigned by her superior (Toby Jones) to Berlin in November 1989, the week the wall comes down, to track down rogue agent David Percival (James McAvoy) and retrieve a stolen list of operative identities before it's sold to the highest bidder on the international market*¹. There will be, as I believe the kids are saying nowadays, scenes...

With a fashionably desaturated colour palette and achingly hipster-friendly late 80s soundtrack, David Leitch's film gets off to a bold, if somewhat clinical, start. True to BBFC form for a 15-rated movie, the blood may not pool on the floor but that's not to say there isn't plenty of it splattered across the walls with dripping, artistic precision. And it's this detached feeling that lingers throughout, making the film almost difficult to like. While the audience will be impressed by what they see, calling it 'fun' almost feels like being complicit in the merciless beatdowns issued by Broughton and Percival. The only smiles to be found in this movie are ones of malice or sarcasm.

And yet, there are wry laughs to be had in Kurt Johnstad's screenplay, dryer than a sandpaper Martini. Theron is amazing as always*², as is McAvoy. Toby Jones and John Goodman hold the fort in largely 'office-based' roles, and it seems like Sofia Boutella is finally being cast as an actress rather than a gymnast*³.

The story is as twisty-turny as you'd want from this sort of thing, but with few enough characters that it never becomes unnecessarily confusing. And while needle-drop soundtracks have been my bugbear this year, everything chosen here fits the ethos of the film and blends with Tyler Bates' score effortlessly.

But the pièce de résistance has to be that fight sequence. Taking place across three floors of a building, utilising guns, knives, fists and at one point a pair of standard-lamps, producing a quantity of corpses I won't divulge here, and lasting a good six or seven minutes all in a single unbroken shot... I don't know how much they're paying cinematographer Jonathan Sela or the fight-choreography team, but give them a bonus. It's a genuine thrill to watch cinematic precision of this calibre.

Once you get into the rhythm of the film, Atomic Blonde is an absolute visceral joy to watch. But no sequel, no spin-offs, no remakes. You got that, Leitch? Leave this one to bask in its own glory.

Kingsman, John Wick, Free Fire, Scarface.
Oh, hell yeah.



Yes, but it should hold up just as well in your living room, provided you don't have noise-sensitive neighbours.



It does.



No, but there's no shame in that with a cast this strong.



I shouldn't think so.



There is.
And there's a boot-shot.



Level 2: James McAvoy and James Faulkner feature in this movie, and they were both in that X-Men: First Class alongside Rose 'Dormé' Byrne.





*¹ You're right, that's not entirely unlike 1996's Mission: Impossible, but I'm assuming this is a fairly common trope in spy fiction. No biggie. Besides, this is a great movie and so is Mission: Impossible. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² That said, her 'British' accent is all over the place. The film's final scene almost excuses this as a plot device, but if that's the case then she's the crappest secret agent this side of Austin Powers. ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ Although there is one scene which felt distinctly For The Dads, slightly off kilter with the rest of the movie and without sufficient groundwork either before or after to give it the meaning you know is intended. ^{[ 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.