Review: Zombieland - Double Tap

Zombieland: Double Tap
Cert: 15 / 99 mins / Dir. Ruben Fleischer / Trailer



Hey, d'you remember Zombieland? The low-fanfare, roundly entertaining ensemble comedy-horror from 2009 when The Walking Dead was only three seasons old so everyone was still into zombies? With the jokes and the splatter and the post-modern subversion of the nuclear family and 21st century crisis-management? Well if you missed that, here it is again only less.

Writer/director Ruben Fleischer returns - hoping for all the world that people still associate his name with the 2009 undead debut rather than last year's Venom - along with his original players in the form of Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Wichita (Emma Stone), Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) and Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson). The years have been good to the cast, with Stone in particular largely beyond this type of fare these days, so their reunion is a definite point in the movie's favour.

FAMILY

We pick up ten years after first meeting the gang as they've settled into a dysfunctional yet relatively stable family unit. Stable that is until Little Rock feels the urge to flee the nest after a chance meeting with drifting stoner Berkeley (Avan Jogia), and the arrival of the valley-girl-esque Madison (Zoey Deutch). And so another road-trip and rescue mission begins through the burned out wreckage of America as fun, gunfire and relentless gore go hand in hand...

Eisenberg's opening (and subsequently sporadic) narration returns*¹, as does the slow-motion, Metallica-backed title sequence*², as do the on-screen graphics listing Zombieland's familiar rules, as do the Zombie Kill of The Week™ cutaways. And while it's certainly nice that these stylistic recurrences haven't been jettisoned during the production process, their collective weight quickly becomes the film's problem, rather than its solution. Double Tap is doing nothing new, even with characters we're meeting for the first time*³. The cast all do fairly well in their roles, but for the most part we've seen it before (in Eisenberg's case especially, as he only seems to have one performance).

SHARON

The problem, as is so often the case, is one of expectation. 2009's Zombieland came out of nowhere and took civilian audiences and critics alike by surprise. But much like Guardians Of The Galaxy, Kingsman and Deadpool, the audience for this sequel consists almost entirely of fans of the first movie. And now they've got a checklist. What's more, in this case they've had that list for a decade. The zombie-culture renaissance has waned somewhat in the intervening ten years, and scripted references to Dawn Of The Dead and The Walking Dead now seem more lazy than geekily insightful.

Then there are the weird tonal shifts throughout, like the creative team couldn't agree on where to land between cynical, bleak and comic. It doesn't help that the characters new to this entry have only been half-written, so some of their 'exits' come off as similarly uneven. Ultimately, both the story and its execution feel very on-the-nose, as the film steams through in its bid to make as many callbacks as possible, hoping they'll be an adequate substitute for charm or originality*⁴. I mean, sincere congratulations to Fleischer for getting the band back together, but Double Tap feels as if they should have come back for more. It's like a second-draft screenplay became the shooting script without anyone noticing until the edit stage.

LYLE

And for those among you thinking 'this sounds like it would work better as part of a double-bill with the original', I assure you it doesn't. I'd re-acquainted with that one at home in the afternoon before watching Double Tap, and if anything the direct comparison just hurts the sequel more. Don't get me wrong, the film has some great moments and even in its dips is never flat-out unenjoyable. It's just very forgettable.

There's a mid-credits scene which begins about 45 seconds into the credits (basically so that you won't be able to walk out without watching it start). It features a flashback/reprise of Bill Murray's Bill Murray™ character from the first Zombieland. And if you enjoy that, there's also a post-credits coda in the same vein. Alas, of the sizeable Saturday night crowd who'd come out to watch Double Tap, I was the only one who wanted to hang around that long. Which should tell you something about the mood in which the movie leaves its audience.

I'm not convinced that we needed a second Zombieland movie, and watching this I don't think Ruben Fleischer was either. But in a year which sees the sixth installments of both the Rambo and Terminator franchises, I see no real harm in splatting a few more ghouls just for the hell of it. Double Tap is basically fine, but that in itself is not.

You remember how Amazon made that TV spin-off pilot episode which worked relatively well on its own, yet still completely failed to recreate the spark of what had made Zombieland special in the first place? Well, now there's a movie like that as well...

Zombieland.
It is very, very similar to Zombieland.
That's not a bad thing, it's just not enough.



Without wanting to damn with faint praise, you may as well see this in all the glory it's got on a huge cinema screen, yes.



It is, although the number of rewatches you'll get out of this is anyone's guess.



It isn't.



Maybe not disagree, but discuss animatedly yes.



There isn't.



Level 1: Tobias Beckett is in this.



That's a strong four, but I think the film will quickly earn a reputation of being 'neither nowt nor summat'.


*¹ Although the narration seems to be aimed through the fourth-wall and directly at the viewer this time, rather than something which could broadly count as a diary being read retrospectively. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² For the record, 1986's Master Of Puppets is used to open Double Tap. And I'll be honest, For Whom The Bell Tolls from the first movie worked far better. It's a super slo-mo sequence so the slower, heavier song creates a stronger pairing. Choosing Master Of Puppets to for the sequel just feels like Ruben Fleischer trying to impress a girl by picking his naming Metallica tracks. Which, as men of a certain age will no doubt know, never actually works. ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ Guys, seriously. The whole "oh we've met another group of travellers who are avoiding zombies and their defining characteristics are almost exactly like our own!" schtick was done first in Shaun Of The Dead. The one from fifteen years ago. And it was only a passing gag there, here's it's dragged out expanded to fifteen minutes for a punchline which could have been achieved after five. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ Haha! Tallahassee is sitting in the president's chair in The White House*⁵! He's brash and uncivilised and kind of a moron and he's sitting in the president's chair! DO YOU SEE? DO YOU GET THE JOKE? THIS IS HOW YOU DO A SATIRE HAHAHAHA!! ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁵ Naturally it's not explained why our heroes are able to break into the White House and find everything intact because not a single looting soul has forced their way into one of the most prominent buildings in America over the previous ten years that it's stood empty. Although I imagine the reason is on the same page as the fact that they're living there for weeks/months and no one attempts to get in then, either, despite there being plenty of other surviving humans around elsewhere in the movie.
^{[ 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: Battle Of The Sexes

Battle Of The Sexes
Cert: 12A / 121 mins / Dir. Valerie Faris & Jonathan Dayton / Trailer

"You know where you are with sport, it's good. [...] In badminton if you win a rally, you get one point. In volleyball if you win a rally, you get one point. In tennis if you win a rally, you get 15 points for the first (or second) rallies you've won in that game (or 10 for the third), with a indeterminate amount assigned to the fourth rally, other than the knowledge that the game is won, providing one player is two ten-points (or 15-points) segments clear of their opponent. It's clear and simple."

~ Alan Partridge, 2011

Although written as a satire, this deliberate obfuscation is how my brain sees pretty much All The Sport anyway, so going to watch a film about one of them - not least the one used in the example above – had already put me into a place of some apprehension. I could tell from the trailer of course, that Battle Of The Sexes is more than a film about The Tennis. But at the same time, it is also very much about The Tennis.

But as Ron Howard demonstrated back in 2013, it’s possible to keep a sport-free cynic like me happy by telling a great story about people, rather than arbitrary gaming rules. And Simon Beaufoy's screenplay here is very much about the people. And about The Tennis, centering on the heavily publicised 1973 grudge-match between Billy Jean King and Bobby Riggs, each champions in their respective gendered leagues. Along with the fantastic work from the wardrobe and makeup department, cinematographer Linus Sandgren captures the sunbleached graininess of 1970s California, and it’s a feeling which comes through the performances as a result, with a visual and narrative symmetry increasing as the story unfolds.

Emma Stone is on fantastic form as King, although it feels slightly awkward to note that this is no real surprise from a performer of her calibre (awards will follow, and justifiably so). Playing her unequal opposite is Steve Carell, although not the real villain of the piece of course; he’s the showman, the buffoon. And as surprisingly nuanced as Carell's performance is, with the sheepish grin, heavy glasses and ludicrous sideburns, you get the feeling he’s only ever two steps away from going full Brick Tamland again. Andrea Riseborough also lends great support, even if her character suffers at the hands of a screenplay which keeps jumping lanes.

The central struts of the love story, the sporting-underdog parable and the exposure of institutional misogyny are all impeccably executed, but the film has trouble blending them together, and it ends up feeling like directors Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton are spinning plates in three different rooms. A certain amount of this is obviously down to King’s propensity for partitioning sections of her life, but it makes for a slightly disconnected viewing experience. That said, even a non-sport viewer like me was impressed by the climactic match (not that we see much actual tennis before that point), since as well as actually playing against each other, the cast are, presumably, recreating the precise scoring moves from the game*¹?

The whole thing is a little heavy-handed in places of course, but that’s entirely forgivable, given the times it’s portraying and quite frankly the times it’s playing in. Overall, Battle Of The Sexes is a remarkable story of perseverance and hope. But ultimately, I still didn’t care about All The Tennis…*²

All The Tennis.



Only if it specifically piques your interest. The 70s aesthetic means you shouldn't lose too much by watching this in your living room.



Ultimately, yes.



Perhaps not best best, but it'll certainly be one of the most celebrated.



Nope.



Nope.
I'd have put one in every time someone belts a tennis ball.



Level 1: The voice of Clone Wars Nute Gunray is in this. By which I mean Tom Kenny is in this, not just his voice.





*¹ I should hope so anyway. Otherwise the tennis historians in the audience will be watching going "well that's not how that shot played out; ridiculous". And much the same as the aforementioned Rush, when I sat down for Battle Of The Sexes I didn’t actually know how the climactic game ended. Although obviously, had Billie Jean King actually lost, there’d be little or no point making a film just to rub her nose in it, given what it all stood for. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² And I know you're saying "yeah, but it's not about the tennis" - and I know exactly why you're saying that, but this film is very much also About The Tennis. It's just a game mate, leave 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.

Review: La La Land

La La Land
Cert: 12A / 128 mins / Dir. Damien Chazelle / Trailer



As I write these words, two things of note have happened to me in the last forty-eight hours. On Saturday morning, I went to my dentist to have an infected tooth removed. On Sunday evening, I went to my cinema to watch a preview-screening of La La Land.

As I write these words, it's Sunday night and I'm trying to work out the low-point of the weekend…



…if you enjoyed being invited to your niece's stage-school reimagining of Singin' In The Rain, only to remember twenty minutes in that you don't have a niece, you don't know anyone on the stage and other people's children are precocious shits anyway, but you're pretty much trapped now so the only options are a) grimace through the taped-on enthusiasm looking for any trace of subtlety and meaning, or b) stand up and yell "when does this END?" towards the stage. If, like me, you over-value politeness you'll probably go for A, knowing at least that you'll give the production a fucking rinsing as soon as you're in front of a keyboard.



Well, advance screenings (of which this was one) always have a slightly earlier start-time, due to no adverts being shown and fewer trailers before the film. It's usual, therefore, for there to be several 'late arrivals' as the feature presentation is in its first ten minutes, and tonight was no exception. And how I envied those souls as time went on, if only because they'd had to sit through less of La La Land than I had….



Well if - if - writer/director Damien Chazelle was aiming for 'directionless, overly-long, overly-kitsch and self-indulgent fan-film of Hollywood's Golden Age, clearly hoping to do for the big-number musical what The Artist did for silent cinema but seemingly forgetting that the things which made those musicals great were craft, charm, characters you actually gave a shit about and above all else the music', then yeah it probably does.

Point also deducted for having John Legend in the film (whom one can only assume has been cast because of his in-movie singing rather than his acting) to lecture our lead character about being 'stuck in the past', a speech inserted artlessly into a screenplay whose only concession to the modern day is that the characters have iPhones.

If you want a film about a bittersweet, nearly-made-it love story in Hollywood between two flawed but engaging characters, watch Café Society. If you want a film about the relevance of Jazz in the twenty first century, watch Miles Ahead.



Oddly, both Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are on pretty good form, here. But being a good performer in a thing that's awful doesn't make that thing any better (cf the cast of Exodus: Gods & Kings).



Of course not.
Everyone seems to love La La Land so far, and I'm aware that my opinion's in a minority.

Albeit a minority of people who are right.



There isn't.



Level 2: This film stars that Ryan Gosling, who's also in the upcoming Blade Runner sequel alongside Harrison 'Solo' Ford.





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: Irrational Man

Irrational Man
Cert: 12A / 95 mins / Dir. Woody Allen / Trailer



"Why are you taking philosophy?", Joaquin Phonix's lecturer, Abe Lucas, asks his student at the top Woody Allen's Irrational Man. "Because if you're trying to figure out what all this bullshit is about, forget it." This is screenwriting short-hand for 'look, the film may be asking the questions, but don't expect it to reveal any of the answers', and it's a first-act warning which serves its audience well. This is by no means a stupid film, but it's certainly more of a whimsical stream-of-consciousness than a measured thesis.

As I sat and watched the melancholic comic-drama unfold in upmarket Chelsea, the first twenty minutes saw Allen's sharp and exploratory dialogue accompanied by the chorus of a senior-audience, to whom the process of 'eating snacks quietly' remains an unsolved mystery (and bonus temerity-points to the couple sat behind me who started chatting to one another on three occasions during the film, being firmly shushed by a patron directly behind them each time. I wanted to quietly thank this code-enforcer after the film, but by the time I left my seat, they'd left the auditorium. Whoever you are, you have my gratitude).

Anyway, Irrational Man sees Phoenix as a morosely freewheeling, alcoholic Philosophy*¹ tutor, arriving mid-year to a university where he begins an affair with both a student and a member of staff. Struggling to find meaning in even the baser pleasures of life, his joie de vivre is awakened by an anonymous, chance encounter and his contemplation on joie de mort. The film's about the justification of murder; I won't say any more than that. But I think you can guess the direction it's headed in.

The sporadic dual narration from Phoenix's Abe and Emma Stone as his student/muse Jill is interesting, but returning to both means that the film never decides who's story it wants to tell fully. As Irrational Man is primarily a study of Abe, his viewpoint is more instrumental, yet is also the least-convincing. Joaquin Phoenix's lecture-voice might be that of a philosophy professor, but his inner monologue isn't. And while his performance is perfectly acceptable, I think the writing behind it is a little hazier.

On a more technical level, the film looks as warm and inviting as you'd expect from Allen, and the titles and credits are pushed meticulously yet unceremoniously to the beginning and end of the film, respectively. Other than the soundtrack, there's no interaction between the faintly ornate white-on-black text and the film itself, whatsoever. It's the mark of a director who's focussed on telling a story and hasn't gotten around to thinking about the marketing of it. You sort of get the impression that Woody has looked blankly at a studio-exec at some point and asked "…what's a title sequence? Can't you sort that out?"

But for all the film's directness, Allen's lightness-of-touch doesn't really allow the themes to be explored firmly enough. Whereas the philosophy of pre-meditated murder was frequently distracted by action set-pieces in Solace, here it keeps devolving into relationship-squabbles, somehow. There are fantastic dilemmas, dialogue and performances here, but the film feels as fragmented as its central character. Yet at the same time, the story would be told by many other directors with Jason Bateman staring blankly into camera while Kevin Hart or Melissa McCarthy shrieked around him. Best enjoy it for what it is, than lament for what it could have been.

The inherent darkness of Irrational Man's story sits ill-at-ease with the charm of the production. Maybe that's the point, but I doubt it.

Best line: "Abe Lucas? He writes well, but it's the triumph of style. The substance just doesn't stand up to scrutiny", in which Woody Allen assures us that his sense of irony isn't lost here, even if his focus is floundering... ;)

For Woody Allen fans, yes.
Everyone else? Wait for the home-release.



Again, fans of Allen will be buying it anyway, but everyone else should get away with a rental.



Not really.



Not quite.



Not at all.



No (although come on, there's one perfect spot for it, and you could hardly say it would interrupt the film's realism).



The film stars Ethan Phillips, who appeared in Inside Llewyn Davis, alongside Oscar 'Poe Dameron' Isaac and Adam 'Kylo Ren' Driver.







*¹ Which is to say that he's an alcoholic and he teaches Philosophy. An extra comma just looked out of place, there. He doesn't teach Alcoholic Philosophy, although if that was a subject I'd be banging on the door of the enrolment centre first thing Monday morning...

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: Birdman

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Cert: 15 / 119 mins / Dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu




I don't particularly enjoy using phrases like 'superlative performance' or 'plays with the form', largely because they make me sound like I'm trying to be a film-critic rather than a movie-reviewer, and especially in this case as director Alejandro Iñárritu has plenty to say about critics (although he also has plenty to say about audiences, for that matter).

Nonetheless, this two-hour joyride of surreal adrenaline stretches 'the form' to breaking point, being a film, play, dream-sequence and monologue all-in-one. Presented as a single, unbroken hand-held camera-shot*¹, Birdman is relentless, picking up the viewer like the levitating Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) in its opening scene and refusing to put them down as they laugh, cry, rage and fly with Keaton for the duration of the film. With two notable exceptions, the film is soundtracked purely by jazz drummer Antonio Sanchez (and while a drummer often appears in-shot, that's not actually him), with the tempo always syncopated, but growing more erratic as Riggan's breakdown looms.

Trading heavily and only semi-ironically on Keaton's IRL role as Batman, we spend the vast majority of the running time seeing things through his eyes as the washed-up actor creates, directs and stars in an ambitious Broadway play, adapting the work of one of his favourite writers, Raymond Carver, in a bid to prove that he's more than just a has-been celeb in a bird-costume.

The screenplay is brutally self-aware, with the Birdman character and in-movie actor names seeming to be the only fictionalised aspects, as pop-culture references and icons of the 20th and 21st centuries are ruthlessly deconstructed. Birdman is Keaton's show of course, in a career-defining role played as only he could, but it couldn't be done without the stunning supporting performances from Edward Norton, Andrea Riseborough, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, Amy Ryan and Zach Galifianakis. While their characters often seem underdeveloped, it's mainly because that's how Riggan sees them. My only niggle is that the final act of the film all but abandons the secondary characters as Riggan's psychoses close in, also leaving behind much of the dry humour that preceded it. I also have to admire that Birdman chooses not to close on the two natural end-points which occur, but on the third and actual one (which is admittedly better). I may not like that necessarily, but I admire it.

By no means a throwaway film, Birdman will command your attention from start to finish, but that's not to say it won't be enjoyed by fans of indie-film and superhero-movies alike.
Never has the phrase 'the lie that tells the truth' seemed more appropriate…

It begins to be, but nothing can come as close as the film itself.



I did.



Absolutely.



If the trailer appeals, go and find this movie at the nearest cinema to you, forthwith.



I will a bit, yeah.



I will.



There isn't.

Does anyone else want a Birdman animated mini-series anyway?
Just because?

*¹ And it's not, but it's presented very effectively as one, and I confess that I spent more time than was strictly necessary ticking off the edit-points.

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.