I think I was right the other week, it must still be March. Demonstrating that there's still plenty of filler-thriller left on the shelves, Michael Apted's latest offering sees Noomi Rapace lead as a CIA agent working undercover with the UK security forces in anti-terrorism operations, her particular skill being the psychological manipulation of captured enemy operatives to reveal secrets and intel. In the middle of a relatively routine job, she realises that her organisation has been compromised, the clock is ticking and - you've guessed it - she doesn't who just who she can trust…
Leaving aside for one moment the industrial-strength levels of cynicism I'm able to draw upon when considering Unlocked, it's not really that bad a film. It's just desperately searching for a USP, and is so mechanical that our screening had an interval so that Peter O'Brien's screenplay could be wound back up again. The pacing is efficient enough at a standard-issue 98 minutes and with Rapace being joined by the likes of Toni Collette, Orlando Bloom, Michael Douglas and John Malkovich, its casting budget is impressive at least*1. Speaking of performers, Bloom swaggers through his scenes like a cockney Noel Gallagher, Malkovich acts almost entirely with his ears and Rapace does so with her right eyebrow. Everyone else is firmly on autopilot for dour-faced foot-chases around North London*2. By the time Collette breaks out the machine gun semi-ironically, the third-act is in the post as surely as its timer-countdown ending.
While it's clear that there's some dramatic traction to the story being told, the 21st century is a crowded marketplace for the 'Bad Man Has A Bomb™' techno-thriller, and this film has little to sell.
To its credit, Unlocked features three (three) separate product-placement ads for Irn-Bru. It's not even like the thing takes place in Edinburgh, or anything. That's almost as impressive as the time Seabrook crisps rocked up in Fast & Furious.
Not unless desaturated huffing and puffing through the streets of London is your thing. This was made for the £3 shelf in Asda, or preferably Netflix.
Oh, probably.
All flippancy and sarcasm aside, it's not.
Nope.
Not that I heard.
Level 1: That Akshay Kumar's in this, and he's in the upcoming Last Jedi movie. He's listed on the IMDB as "First Order Monitor". Going to assume for now that's some command-centre type role, rather than a GFFA 'milk monitor'?
*1 Although it does feel quite like like Michael Douglas was called in for a couple of days' shooting as a favour here, and John Malkovich similarly booked for a few days there. Each of their scenes feels strangely detached from everything else in the movie. Like that time Morgan Freeman was locked in a broom cupboard to record his bits for London Has Fallen... [ BACK ]
*2 Although our heroes do get a black-cab at one point. As the car pulls up we hear the driver say "That'll be £12.50, please". Given that this is London and the 21st century, I'm left assuming they took a taxi for around the length of one street? [ 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.
So it turns out that due to a projector malfunction when I first saw this film, I missed Peter Jackson's screen-cameo of almost Stan Lee proportions. Well, there we go. This second chapter of The Hobbit story feels like a much more focused film than its predecessor, but still with the same tendency to dawdle occasionally (in particular Laketown, which not only knocks the film out of gear, but also disconnects the engine and takes the wheels off).
I still maintain that the best part of the movie is the barrel-chase, even if it does feel a bit like watching someone play a video-game. Bilbo's growing obsession with The Ring is also nicely realised here, and is pretty much the one part where Martin Freeman gets to actually act rather than being Tim From The Office™.
On the downside, what the hell's going on with the Human/Dwarf/Hobbit size ratios in this film? In some of the shots where they're all together, the dwarves have been shrunk in the frame so they look like children, rather than the squat warriors they're meant to be. I enjoyed the film again though; it shows a nice progression
Best line #1: "Kili's sick. He's very sick.
In fact, he's got Advanced Colour Desaturation, which is cinematic shorthand for the penultimate stage of a terminal illness…"
Best line #2: "You have keen eyes, Master Baggins! What with you being able to spot a 700ft stone dwarf carved into the side of a mountain with a staircase for a leg. I only hope that visual acuity lasts to the top, where we'll all be looking at a wall of largely flat stone for a keyhole that has to be a couple of inches long, by definition of the key alone…"
Well, yeah.
More than the last film.
More than the last film.
It's between you and your DVD player, now.
Nope.
In the future, yes.
Not hearing one, unless it's buried. Which given how clear it was in An Unexpected Journey, seems unlikely.
If you know that someone transforms into a rabid bear and they hate dwarves, why would you take 13 dwarves to squat in their house for the night? That'd be like rocking up at N*gel F*rage's summer cottage with So Solid Crew in tow…
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.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (3D)
Cert: 12A / 161 mins / Dir. Peter Jackson
Despite what I'm about to say, I did enjoy the second installment of The Hobbit. I just wish I'd really enjoyed it. The film (indeed, series) has all the makings of an intense, sprawling epic, and all the mannerisms too, but I can't seem to invest on an emotional level. No matter how earnestly the characters frown, scold and rage, I'm just not buying it. The chase-scenes are dramatic and fraught, but since there's no question of Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage or Aidan Turner dying in the second film*1, I just don't feel the danger. I know this is an issue with most multi-film storytelling, but you've got to sell me the jeopardy (There's also the fact that I don't really care of one of fourteen protagonists carks it, but that more or less goes back to the first movie, to be fair).
Poor old Ian McKellen gets rather shortchanged this time around, too. At an early stage he's Sent Off To Be In The B-Plot, and spends the rest of his scenes booming out the most mundane dialogue as if it contains the meaning of life (in scenes which I've been informed have remarkably little to do with the source-text anyway). That said, he gets his own slice of the action in the third act, but it's not that entertaining to watch an army of orcs beating up an old man. Considering how the last movie shoehorned in Blanchett*2, Weaving and Lee*3 to accompany him, they're conspicuous by their absence in TH:TDOS*4
And my final gripe would be Laketown. Just when the pace has picked up and we've got elves, dwarves and orcs all slugging it out, the action switches to a set which looks like a thawed out Muppets Christmas Carol, ruled over by Stephen Fry playing Stephen Fry™. In all honesty, Peter Jackson may as well have just called him General Melchett and been done with it. Don't get me wrong, I love Stephen Fry, but his appearances completely pulled me out of Middle Earth and invoked a sort of Potter-esque star-spotting.
But… it's great to see the elves in action once more*5, and Evangeline Lilly and Orlando Bloom bring an interesting dynamic to the mix (in that they have conflicted feelings about what they want, rather than being told what they want by a manipulative old man). The waterfall/river chase was the highlight of the action for me, even though the lion's share of the effects work clearly went on the film's climactic scenes with Smaug*6. The titular dragon, incidentally, looks every bit as fantastic as you'd hope, although he was perhaps a little too… conversational for my tastes. Although I did enjoy Thorin's victorious flourish of "And I have you now, right when I pull… this… LEVER! …if you wouldn't mind just waiting there for 45 seconds or so, that'd be great, thanks. Any second now. Any second. Oh, HERE we go! YEAH!"
As much as I piss and moan, at least we don't spend ten minutes watching someone do the washing up. The Desolation Of Smaug is an entertaining if overly-long film, and a move in the right direction. I'm really looking forward to see what, and who, Jackson pulls out of the bag for next year's conclusion. If you're going to see this, see it on the big screen, although the 3D's not a deal-breaker.
Oh, and if you've got a thing about spiders, That Part Of The Film is going to feel like it's going on forever. fyi*7.
Well, the trailer's a lot… snappier?
Mostly.
…Mostly.
It looks nice on a big screen.
No.
At some point, but I doubt it'll be at the cinema.
I didn't hear one this time around.
In the bit in the river: how do those barrels stay upright for the duration? That wouldn't happen, would it?
*1 A sort of reverse-spoiler, there. For those of you who think there's actually a chance that the principle characters could be killed off so early.
*2 That shot of Blanchett which has clearly been lifted from the Lord Of The Rings era doesn't count.
*3Blanchett, Weaving & Lee would be a good name for a Middle-Earth themed solicitors or architects firm. You can have that one.
*4 That's what all the cool kids are calling it, right? TH:TDOS?
*5 I know Legolas isn't supposed to be in the Hobbit. I don't care about that, I just want an engaging movie.
*6 How do you pronounce his name, Smaug or Smaug? I always pronounced it Smaug.
*7 Thanks for reading all of these footnotes, I appreciate it. This actually is how my mind works.
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.
