Blade Runner 2049 (3D / second-pass / SPOILERS)
Cert: 15 / 163 mins / Dir. Denis Villeneuve / Trailer
It's funny how these things clump together, but this was my second second-pass of a second-installment this week. Pretty sure if I managed to do that again after the weekend I'd get some sort of badge or certificate. I digress.
Having left this Obviously Not Long Enough, I decided Blade Runner 2049 really needed another going over. A work best experienced on a massive screen, the ideal place for this is the cinema of course. And whereas home-based deconstruction can take place whenever you've got a couple of free hours, cinema scheduling means that you've really got to decide within 3-4 weeks if you can get more out of a movie. I'm sure I'll be watching this for years anyway, but I really want to get the most out of it now.
Before I get stuck in, I should say how much I liked the flickering, juddery, interlaced studio idents at the start. Nothing which follows uses this faux-interference aesthetic until the closing credits, and I can only imagine they've been put there to piss off the people who download the film illegally and have that deflating feeling of wasted bandwidth upon pressing Play. Top work!
So. Magnificent though Blade Runner 2049 is, as I suspected rewatching the movie brought no great revelations. Whether Denis Villeneuve's sequel needs more time to bed in culturally and generate more general discussion, or whether the story just has less to say (or more specifically, ask) than its progenitor remains to be seen. With the best will in the world, I suspect it's the latter. This is a fine looking presentation in 3D, even if Roger Deakins says otherwise, although like all post-production conversions, it never feels intrinsically necessary.
Ana de Armas is great as Joi, and Carla Juri also shines as Ana (somewhat confusingly). But this film belongs firmly to Sylvia Hoeks' Luv, the replicant quality administrator and assassin*1. Hoeks owns every single scene she's in here, showing both the aspirational pinnacle and ultimate downfall of perfected human simulation with furious bursts of anger, jealousy and childish petulance. More human than human, indeed.
If you take nothing else away from Blade Runner 2049, Joi seems easily available in a consumer society, but Luv is more intense and will end up killing you…
As a story about manufactured evolution, it's both prescient and timeless. The intricacies of the central plot are much clearer the second time around, even if this robs the film of its smaller and larger conundrums whilst watching. Whereas Blade Runner famously asked more questions than it answered, the more philosophical aspects of BR2049 seem largely wrapped up within its not-inconsiderable run-time.
The discussion throughout the first movie of course was 'can a bioengineered replicant with an organic AI brain be treated as human once it becomes self-aware?. Irrespective of the 'other' as-yet-unanswered question, the answer to this is yes. The creation may not be biologically human, but it's emotionally human. So when BR2049 asks 'yes, but can a holographic simulation with an AI brain be treated as human once it becomes self-aware?, the answer is also clearly yes. Humans are just machines made of meat rather than electronics, and the existence of a metaphysical soul can be neither proved nor disproved using both examples. Discuss.
There's also a brief (and less-explored) pondering over 'if you're implanted with someone else's memories, how can you tell which ones are yours?. But Agent K's belief in his past experiences affects his judgement and actions in the present. Those burned-in reactions and instincts become part of his mind's operating-system, so yes, they're his memories as much as his interpretation of events which occurred the day before. He might not have been there when key childhood events took place, but he remembers them so they're his memories in a very real sense. He didn't 'make' them, but you (probably) didn't make the clothes you're wearing - they're still yours. Discuss.
Additionally, in terms of who is and isn't a replicant and how that affects their outlook and prospects, Villeneuve (or more properly, screenwriter Hampton Fancher) is far more transparent this time around, so the only real lingering discussions are based on the ongoing one from the first Blade Runner anyway*2. All I had after that were plot-based niggles:
• Does the 'natural lifespan' of the new replicants include the time normally allowed for humans to pass through childhood and adolescence, or is it adulthood-onwards? We see them 'born' in their adult bodies, and Sapper certainly appears to have aged - if only because you wouldn't make a replicant which looked like that grizzled 'out of the box', now would you?*3
• How come Sapper wears glasses? Is it because a) He’s trying to disguise himself and/or blend in with the humans to avoid detection? (in-universe explanation), b) As part of his natural lifespan, his eyes are starting to wear out and he can’t get them replaced or repaired without drawing attention to himself? (in-universe explanation), c) The glasses Sapper wears are like those tiny wire-framed ones you typically see in movies with Second World War Jewish refugees wearing them, largely due to their lack of materials/resources at the time, and the film is drawing a visual parallel between the persecution of the Jews and the authorities in Blade Runner hunting down the last of the Nexus 8s, not least to allow for control-freak Niander Wallace’s ‘superior’ models? (out-of-universe explanation), or d) All of the above. Discuss.
• Speaking of superior, how come Agent K just manages to drown Luv so (relatively) quickly? I know these are bio-engineered creations as opposed to wires and pulleys, but you’d think Wallace would have adapted them to either draw the required oxygen from water if they become submerged, or at least be able to hold their breath longer. Wasn’t the original point of the replicants to perform work which was too hazardous for humans, like maintaining the off-world colonies and ships (ie working in freezing and low-oxygen environments)? And now it turns out that if one of them falls asleep in the bath, that’s Game Over? Ridiculous.
• Most importantly: wait, who's looking after Deckard's dog?
*1 A job title I'm currently pushing for myself, but my employer won't have it. [ BACK ]
*2 There's no way of dressing this one up, that CGI Rachael is passable until she begins speaking on-camera, then it's absolutely atrocious. One of the few genuine weak-points of the entire film Too much movement in all the wrong parts of the face. It felt less weird when the holographic girlfriend simulation was syncing with an android hooker. Seriously, Rachael and Rogue One Leia need to get in the sea.
I like that Deckard points out to Wallace "Her eyes were green...", because if that's the only thing he can see wrong with this picture then his own clearly aren't working properly, either. From a story perspective, surely Deckard is more likely to have been persuaded to help Wallace if he'd made a 'projected current age' replicant, implying that the pair could somehow go on to make up for lost time, rather than unequally resetting the relationship with an age-gap. This would also have entailed getting the actual human Sean Young back in the studio, and I wouldn't be typing all of this in the first place.
The irony hasn't escaped me, of course, that all of the other replicants in the film are flawless facsimiles of humans since they're played by humans, whereas the Rachael-bot is a literal replicant, and who is so far down The Uncanny Valley that the Los Angeles Pot-holing Society have been called out to rescue her... [ BACK ]
*3 Imagine the day the Ryan Gosling replicant was created, though. The boss comes in and is like "I know you've made this one stab-impervious Terry, but why are the eyes so close together? You do know we have to sell these, right? Would you buy this? ...well I suppose the LAPD might take him, but they're going to pull our trousers down over a discount..."[ 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.
Blade Runner 2049 (first-pass / SPOILER-FREE)
Cert: 15 / 163 mins / Dir. Denis Villeneuve / Trailer
You've come here for a review of Blade Runner 2049, and in much the same way as Kingsman, you've arrived with two questions. Again, the answer to the first is "yes, very much so" and to the second, "no, but how could it be?". Because you're an impatient soul, I've put my lengthier-than-usual pre-amble in the first footnote. You're welcome. Discussion of the film begins after the next paragraph.
First things first: before going to see Blade Runner 2049, I'd advise you to watch the three prequel/lead-in shorts, Black Out 2022, 2036: Nexus Dawn and 2048: Nowhere To Run. Along with the timeline over at Collider, they cover key events which occurred between the first Blade Runner set in 2019 and the new movie. This isn't essential homework, but any background exposition in BR2049 is fleeting and largely conversational, so it's handy to have this grounding beforehand.
The story follows Los Angeles detective and Blade Runner, Agent K (Ryan Gosling) as a routine retirement job opens a potentially huge can of worms. K's boss Lt. Joshi (Robin Wright), anxious to avoid the ire of her superiors and attention of the powerful replicant-manufacturing corporations, orders her young charge to tie the case up as efficiently as possible (ie not sparing the gunfire). But K's inquisitive nature leads him along a trail to former assassin Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), in a place where the ghosts of the past are buried almost as well as the conspiracies of the present…
So the first thing which strikes the viewer about Villeneuve's sequel is how light it can be in L.A. Whereas Ridley Scott's telling took place almost exclusively at night, the tale's pickup point features scenes at various times and varied run-down environments. It's never sunny of course, with only the dregs of humanity left behind on a near-ruined planet, whatever passes for natural daylight only serves to illuminate the brittle shell of a world even more harshly. Although undoubtedly existing in the same timeline, this only really looks like the same Blade Runner on the occasions we see the city's filthy skeleton lit only by neon and gunfire. But if the visual theme in 1982 was of darkness and rain, 2017's is more desperation and rust.
And this difference is the key to the film's greatest strength: BR2049 never feels like the retread that would have been the path of least resistance so far as writing is concerned. Screenwriter Hampton Fancher returns, in the company of Michael Green, and together they've created a continuation of the story, rarely slowing to nod at the audience with knowing familiarity*4. Of course, the pressure is on Villeneuve to deliver a work as profound as its forebear, but going in with that expectation is likely to lead to over-symbolising what is essentially a beautifully shot detective movie. Villeneuve doesn't explore the same avenues as Scott did, or leave the viewer with the same (or even as many) questions. That's not to say there isn't plenty to think about afterwards of course, but there's no book to cross-reference it all against, this time.
At a run-time which won't give you much change out of three hours, the pace is languorous to the point of self-indulgent, but Roger Deakins' cinematography earns that effortlessly (although Sony's shameless product placement is at an all-time high). And for a production with such a wide-ranging cast-list, the lion's share of our time is spent with Gosling, Ford and Sylvia Hoeks' antagonist Luv (who deftly steals every single one of her scenes). Gosling seems almost perfectly cast in his role as our guide through the shattered landscape, and Ford brings more of latter-day Solo than latter-day Jones to his reprisal (thankfully*5).
To say any more would probably be to delve into what makes this so enjoyable, and begin to spoil it in the process. Other than a grounding in Blade Runner and the shorts linked above, try to see this 'clean'. But do try to see it.
Was I blown away by Blade Runner 2049? No.
Do I think the film will have a cultural longevity which will become more intriguing as each year passes? No.
But did I think exactly the same when I first saw its predecessor? Yeah.
What do I know?
Well, Blade Runner.
To the point where it's fairly essential that you've at least seen the first one.
The cinema is the natural home of this outstanding-looking piece of work, yes.
I think it just about does.
But I also think the film could have set out to achieve more.
For the most part no, although there could be a couple of exceptions in there.
I shouldn't imagine so.
There isn't. For shame.
Couple of perfect moments for one, too.
*1 This is the pre-amble which was too long to feasibly put as part of the main review. It was written before watching Blade Runner 2049. And as flowery and self-important as this seems (okay, is), it felt worse to give the introduction its own separate blog post, somehow. That's the kind of treatment usually reserved for Star Wars, after all.
So. Where to begin? Although as a youngster I'd read the comic adaptation which filled out the page-count in Marvel UK's Return of the Jedi Weekly, I first came to the actual film of Blade Runner in the mid 90s. And I first began to fully appreciate it about five years later (and even that's been a constantly increasing curve rather than an off/on switch). Ridley Scott's 1982 neo-noir masterpiece is the gift which keeps on giving; still finding new audiences, still beguiling old ones, still being discussed and dissected after thirty five years. And comparing the movie with Philip K Dick's source-novel only raises more questions as that's a thematic whirlpool of its own, yet the works seem to feed off each other with each re-visit. I don't think I'll ever be done with either.
So it may seem unduly harsh to say this, but Blade Runner is a film which categorically does not need a sequel. The loose ends of Rick, Rachel and replicant-retirement don't need tying up. Indeed the movie's ambiguity is what makes it so satisfying, its point-blank refusal to put a bow on the story, despite a superficially happy ending. So in helming the follow-up, director Denis Villeneuve has his work cut out, even with (or perhaps more accurately because of*2) Ridley Scott's return in an exec-producer role.
And yet, am I happy a sequel exists? Hell yeah. But if Blade Runner 2049 is to be a worthy follow-up, there's no way I can begin unpacking it after a first viewing*3. If I leave the cinema understanding everything I've seen then the film has failed on some level. I expect to be talking about BR2049 for a long time to come. So y'know, no pressure Denis.
With all this in mind, what follows above is a first-reaction. More of a 'should I see it?' than 'why should I see it?'. You already know if this flick is going to be for you, and for obvious reasons you can take your own baggage and tailor your own expectations accordingly. But tonight we're gonna party like it's 2049. [ BACK ]
*2 My own concerns with Mr. Scott have been written about elsewhere, but it's hardly controversial to say that his return to the Alien franchise has had a mixed reception. And yes, footnotes within footnotes. It's very much that kind of film [ BACK ]
*3 I haven't even got round to going back to Villeneuve's Arrival yet, even though I know it fully deserves the time. But it's his work on that movie in particular which tells me he's the right choice for Blade Runner 2049. [ BACK ]
*4 Although the writers do place one rather ungainly elephant in the room by means of unnecessary callback, but I'll leave that until my next review. [ BACK ]
*5 And I say this as one of the twelve people in the world who actually like Crystal Skull, but Harrison Ford's dramatic range isn't particularly wide. He's only great at being varying shades of Harrison Ford™, and thankfully the one we get here is Weary Ford rather than Curmudgeonly Ford. [ 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.
Wonder Woman (2D / Spoilers in the footnotes)
Cert: 12A / 141 mins / Dir. Patty Jenkins / Trailer
Well, the long-awaited day arrived, amid a flurry of media hype and no small amount of subsequent expectation. And so it was that a respectably-sized audience*1 gathered to see if Patty Jenkins Wonder Woman movie could live up to the buzz which threatened to overtake it.
Mythology meets alternate-history when the studious life led by a tribe of Amazons on the island of Themyscira*2 is interrupted when an escaping American WW1 pilot (Chris Pine's Steve Trevor) emerges through a dimensional portal, followed by a German battleship and its full contingent of furious Axis footsoldiers. Carnage ensues*3, leading to Diana (Gal Gadot) venturing back through the aperture in a bid to find and kill Ares the god of war, ending the global conflict. As her weapons, she has the purity of innocence, the conviction of righteousness, The Bulletproof Bangles™, The Sword of Omens™ and The Lasso of Overacting™. One of these gets used to the point where it's almost worn out. There is sass, there is action and there are big decisions to be made along the way, as well as a few laughs.
I'm quite surprised the Daily Express haven't made more of this movie, actually. It's literally Princess Diana vs The Evil Germans. All that's missing is a subtext on house-prices and they'd be frothing at the press...
But anyway, yeah, it's a pretty damned good film. Although if you've got a hunch that it sounds like half an hour of Thor, ten minutes of fish-out-of-water jokes, then an hour and a half of The First Avenger*4, with a few beats thrown in from X-Men, Guardians of the Galaxy and Inglourious Basterds, you'd be absolutely right.
Gal Gadot does well in the lead role here, but she has a lot of cinematic-lifting to do. While we certainly get a refreshing central female-focus from director Patty Jenkins, there's no escaping the fact that the film was written by three guys*5. After the opening act on Themyscira where the women drive the narrative, the story reverts to more or less standard superhero form once Diana is over the threshold and into the First World War. Other than Lucy Davis in a small comic-relief role and Elena Anaya being wasted as an enigmatic and thoroughly underused Axis weapons scientist, it's just Gal Gadot surrounded by cardboard cutouts of gawping Boys Own heroes and villains*6.
Wonder Woman is good fun and a step back to form for Warner/DC, certainly their most focused and relatable timeline-movie since Man of Steel. But the feeling never left me that rather than figure out their own way to tell stories, DC are still trying to be Marvel Studios*7 - and that's not their race to win…
Update: After sleeping on it*8, I have some final thoughts. With the best will in the world, I'm probably not going to see Wonder Woman again in its theatrical run, so I've updated the post to add them here.
The amount of online discussion and media-buzz prior to this release means it feels like one of those movies you should have a strong opinion on either way, and if the end result lands somewhere in the middle you end up wondering 'have I understood this properly?'. Truth be told, there's not that much there to understand, and that's absolutely fine. But who wants 'absolutely fine' as a pull-quote on their poster? After watching Wonder Woman, I think I certainly like it more for socio-political reasons than dramatic ones. Because at the end of the day, I don't really give two fucks about DC characters, and there's very little the film can do about that…*9
Wonder Woman is absolutely fine.
Well I think I've covered that already…
For big-and-loud, yes. It's a fine looking movie.
It does
Although I'm less convinced about what it sets out to do than whether it achieves that.
For Gal Gadot, possibly the best so far.
For everybody else, no.
Nope.
There isn't.
Which is bloody ridiculous as there are many, MANY perfect spots for one.
Level 1: Bern Collaco's in this.
Me neither, but he's Indian Regiment Soldier in Wonder Woman and he was Stormtrooper in Rogue One andFirst Order General in The Force Awakens. I genuinely hope he gets a character name next time around. Like, in anything. Seriously, look at the dude's IMDB page, it's a litany of anonymous sorrow. He's been in Eastenders twice and only got "Police Detective" and "Pharmacist".
*1And of for all those sitting in the room that night, only five of us hung around for the after-credits scene; there isn't one. Fair enough…[ BACK ]
*2And really though, imagine making a mythical island full of actors speak with a heavy eastern accent, just to explain away the suspicion that Gal Gadot can do no other…[ BACK ]
*3And while I'm very aware that this film is a certificate 12A, the beach-battle between a crew of fully armed soldiers and a tribe of expert archers and swordswomen is glaringly blood-free, other than a nasty scratch on Diana's arm in its final moments (the resulting scab/scar of which we don't see again throughout the film, but given she's a super-heroine that's understandable)[ BACK ]
*4To the point where, after recruiting a side-crew of international heavy-drinking misfits in a London boozer, Noble Captain Steve sacrifices himself by flying off in a German plane full of super-bombs intended to kill millions, and all his superbly capable brunette love-interest is left with is a sepia photo and memories of the brief time they shared. No, seriously, they did that.[ BACK ]
*5And Diana was not, I repeat not - I repeat NOT - wearing her armour under that blue dress. Those writers put her in the figure-hugging blue dress because they wanted to see Gal Gadot in a figure-hugging dress. Don't care about the back-scabbard, wasn't happening mate. If she'd have been wearing the armour underneath it, it would have looked like she'd turned up to the gala dinner party just to smuggle out the cutlery…[ BACK ]
*6And the next time I'm on complaining about Marvel's track record with slightly sub-standard movie villains, please please remind me that none of them have been as resoundingly shit as David Thewlis being Palpatine with a moustache and tweed overcoat. His performance in this film is nothing short of fucking excruciating. To the point where Richard E. Grant's Dr. Rice looks positively nuanced by comparison. Thewlis is better than this, and I just ended up feeling embarrassed for Patty Jenkins having to direct such utter, utter drivel. There. I said it.[ BACK ]
*7You would of course be perfectly justified in asking me "Oh, why do you have to compare DC films to Marvel?". Well, I'll stop doing it when DC do…[ BACK ]
*8Of course it'd be lovely to be able to ponder and sleep on everything I watch, before writing a balanced and intricate review of the film probably while sitting on a veranda in the mid-morning sunshine in a light flannel shirt and sipping an espresso. But my brain doesn't work like that. The stream of jumbled praise and nitpicking you read above the edit-point is what's in my brain as I get home from the cinema. If I don't write that down before I go to bed, it's lost like the contents of an unsaved file when you power off a computer. There might be an auto-backup, but you can't rely on it containing everything you need. All you'd get the next day would be "Yeah, it's pretty good I suppose, apart from David Thewlis". If I take notes in the screening (yeah I'm sometimes that guy) then I've got that dark-room-scrawl as well I suppose, but it all just increases the gap between me watching a film and posting a review. I'm not made of time y'know, I've got a day-job in which to be unfulfilled...[ BACK ]
*9That said, Man of Steel was the first movie to make me actually interested in Clark Kent as a character, so maybe Diana could have done with more emotional conflict rather than physical. But not with Gal Gadot driving, one suspects...[ 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.
Everest (3D)
Cert: 12A / 121 mins / Dir. Baltasar Kormákur / Trailer
I think we all remember where we were on Friday May 10th, 1996. On the other side of the world, a few brave/determined/foolish souls were desperately trying to make their way to the peak of one of humanity's greatest immovable challenges. Me? I was losing a boot in a White Zombie mosh-pit at Brixton Academy. All I'm saying is, one of those two events has left an indelible mark on my memory and will continue to do so...
It's a cinematic truism that a well-made film will take a subject that the viewer is ambivalent about, and make them care about the characters experiencing it. Anyway, I'm still waiting for that great mountaineering movie.
Featuring far too many characters and far too many ominous "I'll be fine / I don't feel too good" lines, along with their accompanying phlegmy-coughs and sidelong glances, Everest is A True Story™ that was apparently full of awful cliches. As a result of two teams (needlessly) competing to reach the summit and get home before tea/lightning-storm time, there are also far too many appearances of characters you'd assumed had died two scenes earlier because everyone looks basically the same when they're in cold-weather gear with beards and frost, and all-but-two of the characters are sold short due to a lack of screen-time. These on-screen personas are a barely-likeable lot (which is a problem when the film is about them dying), but then again I suppose it takes a special kind of narcissist to believe they're better than one of the world's most treacherous mountains, and a special kind of sociopath to make money from encouraging them. Everest comprises almost entirely of those two types of people.
At no point does the spirit of Ben Kenobi stand over a prone, snow-caked mountaineer commanding them to go to Dagobah. At no point do any of the team uncover a hoard of Nazi gold, awakening the undead guardians that are damned to protect it for eternity. It's 2015, Universal; you're going to have to give me more than 'you can count the number of people who went up on both hands, but the number of people who came down on one; and I don't mean because of the frostbite'. And Ted Moult? Nowhere to be seen.
On the plus side, it turns out that Jason Clarke is actually a much better actor when he's allowed to use his own accent. Although it also turns out that Sam Worthington isn't. And being used in wide, brightly-lit exterior shots, much of the 3D in the first half of the film looks beautiful, although suffers under the night-time, close-quarter photography which follows. And speaking of which, why does the scene where they're at the summit of Everest look for all the world like it was shot on a sound-stage, with its flat, azure-blue sky and oddly-yellow lighting? Surely that's the most important exterior-shot of the whole film?
Everest may indeed be 'based on a true story', the problem is that it's just not a particularly interesting one. The most disquieting thing about it is that the members of the teams who didn't make it back in May 1996 weren't the first ones to die trying, and they weren't/won't be the last; a thought which the film doesn't even take the time to raise. And don't go giving us a 'real-life' photo-montage at the end like you've told an awe-inspiring story of bravery and humanitarianism, rather than a faintly exploitative made-for-TV disaster movie to be shown on Channel 5 at 2pm on a Wednesday...
A caption-card at the film's beginning tells us that of the mountaineers to climb Everest around that time, 1-in-4 died. Ironically, that's also the exact the ratio of audience members who made it to the end of this film. This afternoon's screen held four people at the start of the movie, and one of those left after an hour and a half.
Today's survivors of Everest bonded over an ordeal they're not inclined to repeat…
If you like that sort of thing?
A rental. You won't need to see this film more than once, whether you're a mountaineer scoffing at all the mistakes or a non-mountaineer squirming slightly at hubristic yet gullible people dying in the cold.
No, although in Sam Worthington's case that'd be an odd case to try and argue.
…probably? I have no idea
Nah.
No. There isn't.
I mean, if you won't use a Wilhelm Scream when someone falls actually off a mountain, when the fuck will you?.
The film features a simpering performance from Queen Amidala's favourite handmaiden, bodyguard and decoy, Keira 'Sabé' Knightley.
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.
Another mixed bag of style and substance from the pen of Le Carré, A Most Wanted Man has plenty of individually great moments, but left me struggling to say I'd enjoyed the film. Much like the last outing from the stable, the film doesn't waste a line of needless exposition where a shot of a central character sighing and staring at a wall for forty five seconds will do instead.
Luckily, the plot - following a German black-ops anti-terrorist organisation monitoring the recruitment and funding of extremist Islamist terror cells - is fairly linear this time (and despite my gripe in the previous paragraph, it's nowhere near as infuriatingly self-indulgent as TTSS), but while the story is pleasingly interwoven, some of the performances - as excellent as they are - seem over-egged, somehow. I can't decide whether it's Corbijn's direction or Andrew Bovell's screenplay, but something was holding me back from feeling any real connection to the characters.
A relatively straightforward spy-tale, handled as if it's more baffling than it actually is, A Most Wanted Man seems like it would benefit from being a TV series, rather than the two hours of furtive looks and scowling we get here. Luckily, Philip Seymour Hoffman's interpretation of German spymaster, Günther Bachmann, seems to have him hailing from Swansea; so that never gets dull.
It's along those lines, yeah.
For the most part, I think I did.
Probably, but that's not my call to make.
Home or cinema; either should work.
I won't.
At some point.
Didn't hear one.
How come when Annabel is cycling through the park, all the leaves are green and on the trees, but the shot that's intercut features Günther standing in a different area (not in that park, admittedly) among brown leaves all over the path? Visual symbolism or a sloppy shooting schedule?
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.
