Review: Charlie's Angels (2019)

Charlie's Angels (2019)
Cert: 12A / 118 mins / Dir. Elizabeth Banks / Trailer



Arriving like an early, unannounced Christmas present from a relative you'd forgotten existed, the new iteration of 70s classic Charlie's Angels bursts onto November screens, a movie so thoroughly bland and ineffectual that I don't even have the energy to be angry about it.

TAKEN

Haha, I'm just kidding; yes I do. I've got to hand it to actor / writer / producer / director Elizabeth Banks. She's taken a franchise about which I had no feelings either way and made me despise it. Working transparently through a list of checkboxes, this reboot seems to be aiming for a tonal point somewhere between Mission: Impossible and Austin Powers, but ends up at Baywatch instead. I say 'reboot', but there are in-movie nods to both the original TV series and the 2000/2003 movies suggesting a canonical continuity, which is a nice touch. But that's not enough.

Considering the star-wattage of the cast list, the dimness on display here is quite an achievement. This film fizzes like a bin bag full of dead animals. Like it's been assembled by someone who's heard of lighthearted action-comedies but has never seen one. Working from a script apparently consisting entirely of placeholder dialogue, Naomi Scott throws herself into the proceedings with admirable abandon, Ella Balinska appears to be reading her lines for the first time and Kristen Stewart is miscast as usual. Elsewhere, Sam Claflin manages to get his shrieking out through a look of mortifying embarrassment, Patrick Stewart spends two hours wearing a badge which reads For The Money and of course Elizabeth Banks is there because there's no show without punch*¹. The action setpieces themselves are well choreographed and shot. But that's not enough.

COMMUTER

The film loops through a drawn-out, patronising cycle of Action Sequence > Outfit Change > Plot-point Exposition > Soulless Needle-drop, like being locked in Primark after hours while hiding from a hen party that are doing Stella and absinthe. Charlie's Angels is as visually, emotionally and artistically rewarding as being strapped to a chair and forced to watch all of BBC3's output simultaneously. There are noticeable rhythmic gaps in the screenplay which seem to have been left for the audience to fill with laughter, the main problem with this being that they aren't preceded with any jokes. I didn't think we'd get a worthy companion-piece to The Hustle this soon. I may have to go and see that godawful firefighter comedy now just to get this taste out of my mouth.

Still, it's some consolation to know that even Elizabeth Banks herself is suffering some disquiet over the movie. So that makes all of us.

Hey, her heart's in the right place.
But that's not enough.

Baywatch.
Although it's not C.H.i.P.s., obviously.



It is not.



It is not.



NEVER LET PATRICK STEWART FORGET THAT HE SAID OKAY TO THIS, I DON'T CARE IF HE'S LOVELY.



That's possible.



There isn't.



Level 2: Elizabeth Banks is in this and she was in those Hunger Games movies with Woody 'Beckett' Harrelson.





*¹ You can call that catty but her name appears on the poster three times, she's hard enough to take the fall for this one. ^{[ 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: My Cousin Rachel

My Cousin Rachel
Cert: 12A / 106 mins / Dir. Roger Michell / Trailer



Now I haven't read the book of this, but I watched the film with someone who has and that's the next best thing. Burgeoning suspicions as to the original narrative's flow, complexity and undertones were pretty much confirmed by the time Mrs Blackout and I had reached the top of the steps outside the cinema.

Roger Michell's heavy-handed retooling of the Daphne du Maurier mystery/romance novel (coming after several other screen versions, of course), is less of an immersive page-to-screen adaptation and more someone skim-reading the study notes. 106 minutes is by no means a lean running-time, but the tale has so much groundwork to cover that it's tonally all over the place. Characters laugh in one scene, cry in the next and are apparently head-over-heels in love before the ice has melted in your Diet Coke.

And it's not just the running time which is the problem. The film boasts an impressive cast, but they'd be more impressive elsewhere. Sam Claflin is always a joy to watch, yet Michell's script gives his character Philip nothing to emote into, instead turning into a flip-book of obsession and mania. Likewise, Rachel Weisz (as the titular Rachel, no less) is given neither the screenplay nor direction to produce the performance we know she's capable of. Holliday Grainger is completely wasted in a role which essentially becomes a hatstand with a pout, and Iain Glen has been brought in to play The Iain Glen Character™. He does that well, to his credit. Everyone else is in nondescript nineteenth century peasants' clothing, tugging forelocks all the way to the casting office.

But my biggest beef wasn't with the identikit Sunday-Night-Telly performances, sets or scripting, but the fact that this is purported to be a period-set, claustrophobic, psychological thriller mired in moral and emotional ambiguity. What I saw tonight was the director continually shouting his interpretation at the audience, because even he knows the film's too damned butchered to make proper sense of the story.

Looks pretty enough, didn't hate it, wasn't bored by it; just came to dislike both lead characters within about twenty minutes. And when you don't like the protagonists, you don't care what happens to them. You're just sloshing around your Diet Coke and wishing you had more ice…

It's a bit Far From the Madding Crowd; a bit Jane Eyre.
Not as good as one, not as bad as the other.



No, it's a Sunday night DVD at best.



I'd say no.



Lord, no.



Probably not, to be fair.



There isn't.



Level 2: Tim Barlow's in this, and he was in that Hot Fuzz alongside Simon 'Unkar/Dengar' Pegg.







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: Their Finest

Their Finest
Cert: 12A / 117 mins / Dir. Lone Scherfig / Trailer

THE END IS NIGHY?
BRIT BILL LOCKED ON COMIC COLLISION COURSE!

A TOP TEAM OF Tinsel-Town technicians has been furiously working against the clock to bring Bill Nighy safely out of auto-pilot, it has been revealed. The alarm was raised during the British charmer's latest gentle-drama, Their Finest, in which onlookers had noticed his trademark head-flick was more pronounced than usual, and his deadpan wryness had been recycled from almost every other performance he's given over the last twenty years.

PROTÉGÉ
Hollywood boffins were hoping to avert disaster by relying on the film's co-pilot, Gemma Arterton, to steer the film to safety until they noticed that the Tamara Drewe protégé was also coasting unblinkingly along, and at an alarmingly earlier point in her career. Further inspection revealed that the Nighy model actually has no other setting, an issue which has been raised with its manufacturer.

FABERGÉ
The Surrey-born thespian's love of low-maintenance comedy roles has been common knowledge to industry insiders since his breakthrough appearance in Love Actually, in which his quasi-absent minded persona was juxtaposed into a faded rock star for comic effect. But since Richard Curtis was ostensibly left in charge of the star's appearances, critics and audiences alike are worried that comedy/drama dual-carriageway of Bill's acting career will soon merge into a single-lane ring-road. But with no exits.

Concerns about Nighy's ability to appropriately choose roles were voiced during the star's previous comedic outing, Dad's Army, in which the veteran actor completed a 100 minute character cover-version without once performing as anyone other than Bill Nighy™. When asked if he could justify making these choices in the 21st century, the 67yr old reportedly replied "Yeah, but the money..?".

DENIM
Meanwhile, BBC Films has claimed they have no choice but to let the 117-minute litany of earnest tweeness and irony-free faux spiritual propaganda run its course, hoping for as few casualties as possible in the process. The corporation's legal team has since admitted that Their Finest's theatrical May release-date will will ensure that the subsequent DVD has dropped to around £3 in time for next year's Mother's Day in-store displays, a position it will then inhabit permanently.

One studio insider told us "I don't know what we'll do if Bill Nighy actually crashes this time. Well, other than offer his planned future roles to Jim Broadbent. Obviously."

My Week With Marilyn, Singin' In The Rain, Inglourious Basterds, Atonement.



Not unless you need to see the film immediately.
It's sort of a Sunday-afternoon-DVD, to be fair.



Just about, although I suspect it's taking massive liberties with the actual events which inspired it to create a neat story (not completely un-ironic considering the story is about a film company taking massive liberties with actual events to create a neat story).



No, but this is a strong cast, to be fair.
Despite my sarcasm.



Nah.



There is.
It's slowed (and therefore pitched) down a little, but it's there.



Level 2: In case you hadn't picked it up, Bill Nighy is in this film. No, really.
He was also in Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest alongside Keira 'Sabé' Knightley.



It's actually not a bad film, but it's slightly forgettable, completely twee and infuriatingly self-satisfied. And I just couldn't give Nighy a free ride on this one.


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: Me Before You

Me Before You
Cert: 12A / 110 mins / Dir. Thea Sharrock / Trailer



Well, thanks a bunch. This is how Karma repays me for daring to venture out of my comfort-zone and take a punt on a movie which wouldn't normally appeal. I can't remember the last time I was patronised for so long and with such brutal, cinematic efficiency. Thea Sharrock's screen adaptation of Jojo Moyes' weepy-bestseller could only be more twee if the cast were replaced by kittens wearing unicorn costumes, nibbling on cupcakes while The Archers played in the background.

The story of the soulful, burgeoning romance between Will Traynor, a quadriplegic former business-whizz and Louisa Clark, his pro-level Ditzy™ hired-companion is headed up by Emilia Clarke, who deftly weaves between giving me motion-sickness by acting entirely with her eyebrows, and inducing a migraine with a succession of garish outfits*¹, the likes of which bellow "Look at how UNIQUE I am!!" before she's even walked around the corner. Her simpering performance is further hampered by a screenplay which has the audacity to stop and explain itself every ten minutes, and a one-dimensional supporting cast spouting vacuous clichés instead of dialogue.

Perhaps ironically, the only person to escape more or less unscathed here is Sam Claflin, as the wheelchair-bound Will, struggling to come to terms with disability two years after a road-accident, despite having the best facilities and physical support that money can buy. Claflin is on very solid form here, and certainly believes he's in a far better film. This helps his performance no end, but does nothing for his co-stars. Sadly, the film isn't really interested in the only interesting character it has, and we can only imagine the turmoil he's been going through (by which I mean that we can only imagine this because it's explained, but not really shown).

Maybe I expected a film which would explore the psychology of disability for a mainstream audience. But this isn't a film about Will. This is a film about Lou, who manages to end her journey every bit as directionless and self-absorbed as she began it. If this whole thing is a post-modern experiment of social juxtaposition, intended to demonstrate to an able-bodied audience what it's like to be endlessly condescended to, then well done.

Thanks, Karma.
In the next twenty four hours I'll be sitting watching three X-Men movies back to back, and I'm going to gleefully savour every. single. punch.



Banging yourself over the head with a tin tray for an hour and a half.



This is a DVD, even for its target audience.



If you're in its target audience, I imagine it does, yes.



No.



Yes.



No.



Level 2: Emilia Clarke is in Game of Thrones, of course*², along with Gwendoline 'Phasma' Christie. Oh, that the bodycount was anywhere near as high in this film...





*¹ The film makes a point of repeatedly telling the audience how hard-up Clarke's working class family is, and that she's only taking the job to support them. This, despite her having costume-change for every single scene and never wearing the same item of clothing twice. Given that the fusty village she lives in is populated by people who wear beige crimplene as a fashion statement, it's staggering to think how much of her family's much-needed money she's spending on looking like An Australian's Nightmare™. Why do so many films automatically translate "quirky" as "annoying"?

*² And is, ironically, one of the few things I enjoyed about the episodes of GoT I managed to get through.

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: The Huntsman - Winter's War

The Huntsman: Winter's War (3D)
Cert: 12A / 117 mins / Dir. Cedric Nicolas-Troyan / Trailer



Why, it was only a week ago that I pondered the increasing phenomenon of the 'Monday Movie Release', positing that it could be a way of further boosting a film's opening-weekend takings. Naturally I'd assumed the same of The Huntsman: Winter's War until I sat down in the cinema after work this evening and quickly realised that last friday was of course April Fools' Day, and would have too telling a move, even for Universal Pictures...

Two worrying things occurred before we even got to the BBFC Title Card. First up was a pre-trailer advert for the upcoming N*ckelb*ck UK tour. Oh, this movie is intended for N*ckelb*ck fans. Or vice-versa, I'm not sure which is worse. Secondly, the final trailer to run before The Huntsman: Winter's War was for... The Huntsman: Winter's War. Yes, this film had a trailer for itself before it. Not only is this a) utterly pointless and b) utterly narcissistic, it's also the trailer which actually gives away the closest thing the movie has to a third-act plot-reveal. So if anyone present had been avoiding spoilers in anticipation, the film's own distributor has made sure they've wasted their time.

[Update #1: 05 April] It appears that the trailer-incident was unique to the cinema I was in. I don't know the exact details, but it sounds like it wasn't planned, anyway. This is fair enough, really; a mis-selected trailer reel makes far more sense than a misplaced marketing decision.
Besides, worse things have happened.

But you didn't come all the way over here to read me banging on about gripes outside the run-time of TH:WW, did you? Oh, no! Right, deep breath…

Using 2012's Snow White and the Huntsman as its central anchor, this film is part prequel, part sequel. This time, rather than just banging the coconuts of Twilight and Lord of the Rings together, someone at Universal Studios has realised that there's now a shit-ton of Game of Thrones and Frozen to rip off, too! So in the pot they go, stir until dissolved and serve with a side-garnish of the rope-bridge from Indiana Jones and the net-trap from Return of the Jedi.

But before all that, this excruciating pantomime of slapdash plotting and digitally-simulated sentiment kicks off with a lead-weight narration to explain the things that visual storytelling can't, and enough lensflare and soft-focus to cover any other cracks which may be left showing. Charlize Theron (The Bad Queen™) starts as she means to go on, putting on two and a half stones in weight due to the amount of scenery she chews throughout production, flanked by her screen-sibling Emily Blunt (The Ice Queen™) whose eyes seem to plead a desperate apology every time she looks at the camera (alarmingly frequently), delivering her clunky, stilted lines. "Where are the days when I could be relied upon to pick challenging, meaningful or just engaging roles?" she asks. The audience briefly remembers that she also appeared in Into The Woods and bellows "BEHIND YOU!".

So, the pre-amble is set, the story (…) moves to a certain point, then the events of Snow White are glossed over with a "seven years later" caption-card and it's time for the next act...

[Oh, Snow White's alive during all this by the way. She's mentioned several times, just not shown other than in brief archival footage from the first film. Yeah, imagine what state your screenplay must be in when you can't even get Kristen Stewart to poke her head around the door and lend a little continuity. With Theron only surfacing in the first and third acts, it's a good job McThor was willing to reprise his role…]

Ah, the pièce de résistance! Headlining the film are Chris Hemsworth and Jessica Chastain. The former has retained his inexplicable Scottish accent from the first installment (his home-region in the highlands being somewhere between Cardiff and Gateshead apparently), and as Chastain plays his childhood sweetheart, clan-mate and love-interest, she also has a Scotch-Twang to match (although hers seems to be based around Dublin and Mumbai). I'd be lying if I said I didn't snort out loud with Hemsworth's first utterance (cue a sharp nudge from Mrs Blackout), and I'd be lying if I said I genuinely wanted subtitles for their dialogue, as I lost so much of it due to the vocal stumbling. Interestingly enough, watching Australian Hemsworth struggling with a Scottish accent isn't completely dissimilar to Scotsman Gerard Butler doing battle with an American one. They should definitely make a movie together.

[Clarification: And I know, obviously, that the story isn't set in the real world, so I wouldn't necessarily expect the accents to have geographical authenticity. But we, the audience, are in the real world, and we, the audience need to be able to understand what they, the characters are talking about at any given moment. So, y'know…]

Meanwhile, the actual (ie intended) comic-relief comes in the form of Nick Frost as the only dwarf to return from the first film, accompanied by his screen-cousin Rob Brydon sporting a Welsh accent (because he's actually Welsh; casting-directors, take note) and their respective counterparts Sheridan Smith and Alexandra Roach. The laughs are a little broad, but there's no denying that the sections of the film starring the dimunitive foursome move with a sureness that's sorely lacking from the rest of it.

And speaking of which, the main thread of the movie is Jock McHuntsman's quest to retrieve The Mirror (y'know, the Snow White Mirror-Mirror, mirror) from a goblin fly-tipping site, discovering in the process that the reflective golden dish has gone from being the Russell's Grant Horoscope Column we all know and love, and is now something closer to Necronomicon Ex Mortis, apparently. Even the characters' motivation for this task is clouded, since apparently it's sending Snow White a bit mad/evil and she wants it back, but the Ice Queen wants it as well because she wasn't evil enough to begin with. They're basically screwed whoever they give it to; a premise which makes up the film's final, borderline-animated, act. The rest is shrieking, grunting and a poly-count that illustrates where the budget really went...

Now obviously I was predisposed to being cynical toward this film, but The Huntsman: Winter's War really is an almighty mess. The melee-fight with the Goblin king was pretty great and Charlize Theron's clearly having a whale of a time, but everyone else just seems embarrassed to be there, as well they should. The first film was a rights-dodging retool of a classic tale; the sequel is Universal shouting too loud, and with nothing to say…

[Update #2: 05 April] Contains spoilers: highlight-to-read. Okay, usually when I hit Publish on a review, I've got any ranting out of my system and I can just move on. But TH:WW has continued to annoy me throughout the following day and I don't feel I've made my disdain for the film clear enough. My main issue with its predecessor was that it adapted a classic fairy-tale, but in a very loose manner which managed to twist any moral framework (that framework being precisely what fairy-tales are built on, the biblical-parables of their historical generation), and instead actually send out a counter-intuitive message.

The sequel however, calls itself a fairy-tale (at several points within the film, via the narrator) yet has no discernible moral message. The story, on a purely surface level you understand, keeps repeating the idea that The Ice Queen has "banned" love in her kingdom, and that the burgeoning relationship between Mr and Mrs Huntsman is the catalyst which can't be surprised and will be the weapon with which justice and peace are restored.

In any literary version of the story, Mr and Mrs Huntsman's love would save the day at a crucial point, where any other potential hero/heroine was left floundering, having learned the lesson that brute force won't win all battles and that sometimes understanding and forgiveness are more powerful. How is the happy ending achieved here? While The Bad Queen is stabbing McThor with her sharp tentacles of hate (don't ask), Mrs Huntsman - incapacitated on the floor as The Girl One must always be - yells to him "Hey, try twatting the mirror with that axe you've been carrying around for the whole movie!". So he twats the mirror with the axe, it shatters, so does The Bad Queen and then The Ice Queen (also stabbed, also incapacitated) manages to slay alive long enough to say "Oh, I might have been wrong about that 'banning-love' thing." while McThor and Mrs Huntsman just sort of nod quietly. Love didn't save the day, here. Twatting a giant mirror with an axe to stop a shrieking zombie psychopath queen is what saved the day.
That's not an inspiring morality-play, it's a fucking Vin Diesel movie.

The Huntsman: Winter's War isn't a fairy-tale; it's half an idea for a cash-in sequel, poorly told in an array of non-accents. Universal Studios' contempt for their own customers grows more vivid with each release.

And this film is for fans of N*ckelb*ck…

Being beaten around the head with a tin tray for two hours while someone tries to remember the plot of Frozen at the top of their voice.



Only for the shiny CGI.



Nope.



Nope.



I just might.



Nope.



Level 1: Jessica Chastain in A Most Violent Year with Poe Dameron? Chris Hemsworth in those Avengers movies with Mace Windu? Well how about Emily Blunt starring with Obi-Wan or Nick Frost being in loads of things with Unkar Plutt?

No.

This film shares uncredited extra Nick Donald with Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Sure, there are loads of level-2s that are fish in a barrel, but I think it's important to remember that there was at least one person on set who should have known better and could have stopped the production in its tracks by pointing to the script and screaming "Yeah, but WHY?".
Maybe next time, Nick...





*¹ I don't even have any footnotes. I poured all my bile, scorn and sarcasm into the main body of text, up there. You're reading this bit for naught, I'm afraid. Mind you, while you're down here I'll just mention that I was quite amused at the film using the term 'wanker'. Sure, it's probably more than you'd expect from a 12A, but bear in mind that you can usually get an in-context fuck-word into the script at that level. What amused me more is that US screenwriters really don't seem to have cottoned on to how that word is used in the UK, bless them. It's mentioned on the BBFC site, and I wouldn't expect the rating to change for it, but I think there'll be more than a few terse comments about its inclusion.


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.