Now, I'm not saying that Pacific Rim: Uprising is derivative of vast swathes of pop culture, but it opens with John Boyega living in a post-war wasteland, scavenging derelict hulks for parts which he can trade for food, while fighting off other wasters trying to do the same. Or to put it more simply, Finn is Rey now. And not even the cool kickass Rey, but the Rey in a vaguely unambitious spinoff comic.
So after a botched attempt at retrieving a power cell (or something) from the shell of a destroyed Jaeger robot-suit, we move to FinnJake having a bit of a rumble in a mini-Jaeger courtesy of Cailee Spaeny's Amara, then they're both picked up by the robot police and escorted to military school for some Ender's-Game-style 'no, we have to train the kids to do it' antics, some Iron-Man-2-style 'automated defence technology is clearly a terrible idea' capers, and some Lethal-Weapon-style reluctant buddy-cop shenanigans with Scott Eastwood, the appearance of whom makes the audience start pining for the emoting ability of a 500 foot tall armoured war machine.
Pacific Rim: Uprising is, make no bones about it, A Summer Movie™. And not a particularly good one. The fact that Universal have shoved the film out in March suggests much about their faith in its ability to compete in the blockbuster-marketplace. While I didn't find the script as cringe-inducing as the first installment's, the whole thing is far more boring; devoid of the corny personality which at least had a thing for massive robots last time*1.
Charlie Day and Burn Gorman return as the comic relief and closest things the screenplay has to a macguffin, their roles interacting with everyone else's to the point where they could be assembled using out-takes from 2013. Imagine taking five years and coming up with this, though. It's like a Transformers film, if the only thing which changes is the audience's proximity to a migraine.
A two-hour effects-reel, when The Giant Robots are fighting The Giant Monsters, it's basically fine. Although for a film about giant robots fighting giant monsters, the audience spends a lot of time not watching giant robots fighting giant monsters.
Pacific Rim: Uprising is the perfect cinematic equivalent of popcorn; expensive, messy, and while it'd probably save you from starvation in a pinch - you wouldn't want to try and live off it…
*1 And I see there's still no feasible explanation of why a battle-suit shaped like one human requires two humans to control it. The whole left-brain/right-brain thing doesn't really wash when both pilots are doing largely the same things in unison, and when each of those humans manages to get around outside the suit using only one brain themselves. The mind-meld itself is an interesting concept, but imagine pairing up with Scott Eastwood for a mission. It'd be like being trapped in a flatpack wardrobe... [ 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.
You just know that Statham got the call for this. But having already progressed from the Transporter movies to a mainstay in the Fast & Furious franchise, there's no way he was taking a step back down the ladder. Clint Eastwood's boy, on the other hand, also appeared in the last F&F but has a CV which looks more like the floor-level shelf at Blockbuster. I imagine everything after that just fell into place.
Overdrive is the tale of half-brothers*1 Andrew (Scott Eastwood) and Garrett Foster (Freddie Thorp), a pair of car-thieves eking a living by liberating rare vintage models from their lawful owners. When a job in the south of France runs into difficulties, the brothers devise a plan to play one buyer of hot-wheels off against the other, for which they'll need the help of hustlers Stephanie (Ana de Armas) and Devin (Gaia Weiss). What could possibly go wrong..?
This is the movie that's so fast it missed the signs saying >> Straight to Video >>.
It's a film for people who become genuinely aroused looking at classic cars and who wouldn't know a tight script if it bit them on the arse. Anything outside of the actual car chases has plot developments and dialogue so clunky that you'd swear the film was storyboarded with Lego. To be fair, there's little to actively to hate in here, but only because it's not that interesting.
Eastwood has clearly pinned his repertoire on the strong/silent archetype, meaning he's not the one who explains the plot developments every fifteen minutes. Which means a lot - a lot - of this is left to Freddie Thorp, who drops the narrative ball every time it's passed to him in. He limps through the film like an enthusiastic, second-tier boyband member who's won a walk-on part in a competition then been handed the wrong script. At least, for once, Scott Eastwood isn't the worst thing in a movie. And you needn't worry about any of the classic-cars getting trashed; the filmmakers seem too scared of making middle-aged men in the audience cry for that to happen.
That poster is a bit disconcerting, too. "From the maker of Taken", it boasts. This movie is directed by Antonio Negret, who has precisely not fuck nothing to do withTaken. However, the actual director of Taken - one Pierre Morel - is a producer of Overdrive. Someone who, and I'm generalising here, organises and interferes rather than brings any grand vision to the set. And he's this, along with ten other people. Which is a bit like saying "From the maker of Grace of Monaco" just because Adrian Politowski's name is attached to the project as well. I know this is a standard industry move - it still hacks me off. It's a lazy gimmick for a lazy audience*2.
But y'know what? At 93 minutes Overdrive doesn't outstay its welcome, the scenery is gorgeous*3, the cars are shiny and the chase-cinematography is executed efficiently. And that's what's important here, right?
It's got a fairly low-key release, so that probably won't be a decision you have to make.
*shrug*
It's not the worst.
Nah.
There isn't.
Level 2: Scott Eastwood's in this (every scene, pretty much), and he was also in 2014's Fury alongside Jason 'Inquisitor' Isaacs.
*1 I particularly like the way that Andrew and Garrett mention to each other that they're brothers/half-brothers approximately every three minutes, in precisely the same way that actual, real-life brothers don't. [ BACK ]
*2 There were two late arrivals for this screening. One 20 minutes into the film, the other 25. Now, given that there are 27 minutes of ads and trailers between the time on the board outside and the BBFC card appearing on-screen, that means these people were arriving 47 minutes+ after the ticket time. Which is fucking insane, frankly. I get antsy if I miss the first minute of a film because any establishing plot-point could have happened then. And while this is hardly the best movie for that example (yeah, they hadn't missed that much, to be fair), the point still stands. The only explanation other than monumental rudeness is that the stragglers were people who'd come out of a film further down the corridor and thought they'd chance their arm sneaking into another auditorium. Which is even worse... [ BACK ]
*3 That's not a euphemism for bikini-clad eye candy (which is at a welcomely surprising minimum here), I mean that the film's setting, Marseille, looks absolutely stunning. [ 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.
David Ayer's 1940s grimace-fest is a difficult film to like, and I mean that as both a compliment and a detraction. So much time is spent in the first act illustrating what a bunch of a-holes Brad Pitt's war-weary tank crew have become, that when the shit really hits the fan and the man-hugs start breaking out, you've still got the abiding memory of a bunch of borderline sociopaths dampening the emotional atmosphere. Strangely, it was only two days ago that I re-stumbled across the phrase 'no characters think of themselves as the bad guy; they're all the heroes in a different movie'. It seems that in Fury, almost the opposite is true, and writer/director Ayer is so keen to illustrate the morally corrosive effect of sustained warfare that no-one in the film escapes with their halo intact.
But Fury isn't an ode to the pointlessness of war (not on the surface, at least), even if it does veer as closely to War Horse as it does Inglourious Basterds. And while I'm on the subject, allow me to throw in a pre-emptive yes, I'm comparing it to Tarantino's war-movie. Ayer's flick stars Brad Pitt in a role that's not a million miles away from Lt. Aldo Raine, and like its counterpart it has a tendency to drop into extended dialogue scenes. This, however, is where Uncle Quentin has the undeniable upper-hand. David Ayer seems far more interested in directing brutal and bloody violence than he does the quiet, character-building scenes, which pretty much gives the lie to any philosophical undertones the film might be suggesting…
Praise where it's due, the combat scenes in Fury (whether they're melee, firearm or artillery-based) are fucking astounding. Seriously. The sound-design details every ping, bang, ricochet and thudding explosion; the visual effects feature a rotoscoping for the gunfire which reminded me of the original-print version of 1977's Star Wars; and Roman Vasyanov's camera captures every twitch, scowl and grimace on the faces of a not-inconsiderable cast. The central players all do a solid job of giving complex performances*1, but there are hints of character which are drowned out by the explosions, and which could have been expanded far more given the opportunity.
When it's being a war-movie, Fury wears its title on its sleeve like a well-earned medal. It's the other film I had issues with. The one which is trying to justify lingering repeatedly on the unrelenting violence by giving us mumbled dialogue and skipping over the exposition of a narrative so linear that the tanks barely need to steer. The film which has its knowingly-flawed characters preach about the evils of the enemy for two hours leading up to a finale where there are no heroes, just a thinly-justified slaughter. Maybe that's the point? But I wasn't convinced that the film was an essay on duty, resignation and combat-stress. It's having far too much fun playing soldiers to be thoughtful.
Despite all my moaning, I enjoyed Fury, I'm just not sure what the writer is trying to say with it…
It's pretty much the size of it, but the trailer doesn't indicate the film's pacing issues (for obvious reasons).
For the most part, but I wasn't feeling the emotion.
Personally, I don't think it does.
You'll get the most out of Fury by seeing it big and loud in the cinema.
Nope.
Probably, yes.
There is. I'd be amazed if there wasn't, frankly.
How are things coming along with that Wolfenstein movie? I'm getting impatient, here...
*1 Oh, and hello to Jason Isaacs.
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.
