Review: Wild Rose

Wild Rose
Cert: 15 / 100 mins / Dir. Tom Harper / Trailer



Well that's a trailer for a much stronger movie, right there. I wish Wild Rose was less pedestrian. I freely admit that I know little-to-nothing about Country*¹, but the music in Wild Rose - the glue which is supposed to hold the whole thing together - feels processed and sanitised to the point of utter blandness. It's admittedly a pretty good fit for the rest of the film.

DAMNEDEST

Now I don't mind 'crowd-pleasing', but director Tom Harper has tried his damnedest to strip any emotional drama out of Nicole Taylor's screenplay and in that respect has succeeded admirably. Harper can't seem to focus on the inner character of Rose, getting caught up instead in the cycle of bad decisions and her abrasive exterior. The feeling seeps through that for a story written by a woman and about the dynamics between three women, the film feels an awful lot like it's directed by a man, somehow. The whole thing just comes off like an ITV drama which bills itself as 'grim' when it's actually just humourless.

In the 'up' beats of the first two acts, the edge is taken off somewhat by the overwhelming certainty that some third-act tears are in the post. But when these arrive, they're neither as heartfelt, harrowing or meaningful as the story really needs*². The only character who feels real in all of this is Rose herself; desperately flawed and unmistakably human. Unfortunately, she's not enough to carry the rest of the film. Jessie Buckley is magnificent in the title role of course (although this is probably because Jessie Buckley would be magnificent reading a takeaway menu), at once both awe-inspiring and terrifying. Again.

CLASHEDEST

But Wild Rose isn't as edgy as it would like you to think, and although the story can barely conceal its fairytale roots, it's not as inspirational either. Despite the desaturated suburban backdrop, this isn't Twin Town and it certainly isn't Trainspotting. At best, it's Billy Elliot without the joy*³. Buckley is so much better than the rest of this film it's not true*⁴. At least the week's other musical outing tells you upfront how cloyingly smug it's going to be.

Wild Rose is fine if you like that sort of thing, although I do think that sort of thing has been done much better elsewhere.

And mate, Rose is not going to be allowed into the USA on some unaccompanied, non-committal sightseeing holiday when she's just got out of prison for narcotics distribution, for actual fuck's sake...

Think of The Commitments, without the iconic soundtrack or the self-indulgent moping.



If you like beige music on a big screen, sure.



Sunday night DVD, tops.



No.



Yes.



No.



Level 1: That Private Basteren is in this.





*¹ It's notable that every mention of "Country and Western" in the script receives a petulant tut and eye-roll from the central character, yet when her prison friends shout "yer goin'a be the next Dolly Parton!" (the most clunkingly civilian of Country references next to Willie Nelson, and made by people she's known on a daily basis for two years), Rose doesn't tell them to fuck the fuck off. The fucking hypocrite. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² Spoilers, but: Rose goes to That London (a trip paid for by someone else) with no real plan and returns after achieving nothing. Then Rose goes to Nashville (a trip paid for by someone else) with no real plan and returns after achieving nothing. Rose then decides that the best thing to do is just come back home and not get ideas above her station. Because Rose realises the moment she sets foot outside of Glasgow, she's no longer special. Now, a more focused film would have relayed the message that Rose working her way up from the clubs in suburban Scotland holds more artistic integrity than just bursting into a room, starting singing and hoping to instantly get signed to a label like the lazy winner of some horrific talent show eager for adulation without effort. And that seed is there in Wild Rose, but it's implied more than stated. Which is a shame because almost everything else here is bellowed at the audience without even a hint of subtext. The craft is buried beneath the attention-seeking noise. Again, a pretty good fit all things considered. ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ Up to and including, of course, the presence of National Treasure™ Julie Walters, doing her very best here to act like National Treasure™ Julie Walters, in a film which benefits in absolutely no way from featuring National Treasure™ Julie Walters doing a Scottish accent that seems to move about 30 miles between each scene. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ Oh, and Whispering Bob Harris is in this. True story, Bob lives in one of the villages round my way and I saw him in my local Sainsbury's one night about six years ago. Bob asked a staff member where the tonic water was when he was standing in front of the tonic water. Bob then placed the contents of his basket onto the conveyor and then just left the empty basket on the conveyor. Bob left his card in the card machine after entering his PIN and went to walk off with his shopping. And as batshit crazy as all that sounds, at least it was a performance I could believe in. Bob plays 'himself' in Wild Rose and it's absolutely, toe-curlingly atrocious. I like Bob, but what the hell is he doing here? ^{[ 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: Hellboy (2019)

Hellboy
Cert: 15 / 121 mins / Dir. Neil Marshall / Trailer



Hang on, I thought we'd all agreed to stop putting King Arthur in movies for the next hundred years or so? It doesn't work. We know it doesn't work*¹. And it especially doesn't work when you open your movie with Ian McShane grasping the mantle handed to him by the departure of dear John Hurt, the faux-gravitas of his acerbic voiceover setting the scriptual bar at a clunkingly low level before stepping into the shoes of Professor Broom, erstwhile father-figure to David Harbour's Hellboy.

Born in the latter days of the Second World War from a crazed Nazi experiment to attain victory by channelling the forces of the netherworld, an infant demon has been raised to adulthood by Broom and the Bureau For Paranormal Research And Defense, now an agent for the organisation where he assists in keeping the world safe from unspeakable terrors. So far, so much like the previous two movies. But this relative harmony is shattered by the return of the Blood Queen, Nimue (Mila Jovovich), dismembered and scattered by King Arthur centuries earlier, but being gradually re-assembled for reanimation by her loyal henchman, Gruagach (Stephen Graham). Because, as with so many resurgent tyrants, she's coming back to ensure humanity's destruction...

IMAGINE

And it's even sillier than you'd imagine, somehow. As noted above, the film does not get off to a good start. Andrew Cosby's screenplay is clunky, preposterous and without a cast who can really carry off most of it. That said, within ten minutes Hellboy is all-in battling an errant demon at a Mexican wrestling match while Scorpions' Rock You Like A Hurricane plays over the top. If that's not a signpost for the weapons-grade silliness to follow, nothing is. Of course, it's at this point that the casual viewer may well think 'hang on, this has gone full 'Dusk Till Dawn' incredibly early - where is there to go from here?' The answer comes in the metaphorical form of director Neil Marshall pointing at a dial and saying "...but this film goes up to 11".

Despite this full-on action being activated from the off, the film's first act suggests that there's not really enough 'new' content here to justify a full cinematic reboot for the franchise (although it was initially slated to be an in-universe prequel). Without Guillermo Del Toro's melancholy touch*², Hellboy becomes Kingsman-meets-Nightbreed. And it turns out the differently-labelled bottle that no one asked for is the tonic we all needed.

SWEET LORD

It's difficult to un-learn Ron Perlman's anti-hero but Harbour makes this interpretation his own in short order, giving a surprisingly rounded turn (for this film) as a character with a demon's body, a hero's responsibilities and very human limitations. McShane barks his way through the script as only he can, yet he's still like Laurence Olivier compared to Milla Jovovich, gnawing her way through the scenery in full pantomime-mode. The plot structure is by now par for the course with this sort of thing, and scripting issues continue way past the opening scene-setting. It's unclear how much of this is inherent to a property which carries its corniness with more sincerity on the printed page.

But when the talking's over and it's time for action, Hellboy is good fun. Bloody good fun (and often very bloody). Perhaps more fun than someone like Guillermo knows how to have, in all honesty. It's a movie made by someone who seems to genuinely not care what the critics think; which is either the ultimate in artistic purity, or a staggering lack of self-awareness. Possibly both.

STAND TOGETHER

Basically a live-action horror cartoon, Hellboy is unapologetically schlocky. Whether this is a good or a bad thing will depend almost entirely on the viewer. Despite the many words which will be written about Marshall's project (including these), it's a film which boldly defies critical appraisal. Acutely aware of how daft it is and just not caring anyway. And is all the better for that. Marshall and Cosby initially do a solid enough job of starting things in medias res, with backstory left for the viewer to pluck from between the heavy-handed lines of conversation.

As things move on however, it becomes clear they're both buggers for an expository flashback, taking 'show-don't-tell' to startling new levels of superfluousness. They also absolutely adore a casual fuck-bomb. Hellboy more than earns its hard 15 certificate on the language alone, the vast majority of which is delivered with a very British facetiousness that may well pass over the heads international audiences*³.

Your humble correspondent went into this with no real baggage, struggled with its unwieldy nature, yet found himself grinning like an idiot by the third act. Mötley Crüe playing over a laboratory shoot-out? Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. Embrace the ridiculousness and it's one hell of a ride. There are industrial amounts of sequel-baiting going on, including mid- and end-credit stingers, but that's okay - a movie's got to at least try and leave its options open.

2019's Hellboy is demonstrably not a great film. And it's still the most gleefully excessive fun I've had in the cinema this year…

Oh, Drive Angry. Fuck yeah.



Well, me and about five other people on the planet think so.



With the best will in the world, see this BIG or don't bother.
As much as I love it, I'm not sure how it'll translate to the small screen.



I can't call that one. I absolutely loved Marshall's Dog Soldiers back in the day, but have to admit that it's not aged well.



Well it's looking that way, isn't it?



Not that I heard, but there's a shit-ton of screaming going on here, so I may well have missed it. Yet at the same time, a movie like Hellboy would wear a Wilhelm on its sleeve proudly, so let's go with 'no'.



Level 1: Well, there's a definite Taun-taun reference when they're at the chip shop, but also General Draven is in this.





*¹ Yeah, I just didn't go to see The Kid Who Would Be King, recently. Heard nothing but good things about it, yet every time I sat through the trailer in a cinema I could feel my ulcer loosening its belt another notch. That film looks custom-designed to annoy me and I see no reason to confirm that it fulfils its remit. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² While I don't actively dislike his work, Guillermo Del Toro is basically Tim Burton for film-snobs. There. I said it. ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ One of the film's low-key standouts is where Gruagach - the seven foot tall boar-headed demon with a thick Scouse accent who uses the fuck-word as punctuation - offers Nimue the Blood Queen some actual Jaffa Cakes. Fantastic stuff. This is hands-down the best product placement since Seabrook Crisps rocked up in The Fast & The Furious. ^{[ 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: After Earth

After Earth (Spoilers)
Cert: 12A / 100 mins / Dir. M. Night Shyamalan

Here's a spoilery plot synposis: A spaceship crashes on a planet and that planet is The Earth and Little Will Smith needs to get to a thing and become a warrior and fight a creature and then he gets to a thing and becomes a warrior and fights a creature while Big Will Smith watches on the television and attempts to rewire his leg.

This takes over an hour and a half.

So, once the extras have been killed off and sent home for the day, the adventure-proper begins. Big Smith and Little Smith are separated, kept in touch by a temperamental comm-link system. This results in each actor playing intercut solo scenes for the rest of the film. Big Smith can do this. Little Smith can not. Their performances are interspersed with flashbacks, exposition, and a series of Deus Ex Machina gadgets that would make 60's-era Batman's utility belt envious. There's also the pointless addition of some magic Jammie Dodgers which contain liquid air, or something. A voiceover at the start (Little Smith) explains how every plant on Earth somehow stops producing the right kind of oxygen or something, hence the Jammie Dodgers, but a combination of the weird accent*¹ and bunch of pseudo sci-fi terms meant I pretty much skipped over that bit. In fact, it's odd that a film which contains so much downtime and exposition left me wondering what the hell was going on, quite so often.

The biggest problem, for me at least, is that it's all so fucking dull. The only thing actually 'at stake' throughout the whole film is the life of the two inherently unlikeable central characters. And since I honestly didn't care if they lived or died, all dramatic tension went out of the window at the beginning. Big Smith is a cold, distant father, a by-product of years of military service and a technique called 'ghosting' whereby shutting down all emotion prevents the body from emitting pheromones, giving a tactical advantage over the human-hunting Ursa*² beasts. Little Smith, on the other hand, is a fearful snivelling cadet, eager to please his father but not equipped with the prowess or experience to do so. Having these two characters realise that they need to essentially change places in order to connect in the middle should be the backbone of the film; but instead it's like watching someone play a very generic video game with an invincibility cheat on.

Other than some interesting production design (is it any wonder their spaceship crashed, when it looks like the inside has been made out of bamboo, plastic bags and toilet-paper?), there's little to hold the attention, here. Despite the super-evolved leeches, baboons, tigers and eagles, the over-riding feeling is that none of this matters.

Jaden Smith takes 100 minutes to prove that neither charm, charisma nor acting ability are passed on genetically. Stop now, Smiths. Stop.



Not really. The trailer makes it look like something might happen.



I yawned. Does that count?



I shouldn't imagine so.



Honestly? None of these.



Yes.



No.



No.

Why, though? Seriously, why?

*¹ The accent's a sort of half-Texas, half-New-England drawl that seems to get forgotten about half way through the film. Thankfully. Although the damage is done, by then.
*² No, they're not bears. They're more like the flea-creatures from Cloverfield. Yeah, I know that 'Ursa' would suggest bears. Will Smith wrote the story. He called his own character 'Cypher Raige', for fuck's sake, what chance do the Generic Sci-Fi Creatures have?

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.