Category: Film

The Cold Light Of Day / Battleship

Starting to get back on form with a two-film evening, making three this week so far. Kicking off with…

The Cold Light Of Day

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Young man’s family go missing, but who’s to blame and who’s on his side trying to get them back?

See it if you like: Moderately low-budget Euro-thrillers

It’s always good to see Sigourney Weaver putting in an appearance and in this Spanish-set thriller she’s as much of a bitch as you’ve ever seen her. Alongside Bruce Willis, who’s in a hell of a number of films this summer, and new-ish star Henry Cavill (soon to don the blue, red and yellow of Superman)  the group tear up Madrid in this conspiracy thriller.

Dragged to Spain on holiday with his parents while his company goes under, Will Shaw (Cavill) gets in a bit of a strop and wanders off. Upon his return, he finds his family missing and a mysterious man rather interested in taking him in, too.

It turns out papa (Willis) isn’t a harmless government office bod after all, but a CIA agent in charge of a briefcase that quite a few people are very much desperate to get hold of. Desperate enough to kidnap his family, in fact.

Things take a turn for the worse by the end of the first reel and we’re left wondering as much as Shaw who can be trusted and who can’t.

The action scenes are gritty and the acting good from all the leads, although there are a few “twists” which are about a surprising as finding a cornflake in a packet marked “Cornflakes”. It’s got that very typical European feel to it, with the car chase scenes being very twisty turny rather than full of enormous explosions.

If I had a problem with it, it was the sound. This could have been due to the print or the cinema, but it sounded as if I was listening through earmuffs and made some of the dialogue very hard to make out. It suspends reality a little too much in quite a few areas, too – the falls and gunshots are lovely and brutal but the characters simply shouldn’t be getting up and walking after some of them!

Overall, it’s not too bad. Short and snappy like a short story, a decent plot and some good acting. No classic, but well filmed and worth seeing if you’re between other films.

Battleship

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Aliens attack and this time it’s the navy’s turn to save the world.

See if it you like: Switching your brain to neutral and enjoying yourself. A lot.

I will say this now – Avengers Assemble has something to live up to. Battleship was so good that it’s already tainting my view of films I’ve not seen yet.

Remember that feeling you had when you first watched Armageddon or The Rock? Yeah, it’s like that. All the way through. Big, silly, overblown, funny, over the top, cheesy, exciting… it’s all of these and more.

Alex (Taylor Kitsch) and Stone Hopper (Alexander Skarsgard) are brothers, the former a waster and the latter an up-and-comer in the US Navy. After an amusing opening twenty minutes or so, Stone forces his brother to sign up in the navy and we skip forward an undetermined length of time to the present day.

Serving under Admiral Shane (Liam Neeson), the daughter of whom (played by Brooklyn Decker) Alex is dating, the pair are involved in an international naval manoeuvre when aliens respond to a signal we sent… by dropping some smegging huge missile-toting machines into the Pacific. Erecting a force field around the area, they cut a handful of ships and an island off from the rest of the world and start their plot to take over Earth. As aliens are wont to do.

Oh, they also blow **** up and sink ships and invade and stuff, too. All good fun.

The key story is split into two parts – the actions of Hopper Jr as he makes good on his wasted early life, and a small group on the island who take on the marauding aliens hand-to-hand. This group consists of Shane’s daughter, a mad scientist and a retired double amputee soldier played by Mick Canales – an actual retired double-amputee soldier. In fact, he’s not the only real veteran to play a part in the film. A sizeable group of retired sailors feature as well.

The board game of Battleships seems a weird film license, but they actually manage to shoehorn in the gameplay, believe it or not. They don’t, however, manage to get someone to utter the immortal phrase “You sank my battleship!” which is a shame. The thing is, it doesn’t matter.

Battleship is over two hours of hugely enjoyable explosions, one-liners, cheesy sequences, explosions, special effects, monsters, explosions… And some stuff blowing up.

It is completely silly and over the top, but it never makes any attempt to take itself seriously so all the nonsense is completely forgiveable. Even the complete disregard for the laws of physics. It falls very much into the Fast Five camp on that score.

I loved this film. I don’t know if it would bear a repeat viewing, but it’s definitely worth seeing on the big screen.

 

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Wrath of the Titans

A second try at this review as WordPress somehow deleted the one I’d finished last night just as I was about to post it. Damn you WordPress.

After putting the chocolate-encrusted kids to bed we checked the cinema times and found one we could catch without too much of a rush. Hence heading out to see…

Wrath of the Titans

“Follow the Navigator.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Bad guys try to release their daddy, who will rip the universe a new one. Hero has to stop him.

See it if you like: No-brainer effects-driven fantasy fests

It annoys me how Hollywood insists on making sequels to complete messes while ignoring decent fare which is crying out for a continuation of the story. For every Conan (siring a follow-up I believe), there’s a Percy Jackson or a Vampire’s Assistant cut off in its prime. While the original version of Clash of the Titans was a standalone masterpiece, the 2010 re-working was complete crap.

Wrath is actually a little better, perhaps helped by the fact that I had low expectations. The story is simple enough – Perseus (Sam Worthington) is back and doing the dirty work of his father Zeus (Liam Neeson) again. This time, there are only a few gods left as the humans have stopped praying to them. Along with Zeus are Ares (Édgar Ramírez), Poseidon (Danny Huston) and Hades (Ralph Fiennes).

Hades hatches a plan to re-awaken their dad, Kronos, for reasons I forget but the upshot of which is that the humans will be punished by having their entire universe ripped apart. As you do if you’re a pissed-off deity who’s been shoved into captivity for a few millennia.

Helping Perseus are Agenor, the son of Poseidon (played by Toby Kebbell) and Andromeda (eye candy in the shapely form of Rosamund Pike). There’s also a wonderful turn from the ever-excellent Bill Nighy as Hephaestus, armourer to the gods.

My main problem with Clash wasn’t actually the poor acting and abysmal dialogue. It was the awful special effects which looked cartoony in places and simply didn’t work with the live-action footage into which they were embedded. They were about as realistic as Gene Kelly dancing with Jerry Mouse.

Wrath has had better luck in this area with particular credit due to the team who worked on the fire and lava effects. The major scenes at the start and end of the film are very well done with suitably huge missiles and explosions. I think even Michael Bay would nod in approval at the fireworks. Best of the monsters, in my opinion,  are the whirling conjoined nasties in the final sequence. Nice and evil and slashing about so quickly you can’t pick out any problems with them.

The plot isn’t up to much – gather three objects and combine them to form one big weapon with which to defeat the inevitable huge bad guy at the end – but it works. It’s all predictable enough, but what film isn’t these days? The characters are a decent collection, though Andromeda doesn’t add anything to the story other than a) the ability to gather an army what with being a warrior queen and b) something pretty to look at.

Don’t expect too much and you won’t be disappointed.

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21 Jump Street

A little behind the times due to being so busy, but we finally made the time for a cinema visit and squeezed in the 2011 update of an old TV series:

21 Jump Street (2012)

“When did I get stabbed? That’s awesome!”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Two high school opposites find themselves on the same undercover squad when they join the police… and get sent back to high school

See it if you like: no-brainer, low-brow, side-aching silliness

Jonah Hill had a hand in writing this reworking of the 80’s TV series as well as starring as Schmidt, the fat (but smart) loser. Channing Tatum is square-jawed and knuckle-dragging as his exact opposite, the popular jock who can’t scrape the grades to pass his tests.

The characters and set-up are breezed through very quickly indeed at the start of the film, which is welcome given the fact that it’s hardly original. From high school rivals to police academy buddies in less than five minutes. With a line in humour similar to that found in Hot Tub Time Machine it similarly comes very clean about its lack of originality in a speech by the guys’ captain as the plot is being pushed along.

Kicked from the front line into undercover work, they find themselves thrown back into high school to try and uncover a drugs plot. Throw in a bit of confusion which results in Hill’s Schmidt becoming Mr popular while beefcake Jenko ends up being the nerd, and the laughs genuinely roll in.

It’s not high level humour and it doesn’t ever pretend to be. It’s fairly predictable, but it is also marvellously silly. The two actors work well together and there are some decent little twists in the story to keep you entertained waiting for the next gag or use of the word “****”.

There is absolutely nothing new in 21 Jump Street but it doesn’t matter. It’s funny and entertaining. The theatre was rocking with laughter and we left with big smiles on our faces. What more could you want from a comedy?

Oh, it also has a nice little surprise at the end. See if you can avoid any spoilers before you see it!

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Safe House

By إبن البيطار (Own work) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsHaving not been to the cinema for around 2 months, Gillian and I managed to get through enough work at the weekend to free up a couple of hours after we’d put Little Mister to bed. Checking the times, we plumped for:

Safe House

“Time’s a-wasting. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock…”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Spy comes in from the cold to a frosty reception

See it if you like: Very slow-boiling spy thrillers. VERY slow.

The quote above is very apt as the film really is a waste of time. Lots of it. Or at least so it seems after the opening 20 minutes or so. I actually thought it was nearer 2.5 hours long than the actual 2 hours when we left.

OK, so step back and what’s it about? Ryan Reynolds – man of the moment – plays Matt Weston, a new CIA employee. In the equivalent role of a filing clerk, he’s charged with looking after a “safe house“; a location that can be used to stash an agent or prisoner away from prying eyes without anyone knowing where they are. This particular safe house is in Johannesburg which acts as our main setting for the film.

The opening is very cloak and dagger as Denzel Washington‘s Tobin Frost sets the scene as the rogue agent with some kind of secret file that the bad guys want to get their hands on. He ends up in the hands of the CIA who place him in Weston’s safe house… which turns out not to be so safe after all.

The film never quite reaches “buddy buddy” status – Weston and Frost are on opposite sides of the table, so to speak – but Frost does spend his time alternating between treating Weston like crap and trying to convince him that his bosses are the bad guys. Thing is, it’s just so damn slow getting to the point.

Weston has a romance with a French girl who lives locally and if anyone can tell me what the film would be missing (other than about 15 minutes of footage) if she wasn’t in it, please let me know. I honestly can’t figure out why they bothered.

The set action pieces are quite good, though the car crashes (bar the initial daytime chase) actually get a little repetitive. The ending, without giving anything away, isn’t exactly a shock either. The plot has about as many twists and turns as a NASCAR track. You couldn’t see the “surprise” revelation of the evil mastermind more clearly in advance if it was spray-painted fluorescent pink and had a big sign above its head.

This may have been better if it ran for 90 minutes instead of 120, but the story would still have been dull.

Not one to scramble to see before it gets withdrawn from theatres for DVD release. In fact, skip the DVD as well.

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The Sitter / Haywire

By إبن البيطار (Own work) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsYay for mothers-in-law. A babysat evening allowed us to cram two films in at the local Cineworld. Unfortunately, one of them wasn’t The Darkest Hour which Cineworld Parkhead had decided to shove on for a single 2D performance a day. At lunchtime. And they can get bent if they think I’ll waste money on a 3D performance.

The Sitter

“I’m more of a ‘sit on the couch, do what I say or I’ll kill you’ type of babysitter.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: College dropout is forced into babysitting three troublesome kids. A night of chaos/hilarity/adventure ensues.

See it if you like: Probably stuff like Adventures in Babysitting or Role Models.

Jonah Hill is somewhat like Seth Rogan in that he always plays the same character. He’s toned down a little for this one, probably as it’s got a young cast. Mind you, any movie with a young girl saying “****** up” is going to score giggle points.

It’s not a new plot – there were at least two films with a similar story released in the 1980’s – but it’s still a good little story. Hill plays Noah Griffith, a college dropout whose father walked out on him when he was a youngster and who now lives with his mother. Our story opens (after some oral sex shennanigans) as Noah is convinced to baby sit so that his mother can go out and hook up with someone who might make her happy.

Of course, the kids he’s to look after turn out to be a bit of a handful. And, of course again, he has to end up in some dodgy situation that places them all in danger. Like, I don’t know, being hunted by a drug dealer and his boby-building henchmen. The usual.

Throw in a wobbly bit of romance, a ton of swearing and a little bit of “finding himself” and you have a shade over 80 minutes of fairly entertaining schmaltz.

Gillian thought it was a little slow, but I was fine with it. Not great, not bad but far better than I expected it to be.

Haywire

“You want me to be eye candy?”

Plot-in-a-nutshell – female secret agent finds herself being used as part of a dodgy bit of work, so goes rogue to try and find the culprit. I think.

See it if you like – weak thrillers with top-notch fight scenes

Steven Soderbergh is known for making high-end “classy” films, and he turns himself to the spy thriller genre for this 2-hour plodge. It’s well-filmed with some excellent fight scenes, but overall the plot doesn’t match up to the cinematography.

The cast is superb and it is well-acted. Gina Carano is both hot and tough as Mallory, the CIA contractor who finds that things weren’t quite what they seemed in her last mission. The story starts with her recalling events to … I’m not sure. Some random she seems to have met in a coffee shop. I don’t think we actually find out who he is. This takes up the first 45 minutes or so of the film and then we step into the present day.

Now I’m not sure if the plot is as complex as the more upmarket reviews make out. Certainly, I didn’t go “wow” at the supposed twist at the end. Partly as I didn’t quite get it (I was tired – Friday night after a long week) and partly as I’d stopped caring. The story just didn’t grab me the way a more action-oriented film would have and I just had a feeling that I’d seen it all before.

Admittedly it is well filmed. It looks lovely and makes good use of non-famous areas of cities such as Barcelona. Alleyways and regular streets rather than landmarks. The fight scenes are superb, not just in their vicious nature but by the toning down of the sounds. Gone are the usual Hollywood smacks and bass thuds with each punch. Instead each fist lands with a dull thwack which sounds a lot more realistic.

I think we both agreed with the person behind us when the trailers started to roll. He turned to the person next to him and stated, “Well, that was crap.” Typically Soderbergh in that the film magazines trip over themselves to rate it highly when the general cinema-going public would, I feel, be more entertained watching something like RED.

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