Category: Film

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (IMAX)

OK, that’s a long film title. Because Little Miss hadn’t seen any of the Harry Potter films at the cinema before, we decided to make this one a little special and took her to the IMAX to see it. Advice for future – check the performance times and get there early enough so we’re not sat off to the right of the front row…

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

“Hogwarts is threatened! Man the boundaries. Protect us!”

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 CommonsPlot-in-a-nutshell: Go read the book, you lazy arse

See it if you like: finding out what happens at the end of stories you’ve been following for 11 years and are too lazy to read a damn book.

The single biggest opening in US cinema history (possibly worldwide, too), so I’d expect you all to know about this film. But is it any good? Short answer: yes. Certainly it’s far better than Part 1 which was all character development and not a lot of incidence. How you can scene-set for 2 hours and expect kids to sit through it is beyond me.

Part 2 has a load of great action sequences in it, and – no surprise – faultless effects. The IMAX 3D is, of course, far superior to the crap you get in the mainstream cinemas and it’s used to full effect here. As I mentioned in the introduction, though, do make sure your’e sat somewhere good to make the most of it. The picture was rather strained and warped where we were.

The story definitely moves along faster than the previous movie and it’s over fairly quickly, or so it seems. As per the books, pretty much everything is nicely tied together although as you would expect there are some details missing in the adaptation.

It’s also not surprising to see that the acting has improved as the years have gone on. In the early films I could have punched Emma Watson for being so flipping gushy and annoying. Now, she’s a very accomplished actress as are the rest of the now-mature cast. Top marks go to Helena Bonham Carter for her portrayal of herself being portrayed by Hermione, though. Very well done.

Is it worth spending the extra to see this film on IMAX, though? Given the price difference between this screening and the equivalent 3D showing at a regular cinema then definitely. If you’re remotely bothered about 3D then cough up the pennies. It’s far, far, far superior. If you’re only bothered about the story then do the usual and catch it in 2D. At least there’s still an option to do so, thankfully.

There’s no point in recommending the film though. If you’ve seen the other seven then you’ll see this. You have to. If you’ve not seen them then don’t watch it. It makes no sense at all otherwise!

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Bad Teacher

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 CommonsDue to illness, lack of sleep and a hectic weekend we only managed to catch the one movie on Saturday. So sadly (or perhaps not) we forewent Bridesmaids and opted for the following instead. There’s nothing else new out this week at all that I could spot. Pretty unusual these days.

Bad Teacher

“Hold my ball sack?”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Crap teacher passes time in class while saving for a boob job

See it if you like: slightly gross-out and marginally edgy humour. Not to be confused with Bad Santa which was way funnier and far less politically correct.

The reviews for this were generally OK, which surprised me after seeing the trailer. Call me disaffected, but I’ve seen so many trailers where every joke in the film has been crammed into 2 and a half minutes that I’ve given up on a lot of comedies before I’ve seen them.

It was better than I’d hoped for, but not as good as some of the reviews have made out. Part of this is due to the trailer effect and partly as some of the jokes just aren’t that good. It’s also rather predictable. Cameron Diaz is well cast as the uncaring, dope-smoking, swearing, money-grabbing teacher who’s just looking for a rich sugar daddy. However, she’s well matched by Lucy Punch as the opposition – Miss Amy Squirrel who’s so nice you wonder why the kids haven’t ripped her apart and beaten her to death with her own dismembered arms.

Justin Timberlake makes another movie appearance and the best thing about this is it means we’re less likely to get another of his shitty albums if he spends time on screen instead. Frankly, I wasn’t too impressed with his turn in Bad Teacher – he was much better in The Social Network.

Jason Segel as the unwanted PE teacher and Phyllis Smith as the naive older teacher who just wants to be liked are both very underused characters. The scenes with Segel produce a lotof the best dialogue, while Smith’s indecisive flustering makes for some amusing viewing.

On the whole, a decent film even if it does give away a lot of our teaching secrets. Like the fact that the real reasons for getting into the jobs are the long holidays…

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Stake Land / Green Lantern

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 CommonsDespite my feeling somewhat under the weather, we managed to squeeze in two films this evening before I collapsed into a snot-soaked lump, coughing and feeling pitiful. Yes, it’s man-flu’… I sincerely hope I didn’t annoy the people near us too much. I did try to reserve my coughing and sneezing for the noisier segments of both films.

Stake Land

Plot-in-a-nutshell: A drifter adopts a young boy when his parents are killed by roaming vampires in a collapsed United States

See it if you like: bleak, post-apocalyptic movies without huge set pieces

Comparisons first of all. Stake Land is like a cross between The Road and Zombieland. It has more of the dark, depressing feel of the former, but the constantly stalking monsters of the latter – albeit vampires rather than zombies. It’s a good mixture as well. With the cast being relative unknowns (with the exception of a very well played part by Kelly McGillis – a far cry from her Top Gun days) you never know who’s going to get it in the neck – so to speak – next.

There’s no long drawn out introduction. We’re dropped right into the middle of the story, the US already in tatters and people trying to make for a mystical “new eden” in Canada. No explanation is ever given for the vampire rising, the closest we get to a back-story is the occasionally-glanced newspaper headline.

The vampires themselves are more like fast-moving zombies. In fact, I’d say they’re nearer the monsters from the 28 Days Later franchise with an added inability to face sunlight. Feral, unintelligent and all the more dangerous for it.

The never-otherwise-named “Mister” (Nick Damici) takes Martin (Connor Paolo) under his wing when the young boy’s parents are killed, and together they head north. Along the way they encounter nice people in townships which are holding out… and The Brotherhood, a collection of religious nutbags who believe the vampires have been sent by God as a means to cleanse the planet. Or somesuch.

Between these two sets of villains and the environment itself, the journey unfolds and the characters develop well. It’s not a fast-paced adventure, but neither is it as slow as the incredibly dull The Road, mentioned earlier. Certainly, we both enjoyed it and would happily recommend it. If you think it sounds like you’ll like it from what I’ve said, then you probably will.

Green Lantern

“Ring. Finger.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: jet pilot gets will-powered green ring from dying aliens and associated superpowers. Saves world (sorry if that’s a spoiler)

See it if you like: amusing superhero stories with decent special effects and tongue-in-cheek dialogue.

Green Lantern has never been a superhero I knew much about. He’s green. And he has some kind of magic (no, it’s not magic, sorry) ring which lets him fly and create stuff from the air. And his secret identity is Hal Jordan. That came in useful in a pub quiz once.

What I didn’t know is that there are 3600 Green Lanterns, one for each galactic sector. This means there are a lot of aliens in this film. Which means a lot of CGI and creativity. In fact, a fair few of the characters in the film are 100% CG constructs with the actors related to them just being vocal pieces – Michael Clarke Duncan as Kilowog and Geoffrey Rush as Tomar-Re being two examples.

The story is a typical “origins” one, being the obvious start for a franchise. I’m sure it will annoy a huge number of purists as they’ve taken many strands of Green Lantern history and interwoven them. For the layman ( that would be me), it’s resulted in a decent enough film that was worth going to see.

Ryan Reynolds is good enough in the lead, and Gillian’s main reason for going to see it especially as you see him dressed in nowt but boxers twice, and there’s a decent enough supporting cast. The effects are well done, the story decent enough and the dialogue never gets too cheesy. In fact, there are a handful of scenes with genuine laugh-out-loud moments.

A couple of points – and you could argue they’re spoiler-y but only to the tiniest amount:

1) Why do intelligent overlords always imprison evil beings instead of executing them? You’d think a group of all-wise immortals would have learned from the Zod episode that Superman went through in Superman II.

2) One moment Hal is saying “how do I know all this?” about the Green Lantern Corps (apparently the ring’s “higher functions” fill him with this background knowledge), and then three minutes later he’s having said background explained to him anyway by Tomar-Re? He already “knows” it, so what’s the point? Yes, I know the audience need to be filled in, so in that case drop the “higher function” thing and have hi know nothing at all.

Anyway.

Taken as it is – a silly superhero movie – it’s a pretty decent one. Certainly DC’s best effort outside of the Batman canon, and hopefully open to a sequel or two. In fact, hang around to the middle of the credits. Predictable though it is, that’s definitely an indicator that Green Lantern 2 may well be out in 2013.

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Senna / Last Night (sort of)

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 CommonsJust for a change, here’s a film and a half. I don’t mean, “Wow – that was a film and a half!”. I mean I saw a film then half of another one.

Senna

Plot-in-a-nutshell: documentary about the life and times of F1 racing legend Ayrton Senna using archive footage.

See it if you like: Formula 1. Or in fact, even if you don’t. It’s worth a watch either way.

I am not an F1 fan. I appreciate the technology and so forth, but I find the sport itself deathly dull. The only way you could make F1 more boring would be to take out all the corners. Well done, America, with your NASCAR nonsense. Seriously, an oval?

However, I really enjoyed this film. Senna was a lunatic – any racer or racing fan will tell you that. He drove cars past their limits and seemingly had no fear of coming to a fiery end. He was very much a genuine natural talent at what he did – and sadly didn’t get a chance to do it for as long as he or his fans would have wished. I’m assuming this isn’t a spoiler…

The film is made completely of edited archive footage. Home video, news broadcasts, race footage – you name it, it’s all used in there. Commentary is provided by overdubbed speech from the time or more recent interviews, all in original language with subtitles where required. It is very much a documentary but one which has been edited incredibly well, especially in terms of pace.

Our story opens in the early years, and focuses on Senna’s family life and early start in Formula 1. A large section covers his love/hate/loathe/despise relationship with Alain Prost and his rise to the top of his game.

And then we start to approach that incident. At which point director Asif Kapadia slows the pace down. We start to cover individual days… then hours. We know what’s going to happen. And it’s almost an awful feeling as we can see it looming until it hits. Just like the accident itself, swiftly and suddenly.

The whole move manages to tell a superb story without bogging things down with mawkish interviews. It’s very much seen from a Senna point of view (Prost comes off looking very much the bad guy – deservedly or not, we’ll never know) and some of the footage is incredibly engaging, in particular the scenes from the pre-race drivers’ meetings.

As I said, I’m not a fan of the sport but this is a superb example of a documentary. If the film can make you interested, even if only for a while, in something you’d otherwise not show an interest in… then that’s good film-making.

Last Night

Plot-in-a-nutshell: a seemingly happily married couple each spend a night out in different cities with a bit of “will (s)he, won’t (s)he” tension around the people they’re with.

See if if you like: being able to leave early to get dinner rather than having to sit through the whole thing.

Dear Grud, what a tedious film. There was about 20 minutes of argumentative whinging between Keira Knightley and Sam Worthington until finally they both go to different nights out – he with a woman from work (Eva Mendes) that Knightley is sure he’s banging, she with an ex that I think she was shagging while they were engaged. Or something. Frankly I’d stopped caring by that point and was spending more time looking at my watch or the insides of my eyelids than the screen.

Honestly, if I had Keira Knightley around I’d still bugger off with someone else if she acted like the spoilt little cow she comes across as in this. It wasn’t enjoyable to watch. Simply frustrating. And slow. And boring. And going nowhere by the 45 minute mark so I gave up and went home.

I came close to walking out of Pirates 4, and wish I had. I didn’t make the same mistake again.

Crap. Avoid.

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X-Men: First Class / The Hangover Part II

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 CommonsDue to a slow-down in film releases (I guess there’s a lull before the summer storm), we manage to play catch-up and catch the top two releases of the moment this Friday night. As a bonus, that bloody Rio Orange advert has finally been withdrawn and replaced with a new one. Which I am now heartily sick of having seen it twice.

X-Men: First Class

“Peace was never an option.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: An “origins” tale for the X-Men, likely to be ripped apart by comics geeks for not being a word perfect adaptation of some issue of the comic from 1963.

See it if you like: superhero films with a story as well as decent action sequences.

I gather this is the first of a new trilogy of X-Men films and it’s both a sensible and enjoyable way to kick it off. Sensible in that it tells the tale of the formation of the X-Men, the first mutants being found, trained and unleashed on the world. Enjoyable in that it has a decent story as well as some well-crafted set pieces.

A fault I’ve found with too many superhero films recently is they’ve aimed for the big spectacle and let little details like plot, character development and dialogue fall by the wayside. I didn’t enjoy Thor for this reason and I confess I have my concerns about Green Lantern. I hope it proves me wrong. First Class doesn’t fall into these traps and instead manages to wrap a decent enough story with enough pizazz to keep the eye-candy addicts happy.

Oh, and there are also plenty of fit women in typically revealing superhero outfits. Jennifer Lawrence (Raven / Mystique) just made it onto my my “oh, man, I wish” list. Blue make-up or human form, I don’t care. Woof.

Throughout the film there are several nods to the events to come, while setting things into historical context. True events are moulded to fit the mutant storyline such as the Cuban missile crisis being caused by mutants somewhat less friendly than Professor Xavier‘s (James McAvoy) motley brigade. Said group are led by Kevin Bacon‘s Sebastian Shaw, a character who’s role is effectively taken by Magneto later on in X-history.

This is the best of the X-men films without a doubt. I’d rank it up there with the better superhero films as well. A decent cast, excellent effects but at heart a good story which focuses on the characters. How things will pan out in the next films now that the characters are established is anyone’s guess, but in the meantime this is well worth seeing.

The Hangover: Part II

“What is wrong with you three?”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Seen The Hangover? It’s that. In Thailand.

See it if you like: watching a remake of an enjoyable film from only two years ago.

I’m sorely tempted to just refer you to my review of The Hangover and tell you to read it with sunglasses on and the aircon off. That’s pretty much what the scriptwriters have done here.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still funny. It’s still outrageous, tasteless and over the top. But it’s lost that shock factor that made the first one so good. It also helps if – like the first instalment – you avoid the trailers before watching.

It’s another wedding, this time in Thailand. The same bunch are going. They decide to have a quiet drink two nights before the wedding… and wake up unable to remember what they did or where they went the night before. Oh, and one of them is missing. See what I mean? The only difference is the setting.

In its defence, had I seen this without seeing the first one I’d have rated it far higher. It’s still funny, it still makes you cringe – it’s just too much like its predecessor and too soon afterwards. I’m picky about my tasteless, monkey-porn, chicks-with-dicks filled comedy.

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