Tag: Liam Neeson

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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Unknown

Time for a quick cinema trip after running a course for some other members of staff. And a nice sausage supper and chip butty on the way home!

Unknown

“Do you know what it feels like to become insane?”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Bio-chemist involved in car accident wakes after 4 days to find someone else has stolen his life.

First things first. If you’ve seen the trailer and have a memory more efficient than a small bowl-encapsulated piscean life form, then don’t spend your cash. On the other hand, if you don’t know much about what happens then it’s not a bad bit of entertainment.

Liam Neeson plays Dr Martin Harris, newly arrived in Berlin for a conference along with his wife (January Jones). He is involved in a car accident and drops into a coma, awakening four days later. He discharges himself from hospital to find his wife – who doesn’t recognise him. She’s with another Dr Martin Harris and “our” Harris is left out in the cold.

Now, let’s assume the trailer more or less left it there. That would be fine. Only it doesn’t. It shows at least three major plot moments taking us right  up until the final couple of minutes of the film. Hell, one character is effectively one of the movie’s twists – and the trailer shows them very much post-twist, totally spoiling around 30 minutes of the film if you’ve seen it.

OK, so I managed to guess the final events well before they happened even though the evil trailer didn’t show them. It’s not incredibly clever, but it is a decent thriller with some good twists – if you don’t already know about them.

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A-Team review

The A-Team
The A-Team

Big, brash and silly this is a great update of a classic bit of TV trash.

The A-Team

“He’s trying to fly that tank”

Remakes and updates are dangerous territory. There’s the risk of destroying fond memories or of throwing money at a project that simply doesn’t match up to the original. A-Team manages to be a great modern version of something which, when I went back to watch it recently, was really rather crap.

With the special effects being done by WETA and several other houses, you know this is going to be just chock full of graphics, stunts and over-the-top silliness. It certainly doesn’t disappoint. Any of you who care about the laws of physics would be well recommended to take a “suspend belief” pill before settling into your seat.

The film very much acts as a “how it all began” story, sticking fairly well to the original premise. One major difference, though, is that people do get shot and killed – something that never seemed to happen in the TV series. Hannibal (Liam Neeson) is the head honcho with all the ideas, Quinton Jackson is a huge, mohawked BA Baracus, Bradley Cooper woos the ladies as Faceman and Sharlto Copley is a suitably bonkers “howling mad” Murdock.

Jackson, in honesty, is a little clunky and hard to understand at the start of the film. I’m guessing he’s an ex-wrestler or something and making a break into films due to his bulk. The rest of the cast are pretty much spot on. The banter between them is also sharp and got quite a few laughs from the Vietnamese crowd (and myself).

For some reason it still felt a little over-long and segmented, but perhaps that was down to me being ridiculously tired when I watched it. It’s definitely over-the-top, has some utterly stupid stunts (even moreso than The Losers, which is saying something) and almost certainly will lead to a sequel.

Dare I hope for as good an update for Airwolf?

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Clash of the Titans

Clash of the Titans 1440x900 Wallpaper
Clash of the Titans

“But you are not just a man.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Perseus (Sam Worthington) is rescued from the sea as a baby by a fisherman, grows up to find out he’s the son of Zeus and has to save the world.

I settled on the 2D version of Clash of the Titans as the film times suited better. This is a hugely effects-based film, and you can spot the sections where the 3D would “enhance” things. Most of them look rather forced. Actually, most of the film is rather forced.

I’ll be fair – I saw the film at a 7pm showing having had four hours’ sleep, getting to bed at 7am that morning. This may not have helped, but my cine-going companion shared almost all of my views and she’d had a decent night’s kip. Both of us summed it up at the end with “Hmmm” and a shrug. Not what you want from an explosive action epic.

I think we’re hitting an problem with films made up predominantly of special effects. We’ve seen it all before, quite often in the trailers. The one for Clash shows the giant scorpions and the Kraken – the huge beastie from the climax. They’re impressively done… but they just don’t seem “special”. I mean, how many films have you seen over the last year with some huge CGI monster in it? I’ve seen loads.

While the effects are very well done, the overall impression of the film is pretty scrappy. I don’t know whether it’s deliberate but the giant scorpion battle scene is reminiscent of the old Harryhausen epics in more than just idea. While the monsters are somewhat better animated than the old stop-motion ones, they don’t seem to fit on the screen properly, seeming a bit washed out. I seem to remember the old chroma key techniques giving the same unwanted effect.

As has been pointed out in a load of other reviews, this is a film that was crying out for a remake with modern technology. I love the original, but it’s fair to say the animated monsters are a little dated. However, it’s far better scripted and less ostentatious than this modern effort. One bit that really tipped me against the new one was a near-throwaway moment. Perseus picks up a mechanical owl from a box and asks what it is. He’s told to just leave it. To me, that seemed more of a slap in the face to Harryhausen’s original than a homage.

Much as you can say it looks better than the 1981 film, it simply isn’t a better piece of entertainment. I think a lot of it boils down to it being far too simple. They’ve taken a masterpiece of theatre – such that the original was – and turned it into a low-brow, effect-heavy show reel.

The gods look incredibly gay (PC police – sod off) with their over-shiny armour. Except Hades who, in fairness, has some awesome effects related to his appearance – much as the same character did in the recent Percy Jackson film. Liam Neeson manages to utter a wonderfully commanding “Release the Kraken!” but otherwise, the dialogue just isn’t up to much.

I’ll finish with some dialogue from the end of the original. Theatrical? Perhaps. But isn’t that how gods should be? There is simply nothing in this updated version to compare. For more, check out the IMDB quotes page for the 1981 film. Gorgeous prose.

Zeus: Perseus has won. My son has triumphed.

Hera: A fortunate young man.

Zeus: Fortune is ally to the brave.

Thetis: What a dangerous precedent. What if there more heroes like him? What if courage and imagination became everyday mortal qualities? What will become of us?

Zeus: We would no longer be needed. But, for the moment, there is sufficient cowardice, sloth and mendacity down there on Earth to last forever.

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