Tag: Vin Diesel

Riddick / Pain & Gain

120px-Film-stripA very belated post for these two films as I’ve been so short of time, recently. Weekends taken up with Duke of Edinburgh expeditions has eaten into writing time! We saw these almost two weeks ago, I think…

Riddick

“You’re not afraid of the dark, are you?”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: see-in-the-dark ex-slave-and-planetary-ruler Riddick finds himself stranded on a dangerous planet and wonders how to get off again

See it if you like: Aliens and First Blood.

Following on from Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick, this third instalment sees our anti-hero marooned on a scary big planet, seemingly with no way off. This may have happened at the end of CoR, but I can’t remember as I didn’t like the film and may have fallen asleep partway through.

Riddick is much better, though, and more in line with the first film in the series. It’s almost two films in one. The first half documenting Riddick’s (Vin Diesel, in case you didn’t know) escape from the barren half of the planet to somewhere a little more foliage-covered; the second half his battle against bounty hunters who turn up to claim his head.

Much reference is made to the first two films, so if you’re a fan then a repeat watch may be ideal before you take on this one.

Effects are good, dialogue is suitably silly, bad guys are wonderfully over-the-top (especially Jordi Mollà‘s Santana and Katee Sackhoff‘s overly-butch Dahl), and there is a decent story going on around all the by-the-numbers character-slaying.

Don’t take it too seriously and it’s a good romp. My favourite of the three films, anyway.

Pain & Gain

“Unfortunately, this is a true story.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: based-on-a-true-story series-of-heists gone wrong comedy action where people with biceps bigger than their brains show how not to get rich quick

See it if you like: looking at men with ridiculously large musculature while having a giggle

Michael Bay is more famous for his stupidly huge films like Con Air and those ones with the robots that turn into cars. However, he has done a fair few films based more on story and less on fuelling special effects labs. This is one of them.

Based on a true story from around 1995. How close to the truth it is would require some research, but there are some key scenes which I think are documented. Best of all is that they are some of the stupidest. This is a story of success and failure. And succeeding at failure. On a huge scale.

Bodybuilder Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) decided he’s sick of other people being rich when he does all the hard work. So he decides to attempt to extort one of his customers. He enlists the aid of a friend, Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) and they, in turn, draft in some additional muscle in the form of reformed ex-convict and musclebound Jesus-freak Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson, formerly “The Rock”).

And it all goes horribly wrong. With hilarious consequences. Especially when they bugger everything up and try again with another victim.

Not a family-friendly film, but one with with plenty of dark and grisly humour. There are some genuinely funny moments, and Dwayne Johnson finally proves that he’s not just got a screen career because of his bulk. He’s genuinely good in this.

Very enjoyable – surprisingly so if I’m honest.

 

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Your Highness / Fast Five

A two-film Saturday night courtesy in a change of Gillian’s mum’s shifts. The two which fit nicely into our available timeslot were as follows:

Your Highness

“Quests suck!”

See it if you like: Dungeons & Dragons and drawing cocks on school text books.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Useless prince has to help awesome brother on a quest to rescue a maiden from an evil wizard. While telling cock jokes.

Your Highness is a very silly film from the people who made Pineapple Express which I’ve not seen. I can see it being a very divisive film – you’ll enjoy it or you’ll think it’s awful. I doubt there will be any middle ground. I also think that watching it over a few beers would be best.

The story tells of Prince Thadeous (Danny McBride) and his squire Courtney (Rasmus Hardiker) who must help elder brother and all round superstar Fabious (James Franco) rescue his virginal bride-to-be Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel) from evil wizard Leezar (Justin Theroux). On the way they encounter tough-as-nuts questress Isabel (Natalie Portman).

There. That gets the cast out of the way. A cast, incidentally, who apparently improvised the majority of the dialogue. Impressive. Even if the dialogue is fairly basic and full of sexual innuendo. And sexism. And tasteless insults. As I said – best watched with beer.

The cast do carry things off very well, and it’s quite a surprise to see Portman in particular move from OSCAR nomination in Black Swan to such completely different fare. Franco overacts in just the right way while McBride and Hardiker pair off well as the useless slob prince and his aide who doesn’t realise what a dick he is.

For an admittedly low brow comedy, the production values are quite high and the special effects and action sequences aren’t badly done at all.

Definitely not one you’ll be taking the kids to see unless you want to start explaining about Minotaur penises and why a hand would be like a vagina. Let your inner schoolchild enjoy it and you’ll have a good time.

Fast Five

“One last job, then we disappear forever.”

See if it you like: the thought of Newton spinning in his grave

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Members of the casts from all four previous films get together to pull off one last huge job before the franchise retires.

The gang’s all here – and then some. Pulling in cast members from all the films, including the somewhat sideways jump of Tokyo Drift, Fast Five aims to finish the franchise with a bang (although there are rumours of a sixth…)

We watched the fourth instalment the other night in preparation and I realised how slow it was. Gillian really didn’t enjoy it either. A few action sequences held together with a rather dull plot. Definitely the weakest of the series so far after the novelty of the first, buddy/buddy laughs of the second and scenery change of the third.

Fast Five manages to take all the ridiculous madness of the previous four, shove them through a blender, syphon off anything to do with Newtonian physics and pour the mixture onto celluloid. My only regret about watching this film is that I didn’t see it on IMAX.

As I think I hinted at, I think the laws of physics **** themselves when this film hit the screens. It makes no sense whatsoever. On the other hand… who, seriously, cares? It’s got cars, babes, muscle-bound men, explosions, crashes, trains, dirt, guns, grenades, rocket launchers, laughs, spills, fights, romance…

OK, so the plot in brief. Brian (Paul Walker) and Dom (Vin Diesel) team up to pull a huge job in Rio, taking down a drug lord and making themselves massively rich. In a not-very-well-hidden nod to the likes of Ocean’s Eleven they require a group of specialists. This is where they raid the back-catalogue of characters.

The cast definitely seem on a high and there are some really funny moments and great dialogue as they bicker and cajole. This fleshes out the utterly mind-blowing action scenes. If you thought the opening stunts in the last few films were a little over-the-top, you’ve seen nothing yet.

And that’s nothing compared to the final sequence. Good – and indeed – grief. For those with as much as a Physics GCSE, kindly partition off that section of your brain (particularly the segment to do with friction, force, acceleration and so forth) otherwise you’ll just turn in to a gibbering Newtonian wreck. I opted to sit there and giggle at the incredible destruction and sheer ludicrousness of the entire thing.

I know it’s only April, but I can see this ranking as one of the best action films of the year by the time we hit Christmas. Like all the best shows it leaves the audience wanting more. Whether we’ll get that is anyone’s guess.

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In-flight films

A380 In-flight entertainment
A telly. On a plane.

Another quick rundown of the flicks I got to see on my last Etihad flights from Bangkok to Heathrow. Just shorties.

First up was Fast & Furious which was pretty good. This is the sequel the first film’s been after for all these years. Don’t get me wrong – 2 Fast 2 Furious was decent enough in a light-hearted way and Tokyo Drift was a half-decent sideways step. But getting the original cast back was the best thing they could have done and this immensely silly bit of car fun is worth the running time.

I then opted for Push which wasn’t quite so good. A nice premise – people with natural superpowers and a government agency trying to improve them by pumping them with drugs… which usually kill them. The superpowers fall under several labels and a lot of the “empowered” try to live off the radar so that the government can’t find them. The story does drag and there are so many holes in the plot that even Swiss cheese would get jealous. Dakota Fanning, though, once again proves she’s a pretty good child actor by not being annoying.

A change of planes and on to The Boat That Rocked which was so good it’s getting a full review (next post).

Final film was Outlander which was nowhere near as good as I was hoping for. Sci fi meets historical fantasy as a spaceship crashes in Viking Norway. Hitching a ride with the humanoid pilot is a rather nasty beastie intent on wiping out anything on two legs. It’s a bit of a mix of The Spaceman and King Arthur, Alien and a Viking Braveheart. Overall not too bad, but it just didn’t flow very well and was fairly predictable.

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