Captain America: The Winter Soldier

 

Signed, Shield, Delivered.
 

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Vaguely controversial opinion time. Captain America is my favourite Avenger. The first Captain America film is also my personal favourite of Marvel’s Phase One. It spent more time and energy building its characters than any of the others in the Marvel stable. It’s proper structured storytelling with an understanding of motivation, theming and all of that other nerdy jazz than I can’t seem to stop banging on about. It’s hardly perfect though. Unfortunately, it proceeds to shite itself inside out in the last third of the film, not quite knowing what to do after skinny Steve becomes Cap in action as well as physique. However, I’d rather have two thirds of solid experience than an entirety of generic one (cough)IronMan2(cough). That being said, I had my reservations about The Winter Soldier. It’s based on a great story, but written by the people responsible for the underwhelming Thor: The Dark World and directed by some TV directors who happen to have directed the chore of the film that was You, Me and Dupree. Thankfully, I needn’t have worried.

“Most of the intelligence community doesn’t believe he exists. The ones that do call him the Winter Soldier. He’s a ghost, you’ll never find him.“

The Winter Soldier focuses on Steve Rogers aka Captain America (Chris Evans). He’s joined by Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and the pair, under the direction of the cycloptic Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), are protecting S.H.I.E.L.D.’s interests home and abroad. Rogers, however, finds little fulfilment in being used as Fury’s personal attack dog and is still trying to figure out the modern world and his place within it. He meets up with war veteran Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) who has undergone a similar state of mind, not quite knowing how to adapt when the orders stop coming. We’re also introduced to Fury’s boss, Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford) who is right behind S.H.I.E.L.D.’s controversial plans to monitor the global population and take out potential threats. Concerned that something may be rotten at S.H.I.E.L.D. after an attempt on Fury’s life, Cap investigates with Fury’s warning not to trust anyone ringing in his ears. On top of all this, there’s a mysterious metal-armed super badass roaming about known only as The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) causing all kinds of death and destruction. Phew. Longest plot recap ever. The story’s solid, giving us a spy thriller mixed with the standard superheroics we’re all used to seeing by now. I think the Captain America series is probably Marvel’s most experimental franchise as the first one was unapologetically a sepia-toned period piece whereas this one feels like a gritty ’70s spy epic, with the casting of Robert Redford a major clue as to what they’re shooting for. Whereas The Dark World may have left people questioning whether the superhero bubble had burst and feeling comic book fatigue, The Winter Soldier proves that if you’re smart about it, you can take on any genre and run it through the superhero filter and it’ll work. There are nice character moments and the clash of Cap’s yesteryear idealism with Fury’s post Edward Snowden/Wikileaks attitude is interesting.

The whole cast are good. Evans has refined his Steve Rogers schtick. He’s not as wide-eyed and innocent as he once was, but at the core, he’s still the same old idealistic Steve. Scarlett Johansson gets to go deeper into exactly who Romanoff is and relishes the opportunity. I have to say that I felt she was a little flat not really selling the character’s quippy nature, but that could just be her decision to make Natasha a disconnected, jaded type. Anthony Mackie is all sorts of fun as Falcon, giving Cap a proper verbal sparring partner as well as a brother in arms. Robert Redford also allows the film a sense of gravitas that it would have missed otherwise. Samuel L. Jackson. That’s all I need to say about him. Sebastian Stan gives us a good brooding Winter Soldier, but I could have done with a little more time with the character.

OK, the good stuff. There’s a lot of it. It whips along at a decent pace and has just as much time for the smaller interactions as it does for the expensive set pieces. Instead of vague “save the world” stakes (although there is some of that in there), it feels like a personal Cap story. I still love these characters and the new additions are perfectly fine in my book. I certainly hope we get to see more of Falcon and Steve’s flirty relationship with his neighbour. The action scenes are a lot of fun too. There’s an elevator fight and a very Heat inspired daylight shootout that are definitely big highlights. The writing’s more on point that it was in The Dark World and there are some really fantastic concepts being played with coupled with quotable quips and gags. Steve has lost his faith in government and authority and is questioning his orders for the first time. You know something’s up when the walking posterboy for following the rules and eating your greens starts becoming disaffected. It actually has something to say about the modern world and takes more of a stance on the military secrets/ constant surveillance issue than the wishy-washy wank that was The Fifth Estate, a film purportedly solely about all of that stuff. Add all of this up and it’s exactly the sort of thing I want from a Captain America film. Plus, at no point do the wheels fall off and they forget to tell a story, like in the first one. Big bonus points there.

My only criticism is that I wanted to see more of The Winter Soldier. Although it’s not exactly the best-kept secret out there, I will invisotext this next bit as it concerns the Winter Soldier’s identity an’ shit. (Highlight to read) So, Ol’ Winty is Cap’s thought-dead best pal Bucky Barnes (the one that fell off a speeding train in the first one?), brainwashed, mechanised and working for the Russians. I felt that there was so much going on, it didn’t really give the whole Steve/Bucky drama enough room to breathe. It felt a bit rushed to me and despite the long running time, I would have welcomed a few more scenes dealing with the whole thing.

“S.H.I.E.L.D. takes the world as it is, not as we’d like to be!”

So, The Winter Soldier is a damn good film and I’m so pleased to be able to say that. It’s a solid film that I think will only improve on repeated viewings. Bear in mind that there are not one, but two, post-credits scenes to look out for, so bring a catheter and a pissbag if you’re planning on downing your usual vat of soda like I usually do.

The Lego Movie

 
Everything is awesome!
 

The Lego Movie (2014)

The Lego Movie is one of those concepts that sounds ludicrously shitty and calculated. It takes a well-loved toy with no proper story or defined characters of its own, makes a feature-length adventure packed with celebrity voices and promotes and merchandises the crap out of it and all its other product lines. However, the buzz on it has been overwhelmingly positive. Like, this thing is getting Pixar level scores. So, when given the opportunity to catch a preview screening, I jumped at the chance. Y’know what? It’s exactly as great as people have been saying.

“Come with me if you want to not die.”

The Lego Movie focuses on average construction worker Emmet (voiced by Chris Pratt) who soon gets a break from his normal working life when he gets sucked in to a world of free creativity and prophecy when he stumbles across the fabled “Piece of Resistance”. He meets master builder Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) and supposedly wise wizard Vetruvius (Morgan Freeman) and the trio, along with the help of Batman (Will Arnett) endevour to stop Lord Business (Will Ferrell) using a deadly weapon called the “Kragle” on all of Legodom. That may sound insanely generic, but as the name “Lord Business” may indicate, it’s actually more of a sideways look at genre conventions. It’s smart as anything, but never tips the balance into winking at the audience every 5 seconds. The main plot draws deliberate parallels with something like The Matrix and it really works. All of the cast are great. Chris Pratt is mostly known for playing a wide-eyed puppy dog of a man and uses that to great effect as Emmet, Elizabeth Banks has fun as Wyldstyle, Morgan Freeman is predictably brilliant and Will Arnett makes a fantastic Batman. Comedic TV greats like Nick Offerman, Charlie Day and Alison Brie do fantastic jobs and there’s an inspired bit of casting in the form of Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill as Superman and Green Lantern. Will Ferrell and Liam Neeson are genuinely funny too. All of the cast give the film an infectious sense of energy and it’s nigh-on impossible not to feel part of the fun.

If you’ve been on the internet for more than a few days, you’ll have likely seen a stop-motion Lego video parodying a big film or set to a comedy routine. The Lego Movie, whilst not strictly stop motion, has clearly taken influences from these and makes the characters look solid and played with, which gives the whole thing a certain charm. Elements, like water, fire and smoke are all made from Lego pieces and it’s hard not to laugh along with the film. Instead of being a tiresome plug for yet another one of the company’s licensed toy lines, it’s a genuine thrill when recognisable characters from franchises like Star Wars, TMNT, Lord of the Rings, The Simpsons and even Speed Racer show up for a quick cameo role. Sure, it is promoting the various figures at the end of the day, but it’s so well done, you won’t care in the slightest.

The whole film is a love letter to Lego, as one may expect. However, it’s an intelligent take on how people actually play with the bricks. Emmet lives in a world literally built on instructions. Everything is exact and normalised. Wyldstyle shows up and we are plunged into a world of unfettered creativity featuring weird and wonderful characters and places made out of mismatched pieces. Lord Business intends to make sure that everything in uniform, but our heroic rebels are fighting against him and the suppression of imagination. I’m genuinely surprised that writer/directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller were allowed to do something this clever without corporate bigwigs stepping in and insisting it be dumbed down for the kiddies. The third act is especially brave, but works beautifully.

It’s tempting not to say it, because of the crappy pun lurking within, but there are no other words for it. The Lego Movie is an incredibly well-constructed film. The storytelling is spot-on. This may not seem like a huge revelation, but you’d be surprised at the number of films (not just kids’ movies) that fall foul of basic storytelling. We get to know the characters, their motivations and their personalities. They feel like living, breathing people despite being made out of plastic. The film is even confident enough to have fun with several things. Morgan Freeman’s casting as a wise man who actually isn’t that wise is a masterstroke. Will Arnett’s Batman contains several jabs at how dark and joyless the representation of the character has become. It completely nails what it wants to do and it’s a joyful experience.

If you’ve ever played a Lego videogame like Lego Star Wars, you’ll know how charming and winning the humour can be. Luckily, the movie also has these things in spades. The film is fast and funny throughout its runtime. Whilst some of the dialogue and jokes fall a little flat to adult ears, the kids in my screening loved them. Even when the film isn’t being particularly amusing speech-wise, the screen is packed with visual gags to keep you smiling. Tell you what, by the end, my face hurt from smiling so much. This is exactly how kids’ films should be. I walked out thoroughly entertained. As I left the screening, I noticed that all parents and children alike had the same expression on their faces to match my own. That’s when you know you’ve just seen something special.

I can’t think of much wrong with the film. The only reason that it doesn’t get a full five stars is that I could have done with the spoken gags be just a little funnier. Don’t get me wrong, there are some cracking jokes contained within, it’s just that it doesn’t quite reach the level of the all time classics like the Pixar back catalogue or some of the Dreamworks oeuvre. I was left wanting a bit more time with some of the recognisable characters, but will admit that may have over-egged the pudding. Here’s hoping some Marvel minifigures show up in the sequel.

“Batman, could you make one of these in orange?”

“I only work in black. And sometimes, very, very dark grey.”

Having said that, I truly believe that this film is this generation’s Toy Story. Whilst not as groundbreaking in terms of technology, it’s got the same quality and heartfelt goodness oozing through its pores. This isn’t just a glorified advert, it’s a refreshingly great film that happens to use an existing product as its medium. It’s a reflection of our pop-culture driven society and goes much deeper than you’d expect, going so far as to examine the whole concept of creativity, individuality and play. It’s so good, it makes me angry that more kiddie films aren’t like it as it completely shows up the inherent laziness and cynicism of the normal child-centric offerings. I can’t imagine many people walking out of The Lego Movie disappointed, even after all the insane hype and the glowing reviews, including this one. It didn’t need to be this good, as the Lego name and the blanket advertising would have ensured a healthy box office return, but I’m very glad it is.

Riddick

 

Everyone’s a criddick
 

Riddick (2013)

Yeah, I know. There’s a bunch of “important” films out at the moment and I’m reviewing some lunkhead sci-fi thing from last year. Well, here’s the thing, I’m not exactly paid millions for this gig. In fact, I’m not paid at all, so going to see every film that has had award gold mentioned anywhere near it would be insanely costly. Plus, I’m probably one of the only people outside of Vin Diesel who actually likes the Riddick saga and wanted to see where it went next. So here is us, on the raggedy edge. Don’t push me and I won’t push you.

“Somewhere along the way, I lost a step. I got sloppy. Dulled my own edge. Maybe I went and did the worst crime of all. I got civilized.”

Betrayed by the Necromongers, Richard B. Riddick (Vin Diesel) is left for dead on a desert planet. After a while, Riddick forms an escape plan and finds a way to alert some bounty hunters to his location, all of them hoping to collect the big fat price on his head. The motley crews that show up include your standard violent mercenary types and a man with a personal beef to settle with Riddick. The basic film is solid, although clunkily adheres to the three act structure with audible crunches whenever the film changes gear. I’ll watch Vin Diesel in most things. He’s a fun watch and is notoriously geeky underneath all his dudebro cred. The rest of the cast are a mixed bag. None of them are particularly bad, it’s just that there’s not enough personality to go round and a lot of them fade into the background. Jordi Mollà pops up as Santana, a grizzled mercenary who likes big knives and non-consensual fun. Matt Nable plays Johns Snr. a man related to the Johns in the original Pitch Black. Katee Sackhoff is decent in the role of tough merc Dahl and Dave Bautista shows he’s got some presence to him outside of his hulking appearance and can surprisingly sell some comedic moments, making me anticipate his role in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy even more. Also Karl Urban shows up wearing way too much makeup.

Riddick is ludicrous, corny sci-fi, but that’s what the series has been since Chronicles of Riddick. It’s an ’80s throwback, full of over-the-top action and slow-motion leaps through the air. If you can’t get on board with that, then Riddick won’t be for you. Don’t go in expecting a modern, flawed character. Riddick is an invincible badass. This is a film series that has names like “Crematoria” for a burning planet, “Furyans” as a race of warrior people and mentions of an “Underverse”. We’re not talking about highbrow sci-fi here. Riddick has a CGI dog sidekick, for instance. It’s Mad Max, Aliens and a fuckton of other films thrown into a blender- and that’s no bad thing. The first half of the film is the best, showing Riddick surviving the planet’s various hostile wildlife in near silence, with only occasional bassy voiceovers to fill in the gaps. It proves that a) Riddick is a decent character and b) Vin Diesel is charismatic and fun enough in the role to carry of the Wall-E style opening. The second act is Riddick acting all mysterious, evading capture and picking off faceless mercenaries one by one. It’s not without its charms, but it falls flat after following the strangely brave first part.

The third act of film is basically an extended tribute to Pitch Black. Sequels are usually overreactions to the perceived flaws of the previous film, so Riddick bypasses Chronicles almost entirely and focuses on its franchise spawner. This would be fine, but the script is clunky as hell, so instead of having thematic links to the original, it’s pretty much the same film. Riddick’s chained up, it’s dark and wet outside and there are vicious aliens wanting to kill folk. It’s here that the wheels start to fall off. I’ve already seen Pitch Black, I don’t need to see it again with slightly better effects. It all builds to an ending that comes out of nowhere and makes no damn sense by any stretch of the imagination. It’s genuinely jarring and baffling. Characters just act in a contrived way just so we have a vaguely happy ending, ignoring any kind of motivation or personality they had up to that point. Director and writer David Twohy needs to have his wrists slapped for that one.

As is often the case with this sort of film, the main token female character is indicative of the film’s problems as a whole. I think Sackhoff does well considering, but there’s something really off about the writing when it comes to her and how others react to her. Dahl is a tough female merc who owes a lot to Aliens‘ Vasquez. As the only female, she has a gratuitous shower scene, has to fend off rape and is apparently a lesbian. However, Riddick thinks he can change that. Chained up, he growls about his intentions to kill a dude before saying he’ll be “balls deep” in Dahl by the end, after she asks him all “sweet-like”. This is meant to be badass, but falls extremely flat. I mean the notion that you can heterosex a lesbian straight is pretty fucking disgusting and having it appear in a 2013 film is just wrong. I know it’s a throwback flick, but that attitude reminds me of the Connery Bonds. Y’know, the era when he seduces the “immune” Pussy Galore and tells a native islander to fetch his shoes. The fact that this actually comes to pass is the worst thing. They could have done something subversive with it, but nope- she literally asks him all “sweet-like”. Goddamn. As I said, the ending is a bathtub of weaksauce, but that element to it is the most obnoxious.

“So what is the best way to a man’s heart?”

“Between the fourth and fifth rib. That’s where I usually go. I’ll put a twist at the end if I wanna make sure.”

So, apart from a poor show feminism-wise, Riddick is actually a decent watch. I enjoyed it for what it was. There have been a bunch of reviews calling it stupid and corny, but I think they’re missing the whole appeal of the series. I’ve got a soft spot for less than stellar sci-fi.To be honest, I’m actually looking forward to the teased sequel. If they keep the OTT violence and sci-fi sensibilities, we could be in for a fun ride. Let’s just work on the women this time round, eh?

Photoshop ‘Til You Drop: The Decline of the Movie Poster

I’ve wanted to write a piece about film posters for a while. I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that these days they mostly fall under the “Photoshopped Nightmare” category. As I’m the sort of adult who hangs these things on my wall and then wonders why the girls aren’t calling, it’s really disappointing that they’re mostly fucking awful. I’m not going to do a post about the tropes etc. because people have done that shit way too many times over recent years, plus if you’ve set foot in a cinema’s auditorium recently, you’re already well aware of them.

When it comes to blaming someone, people bark up the wrong tree. As is often the case, studios are to blame, not the designers. Check out this informative post that describes some of the constraints put on these people. Fair enough, it’s their actual job to respond to a remit and graphic designers are usually insanely put-upon to try and re-create some uncreative arsehole’s vague vision, but it still seems like a lot to deal with. Plus, the system in place seems directly opposed to any kind of creativity and almost custom built to produce the same grey glurge time and time again.

Much like everything else in the filmmaking process, posters are often focus grouped to death, which is a huge reason why everything looks the fucking same. Here’s the dirty secret about focus groups- they’re not the be-all and end-all. There’s years of documented problems with using focus groups, but they’re still used heavily and their findings are taken as gospel. If you haven’t seen Steven Soderbergh’s brilliant “State of Cinema” speech, I suggest you get on that. In it, he mentions the flaws of the testing system and how it affects everything to do with a movie’s release, including the poster. The thing is, people nearly always want what they’ve seen before. There’s the uber famous Henry Ford quote that springs to mind when he talked about this new fangled motor car he’d produced: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” It’s exactly the same here.

So, the thing that made me think about this all again is that particular Black Widow poster at the top of all this. If you can’t see what’s wrong with it, you need to go outside and see what a real woman looks like (or simply look down if you happen to be a woman, obviously). The proportions are preposterous. At this point, you may be thinking “Sure, but this is just the standard Photoshop problem that plagues magazine covers and the like- nothing new here.” Well, how come both the Cap and Nick Fury posters released at the same time and done by the same people don’t look as freakish? Well, we all know the reason why, don’t we? Women are often portrayed as purely sexual objects and fetishised to a ridiculous degree.  That particular Black Widow poster is made to appeal to the mouth-breathing teenage boy demographic who have no idea what an actual woman looks like and have brought themselves up on twisted pornographic caricatures of women thanks to the plethora of porn sites, video games and comic books that they indulge in. The fact that they felt they needed to give Scarlett Johansson, an almost painfully beautiful woman to begin with, a smaller waist, pixel perfect hair and zipper-busting tits is insane and speaks of problems way bigger than the simple marketing of a movie.

So why am I getting bent out of shape? Surely it’s the film that matters? Well, yeah, but movie posters are a grand tradition. Sure, the release of a poster seems more like an obligation on the studios’ part, but it still exists. The Internet and TV ads are presumably much more effective marketing tools but the poster is still hanging on in there. Shit, you need something to slap up on billboards and bus stops. To me, they represent a lot. As part of my work on this site, I have to find a corresponding poster to head my reviews and they nearly always suck. I remember seeing exciting posters for future films as a kid and just being drawn to them like a gormless moth. My parents used to hate taking me to the cinema because when it came time to leave, I would always lag behind and gawp at the colourful posters on display. In some cases, the film’s art is intrinsically linked to what I picture when I think of the film itself. Marty looking shocked at his watch whilst stepping out of his DeLorean perfectly encapsulates Back to the Future in a single image.The massive shark head coming up out of the depths to munch on a swimmer is Jaws to me. There’s no poster that I can think of it recent years that has made me want to rush out, buy it, frame it and hang it on my wall.

Surely the popularity of the Mondo posters and the minimalist designs shared on places like Tumblr and DeviantArt indicate that there is a market for interesting art out there? One of my favourite recent pieces is the IMAX exclusive poster for Iron Man 3 that I got from a screening, seen below. Sure, I understand why it wasn’t used for general release because it doesn’t really tell you anything about the film or feature ticket-seller Robert Downey Jr’s face or name, but shit, it’s leagues ahead of the theatrical poster where it looks like Gwyneth Paltrow has a broken neck.

DVD/Blu-ray cover art is normally even worse. Sometimes they won’t even use their shitty theatrical art and knock together an even shittier image for the cover. As a film collector with a weird obsession with aesthetics, it really bugs me. It’s one of the main reasons I buy the increasingly popular steelbook editions of films as the cover art is usually far superior to, and way more interesting than, the normal release because it doesn’t have to cater to the sort of people who impulse buy because the cover looks like something they’ve seen before.

So what’s the solution? I have no real idea. I don’t work in the industry. However, I will ask a few questions. As film posters aren’t the most important or effective thing in a film’s promotional campaign, why can’t they be a bit more experimental? Surely now’s the time to do it as nearly every poster looks exactly the fucking same? It doesn’t make any sense to me. They’ve got fuck all to lose and a bunch of things to gain.

Groundhog Day

It’s a doozy.

Groundhog Day (1993)

It’s February 2nd! I felt like reviewing something fitting and as there’s no film entitled Piss Wet Miserable Grey Existence as of yet, I settled on Groundhog Day. The film is an undeniable modern classic and has entered popular culture like some awesome simile I can’t think of right now. It’s also one of my favourite films (I know I seem to say this a lot, but it’s a long damn list, OK?). So what makes it so fucking special? Well, stow the attitude and the pottymouth and I’ll try to explain.

“I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster, drank piña coladas. At sunset, we made love like sea otters.*That* was a pretty good day. Why couldn’t I get *that* day over, and over, and over?”

Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, a TV weatherman assigned to cover the Groundhog festival in the small town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. Along with new producer Rita (Andie MacDowell) and cameraman Larry (Chris Elliot) he begrudgingly travels to the town, where he finds that once the day is over, it restarts, leaving everyone but Phil completely oblivious to what has happened. Phil ends up stuck in a time loop, re-living the same day over and over and over with no end in sight. The concept is so famous, the term “groundhog day” has come to mean repeating the same things again and again. The whole film is basically a showcase for Bill Murray and he’s more than up for the task. It’s one of his all-time great roles, playing to his strengths but also giving him plenty to work with. He starts off in his comfort zone, in full sardonic mode but soon starts changing into a character you genuinely feel for, rather than just revelling in his cool jerkyness. I’ll get back to Andie MacDowell in a minute (ooh, ominous!). I think Chris Elliot is often overlooked as Larry, but the script allows him some nice moments and he does well with what he’s given. Stephen Tobolowsky also makes several scene-stealing appearances as Ned Ryerson, an insurance salesman who may be the most irritating man in the world.

It’s incredibly frustrating when a film has an awesome concept and doesn’t fully explore it or go anywhere fun with it. Groundhog Day is not one of those films. In fact, it’s the complete polar opposite. It takes its central conceit and runs with it, giving us a full gamut of interesting takes on what life would be like if we lived in a consequence-free world. The film is open to all sorts of interpretations, with theories ranging from religious allegory, a take on reincarnation and metaphysics, a metaphor for depression- all the way up to representing the five stages of grief. Crucially, the film never explains why Phil is living the same day repeatedly, which I think is a masterstroke. If the film would have been made today for modern dumbuses, there’d be a temptation to over-explain to avoid twats on the internet pointing out non-existent “plot holes” and they’d have cobbled together some bullshit “temporal loop ’cause of stuff” reason which would have hurt the film considerably. The point being is that despite this being a high-profile, decently budgeted big studio comedy back in the day, it inflamed the imagination. It made people ask themselves questions and think about some pretty out there existential stuff. Imagine that – a popular comedy that went deeper than yelling inappropriate things and broad-as-anything slapstick. Fuck.

I’m in love with the script for this film. The story is great and the dialogue is sharp and witty. It’s also structured incredibly well, the gag rate for the first half is fast and furious, but eventually winds down as Phil finds himself sinking into a detached depression, before picking up again as he focuses on self-improvement. It’s obviously more fun to watch Murray deadpan a few one-liners, break laws, con his way into a woman’s knickers and stuff cakes into his mouth with reckless abandon, but the slow evolution of the character is well-charted and subtly done. When sentiment and romance enter the fray it feels completely earned. The film isn’t afraid to explore some of the darker bits of humour either. Phil’s repeated suicides are blackly comic. The one scene I always remember is him coming down the stairs, dishevelled and not properly dressed, picking up a toaster and plodding back upstairs, getting in a full bath and dropping it in, not even bothering to remove the toast, and all whilst maintaining complete silence and a thousand-yard stare. It’s brilliant.

So, Andie MacDowell. I don’t want to come across as mean as I’m sure she’s lovely in person, but she is one of my only problems with the film. It’s not a necessarily a bad turn and it’s not even her worst performance, but there’s something incredibly flat about Rita. The character of Rita is completely integral to the story. She’s why Phil initially sinks into suicidal depression and then eventually the reason why he works on becoming a better person. She should be something really special. We need to fall in love with her too. On paper, it’s easy to see why Rita is interesting. Thanks to Phil’s repeated encounters and dates with her, we glean a lot about her life, her aspirations and her personality in general. She’s a fully realised character, but MacDowell just can’t sell it. There seems to be an emphasis on how quirky she is, initially to contrast with with Phil’s jaded disposition, but it just doesn’t work. Luckily, everything is so strong around her, it manages to make up for a lot.

“This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather.”

Groundhog Day is a pitch-perfect comedy. It does practically everything right. It’s got a powerhouse performance by Murray and manages to broach big life questions and have a believable love story without being preachy or mawkish. Best thing about it is that it totally rewards repeat viewings too. It’s one of those films that I’ll put on if I’m in a shitty mood and find myself laughing all over again as well as feeling generally uplifted. Never has the phrase “timeless classic” been more appropriate.

Man of Steel (Redux)

 
Kryposhite
 

Man of Steel (2013) (Redux)

I’ve talked about Man of Steel quite a bit since it came out. It’s certainly one of the more polarising films of last year. Well, the dust has settled and I felt it was worth another look. Would the fact that my expectations have been tempered actually allow me to concentrate on what the film brings to the table rather than what it doesn’t? I’m completely torn on how to do re-tackle this one. I tried watching the film like I’d never heard of Superman before and had mixed results. Super-spoilers by the way. Don’t read if you haven’t checked out the film and intend to.

“How do you find someone who has spent a lifetime covering his tracks? You start with the urban legends that have sprung up in his wake. All of the friends of a friend who claimed to have seen him. For some, he was a guardian angel. For others, a cipher; a ghost who never quite fit in. As you work your way back in time, the stories begin to form a pattern.”

Very short plot summary. Sent from the doomed planet of Krypton, an alien child by the name of Kal-El lands on Earth and is adopted by Kansas farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane). They name him Clark. The child grows up with superhuman powers and struggles to control them. Flash forward and the now adult Clark (Henry Cavill) is trying to live a quiet life, but has become a bit of an urban legend due to his compulsion to save people with his special abilities. After saving her life, he’s hounded by investigative reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams). Things get much worse when the warmongering General Zod (Michael Shannon) escapes from imprisonment and threatens to destroy Earth unless Kal-El reveals himself and surrenders to him.

I really tried to get my knowledge of the character out of my head. This was a new superhero as far as I was concerned. The problem is that the film is relying on some familiarity to carry you through. Clark/Kal doesn’t really have a personality and therefore is a blank slate we have to project onto. What are his motivations? What does he want out of life? He certainly doesn’t have a character arc. He wants to save and protect people as a youth and continues to do so until the end of the film. Fine, he’s Superman Powered Flying Man after all- but he doesn’t learn anything, he doesn’t change during the events of the film. A character can totally work without any big emotional journey. Probably the best example I can think of is Judge Dredd in Dredd, but in Dredd’s case, that was the whole point. When it comes to Man of Steel, Clark is meant to be conflicted, having two incompatible ideologies from his two different Robin Hood dads duking it out in his brain. He’ll say he’s conflicted, but he doesn’t act it. Even using the film’s own logic it doesn’t work. Clark can’t help but save people and has a compulsion to do so – fine. However, the big city punch up at the end shows no effort to save anyone, apart from a few in the train station (you bet your fucking arse I’m going to come back to that scene). A little character care could have gone a long way. The film could have even kept its 9/11 allegorical ending if it wanted, but imagine how tense it would have been if Clark is punching the crap out of Zod just to put him down long enough to go and rescue people in peril/caught in the collapsing buildings/whatever. It’d be like spinning plates. He saves people from a burning building and has just managed to put them safely on the ground before WHAM! Zod slams into him at a terrifying speed, tackling him and sending the pair of them a mile away, fighting in a whole new part of the city.

The first 20 minutes of the film show a complete lack of restraint. The opening is just disjointed action, filled with noise, explosions and stuff. It’s basically the “Bayhem” Michael Bay is often criticised for. We have an action packed opening on Krypton. We then cut to bearded Clark on a boat which spots a burning oil rig. More extended action. There isn’t time to digest any of this. There’s little breathing room – it’s just an assault on the senses. After Clark saves people on the rig, he’s knocked into the ocean. To me, this little bit sums up Zack Snyder at his worst. It’s a nice, big, empty shot but Snyder fills it with two CGI whales for some on-the-nose reason for Clark to have yet another flashback to his schooldays. Somebody needs to slap Snyder’s hands away from the storyboards on occasion, because when he’s unleashed he creates an OTT shitstorm like Sucker Punch. Writer David S. Goyer and his infamous “Goyerlogue” also proves that he needs one or both Nolans to rein him in before he makes the Most Serious Film Ever and becomes a depressing singularity, sucking in joy and natural sounding dialogue with him and blinking them out of existence. There’s too much exposition and too many moments of a character saying “I’m sad/conflicted” without ever showing us.

I think one of the reasons it’s so hard to nail down Clark as a character is the film is almost embarrassed to be an origin story. I does everything it can to disguise the fact with the multiple flashbacks and the like. Listen, I’m wary of origin stories and I’m sick of reboots, but that’s because they usually fall into the same traps time after time, not because of the very fact that they’re retelling the same story. Batman Begins was refreshing because it was finally a decent take on the Dark Knight’s origins and removed all that crappy “Joker killed the Waynes” shit from the filmic canon. Origin stories aren’t inherently bad. Dressing shit up and pretending you’re not starting afresh is dumb. Own that shit. If you have to reboot a franchise, make sure it’s the best it can possibly be. Telling a linear story from when Kal crash lands in Kansas wouldn’t be the worst thing. We could still have all the well-done school stuff, but there would be more connective tissue, some flow to it all and, most importantly, a stronger sense of character.

Look, I get that this isn’t the Superman I watched in the animated series. I understand that. My issue is that this barely seems like Superman at all. Sure, he’s got the powers an’ shit, but where’s the crucial humanity to him? It has to be said that one of the most important characters in Superman lore, Jonathan Kent, has been royally fucked up. He’s a goddamn sociopath, When a young Clark asks, somewhat rhetorically, whether he should have let a schoolbus of his classmates die just so his identity is kept secret, there’s a short pause and Pa Kent says “…Maybe.” OK, he doesn’t have the answers, but what an odd lesson to teach a child. In common Superman lore, one of the saddest moments is when Pa Kent dies of a heart attack. Why? Because it’s the one thing Superman can’t stop. He can fly at supersonic speeds and punch clean through mountains but he can’t stop his loved ones from dying. It’s the total embodiment of mortality and the cruel chaotic way nature works. In Man of Steel, we have an unnecessary tornado sequence where Pa Kent goes back to his car to save the family dog and gets caught up in the storm. He purposefully stops Clark from saving him as some sort of grim ultimate proof that Clark should take his shoe-shittingly mental lessons about secrecy to heart. It’s really stupid and completely undermines the character, at least from my point of view. It’s a shame because I think Costner does a great job as Jonathan and given the right material could have been the ultimate father figure.

Lois Lane is another wasted opportunity. Amy Adams is usually the best thing in anything she’s in. Lois Lane is a tough character to get right, but one that Adams is more than capable of nailing. Lane starts off all promising an’ shit (she gets a sweet line about military “dick measuring”) but the film loses interest in her and she ends up just being there. When the Kryptonians take Clark on board, they also state they want a human, so Lois accepts. Why do they want a human? For collateral? Wasn’t the deal “give up Superman and we won’t blow you up”? OK, they were going to go back on that anyway, but surely they wanted people to think they were holding up their end of the bargain. It’s not explained and smacks of contrivance. The romance between Lois and Clark is rushed as hell and completely perfunctory. There’s no meat to it at all. It’s there purely because of audience expectation. It’s pandering bullshit.

Shannon’s Zod is a weird one. I like his angry take on the character, but like Clark, his motivations are muddled. It’s only just before their final battle that we learn that Zod was genetically engineered to protect Krypton’s interests. He can’t help the way he’s acting. It’s a decent idea and actually makes you feel empathy for him, but the revelation is so oddly timed. Why all of this now, just as Superman’s about to beat the super-shit out of him? This coming to light at an earlier point in the film would have fleshed out his character considerably.

It’s frustrating because there some really decent elements and cool “bits” in play. The performances are all solid, especially Cavill, Adams, Shannon and Crowe who all bring their “A” games. The action beats are all exciting and give us the kind of superhuman megafights we haven’t seen before, especially in a Superman film. The scene where Clark, suited up in the iconic red and blue, learns to fly for the first time is joyful. The bit where Jor-El tells Clark the history of Krypton through the medium of an animated metallic mural is awesome. Lois being let in at the ground floor when it comes to knowing Superman’s identity is a smart move (although I get the feeling it was only included to sidestep the shit and insight-free “Clark’s disguise is rubbish, it’s clearly Superman in glasses” schtick). Superman’s final reveal being tied into humanity’s first contact with aliens. It’s all good stuff. There’s a really smart take on the whole Superman thing in here somewhere, buried underneath the origin embarrassment and leaden writing.

So, the big controversial ending. Superman breaks Zod’s neck. He just fuckin’ kills the guy. To be honest, I don’t really have a problem with this. It makes sense. He was backed into a corner and Clark had no real other option. Zod wins in the way that Kevin Spacey’s John Doe “won” in Se7en. It’s a dark ending. If you needed proof that the film was relying on previous knowledge of the main character, this should be it. It assumes you know Superman doesn’t kill people. It’s never addressed in the film. Afterwards Clark is torn up about it, screaming in anguish. It’s powerful stuff. If they use this as a way of cementing his moral standpoint in future adventures and having Clark vow to never kill again, then it’s worth it. The film can’t help but ruin this moment by tacking on some bullshit scene about drones (ooh, topical!) and a female military captain finding him “hot”.

“Hi, Lois Lane. Welcome to The Planet.”

“Glad to be here Lois.”

Man of Steel is a frustrating mess. It messes up a chance to properly introduce a great character and confirms peoples’ biases a thousand times over when they say Superman is boring. He is boring in this film. Fucking boring. There’s nothing to him. The film refuses to stick to its guns when it comes to anything. It’s a turgid clunker with delusions of grandeur and a sense of pomposity that’s really unappealing. So, explain to me why I actually don’t hate it with the same passion that I do something like The Amazing Spider-Man. I’m not sure, really. Maybe it’s because I can see the potential here. It can be a great series, it wishes to be. It only lacks the light to show the way.

P.S. Right, I’m done talking about Man of Steel, I promise. However, I found the video below by Chronicle writer Max Landis to be informative and on the money:

The Wolf of Wall Street

 
Not much rhymes with “wolf”. PUN ABANDONED.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2014)

So- first proper review of this year. Well, sort of. This review is as prompt as it could be as it only properly came out yesterday, but American readers may be left wondering why this is so late. Well, here in the UK, we’ve been worn down and beaten to a point where we’re used to getting screwed over for no particular reason, so we had to wait a few arbitrary weeks until the film reels were suitably rainproofed and finally shipped over.

“My name is Jordan Belfort. The year I turned 26, I made 49 million dollars, which really pissed me off because it was three shy of a million a week.”

The Wolf of Wall Street is based on the life and subsequent book of stockbroker Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio). After a false start on Wall Street itself, with Belfort having the misfortune of becoming a broker during a market crash, we see Jordan try again. Belfort starts applying big city thinking to unlisted “penny stocks”, gets rich and starts his own company. Soon he’s assembled a selling team of basic crooks, including new friend Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) and they slowly build up an empire. However. the company starts getting the attention of the FBI and Agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler) in particular, who is intent on nailing Belfort and his shyster dealings. Okay, I realised it made it sound kind of standard, but it really isn’t. I’m underselling it. The Wolf of Wall Street is a tale of excess. Everything’s turned way up to the point where it actually becomes pretty exhausting. Money, sex, drugs, greed, corruption, addiction- these are all things that completely saturate the film. Jordan Belfort is a deeply unlikable man. He made his money, like many stockbrokers, by selling lies and half-truths to gullible people and conning them out of their savings.

DiCaprio is going to win that golden statue, I can just feel it. Jordan Belfort is not going to be the defining role for him, but he’s the latest in a long damn list of characters that Leo has completely owned. This is both his most over-the-top and nuanced performance so far. He’s dynamite and I won’t hear a bad word against him. Jonah Hill is also a strong contender for awards gold too. When I first saw him, sporting a ridiculous outfit and even more ridiculous false teeth, my heart sank, but he does an amazing job. I think he’s a really talented dramatic actor and deserves meatier roles like this one. Everyone’s good in this film. Belfort’s trophy wife Naomi (Margot Robbie) is fantastic. I can imagine a Skyler White type situation where stupid people hate her because she doesn’t buy into Belfort’s bullshit like they do, but it’s their loss. Matthew McConaughey turns up to corrupt a young Belfort straight out of the gate in a surreal lunch scene that ends up boiling down to chest thumping and humming along to a tune that probably doesn’t exist. Even though his appearance boils down to a McCameo, he makes a big impression. Same goes for the whole film. Every so often, another actor will enter the fray and adds their specific talents to the ensemble. Jean Dujardin shows up as a Swiss Banker! Hurray! The angry fella from The Walking Dead plays another muscled angry fella! Huzzah! Jon Favreau appears as a sleazy lawyer! Bonus! Rob Reiner plays Jordan’s Dad! Cripes! Joanna Lumley stars as a classy British aunt! Blimey! It’s a damn good cast.

So, OK. The big question hanging over all of this is: “Does this film glorify this scumbag’s lifestyle?”. There have been plenty of hand-wringing articles over this subject as well as news that in several screenings, bankers and Wall Street douchebags applauded scenes of debauchery and disgusting decadence. Well, the ultimate answer is YES (if you’re a fucking braindead moron). It’s a Scarface type of situation. How many times have you seen a poster of Tony Montana on some idiot’s wall? It’s a staple of student accommodation. I’m not saying liking Scarface is stupid, I’m saying that the appearance of Al Pacino’s mug on the back of their bedroom door is probably not the moral indictment of Montana’s greed and stupidity that the film is. People cling to the fact that Tony Montana managed to get the money, the drugs and the women he set out to get. They love the fact that he went out in an apparent blaze of glory. Same in this case. There are tons of superficial idiots out there who will see the vast amounts of money, women and drug-fuelled parties on display and aspire to Belfort’s lifestyle. The sad irony is that it’s a parody of that very attitude. As I said, everything is ramped up. Chest-beating masculinity, hyper-sexuality, insane greed, all of it. The film is basically a comedy, despite it containing some dark undercurrents. It’s laughing at Belfort and his crew. I’m sure you’ve heard of it by now, but there’s an insane physical comedy sequence where Belfort is off his head on banned sedatives, Quaaludes, which is one of the funniest things that I’ve seen in recent memory. It goes on for an incredibly long time and it’s played absolutely perfectly. The whole thing is practically a cartoon. That linked article earlier in the paragraph plays with the idea that Scorsese could have done more to make Belfort look like the villain. That’s dumb. We don’t need to see the results of people losing their savings, houses and livelihoods as the result of dickheads lying down the phone. The global recession was thanks to coked-up twats like Belfort playing with other peoples’ money like it was nothing. We’ve all fucking lived the consequences.

The film is certainly makes its position on the whole thing known. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t think Jordan’s a hero. There’s a bit early on where Jordan, fresh from his initial baptism of sleaze on Wall Street, lies his arse off about a shitty investment opportunity to some poor excited schmuck on speakerphone whilst the whole office giggles and high-fives each other. As he’s talking up the possible military applications of this new tech company Aerotyne we have a cutaway to a still of the company HQ which is basically a beaten up old shack in the middle of nowhere with a hand-painted sign.  You’ll laugh, but feel guilty for doing so.  My point is this- if you can watch that scene and not figure out that Belfort and his cohorts are the bad guys in all this, walk away. The film will do nothing for you. Screenwriter Terence Winter uses Belfort’s candidness and frequent pieces to camera to really make you hate the guy.  It’s not as if he was seduced into the business on the appearance that all is fine and dandy. He knows he’s bankrupting people to line his pockets, he knows it’s illegal as shit- he just couldn’t care less and actively enjoys it.

This whole story is in Scorsese’s wheelhouse. It’s Goodfellas but with a different morally bankrupt way to the top. Yeah, one could argue that he’s hardly stretching himself, but he’s Scorsese. He can do what he wants. The film is masterfully directed and the music choices are superb. The one criticism I had of it is that it felt too long.  After three hours of everything turned up to maximum, I felt like I’d been put through the wringer (although that may be the actual point). I felt the film was repeating itself at times with multiple scenes of parties and insane money spending, but that’s just me. All I know is that I was busting for a piss by the end of it.

“Let me tell you something. There’s no nobility in poverty. I’ve been a poor man, and I’ve been a rich man. And I choose rich every fucking time.”

I loved The Wolf of Wall Street. It’s films like this that remind me why I like films in the first place. Great cast, fantastic direction, brilliantly written- the list goes on. Like most sharp satires, it’s bound to be misunderstood by some. I suppose the basic message to it all is crime doesn’t pay. You just get incredibly rich, slip through the cracks in the legal system, stay rich and have one of the best living filmmakers direct the story of your life starring one of the best actors around, all of which will bolster your book sales. Yup, doesn’t pay in the slightest.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

 
Mitty-gating circumstances.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)

It’s award season again, so instead of having an excuse to put a lovely new “2014” in the headings, I’m stuck with shitty old “2013”. Anyway, I went and caught Walter Mitty the other day, just so I could review a film still in cinemas. I don’t have anything else to say here. Call it unprofessional if you must, but I don’t get paid and answer to no-one, so therefore am not a professional. So suck it.

“To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life.”

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, shockingly enough, revolves around the eponymous Walter (Ben Stiller). Walt is a chronic daydreamer who comes to the realisation he’s done nothing with his life whilst creating an online dating profile to flirt with co-worker Cheryl (Kristen Wiig). He works in the photography department at Life Magazine, which is undergoing a shifting focus onto online content and a massive downsizing overseen by corporate douche Ted (Adam Scott). Mitty receives a package from famed photographer and globetrotter Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn) which is missing an important negative intended to be the cover for the final printed issue of the magazine. With his job in jeopardy, Walter decides to try and track down O’Connell to get the all-important photo. Stiller stars and directs and he does a bang-up job of both. As the lead, he’s great and way more understated than I thought him capable of. I’m so used to seeing him in cartoony over-the-top roles, it’s nice to see him take things down several hundred gears. Kristen Wiig is lovely in a role that despite some careful touches here and there still basically boils down to the prize to be won. Adam Scott gives us a severely unlikable suited exec to hate and does well with it. Whenever he was on screen, I was trying to remember who he reminded me of, but it finally clicked. He’s like Ellis from Die Hard. Same beard, same oily jokes, same punchability. Sean Penn is basically Sean Penn with a wig. Make of that what you will. Patton Oswalt shows up too and is nowhere near as funny or as likable as he is in other things, basically because his character is there for only one insidious reason. I’ll get to that in a minute.

Walter Mitty is aiming straight for the kind of audiences that like their films surreal and life-affirming. Think Garden State and others of its ilk.  It’s the kind of film with a guitar-strummy soundtrack and many shots of our main character staring into the middle distance. SLoWM often has Mitty daydreaming insane scenarios, ranging from saying what he really wants to say in a social situation to a super-powered street battle, similar to Family Guy’s overblown “Chicken Fight” scenes. They’re fun bits and extremely well done (although there’s a riff on Curious Case of Benjamin Button that clunks like a bitch). The film is about self-discovery and enjoying life whilst you can, which is what Walter does, vicariously living Sean O’Connell’s life whilst tracking him across different countries. It’s all beautifully shot and the soundtrack complements things nicely. It isn’t the deepest movie out there and doesn’t have anything to say about the human condition or anything like that. It’s more akin to a motivational poster hung on an office wall. You know those posters that have a picture of a mountain and some saccharine sentiment underneath about “never giving up” or similar? Yeah, that’s pretty much this film. That’s not to say it’s bad. There’s certainly a place for that. It just doesn’t do much for me.

The films looks fantastic. Stuart Dryburgh’s cinematography is top-notch stuff and features some achingly beautiful landscapes. The script however, is a bit clumsy for my tastes. There are some lovely ideas here, but they require a defter touch. So Mitty’s job at Life Magazine is threatened by a move to internet journalism. The film has a few things to say about this, the hard-working people it’s making redundant and where society’s headed with this attitude. Fair enough. Thing is, when you have a huge sign saying “Life Online” and shots of all the interesting furniture (and workers) being removed, it’s too much and the message is overpowered by how fucking obvious the film’s being. I understand that most people need stuff spelling out for them but you can get your point across with a light push here and there, without having to resort to using a neon sledgehammer. The film isn’t quite so heavy handed with other components. During Walter’s travels, we’re made to question whether or not what we’re seeing is real or whether it’s just an extended fantasy of his. That’s genuinely clever stuff. His backstory involving his dad dying and his relationship with his mother and sister are also played well. He genuinely feels like a guy that just shut down after he lost his father. It’s realistic and heartfelt.

Let’s take a minute to talk about product placement. Personally, I don’t mind it that much when it’s done unobtrusively. Best example I can think of is Bond swigging a Heineken in Skyfall. The film doesn’t linger on the bottle and there are no shots of Daniel Craig taking a sip and then looking at the bottle with an impressed expression. It’s just there. Corporate logos are part of daily life and we’re used to seeing them. I actually find it more distracting when someone drinks a generic “Cola” or a bottle simply labelled “Beer”. Done right, product placement can add some realism and validity to a character’s world. Anyway, back to my point. Walter Mitty is a corporate whore.

A lot has been made of the product placement in this film and I really tried to ignore it, but I couldn’t. This is shameless stuff. Walter starts making an eHARMONY® profile at the start and is called by Todd (Oswalt) from eHarmony® at various points during the film. The pizza chain PAPA JOHN’S® also makes an appearance, ending up being a major plot point. Life Magazine doesn’t really count as it did shut down, although it still exists in some form, although the workers genuinely believing in the corporate motto sticks in the craw slightly. Also Walter goes to CINNABON® and eats a pastry, being prompted to talk about how good it is. There are tons more too, these are just the main offenders. Fuck, this is the worst I’ve ever seen. Obnoxious product placement will now be referred to as “doing a Mitty“. My line between tolerable and intolerable product placement is when there are specific lines of dialogue talking about the product. All of the named products/services above all have positive lines of dialogue in the script.  Todd from eHarmony® talks about their “unique matching algorithm” and Walter says something like “Yeah, that’s why I like them.” I mean, Jesus. Have some goddamn dignity. The Transformers films weren’t this bad. The thing is, if this was Transformers, it wouldn’t matter so much because it’s a big, dumb, shiny advert of a film. In that particular case, they’re films based on TV show that was created for the sole purpose of selling toys. They’re like ultra adverts. Walter Mitty doesn’t have that excuse. Having all this “brand alignment” cheapens the overall sentiment of the film. If Walter’s finding himself and finally taking steps into livening up his life, why do we need garish logos accompanying it? It makes it very hard to buy into anything the film has to say because you can’t shake the feeling you’re being taken for a bit of a mug. You can argue that the film’s being ironic and making a point about big business, but I ain’t buying it. Money changed hands and script lines were changed to fit the sponsorship, I’m sure of it. Disgusting.

“Beautiful things don’t ask for attention.”

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty really isn’t bad. It has some good solid performances and is genuinely heart-warming at times. It has a nice story to tell and does it admirably. It’s basically like the John Lewis Bear & Hare Christmas advert- undeniably charming and enjoyable on its own terms, but at the end of the day is basically just interested in sucking your wallet dry.

The Lone Ranger (Redux)

 
Tonto and the Lone Ranger were riding across the prairie. Suddenly, Tonto dismounts his horse and puts his ear to the ground.
He looks at the Lone Ranger and says, “Buffalo come.”
“Wow, that’s amazing! How did you figure that out?”
“Face sticky.”
 

The Lone Ranger (2013) (Redux)

So, whilst my first Scenes of the Year list was well received (thanks, by the way), it raised a few eyebrows. Biggest brow lifter was my inclusion of the universally loathed Lone Ranger alongside more “legitimate” picks like Gravity and Django Unchained. The Lone Ranger was one of 2013’s highest profile flops with reported losses being around the $190 million mark. Fingers have been pointed and various elements blamed. The production history is fascinating though. It went way over budget (apparently due to goddamn werewolves – not making that up), was cancelled thanks to Cowboys & Aliens stinking up the box office, only to be resurrected and bomb regardless. Anyway, like the disgusting narcissist that I am, I was re-reading my original review of it and found it to be lacking. I basically used the film as an example of the bloated corporate side of filmmaking that spawned it rather than focusing on the film itself. So, against better judgement, I went out, got myself a copy and rewatched it for the purposes of a more in-depth redux review. Guess what? My opinion has changed somewhat.

“Horse says you are spirit walker: a man who has been to the other side and returned.”

The Lone Ranger starts with a framing device of an old Tonto (Johnny Depp) telling a small boy about his adventures back in the day. We flashback and see the idealistic lawyer John Reid (Armie Hammer) arriving at the small town of Colby, Texas to visit his Sheriff brother Dan (James Badge Dale) and his wife, Rebecca (Ruth Wilson). To celebrate the new railroad connecting towns like Colby to the rest of the United States and beyond, Mayor Latham Cole (Tom Wilkinson) brings in notorious cannibalistic outlaw Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner) to publicly hang him in the town square. Old West tits go up when Cavendish escapes, leaving Tonto and Reid to become unlikely allies and uncover a plot that involves much more than a simple heart-eating psychopath. As I’ve said before, the performances are all decent. Depp’s insistence on playing Tonto as another wacky-as-fuck character is a bit out there, but I think he’s pretty amusing. The film has plenty of actual Native Americans in the wings, so the decision for Depp to go redface is baffling. Still, John Carter proved that not having a big name in your film knackers you straight out of the gate, so it’s understandable, if not exactly politically correct. I think Armie Hammer does a great job too. He’s shackled by the Tonto focused script, but he manages to really sell both sides of Reid.

In my original review, I stated that the film’s cynicism was one of the main things that turned me off about it. That’s still true to a certain extent, but I think it runs deeper than that. The film has little to no love for the source material. I’m nothing approaching a Lone Ranger fan. The radio plays, the TV show and subsequent films were all way before my time and I never saw the Filmation cartoon growing up. I knew just about as much as the standard pop culture osmosis grants, including the little joke at the top of all this. All the famous Lone Ranger hallmarks that I, a Ranger pleb, would expect are in the film but they feel token and concessionary. It’s almost like it’s too cool for school and wants to distance itself from its origins. In fact, this rewatch reminded me of the similarly afflicted Star Trek Into Darkness, which had a script made up of famous “bits” and not much else. The story they went with is not a good Lone Ranger tale, it’s a dark western inexpertly made to fit the property. It certainly doesn’t feel organic. Another film it reminded me of was the apparently ubiquitous Batman Begins. You may scoff at this, but when you take into account the fact that the basic story is a young man returning to his home town to find it full of criminals and corruption and adopting a masked, vigilante persona to take the fight to them, it may not seem that ridiculous. Add in the overall dark tone, the casting of Bat-actors Tom Wilkinson and William Fichtner, along with canned Batman Armie Hammer in the lead role. It even has a train finale that could have very easily contained the line “I won’t kill you, but I don’t have to save you”. One could argue that these are basic story points and coincidences, but I don’t know. Begins has been the cheat sheet that a metric fuckton of films have worked from for about ten years now, to the point where I refuse to believe that any kind of hero origin story hasn’t had Nolan’s name chucked about at least once during scripting. Cynicism does hang over the whole production, so it probably a case of “what’s popular right now and how can we fit it to this?” rather than “how do we make people care about the Lone Ranger again?” My guess is they just had “Pirates of the Caribbean (x Depp) + Batman Begins + HORSE (LOL) + ???? = $$$$$$$” written on the first draft of the script.

Without all the Ranger dressing, the basic story is actually pretty decent. It’s not the whitewashed classic Western “cowboys r awesome” yarn we’re used to seeing. It definitely takes a revisionist view of things. Nobody’s a hero and violence reigns supreme. It’s a more realistic take on how the Old West actually was, rather than how it’s been portrayed for decades. In an odd direction for a PG-13 crowd pleaser, the film plumbs the darker depths often. Examples? Well, in one scene, Reid fires a lucky shot. After bouncing off things in a comedic manner, including Tonto’s “I am Crow” headgear, it hits a suspended plank and takes out two villains. Standard stuff, but respectable enough. However, we then see that instead of just knocking them out or non-specifically killing them, the wood CRUSHED THEIR FUCKING HEADS. I ain’t squeamish, but fucking ow! If a similar scene appeared in Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (great flick, by the way), I’d have laughed my little socks off. Here it just jars. There’s a grisly sequence where a Comanche army get mowed down by superior American firepower. There’s also a Tonto flashback later on that’s pretty grim viewing too. Thing is, these scenes would be effective if the film wasn’t trying to have its cake and eat it too. You can’t have Tonto and Ranger larks coupled with a grisly, post-modern take on how the West was actually won. It just doesn’t gel. There are some decent, challenging ideas here, especially considering the blockbuster forum. They just appear in the wrong film.

With all this we come back to the film’s other major problem of tone. The Pirates films had some dark stuff along with the swashbuckling adventure, but it was handled with a lot more care. Pirate stories usually have more than a few elements of the macabre about them anyway. Having scenes of realistic-feeling mass murder appearing in the same film as japes with Silver and a completely left-field decision to have CGI carnivorous rabbits creates a very odd final product. The script is a mess, but it’s a fascinating one. It’s a multi-car pile up, but the vehicles involved are brightly painted and make cartoon sound effects when compressed. Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio show no signs of returning to their golden age when their scripting was sharp and witty. From the looks of it,  the third writer Justin Haythe may be the one responsible for grounding the film, steering the script away from some bonkers direction a pair of writers high off their own farts were intent on going. It still feels like a continuation of the duo’s work on the Pirates films, however,  albeit with characters that you’re not utterly fucking sick of. Outside of the fun Tonto/Ranger interplay, there are some real clunky lines of dialogue and a distinct lack of subtlety when it comes to exposition. Had I not observed their decline, I wouldn’t have even dreamt that the writers responsible for Curse of the Black Pearl could have written something as hacktastic as some of this.

This may shock readers and past lovers of mine, but I’m not a machine. I’m a squishy human being who doesn’t work in binary. I very rarely purely hate or love something. My opinions change and evolve as I do. Despite all the nitpicking and grievances above, I’ve come to the realisation that I actually like The Lone Ranger, quite a bit. There is a lot of good in there striving to escape. The Tonto/Ranger bits are fun, the action sequences well executed and memorable (especially the finale) and some of the ideas are great. Yeah, it’s bloated and overlong but unlike something like Desolation of Smaug it still has a strong focus on the main story. Yeah, Helena Bonham Carter’s character is completely pointless and adds fuck all to the story, but she adds some colour to proceedings and has a fun ivory gun leg (that may be my favourite sentence that I’ve ever written). Gore Verbinski is a fantastic director and gets to fill the lens with iconic Western scenes and vistas that are just as impressive as they always have been. He knows how to shoot action properly (still a rarity) and keeps things feeling pacy, even if the film is taking its sweet time to tell a relatively simple story. It’s all too weird and surreal to be completely dismissed. It’s a strange potluck type of film.

“It was a ranger, Butch! A lone ranger!”

I get the feeling that The Lone Ranger may be looked on as “misunderstood” rather than simply terrible in a few years. Let’s not go mental, it’s never going to be a hailed as a classic or anything, but I think people were a little too harsh to judge it (myself included) and it may just find an audience yet. It’s not the mass-made production line sludge that I initially took it for. It’s a hell of a lot more interesting than that. Hollywood doesn’t usually make this sort of film and that could have been one of the reasons it failed. The Lone Ranger is the sort of film that I’ll admit to liking just to see monocles drop at fancy parties. Whereas there’s nothing of any real substance to discuss with hated Hollywood dreck like the Transformers sequels, The Lone Ranger provokes discussion. Even when it’s bad, it’s interestingly bad. That’s why it’s not only getting a decent three star rating but the caveat that it’s a good three stars as well, even edging on four. Haters to the east because I’m all about the west.

Scenes of the Year 2013

When it comes to looking back at the cinematic year, most reviewers tend to do a “Best of” and a “Worst of” list, chronicling which films massaged their temples and which spat in their face. As you should know by now, I’m a kind of sexy maverick who doesn’t play by the rules. I decided to a “Scenes of the Year” list as it allows me to include a healthy mixture of some stellar and not-so-stellar titles. The only drawback is that in doing this, I exclude the more talky, cerebral films that I enjoyed and were released this year, because they don’t really lend themselves to scene by scene evaluation. These are just my favourites- the ones I couldn’t wait to talk about as soon as the film ended. This isn’t an objective list of the best scenes of the year, to attempt such a thing would be very difficult and tedious for me to write. So- in no particular order- here are my personal Top 10 Scenes of 2013.

1) Django Unchained – “Who’s your little friend?”

One criticism of Tarantino is that his films are made up of stand alone scenes that are stitched together by a vague thread. I can appreciate this point, even if I don’t entirely agree with it. However, his attitude toward filmmaking certainly meant it was quite easy to think of sequences from Django fit for this list and there were many contenders. However, the one scene that really stuck with me way after the credits rolled was Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his skull pal. To me, this typifies Tarantino. It’s a well-written, fucking barmy monologue where Candie explains the apparent inherent subservience of black people using the thoroughly discredited psuedo-science of phrenology. I’ve always found the fact that people believed that nodules in the skull spoke of deep personality traits completely fascinating, so I had a personal budding interest all ready to go. The thing I love about it though is that it really cements your hatred for Candie, with part of you wanting someone to forcibly shut his bigoted mouth and another part wanting him to carry on so you can hear the next demented thing that spills from his lips.  DiCaprio is on fire too, showing he can be properly menacing. The whole scene culminates with an unscripted masterstroke where Leo cuts his hand open on a glass and proceeds with the scene without missing a beat, adding a surreal element to the whole thing. I didn’t think I could respect him more than I already did, but damn, son. That’s commitment.

2) Pacific Rim – The Tokyo Showdown

In a year of disappointing summer tentpoles (Man of Steel, step forward and then fuck off), Pacific Rim was exactly what I wanted it to be and more. It’s probably my most rewatched film of this year. The one scene I freakin’ love though is the extended Tokyo sequence where Gipsy Danger takes on two Kaiju in a city-destroying series of scraps. Put simply, it’s like a good version of Transformers where hulking beasts beat seven shades out of each other and you can actually tell what’s going on and who’s hitting who. My favourite part is the fight with the second Kaiju in the rainy, neon-lit streets where Gipsy Danger brandishes an oil tanker as a club. It’s exactly as preposterous and enjoyable as you’d expect. There’s even a neat gag where the Jaeger’s fist smashes through an office block, destroying everything in its path, only to slow down at the apex of its reach and lightly tap a Newton’s cradle desk toy, setting the metal balls in motion. It’s a fun little bit in a titanic punch-up and proof that blockbusting entertainment is at its best when it doesn’t take itself so seriously.

3) Iron Man Three – “Barrel of Monkeys”

Whilst know-nothing twats didn’t like Iron Man 3 and publicly slated it because it wasn’t exactly the same as the first two films, I loved it. God Bless Shane Black.  I knew Iron Man 3 would feature on this list in some form, but it was a toss-up between this scene and the finale with tons of Iron Men. When it came down to it, despite the final battle avoiding the boring suit vs suit thumpfest ending that let the first two films down, it didn’t have me on the edge of my seat like the skydiving spectacle that was the “Barrel of Monkeys” sequence. It’s such an ingenious idea. It’s  completely built around Iron Man’s limitations. Basic set up is that a bunch of people are blown out of the back of an exploded Air Force One and Stark sets off in hot pursuit,  quickly analysing the falling bodies before swooping into action. The exchange below sets things up perfectly :

“How many are in the air?”

“Thirteen, sir”

“How many can I carry?”

“Four, sir”

Boom. You’ve got your stakes in a few seconds flat. Slick and efficient. If this was a Superman film or featured any other hero that could fly, they could do this whilst cartwheeling through the air. Stark has to use his brain to distribute the weight of the falling people evenly whilst they’re all hurtling to the ground. It’s genuinely thrilling and definitely one of the best action scenes of the year.

4) Frozen – “Let it Go”

Hey, I’m as surprised as you are. I thought Frozen was brilliant and the soundtrack was a real high point.”Let it Go” stands tall above the other songs for a number of reasons.  Firstly, this is a proper belter with a real “I Am What I Am” vibe. The song starts off quiet and rather self pitying, but soon evolves into an empowering barnstormer where Elsa (Idina Menzel) finally unleashes her true power after years of isolation and repression. Secondly, Menzel’s big voice sells the shit out of Elsa’s revelation and coupled with the beautiful animation it makes it a truly memorable moment and an instant Disney classic. As I said in my original review, I actually got goosebumps during this scene. I’ve watched the scene an embarrassing number of times on YouTube since and have pre-ordered the shit out of the Blu-ray. When Disney’s bad, it’s frustrating but easy to dismiss, but when it’s this good, there’s nothing else like it.

5) Behind the Candelabra – Dr. Jack Startz

Behind the Candelabra is definitely one of my favourite films of the year. Steven Soderbergh continues his insane streak of great films by not only doing a fantastic job of a Liberace biopic, but making it one of the darkest, funniest films I’ve seen in a long time. During one of the many, many fucked up scenes, Liberace (Michael Douglas) takes new beau Scott Thorson (Matt Damon) to get plastic surgery, intending for Scott to end up looking like Liberace himself as a younger man (!). This is all overseen by walking advert for the dangers of plastic surgery, Dr. Jack Startz (Rob Lowe), a man with his face pulled so tight, you’re afraid it’ll split at any given moment. Lowe sells the character perfectly and is a complete joy to watch. There’s a bit during the consultation where Dr. Startz attempts to drink a glass of water but, due to his paralysed features, can’t swallow it properly and ends up dribbling it out the side of his mouth and sloshing it down his front. This little bit made me laugh so much I had to rewind it a good few minutes to catch up on what I’d missed.

6) The Lone Ranger – The William Tell finale

OK,  I didn’t like the film that much, but I don’t think The Lone Ranger deserves to feature on as many “Worst of the Year” lists as it has. There are plenty of big budget films out there that don’t even attempt what it tried to do. It didn’t wholly succeed, but it’s too weird and off-kilter to earn a complete panning. Plus, it has a cracking train finale scored by Hans Zimmer’s reworking of the classic William Tell Overture. It’s an innovative, hugely enjoyable sequence that features galloping horses in and on top of a speeding locomotive, genuinely funny beats involving Tonto and THAT GODDAMN MUSIC that could make a trip to the shops on a rainy Sunday an epic, pulse-pounding affair. Few scenes from 2013 made me want to stand up and applaud once they were over and this was one of that select few. It was definitely the talking point as soon as the credits rolled. It’s a shame the rest of the film didn’t match the same fun quality that this had, but it has to be said that no other film this year has had a more satisfying finale. There, I said it.

7) World War Z – Israel

Initially predicted as a box-office bomb, World War Z actually managed to do good business and was one of the more interesting blockbusters of the year. Everyone’s sick of zombies, with the whole notion of the walking dead being played out in almost every form of media. It’s not as sharp or satirical as the book, but the film was a very decent attempt at a new take on the old cliché. One of my favourite elements of the film was how the zombies moved en masse like a tower of army ants. The Israel sequence is incredibly exciting, combining political elements (Israel is protected from the outbreak because it merely had to finish the existing segregating wall around itself) with scenes of massive tension as the inhabitants start celebrating their safety a little too loudly, attracting the attention of the horde and causing the mass pile up seen above. World War Z succeeded in giving us a fresh twist on a tired old formula and that’s commendable.

8) Gravity – Space debris

Mild spoiler alert– There are multiple space debris scenes that feature in Gravity, but none of them have the impact of the first volley, which totals our heroes’ ship, sends it spinning out of control with poor Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) attached before finally breaking and flinging her into the vast empty blackness of space. Christ, even just typing that was enough to get my stomach churning again. Yes, I did have a problem with the lackluster dialogue, but no-one can deny that Gravity is pure cinematic spectacle and an absolute thrill ride to boot. Instead of the amazing special effects being the focus, they’re used to service the story, not to be the main attraction, which is all kinds of rare. No other film had me gnawing at my knuckles with tension quite like it did. That initial scene is incredibly disorientating and downright unsettling, tapping into a fear I didn’t even know I had. Most importantly, it was completely unlike anything I’ve seen this year. Can’t say much more than that.

9) Only God Forgives – “Wanna fight?”

In this online age, difference of opinion is a given when it comes to films. No matter how positive the general consensus is on a film, you are guaranteed to find loud, dissenting voices calling it the worst thing since time began. Nothing has split opinion quite like Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives, with the film appearing on both “Best of” and “Worst of” lists equally. The sticking point for me is that even if you think the film’s themes and tone are bullshit, you can’t argue that it’s devoid of artistic merit. It’s a beautifully shot film, for one. I blame unreasonably high expectations after the stylish but infinitely more accessible Drive. Only God Forgives is a mood piece filled with all sorts of things that will make you wince and shift uncomfortably in your seat. The film’s visceral torture scene was a frontrunner for this list, but the scene where Julien (Ryan Gosling) squares off against Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm) won out. Basically, what we see in this scene is the very definition of hubris. Julien thinks he can take the supernaturally powered Chang and gets soundly beaten without Chang breaking a sweat. He’s fighting a battle against his demons and getting annihilated. Factor in Cliff Martinez’s hypnotic synth-heavy soundtrack and you’ve got an unforgettable scene. Fuck the haters.

10) Fast and Furious 6 – The tank sequence

I actually respect the Fast & Furious series. In a climate where there are crusty old pieces of toss masquerading as old school action films to make some quick bucks (The Last Stand, The Expendables films, Bullet to the Head etc) F&F is the true spiritual successor to the heyday of dumb action flicks. It’s evolved into an A-Team type series where a gang of crooks are roped in to solve a problem, many bullets are fired and things blown up, but hardly anybody gets hurt. When it came time to watch F&F 6, I thought the tank scene was really well executed. From its “Oh, shit!” reveal onwards, it’s fast, innovative (the steel cable gun is a brilliant invention) and exciting. Whilst it does feature some spectacularly dumb moments, that’s par for the course as far as I’m concerned. It’s a highly enjoyable sequence full of the carnage one would expect when a speeding tank is involved. More of this sort of thing please.

So, that’s my list. It’s an odd one I know, but I had to be honest with myself. Here’s hoping 2014 throws up just as many interesting moments.