Tag: Movie Review

Suicide Squad – Review

Daniel Simms1 Comment

The post Superman battling Batman instalment into the DC Expanded Universe follows a Black Ops team assembled using the Dark Knight’s captured foes. In real terms it’s another throw of the dice for Warner Bros. after the critics slammed Zack Snyder’s last entry. So, are they the worst good guys ever? Or the best bad guys? Or bad worst bad good guys?

Director and writer David Ayer’s film focuses on the idea that now the world has seen Superman, the terror threat can’t be controlled by standard armies. The character Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) is the voice for this point and the mean woman that will do anything to ensure her pet project is given the government green light.

That project is of course, what we know as, Suicide Squad. Six bad guys, some of whom display unique abilities, that can face unnatural enemies and if they fail, the government can deny any involvement.

To ensure she gets her way, Waller scares the living daylights out of the decision makers by using the Enchantress to give a graphic display of her powers.

Suspension of belief part one, folks. The Enchantress is an ancient spirit that had been trapped in an idol. Cara Delevingne’s Jane Moone accidently broke it on an exhibition and has since been possessed. Waller controls the sorceress by prodding her heart (somehow mummified and still intact).

Magic and sorcery isn’t the thing you need to suspend belief with here, it’s the idea Waller thinks a being that can travel thousands of miles and back in the blink of an eye could be kept under lock and key. But hey, we needed a tool for the main villain to appear, right?

In the least surprising turn of events, Enchantress does a runner and then gets her brother’s idol open . . . and away we go.

Enter Rebooted Robocop Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag. Bad ass special forces guy in charge of Task Force X (Suicide Squad), oh, and June Moone’s lover. Because everyone loves to make out with witches.

It’s a pretty easy set-up, and it flows pretty well. Other critics have slammed it for being convoluted. This really isn’t the case. The backstories for each of the main characters offer enough insight without dragging the main plot down and the action scenes couldn’t be simpler. It isn’t too dark nor is it humourless.

Its main flaw is how easy it is to watch. Unlike other DC projects it strips away the deeper issues and just plays out like any easy viewing action film should.

The elephant in the room is The Joker, or the lack thereof. Jared Leto has the thankless task of being the first guy after Heath Ledger to assume the role. He does a sterling job of reinventing the Clown Prince of Crime. This is a mobster style criminal. You get the impression he’s had more turf wars than attempts to destroy the world.

His fleeting appearance makes sense; too much of a good thing and this film would have been derailed. Ayers had to stay on point with a simple Suicide Squad movie.

The Joker’s squeeze, Harley Quinn, steals the show. Margot Robbie is mesmerising and one hopes we see a solo Joker film just to get more of her. Without her colour, the ensemble of villains would lack cement of vibrancy, then, and only then, this film would have been a mess.

Harley Quinn

The other characters range from Will Smith’s Deadshot. In many respects, the human side of the flick but it’s hard to not see it as Will Smith just being Will Smith. He’s caught because Batman confronted Deadshot while he was walking with his daughter.

Which requires a quick suspension of belief once again.

All the baddies Batman catches in flashbacks, baddies we’re lead to believe are the most dangerous on earth, are all caught as if they never attended Day 1 of baddie school, lesson 1, avoid easy capture.

Jai Courtney plays Captain Boomerang and is only here to provide comic relief. He may well be the least fleshed out character, aside from Slipknot.

Lost’s Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje performs as Killer Croc. He’s unidentifiable beneath all the makeup but somehow manages to get enough spirit over and commands attention when on the screen. You probably won’t see him appear as a villain on film but as a member of the squad, he works.

After Harley Quinn, the main props go to Jay Hernandez’s El Diablo. A reluctant participant due to the harm his powers have inflicted on those he loves. He can literally make fire and his backstory feels relevant rather than added for the sake of it.

DC went in big with this movie, from marketing and the future of the shared universe. It doesn’t deserve the negative press but Suicide Squad isn’t the feel good fix it should have been. It trumps most Marvel films out there but it seems DC are being judged by different standards.

Marvel get away with brains-out-live-action-cartoons. DC have made a better one of those but still get slated.

It lacks the depth Batman v Superman offered and the easy fun Star Trek Beyond served up, but it isn’t bad.

The Suicide Squad are the best trying bad guys out there.

7/10

 

Star Trek Beyond – Review

Daniel Simms3 Comments

To boldly go where the Kelvin Universe (Geek-speak for the JJ rebooted universe) has never gone before . . . back to the old feel of Star Trek’s Original Series. That was the mission statement following Trekkies dislike of Star Trek Into Darkness. Were they right to moan? Has the movie pulled it off?

Well, they were a little out of order slating JJ Abrams for paying too much homage to the source material (ring any bells, Star Wars fans?). But to be fair, no film should tamper with The Wrath of Khan. Into Darkness doesn’t deserve the bad press, mind. With the latest movie, Simon Pegg stated they had heard the complaints, loud and clear, and had addressed them.

That can’t be argued with. Star Trek Beyond moves past any pretentiousness (not that I personally had a problem with any aspect of the rebooted universe) and feels very much like an updated episode of the Original Series. Even the bad guy, Krall (Idris Elba under a ton of prosthetics) has a base that could have been lifted from the sixties show.

That’s not to say it looked dated or old fashioned – it was nostalgic, in all the right ways. It understands the styling of the day, the attitudes, the simple approach to honest sci-fi.

It isn’t soft, either. In the opening battle scene, you realise the Enterprise crew are in serious peril. And you can’t see a way for them, their fear is felt in the cinema seat. It’s just the bright costumes, buddy-buddy atmosphere, and one-dimensional villains, are all so swinging sixties.

Teaming the crew off in mini-groups once they are abandoned, allows them to finally get the screen time required for character exploration.

The standout performers are Karl Urban as Bones and Zachary Quinto as Spock. The former has the voice of DeForest Kelley’s McCoy down to a tee. His grislily demeanour that is hiding a good heart comes through. Thankfully, this extended appearance should put to bed talk of him wanting to leave due to being under-utilised.

The new Spock receives word that Prime Spock, our beloved Leonard Nimoy, has passed away. Both on and off screen, it is a call to take on the mantle now. Honour the name and respect the man that came before.

Chris Pine plays James T. Kirk with a better mix of Shatner and his own take than he managed previous. There are signs he will fill the big shoes and do the role justice. Whereas Zoe Saldana, will go on to expand the part of Uhura in ways denied to the original actress, Nichelle Nichols.

Sofia Boutella, made a strong impression in a supporting role as a lonely survivor on the planet that aides the crew. It is possible she could return in future instalments. That would be a welcome addition to this version of Star Trek.

Ultimately, the last action scene aside, it relies on the crew rather than special effects to make its impact. Okay, Justin Lin does repeat that absurd, diving through the air, grab hands act, lifted straight from the saving Letty scene in Fast & Furious 6, but he shows there is more to him than cars. He is a Trekkie.

With that, we get classic Star Trek. Which means, while the curse of the odd-numbered films is avoided once again, it is wholesome fun but fails to leave a lasting impression.

It will be one of the best films of this summer . . . but you won’t remember it ten years from now.

7/10

Ghostbusters (1984) – Review

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The world is Ghostbusters crazy again. Well, sort of. The relief has been palpable as the reboot of the franchise received good reviews after months of slating. One trailer earned the dubious honour of being the worst ever to air on YouTube. Not to go against the grain here, we’ve decided to look at the original, before taking in the latest incarnation. Nostalgia is creating a haunting spectre, so who you gonna call? Simms View.

It is hard to not be nostalgic when revisiting the 1984 Ivan Reitman movie, written by stars Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. During childhood, VHS tapes of it were played to destruction. Scenes traversed the line between family and adult, comedy and horror, fun and terrifying.

On reflection, the world has moved on and those lines are more blurred in society than ever before. Ghostbusters is still dark for a kiddies’ movie, the very first ghost we see in the library will still pop chills into younger viewers, but it’s atmosphere surpasses nostalgia.

And it should be noted, that the special effects still stand up today. The reboot has been accused of looking like an Xbox game in parts. Here, the spirits look otherworldly.

That opening scene also sets the tone with some cheesy lines: “Listen, you smell something?” I always smell with my ears. But that had already been preceded with Bill Murray’s ingenious sarcasm, when admiring a spookily tall set of books, “You’re right, no human would stack books like this.”

This is a marker and an insight to the perfect balancing act the film pulls off. Great smarmy wit from the legend that is Bill Murray, action scenes that jump out, slapstick moments (men get slimed), to great confrontations (Walter Peck), and a sense of the mystic.

A strong cast keep it rolling along. Has Sigourney Weaver ever been sexier. Her character is the love interest for Murray’s Peter Venkman and becomes possessed by Zuul. She becomes the Gatekeeper to Rick Moranis’s Keymaster. The scenes before his possession as Louis Tully add the light humour, again, balancing what is to come. His run across New York to escape the beast is one that stuck in the mind from childhood.

Weaver Ghostbusters.png

As do countless lines: “And the flowers are still standing.” “It’s a sign all right, a sign we’re going out of business.” “Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together…mass hysteria!” “Don’t cross the streams.” “I couldn’t help it. It just popped in there.”

The whole team get in on the act, again, perfect balance. Aykroyd’s Ray Stantz brings the childlike enthusiasm to the team and is one half of the technical side. His knowledge is surpassed by Ramis’s Egon Spengler, who can appear too serious but Venkman is the polar opposite – you guessed it: balance.

Ernie Hudson plays the late addition to the team. His character, Winston Zeddemore, is the everyman in need of a job. He does the best with what he’s given but it does feel as if he was shoehorned into the movie. They should have brought him in earlier or given him better screen time. That’s not to say he’s unimportant but he is poorly utilised.

It’s when Winston is sat chatting about the end of days, Mick Smiley’s “I Believe in Magic” starts playing, and the ghosts escape across the city.

Nowadays, the big finale has to be OTT, and often misfires. The original Ghostbusters hits the spot. I mean, how can an ending not be good when you see a giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man traipse through New York?

Very few popular movies age as well as this one. The anger aimed at a reboot is understandable when you walk through the original again. Time has not diminished the finished product. It isn’t perfect but therein lies some of its charm.

9/10

A Touch of Grey – Review

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On the face of it, A Touch of Grey, had the chance to be an understated work of intelligence. Its premise is to reunite four women after twenty-five years. The former high school friends would compare notes, and with a comedic angle, examine one another’s lives.

That was on the face of it, at least. Instead the early moments in the film are far from funny. Cringe, yes, but not in a deliberate way. Less The Office and more like it’s been produced by people that normally work in a paper mill.

Terrible camera work is only spared the title of worst element by the dire dialogue. Clichéd, forced and delivered by actresses that prove why some are suited to commercials and others meant for the big screen.

The soundtrack would have sounded bad on a bad seventies daytime TV show even back in the seventies. The little snippets of this remove you further from anything remotely natural feeling – if that’s at all possible, with the jarring conversation that sounds like a primary school student has written it for a lazy homework piece.

In the early going, it’s understandable if you give up before the thirty-minute mark. After all, there’s still time to press Stop on the player and find another movie. But then enters our fourth and final woman. Angela Asher’s Liz saves the setup from descending into something even worse.

She delivers her lines in the informal but natural way they were intended. The bigger life issues come up. Suddenly it’s not middle-aged women acting like they think girls do on a get together, but relatable issues we all face.

It begins to feel less forced, more natural especially when Barb opens up her heart. This is another saving grace because up until this point the actress who plays Barb, Maria del Mar, was the figurehead of the film. She was carrying a failing concept on her back and was looking as broken as her character.

Her little nuances and facial expressions give the depth to the later scenes that were wasted early on. The gloss is removed and it actually goes a little dark. If the initial annoying stages were set to act as a contrast, it was unnecessary, what follows is poignant enough.

It goes from touching, Patti breaking down about age catching up with her body but her mind feeling young. To the ridiculous, when Barb puts a lemon in Patti’s eye to disguise her tears from the others.

It is moving, just about. It suffers from all the additional and unnecessary components the filmmakers assumed were required to get it on film. These only serve to detract from the core messages.

It should have been played out as if on stage, delivered in monologue rather than moanalong.

The final third of the film saves it from a terrible score. Although it should feel lucky it hasn’t suffered a lower mark in spite of this.

4/10

The Revenant – Review

Daniel Simms2 Comments

For the second movie review running the delightful Tom Hardy graces the screen. But The Revenant is a Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle. All plaudits and attention have gone to him. After all the hype, thousands of memes fighting to ensure he bagged an Oscar, the dust has settled. What remains in the cold light of day raises a few problems.

Alejandro G. Iñárritu, director and screenwriter, hasn’t done a bad job. Let’s get that out of the way. The criticisms that follow are more down to the burden of the film’s own hype. It’s a visual feast and he has captured the harshness of the environment. At times it is a moving canvas. Sadly, a picture here doesn’t paint a thousand words. It just fills in some time before Leo rolls around in the snow and/or dirt again.

That brings us to the leading man. Before we go on, he didn’t deserve an Academy Award for this performance. Yeah, yeah, he did deserve one on his mantelpiece at some point. But not in this turn. At times the suspension of belief asks too much. At others he mumbles through plot holes. Like, literally.

After being mortally wounded after the famous bear scene (I’m sure you’ve all seen the publicity surrounding it) he is left unable to speak (took a nasty scrape to the throat). But he did manage to muster some words for his son when an emotional scene required it. Then he was silent again for an hour.

He also musters up energy when seconds previous he couldn’t raise an eyebrow. It made me raise mine. Numerous other scenes had the same effect. He fell off a mountain but survived the fall thanks to a tree and then copied Han Solo’s survival techniques from the Empire Strikes Back‘s Hoth scene, a whole 160 years before that movie had made its way to cinema screens.

Pointing fun at the film is the only way to not feel saddened at a missed opportunity.

This could have been a modern day Deliverance. Instead it is a film only powerful at times, at others it is more vacuous than the landscape it is set in.

And like his effort in Legend, Tom Hardy once again has a stellar performance overlooked. Last time it was down to a poor script. This time the story is better, but the focus all wrong.

It’s rating is based on the touching scenes, the moral of connection through adversity, Hardy’s contribution, and the visual delights.

7/10