ELYSIUM

DIRECTOR - Neil Bloomkamp SYNOPSIS: In the future mankind is divided between the haves ,who live in a utopia Elysium, and the have-nots, who toil and suffer on the polluted earth below. Matt Damon plays Max, a worker who is left with days to live and must find a way to get into Elysium. District 9 had, among its many attributes, a distinct visual style, strong performances and a message-driven story. Neil Bloomkamp's new film, Elysium, has many of the same attributes; the story is driven by the director’s clear passion for the issues being discussed (the divide between rich and poor, healthcare , immigration). In one interview the director even stated "people have asked me if I think this is what will happen in 140 years, but this isn’t science fiction. This is today. This is now,” so it is clear that it is something that stems from deep convictions The problem with Elysium is that the message it conveys is delivered in such a simplistic over-the-top manner. Of course there is the argument of keeping thing simple and not letting the meaning of the film get too convoluted. There is also, however, the very real danger that in condensing complex issues down into simple black-and-white scenarios that your film’s message loses much of its punch. The inclusion of cybernetic armour that is strapped on to our hero to help him fight is also something of a head-scracher . It feels like it’s come right out of a more action-oriented movie and could easily have been left out with little or no loss to the story. These flaws, which do much to drag the film down, are a shame because the cast are doing their best with the material on offer. Matt Damon gives a strong performance as Max, the film’s tormented hero, and through his performance we really get the sense of a man driven to extremes who will do almost anything , (even if it violates his strong moral principles), to get out of the nightmare he finds himself in. Jodie Foster is given nothing to do but look vaguely evil and to speak the most diabolical English accent (her worst act of villainy in the film) but it otherwise under-utilised her talents. Alice Brag who plays Fey, a mother struggling to save her daughter, gives a good performance though her character is mostly a passive witness to the events which unfold. Sharlto Copley (who played the lead in District 9) plays a stock psychopath with little or no depth- but to the actor’s credit he managed to do his best with the limited role and injected some menace into a rather bland part. The main failing is the script which fails to live up to the weighty material it is dealing with in favour of heavy-handed metaphors and imagery. This is not to say that film has no emotional weight and that we care nothing for the characters but that it simply feels that more could have been achieved with all the effort of the performances and the stunning visuals. FINAL VERDICT 6/10 It feels like the director is punching below his weight, we have seen him do better than this, so while this is not a complete failure it’s not all that it might have been.

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Unknown 05:05  No comment

2 GUNS

DIRECTOR -Baltasar Kormákur

SYNOPSIS- A DEA agent and an army ranger are betrayed by their respective masters and must form an uneasy alliance to discover the truth.

You would not think that action and comedy would mix, well on paper at least, and yet the formula has proven surprisingly effective stretching all the way back to  the Indiana Jones films   Of course it’s not just a case of throwing everything together and hoping for the best - but there’s no denying that some producers seem to quite like this approach.

2 Guns sets the tone right from the offset when we see our two heroes burn down a diner to cover a bank robbery (which actually makes sense when put in context ………...sort of).  The fast- moving pace is kept up throughout the movie and prevents the action from stalling at any point.  Simultaneously, however, the film’s strong script allows for a plot with multiple betrayals and double crosses without tying itself in knots. This allows the film to undergo something of a tonal shift halfway through - the laughs are still there but there is a far greater threat to our heroes and far darker consequences if they fail.

Washington and Wahlberg deserve the lion’s share of the credit,in a film like this the need to empathise with our main characters is vital. Both leads do an admirable job of getting the audience behind them whilst, at the same time, still playing real (if slightly over the top) characters.   The aforementioned tonal shift would doubtless have been far more jarring and could have derailed the film if not for W + W’s efforts.  Without them then the two lead characters would have been little more than cardboard cut-outs.  Wahlberg in particular has his work cut out for him as he plays the funny man to Denzel’s (relatively) straight man who is motived by (the bog standard)cliches of ‘honour and duty’, however, the sincerity with which he plays this part enables the viewer to believe fully in what he is trying to do.

Others in the film are not so fortunate with their part; Edward James Olmos is utterly wasted (as an actor, not as in after a night of drinking) as a standard drug-kingpin who’s only there to move the plot along, Bill Paxton is entertaining as the film’s main villain, CIA agent Earl, but more could have been done besides the  well-worn crazy cop bit (he even plays Russian Roulette), Paula Patton has an interesting role which starts out boring and bland but which gets more interesting as the movie progresses.   Of course, in all fairness, the film is not called 2 Guns for a reason and the focus is very much on W + W in the mould of the best buddy cop movies.

FINAL VERDICT 8/10 Daft yes ,over the top? yes  ,Fun definitely

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Unknown 14:56  No comment

KICK ASS 2

Synopsis - Kick Ass returns to his crime-fighting ways, gathers a team of amateur superheroes and tries to persuade Hit Girl to continue her father’s legacy.

The original film was out long before this blog started so I suppose I should briefly give my thoughts on it before I begin. Basically I wasn't wild on it,I could see why people like it but I just wasn't that enthusiastic about it. I felt the story could have been told better and didn't really connect with the characters of Kick Ass, Hit Girl and Big Daddy.

In going to see the sequel I tried to keep an open mind, after all it wasn't as if I hated the original and there was always the chance that I would find the characters more compelling a second time round.  In this aspect I am happy to report, I was right,I did indeed connect with the main characters a good deal more that in the first outing which helped to immerse me in the overall story a good deal more.  Unfortunately those features that put me off the Kick Ass - the violence and the crude humour - have been taken up to 11 in the mistaken belief that bigger is better for the sequel.

Not that I am the only one to think this, Jim Carrey has refused to publically endorse the movie, but without disowning the film,on the grounds of the violence   in the wake of the tragic Sandy Hook School shooting.  Let’s not, however, open the debate about how violence in the movies impacts upon violence in the real world.  Officially, at least here in the UK,Kick Ass 2 has received a 15 certificate which is a surprise given the amount of swearing, knife, sword and gun play on offer.  Schwarzenegger and Van Damme at their peak have nothing on the violence in this movie.

This works against the main actors, Aaron Johnson (Kick Ass)  and Chloe Mortez ( Hit Girl)  as they give strong performances that are lost in the maelstrom of violence.   Also of note is Christopher Plazze’s performance as the world first ‘Super Villain’ (his villain-name is far too offensive to repeat here) whose scenes quite frankly almost steal the movie.

Let’s get one thing straight. I'm no prude and swearing doesn’t bother me as long as it fits the characters and situations. Here though, the swearing is more on the level of the school yard,the "I've learned a new curse word so I'm going to use as many of them as I possibly can" variety.  Action- wise too the film goes to excess unnecessarily,the story is a generally good story and makes you care about the characters -  but taking this to a higher violence level seems to be a poor choice.

One character who does not get the attention he deserves is,ironically, Jim Carrey’s character-  of Colonel Stars and Stripes.  It may be that some scenes have been cut due to his anti-violence stance on the film or it may be that they are planning a spin-off  prequelmovie (which I think is a great idea).  Either way, his character feels a little neglected given what we know of him (a reformed mafia hit man who has found Jesus – The God Father?).  Less violence and a look at his background story may have given the movie and extra depth and scope to it. 

FINAL VERDICT - 6/10 enoyable though it is the film feels half finished and could have done with some reigning in.

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Unknown 16:03  2 comments

THE LONE RANGER

The Pirates of the Caribbean famously started out as a Disney theme park attraction and went on to gross significant amounts of money for the producers (and four sequels).  It should come as little surprise then that director Gore Vorbinski would want to try the same and recapture the spark that made the original movie so enjoyable.    His source this time is not a theme park attraction but a hero who first originated on radio before making the leap to television.  This, it might be thought is firmer footing for a summer blockbuster than an amusement park attraction populated by crumbling animatronic dummies ....you would think that anyway.

If you’re wondering why I started by mentioning the Piratesmovies it’s because this movie is trying its hardest to be them. It’s not just a case of being from the same adventure comedy genre but the entire feel of the film is like Vorbisnski shouting "hey remember that movie with pirates? You liked that?  Right, well cowboys are kinda like pirates ..right?  Let’s do this."The problem is that the  Lone Ranger on its best day just can't fill its more famous (and I'm sure more financially lucrative ) predecessor’s pirates boots.

This is not to say, of course,that there are not enjoyable things in the film. The script is at its best when it’s conveying humorous dialogue - much of the married couple-like bickering between the Ranger and Tonto is highly enjoyable.        A lot of the action scenes are quite good at keeping up the adventurous tone of the movie but the problem lies with the attempts to be serious - which sadly is about 60% of the time.  Worse, still, in an bizarre and misguided attempt to be gritty,dark and gruesome, events and descriptions are brought into the film which feel  out-of-place for a family adventure film.   A villain who cuts out and eats victims’ hearts (never on screen but we hear it at one point) and natives being gunned down by machine guns just don't really seem to fit into what the  picture is trying to be.  Why the writers felt these things were needed are a bit difficult to fathom as their absence would not take anything away from the film  - the villains would be no less evil by their other actions.

This ‘tone’ problem leaves the film feeling very uneven and uncomfortable at times.  A far more overriding problem is our main protagonist, Arnie Hammer, does his best but there’s no getting around the fact that our main hero is rather boring as a character having only cliched motivations and talking mainly in stock heroic dialogue.

Johnny Depp’s Tonto is a far more interesting character yet is insufficiently involved to carry the film on his own.  Some have criticised casting Depp as the heroic native American although he does claim some Comanche ancestry.  It is interesting that they chose to have Tonto wear white facepaint for the duration of the film,one can't help but wonder if that is to spare another kind of make-up job.  Again his dialogue contributes towards the cringe factor. 

FINAL VERDICT 4/10 Still entertaining and not without its charms but it hadthe potential to be so much more,a lack of effort on the part of the makers leaves it dead in the dust.

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Unknown 16:15  No comment

ALAN PARTRIDGE ALPHA PAPA

The leap from novel to screen is a common route for film projects to take, but not so the jump from the small screen to the big screen.  Success stories include Police Squad (Naked Gun), The Inbetweeners and In The Loop (The Thick of It).  Less successful would be any British tv sitcom from the 70s.  The risks of getting involved with an established story, characters and most terrifying of all to any prospective producer or director – the loyal fanbase – are considerable.

On paper a film adaptation of Alan Partridge is a risky proposition because the tv series has been finished for quite some time so it’s not exactly fresh in the collective memory.  That series also relied on a very specific brand of humour, we  were never encouraged to empathise with the protagonist (Steve Coogan), quite the opposite, we were supposed to laugh at how pathetic and low he could sink . A big screen outing would seem to be a risky proposition for a character who would seem, on the surface, to be ill-suited to the medium.

It says much for the script work and acting in this endeavour that this film not only succeeds but exceeds all expectations.  Right from the opening credits we know the film will pull no punches as Partridge’s on air radio assistant makes a badly thought-out joke involving Muslims and a crude sex reference.  A lesser film would leave the laugh there but Alpha Papa achieves further laughs by Alan's horrified reaction and his verbal tap dancing to cover the gaffe.  This is the awkward, embarrassed humour of the film translating perfectly the spirit of the original programme  onto the big screen. This is not to say that there are not some changes, the character has some of his nastier qualities toned down (possibly to try to reach a new audience who might not be used to just how callous he could be) but the same desperate energy is very much in evidence.

Towards the end, as with many comedies,things begin to sag a bit.  Having put the characters in a certain situation the task of keeping the laughs going whilst tying up the plot causes a few misfires.  The relatively simple plot does not require much wrapping up and the end does feel a bit drawn out for the sake of squeezing out a few more laughs.  Some character plots don’t feel as resolved as they could be and a side-effect of having an anti-hero as a protagonist seems to get ignored completely. 

Very well written dialogue and set pieces are more than enough to carry the film through these failings and one joke aside (which feels like a repeat of an earlier one), the originality of the situations they place Partridge in make for some of the howlingly-funny and toe-curlingly, cringe-worthy laughs ever recorded on screen.

Final Verdict8/10 Truly a surprise,truly hilarious

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Unknown 04:27  1 comment