Tag: brie larson

The Marvels (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: It’s an MCU film.

What is it about female-led movies that annoy male movie fans so much? “But Brie Larson is unlikeable” say people who then bitch about how racists and sex offenders should still be in movies because “You need to separate the art from the artist”. People are talking about this as if it’s one of the worst comic book movies of all time. As someone who is currently watching the 2004 Catwoman movie, I can categorically say that’s not the case. At worst, The Marvels has a few wasted opportunities. In particular, it doesn’t seem like it makes the most of the body-swapping gimmick. They do it a few times, and it is integral to the plot, it does allow for some fun moments. But it doesn’t provide any “Wow, this incredible amazing action scene can ONLY be done in this movie” moments. I’m opposed to random hires on films, particularly when it comes to scripts, but if they had someone whose job it was to just think of those set-pieces then it would have improved it so much.

One thing this did get right is the chemistry between the three leads. I haven’t got around to Ms. Marvel yet, but the performance of Iman Vellani in this makes me think I should. Kamala Khan is so damn likeable in this, and she provides comic relief in an actual realistic way, as opposed to the standard Marvel way which is “We’re in the middle of a fight where we may die, time to quip” which usually feels overwritten and takes away from the seriousness of the action. Her comedic dialogue mostly focuses on being completely overwhelmed by what’s happening in front of her. I should point out that despite not having watched the Ms. Marvel series, I wasn’t lost while watching this. It does a pretty decent job of getting you up to speed with both her powers and her personality.

So it’s a shame that the villain is so underwhelming, especially since there’s so much potential. Zawe Ashton is a good performer, and none of the fault lies with her, but the character of Dar-Benn isn’t given enough screen time to really make an impact. What we see of her is pretty good though, she’s given believable motivations, a heartbreaking backstory, and has the potential to destroy the entire universe even after she dies by creating energy/resource-sapping jump points. But it feels like those jump points are the main villain and she’s just an afterthought.

Nia DaCosta is still relatively new as a director, but she steps up to the plate and knocks it out of the park here, scoring a complete third sports reference. Visually there’s a lot going on, and a lot of it is CGI, but it all feels real. There are no obviously embarrassing CGI failures like the ones which haunted the last Captain Marvel movie. There are some places where the music choices could have been slightly better though. In particular, there’s a section set on a planet where everybody communicates by singing. It has some fun moments but it doesn’t quite lean into the weirdness as much as it could. It could have been a highlight of the film if it had the guts to go weird. Just as I said when I first saw the casting for She-Hulk; they should have just got Rachel Bloom in and told her to do what she wants. It may have been terrible, it may have been amazing, but it would have for sure been memorable.

There is a lot to like about this, and nowhere near as much to dislike as the internet would have you believe. It’s probably one of the most solid entries in the post-Endgame MCU, and I hope the takings eventually reflect that.

Captain Marvel (2019)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Now, I did genuinely love this movie and it’s likely to be one of my favourites of the year. It was really funny, looked great (mostly) and I think Brie Larson is incredible. I thought I’d get that out the way because this blog will make it seem like I don’t. It was good, it was just……not what was needed right now. We are right before Endgame, one of the most anticipated films of the year. That film is supposedly the culmination of an overarching story which has run for about 10 years, the entire MCU has been building towards Endgame. The last two films before this ended with multiple character deaths, people are looking for that MOMENT to lead them into Endgame, and this completely fails at that. This is fine on its own, but as part of the MCU narrative, I don’t really feel it does its job. It doesn’t build up the next stage, like, at all. This film could have been made in Phase One and it wouldn’t really affect much. The biggest difference it would have made is it would have meant whenever there was a danger we would have thought “why doesn’t Fury just call Captain Marvel?” for most of the films, we now only have that in retrospect, which is…better? Should point out, one of the credits scenes DOES manage to get you slightly excited for Endgame, but the rest of the film doesn’t really do the same, at all.

Also, it turning out that Fury’s eye was lost to Goose the cat? “OMG who saw that coming?” Almost everybody. When I saw the trailer there were hundreds of comments under it saying the cat probably clawed out his eye. At this point, it would have been a surprise if that DIDN’T happen.

My other major issue with this film; the soundtrack. It’s like a 90’s jukebox. It’s good but it really could be much better. For one thing, some of the songs came out AFTER the film was set so it’s just a bit “ok, so this song doesn’t exist in this universe yet, so why is it being played?” and it’s obvious, because it’s “90’s” and that’s good enough. But if you’re going to do that, why restrict yourself like that? Personally what I would have LOVED them to do was to do a 90’s soundtrack, but have it be 90’s songs covered by female-led bands. At least then the soundtrack to a Marvel movie would be interesting (something which has only happened to 3 films so far, shockingly low).

A minor issue: some of the CGI was a bit dodgy. One scene, in particular, seems a bit cheap in terms of how they’ve layered it so badly that it looks fake. That just should not happen in a film this big and immediately puts it out of the running for the best looking film this year. It’s too big a mistake to ignore.

But the good: it was a lot of fun. Like, A LOT of fun. You will leave this film smiling and having enjoyed it. Also, Brie Larson is a badass, but anybody who saw Room already knows that. The de-ageing CGI also works BEAUTIFULLY and never manages to take you out of the movie (unlike some of the CGI of the character in flight, again, awful). The way it subverted expectations in terms of who the Kree are is also superb, I NEVER saw that coming, and in a genre often decried for being obvious, that says something.

So yeah, an enjoyable watch. But if you go into Endgame without watching this, you won’t really have much to catch up on.

Also, that No Doubt scene was WAY too unsubtle

End Of Year Film Awards

On By troubledproductionsIn Awards, Year round upLeave a comment

Best Actor

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Aaron Taylor-Johnson – Nocturnal Animals. Better known as “That kid from Kick-Ass”. One of the things about Kick-Ass was that it was about a hero who looked absolutely nothing like a hero, in fact there’s one scene where he threatens somebody and they just laugh at him. Yet in this he’s absolutely terrifying. His despicable nature just oozes out of the screen every second he’s on. Genuinely unsettling, and utterly compelling.

Also:

Bradley Cooper – Joy. If only because he’s responsible for the best moments in the film. His scenes with Jennifer Lawrence almost make her up her game, and it’s a much better film during those all too brief moments.

Best Actress

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Brie Larson – Room. Did you watch this film? Then you know why. She was just amazing in this. Everything about her performance was perfect. I saw this in January, which meant I had 11 months of performances which couldn’t even match it.

Also:

Madison Wolfe – The Conjuring 2. A performance beyond her years.

Julia Roberts – Secrets In Their Eyes. The first time I feel I’ve truly “got” her as an actress. Superb.

Best Script

Eye In The Sky: A film which could have been very bad if written differently. Same plot, same actors, same director and this film would not have only been bad, but catastrophically awful. As it was this film was perfectly paced. When doing a film like this you do run the risk of attempting methodical and instead just ending up with it being boring and too slow. You need to slowly crank up the tension through dialogue, if it goes wrong, it’s awful, but when it works it’s phenomenal. A fitting epitaph to Alan Rickman’s career.

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Worst Film

The Boss: I really want to like Melissa McCarthy, but she keeps making terrible films. Her character in this is extremely unlikeable with almost no character arc that redeems her. In almost any other film she’d be the main villain.

Best Film Moment

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Arrival – The meeting scene. There’s a moment in this where Amy Adam’s character first meets the aliens. It’s about ten minutes long and you can’t take your eyes away from the screen the entire time. Everything about it is perfect, the look, the acting, it all builds towards something which if there’s any justice will become as big a part of pop-culture iconography as scenes from Close Encounters, ET, or Alien. A moment full of pure wonder that truly shows what film can do.

Worst Film Moment

Batman Vs Superman: Martha. A moment which almost became shorthand for “awful and nonsensical”. The thing is, it does kind of make sense when you think about it, it could have been very believable that seeing someone as a person with a family will change your outlook on them, but the way it was delivered simply wasn’t good enough.

Best Film

Room: Excellent script, some of the best performances I’ve seen in a long time, and truly beautiful. This isn’t just film, this is emotional spectacle cinema. A film which I saw very early on in the year, and yet almost 12 months later it has still stuck with me.

Best Film To Look At

Arrival: A film shot with the warmth and cosiness of a home video. Science fiction (more than any other genre) seems to define itself by it’s look. And this film does more than enough to join the greats of the genre.

Also:

Pride And Prejudice And Zombies. 

Beautifully shot, the action scenes are brilliantly choreographed, and the costumes are superb. You could watch this on mute and still find things to appreciate.

Most Disappointing Film

Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn Of Justice

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This film had so much riding on it, so for it to fall as much as it did (critically at least) is very disappointing. Especially since the problems in it are easily fixed. Some of them aren’t personal preference, they’re basic storytelling mistakes. I know it sounds awful to say but this film should end somebody’s career, you cannot make some of the mistakes they made in this film and still hope to make films. It had such high potential too, it really needed to be great, but in the end it was merely only “okay”

Also:

10 Cloverfield Lane

A film of three thirds: the first two are really good, matching up and in some ways surpassing the original, tense and claustophobic, just brilliant. Then it’s all thrown away in the final stretch until it dissolves into what William Shakespeare would describe as “a massive pile of wank”

Central Intelligence. It took too long to get to the point of the film, and there weren’t really enough “laugh out loud” moments. Reminds me of Hear No Evil, See No Evil, in that the chemistry between the leads is better than the actual fil.

Most Surprising Film

The 5th Wave

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I expected this to be just low-grade YA shlock. Yet it had a really really good plot and some excellent moments. Yes it wasn’t the greatest film I saw this year, but it was a lot better than I thought it would be.

Also: Goosebumps.

Very solid and well made kids horror film. I saw some reviews of it which criticised it for “looks like it was made for children”, which, you know, it was. It’s like criticising porn for being aimed at people who want to masturbate. Yeah it means it won’t make much money among people who want something to watch in the evening whilst drinking a glass of red wine in the evening, but it’s not meant to.

The “Well I Liked It” Award

The BFG: Called by some people “one of the biggest box office bombs of 2016” and I truly don’t get why. In a year which was the best one in recent memory for kids films, this one still stood out in a very crowded bunch. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again; there are many great films, only a select few are “magical”, and this is definitely one.

Best Marketing Campaign

Deadpool: A very violent comic book film, what would be the best way to market this?

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That’s actually pretty brilliant. During the run up to the release to this (way way back at the beginning of the year) Ryan Reynolds was on point, uploading almost in character updates on the film. If anybody doubting how well-suited he was to the role hopefully had those doubt squashed like a bug. Actually he continued it past release, doing new adverts to celebrate the film being out for a month in cinemas. A magnificent campaign which worked wonders. If there’s any doubt how successful this campaign was I’ll point this out; it meant people wanted to see the film, despite the fact that most peoples knowledge of the character being X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Room

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

THIS FILM IS AMAZING!

What? What the hell are you doing? You don’t start a blog about a film like that, you do an introduction, you lure the reader in, seduce them with a finely written introduction before inserting the penis of opinion. You don’t just go in dry. What the f*ck? You done goofed. I know, I’m a terrible person (oh like you’re surprised), but that’s my first thought when I think of this, I think of how amazing it was and how much I enjoyed it.

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Much like cake. Mmmmm cake

Yes, there is a difference between the two. I know Mad Max was a finely made film, but I didn’t enjoy it that much. Whereas I know Chappie isn’t technically a good film, but I love it. So far this year I’ve seen The Revenant, Creed and The Big Short. Now whilst I know they are all objectively superb films which are incredibly well made and a brilliant cast, I haven’t loved any of those films. I was beginning to worry that this year could end up with more films I appreciate than love. Films where I feel compelled to be like “yes, well done there” than where I rush out, grab a stranger by the lapels and tell them they NEED to watch this film.

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Quite why I’m wearing a nuns costume I don’t quite want to say

And then I saw Room. If you, dear reader, were in the room with me I wouldn’t grab you by the lapels. I would grab you by the ankles and drag you to the cinema and force you to watch this film, even if I had to pay your ticket. This is definitely a “buy the DVD on release day” kind of film. The kind which remind you of just how fantastic films are. It’s definitely a cinema film too. Certain films just work better at the cinema, horrors for example because they rely on audience feedback, comedy too as it means that (if the film is good) it will create its own laugh track. The other type of good cinema films are ones that just look stunning, films that need you to just sit there and go “wow”. This film was good in the cinema for a different reason, you could hear people cry around you.

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This was pretty much what it felt like, only in a cinema, so much more filthy

So what makes this film so good? Well first off there’s the story, whilst the first half is stuff you’ve seen before, the second half is like the epilogue, the kind of things which you discuss with your friends about what would happen. Like “yeah, it seems happy, but think about what’s going to happen afterwards, it’s going to be hell for them” as if you’re the first person to ever think those thoughts.

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Secondly, the performances. Brie Larson fully deserves her nomination for best actress. She deserves all the awards, yes, even “best documentary short” or “best science fiction monster” etc. That’s how good she is, just park a bus outside her house and deliver all the awards to her there, it’s no less than she deserves. Also, the kid manages to not annoy the hell out of me, which is amazing as I find most kids completely annoying and want to throw them off the nearest roundabout. Although it wasn’t until I saw the film I figured out that the kid was actually male not a female. Ah well, my bad.

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But that’s enough faffing about from me right now. Mainly because I think it’s about time I shut up so you can all go watch this film. I’m not joking, you’re not getting any pudding until you’ve finished this film.

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Do I need to show you the cake again?