I first saw the trailer for this late last year. I wasn’t really taken with this, it seemed kind of unoriginal and like typical Liam Neeson fare, but not good Liam Neeson, bland Neeson. After seeing it I can confirm it is pretty standard. Liam Neeson plays a recently fired insurance agent who used to a cop but is now gun shy after years of dealing with gangs of New York. He has a lot of debts so is understandably not in high spirits when he gets the news he’s fired. He’s worried about how he will pay them all off, he’s used to being the big man for his family. He is approached by an unknown woman (played by Vera Farmiga from The Conjuring movies) asking him to plant a tracking device on a random person, but not telling him who, offering him a lot of money to do so. He finds this a bit suspect but then discovers that it’s genuine and he really is going to get a lot of money. He’s sworn to silence can’t tell anybody about the mission or bad things will happen. At first, he doesn’t believe them and he tells someone he knows. But then he watches him leave the train and suddenly the other man is killed. It turns out he is being watched by someone to make sure he does what he should, and if he doesn’t people get killed by some kind of phantom menace. He starts to realise his family is in danger when a monster calls his phone and threatens him, saying they’re going to take his family from outside their home. In the end it turns out his friend who’s still in the police is responsible for it. OMG who could have guessed that? Apart from everybody who has ever seen a film and knows something about storytelling, or anybody who saw the trailer where one of the final scenes was shown (seriously guys, stop doing this. What’s the point of attempting tension in your movies if every third person already knows how it ends due to the trailer?). The police think he’s responsible for all the deaths throughout the film and is holding everyone hostage, so he now also has to clear his name whilst he’s under suspicion. But luckily the truth comes shining through and it’s all happiness and joy from that moment on (apart from maybe for the dead people).
The fight scenes were okay. They didn’t play Neeson of as some invincible badass, instead, they showed him as kind of old, and dependent on his experience and knowledge. One thing that does let them down is the incredibly ropey CGI. It looks like the kind of thing you get on a PlayStation 2 game. One scene, in particular, features him taking a leap of faith and jumping from a moving train in a scene that looks so bad it’s hard to decide whether to respond with laughter or silence. In a year which the dead pool sequel is coming out, cinema has to be more inventive. Either that or you need non-stop action that never relents,
Yes, I am well aware this was not the easiest blog to read. That this was just one idea run into the ground, and not even an original one. But if this film can’t be bothered to come up with anything original, I don’t see why I should.
It’s Oscar season, which can mean only one thing…it’s time to feel bad about the number of films you haven’t seen. Time to look over the list of the best films made last year and realised how many you haven’t seen. If you’re British you’ve got a pretty good excuse, what with some of them not being released over here until February, which makes it hard to judge whether they’re worthy. Americans can sit there and be like “I know what that’s like as I saw that months ago, and it was deeply flawed”, whereas if you’re over here you’re dependent on either basing it entirely on other reviews or watching them illegally. Or just do neither and not mention them.
The Post was nominated for both Best Picture, and Best Actress (for Meryl Streep, obviously, who is seemingly allergic to not giving award-winning performances). It’s a weird dichotomy for me to say this but I both agree and don’t agree with them. It’s a weird realisation when you notice there’s a difference between award-winning films and films you love. Horrors and comedies for example never do well come award season, yet people love them. The Post was a very well made film, but I will find it very odd if someone says it’s their favourite film of the year. Essentially I appreciated it more than I liked it.
Maybe part of that reason is that it’s harder for British people to be invested in a journalism story than it is for Americans. American newspapers have a much more dignified history than British ones. The history of American newspapers are things like Watergate, Bloomingdale Asylum, The Color Of Money, and investigating the Catholic church sexual abuse scandal. They’re good things to have movies about, things that make you proud of the industry. What’s the British equivalent? Hillsborough, hacking voicemails of murdered schoolgirls, saying it’s impossible for straight people to get AIDs, saying MMR causes autism, and supporting the Nazi’s during World War 2, saying the Jews were all lying for attention. Don’t exactly have the same level of nobility to them. So it’s hard for us to feel that same sense of pride in journalism.
That’s enough about the circumstances, the film itself? It knows it wants to do and it does that well. It builds up to the “Meryl Streep moment” well. You know, that moment which happens in a lot of films lately, where she seems kind of meek and timid but then is like “no, I’m right and you’re going to do what I say because I’m Meryl Streep”. There’s a moment where everyone is locked in a room and panicking to get through a massive document before the print deadline, meanwhile they’re still debating whether they’re going to print it at all as it runs the risk of them being taken to court. It’s incredibly tense and nerve-wracking, and just all-around brilliant. If the entire film was like that I’d have loved it, but sadly the rest of the film couldn’t really match up to that one scene. It is an oddly relevant film for these times. A film about the president attempting to censor the media, a few years ago that would have seemed only slightly relevant, now it seems so relevant it’s almost scary how history is repeating itself (although this led to Nixon being impeached and shamed, so fingers crossed).
I knew nothing about the situation going into this film, I didn’t even know what the film was about due to cinemas not showing any trailers for this for some reason. The film should be commended for making a rather complicated situation simplistic enough for the audience to understand. You don’t sit there thinking “but what’s going on?” and feeling the need to check the internet mid-film to see what’s going on. Which is good, as if you check the internet whilst in the cinema you’re an asshole.
And that’s how I’m ending this review.
Oh wait, no, I’ll end it with this. Boss Baby is an Academy Award nominated film. 2018 Is weird.
No words can do this justice, which does not bode well for me having to review this, it turns out I can’t just upload emotions to a blog and use them as a review. Which is a shame as this would be perfect for it. This film plays heavily on emotions, and very often. People talk about how Up is so emotional it’s basically torture, and it is, for the opening. Outside of that, it’s just standard Pixar (which is still about 80% better than everything else out there but still), this is consistent. At least the beautiful visuals will cheer you up, you can distract yourself from the existential crisis the film is giving you by just looking around the wonderful scenery, and then notice the oddly high amount of children in the Land Of The Dead and the implications of that……Jesus Christ.
The story? Now, as you may have guessed from previous reviews I’ve done, stories are key to me, and usually, kids films are more focused on catchy songs and bright colours than the story. But this is Pixar, and they are Gods, so the story here is intricate, in depth, and will stay with you long after you leave the cinema. You can tell a lot has gone into this story to make it work and it’s been made with a real love of film-making, and also of Mexico and it’s cultural traditions.
Not entirely sure how much this film will resonate with kids though. The themes it deals with are aimed very much at a particular audience, it deals not just with the importance of family, but also about legacy, and the fear of being forgotten. I’m not really sure “when I die will I be forgotten? Will everything I do be for nothing?” are massive issues for young children (apart from super depressed ones). Oh, and with a slight note of dementia as well.
There’s a surprise heel turn which doesn’t really come off as too much of a surprise. People who have seen a lot of films will kind of guess that one person turns out to be a bit of a dick, but what will truly surprise people is just how evil he turns out to be. He doesn’t just go “slightly evil”, he turns out to be truly despicable.
I did mention earlier how this film is incredibly emotional, and it is, but it is also life-affirming. Yes, you’ll cry your eyes out, but you’ll also feel uplifted by the whole thing, which is nice. What else is nice is that it used a mostly Latino cast, they didn’t just hire a lot of white people and get them to do a mildly racist accent. Animated films are becoming more progressive in terms of casting, they no longer seem to be sold based on the voice cast, which is a remarkable shift from years ago where entire advertising campaigns used to be based around who was doing the voices, now it’s more concepts and visuals, which is a great sign for the future.
So in summary: go see it at the cinema. This film deserves to be seen on the big screen. But then buy it on DVD/blu-ray as well, because it deserves to be seen multiple times.
Also read: This review of Coco courtesy of another site we know.
The qualifier for this is somewhat more complicated than the previous one. These aren’t necessarily bad films, just films that I don’t need to see again. Mainly films that I didn’t like, but can appreciate one thing in it. So quite bad, but had a single redeeming feature that makes them slightly worthwhile as a curiosity. There’s a few here which I can see people being annoyed about are in here. So I should point out that this is nearly all personal opinion, so please don’t firebomb me.
Alien: Covenant
I can’t really make a fair judgement on this as I have never seen any of the others. Despite that, I did recognise a lot of scenes from this that seemed to be taken straight out of the other films in the series. And if I managed that I can only imagine how infuriating it must have been for people who are fans of the series, must have felt like they were watching a remake.
+Katherine Waterston is fucking superb.
-Doesn’t really do enough to stand out on it’s own. I can’t imagine anybody saying “you know what? I hate most of the Alien films, but I really love Covenant”
American Assassin
Not quite as good as the trailer would make you think. Not slick enough, not polished enough, not quite good enough.
+Really good opening scene showing off the panic that attacks can have on the general public.
-A weird view of revenge. Constantly told how revenge poisons the soul but then shown lots of shots of the lead actor kicking ass and being awesome. It’s like when you play Grand Theft Auto IV and dialogue about how the main character doesn’t want to go back to crime is interspersed with him shooting everybody in the face. A film that tries to not just have its cake and eat it, but also spends all the time telling you how unhealthy cake is and nobody should ever have any.
Annabelle: Creation
It’s odd, these films always have REALLY good trailers, full of tense moments and good scares, but they never really work full length. That being said, this is a lot better than the first one. Although considering that is still one of the worst films I’ve seen, that’s not difficult. Renders the original (which is technically the second Conjuring film, and a sequel to this, it’s odd) completely pointless as an origin story. Has some okay performances in it but most of them are just standard. No actual scares really, all jump scares. The scariest moments in this film had nothing to do with this film; 1) I thought there was only one other person in the cinema, who was sitting behind me. But near the end a phone went off near the front. Made me jump. 2) A seat was broken and had a white sheet covering it. Whenever someone opened the door (like when a cinema worker came in to check things were okay) it caused a draft which made the sheet rise, made it look like someone was standing up underneath it.
+A few scenes are spectacularly done. And it ties in well with the rest of the franchise.
-Only does so by rendering the previous origin film pointless. It would be Batman Begins having a prequel where it turns out he was bitten by a radioactive bat whilst in the well, and the rest of the films are a result of that.
She got better as the film went on, in the closing section she was superb.
Battle Of The Sexes
Great performances, Steve Carrell, in particular, seems to be throwing himself into this with everything he’s got. And the story is compelling and it does a great job of setting the time and place it’s in. So why so low? This is a one scene film. No matter how good the rest of the film is, the audience knows it’s all building up to a single event/scene. In a film like that you need to make sure that scene is superb, and in this, it’s not. It’s quite blandly shot. It’s shot like an actual tennis match from the time would be, which I suppose at least gives it an air of authenticity, but also makes it quite a dull watch. Compare this to Creed from a few years ago, the boxing scenes in that were not filmed like a TV channel would film them, they were filmed like a movie scene, it gave them angles which you’d never get in an actual boxing match, and it was all the better for it. This doesn’t do that, most of it’s filmed from a distance, and this robs the scene of so much.
+Set design/costume were brilliantly done, to the point where just a still photo would set the scene.
-That final match. Just doesn’t work.
Baywatch
Why? Why does this exist? Who is an r-rated version of Baywatch for? People who liked the original won’t like it, and people who didn’t like the original won’t like this. Nobody was calling out for it and it feels like it was one of those films that were only made so they could hold onto the copyright. Also, does it need an R-rating? The only point of it would be nudity, to be as sexually exploitative as they can be, but it doesn’t really do that. Only has the rating because of the swearing, which I also have a problem with; there’s far too much swearing just for the sake of swearing. Now onto the actual film; the opening scene is basically “Look how fabulous The Rock is. He’s basically perfect”. Just full of other characters complimenting him so much that it almost seems sarcastic.
+The line “I can’t save you if you’re being a dick” made me laugh.
-As with a lot of these sequel/reboot it’s far too in debt to the original to make its mark as an original film.
Cars 3
I liked this a lot more than the previous two. Although it should be said that I detest the previous two. I think they’re the only blots on Pixar’s record. Ties into the first one a lot better than the second one did, making the second one seem kind of like a spin-off.
+Genuine emotion in a lot of scenes. And there’s less Larry The Cable Guy, which is always a good thing.
-For a film called Cars the plot is really pedestrian.
Death Note
Oh dear. Oh dear. More like “Death No”, amirite? But yeah this was not a good film. Quite annoyed actually as I wanted this to be good. If only to prove people wrong. This had people against it from the start just because it was a remake. So when bad reviews came in I thought “that’s just idiot fanboys who can’t let go and see objectively, I’m going to watch it and I’m going to like it”. I was wrong, it was bad. The characterisation is completely wrong. They made a lot of mistakes but the biggest is they made Light average. There’s no sense of a tense cat and mouse game between Light and L, and a lot of the rules from the book have actually been changed for the sake of the film for seemingly no reason at all.
+Soundtrack/cinematography. And Willem Defore.
-Doesn’t so much throw away the mythology of the series, so much as burn it then piss on the ashes.
L was good though
Despicable Me 3
This came really really close to being in the previous one. Like, really close. Then I remembered the amount of 80’s music and references in it which made me slightly smile.
+A love letter to the 80’s, albeit not a very well written one.
-Waaaaaaay too scattergun. Has no idea what the main plot is, there seems to be about 4 of them all vying for attention and it never really focuses on any of them. It’s basically cinematic ADHD.
Detroit
This film suffers from the same problem as a lot of films about the subject do, the villains are so 2-dimensional that it’s hard to buy into the film. The trouble with doing films about race set in 1960’s etc US is that you can’t create a compelling villain. To me, a good villain is just a misguided hero, one where you can kind of see their point. You can’t have that with this, the bad guys are so obviously wrong they’re impossible to defend, they’re obviously pricks. Which is depressing as that’s what it was like back then, a lot of people in power were indefensible pricks who deserved to be punched in the kidneys. Also, the pacing is weird, you have an entire subplot about a band that doesn’t really add anything except 30 minutes to the runtime.
+From a technical viewpoint it looks superb, and has moments which feel really claustrophobic and tense.
-Occasionally seems like it doesn’t know what it’s wanting to say.
Flatliners
Brave move killing off who they did. It’s weird as it’s not really sure what it wants to be, is it a remake, a sequel, or something entirely new? Nobody knows, least of all the film itself.
+Looks and sounds superb.
-Entirely forgettable.
It Comes At Night
I liked it, but not as much as I thought I would. Probably because I saw at the cinema. I know some horror works great at the cinema, but I feel this would work better on your own in a small room. You need to feel part of that world, feel isolated, like a visitor in their world, and sitting in a vast room full of other people takes you away from that. I think I’m going to need to watch it again on headphones on my own, I might appreciate it a lot more then, but watching it on a massive screen in an empty room gave me a sense of freedom that the film couldn’t stop.
+Superb job of keeping you invested in the story.
-Doesn’t quite know what it’s doing sometimes. Some scenes are oddly unsatisfying
Jigsaw
Well it’s better than the last one, I’ll give it that. Trouble with these films is all the crimes exist on their own, there’s no investigation into the crimes effect on the outside world. Is crime going down because people are scared of being punished? Are there a lot of copycat killers? Do people see him as a hero or a villain? This is never touched upon, except in some of the posters for the one before this. Very disappointing. If you bring back a dead franchise, you best do it well. You need it to justify it’s own existence. This doesn’t really do that, it seems like just the next step in a yearly franchise. It doesn’t need to exist, adds nothing new, doesn’t really do much. This does something worse than being bad, it’s pointless.
+Brilliantly inventive traps.
-Pointless and adds nothing to the franchise. Would have been acceptable a year after the last one, but a massive gap means it’s a waste.
Power Rangers
Pure nostalgia fest.
+Some moments are a lot of fun. Especially in the opening “did you just slap me?” “yeah, weird right?” made me laugh.
-Takes itself far too seriously. You cannot make this film seriously, yet they attempted.
Rings
Unpopular opinion time; this film should not have been a horror, it should have a psychological drama with scary moments. I feel under the service of this story is a really solid detective/ghost story, but it’s restricted by being a horror so puts in scares which don’t do much to enhance the film. Also, I’m getting very annoyed with films being ruined by their trailers. I’d seen two trailers for this; one of which I saw back in November and was mainly focused on one of the characters in the shower and freaky shit starts happening. A well made scene, but it’s also the final scene of the film, it takes place after the “monster” is supposed to have died, so after the “death” you just sit there thinking “I know it’s not the end as we haven’t seen the scene which the entire advertising campaign was based around”. Especially since I think the revelation at the end was supposed to be a twist. It would be like if The Usual Suspects had the tagline “Kevin Spacey is….Keyser Soze”.
+The way the film opened was fantastic and was one of my favourite 10 seconds of cinema of the year so far. They put the Paramount logo into the film itself, by showing it on tv screens on an airplane. They also distorted the logo as it was playing. I love when films do things like that, it grabs your attention immediately
-That closing scene does so much damage to the film.
Split
Nothing inherently wrong with this movie, I just never brought the central concept. It’s like if I was watching a film where Ryan Gosling plays a character who is too ugly to get a date, they’d need to be a moment in the film which means you can buy the central concept as otherwise you’ll just be sitting there thinking “yeah this is BS”. This film never has that moment, as such it kind of fails. The acting in it was superb though, Anya Taylor-Joy continues to impress after last years The Witch, whilst James McAvoy does fantastic facial work, it gets to the point where you can tell which personality is in control of him from a still shot of his face.
+McAvoy is great. And it’s got me very excited for the sequel.
-Was this film just to make a sequel to unbreakable? Seems like a waste, because that film seemed like it was only made to be a prequel.
Suburbicon
Disappointing. Has a sub-plot which goes absolutely nowhere. It keeps seeming like it’s going to interact with the main story but never does, it could be cut entirely and the film wouldn’t change. It seems like it’s just there to say “people used to be racist, which is bad”, and then does nothing else other than that.
+Tremendous ensemble cast.
-Doesn’t live up to its potential.
The Book Of Henry
Read this was the worst film of the year, and responsible for director losing Star Wars job. I actually kind of liked it. I never need to see it again but it wasn’t the worst film I’ve seen. I mean, yeah it does seem like two different films awkwardly put together but the performances are compelling enough.
+Opening half is great character work.
-Closing half doesn’t match it, at all.
The Lego Ninjago Movie
Doesn’t seem to be done with as much love for the subject matter as the original lego movies. The Lego Batman movie was obviously done by someone who loved Batman (or at the very least knew a lot about it), this isn’t. There’s no subtle references to films of the genre, it’s just a standard boring film with the only lego-ness being a villain who’s a cat.
+The villain being a cat is very very funny.
-Bit dull.
The Mountain Between Us
When it was just “two people trapped on a mountain”, was a superb film. Once they added the romance bit I kind of tapped out, just didn’t work at all. And the “realisation shot” was straight out of a low-budget music video for a James Blunt soundalike.
+The first two thirds are fantastic. Brilliantly tense and haunting. And it looks great.
-The romance bit is a bit, erm, shit. And the make-up team needed to do better. Despite them being near death, they never really looked it physically.
The Snowman
A lot more brutal than I expected. The reveal of the killer could have been done better, and it juggled too many characters at once so was a bit of a bloated mess. Not as terrible as I thought it would be though.
+Looked superb, and was suitably brutal.
-Really unsatisfying reveal. And a lot of the scenes were hard not to laugh at.
I much prefer this version
Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets
I get both the love the hate for this film. Nothing I can say will do it better than I did earlier in the year here.
+The opening scene is tremendous. Like, seriously brilliant. Almost worth watching the film for, sets the world brilliantly. From that moment I had seriously high hopes and thought I’d love this film.
-The visuals, the story, the characters. In short…so so much. I can forgive bad films, I can’t forgive dull ones.
There’s a French film from 2002 called Irréversible, it’s a weird art-house psychological horror that’s apparently disturbing in many ways. During a large section of the film there’s a noise played throughout that’s played at such a frequency that it’s almost inaudible; this was done as a sound played at that level causes nausea and sickness. I should note there’s a chance that this is just an urban legend, but truth be told I don’t want to research it in case it’s not true, it’s too magical for me to find out it’s false. But what does that have to do with this film? Well that feeling, that sense of unease, is what this entire film is about. There’s not many scares in the traditional sense, it’s just almost two hours of something being slightly “off”.
I know, the film that had this in the trailer ended up being creepy, who’d have guessed?
Nowhere is that more apparent than in some of the performances. I’ve seen films with better individual performances, but I can’t remember the last time I saw a film where every performance across the entire film was perfect. There’s not a single weak link in terms of performances, even characters who are only seen for a few minutes knock it out the park. The lowest mark you can give a performance in this is 8/10, but there’s definitely a few perfect 10’s throughout. She’s not in it for long but Betty Gabriel in particular was absolutely superb and if there’s any justice in the world she’ll use this to springboard herself into bigger roles, I’m sure studios will be falling over themselves to cast the woman who’s in one of the most popular GIF’s of the year, being seen by people who haven’t even seen the film.
There’s a lot of VERY good eye acting in this film. I know this sounds stupid but there’s a lot of moments in this film which are enhanced by the way the actors utilise their eyes. Some of this has been seen in images of Daniel Kaluuya used in promotional material, which, whilst we’re on the subject; the promotional material for this was all delightfully understated, keeping the films cards very close to its chest. It showed a lot, but nothing that will spoil the plot. I’ve spoken a lot in the past about invasive marketing for films, and how that can help create interest for a film, and about how much I love stuff like that and I wish it happened more. Not for this though, it wouldn’t have suited it. This didn’t need marketing to create its universe, as it’s a world in which we can imagine we already live in, this really helps you lose yourself in the film. It’s also a film that sadly I can imagine being relevant for a very long time as a lot of the cultural issues it touch upon are ones which have been relevant for a long time, and will sadly continue to be part of society. Yes, this film does touch on a lot of racial issues, but not the usual “we’re from Alabama, and we don’t like those coloured folk”. The racism in here is very different, it comes not from anger or hate, but from a fetishisation of black people, a condescending view of them as being “genetically superior” but intellectually lacking. As such the film has a weird dynamic where the villains kind of worship the heroes. Very weird, very unique, and VERY well written.
It’s kind of odd how well written and made this film is. It’s written and directed by Jordan Peele, who I’ve only seen in Key & Peele (a sketch show on Comedy Central that I really need to get around to watching one day), one of the voices in Storks (animated children’s comedy that’s actually better than you think it would be), and Keanu (an action comedy film about someone getting a cat from a Mexican drug lord). As such I always thought of him as a comedic person, I never thought he’d be able to transfer his skills to horror so effectively, in fact I’ll go as far as to say it’s one of the best directorial debuts I’ve seen in a long time, which considering he’s basically committing genre adultery is impressive. That being said, it is still very very funny. The mood whiplash between horror and comedy is very well balanced, usually in films like this you have the comedy make the horror seem less scary, it doesn’t enhance the film, it undercuts it and stops you taking it seriously, usually because the comedy comes from a character not taking the situation seriously, they’re being chased by a monster/demon/dishwasher and they stop to make jokes. The way they do the comedy in here is believable, you can tell the jokes are being made by the characters to help them deal with the situations, and most of them are made by a character who isn’t directly involved in it, so is literally distanced from the situation already. This isn’t comedy-horror done like a mid-90’s slasher film, this is comedy-horror done like An American Werewolf In London.
Not to be confused with its extremely sub-par sequel.
One final note about this, I have to say my favourite thing about this film; that it’s doing well. Last I saw it had made $136million against a budget of $4.5million and had received universal acclaim from both critics and audiences. I like that, it would be a real shame if this film didn’t do well as it’s superbly well made, as it is this film has broken records and is certain to go down as a modern classic. Seriously, go see this film. In fact, you could say “Get Out, to go see this film”. You could say that, but you’d be making a really obvious comment and would just come off looking like an idiot.
I was very nervous about this film, I worried it wouldn’t be that good. Actually that’s a massive lie, but it sounds better than “saw the trailer, liked the trailer, was pleased with the final result”. This film was what I expected to be, and to be honest it’s what it needed to be; which is the first truly mature comic book film in a long time. Some people would say that Deadpool deserves that accolade, but I wouldn’t count that as mature. It had lots of blood and adult content, but it was very silly and lowest common denominator, don’t get me wrong, I do love that film (it was one of my favourites from last year), but it’s not mature at all. This film is though. One of the best compliments you can give this film is that it is a fantastic film, not “fantastic for a comic book movie”, on it’s own terms it’s a fantastic film. There’s going to be a lot of people who find this film dull, it takes quite some time for certain things to happen but it’s brilliant. Not every film has to be fast food, designed to be satisfactory but finished quickly, this film is more like a three course meal at a restaurant, you savour every moment and really take your time with it, so that when it’s over you feel completely satisfied and all you can do is sit there and recover from the brilliance you just consumed.
That’s a point, the ending of this film will be talked about, not here as you can’t without spoiling it. It is brilliantly done though, it’s an ending which this series has truly deserved, and it ends with a Johnny Cash song, which most comic book films wouldn’t be able to do but for here it fits. It is pretty much a modern western, a tale of a retired gunslinger coming back for one more gunfight, the last outlaw, in a time and place without purpose and that has moved on without him, causing him to need to go out in a blaze of glory.
Should also probably mention how great Dafne Keen is as X-23 though; the best child in a comic book film since Kick-Ass (in fact I’d argue this one was better as has much more depth), the actress is amazing, so much so that you don’t realise that she’s mute for most of the film. She does such a good job displaying her motivations etc through her body language and facial expressions that you don’t really notice that she hasn’t spoken. It’s kind of like when you’re watching a really good subtitled film and you get so used to it, and it’s done so well that you keep forgetting you’re not actually listening to the words. The fact that this is only her second acting role is amazing (her only previous role being in a TV show: The Refugees). I really hope big things happen to her soon. This film is full of good performances; Hugh Jackman’s performance is genuinely Oscar-worthy, Patrick Stewart is Patrick Stewart, and Stephen Merchant is surprisingly good as well, giving an extremely subtle and underplayed performance.
I appreciate this review has been all over the place, but it’s hard to stay focused on certain parts as every time start talking about something I immediately want to start talking about how fantastic another part of the film was. At some point I’ll be able to write an intelligent and coherent piece about this film, about how it handles themes usually dealt with in Oscar-bait films, about how it’s a true masterpiece, about how genuinely moving and emotional this film is. But right now I can’t do that. I’m still in shock about it (and I saw it over a week ago). This film is too good to write coherently about, and that’s something I’ve never thought about a film.
Seriously though; words do not express how awesome this character is
Logan
Brilliant performances all round
Earns the R rating
But not in a gratuitous way.
Emotional as hell.
Looks amazing.
Nooooooooo-gan
Villains could have been better written.
Having Liev Schriber’s character from X-Men Origins in it would have been a nice touch.
Doesn’t answer a lot of questions which it should have (but might be answered in future ones)
Are you surprised to see this here? Well to be honest, so am I. I had quite low expectations here, if expectations were a high jump, then this was set 2cms off the ground, and easily cleared it, not in a way to set a new world record, but one that still performs admirably. The great thing about this film is that it exists in a genre of one; it’s a kids horror film, and one that made back double it’s budget, so expect a few poor imitations in the next few years. I do feel guilty about putting this film here though, because it means I can’t put Finding Dory on this list. That’s not a knock against Finding Dory, it’s just an indicator of exactly how strong kids films have been this year, been a phenomenal time for them, and whilst Dory hit me harder emotionally, I think part of its target audience was adults, whereas Goosebumps was focused almost entirely on the kids. So whilst kids will grow up and watch Finding Dory when they’re older, I feel that while they’re younger, Goosebumps will have more appeal, and it’s odd that that could be seen as a bad thing in todays society, for kids films to be aimed at children. We almost expect them to have adult jokes in them now and consider films failures if they don’t, maybe because all film critics are adults so it can be hard for them to judge kids films on their own merits (probably not though, as they are professional).
As already mentioned, I LOVED this movie. It was magical, as I said earlier this year:
“some films are funny, some films are heart-breaking, very few films can be described as magical, this is one of them”
It also had one of my favourite performances of the year, and is a film I’ve already considered buying on blu ray, despite being so poor at the moment I’m panicking about money about two days after receiving any. I know this film wasn’t rated that highly by critics, I just don’t get why. Normally when I disagree with critics it’s on comedies, films which I can see are definitely cult films, I don’t normally disagree based on “f*ck you this film was fairy lights and sunshine on celluloid”.
A film so strong and confident I just automatically assumed it was based on something. The fact that a new property can set up a world this full and real says a lot about the talent of both the writers and the directors. Surprisingly it’s the directors first film as a director, and I would not be surprised if he won an Academy Award for it (it’s not likely, but it would be very deserved). This was one of the few films this year I was actively following from the moment I saw the first trailer, it just looked so good, the music choice (While My Guitar Gently Weeps) was inspired, and visually it was very different from everything else. This HAD to be fantastic for me to like it, anything else would be a bigger disappointment than the first time I tried Hershey’s Chocolate.
A film that reminded me of an important lesson; you can have too many jokes in a comedy. I know that sounds weird but even in a comedy the characters need to treat the situation seriously, otherwise the audience don’t feel the jeopardy. If the characters don’t fear the situation, then why will the audience? It’s hard to believe but in the closing stretch of Airplane there’s barely any jokes, it’s all plot. This film does that too, there’s not many jokes in the final third, the characters are genuinely scared and determined and focused on plot, so that makes the stakes seem high to the audience, so they’re more emotionally invested. Now if I was doing a “favourite animated films of the year” then this would probably be top, but as I’m judging this by it’s standard as a kids film, this sadly has to be second. It’s definitely a better film than the one I’ve chosen to go in top spot, but not a better kids film for one simple reason; there’s no magic. There’s no moment where you sit watching this film and are overcome by a feeling of wonder and joy, there’s no “ooooooooo” moment. If it did that then it would definitely be top, and in most years it would, but this year it’s just beaten to the top spot by another film.
A film so good it almost seems like Pixar made it, if it wasn’t for the songs. But oddly enough it’s the songs that push this to the top spot. I hate songs in kids films usually as they’re just distracting, but here it served a real purpose, characters seemed to have their own musical motifs attached to them, and the songs are REALLY good. There’s a crab singing a David Bowie-esque song, The Rock singing a song about how awesome he is, and they’re still not the best songs in this film. If “How Far I’ll Go” doesn’t get nominated for awards I will genuinely be surprised, it’s touching, empowering, and even from a technical standpoint just a superb piece of music. On the downside there’s one or two jokes that take you out of the movie (there’s a twitter joke in here which is quite funny but completely unnatural), but then they’re followed with moments of brilliance (the psychedelic crab scene for instance features animation so colourful and beautiful, the likes of which haven’t been seen in a long time). It also features what is without a doubt the best pee-joke of the year. So there’s that. Oh, it also features adorable/terrifying coconuts, which is always the sign of a great movie (be honest, how much better would every film be if you added anthropomorphic coconuts?)
So, that’s that. We’re starting work on our end of film lists as we speak so if there’s any films you think we’re likely to have not seen this year, let us know and we’ll try to watch them before the years out.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way here; I’m fairly certain I’m not the target audience for this film (a feeling which was confirmed by the cinema being almost entirely teenage girls), so this had an uphill battle to impress me, an uphill battle which was evened out by the release of the trailer, which was funny, slightly heartwarming, and cynical as hell, I’m glad to say the only difference between the film and the trailer is the film itself is a lot more heartwarming. It’s just as funny and cynical as you’d hope, although part of my opinion on that might be because I have a weakness for any film which has “I’m going to kill myself” as the first line.
Unlike this film, where “I want to kill myself” is the first thing said by the audience
It’s not just the cynical nature of the film that’s done well, the characters themselves are really well defined. Even when the characters do and say terrible things, you understand their motivations, even though you don’t agree with them. They are all fully fleshed out, and they all get good lines. Unpopular opinion, I tend to dislike “comedy characters” in films and sitcoms, mainly because it means the writers tend to give them all the best lines, leaving the other characters somewhat underdeveloped. That’s a problem which this film avoids, most of the characters could comfortably lead their own movie, that’s a masterful piece of scripting and the writer should be commended for that. Which is why I’m glad the writer also directed it, it’s easier to follow directors careers than writers as more emphasis is put on directors. I was surprised this was directed by the writer, although it kind of makes sense, this seems like a very personal story and they’d be nobody better to get that across than the person who wrote it. It’s more surprising that this is her first film as a director, whilst it’s not exactly full of “wow shots”, or inspiring cinematography, it’s a lot more accomplished than a first time director should be, here’s hoping she gets a chance to do more work in the future with someone elses script, will be interesting to see what she can do. I feel her best work is as a writer though, the script has some amazing pieces of dialogue that really hit home. My personal favourite being (and i’m paraphrasing here) “I just don’t want to have to live with myself for the rest of my life”.
Probably not going to get a good lead in to say this but these two worked really well together.
This film is not perfect however, a major problem is that you will feel you’ve seen it before. Within five minutes of meeting certain characters you can guess their entire story arc, you know what they’ll end up doing for the rest of the film. Despite that it’s still a very enjoyable film, it’s a bit like listening to a REALLY good cover song, whilst it’s not completely original, and you won’t be surprised by it, you still have to be impressed with how they’ve done it, and you still love it. Put it this way; I also watched Arrival this week. Probably one of the best films I’ve seen all year, yet i still felt like THIS was the film I should write about.
Actually I take back what I said earlier; this shot is kind of beautiful it terms of colour and angles
I will admit, this is not the greatest film of the year, it’s not even in the top five if I’m honest, yet I’ll sum up my feelings about this film on this; I have a belief that everyone should have a self-care box. A box which contains dvds, books, chocolate, tea etc, basically stuff which will cheer you up when you’re at your worst. And whilst this film won’t make it into my top 10 of the year, or my favourite 100 of all time, it definitely deserves to go in the box, and that’s the best thing you can say about it.
Edge Of Glory
Strong performances from the cast (Special mention must go to Hailee Steinfeld, Hayden Szeto, Haley Lu Richardson and Blake Jenner. Actually all of them were really good)
Fantastic script.
Believable characters.
Very very funny and heartwarming.
Possibly one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard all year.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Troubled Productions 