Alien Covenant Review

Is this a stand up fight or just another bug hunt? Join me as I find out in my review of Alien Covenant.

 

Alien has long since earned its place as a classic of both horror and sci-fi cinema, as well as been a damn good film. Aliens is considered to be one of the few sequels that successfully builds on the original making a film that can be argued to be better than the original. Even the troubled genesis of Alien 3 has created a movie, that although flawed, has an atmosphere that most would struggle to match. Since its release in 1993 though the Alien saga has gone downhill. The less said about Alien Resurrection the better and my hatred of the overall stupidity of Prometheus is well known to anyone who has ever listened to The Minotaur’s Head podcast. So now we come to Alien Covenant, a movie that has been advertised as a return to the core values of the Alien series. Claustrophobia, body horror and the terror of the unknown. Unfortunately I have to say that it fails on most of those points as well as suffering from the issues that most prequels do: spoiling the surprises held in “later” movies in the series.

Horror is a very difficult genre to get right. The creeping terror invoked by the original Alien movie wasn’t because of the bio-mechanical design of the Alien (or Xenomorph to the true fans), it was because we could see characters who felt like real people in a horrific situation that seemed to have no hope. We cared about those characters. We knew their names as we walked out of the cinema the first time. I have had to google the names of all of the characters in Alien Covenant whilst writing this because I can’t remember the name of a single one. Not one of them feels like anything other than Xeno-fodder. Yes, there are moments where character traits are attempted for each of them, but unfortunately the script is so clunky that none of them ever come close to feeling like real people, and therein lies the main weakness of this film. If you don’t care about the characters, why would you buy into anything that happens to them? That is not to say that the cast don’t give it their all, but no amount of acting skill can save a script that is terrible.

Sadly that is not the only place where Alien Covenant falls down. The plot is paper-thin and is filled with so many convenient coincidences that I often found myself actually rolling my eyes and sighing. It has also clearly been written with the intent of adding more “Alien” into the follow up to Prometheus. Say what you will about Prometheus (and believe me, I have!) but at least it had the confidence of its convictions, however maddeningly silly they may have been. Alien Covenant feels like a film that has just had bits tacked on to appease the fans. Newsflash; fans like to see elements of what they first loved mixed in with an original and interesting story filled with new and exciting characters and situations! Not just the same stuff recycled with new people in the limelight. This means that the film is one of two halves, but annoyingly they are mixed into one another. This leads to is the pacing of the film being all over the place with alternating action/horror scenes interspersed with massive amounts of surprisingly uninformative and boring exposition. I don’t feel like I came out of this movie having explored the Alien universe, I just feel like I know more and none of it deepens anything I knew prior to watching it, in fact it tends to cheapen what has come before.

Then we have the horror aspects of the film, which should be central to any movie with Alien in the title. Once again we end up with moments that are all both derivative, painfully boring and completely unsurprising. Every one of these moments is so telegraphed that none of them carry any weight. This is compounded by the previously mentioned fact that none of the characters are worth caring about, so when they are slaughtered it really doesn’t matter. Also, the film’s 15 rating (R for you Yanks) completely hamstrings it, as the horror all feels watered down to the point where it is basically just pointless.

The one good point of this film is that it is visually very impressive. Ridley Scott has always been amazing at framing shots and his skill just keeps growing with experience. The landscapes in this movie are gorgeous, much like in Prometheus. Once again though, even the visuals are not without their weak points, as the CGI in this film ranges from the impressive to the seriously ropey. Sadly some of the most ropey parts are the creatures themselves, which robs them of any of the terror they should invoke. When a guy in a rubber suit from the late seventies is scarier than your fully CG monsters you know that something’s not right!

Overall I found this film to be thoroughly disappointing and a complete waste of time and talent. If you want a new Alien experience that is terrifying and fulfilling in equal measure I suggest avoiding this film and playing 2014’s excellent game Alien Isolation instead.

One Moon out of Five.

Ghost in the Shell (2017) Review

Its time to pull on your thermoptic suit, go invisible, dive off a building and join me as I review the 2017 live action version of Ghost in the Shell.

Remaking a classic movie is never an easy task. Making the jump from animation to live action just increases the difficulty, and when the movie that you’re remaking is a seminal work that has basically changed the face of sci-fi action movies ever since it was first released you’re giving yourself one hell of a mountain to climb! This is exactly what the team behind the live action version of Ghost in the Shell have attempted, and I’m sorry to say, that just like the picture above what they have created looks stunning on the outside, but is fairly lifeless underneath.

As I mentioned above; the original Ghost in the Shell anime is something that has inspired and influenced sci-fi ever since it first hit screens back in 1995. Clearly taking the ideas and themes that have been around since Blade Runner and William Gibson’s book that created cyber-punk; Neuromancer, the animated movie told the tale of a woman who was mostly a machine, but still a person at her core, mixing stunning visuals with deep questions about the increasingly thin line between machines and humans, as well as the nature of consciousness and the soul. A perfect example is the Matrix, which would not exist in remotely the same fashion that it does without Ghost in the Shell having come first. This leads me to the core problem with the new version: it feels derivative. Much like the John Carter movie a few years back, this film is based on something that came well before all of it’s subsequent offspring, but since those “children” are massive touchstones of modern movie and pop culture it finds itself scrabbling for relevance. What this film needs is a new take on the questions it is asking, but instead it recycles those that we are already used to.

In spite of all that Ghost in the Shell is still generally a visually interesting movie, but unfortunately that is about as far as it goes. The movie as a whole lacks emotional depth, which is a pity as the themes that should be being explored are only getting more relevant as technology continues to advance. The script sets up a few interesting questions, but never really follows up on them, eschewing exploration of character for wooden dialogue interspersed with fairly standard action scenes. In general the direction seems to lack any real punch or visual flair as it seems to be making too much of an effort to ape the style of the anime rather than branching out to create something new.

The cast all do their best with what they are given, it’s just that generally what they are given is not particularly good. Scarlett Johansson does a good robotic persona, but she is undercut by the fact that she has done so many versions of the “mysterious person” that are so much better. Watch her in Under the Skin or Captain America: Civil War, or listen to her in Her, to see/hear her do this sort of role so much more justice than she’s allowed to here. Unfortunately I have to say that the rest of the cast are pretty much background within the film, which again, I put down to the script and direction more than their acting efforts. All I can say is that when I think back over the film I can’t really remember any moments that don’t revolve around Johansson.

There is also the spectre of the regular white-washing accusations that this film has received throughout its production that hang over it. Unfortunately I think that the film does fall into that particular trap in several places, not through any malicious or domineering intent, but just because of very odd plot and design choices. For example; Johansson’s character could happily be a white female if she was working in a city that was mainly multi-cultural, however, the majority of the population appears to be of asian descent, so she stands out like a sore thumb, which is distinctly noticeable for someone who is meant to be stealthy. I understand that this movie needed a bankable name to sell, but there were a lot of ways to go about that without angering so many people.

So we are left with a film that really can’t decide if it wants to be a remake of the anime, something new or just a retread of themes that we have seen done much better in lots of other movies. It is still very pretty and vaguely entertaining in places but it is a pity that it is nothing more as the source material has so many interesting places that this movie could have explored.

Two Moons out of Five.

John Wick Chapter 2 Review

Slide into your snappiest suit, load your multitude of firearms and get ready to shoot A LOT of people as I review John Wick Chapter 2.

Since first setting eyes on the smooth, stylish and punchy hyper-reality of John Wick I have been an unabashed fan of Keanu’s latest action icon. My excitement levels on hearing that the sleeper hit of 2015 was coming back were very high and I’m glad to say that, for the most part, they have been satisfied by this second outing of the world’s most reluctant be-suited hit-man

First, the good: This is just as concentrated on style and all out action as it’s predecessor. Chad Stahelski has returned as the director of his budding action franchise and his eye for framing and kinetic but clear camera movement still carry the trademark level of crunching impact that he demonstrated in John’s first outing. It’s clear that the same stunt team are back as well, as the fight scenes have the precision, drive and force that I had been craving ever since the previous movie finished. On the acting front everyone is on fine form. Keanu is clearly having a whale of a time bringing back the terse, tense and direct assassin with a heart. His every movement is completely thought out and utterly committed, which is just what John needs to be, but the world-weariness that he brings to the part stops him from becoming robotic. The other shining light of the film is Ian McShane returning as Winston, the owner of the wonderfully bizarre hit-man hotel chain; the Continental. His suave, unsurprised and cool composure is exactly the foil that John’s explosive tension needs to play off against. Any time McShane is on screen my enjoyment of the movie stepped up a notch.

Now the not so good: One of the best things about the first John Wick movie was its stripped back, minimalist storyline that hinted at a world with a history outside of what we were shown on screen. This time around we spend a lot more time getting to know the depths of the assassin world that we only guessed at in the previous film. On one level this is immensely satisfying as the depths we are shown are downright cool, but the downside is that it makes the story more convoluted. That slightly less direct storyline means that this film lacks the directness of the revenge story the first told. In some ways this is the same problem The Raid 2 had when compared to The Raid, the larger world meant that it felt less focussed. In a film where the main character is focus-incarnate I found it frustrating at points that he was being made to jump through so many hoops. Then again, it was clearly very hard to find another reason to bring him back into the world that he spent so long trying to get out of, so I suppose this was only to be expected. I should say at this point that there is convoluted in most movies and convoluted for a John Wick film. Don’t worry, this isn’t an M. Night Shyamalan movie! The other main issue I had with the film is that, like any action sequel, it has to try to top what we saw in the first film. I will admit that, even though I love everything the fight choreographer has put together for this film, I started to get a little gun-tired towards the end of the movie. This isn’t because what was on show was anything other than action of the very highest level, but because there are only so many faceless goons you can see picked off before you stop worrying so much about the health of the protagonist.

So we have a film that is basically undercut by it’s own success. It’s still great compared to pretty much any other action franchise out there, but it’s not quite the breath of fresh air that its predecessor was. That being said, I’m still very much looking forward to seeing what John Wick Chapter 3 has in store for us.

 

Three Moons out of Five, sophisticated action for the discerning gun afficionado!

Suicide Squad Review

Batman v Superman failed to set the box office alight, will DC and Warner Bros do any better with their follow up movie? Find out as I review Suicide Squad.

The set up is simple; people with amazing powers could be a major problem if they decide to go bad. The US needs a taskforce capable of responding to this kind of threat. So, lady with a heart of flint, Amanda Waller steps up and forms the Suicide Squad. A group of dangerously psychotic, super powered criminals who can be controlled via bombs in their necks and a promise of time off their prison sentence. Voila, a summing up of the premise! Unfortunately, as with many things in this film, its not that simple….

That idea sounds like the sort of thing that could lead to a story that is anarchic good fun about bad people being sent after worse people. It even suggests that themes of evil and redemption might be explored. At the very least it sounds like the set up for a supervillain remake of the Dirty Dozen. In a word; nope! This film decides to spend nearly the entire first third of its run-time telling you about the back stories of the Squad members via neon-titled flashback sequences that are grafted into a scene where Amanda Waller pitches her idea to form the Squad. Given that there are six of these you can imagine why I was somewhat tired of them by the end. Individually some of these vignettes have entertainment value, but they are completely unnecessary. We know that Harley Quinn is crazy the first time we meet her because the script tells us so. We don’t need another ten minute sequence showing her and the Joker hooking up to reinforce it. We know Deadshot is an amazing shooter, partly because of his name and partly because the film is constantly showing us his skills with firearms. We don’t need a ten minute sequence telling us this at the start. It feels very much like someone at the studio turned up, watched the film in the editing suite and said “Hmmm… I’m not sure the audience are clever enough to pick up on all these subtle clues about the character’s traits. Perhaps we should really spell it out for them and hold up the entire plot of the film for the best part of forty minutes?”. It’s clumsy, it’s patronising and most of all it’s generally not that much fun. There are also several scenes later in the film that feel oddly out of place and I would put good money on having been added in the reshoots, which does nothing for the cohesiveness of the film as a whole.

Finally the movie starts moving and we get and inkling of the plot, but once again this is so muddled and filled with holes that it doesn’t feel like a journey that the characters go on. It feels more like a bunch of “cool scenes” strapped together to show us once again how badass this group are. This episodic feeling isn’t helped by the wooden script, which regularly had me wincing at how staid the dialogue was. They even have Will Smith say “So, we’re some sort of Suicide Squad then, huh?”. I know it’s a suicide squad! It’s on the poster! It told me that on the title card when I started watching the film!!! When the actual villain of the piece is finally introduced, which I won’t give away in case you’re worried about spoilers, they once again have a clichéd scene where they decide that they don’t like humans so they’re going to destroy/take over the world. The actual end-game they’re going for is also never really explained, but suffice to say the Squad are going to have to stop it. But wait! Actually they’re not, they’re being sent into the city where this villain is operating to rescue a VIP! Once the film finally seems to realise that this really isn’t what people have come to see this group of bad guys do, it manufactures a reason for them to go and confront the big bad. This scene that not only makes no sense but slows the entire pace of the film to a crawl just before the climax. It’s a really odd choice.

Perhaps though a mess of a script and plot could be saved by interesting characters who are all different shades of grey? Not in this movie! When they are being described by people who are not in the Squad the film would have you believe that these are some of the most twisted and vicious folk on the face of the planet. When you’re watching them this really doesn’t come through at all. What we are given instead is the same “bad guy with a heart of gold” stuff, which doesn’t match up to any of the set up. How is the cannibalistic, sewer-dwelling, man-crocodile meant to be someone I’m supposed to warm to?! Because the script says so? Oh, ok! There is absolutely no subtlety to the way these characters are written. When that is combined with a weird focus on Deadshot and Harley Quinn, who both feel like they should be secondary antagonists and not main characters, it really puts the final nail in the coffin for this movie. I should say at this point that the cast are clearly doing their damndest to make these characters work. Will Smith is charismatic and great as Deadshot, Margot Robbie is fun, dangerous and cracked as Harley Quinn. Joel Kinnaman does his best to be a soldier with a serious conflict of interest as Rick Flag and Cara Delevingne shines as the creepy Enchantress. For me though Viola Davis stole the show as the impressively dead-eyed and resolute Amanda Waller. The rest of the supporting cast are also clearly putting their heart and soul into their performances and my hat goes off to all of them for the amount of effort they went to. The problem is that the characters and script that they are given to work with are just plain bad.

As a final note on the cast, many people, the advertisers included, have been making a big fuss about Jared Leto’s performance as the Joker. First things first; he’s only on screen for about fifteen minutes, so don’t get your hopes up. Secondly, whoever wrote him decided for some reason to make him oddly over-sexual. I say “oddly” because sex has never really been a part of the Joker’s character in any of the versions we’ve seen so far in the comics or on screen. Instead of being creepy it felt more like the writer had been desperate to find something “edgy” to do with him and decided that “possible sexual fiend” was the way to go. Leto’s performance is equally as heartfelt as the rest of the cast’s, but sadly that can’t save the character from the writing. That being said I’d love to see which poor person has to try and find a way to make this Joker and Affleck’s Batman work together… because they clearly don’t!

Then we come to the wonder that is the soundtrack. In the trailers we have been treated to Queen’s opus, Bohemian Rhapsody. I also suspect that sales of Ballroom Blitz by Sweet have gone up significantly in recent months. Both of those worked for a minute and a half of excitingly cut footage. Having a different, on the nose, song ever scene for the first half of the movie does not. It’s almost like someone decided that they were going to make the movie a mix-tape, or visa-versa. Eclectic would be the kind way of putting it. Unfortunately it not only doesn’t make you feel like the film has a solid score or audio theme running through it, it also enhances the choppy nature of the first third of the movie. I’m sure the album will do well as most of the songs that have been chosen are great, but they don’t work in the context of the movie as it currently stands.

Lastly, I want to say that this is a $175million film and you can tell that a lot of time, effort and money has been spent on getting it to the screen. It looks expensive, it feels Hollywood and the people who have managed that have done a great job. Lest you think that I’m down on him I will also say that David Ayer has done a great job as a director. There are a lot of great shots in this film and it generally looks very good, they have just been edited together poorly. Sadly Ayer and his team have been working on a product that was flawed from the beginning. There is an old adage about not being able to polish faeces that would fit well in here.

To sum up this movie is a confused mess that doesn’t know what it wants to be. It bodes ill for the future of the DCEU and I recommend that you don’t go and see it.

One Moon out of Five.

Star Trek Beyond Review

Join me as I find out what colour shirt Star Trek Beyond is wearing as it beams down to Earth to do battle with my review!

This year is a very important one for Trekkies like myself as it marks fifty years since Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the crew of the Enterprise originally took to the small screen. This film has been marketed as a celebration of those five decades ever since it was first announced. I’m glad to say that, despite all the ups and downs that the production has suffered whilst holding doggedly onto its set release date, this is indeed the best Star Trek movie since Picard and his shipmates took on the Borg in First Contact back in 1996!

The recent reboot/alternate timeline of Star Trek has already upheld one tradition of Trek movies, which is the legendary rule of “Even numbered movies rule whilst odd numbered ones suck!”. Star Trek in 2009 (which was technically Star Trek 10) was a joyful romp that injected new life into the franchise and introduced it to many people who weren’t Trekkies. Star Trek Into Darkness was a confused mess of a movie that you can hear more of my general anger towards if you are a regular listener to the Minotaur’s Head Podcast (https://hearthis.at/hubrismosaic/?l=en). Love them or hate them though the one thing that both movies failed to do was to get the Enterprise and her crew out to where they belong: exploring the final frontier. Finally Star Trek Beyond shows us Kirk and Co. doing what they do best and actually exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new civilisations and boldly going where no one has gone before!

The film’s main strength is the cast who have always shone through as the re-embodiments of the original crew. This time though the film recognises that they are meant to work together as a cohesive force, not just a bunch of extraordinary individuals. Each and every one of the characters is given their time to shine and show what Star Fleet officers are really made of. Finally we are given the chance to see why Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest of their shipmates are held up as legends in their own time. Chris Pine anchors the story as a Kirk that he hasn’t really had the chance to show yet. He has been seasoned by his time in command and whilst he still has the wild charm that makes him such an unpredictable character he finally has the maturity to not always jump in face first and sometimes consider his options. That being said, when he jumps he does it wholeheartedly! Zachery Quinto as Spock has really begun to make the character his own and is given some seriously meaty scenes to chew on this time around. His version of the galaxy’s most famous Vulcan is a much more vulnerable one than we have seen before, but he retains the stoicism of his race impressively at the same time. The person who stole the whole show for me though was Karl Urban, as Dr Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy, who has finally been given something to do with his character other than be grumpy. Now he is grumpy, heartfelt, daring, hilarious and generally brilliant. He has most of the best comedy moments in the film as well as a large chunk of the most emotional as well and I can’t wait to see him back on the big screen as Bones. Sofia Boutellah also shines as the alien scavenger with a heart of gold, Jaylah, managing to make her mark amongst the more established characters with panache. The rest of the cast are all on fantastic form and it is nice to see all of them get an arc to play with. Obviously with a main cast this big, and new characters to service as well some of them get less time on screen than others, but none of them feel sidelined.

The script, which is sharply written by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung, plays on each character’s strengths and really makes you feel that these people have been stuck on a ship for nearly two years in the far reaches of deep space with no one to rely on but each other. The trust, camaraderie and little niggles you’d expect for a group who have been stuck together in relative isolation for a long period of time are all there and it’s great fun to be a part of. The love that the authors clearly have for Star Trek, its history and what it means comes through strongly as this is also the first of the new films that seems to understand what Star Fleet and the Federation are all about. The theme of unity among people, regardless of who they are or where they come from, shines through in almost every scene. This is the Federation as Gene Rodenberry first imagined it, and it’s both touching and more important than ever to see it back on the big screen in this time of world-wide political and national tensions. Star Trek is about hope, not space battles. Don’t worry though, this film brings both to the audience in spades! Being such an important year for Star Trek this film is filled to the brim with references, however, they have been weaved into the script and the story as a whole very nicely so none of them leap out and pull you out of the flow of the film too much. A hardcore Trekkie like myself though will come out feeling as though justice has been done to the previous five decades of Trek.

The visual spectacle that JJ Abrams brought to the first two instalments of this version of the franchise is still very much alive in Justin Lin’s direction. The Fast and Furious Alum has clearly done his homework, as I never found myself wondering who the new guy behind the camera was. The style and pizzazz that we’ve come to expect from Star Trek is still there, but is now underscored by Lin’s trademark kineticism, which takes the action scenes and turns them up to eleven. Luckily though he’s also very good at keeping your eyes on the prize, so I never found myself wondering where I was in the more frantic moments of the film. It turns out that Lin has also got a great eye for the more quiet and emotional moments of the movie, of which there are many. He isn’t afraid to let a scene play out naturally without trying to spice it up with bold camera work. He allows the actors to do what they to best, and some of the most enjoyable moments in the film are when one or two of the characters are just interacting with one another. The contrast between these scenes and those where the movie is doing its solid best to explode off the screen lends both sides even more impact and made me excited to sit back and drink both sides of the film in. When the action does hit though I found my eyes being pounded by some of the most sublime and impressive CGI I have seen for a very long time. Everything has weight and realism to it, so the explosions feel real and the ships look like you could walk out of the cinema and see one flying above you. This really enhances the more perilous sections of the film as you are completely immersed in the world without a seam or green-screen line to interrupt the illusion.

As with most movies this one does have a few weaknesses as well. I felt that it was a little overlong and that it could probably do with losing about five to ten minutes to just tighten up the mildly sagging midway point. In contrast though, the villain (I won’t give away who plays them as it’s sort of a spoiler) is by far more interesting than the ones this rebooted franchise has given us up to this point they are still lacking in quite enough screen time to really cement their menace. I also found that some of the tech on show was a little too high tech for that era of the Federation, but I’m pretty sure that’s more of a nerd-problem than anything else. All of these things though are minor issues in an otherwise brilliant movie.

So to sum up; we have Star Trek back on the big screen. We have the whole history of Star Trek being given the respect it deserves. We have the crew being given a lot of fun character arcs to play with and perils to overcome by their unity as a big space-family. We have space battles, action scenes and explosions a-plenty. We have only a couple of tiny snags. We have a strong and important theme that runs through the film! Is this the birth of the thinking man’s blockbuster that doesn’t sacrifice story quality for loudness…? Fingers crossed!

   

Four Moons out of Five.

My Pick of the Comic Con Trailers

 

Look at that queue! There is a reason for it…

 

Every year the infamous Hall H at the San Diego Convention Centre, AKA Nerd-Central, is packed to the gills with feverishly excited nerds all salivating to see the latest footage that Marvel, DC and other film-makers are exclusively releasing. In previous years there has been a lot of outcry about exclusive Hall H trailers and showcases, along with the increasing problem of bootleg phone-footage going up on the internet mere seconds after it is initially screened.

 

This year the consensus among studios appears to be that they will release the trailers at the same time as the footage is shown in Hall H, so they beat the pirates to the punch. This means that the excitement that was once contained to breathless written descriptions now ripples out across the internet, like a wave of nerd-excitement that covers the world within minutes of Hall H erupting like some volcano of joy. Join me as I go through my pick of the best trailers to come out so far….

 

 

Justice League

 

Anyone who has read my Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice review (https://moonvieswithmoon.wordpress.com/2016/03/31/batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice-review/), or listened to the Minotaur’s Head podcast for more than ten minutes (https://hearthis.at/hubrismosaic/) will know of my roller-coaster ride of excitement and dawning horror and disappointment regarding the first major film in DC Studio’s attempt to make a shared universe of their own to match Marvel’s MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). Therefore it was with some trepidation that I watched this trailer.

 

Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince, along with their alter-egos, Batman and Wonder Woman, try to put together a team of super-powered people to fight an unknown threat. There is a distinct feeling of the classic Oceans 11 movies going on here. Gone is the dour grimness of the previous films! There are even jokes in this trailer! Jokes that play off the foundations of the characters on show, which makes them feel organic and amusing! The distinctive style and hyper-reality that, much castigated, director Zack Snyder is known for is still apparent, but the colour that the new characters add makes it pop, rather than loom like the previous entry did.

 

After the general disaster that was BvS, does this mean that Zack Snyder’s team has discovered how to make these films work?! Hope has been relit for many a nerd today; The Justice League are coming!

 

Wonder Woman

 

 

Many people decried that such an important female character as Wonder Woman was given such short-shrift in her first ever cinematic outing earlier this year, myself among them. Luckily Warner Bros. and DC apparently feel the same, as she is the first of the DC’s Trinity (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman) to get her own movie in a post team-up world.

 

This trailer has a lot of elements that reminded me a lot of both of Marvel’s “out there” movies for the MCU’s Phase One; Thor and Captain America. Diana Prince’s introduction back into the world of men after millennia spent in relative isolation among her Amazon sisters on the island of Themiscyra is about to happen.Unfortunately, this appears to be slap in the middle of World War One. Needless to say the daughter of Zeus appears to be pretty unimpressed by this and decides to vent her ire upon the ranks of the German army.

 

Action? Check! Questions that are going to be asked about the power balance between men and women? Check! Amazon’s kicking serious amounts of ass? Check! Gal Gadot will finally get enough screen time to show if she is really worthy of the bracers, tiara and sword of Wonder Woman. Personally, I’m very much looking forward to DC’s premier female hero getting a chance to strut her stuff without any of those annoying caped boys getting in the way!

 

Kong: Skull Island

 

 

King Kong has been around since 1933 and has already had two major remakes, as well as several less impressive outings. Before seeing this trailer I was pretty convinced that seeing him on screen again would be just another money-spinning rehash of what we’ve seen before, but this time things appear to be a little different.

 

A post-Vietnam trip to an uncharted island by helicopter gun-ship? Sounds like fun! Put that alongside the amazing cast (Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Sam Jackson and John Goodman anyone?!) and it looks that they may well have cracked the code for getting the world’s biggest ape back on the silver screen. Oh, and did I mention that he’s HUGE?! This is officially the biggest Kong has ever been. Watching the staccato shots of massive hands slapping helicopters from the skies has got me really excited to see what this movie has in store for us. Oh, and that shot of the guy on a mounted machine-gun firing from between the horns of a triceratops skull? That may just be the most metal thing I’ve ever seen! I’m booking my ticket to go back to Skull Island, and I’m hoping you’ll join me!

 

Dr Strange

 

 

DC have put out a lot of trailers recently, hell this list started with two of them! It would be relatively easy to forget that Marvel still have one movie left to release this year. Luckily they have just been being cunning and waiting to drop the trailer for it until it will have the most mind-blowing effect possible.

 

Look; its Benedict Cumberbatch continuing to conquer Hollywood like a boss, and this time he’s a sorcerer! Move over Gandalf, there’s a new wizard in town, and his name’s Strange! Although this is clearly a film that will be treading over yet another origin story it is equally as clear that this is something that we have never seen before in the MCU. Reality shattering like glass, portals opening in down town New York, magical ninja cults, Mads Mikkelsen looking menacing, cities turning inside out like a kalidescope and all of it set to the mellifluous tones of Tilda Swinton’s mystical narration? Count me in!

 

Blair Witch

 

 

The Blair Witch Project was one of the first true internet marketing success stories, not to mention the start of the “found footage” movie genre. A tiny film that managed to make a huge amount of money through clever use of urban legend tropes. That being said, I always found the movie itself somewhat disappointing and dull.

 

This surprise follow up looks as though it has taken the lessons of the genre that its ancestor began back in 1999 and refined them until they appear to be truly creepy. A lot of horror trailers these days, like the films they advertise, leave me feeling unbothered, but this one has already got under my skin like few others. All the classic bits of Blair Witch lore are present and correct; hand-held footage, teens on a mission, darkness, trees and odd stick figures. It’s time to make that legend that began seventeen years ago pay off one more time and head back into the woods….

Tarzan Review

 

Come with me to deepest darkest Africa as I see if the Lord of the Apes is still standing strong in my review of The Legend of Tarzan.

In the early part of the twentieth century Edgar Rice Burroughs was one of the world’s most prolific authors of pulp fiction. His characters have graced the screen with mostly mixed results. I’m looking at you Conan the Barbarian and John Carter of Mars! There is one however, who can truly say he has conquered the silver screen (no less than 49 times to date!) and that is Lord Greystoke himself; Tarzan. Ever since his cinematic debut in 1918 the man raised by apes and then brought back to civilisation only to return to his homeland in a series of heroic adventures has become one of the most well known stories on the planet. I would argue that only Robin Hood, Superman and Batman are really able to lay claim to having a more recognised story in modern pop culture. Ask any child what Tarzan sounds like and they will do their best impression of Johnnie Weissmuller’s classic yodelling yell. So, once again Tarzan has returned to the big screen and my only real question is why we need a retread of his origin story?

I’ll get this out of the way first: The Legend of Tarzan is obviously yet another attempt at setting up a franchise through name recognition. Unfortunately this takes a film that should have the word “romp” first and foremost in its mind and replaces that with exposition and set up. Instead of committing to doing another straight origin story or a stand alone tale this movie tries to have its jungle cake and eat it too by interspersing the origin story throughout the current adventure. Instead of using this to gradually reveal the character’s motivations or lend the movie emotional impact all this does is make it feel increasingly episodic, which is a shame as both of the stories it is trying to tell are pretty solid. Combine this with the significant lack of action throughout the run time and you have a film that makes you feel every second of its relatively short 110 minute run time. The lack of storytelling dynamism on display here also robs the few action scenes there are of any real punch. I found myself just glad for the change when they turned up, but since I was generally bored by most of what had lead up to them I didn’t really find that they grabbed me as a moment of peril, more that they were just something interesting for my eyes to look at before returning to expositionsville. The other glaring issue is that the main story is set up in the opening scene, but about two thirds of the way through the film decides that the climax the audience has been expecting it to build to is actually only a subplot. So we are left with a fairly lacklustre action scene and then hustled onwards never to have this mentioned again. Given that the main plot was the bit that seemed to have the most riding on it up until that point I found it very disappointing to have it cast aside for the big CGI finale the movie actually finishes on.

A confusing story can be bolstered by dynamic direction though, and a lot of this movie does look very impressive. David Yates, the director, is very good at giving you a sense of what sort of environment the next scene is taking place in He also gets the balance right in the action scenes too. Regularly having the camera right in the action alongside shots that help to establish who is doing what to whom and where it’s taking place. That being said if I never see another descending panning shot of an African plain, rainforest, river or town I will very likely be a happy man! Sadly the general lack of impact from the story being told means that Yates’ best efforts do little more than make you notice the efforts he is going to in order to make the film look as good as possible. In some places he is also hamstrung by some of the special effects. There are some scenes that are beautiful, where the animals that Tarzan is interacting with seem to really be there, but there are also some incredibly shoddy bits of green screen work that really stand out when you see them. I  had also expected in a post Spider-Man world that the FX community would be clamouring to show of their “person swinging on rope” skills. What we are actually treated to though is some of the worst of these effects I have seen since before the first Raimi Spider-Man in 2000. Only one of these sequences looks even remotely real. Again I found myself wondering exactly why something that most people would consider one of the character’s defining traits seemed to have been rushed in favour of lots of talking?

So we come to the cast themselves. Alexander Skarsgard is physically perfect as Lord John Clayton/Tarzan. The way he looks, moves and inhabits the character is brilliant. It is easy to see the amount of work he has put into moving in a very predatory fashion. It is just a pity that the scripting doesn’t give him much to do with his character’s upper-class English Clint Eastwood voice. There are moments of humour dotted through some of his later scenes and he sells them perfectly with his deadpan delivery. It would have been nice to have more of that side of the character come out, instead of forcing him to be the mainly one note hero that he is through most of the film. Margot Robbie is suitably stunning as Jane Porter Clayton and she shows the right amount of fight for a person who has grown up dealing with the dangers of life in the Congo. Sadly she also suffers from not really being given much to do other than be a target for more exposition. Christoph Waltz plays the villainous Captain Rom with his usual panache, but the character is so similar to others in his filmography that I found it difficult to warm to him as a bad guy. So, this leaves it to Sam Jackson to steal every scene he is in as Tarzan’s sidekick and all round American bad-ass George Washington Williams. He gets all the best lines and is nicely allowed to show off both his skills at humour and tough-guy with equal measure. Unfortunately the other supporting roles are all either caricatures or space fillers at best.

Finally, in this film I found myself with a lot of time to think and as the movie went on I found it increasingly uncomfortable that the hero is the White man who comes back to protect the Black people in their own country as he knows it better than they do. Obviously  growing up in the jungle will do that to a person, but in this day and age with its increasingly overt issues between folk from different countries I did find myself wondering if Tarzan has come tothe point where he is no longer relevant? Perhaps this is me being overly sensitive and politically correct, but perhaps the issues of the moment have made me more aware of this part of the story. I don’t have an answer to that, but I certainly hope that such a classic character can be adapted so he survives in a way that works in the modern world, rather than just fading into an historical literary and cinematic memory.

To sum up; this is a film that I would probably not switch over from if I found it on my TV on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Sadly it just isn’t fun or action-packed enough to carry its convoluted and exposition-heavy story along satisfactorily despite strong turns from all the main cast and, for the most part, impressive visuals.

Two Moons out of Five.

Ghostbusters (2016) Review

When there’s something strange, in your neighbourhood, who you gonna call?!  NO! NOT THEM! THEY’RE WOMEN!!! Join me as I see if the Ghostbusters reboot is worth the amount of hate the internet has thrown at it.

Some movies define a generation. Jaws, Star Wars, Kevin and Perry Go Large. Some are said to define said generation once someone says that they are remaking it with girls in the leading roles to justify the amount of rage that is then aimed at it. Thus began the utterly horrendous tide of sexism when the new Ghostbusters movie was announced. “Girls can’t carry Proton Packs!!!” screamed the nerd community. It was almost as embarrassing to be a nerd then as that time that they made Johnny Storm Black… Luckily the end result is a movie that, whilst it has some weaknesses, is great fun and well worth a watch.

First things first; this movies strength is the four main roles. Melissa McCarthy’s believer and ghost scientist Abby, Kristin Wiig’s lapsed paranormal scientist Erin, Kate McKinnon’s completely mad engineer Holtzman and Leslie Jones’ brilliant sass-queen Patty come together to make a team that are truly worthy successors to Murray, Aykroyd, Ramis and Hudson (who may or may not turn up in awesome cameos…). Their chemistry is undeniable and they feel like a group  of people pulled together by incredible circumstances. Abby is dedicated and bullish, Erin holds onto her reservations, Holtzman is generally completely disconnected from reality and Patty is completely unimpressed by any of the insane things that are going on around her. Together they make a team that is great fun to watch, but I also found myself rooting for from the start of the film right up until the end. The other nice thing is that finally a group of women are allowed to be together on screen in a Hollywood movie without any reference to their sexuality! It may sound like a silly thing to mention, but afterwards I found myself feeling very refreshed that none of them succumbed to some sort of forced romance sub-plot. These are people coming together to fight the paranormal, nothing more, nothing less and that’s just great! Don’t worry though, the XY chromosome does get a look in in the chiselled form of Chris Hemsworth, who’s hilarious turn as the ditzy, but lovable, Kevin, underlines the movie’s refusal to abide by standard Hollywood tropes.

Another major strength of this film is the colour palette, which is both strong and distinctive. The ghosts have a feeling of the ethereal, whilst also being incredibly present and solid when needed. The design is less cartoonist from what has come before, but the real joy is seeing Proton Packs and their beams done with modern computer effects. These beams have a weight and punch that, when combined with the cast’s great recoil miming abilities, make you really believe that these are powerful machines that can do a lot of damage. The brightness of the film in general is also a change from the normal washed out green or blue palettes that film makers seem to have preferred since the Matrix. The contrast between the sunny day scenes and the glowing, spectral night sections of the film provide a great backing to the ghosts themselves when they turn up. With such a distinctive look going on I found it a bit of a pity that not enough of the ghostly moments are played for scares, but I suspect that may come down to personal taste more than an actual problem with the film.

I would love to say that the rest of the movie flows as well as the repartee between the cast and the beams from the Proton Packs, but the truth is that the plot is somewhat loose. The pacing of the movie tends to be a bit hit and miss as it veers from exposition to character pieces to action scenes without a huge amount of reason. Luckily the strength of the cast and their comedy timing prevented me from realising this whilst I was sat watching the film, and it was only afterwards when I went back over it that I started to notice the plot holes and pacing issues. That being said, I’m pretty sure that this film could have lost fifteen to twenty minutes (most of which would have been cameos) and felt a lot tighter for it. The other issue that makes the film feel a little less satisfactory than its opening scenes and amazing cast promise is the lack of a solid bad-guy. I won’t mention any names as that would be a spoiler, but suffice to say the film spends enough time on setting up the new characters and having fun with them that the villain is left being not much more than a caricature for them to fight against. This is a pity, as the heroes do such a great job of being the lovable underdogs that I couldn’t help but want to see them go up against a real and credible threat. Unfortunately this is the only bit of the film that does feel pretty standard. It doesn’t harm the film too much, but it is a definite off-note in an otherwise fun and enjoyable symphony.

This would not be a Ghostbusters review if I didn’t mention the original. In the interests of transparency I should say; I love the original (Viggo the Carpathian is fun too, but Ghostbusters 2 was nowhere near as good as the first film). I will also admit that I’m not sure its as much of a classic as people now make it out to be. There is no doubting that the cast and script are genuinely brilliant, but the film as a whole could be seen, by a new pair of eyes I hasten to add, as somewhat dated. I’m glad to say that the remake does not suffer too much in comparison, even to eyes that remember the original (and even the pretty awful Ghostbusters 2) with rose-tinted memory lenses. This film is a lovely change to a lot of remakes in that it pays homage to both the overall feeling and comedy of the original without forcing itself to drown in references. It also manages to avoid too many moments of “franchise creation” and concentrates on it’s own story rather than setting up future ones. I am quite sure that someone who had never seen either of the original films, which is entirely possible in this strange future world we live in, would love it and not suffer at all from missing the references.

So, we are left with a solid film that suffers from a weak bad-guy, like a lot of films these days do (I’m looking at you Marvel!), but holds together because of a great cast and a huge amount of chemistry!

  

Three Moons out of Five.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Review

Two pillars of modern mythology finally share the big screen. Find out if the seventy seven year build up has been worth it in my review of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

The genesis of DC comics relies on two names; Superman and Batman. These heroes have accrued so much resonance in the last three quarters of a century that I suspect that the amount of people on the planet who are not even vaguely aware of them could be contained within a large sports stadium or two. To find figures that are more universally recognisable than these you have to start digging into legend and folklore going back hundreds of years, Robin Hood, King Arthur, Odysseus, Achilles. This is the grand company these two caped crime-fighters now keep. One, a modern saviour standing for all that is good and bright in the world, the other a dark avenger who rules the night with an iron grip of fear. Both on the side of the angels, but with wildly differing ideologies about how to go about bringing justice to this broken world of ours. So the scene is set for them to clash in a battle, the kind of which we have not seen since the inhabitants of Olympus decided to have words with those pesky Titans. Everyone has been waiting for them to finally share the screen. Now the time has come and the question is; have DC and Warner Brothers managed to do them justice? Unfortunately the simple answer to that question is no, but, as with all the most divisive movies its not quite that straight forward.

This is a film that has many issues, but the most glaring one is that it is packed to the gills with so many strands of story that it rapidly becomes a bit of a mess. The thing about this that annoyed me is that there is clearly the seeds of a good movie underneath the mess of interweaving plots and twists. It is no secret that this film was originally conceived as a straight forward Superman sequel to Man of Steel. Unfortunately that film did not do as well as it was intended to do so Warner Brothers stepped in and asked for the sequel to be spiced up in some way to attract a bigger audience. Initially this meant that DC’s big gun, Batman, was included in the tale, but throughout development more and more facets have been added and now we have a film that seems to want to include as many characters and forward references as possible. Although I do like a good reference I do not appreciate watching large sections of a film that feel very much like a “coming soon” sizzle reel. This problem is compounded by the fact that most of these will not make a lick of sense to anyone who does not have a fairly good handle on the comic-book history of these characters. If DC manages to make all of the movies it has planned between now and 2020 I suspect that these references will all eventually make sense to the general audience, but for the moment they serve to mainly confuse the initiated and make those in the know wonder why the hell they are dropping these hints into a film that is really only the start of a brand new shared universe.

This leads me into the next problem with having this many story angles in a film; no one really gets anywhere near the amount of screen time they need to build any real emotional resonance. Unfortunately without this the film’s eventual climax is robbed of a lot of its punch and becomes nothing more than an impressive visual spectacle, rather than the mythical clash it was clearly intended to be. You will notice that I am being very vague about exact plot points and that is because in a film this crammed with possible future references I find it very difficult to point out precise moments without stumbling over spoilers for not just this film but probably the next three or four movies in DC’s future line up. I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed the opening sequence of Bruce Wayne being in Metropolis on the day of Superman and General Zod’s battle at the climax of Man of Steel. Seeing the sheer destruction from ground level and the complete feeling of powerlessness that it gives the victims carries a surprising amount of weight. It also provides a solid link with the previous movie and a nice feeling of continuity, which is then almost completely ignored in favour of another plot line that is shoe-horned into the opening of the film and is then finished off abruptly with seemingly no consequences about mid-way through the movie. Had the story then continued down the route it initially seemed to be going down and concentrated solely on Wayne’s growing paranoia that Superman was a threat to the human race to be eliminated we could have had a very taut thriller that climaxed with a show down between two diametrically opposed heroes who are both trying to achieve the same goal through very different means. Sadly we get bogged down in Senate hearings, Lex Luthor’s machinations and Superman’s angst that no one likes him. All of these slightly superfluous plot lines add massively to the film’s already stretched run-time of over two and a half hours and slow large chunks of the film to a crawl. This means that the pacing of the movie shifts from the excitement of the first ten minutes to a huge amount of exposition until the last half hour jumps into a high gear with almost no warning. Apparently there will be a 15 (R for our American friends) rated extended edition that clocks in at around three hours coming out on Blu-Ray. Part of me winces at this idea but I do wonder if a lot of the connective tissue of the longer parts of the movie, which make the pacing a lot more natural aren’t contained within this half hour, and if it will actually end up making it a much better film as the extended versions of the Hobbit movies did.

The thing that stops me from completely writing this movie off however is that I really enjoyed the performances from pretty much everyone and the visual stylings of director Zack Snyder are spectacular as ever! Given the sheer amount of people in this film it is impossible to go through the whole cast, so I will just touch on those that made the biggest impact on me. I still love the confidence and sadness that Henry Cavill brings to his Superman (though there were many times where I found myself wishing he could just be cheerful for once), Jessie Eisenberg’s twitchy and impotently raging take on Lex Luthor will not be for everyone but I found myself enjoying it quite a lot. I found Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman to be intriguingly mysterious and warrior-esque enough to make me buy into her and look forward to seeing her stand alone movie next year. However, there is one man who steals the whole movie and that is Ben Affleck. He inhabits the roles of Bruce Wayne and Batman with a world-weary charm that I found to be thoroughly enjoyable. I would go as far to as to say that he is currently the best on screen Batman I’ve ever seen. Again I am really looking forward to seeing him in a stand alone movie that gives him a chance to let this character breathe a little. Jeremy Irons backs him up nicely by bringing a new take to Alfred that nicely mixes the long-term family servant with a man who is not afraid to take Wayne or Batman down a peg or two with his trade-mark sarcasm. I also enjoyed both Holly Hunter’s Senator Finch and Amy Adam’s Lois Lane, despite the fact that I found both of their plotlines to be relatively superfluous to proceedings.

This leads me to the other bug-bear I have with the stories this film is trying to tell; I don’t feel as though a lot of them have been earned yet by the characters. There are some huge plot lines running through this film that are based on some of the most successful comic story-lines of the last thirty odd years, but the problem with that is that we have only known a few of these characters for more than a couple of hours of screen time. For example; when Captain America and Iron Man clash in May’s Captain America: Civil War, we will have been following both of them for the best part of ten hours of screen time each. That is a long time to build up an attachment to each of their screen personas. This lack of familiarity with these incarnations of Batman and Superman left me noticing bits of stories from some of my favourite comics in an academic fashion, rather than buying into them on the visceral level that I was hoping for. Zack Snyder brings his trade mark visual flare to the proceedings and turns the madness up to eleven during the climax, but without the depth of feeling for the characters it turns into visual noise that I was waiting to finish rather than keeping me on the edge of my seat. The climax also suffers from a lot of CGI overload, which is a pity because the spectacle that is on display is often reduced to something that is a lot closer to a good video game cutscene. There is also the problem of some unforgivably stupid actions on the behalf of several characters, particularly in the last half hour of the movie, that nearly had me shouting “Oh, come on!” in frustration at the screen. One of them even earned a weary eye-roll!

To sum up; this is a film that is riddled with issues that get in the way of the great performances that are on show. This movie deserves some respect for trying to go big and grasp the mythical and operatic nature of these characters, but unfortunately overreaches itself in nearly every aspect and ended up losing me along the way. This is not the triumphant film that these heroes deserved, but it shows promise for the future of the DC Extended Universe.

 

Two Moons out of Five.

 

 

Deadpool Review

Grab yourself some Chimichangas, load up on ammo and dick-jokes, its time to break the fourth wall with my review of Deadpool.

For a while now people have been saying to me that superhero movies are getting tired and that the massive influx of costumed do-gooder tales that are currently heading our way is going to cause the ever inflating bubble to burst. Luckily this is not something that either Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool director Tim Miller, or Deadpool writers Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza have bothered to listen to. The result is the Deadpool movie and it’s a breath of fresh, if slightly purile, air in an increasingly crowded super(hero)market.

First things first, if you’ve seen any of the marketing for this film you’ll know that this isn’t your average superhero movie and Deadpool isn’t your average superhero. It’s not that he’s more heroic than his onscreen counterparts, it’s that he’s decidedly less so in most cases. Wade Wilson, Ryan Reynolds, is a ex-special forces mercenary (because who would want a mercenary who wasn’t ex-special forces?!) and general bad person trying to be good. What unfolds here is his journey from above average bad-ass to superhuman bad-ass as a diagnosis of late-stage cancer leads him to accept help from some nefarious types, lead by the overly cockney and totally evil Ajax, Ed Skrein. Unsurprisingly the bad guys then reveal their bad side and proceed to steal Wade’s girlfriend Vanessa, Morena Baccarin, forcing him to use all his new-found powers to get her back.

There are three things that make this stand out from your average super-fare. The first is that, for once, the world is not in danger! This is just a film about a guy trying to get his girlfriend back from a bad guy who has kidnapped her. That may not seem like much, but it lends the film a much more personal feeling and lets it breathe a little more in the slower scenes because the fate of humanity is not resting on the protagonist’s shoulders. It is so nice to have a super-film finish with a climax that isn’t something huge falling out of the sky! The second is that this movie more than earns it’s Fifteen (R, for you Americans) rating. This is not the sort of movie that you should be sneaking your little brother into! There were several moments during the movie that I found my eyebrows jumping into my hairline with surprise that this wasn’t an eighteen (NC-17 to the Yanks). The amount of hardcore, bloody violence and brief, but impressively complete nudity would be enough in my mind to warrant a higher rating alone. The thing that really pushes the boundaries is the amount of joyously puerile humour that is on display here. There are very few scenes that pass without at least one joke about something extremely filthy, and the cast are clearly enjoying every minute of it. I suspect that when the Blu-Ray comes out there will be a lot of cut scenes where they pushed the envelope too far, and I’m looking forward to seeing exactly how far they pushed it before it got cut. Luckily, this is exactly what anyone who knows anything about Deadpool would expect and it is glorious. I laughed more throughout this film than I have for a long time in a cinema. This is partly because of the timing and delivery from the cast, but it also has a lot more to do with the fact that this really isn’t the stoic, po-faced hero movie we have come to expect. The third and final thing is that unlike all his counterparts in this movie; Deadpool knows that he is in a film and regularly breaks the fourth wall to address the audience directly. This is never explained, but it is a centrepiece of Deadpool lore in the comics and makes his transfer to the screen even more joyfully anarchic than I had expected. No one escapes from the self-referential nature of this film’s sense of humour. If you’ve never seen another superhero movie then some of these jokes may pass you by, but don’t worry, there is more than enough here to entertain anyone with a functioning sense of humour.

So we come to the hero of the piece, Mr Ryan Reynolds himself. Reynolds has made no secret of his interest in playing this character for at least the last ten years. He got one shot at it before in the god-awful X-Men: Wolverine, Origins, and was one of the only good things about the film. Since then he’s had another go at the superhero franchise with the sub-standard Green Lantern, where once again, his Hal Jordan was about the only good thing in the film. Luckily Fox have finally heard the cries of the fans and realised that in the combination of star, director and writers for this film they have a set of people who are passionate about this property and willing to pull out all the stops to bring it to the screen. So now, finally, Ryan Reynolds IS Deadpool. I can’t really say it better than that. If there was ever a character/actor combination that was more tailor-made for someone I can’t think of it. Reynolds inhabits the character with charm, wit and timing that makes him utterly magnetic when he’s on screen. He even manages to project that charm through the mask that he wears (contrary again to most superhero movies that insist on unmasking their star at the earliest possible opportunity) throughout most of the run time of the film. Deadpool is known as “The Merc with the Mouth” for a reason and Reynolds rarely shuts up when he’s on screen. Happily his comic timing is perfect and he is completely believable as someone would could happily kill this many people and still remain completely irreverent. His co-star, Morena Baccarin also shines as the damaged prostitute with a heart of gold, Vanessa. Their relationship is the centre of this film and luckily these two immensely pretty people have a chemistry that positively blisters the screen. Happily though Vanessa isn’t just a damsel in distress as she has comedy chops to match her beau and guts to go with them. Baccarin shines whenever she is onscreen and her quiet moments with Wade are filled with a deep level of feeling that grounds proceedings nicely and lets you really buy into the lengths he’s willing to go to in order to get her back. Unfortunately one of the places that the film falls down a little is with its bad guys. Once again, the simple fact of needing to focus in on the hero leaves them little time to build anything into the characters of Ajax and his right hand woman Angel Dust, former MMA fighter Gina Carano. Ajax is left as a bad guy who just enjoys being bad. Again luck is with us because Ed Skrein hams it up wonderfully and is obviously enjoying being a complete bastard whenever he is on screen. Angel Dust on the other hand is just stoic muscle, which is a pity because anyone who has seen Carano in Haywire knows that she can act as well as fight. The rest of the cast are little more than bit parts, but again they are all pitch perfect in their roles. I particularly enjoyed T.J. Miller as Weasel, Wade’s foul-mouthed friend and bar-tender as well as the interplay between the two X-Men that also make it into the film to try and tame Deadpool’s rampage. Colossus (voiced by Stefan Kapicic) and his attempts to convince Deadpool to be a hero and the hilariously named Negasonic Teenage Warhead who couldn’t really care less about proceedings, played to icy, teenage perfection by Brianna Hildebrand, provide a nice counterpoint to Deadpool’s humour-laden violence and make you remember that what he is up to shouldn’t really be something that you should enjoy.

The movie pushes along at a fair pace and there are only rare moments of down time throughout, but they are placed nicely to stop the whole film from turning into nothing by one long-winded action sequence. I found myself getting just enough time away from the violence and quipping to start wanting more. Whenever that happened you can be sure that Deadpool returned to fulfil my every want! The action in this film is frenetic and imaginative in a way that we rarely see in superhero movies. It gets close in and it both looks and feels painful and lethal in a way that I think that the audience is likely to be quite shocked by to begin with. I firmly believe that if Thor hit someone with his hammer they would basically explode, not just disappear quickly stage-right. The fact that we have seen a lot of that sort of neutered violence in these sorts of films for the last eight or nine years makes what is on show here all the more shocking. Limbs, heads and pretty much everything else go flying on a regular basis, but it is all done with tongue firmly jammed in cheek and comic timing a-go-go. There are a few moments where the cracks show a little as some of the CGI on display is quite noticeable, which I found a little jarring at times, but I suspect that this is less the skill of the artists on show and more the limitations of the movie’s small (for a superhero movie) budget being pushed to breaking point. I get the feeling though that these limitations forced them to look for innovative solutions to make the film. Happily they have clearly done something right whilst milking this film’s budget to the max as Fox have already announced that a sequel is in the works! I’m looking forward to more of Deadpool’s brand of action-driven, filth-comedy, super-heroics just as soon as they can crank the next one out!

I highly recommend this movie to anyone who has a yearning to see a superhero movie that isn’t really a superhero movie. If you enjoy mega-violence, filthy comedy, excellent action and maximum effort from all involved then I suggest this is the film for you! If you are offended by violence, jokes regarding any form of bodily orifice or even the slightest hint of nudity then I really would steer clear of this one…

 Rating:

     

Four Moons out of Five. Ridiculously entertaining (and make sure you stay for the post-credits sting)!