The Revenant Review

Grab a bear-skin and your best spirit of vengeance, its time for my review of The Revenant.

At first glance The Revenant is a pretty standard film about revenge. A man nearly loses his life, and does lose his son, on the edge of the world and then tracks his son’s killer back to the bleeding edge of civilisation through some of the harshest environments possible. The film follows the story of Hugh Glass, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, a trapper, scout and fur-trader in the early eighteen hundreds as the first major push west across America was really taking off. He and his half-native American son guide a party of trappers looking to mine the untouched wilderness for furs and the riches that they can bestow when sold to the masses back east. The tensions within the party, specifically between Tom Hardy’s John Fitzgerald and Glass, are set early and you are quickly assailed by the feeling that this expedition really is eking their existence out of cunning, luck and sheer brutality on the edge of the known world where mistakes mean death. That feeling of everyone’s survival being balanced on a knife-edge lends the film an undertone of desperation from the outset that only grows as it goes on.

Leonardo DiCaprio is being hailed as the frontrunner for this years Best Actor Oscar for his performance in this film, and having seen it I wholeheartedly agree. He inhabits a character that is so far outside of any person I have ever met in his sheer, bone-deep determination, his ferocity and complete devotion to the ideal of “just keep breathing” and it really is something that has to be seen to be believed. I found this especially impressive as I think he has somewhere in the region of about twelve lines in the whole film. The rest of his character is beautifully realised in his physical performance, not just in the horrors that he forces himself to endure, which if tales of the shoot are to be believed were about as real as you can get in the film-making business, but in the way he moves, breathes and watches the world around him. I found myself completely believing that this was a man who had grown up learning to survive in a world that could not care less if he does. The rest of the cast are also on fine form, and without their strong supporting turns I do believe this film would be much less interesting. The three who deserve special mention though are Tom Hardy, who’s portrayal of Fitzgerald as a slimy, self-interested, psychopath is completely believable and utterly chilling. Will Poulter shines as the terrified, but steadfast Jim Bridger, who is one of the few people in the film who starts out with the confidence of his convictions. Seeing his reaction as those convictions are challenged and broken down is truly poignant. Finally Domhall Gleeson shows that, much like in last years Ex Machina but unlike in The Force Awakens, he is completely comfortable playing a multi-layered character. As Andrew Henry, the leader of the trapping expedition he shows the full gamut of emotion from determination to get his men out of trouble, to guilt, to fear, to rage and vengeance with total conviction. Watching these four, as well as the rest of the cast, delve into this brutal world is a difficult but deeply impressive experience.

Something that you should know before going into this movie is that it is not one that shies away from violence. The opening scene of the native attack on the trapper’s camp is something that is unlike any cinematic experience I have had before, as is the bear-attack that comes a little later. I have never watched something that feels so genuinely chaotic and horrific without feeling that the film is showing it on some level to shock the audience. Even in a post-torture-porn world where films such as Hostel have pushed the envelope for the level of violence that an audience will accept on screen, I found this to be different and more powerful than the most gory scenes that Quentin Tarantino or Eli Roth could conjure. This violence is real. It is immediate, vicious and uncaring, much like the world that the characters inhabit. The lack of empathy that the characters feel for one another feels like something from a bygone era, a time where people could not afford to see one another as anything but resources to exploit or obstacles to be removed. It is this more than anything else that makes the violence on show carry more impact than what I am used to seeing in an average action movie. The consequences are permanent and usually fatal, but if not, the scars it leaves run deep and you can feel the trauma that is left behind after the violence itself is ended. This is not a film for the faint of heart.

A lot of this film takes place in the wilderness, and I was really struck by the feeling of a world that is completely untouched by man. The director, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, has done a stunning job of capturing a wild, untamed world that is increasingly difficult to comprehend in the modern, safe, technology-filled place that most of us inhabit. There are a multitude of shots that show characters slogging across vast, snow-covered landscapes that stretch as far as the eye can see. This complete lack of significance in the face of nature was the main thing I took with me from this movie. Nature does not care what the characters in the film are doing, they are mere dots against it’s vastness, their story something minute that carries no weight. But there is the underlying promise that these insignificant men are the vanguard of something that will eventually steam-roll this wilderness into submission. A feeling of the beginning of the end, even as these men fight for survival also runs through the movie like an undercurrent that makes the wide open spaces even more special when you do gasp at their untouched expanses. The contrast between these stark open spaces and the intimate hate that carries Glass through the film is something that I found really stuck with me after I’d left the theatre. That being said, it is not all drudgery and soul-destroying insignificance as the world is shot in such a beautiful way that I regularly found my breath being taken away. Although it may be uncaring of the character’s fates there is something magnetic about the world that surrounds these people. Once the lights came up I found myself not wanting to leave a place that was not only much simpler, but also much more starkly beautiful than the world that most of us inhabit. It would also be a crime if I did not mention the way the camera not only takes in the sweeping vistas of the wilderness but also is not afraid to get right into the thick of the action when it happens. Regularly I found myself feeling breathless or shaky because of the immediacy of what was happening on screen and how it was reflected in the kinetic movement of the camera. This is not to say that everything is filmed in the now somewhat clichéd “shaky hand-cam” that was used to such effect in the Bourne trilogy, rather that the camera itself goes wherever the characters do. Regularly it feels as though you are on horseback or running through the forest, only to be submerged in a raging torrent, being sucked down by the currents and only popping up for brief, life-saving gasps of air as the camera undergoes whatever trial it is that Glass is currently having to endure.

For me the final icing on the cake was the soundtrack, which provided punch and emotion in small, but carefully crafted doses when most needed, but otherwise seemed to be completely made up of the slightly enhanced noises of the wild. Branches creak and crack under the weight of fresh snow. The noise of the snowflakes patting down as they paint the world white. The rough breathing of the characters or some of the beasts they come into contact with. It all combines to make an already immersive experience that much more real. Once I left the cinema I was expecting to find the world outside a little bland, but it was snowing, and the very light pat, pat, pat of the flakes settling took me right back into the movie despite being in a car park in Wolverhampton, which I think is a shining example of how good a job this movie does at putting you into a world that no one has lived in for nearly two hundred years.

All that remains to be said is that this is almost not a film for me, but rather an experience. I cannot recommend enough that you catch this on the biggest screen you can find because seeing it at home will not do the artistry, beauty, brutality and sheer impact of this movie justice.

 

Rating:

Five Moons out of Five. A masterpiece.

 

Mad Max: Fury Road Review

I would say strap in, but I think that Max would disapprove of seat-belts! It’s time to review the post-apocalyptic madness that is Mad Max: Fury Road.

It’s been thirty years since Max Rockansky has graced our screens in the Tina Turner scored “Beyond the Thunderdome” and in that time Hollywood has changed significantly. The last time Max rode out into the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the future outback, muscular heroes were all the rage with Arnie beginning his climb to action hero fame with “Commando” and Stallone ruling the roost with “Rocky IV” and “Rambo: First Blood Part II”, there were virtually no superhero movies to speak of and sequels were still a fairly rare commodity. Now that Max has reappeared he is competing with some of the most financially successful movies of all time and the cinematic world seems to be made of little other than sequels, prequels, reboots, spin-offs and shared universes. Luckily Max himself has changed to keep up with the times. Long gone is Mel Gibson, whose age and rather public alcohol-fuelled, anti-semetic melt-downs have made him significantly less bankable in this century than he was in the last. Now the gruff, intense and terse Aussie anti-hero’s road-warrior leathers are filled by Tom Hardy.

The film starts out by combatting the main problem it faces in this day and age; The problem of the long gap since the last instalment and relative lack of current pop-culture reference. Mad Max is no Star Wars! This is tackled with an opening monologue to set up the character and the vast, sand-blasted wasteland that he calls home. This is probably the last calm moment that the film has for a good hour and a half. From this point on its V-8s roaring, sand billowing from beneath oversized wheels and a range of grotesque characters that is almost as stunning as the sheer amount of action that is blasted out of the screen at you. Normally by now I would have given you an idea of what the set up for the ongoing plot is, but this is where we hit a major speed-bump that even the supercharged monstrosities on show here would struggle with. This film really does not linger on setting up a strong story or even really giving you much in the way of character development. Other than the opening monologue the next time we actually get much in the way of backstory to any characters or the world they inhabit is about two thirds of the way into the film. I’m all for getting down to the action, getting the film moving and showing rather than telling, but the lack of ten minutes at the start to really set up who is who and why they are doing what they are doing means that it feels like the film sets up to try and tell a serious life or death story, but then it forgets all that in favour of of an orgy of rusted-steel and howling V8’s.

This brings me to the characters, such as they are. Furiousa , played brilliantly by Charlize Theron, is not only strong, female and completely without need of male assistance but is also missing a limb and arguably the main protagonist of the movie. It is a sad insight into the way that Hollywood has worked until now that having a main character who is not whole of body is such a shock at first. Looking past that though, I have to ask why such a striking and interesting character as Furiosa is given literally no back story other than an extra whispering that she is a warlord who works for the main bad-guy. Her decision to do what she does, which kicks off the main part of the movie, is literally never explained and we are just supposed to either accept it or come up with our own explanation. There are hints here and there, but they are too fragmented to allow you to construct your own backstory for her and give her the depth that Theron is clearly trying to show.

Max himself suffers from the same problem, as well as being virtually pointless for the majority of the run-time. This film hinges on you rooting for Max, but aside from a few hints that he lost his family and is really not a happy person in the opening monologue there is very little else to go on. I understand that we are meant to then be shown how much of a distrustful and broken person he is, but the lack of concentration on anything other than the action on show prevents this from really ever coming into focus, despite Tom Hardy’s best efforts. Instead we are left with a gruff anti-hero caricature whose accent seems to veer from Australian to South African and through various parts of the US before coming back to Aussie. This is a pity, because when he finally steps up and starts to add to the plot I found myself being a little shocked that someone who up until now had basically been a background character was thrust into the foreground and given so much responsibility for how the plot finally draws to a close. This is not to say that there are not memorable moments for the good guys, indeed there are a group of bikers who very nearly steal the whole film when they appear, but again they suffer from not being given enough time to really fill out their characters.

So, if the goodies are a bit of a wash, what do we find when we come to the antagonists of the film? They are a bunch of grotesques the like of which we have not been shown since the last “The Hills Have Eyes” remake. The superb design work that has gone into the costumes and characters shines through the constant dust and exhaust fumes, but this is basically where that work ends. The main bad guy, Immortan Joe, is bad. You can tell this from the impressive rictus grin on his face mask and the fact that he has his own personal army of “War Boys”. That’s about it. Again this stunted the impact of those beautiful action scenes for me as I had no real reason to root for the heroes to beat him until fairly late on in the film. I will say that the War Boys themselves are delightfully demented and completely devoted to Joe and the brutal religion of the automobile that he appears to have set up to control them. The fact that the steering wheel is an item of worship for them is a nice touch. They spend most of the movie throwing themselves into suicidal attacks on the heroes’ convoy like post-apocalyptic kamikaze. Nicholas Hoult plays one War Boy, Nux, who actually ends up getting a bit of an arc in the film. He is a tragic character who is desperate to die in the service of Joe, but seems to keep missing his opportunities. His plaintive need to prove himself worthy of someone’s love is actually quite touching in places and provides some much needed emotion to the proceedings. Unfortunately the rest of the bad guys are just that, bad people who are basically space-fillers and cannon-fodder for the never-ending meat-grinder that is this movie. It feels as though there is a world behind this movie that is rich and worth exploring, but we miss out on that because of the movie’s dedication to filling as much of its screen time with things moving fast and going “BOOM!”.

So, finally on to the action itself. As an audience we are regularly served up a spectacle that is mostly computer generated and a director and his effects house have to work pretty hard to make an audience forget that what they are watching does not exist outside of a hard disk nowadays. This is Fury Road’s biggest strength, and one it plays to for most of its running time; virtually everything that is going on is real. Real cars, real environment and real impact. Eyes that have become used to becoming slightly glazed when the CGI kicks in during an action scene will be opening wide with the sheer level of vehicular carnage that makes up most of this film. I got the feeling that the stunt-team on this production was having the time of their lives. There are things going on that I would never have imagined possible, let alone be attempted without at least maiming most of the cast and crew. Now even the best action can be let down by poor direction, but luckily George Millar has not lost any of his craft since the last time he was putting Max on the screen. The camera seems to revel in being down amongst the dirt, rust, steel and rubber of these cobbled together monstrosities as they collide and chase one another across the red sand. The camera sweeps, whips and smashes its way through the carnage that is going on around it, regularly picking out little moments between the antagonists before pulling back to give a feel of the scale of the madness that is on display. Entire convoys of ragged, brutalistic vehicles race across the desert trying their best to smash one another into the big scrapheap in the sky. I was often left wondering how anyone corralled all this speeding metal into something that even resembled a scene without anyone becoming a casualty in the process. Special mention should go out once again to the design team, who have made vehicles all feel as though they’ve been put together from junk ripped from the carcasses of burnt out hulks of more civilised vehicles. Spikes, razor edges and insanely huge engines are here in abundance and they add more to the distinctive feel of this film than any other part of the production. Many boy-racers will be walking out of the cinema thinking that rust is the new chrome and that cars that don’t spout flame are boring. Alongside the action, which is busy making your eyes water, there is the soundtrack, which is trying its best to punch its way past your ear-drums to drill itself directly into your brain. Drums, electric guitars and what often sound like chainsaws all mix together to create a soundtrack that Hell would be proud to play on a Saturday night. Make no mistake, this film is a complete assault on your senses. But it’s not all noise, in fact there are moments in this film that are truly beautiful to look at. Lingering long shots of the outback as it fades towards the sky are interspersed throughout the quieter moments of the movie, and they are as much of a balm to the eyes and mind as the lack of the hammering soundtrack is to the ears, sadly they are all too rare and therein lies the final major problem with this film. The movie is the best part of two hours long, but it feels much longer because it rarely ever comes down from the high gear of the action scenes. This film seems to have forgotten to use the action to underline the story it is trying to tell and to add punch and emotional weight to key scenes. Instead it bludgeons you with ever more mad automotive shenanigans until you are left an uncaring zombie who just needs to go somewhere quiet to reset.

To sum up; this is a movie that I really wanted to enjoy, and there are points where I was completely blown away by the action on show, but the fact that it is overlong and there is so little in the way of any characterisation to keep my interest meant that I left the cinema feeling not only battered and stunned, but surprisingly disappointed. There are moments of genius and real originality on show, not only in the action, but in the intriguing world that it takes place in. There is definitely an amazing movie somewhere in this film, but it needs digging out from under the sheer weight of the mangled metal that assaults you for the majority of its run time. If you are someone who can switch off and just enjoy action for its own sake and not worry about things like motivations or character development then this may very well be the film for you, unfortunately I couldn’t do that, so for me this film will remain in the category of “near miss”.

 

Rating:

 

Two Moons out of Five. Not so great.

Far from the Madding Crowd Review

It’s time to inject a little culture into this blog with a review of the most recent film adaptation of “Far from the Madding Crowd”

Do you often find yourself wishing for an idyllic life bathed in the golden sunshine of a rural utopia? Are you regularly gripped with a need to watch a class system get in the way of romance? If so then this may well be the movie for you. From the opening scene we follow the main character, Bathsheba Everdene, through the trials and tribulations of finding her place in a world that doesn’t really want her to be what she is. To make matters more complicated she is pursued by a bevy of suitors, each of them pulling her interests in a different direction. What follows is a story that desperately wants to break out from the confines of the society it is taking place in, but it takes some serious upheavals before it can get there.

I should start by saying that this is most definitely an actor’s movie. The picture above is illustrative of large swaths of the film where complex emotions are played out with very little dialogue. The action sits in the faces of the characters and much more is going on behind their eyes than is often happening in the scene around them. Because of this it would be very easy to write this film off as being either slow or boring, but both assertions would be missing the point of the experience. The director makes sure you notice every subtle shift of facial expression and every flicker of the eyes by using more close ups than I’ve seen for a long, long time. That being said, he does balance it out by giving us an equally large amount of beautifully lingering shots of the English country-side in all its glory. The director of photography on this film clearly had a wonderful time capturing the feel of the sunshine at different times of day, and in this world of blue or grey-shaded action-thrillers it is a welcome change to see a handsomely shot film that really takes joy in showing you a fully realised colour palette. The actors themselves are often shaded in the oranges and pinks of sunsets, adding another dimension to the emotions they are busy portraying. This gives the film as a whole a feeling of being painted in watercolours as it tries to evoke the feeling of a time that is long lost to us, and may have never truly existed outside of the author’s imagination. The only real criticism I have of the direction is that it never really stepped outside of the tried and true style that you expect from this genre of film. It would have been nice to have felt that a few riskier options were considered before calling “action”, but it is not something that really detracts from the movie as a whole.

Being that Thomas Hardy’s narrative is over one hundred and forty years old and has inspired so many stories since it was first written, the decision to lean more heavily on the emotions of the characters and the wistful longing for a time that was passing into memory even when this was first put down on paper makes a lot of sense. To the modern audience, especially one who may have no previous experience with Thomas Hardy’s works, the plot of the film and the actions of the characters can often come across as staid, clichéd or even unoriginal, so creating atmosphere to keep the audience’s attention becomes increasingly important. Earlier I said that this was an actor’s movie and the whole cast is clearly relishing the chance to get their teeth into some seriously meaty roles. Many of them may not have much in the way of dialogue, but most of them get at least one moment to show their inner turmoil in a very controlled and Victorian way. The main cast particularly have an almost ridiculous amount of time on screen saying and doing very little whilst doing a huge amount of acting. The standout performance is given by Carey Mulligan who takes the main character of Bathsheba Everdene and infuses her with such life that you can really believe that she exists outside of the frame. She is a captivating combination of enthusiasm, determination and extreme naïveté, who is all the more impressive for not always being entirely likable. From the opening scene you are shown that this is a woman who is not going to allow herself to be tied down to traditional feminine role and will fight to do what she feels is the right thing to do. Unfortunately her own fire and determination to be unpredictable and outspoken also prevent her from taking early opportunities for happiness, which she then spends the rest of the film obviously both regretting, resenting and trying to recapture. Although I regularly felt for her and the plights she was regularly winding up in, I also couldn’t feel entirely sorry for her as many were of her own making. Even the best main characters need a foil and in this story that is Gabriel Oak, played with a wonderful restraint by Matthias Schoenaerts. Gabriel is the rock around which the rest of the plot revolves. He is a man of low birth with high aspirations, but a respect for the societal order of things, which allows him to move in circles he might otherwise find impossible. Schoenaerts manages to show his evident skill and capability mainly through the way he carries himself, but also gives you the occasional look at the deep well of feeling that he carries inside like a weight, but this is not a weight that ever prevents him from doing what he thinks is the right thing. As a counterpoint to the slightly wild dreamer that is Miss Everdene he is perfectly cast. Outside of the main duo there is the delightfully damaged Sergeant Francis Troy, played to oily perfection by Tom Sturridge, who seems to come into the plot specifically to throw a spanner in the works. Plot device though his character may be, Sturridge gives him enough life and darkness that you cannot help but enjoy despising him whenever he is on screen. Finally this review would not be complete without mentioning the always brilliant Michael Sheen, who gives his character, William Boldwood, a squirmy desperation that is all too believable. All these characters are thrown into the maelstrom of emotion that is mainly of Miss Everdene’s creation and the results are impressive. Without a cast of this calibre it is easy to imagine that this film would have fallen completely flat and be nothing more than a handsomely lit, middle of the road, period piece.

Overall this is a film that is unlikely to surprise anyone who goes to see it. The story is one that everyone knows, or can guess pretty easily, from the get-go and there is little action to speak of and the direction is similar to what you’d expect from a television costume drama with a bigger budget, but that is not what this movie is about. This is a longing, romantic look at a time that has faded into the past and the troubles that the characters who inhabit the story go through. Although their story may not be the most original, the atmosphere and the depth of emotion that is on display here is definitely worthy of your time.

 

Rating:

Three Moons out of Five. Solid entertainment.