2016 film review

I watched 31 films for the first time in 2016. I've decided to lump them in to one blog post with a one paragraph review. Key: C = cinema; D = DVD; I = in-flight movie; N = Netflix

Edge of Tomorrow (D) - Tom Cruise gets to "Live, Die, Repeat" in a Groundhog Day meets Starship Troopers sci-fi adventure. I quite liked this and the idea of exploring different options each time was well done, even if I didn't see any point to the physical training every time he woke up after dying. It's not like he would keep his newly honed muscles.

Kung Fu Panda 3 (C) - the next installment in the adventures of Po the Dragon Warrior and the Furious Five kung fu masters. It was alright as sequels go, as Po and his friends teamed up against a supernatural villain seeking revenge. It has lots of Pandas in it.

Zootropolis (C) - my contender for animated film of the year. Disney do subversive quite well, and the subtext of this - politicians using fear to divide society to gain power - is very relevant. One of the characters even has a Donald Trump hair do.

(Longer reviews of Kung Fu Panda 3 and Zootropolis)

Captain America: Civil War (C) - third in the increasingly bleak Captain America series, all of which seem to end on downers. The Marvel films are a series and this one felt like one of those episodes you get to move the overall plot line on, rather than being enjoyable in their own right. You really need to have seen the previous Captain America and Avengers movies to understand what was going on, which annoys me, even though I have seen those films. There are a load of new characters now in the Marvel movies and I don't care about any of them. The best scenes were the ones with Tony Stark and yet another kid playing Spider-Man, who is now back in the mainstream Disney-owned Marvel Comics Universe instead of the pseudo one being run by Sony.

Deadpool (I) - I wasn't sure about this but I enjoyed it more than I probably should have. Ryan Reynolds obviously loved being Deadpool, although when he wasn't in the mask his 'scarred head make up' did make him look like a decrepit Ted Danson. Much was made of how Deadpool breaks the fourth wall to engage with his audience. This whole film mocks comic book movies and as such the whole thing is a fourth wall breaker.

Our Brand is Crisis (I) - Sandra Bullock plays a washed up political spin doctor who takes a job in South America running an election campaign for a deeply disliked candidate. The film was mediocre, although the comms stuff was quite interesting.

Straight Outta Compton (I) - the story of NWA, as told by the survivors (and it's noticeable how slanted it is towards them). The scene in Detroit where the band ignore police instructions not to play 'F--- the Police', and then get run off the stage by the police, was particularly memorable, as was Ice Cube's visit to his corrupt agent's office with a baseball bat.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (C) - second in the new series of films. The Turtles' good deeds get noticed by the general public. The guy from the TV series 'Arrow' plays Casey Jones. Megan Fox does her usual thing. It is very reminiscent of the cartoon series. (Which I'm not saying is a bad thing!)

The Secret Life of Pets (C) - animated film that follows some well-worn movie cliches, although it did take a diversion about halfway through with a revolutionary chihuahua advocating animal revolution against humans.

Ghostbusters (C) - the reboot more famous for daring to cast women as ghostbusters than anything else. I thought this was OK. There were some clever scenes and I enjoyed the cameos from the surviving original ghostbusters, especially Bill Murray as a sceptic unconvinced by the 'busters ghost-catching exploits. The opening scene in a supposedly haunted house that suddenly gets supernaturally invaded is genuinely creepy and very well done.

Shaun the Sheep Movie (D) - a nice, warm feature film from Aardman, with no dialogue but a lot of charm. Sean and friends go to the city in search of their farmer who has amnesia and is now lauded as a hair styling genius for his shearing skills.

Star Trek Beyond (C) - another sequel and outing for the Enterprise crew. I wasn't convinced by the motives of the main villain and there were too many convenient coincidences. There is a spectacular space habitat, though, if you are into that sort of thing. Karl Urban's version of Bones McCoy is yet again the best thing about the film. Zoe Saldana is, again, woefully under-used in a Star Trek film, which should be a crime.

Finding Dory (C) - sequel to Finding Nemo. Dory sets off to find her parents. Some fun new characters, including Hank the septipus (he only has 7 legs left) and a beluga whale who thinks his echo-location is a superpower. I was sucked in to the emotional scene at the end and got a bit moist-eyed.

Ender's Game (D) - I was sceptical if they could really make a film of the book 'Ender's Game'. My scepticism was well-founded. This film struggles to bring the source material to life and invest it with any energy because its mainly ponderous CGI. The Battle Room sequences are the best bits. Harrison Ford isn't a particularly animated actor at the best of times and was grumpily robotic. Ben Kingsley was hilariously miscast.

Suicide Squad (C) - an utter nonsense of a film, which only made money because of Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn in the trailer. There were so many things wrong with this film I probably need to do a whole separate post for it. Will Smith was woefully miscast.  Frankly, I'd have been happy to see all the members of the Suicide Squad die instead of the only interesting one.

Jason Bourne (C) - it's a 'direct by numbers' action film that rhymes with 'yawn'. I don't think there was anything in it particularly noteworthy. I did go and see it with my friend, Anthony, who is a top bloke and we had a coffee and a long chat afterwards, which was better than the film really.

The Little Prince (N) - I was very excited by this animated version of the Antoine de Saint-Exupery classic book when I saw the trailer for it, with its mix of computer and stop motion animation. I was gutted it didn't get a UK cinema release and then excited again to see it was on Netflix. But, harshly, I can see why it didn't get a release. This is one of those adaptations where they try to do something new based on the source material and missed the mark by a considerable margin. The fox character is very cute in the computer animation and beautiful in the stop-motion and that's probably the best bit.

The Lobster (N) - a weird premise. Colin Farrell stars as a man without a partner in a dystopia where you have to have one. He goes to a matchmaking hotel where he must find a new mate or be turned into an animal. The first half is darkly comic, but then he goes to live in the woods with other determined singles and it goes bleakly tragic. The turning point is a distressing scene of animal cruelty. Don't watch this film if you like dogs.

The Magnificent Seven (C) - I don't object to remakes, but if you're going to remake one of the absolute best westerns of all time you need to bring your a-game. Even Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke and Denzel Washington couldn't raise this above the mediocre. Denzel mumbled his way through most of his lines, which got very annoying.

Pride (D) - gay activists in London start raising money for striking miners during the mid-80s union-led unrest. Cue a clash of cultures between the traditional Welsh villages and the flamboyant metropolitan homosexuals. The threat of bigotry and gay-bashing, and the emergence of the AIDS epidemic gives this true life story real depth and show how far we have moved as a society.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (C) - Samuel L Jackson is making some odd film choices these days. This is one of them. It centres on a time travel plot twist, which, as ever with time travel plot twists, just doesn't work. The monsters are scary and eat eyeballs plucked from their victims' heads, which I wasn't expecting in a film pitched as a kids' film.

The Penguins of Madagascar (D) - this is silly, but miles better than Madagascar 3, which is one of the worst animated films released by a big studio I've ever seen. The Penguins are funny and the film's alright. It had enough scenes that made me laugh.

Storks (C) - I'd seen a lot of trailers and that drew the sting from this very well made animated film. Storks no longer deliver babies, just packages for an Amazon-esque company. But then a baby comes along and one stork has to cover up its mistake and deliver the baby to his waiting parents. You have to watch this just for the wolf pack. Seriously! The wolf pack!

Mascots (N) - mockumentary as various sports mascots (the guys in the big animal costumes) compete to be mascot of the year, including a chap from London who is the third member of his family to be 'Sid the hedgehog'. It's a gentle film and worth watching on Netflix, if you have it.

Trolls (C) - stupid (in a good way), bouncy, funny, singfest with some quite nasty villains who want to eat the trolls because that's the only way they can taste true happiness. I'm sure there is some kind of message in that.

I, Daniel Blake (C) - at the end of this film, as the credits started rolling, nobody moved. It was probably thirty seconds or more before people started shuffling in their seats getting ready to stand up and leave the auditorium. This is a visceral look at how years of Tory policy have weaponised the benefits system to deliberately make it hard for vulnerable people to get the help they need. There is a scene in a food bank that is beyond upsetting and lived with me for days. Heavily researched, this film wears its authenticity on its sleeve, and it is relentlessly damning of the people who engineered the situation desperate people find themselves in.

RED (N) - Bruce Willis and some other older actors play 'Retired and Extremely Dangerous' former CIA operatives, who are being targetted for some unknown reason. Except, even though they are retired, they are extremely dangerous, as the bad guys find out to their cost. A silly film, made very watchable by performances from Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren. And Bruce.

Moana (C) - Disney animation set in Polynesia. Moana must find the exiled god Maui to challenge the encroaching darkness that threatens to devour her island. Some great music and a very funny meta joke about Disney princesses add to the interesting concept. It's the first cartoon I can remember with such an emphasis on tattoos. I have doubts how accessible it would be to very young children but I really enjoyed it.

Elysium (D) - it's the future and the rich live on Elysium, an idyllic space colony, while the poor live on dust-bowl Earth. Matt Damon plays an engineer who needs to get to Elysium for life-saving medical treatment and makes a deal with a criminal gang leader to perform a heist and get a space on a shuttle trip. Jodie Foster co-stars as the Elysium security chief in what can charitably be described as not her best ever role or performance.

Star Wars Rogue One (C) - I wrote about this here. It's cured me of Star Wars.

Argo (D) - Ben Affleck won an Oscar for this. I can see why. It's a taut drama set after the American Embassy in Tehran was swamped by a mob and all its staff, bar six, are taken hostage. The CIA set up a fake movie production as cover to get the six fugitive Americans, now hiding out at the Canadian ambassador's house, out of Iran. It's the end of the 1970s. Everyone smokes, even on planes (remember that?). I knew the outcome but it was still tense right up until the final scenes. A really, really well-made film.

Animation review: Kung Fu Panda 3 and Zootropolis

In the last few days I've seen Kung Fu Panda 3 and Zootropolis. Both were pretty solid animated films with some surprisingly mature themes. This post includes minor spoilers.

Don't upset the Dragon Warrior

Kung Fu Panda 3 pretty much continues where the second one left off, with Po meeting his real panda father who was a post-credits reveal at the end of Kung Fu Panda 2. The plot is split between Po discovering his panda heritage while also having to fight a new baddy – General Kai, who has returned from the Spirit Realm to steal the chi life force of the living.

For fans of the first film, Ugwe, the turtle who chose Po as the Dragon Warrior is back. I always liked Ugwe. The animation is top drawer, especially a sequence with an elemental dragon towards the end. There are also lots of very cute baby pandas.

If I was a bit critical I’d say the members of the panda tribe were a bit overdone in being goofily clumsy and fat. It was funny at first, but there is only so many time you can see someone bouncing off a massive panda tummy in slow motion and still laugh at it.

The more mature storyline is the conflict between Po’s panda dad and his adoptive goose dad, who has raised Po ever since he discovered him in a box of radishes. I think it covered the difficulty faced by foster fathers and birth fathers quite sympathetically, even if it resolves it more neatly and quickly than things like this get resolved outside animated films. What is telling is that both panda and goose want to see Po happy, and that enables them to get over their differences. Po ends up with two dads, instead of replacing one. That’s a very positive message.

Zootropolis (called Zootopia everywhere else besides the UK) is the latest Disney film. I really enjoyed it. The plot is a nod to police movies and unlikely buddy movies – a rabbit, Judy Hopps, becomes the first bunny to become a police officer in the city of Zootropolis but struggles to be accepted because of her status as a prey species. She teams up with a streetwise fox, Nick Wilde, in an ‘unnatural’ partnership between a predator and prey species to solve a missing persons case that turns out to be much bigger than she first realised.

Wait, this isn't the Number 8 bus...

There were some good jokes along the way. The scene in the DMV run by sloths was no less funnier for being one of the extended trailers for the film, and Flash the sloth pops up again later in the movie in a moment that really made me laugh out loud. There is also an very nice homage to the Godfather as well. The animation is really outstanding, particularly when Judy sits in the observation car of the train taking her to Zootropolis and we see the city, with its different climate zones revealed one after the other. That whole sequence knocks most science fiction movies out of the park for the level of detail and wonder.

The big plot theme here is the relationship between predator and prey species in a clever parallel to racial tensions in the human world. With predators seemingly falling victim to their ‘biology’ and going savage, the prey species are being urged to take action. It’s no accident that one of the more prominent prey politicians has a hairpiece reminiscent of Donald Trump. The assertion that ‘we outnumber them ten to one’ and therefore need to crush them to protect ourselves from them is a bit like the anti-Muslim rhetoric you sometimes hear. Removing a predator cheetah (who is only really a danger to doughnuts) from the front desk of the police station because the powers that be feel as a predator he doesn’t project the right image, really rams the point home about stereotyping.  (Even if the love of doughnuts is in its own way also a stereotype.)

So, Zootropolis has a very deep theme and an important message. It also boasts a fine meta joke - Alan Tudyk voices the thief Duke Weaselton, who is a weasel. In Frozen he voices the Duke of Weaselton. When he is welcomed at Arendel castle as the Duke of Weaselton, he issues a correction and says it's Wesselton. In Zootropolis his name is mispronounced and he corrects it to Weaselton. I doubt any kids will even get the link, but that’s the sort of thing I quite enjoy.

Ratings:

Kung Fu Panda 3: 7.5/10

Zootropolis: 9/10

July – month of films

 I feel 2011 has been a quiet year for me in terms of film-viewing, but that has changed this month with four trips to the cinema.

Three of the four films I’ve seen on the big screen have been sequels. I’m not sure what that really says about the risk-averse culture in Hollywood at the moment, but it’s been interesting to see how differently they’ve approached things. [Warning - contains information some people may regard as spoilers]

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon takes some of the main characters from the first two films and runs with a continuing story. Of course, the most interesting story about the movie was the public spat between female star of the first two movies, Megan Fox, and the director Michael Bay. Fox got dropped from the third movie, although it’s not clear who was exactly the winner there.

So what can be said about Transformers 3? Not much. It’s better than Transformers 2, but so is just about any other movie ever made about anything. The ‘plot’ is fairly formulaic. I’d issue a spoiler alert here, but the story is so obvious that when you watch it, if you can’t spot what’s going to happen then you really shouldn’t be going to movies. You know that Optimus Prime is going to be double-crossed. You know the Autobots aren’t all dead. You know that Patrick Dempsey will turn out to be a baddy.

Still it’s vaguely entertaining. I went with the lowest of low expectations and as a result found it quite enjoyable.

Kung Fu Panda 2, meanwhile, is a top-notch sequel. Moving on from the original movie in a quite unexpected way, we learn about Po, the Dragon Warrior’s origins and why his father is a goose not a panda. Cue an incredibly moving scene at the end of the film about discovering who you really are and who your real family is. I had a moist eye moment and had to manfully struggle to keep it together.

There are one or two clunky moments, but generally this film gets it right from the very first visual in the Dreamworks logo that features the wise old turtle Ugway fishing from the moon. It also has possibly the funniest final showdown shouting match between Po and the psychopathic bad guy Shen (superbly voiced by Gary Oldman), who can’t hear what Po is saying and so misses the bold statements about the justice that Po plans to mete out on him.

So to the only original movie in the quartet: Green Lantern. I quite liked this, although it was a bit slow. It felt a bit like a feature-length pilot for a TV series, especially as there was a lot of narration. The sfx varied in quality, and the acting was generally okay, but there wasn’t much to set this apart from any other about-average superhero flick.

There was some humour – when Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern, tries to woo his lady friend as his alter ego she recognises him and asks whether he thought she wouldn’t know it was him just because she can’t see his cheekbones. Also, it seems you can’t make a movie these days without anticipating the sequel – a micro-scene at the end seems to set up the next chapter in the story.

Finally, we went on the opening night to see Cars 2. This has been aggressively promoted just about everywhere, from TV spots through to a new Lego range. Unfortunately, the calibre of the film didn’t warrant such attention.

Strangely, considering this was an animated film, my main criticism is that it felt too much like a cartoon. Lightning McQueen and Mater bopping wheels together in a gangsta-style best friends’ handshake near the start of the film set the tone for the rest of the movie. Cars don’t do that. The cars in Cars didn’t do that. But the cars in Cars 2 do. It was annoying.

The other defects in this film included poor characterisation, an obvious villain ‘hidden in plain sight’, and an unnecessarily convoluted, unconvincing plotline surrounding ‘lemon’ cars with a grudge against society discrediting alternative fuels. Oh yeah and racial stereotypes aplenty.

There was a great short film starring the Toy Story characters in front of the main feature, which genuinely made me laugh, so the studio hasn’t lost its touch, but you can almost see the Disneyfication of Pixar happening in real-time as its imagination is commoditized into product inventory. Pixar generally have set the bar so high for themselves they were bound to fail at some point. Even so, I was surprised that Cars 2 was so mediocre and unimaginative.

Don't mess with a kung fu panda

Because it hurts...

Kung Fu Panda on IMAX

If you haven't see a trailer for this latest animation from Dreamworks, it's about a Panda who dreams of becoming as a Kung Fu master, which you've got to admit is a funny premise. Add in the vocal talents of Jack Black as Po the Panda and the film sounds like it's going to be good.

In fact, it's more than good. It's brilliant. The animation is superb, and being in a place where they have an IMAX cinema, we took the opportunity to watch it on IMAX, which made the animation even better. The characters do actually have some character, partly because of the impressive acting talent bringing them to life - Dustin Hoffman particularly stands out as the rodent-type thing who trains Po (he might be a red panda, or some kind of squirrel, I'm not sure).

I'm not going to spoil the story by explaining it for you beyond what I've already said. There's a bad guy, and an interesting moral about the 'secret ingredient' of success. But really you have to go see it.

It has been noted before, by many people, that I bear a resemblance to Jack Black. (This was especially true a couple of years ago when Shallow Hal came out). Unfortunately, it would seem the resemblance includes when Jack Black is a cartoon panda, because Cathy reckons I still looked like him. Bizarrely there was a wise old turtle character who really reminded me of my Grandad, especially when he smiled and his wrinkles all bunched up.

So, if you go see it - let me know if you think I do actually look like Po. I'd appreciate your opinion.

Jongudmund's rating: 10/10

And finally, to end this review on a note to sicken British-based readers of this blog, going to see an IMAX film in America cost us less than going to see a regular film back home...

Films beginning with I

I borrowed I Am Legend on DVD the other day, as it was one of those films I wanted to see but never quite got to the cinema while it was out. Having read the book previously, I kind of knew they would have changed the ending, and the reviews I’d read had confirmed that suspicion.

So it was refreshing to find the ending is a bit downbeat. The biggest change isn’t vampires into ‘dark-seekers’, or locating an actual source of the plague in a manufactured viral cancer cure. The biggest change is turning the ‘legendary status’ of the main protagonist into that of a hero. In the book he becomes a legend in that by the end of the book, he is now the monster.

One thing which was weird is that I watched it with Irony Boy who had no clue that there were monsters in it, until the first ones showed up. Obviously he’d missed that aspect of the plot amid all the hype.

Anyway, and on to a second film seen with Irony Boy which begins with I - and that is Iron Man. Clare had previously stuck her neck out to claim this was better than Transformers, and it’s a worthy claim. Certainly, it’s the first film since Transformers which I’d pay money to watch again in the cinema.

Although there isn’t too much new in the plot - friend and mentor betrays hero, life-changing event, superhero has to fight former friend at the end - the scripting is good, with enough humour to keep the movie going. I always find Robert Downey Jr incredibly watchable, and he can easily carry a film like this, so there are no worries on the acting part. Gwyneth Paltrow does a good job as his assistant and Jeff Bridges manages to play the part of chief antagonist without hamming it up too much.

There’s a teasing clip after the credits introducing the rest of the Marvel SHIELD franchise too. And as long as they can keep Downey Jr in the suit, there’s no reason why the Iron Man franchise can’t run and run. It’s certainly the best superhero film since Batman Begins, and raises the bar for The Dark Knight due out later this year.

Meanwhile we got a trailer for another film beginning with I - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which looks like it’s going to be plenty of fun, and also Prince Caspian, which kicks on the Narnia franchise this summer as well (and looks very good from the trailer).

But one movie I’m really looking forward to is Kung Fu Panda. We had a teaser spot last night in amongst the trailers and it looks hilarious! And it’s not a sequel or a comic book adaptation! Originality in Hollywood - what’s going on?

Jongudmund’s ratings
I Am Legend - worth a watch, 7/10
Iron Man - a definite must-see, 9/10