Movie review - DC League of Superpets

I went with some nieces and a nephew to watch another comic book movie at the weekend. This time it was animated and focused on the DC Superpets, a spin-off in the DC comics franchise. Mild spoilers follow the picture of the film poster. 

The film centres on Krypto, Superman's super-powered dog, and various other animals from a local rescue shelter who receive superpowers from a fragment of orange kryptonite. They have to work together to thwart the evil scheme of a maniacal guinea pig who had been experimented on by Lex Luthor. It has a strong voice cast, including Dwayne Johnson as Krypto and Kevin Hart as Ace, a dog from the shelter who will end up being Batdog. 

Despite the promising premise, the film suffered from the same problems as pretty much all the other DC movies that have been released. The plotting was sedate. There were scenes and battles that did not add anything to the overall plot and just slowed things down. The final resolution was the same as every other DC film I've seen - a big punch up. (In fairness, this is a problem for almost every comic book movie.)

There were some funny jokes like the dogs playing with squeaky toys of superheroes. There were humorous references to other superhero franchises, like Superman ironing a shirt with his laser vision and toying with the idea of calling himself Iron Man.  I laughed at the recording of Krypto's father that always started the same way and Krypto saying he needed a skip intro button. And I was very amused by the character of a kitten given superpowers who became a living weapon as a result.

However, some scripting choices were a bit off. Merton the sweary tortoise got bleeped on a couple of occasions instead of cutting away or substituting other words as happens in most animated movies. Maybe the studio thought it was in keeping with DC's attempt to be the 'edgy' comic book franchise. I don't think any of the kids watching with us picked up on it, but it felt clunky. 

Another misstep was the production team's assumption that the audience would know who everyone was, especially when human superheroes turned up. I got some of the references and inside jokes, and I imagine DC super-nerds would get more. However, I don't think the jokes are so good it is worth investing the time and effort to become a DC super-nerd just to get the references. 

There were also scenes that play on Batman's origin story and take the mickey out of the darkness in the Dark Knight. But that road has already been well trodden in The Lego Movie and The Lego Batman Movie (reviewed here). The jokes at Batman's expense in Superpets felt hackneyed as a result, so even this self-deprecation by the franchise felt stale.

Overall, I enjoyed the film and don't regret going to see it. But my main impression is that even in an animated film which is supposed to be aimed at children and therefore a bit silly, the DC franchise can't escape from its own drawbacks. 

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.

Summer of science fiction (and superheroes)

I've seen a goodly number of science fiction films over the last few months, from the summer through to now. I've seen most of these with my cinema buddy Connor (shout out), who may yet revive his blog and give his verdict on these films.

Avengers Assemble - I liked this a lot. Lots of action. Smart script. Humour. Built well on the preceding films. Probably one of my favourite superhero films to date.

The Amazing Spider-Man - I wasn't sure about whether this film would work as it seemed too soon for a reboot. But it was pretty good. I preferred Andrew Garfield to Tobey Maguire. The pace was quick. Aunt May wasn't as annoying. It had Martin Sheen in. The only let-down was the villain as The Lizard just doesn't have the same screen presence as Green Goblin.

Prometheus - Just about everyone I've spoken to was disappointed with this. I spent most of the film thinking about how it could have been a better movie. That's a bad sign. Perhaps the pre-event hype got to me. I do think, though, that the major problem with this was the characters doing completely nonsensical things. Science fiction is usually nonsense, but its characters have to follow the internal logic of the movie for it to work. This didn't.

The Dark Knight Rises - Meh, Batman. I went right off this after The Dark Knight. I went in the hope it would be a redemptive moment for the Batman series. It wasn't particularly  and the underlying political message was ropey. Apparently if the proles ever rebel against the downtreading classes, the result will inevitably be anarchy. Batman is a protector of the privileged because without them society would slide into chaos. Seriously.

Total Recall - I enjoyed this. There were a few nods to the Arnie original. The central gist of the story was a bit confused (and physically impossible), but the tech was cool. I want a hand phone. Definitely better than expected for a remake.

Dredd - I've reviewed this on the blog. A brilliant rendering of the original comic books, but gory and nihilistic. Not a feelgood movie, but one I want to watch again.

Looper - I'm still trying to work out whether this worked or not. Time travel movies tend to fall down when you try and piece together the timeline after all the monkeying about. But it was very well made and acted and I really liked it, so would recommend it and would watch it again.

Big furry film and DVD round up

Had the luxury of seeing a few films recently, so here are some reviews - starting with one we saw in the most apt cinema ever.

Being Elmo
This is a documentary about Kevin Clash, the puppeteer who pretty much created the character of Elmo on Sesame Street. Despite the title, it was more about the man behind (or inside) the muppet, rather than about Elmo. His obvious love for his craft and for the character that is really a part of his soul is evident throughout, and his story of achieving his dream of joining the luminaries of the Jim Henson Company, including the late Jim Henson himself.

We saw the film in a most suitable location - Sinema 2 at Chapter Arts Centre, a room that is decked out in a very Elmo shade of red. The seats were very comfortable too.

As a documentary I'd really recommend it. It's an encouraging story about how if you love something really enough to pursue it as a dream, then you can make it. Seeing Kevin giving a tour of the studio to a small kid with a similar love and fascination of puppetry at the end of the film was touching - as he passed on his secrets, hints and tips to possibly the next Sesame Street wunderkind.

Jongudmund's rating: 8/10

Captain America: The First Avenger
I've been wanting to watch Captain America since it came out last year, partly because I really liked Chris Evans in The Losers, and partly because it looked cool. I've enjoyed how they have been setting up for the full Avengers movie that is in cinemas now, but actually taking the time to set the scene. It struck me today that what I really appreciate is that they've gone and made the prequels first. (I know, that means they aren't technically prequels, but you know what I mean!)

So, this is the Captain's back story, as he battles the villainous Red Skull, head of the Nazi Hydra organisation, during World War II. Chris Evans and Tommy Lee Jones are excellent, as is Hugo Weaving as Red Skull. The story is cogent and very well-executed. Marvel movies seem to be absolutely top drawer these days - ever since Iron Man. The script is witty and understated, and I really enjoyed it, although (spoiler alert) the denouement is a bit of a downer, which made the film quite melancholic.

On the DVD there is also a very interesting extra about the Captain America costume. I did like how they included the classic Captain America look into the movie, and allowed it to naturally evolve into something that looked 'real'. Marvel are clever at referencing the original comic book look and feel, and I'd go as far as saying this film is almost the perfect comic book adaptation. (Although not quite as perfect as Hellboy.)

Jongudmund's rating: 8/10

Thor
And so, on to my other pre-Avengers catch-up: Thor. I knew very little about the Thor backstory, so I was glad that this film really got into it quickly.

There was an added bonus as well, with Natalie Portman as a rather glamourous scientist who gets caught up in the craziness of Thor's quest to find true heroism while exiled to Earth. I like Natalie Portman and will watch pretty much anything with her in (even the Phantom Menace!), so to find out she was in this was a real plus. Anthony Hopkins was very good as Odin as well.

So now I know the stories of Thor and Captain America, I can get on and watch The Avengers Assemble (or whatever they change the title to next), but I would say Thor is worth watching on its own terms. Again Marvel have got a pretty good script, it's interesting to see how they meld comic book fantasy in with Norse mythology, and there aren't too many overblown headache-inducing action scenes. A good all-round film, with some interesting stuff about what makes a hero heroic.

Jongudmund's rating: 7.5/10

Limitless
I sawthe trailers for this and was quite excited by it. Bradley Cooper is very watchable. It had Robert De Niro in. And it seemed an interesting concept - if you could take a pill that would make you superhuman, would you? So, with all that in place for the film, what could go wrong?

Well, quite a bit actually. There is one classy bit of filmwork - before Cooper's character takes the magic pill the world is washed out and grey. Afterwards, everything is in bright technicolour, as if he's landed over the rainbow in Oz. And that's where the cleverness stops. The big problem is that most of this film is narrated - e.g. a threatening underworld type menaces Cooper and he tells us in a needless voiceover.

It's not that he's got a boring voice, but eventually I grew tired of it because it felt like I was listening to a long rambling anecdote. While it's an interesting concept - you take a pill that allows you to use the bits of your brain you don't normally use to become mush more smarter and perceptive, the protagonist goes off and plays the stock markets with his new found talents. It's hard to make that interesting. And De Niro grimaces his way through his few lines like someone doing an unconvincing impression of Robert De Niro.

So, all in all, it was a bit of a snore off. And (spoiler alert) it does contain a rather gross scene involving blood and use of a hypodermic needle as a close combat weapon. So be warned.

Jongudmund's rating: 4.5/10

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.

The (far too) Dark Knight

I didn’t like this as much as I thought I would. In fact, I’m not sure whether I liked it at all.

True, our appreciation of the movie wasn’t helped by the half hour queue for tickets, or the queue inside to get into the auditorium. Or by the sozzled older couple behind us who kept trying to tell us how they hadn’t had to queue for the cinema since they were kids, during the War. But this was a film I was eagerly anticipating, and had been for weeks. Why did I feel so let down?

Well, first off, it’s unrelentingly dark. Batman Begins had plenty of humour to balance the darkness of the storyline. There were a couple of comic moments in this one, but really not enough.

Much had been made about Heath Leger’s performance as the Joker. It was very high grade acting - enough to make you forget it was Heath Ledger you were watching. But this Joker was truly horrible, using a knife as his principle weapon because it was "slower" and therefore more satisfying.

The Joker’s obsession with knives was a focal point of the film, and a disturbing one. (At one point he empties his pockets in custody, and places a row of knives onto the table.) Given the current climate of fear surrounding stabbings and knife crime, I’m surprised this film got such a low age certificate. On top of the discussion about how stabbing a person is a much more satisfactory way to kill them, there are three occasions where the Joker holds a knife in someone’s mouth as he threatens them.

It’s a bad, bad time to be talking about bad, bad crimes and those scenes should have been cut.

Batman himself, takes on the role of Dark Knight as opposed to Harvey Dent as Gotham’s White Night. But when a hero beats up an unresisting villain, as Batman does with the Joker in a police cell, we know we’ve moved somewhere else as a society. This simply isn’t right. Batman’s subsequent noble willingness to become a hate figure in order to preserve the reputation of the tragic Harvey Dent, is less of a sacrifice simply because he has already become an amoral monster.

And the use of two villains in superhero movies really has to stop. It didn’t work in Spider-Man 3. It didn’t work in any of the earlier Batmans, with the exception of Batman Returns. It’s just not good movie-making practice. You end up with a wasted storyline and an under-used character when you try and squeeze two villains into one film. When Dent becomes Two-Face, he has about ten minutes in which to be evil enough to merit Batman’s attention. That’s not long enough for the tragedy of a fall from grace to be accurately communicated to the audience.

It also lengthens the film well beyond any reasonable time. If you can’t tell the story in two hours, then you’ve failed as a story-teller. They could have left out Dent’s subsequent reinvention as Two-Face and left him on a hospital bed. They could have had Dent become a villain by killing the Joker in revenge. There were so many better ways to end this film than the way they did.

So, for all those reasons, The Dark Knight failed. I left the cinema feeling oppressed and depressed by it - partly because it didn’t live up to it’s hype; partly because it chose to be oppressive. I can’t really recommend it to anyone.

And that perhaps is the biggest shame of all.

Jongudmund’s Rating: 5/10

Prepping for Batman

The Dark Knight is out on Friday (officially) and I know people who have tickets for previews on Thursday. I'm probably going to wait until next week (Orange Wedneasdays 241!), but in the meantime, in preparation, we've watched Batman Begins again tonight. My appetite is well and truly whetted now.

Film review catch up 4: Hancock

Will Smith stars as the dissolute John Hancock, an alcoholic ‘superhero’ with a tendency to cause chaos. In steps Jason Bateman as a PR agent ready to transform Hancock into a genuine hero, which includes a stint in prison and rehab, despite the dire warnings from his wife, played by Charlize Theron, that men like Hancock only break everything.

The first half an hour or so is played strictly for laughs, and includes a number of stand-out scenes. A drunken flight down a freeway after a car full of gun-toting hoons results in chaos; Hancock wraps a freight train around himself to prevent a driver being mashed while stuck on a level crossing. But then the film takes an interesting turn, introducing a metaphysical reason for Hancock’s superpowers and sudden mortality.

By the end the comedy has evaporated and the film has become fairly serious in the way it approaches themes like redemption and sacrifice. With a bit of blood and plenty of darkness in the final third, this is less the comedy the trailers promised, and more of a morality tale. And to be honest, it’s better off for that.

Jongudmund’s rating: 8/10 - Highly recommended

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

Spidey 3

Reports of Spider-Man’s demise may have been premature, but it’s hard to see where the franchise can go after this latest installment. The film isn’t half bad, although I have to admit I was more thrilled with the trailer for Transformers beforehand. Now that looks amazing.

The problem with Spidey part three is primarily the time it takes to get going. Maybe I’m in a minority, but I find the Aunt May character incredibly boring. In most of the ‘rocky relationship’ scenes I found myself distracted by Kirsten Dunst’s peculiarly pointy teeth. And then there’s the cheese factor too – really, what is the likelihood of Spidey being cheered on by a street full of New Yorkers with the backdrop of an American flag?

And I know I’m not the only person who felt that Peter Parker’s turn to the ‘dark side’ should have had more obvious signs than changing his parting to a moody emo ‘fringe in your eyes’ look, a black suit and eye-shadow. Gosh! How evil!

I was also slightly disappointed, given the high quality of the two main villains involved, how little screen time they got, especially Venom. But there’s an interesting subtext to Spidey 3 – when Spider-Man offers Sandman forgiveness instead of taking revenge, he makes amends for giving in to his own dark side previously. In teaming up with a former enemy (I’m not going to spoil it and say who), and appealing to him for help, he breaks down old, misguided hatreds in the face of a common foe.

And in those two instances, perhaps Spider-Man reveals something of the psyche of contemporary America; a move away from posturing next to a flag and going it alone towards a world where even long-time villains are capable of redemption. Or maybe it’s just a comic book flick trying to do something a bit different.

Roll on Transformers.

Jongudmund’s rating: 7/10