EIFF Film Reviews

In my continuing effort to catch up with my backlog of un-reviewed films, I should probably mention the two movies I saw at the Edinburgh International Film Festival last month. Whilst two films isn't exactly a particularly good effort on my part, it's still better than last year where I somehow failed to see anything at all...

The Maiden Heist

The first film I saw was a light-hearted crime caper starring Morgan Freeman, Christopher Walken and William H Macy as art gallery security guards who decide to steal each of their favourite artworks to prevent them from being shipped off to a gallery in Denmark. While this may sound fairly mainstream, due to various legal wranglings the film hasn't made it to cinemas despite being shot a couple of years ago and may well never get a significant release.

I did enjoy The Maiden Heist - let's face it, with that cast it's quite hard to go wrong! It is very much a gentle, inoffensive comedy and as such I wouldn't say it was anything particularly special, but it is entertaining and does have a few genuinely laugh-out-loud moments.

VERDICT: Harmless fun.

Black Dynamite

The second film I saw was another comedy, but this one very much fell into the "offensive" category... but in a good way. Black Dynamite is a loving homage to the classic 70's Blaxploitation movies (Shaft, etc.), but with its tongue planted quite decisively in its cheek. Great care and attention has been spent on getting all the details correct, right down to the grainy film stock, dodgy editing, wobbly camera focus and blatant recycling of stock footage. All of these moments provide opportunities for giggles, but on top of that is a frankly hilarious script that quite proudly makes no sense whatsoever but regularly had the packed audience laughing hysterically.

It does have to be said that despite a brief running time of only 85 minutes, there were times when the film dragged a little, which is a shame. Regardless, the many moments of comic genius more than make up for its shortcomings and as a result Black Dynamite is destined to become a future cult classic and ideal fodder for alcohol-fuelled movie nights.

VERDICT: I can dig it!

And as an added bonus, here's the trailer:

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Film Review Catch-up

Hmm. So, I haven't actually posted a review since the end of May, and even then that was a film I saw towards the start of that month. The past couple of months have held quite a few distractions for me, but even so, my lack of updates is mostly just a result of my inevitable laziness.

Of course with the summer movie season now long since started (and arguably almost finished), I have seen many movies, to the point where I would never find the time to write individual reviews for all of them. As such, I'm just going to add another one of my quick run-downs like I did when I started this blog...

Star Trek

Even though I'm not a Trekkie, the once-stale franchise has been quite successfully rebooted with a spectacularly entertaining blockbuster that ticks all the rights boxes and reminds you just how much fun watching films can be. I liked how they managed to tie it in to the original films whilst establishing a new universe. It's also visually stunning, especially so on an IMAX screen.

VERDICT: It's great!

Synecdoche, New York

Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut, about a hypocondriac theatre director who spends decades building a life-size set of Manhattan in a warehouse for his next play. Even for a Kaufman film this was weird, to the point where I'm not even sure if I liked it or not - I was certainly entertained and there are plenty of great touches but ultimately it quite literally spirals in upon itself to the point of absurdity.

VERDICT: Hmm. I kind of liked it? Probably worth seeing...

Angels & Demons

It's monumentally silly, and features worse dialogue and acting than The Da Vinci Code, but on the other hand there is considerably more action and it still manages to at least be entertaining.

VERDICT: Silly but watchable.

Terminator: Salvation

It wasn't the disaster that it could have been considering it's directed by McG, but neither did it live up to the promise of a script by Jonathan Nolan and the presence of Christian Bale. Perfectly watchable but ultimately lacking in compelling plot. Interestingly Sam Worthington's character has the majority of the screen time.

VERDICT: Not up to the standards of its predecessors but otherwise fine.

Coraline (3D)

This has to be the most visually amazing work of animation I have ever seen - the detail, fluidity of motion and expressiveness of the characters almost makes it look like it was created with computers and not hand-animated models. Aside from this, the film itself is good fun but at 100 minutes it is perhaps a bit too long. And once again, 3D leaves me unconvinced - this time it worked well but was so subtle that I tended to forget about it.

VERDICT: Worth watching, but The Nightmare Before Christmas is better.

The Hangover

Easily the funniest comedy I have seen in years, which is all the more remarkable considering that the trailers didn't do much for me. By skipping the actual events of the night in question and focussing entirely on the bizarre investigation that follows, this quite effectively bypasses most of the stag-party-gone-wrong clichés and as such deserves its huge box office takings.

VERDICT: Great fun!

Public Enemies

I was expecting a lot from this - Michael Mann, Johnny Depp and Christian Bale certainly should have been an effective combination, but sadly, all I felt was boredom. The plot isn't compelling, I didn't care about any of the characters (I could barely tell any of them apart due to poor characterisation), the hand-held digital camerawork is distracting and the sound mixing is woefully poor. The shoot-out in the woods is great, though.

VERDICT: Avoid.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

I could barely remember anything about the first one and frankly I can see this going the same way - it's bloated, overlong and completely negates some very impressive visual effects work with horrendously-directed action scenes where you can't tell what's going on at all. That said, it's still passably entertaining in an extreme "switch-off-your-brain" sense.

VERDICT: Only worth it if you have absolutely nothing better to do.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

As a film, it's probably the best since Prisoner of Azkaban, with the story flowing much better and sufficient running time available to allow the film to breathe (the main problem with the last 2 films). However, I believe that rather a lot was cut out of the book, to the extent that I'm fairly certain that someone who hasn't read it will be completely clueless about a lot of the plot. Otherwise, the direction and cinematography are excellent, and the cave scene is very well done - but sadly the ending is again a little bit of a damp squib.

VERDICT: For a fan of the franchise, well worth seeing. If you aren't, I wouldn't bother...

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Monsters vs Aliens

Yeah, I know, it's been weeks since my last post. So sue me. As a result, I've got a bit of a review backlog and as such the next few are all going to be quite short...

Monsters vs Aliens is the latest CGI cartoon from Dreamworks Animation, the creators of Shrek, and the plot is summarised fairly well by the title: the US government has been keeping various monsters locked away from the public for decades, until aliens invade and the monsters are set loose to save humanity. What follows is a reasonably entertaining but ultimately forgettable 90 minutes of by-the-numbers animation with a few classic film references to please the older members of the audience. Oh, and it's in 3D.

Despite an impressive voice cast including Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Laurie, Keifer Sutherland and Seth Rogen, none of the characters are particularly appealing and ultimately it's just not that funny (one absolutely hilarious scene aside). The animation itself is fairly unremarkable by the standards set by the likes of WALL-E and once again, as I found with Bolt, the 3D aspect just doesn't seem worth it - it either doesn't look right, isn't noticeable or distracts you from the movie. Unless James Cameron's Avatar does something spectacular with the technology in December, I'm starting to think that 3D is going to turn out to be a huge waste of time and money.

VERDICT: Generic family entertainment, and that's it. Nothing special.

IMDb

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X-Men Origins: Wolverine

The first of several planned "Origins" stories, Wolverine acts as a prequel to the X-Men trilogy and fills in the back story to our favourite metal-clawed amnesiac mutant, whilst introducing us to a host of new characters from the comics as well as a teenage Cyclops. The specifics of the plot itself are nothing particularly spectacular; the traditional variety of conspiracies, betrayals and evil plans. Really it's all just an excuse to give Hugh Jackman the opportunity to kill lots more bad guys...

To get straight to the point, Wolverine is a reasonably enjoyable action romp and a fun way to kill a couple of hours. It is however almost painfully average in pretty much every way - the plot is generic and muddled, the acting inconsistent, and the action unoriginal. In all honesty I probably enjoyed it more as a result of having extremely low expectations (early buzz on the film was poor). It does at least play reasonably well in continuity terms with the X-Men trilogy, although there are some niggles - exactly how did Sabretooth go from slightly hairy to practically a human lion in the first movie? And if Cyclops was in high school in the late 70's wouldn't he have been a lot older in the trilogy? And for that matter, wouldn't he have remembered Wolverine when they meet again years later?

Aside from that, there are three things that did bother me quite a bit:

• Ryan Reynolds was totally wasted as Deadpool - apparently there is going to be a spin-off movie featuring the character but I don't see how they can keep it neatly tied in to this film because they seem to have already ruined the character.
• After years of demand from X-Men fans, Gambit is finally introduced. And he's rubbish.
• The CGI is at times appalling and reeks of being rushed. You know things are bad when they can't even make Wolverine's claws look realistic despite it being quite easily accomplished in the first X-Men 9 years ago...

This may all sound quite negative, but it's not that bad. Compared to the main trilogy it's clearly inferior but it's not that far behind X-Men: The Last Stand - but then again that film had a few issues as well...

VERDICT: Enjoyable but ultimately a missed opportunity. Give me more real X-Men movies.

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Crank 2: High Voltage

In the original Crank, Jason Statham played Chev Chelios, a hitman poisoned by a "Chinese synthetic", doing anything he could to keep his adrenaline levels up and his heart pumping, including electrocuting himself, having sex in public and committing many acts of wanton violence as he tracked down his would-be killers. It also ended with him plummeting out of a helicopter and dying. Or so we thought.

Crank 2: High Voltage begins exactly where we left off, with a Triad gang literally scraping Chelios off the tarmac and taking him away to have his indestructible heart removed for transplant, replacing it with a temporary artifical heart to keep him alive long enough to harvest his other organs. Of course, he's not too happy with all of this and escapes in pursuit of his "Strawberry Tart", doing anything possible to keep his artifical one charged, including electrocuting himself, having sex in public and committing many acts of wanton violence. Sound familiar?

Crank was a masterpiece of off-the-wall lunacy with no pretensions of making sense or pleasing critics - it was a highly condensed 90-minute thrill ride and was ludicrously entertaining for it. Unfortunately, in its efforts to outdo its predecessor, Crank 2 sadly crosses the line from being implausible but still vaguely grounded in reality to pure fantasy, and the film ultimately loses something as a result. Although still entertaining, almost every element of Crank 2 seems to go just a little too far, the hyper-kinetic camera-work and editing being the main offenders here. Jason Statham still proves to be a charismatic leading man, with Amy Smart and Dwight Yoakam both providing solid support and clearly having a lot of fun, but the less said about the rest of the cast the better. And I have to say, as much as I appreciate gratuitous violence used in a comedic manner, I could have done without the graphic nipple-slicing...

VERDICT: Insane but ultimately a bit disappointing. Watch the original.

IMDb

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I had no idea...

As a follow up to my edit to my State of Play review below concerning Brennan Brown, a post on his IMDb page led me to the startling discovery that he is in fact the Wicked Witch in the latest Orange Wednesdays cinema ad. I've seen this ad on numerous occasions and at no point did it even occur to me that it wasn't a woman, let alone "Mr. Dresdan". Now that I do know, of course, it's actually really obvious. Take a look:

If I ever see State of Play again I'll be laughing even harder now...

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State of Play

Based on the acclaimed BBC television series, State of Play is a complex political thriller about a newspaper journalist (Russell Crowe) investigating the death of a young woman working on the staff of a Washingtson congressman (Ben Affleck), who also happens to be an old college friend. Soon it becomes clear that her death was not simply an accident, especially with shady corporations and mysterious hitmen in the mix...

While State of Play is an enjoyable, well-made film with good performances from a strong cast, it ultimately suffers in comparison to the far superior television series. This is to be expected considering that the series managed to fill 6 hours with a dense, multi-layered story, whereas the film only lasts a third of that time. It actually turned out to be a much more faithful adaptation than I would have expected (almost every scene of the movie was derived in some way from the original series), but the fact is that it all felt a bit rushed, and generally lacking in subtlety. What suffers most are the relationships between the characters - in particular I never got any sense that Affleck's and Crowe's characters could ever have been long-term friends, unlike John Simm and David Morrissey in the TV show. I did think that the (non-sexual) chemistry between Crowe and Rachel McAdams as a young reporter was quite successful though.

Overall I did enjoy the film, but there was never anything particularly remarkable about it. Had I not seen the BBC series I may have had a better opinion of it, but even then I suspect that it's not a film I'd go out of my way to see again anytime soon.

VERDICT: It holds your interest but doesn't do much more than that. Watch the TV series.

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EDIT: Something that I just remembered that's worth mentioning - the presence of Brennan Brown, AKA "the guy from the Orange mobile cinema ads", rendered all of his scenes unintentionally hilarious. I doubt there's a single UK cinema audience in the UK that won't start laughing when he turns up...

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