John Wick: Chapter 2 review

John Wick: Chapter 2 is the continuing story of Keanu Reeves' ex-hitman forced to come out of retirement.

The first John Wick is a brilliant action movie. Having seen Chapter 2 twice now, I must say that I think it is better than the original.

The film opens on a car chase through New York, a few days after the first film ended. The chase and following fight scene perfectly set the tone for the rest of the film, if the original didn't do it well enough.

Chapter 2 has some absolutely fantastic action scenes throughout the film. From the opening car chase, to an almost silhouetted gun fight, to a montage which I can only describe as a blood soaked rampage, to an extremely well executed scene, the idea of which is reminiscent visually of a certain Key and Peele sketch. On my second watch I tried to notice any directing flaws during that climactic scene and I was further impressed when I couldn't find any.

Keanu Reeves seems like a cool guy, and  he is at his prime playing John Wick. This isn't the sort of performance that will get recognised during awards season, but Reeves is perfect in the role. He brings the right amount of gruffness and empathy to make you care for him. In almost every action scene you can see that he is there doing all the stunts. There are no quick cuts or shots avoiding his face, just wide shots where it is clear what is happening. Now in his 50s it is amazing that Reeves still shows this much dedication to his craft. He and Tom Cruise are two of a small number of actors working today who show great dedication to their stunt work, and I hope more younger actors take after them.

The film introduces other assassins who are able to pose a physical threat to John, such as Common and Ruby Rose. In addition to this, it also continues to set up the world established in the original. If every action movie were as well shot as this, the world building would be where this stands out.

In short: This is one of the best action movies of recent years with excellent cinematography and world building.

The Great Wall review

The Great Wall is an American/Chinese co-production about two mercenaries who come across the Great Wall of China while in search of "black powder". Once arriving they are brought into a fight against mythical creatures.

I found The Great Wall to be a fun film which is deeply flawed. By all means it is a terrible movie, but when the action scenes came around I couldn't help but have some fun with it. If you're wanting to see a good mix of entertaining CGI sequences, a strong story and interesting characters, then watch something else.

As a whole it is all surface. There are almost no character arcs, some ridiculously cheesy dialogue, a very thin story, and even during its stronger scenes there is CGI that does not blend in to the scene well at all. There were several moments when people in the screen were laughing out loud, and I couldn't tell whether they were laughing with or at the movie. There are many parts of the film which feel like there are parts missing and story points that make no sense. The choppy editing made me think that the film released in China is longer than the one released in the UK.

None of the characters were very interesting, and some I even question what their role in the film was. Willem Dafoe is never given much to do, and is mainly there for exposition. The controversy behind Matt Damon's casting was not deserved, as he is written as a western character who is not a white saviour, is seen as morally ambiguous, and helps by being a skilled archer. His accent, however, is something else. It is all over the place and would sometimes go from American to English to Irish to Spanish in the space of one scene.

The visuals are wonderful and are most of what the film has it going for it. Yimou Zhang does brilliantly at making the film look good. But there are times where one monster is interacting with humans and it doesn't look natural at all. There are also shots derivative of World War Z, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. There is also a scene at the beginning in a cave where the mercenaries are attacked. It is shot really badly and I couldn't tell who did what and who died until the next shot two days later where you see the surviving characters.

I think it's possible that in a few years time, this will be a film which has a following who watch it because it's so bad it's good.

In short: The Great Wall is rubbish but enjoyable.

Gold review

Gold is the story of a down-on-his-luck man (Matthew McConaughey) who travels to Indonesia in search of gold and wealth.

Gold is an interesting story told in an uninteresting way. The original story has had its time, setting and characters changed, so it is fine for details to be changed. However, that does not excuse it from not starting until the last quarter. The majority of the film is about Kenny Wells' rise, as he goes from broke to very rich. The problem is that Kenny is not someone who is enjoyable to be in the presence of for nearly 2 hours. This isn't because he becomes insufferable and unlikeable as his wealth grows, but he just is not interesting at all. The most interesting thing is that he is unfaithful, and he is otherwise completely uninteresting. The film would have been more interesting if it followed Edgar Ramírez's character, who is a lot more complex.

From now I will be talking in regards to how much is shown in the trailer. About halfway through it is shown that the narration from Wells is him in an interview with Toby Kebbel's FBI agent. At this point I thought 'Oh good, the main story is about to start.' Unfortunately the story point that brings in the FBI doesn't start until at least half an hour later. By that point I had given up on the film being interesting and I had turned my brain off and started to just go along with it.

It's directed by Oscar winning screenwriter Stephen Gaghan, but not written by him. It is possible that it would have been better if he had written it as well, and would have possibly made the story better. The reason the film has come to be also seems to be to get rewards. Matthew McConaughey is in almost every scene and I'm fairly certain that was by design to help him win a second Oscar. He does exactly the same as what Christian Bale did in American Hustle. After winning many awards for playing a role which he had to lose weight for, he takes on a role several years later where he has to gain weight and style a comb over. McConaughey hasn't been successful as Bale was three years ago, but that was certainly the attention. Because of this the rest of the actors, apart from Ramírez, are given nothing to do. There are even some characters who show up and then disappear a few scenes later. None of them have much of an impact on the plot, one character is there just to introduce false drama, and they are there just to increase the run time.

In short: Gold fails on its potential and instead of being engaging, meanders for 2 hours.

The Lego Batman Movie review

Does The Lego Batman Movie really need and explanation. It's a Batman spinoff from The Lego Movie. You now know all you need to know about the tone and content.

The Lego Movie is probably now my favourite animated film of 2014. At the time I would have said How To Train Your Dragon 2, due to its better story. But The Lego Movie is just so fun and enjoyable that I find it much easier just to watch. I think it's fair to say I went in to The Lego Batman Movie with high expectations.

I'm glad to say that it didn't disappoint. It is just as fun as the original, but I'm not sure whether it is quite as good as it. This is the first film in a while that I have seem where I have had a constant smile on my face from the opening until the credits. There's a lot of smart humour, reference humour and meta humour, and just innocent fun that I can see almost anyone enjoying this. As a Batman fan I really appreciated the references to the past films and the comics. As a film fan I really appreciated the film references and the general meta-ness it had. And as a Lego fan I really appreciated how much of a pure blast of fun this is. With the meta and reference humour present it isn't surprising to learn that two of the writers worked on Community.

Will Arnett's Batman is never intended to be as serious as Bale or Affleck's. Despite being a few centimetres tall and made of plastic, he is somehow more complex than Affleck's Batman in BvS:DoJ was. He is shown as a man with commitment and family issues, and is too stubborn and self focused to notice any other person apart from himself. Michael Cera is perfectly cast as this Robin, and works really well with Arnett's Batman. The Batman villains' voices are made up of comedians, but there is one big missed opportunity that I will specify at the end, as I would consider it a spoiler.

It really isn't surprising when an animated film looks great. So I hope you're not surprised when I tell you this looks great.

It's nice to see that DC is able to have fun with a film. Like Deadpool and Fox/Marvel, WB/DC are able to poke fun at their films here in what is essentially a parody of superhero films. It is somehow the best DC film since the first half of Man of Steel, and is the Batman movie we need, but not the Batman movie we deserve right now.

In short: The Lego Batman Movies strives and succeeds to entertain.

Spoilers: Because it is Lego they are able to bring in characters from other properties. One character is Voldemort, as played by Ralph Fiennes from Goblet of Fire to Deathly Hallows Part 2. Here Fiennes provides the voice of Alfred and Voldemort is voiced by Eddie Izzard. It seems like a missed opportunity not to have Fiennes voice both characters and have a meta exchange between them.

Lion review

Lion is the story of a boy who gets lost in India at a very young age who gets adopted by an Australian couple. Later, as an adult, he starts to worry about his biological mother, brother and sister.

 

This is one of the most emotional films that has come out recently. I don't cry at films, and if I do it means it has done exceptionally. Lion, while being able to get several emotional responses from me, didn't go as far as two films over the past two years. It never comes off as emotionally manipulative because everything feels real.

 

The cast, especially Dev Patel and Sunny Pawar as Saroo, and Nicole Kidman as Saroo's adoptive mother. Though I think that Rooney Mara was slightly underused. Director Garth Davis manages to capture the poverty young Saroo struggles through in Calcultta, while also capturing the emotional and mental struggle he goes through later in life in Tasmania. Despite wanting to search for his biological family, Saroo is never ungrateful for the privileged childhood and life he has been given, and does his search in order to put his mind at ease in regards to his family.

 

In short: Lion contains great performances, and is very moving.

Hacksaw Ridge review

Hacksaw Ridge is the story of Desmond Doss, a conscientious objector who earned the Medal of Honor for his heroic acts at Okinawa during World War 2.

Im going to get this out of the way: Mel Gibson said some stuff around a decade ago, but in cases like this it is important to separate art from the artist.

Gibson's directing here is some of the best I have seen in the past year. He is able to bring a realness to the scenes in Virginia, a grittiness to the scenes in Okinawa, and brings out great performances from the cast. I expected Andrew Garfield and Hugo Weaving to be great in their roles, but I didn't expect Sam Worthington and Vince Vaughn to be as good as they are. It is definitely the best I've seen Vaughn do in years. As the drill sergeant he is able to be both hilarious and threatening at the same time.

Once the film goes over to Japan there is a tonal shift which introduces fear that Doss' beliefs will not help. The sense of hope is lost and in its place dread takes over. The battle scenes are some of the most intense cinema I have seen in a long time. Gibson and cinematographer Simon Dungan do a great job of capturing the bloody horrors of war. The violence is easily as brutal as in Saving Private Ryan, and manages to never feel exploitative.

In short: Hacksaw Ridge is one of the most well made, well acted war films if recent years.

Moonlight review

Moonlight is a drama which follows three stages of a black man's life as he grows up in Miami.

Moonlight isn't a film for everyone. I know this because the audience I saw it with made their views very clear. I saw it as part of Odeon's Screen Unseen, a preview screening where the title of the film is kept secret until the BBFC title card comes up. When it did there were several groans of confusion and even a "What the [effety jeffety] is this?". There were several walkouts and the people down the row from me were talking and on their phones for most of it. There were some people in the audience who didn't seem to be able to handle serious discussions and depictions of homosexuality.

I thought that it was a very well made look into someone's life. I am only familiar with the style of life presented here through films and TV, as growing up white, outside of poverty in Scotland I haven't been exposed to the main lifestyle shown. However, that doesn't mean that because you aren't familiar with the lifestyle, you won't be able to relate to anyone. The three actors who played Chiron all did well at making the character distinctive at each age. Naomie Harris is excellent as his drug addicted mother, and Mahershala Ali stands out in his role as a surrogate father.

If I had one complaint it would be that the cinematography is quite frenetic at the beginning and there is one scene that includes running which is extremely shaky. I never felt motion sickness watching Cloverfield, but this one sequence had some dizzying effect on me.

In short: Moonlight is a great achievement for a film of its budget, but isn't for everyone.

Split review

Split is the new film by M. Night Shyamalan which follows a man with dissociative identity disorder as he abducts three teenage girls.

James McAvoy is brilliant as the man with 23 characters. He shows a master class of how to portray different characters, not just vocally, but physically. The small facial and structural movements he makes to distinguish between each character is expertly done. If Split had been released a month earlier I would expect McAvoy to be getting awards nominations, but seeing as it was released mid-January, he sadly won't be recognized.

The story I found to be interesting but I found one tough subplot to have been mishandled, but luckily not thematically.

There are several connections I can see between this and last year's 10 Cloverfield Lane. Mainly in that it is about a strong female character who is held against her will underground and the full picture is not revealed until late in the film. There is another connection that I won't get into here due to spoilers.

In short: Split is a tense, well made thriller.

Split/10 Cloverfield Lane connection (SPOILERS!)

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR SPLIT!

I now assume you have either seen Split or just don't care (but if you're a fan of early Shyamalan films I recommend you see it).

Josh Campbell and Matthew Stuecken wrote a script called The Cellar that was picked up by Bad Robot. The script underwent a rewrite by Damien Chazelle and Dan Trachtenberg was hired as director. The name was changed to Valencia and the film went into production. In January 2016, a trailer played infront of Thursday night screenings of 13 Hours. It featured the logos for Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot, and showed Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Gallagher Jr. and John Goodman living together to the tune of Tommy James & The Shondells' I Think We're Alone Now. As the trailer progressed the song got slower and more eerie as the trailer takes a darker and more sinister tone. Winstead is shown hitting Goodman with a bottle and trying to escape. She reaches a door at the top of a staircase and opens it and starts to open a second door. "From producer J.J. Abrams". Goodman warns her of the outside and says that they will all die. We see Winstead's shocked face as she looks outside. And the title "10 Cloverfield Lane" comes up, release date of March 11th 2016, just under two months away.

On April 11th 2015, Bloody Disgusting writer Jonathan Barkan published an article in which he suspected that writing duo Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett's upcoming film The Woods would in fact be a new film in the Blair Witch franchise. Then, 13 months later, Lionsgate released the teaser trailer for The Woods. It featured quotes from several critics who had seen it early, praising it for how scary and inventive it is. I remember seeing comments on both YouTube and IMDB from people asking the question of "Is this a Blair Witch Sequel?" Finally, on July 22nd, at San Diego Comic Con, it was officially announced that The Woods' real title was Blair Witch, and would be a follow up to the 1999 original. The breadcrumbs had been left since the start, with a Kickstarter page made by a fake profile for a fake documentary had comments and contributions from other fake profiles was set up in February 2014. The page was part of the viral marketing for Blair Witch and is proof that the idea had been around for a while.

The first trailer for M. Night Shyamalan's Split was released on July 27th 2016 and showed the premise of the film: a man with dissociative identity disorder who has 23 distinct personalities abducts three teenage girls. It featured its release date of January 20th 2017. At Fantastic Fest, 26th September's secret screening was revealed to be Split. It was a confident move from Universal, believing that the film's twist would not be leaked online in the four months before it's release. It was also shown at AFI Fest on November 15th. The twist was still safe. The film is in cinemas now and I saw it on the second day of release. When the film ends and the title comes up, people ate getting up to leave. Then a news report is shown on a TV as people continue to leave. The camera moves to show a diner and the news report refers to Kevin as "The Horde". A woman turns to her friend and says she is reminded of "a guy in a wheelchair fifteen years ago" and asks what his name was. The man next to her is shown to be Bruce Willis with a name tag with "Dunn" on it. He answers her question: "Mr Glass". The credits start to roll. Split was secretly part of the same universe as Shyamalan's Unbreakable.

At the time I had not seen Unbreakable, so at first I thought "What's the point of that scene and why was Bruce Willis there?" Then I started to try and figure it out: "Okay, Bruce was a ghost in The Sixth Sense so it has nothing to do with that. He was also in Unbreakable, but was he in any other Shyamalan films? No. Hold on, was this a secret sequel to Unbreakable?" My suspicions were confirmed when I was walking down the stairs and a guy near me was talking about how Shyamalan always wanted to do a sequel to Unbreakable.

The three films are all connected by the fact that they were secret sequels (or as I like to call them, 'secrels' ). The difference was how the secret was kept. There weren't any reports that Valencia was a Cloverfield sequel before the trailer was shown in cinemas 8 weeks prior to its release. As stated, there was the report by Bloody Disgusting about The Woods and The Blair Witch Project, and plenty of speculation once the teaser trailer was released. All before the confirmation of Blair Witch 8 weeks before its release. Bruce Willis' cameo in Split was kept secret until the Fantastic Fest screening. Then the connection between Split and Unbreakable was kept secret from the public until opening weekend.

Two out of three of the films enjoyed great success. 10 Cloverfield Lane opened at number 2 in America with
$24.7 million and earned $108.3 million worldwide. Split opened at number 1 in America with $40 million and has so far made $112.6 million. On the other hand, Blair Witch opened at number 2 with $9.6 million and earned $45.2 million worldwide. None of the films had high budgets and they all made quite a profit, but Blair Witch made a lot less money than the others and wasn't well received, while both 10 Cloverfield Lane and Split were.

With the critical, public and financial success of two out of three of these recent 'secrels', is the film industry going to embrace this way of filmmaking and marketing?

In recent months I have stopped watching trailers online because I like to go into films knowing as little as possible,  so I like the idea of 'secrels'  becoming a common thing. If there are to be more it is likely that it will continue to be low budget films that are almost tests to see if there is interest in these franchises. There is already rumours that Bad Robot's God Particle will actually be the third film in the Cloverfield franchise; and it would make sense. There is the Bad Robot and Paramount link, J.J. Abrams is producing and is released in Autumn, several months after Transformers: The Last Knight is released (if they are continuing with releasing the trailer in front of a Michael Bay movie).

I see 'secrels' continuing with low budget franchises, but high budget franchises are more risky. It would stop the oversaturation of trailers and marketing in the months leading up to the release of high profile films, but it's not going to happen. Some blockbuster films are marketed over a year in advance so it looks unlikely that the 'secrel' will become a common thing there. I would be really happy if at Star Wars Celebration, Rian Johnson and Kathleen Kennedy came on stage and said "On May 26th, nearly 40 years to the day after the original Star Wars was released in cinemas, Disney and Lucasfilm will release The Last Jedi." The crowd goes wild, and through the noise you can hear them saying the Pirates of the Caribbean 5 will be released in December and they "are going to show a 1:30 minute trailer that will be the only trailer. And here is the official poster". That's not going to happen but that is the way I would hope 'secrels' will eventually play out with high budget films.

'Secrels' are a shining example of avoiding spoilers being released early for franchise films. If 'secrels' become big in the future, then it's a sign that marketing could be a lot better done than it currently is, and can help improve the experience of watching a film. Now if my dream of The Last Jedi being released in May and a Chronicle sequel is announced for release in April, then 2017 will be a good year.

Live by Night review

I'm going to be short: It's a boring, uninteresting mess that is a big let down from a very good director. The use of narration is lazy and some of the dialogue is shockingly bad.

La La Land

La La Land is directed by Damien Chazelle and is a "musical" that follows the relationship of an aspiring actress (Emma Stone) and a jazz pianist (Ryan Gosling).

Here's to the mess you made...

I do not understand the love for La La Land. Sure, it is technically well made, but I neither cared for nor believed in the characters or their relationship. Gosling is a retro guy who loves Jazz and Emma Stone has big dreams. That is all I saw of the characters. As I said in my Allied review, for a love story to work you must believe that the main characters are a couple. The only thing that made me think they were together was that they were both dreamers. Apart from that I didn't believe them at all. They are also two of three characters. There are some other characters but none of them are on screen for very long. There are some characters who are seen on screen then disappear for the rest of the film once the scene is over.

I understand the nominations in the technical categories as in that respect it's very well made. The cinematography, lighting, production design, choreography and the editing were all great. However, for the first few songs I couldn't make out most of the words. This wasn't a case of being in a bad screen, I was in the largest screen in a cinema with good sound systems in most screens. And then halfway through, apart from two songs and a dance sequence, it forgets it is a musical. If you're going to make a musical, please make it consistent.

In short: I found La La Land to be a big disappointment.

Hidden Figures review

But not yet.

Hidden Figures follows three black women working at NASA during the 1960's.

I found Hidden Figures to be hugely enjoyable. It is a lot of fun to watch and tells an interesting story about people facing adversity. I wasn't aware that there were black women working in respected roles in NASA during a time where America was extremely racist and women were not seen as equal as they are now. The film mainly follows Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson, Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan and Janelle Monae as Mary Jackson. They are shown working against the system to help the space programme, but there is one scene, shown in the trailer, where Kevin Costner's character takes down a coloured women's toilet's sign with a crowbar. It doesn't work in the film and it could have done without it.

In short: Hidden Figures is a good time that tells an important and inspiring story.

Silence review

Martin Scorsese's Silence is the story of two Jesuit priests who travel to Japan during the 17th century in search of an older priest.

 

I thought Silence was an excellent film. The tale of religious persecution is hard to watch at times but if you are able to get through the tough scenes of torture then it is worth it. The torture and execution scenes are not gory, save for one, but the way they are portrayed makes them difficult to watch.

 

The three main white actors; Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver and Liam Neeson all give really good performances (Driver is the stand out of the three). However, I have a problem with their accents. Driver and Neeson are consistent with their accents while Garfield is not. The characters are Portuguese and have their language referred to as Portuguese, despite speaking in English; which I have no problem with. But Driver has a consistent Portuguese accent, Garfield has a Portuguese accent that occasionally falls into his natural English accent, while Neeson just uses his natural Irish accent.

 

The cinematography is very good and deserves the Oscar nomination that it has, but I would have liked to have seen the film earn more nominations, particularly in the main categories.

In short: Silence is very good.

After seeing four bad films in a row it was nice to see a film which I liked a lot. But don't worry, more negative reviews are coming.