Sunday 31 May 2015

Review: Spy

World of Blackout Film Review

Spy Poster

Spy
Cert: 15 / 120 mins / Dir. Paul Feig / Trailer
WoB Rating: 3/7


Like some awful hybrid of Johnny English and Paul Blart, Spy's most offensive trait is how blatantly unnecessary it all is. At no point was the world crying out for a comedy-espionage movie in which Melissa McCarthy and Miranda Hart get to trade self-deprecating filler-lines against a backdrop of cat-lady jokes. But we got one, anyway.

Paul Feig's screenplay limps from one scene to the next, its obsession with letting the cast ad-lib their gags robbing most of the set-pieces of any discernible punchline. Melissa McCarthy is on lazy form, complete with the tell-tale half-second pause before her scripted line finishes and her improvisation begins, which usually involves blustering the same idea three times, punctuated with fuck-words. In fairness to her, she's not the only one effing-and-jeffing long after the point of it ceasing to be funny, with Jason Statham and Rose Byrne also trying to wear out the pencil of the profanity-counter at the MPAA (seriously, I'm not a prude, but there's way too much swearing in the final cut).

The film isn't entirely devoid of laughs, but a viewer shouldn't have to work this hard for them. Okay, Spy is probably not as awful as I'm making out, but it's a staggeringly lazy film in which the star gets to do five (FIVE) comedy-pratfalls in lieu of jokes. Kevin James I can understand, but almost everyone involved in this film is (should be) better than this.

The pairing of McCarthy and Feig combines the law of diminishing returns and an autopilot, template-filling approach to film-making. Even when the movie is on-target, it's never more than ordinary, but when it goes off-road..?

I'll be honest with you, I'm worried for Ghostbusters.



Is this film worth paying £10+ to see?
No, it is not.


Well, I don't like the cinema. Buy it, rent it, or wait for it to be on telly?
If you really, REALLY must watch it, wait for it to be on the free-channels.


Does this film represent the best work of the leading performer(s)?
Nope.


Does the film achieve what it sets out to do?
Make me want to watch Austin Powers to rinse this taste away? Yeah.


Will I think less of you if we disagree about how good/bad this film is?
Yep.


Oh, and is there a Wilhelm Scream in it?
Nope.


…but what's the Star Wars connection?
Well at least the film has a double score here. Spy stars Rose Byrne, handmaiden Dormé from Attack of the Clones, as well as Peter Serafinowicz, the voice of Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace.


And if I HAD to put a number on it…




DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Man Up

World of Blackout Film Review

Man Up Poster

Man Up
Cert: 15 / 88 mins / Dir. Ben Palmer / Trailer
WoB Rating: 5/7


It's not often that I'm enthusiastic about seeing a rom-com with Simon Pegg in it, since his film career outside of Edgar Wright's Cornetto Trilogy has been patchy at best. But the trailer for Ben Palmer's Man Up hinted at something more than 'Hector And The Search For A Patronising Screenplay', largely because Pegg doesn't play the lead character. A central character, certainly, but not the lead. That's an important distinction to make because Man Up really isn't his film; it belongs firmly to Lake Bell as Nancy, a 30-something singleton who's faintly neurotic about being left on the shelf, but not to the point where she won't actively avoid social situations because her fear of making an idiot of herself is even greater. A bit like Bridget Jones, but relatable to everybody.

That said, while Bell lifts the film above the ordinary rom-com (with a flawless accent, it has to be noted), it's something she can only do with Pegg as her support and foil. His character of Jack is more than just the film's telegraphed happy-ending, and in terms of character development, it's Pegg that gets the heavy-lifting. Together, Lake Bell and Simon Pegg are quite fantastic in an astonishingly average film. The supporting cast of much-loved Brit actors all pull their weight, although it often feels like they're over-egging things a little. That said, the film scores bonus points for Rory Kinnear deftly stealing every scene he's in as quietly-obsessive stalker Sean.

All in all, a far better film than it has any right to be.

While it's not exactly breaking the mould of the romantic-comedy, Man Up left me pleasantly surprised, demonstrating that a twee, one-track story can still be touching, likeable and - most importantly - funny.

Come for the farce, stay for the Whitesnake on the soundtrack.



Is this film worth paying £10+ to see?
As much as I enjoyed it, probably not.


Well, I don't like the cinema. Buy it, rent it, or wait for it to be on telly?
It's a Sunday-night DVD, although you can probably get away with a rental.


Does this film represent the best work of the leading performer(s)?
I haven't seen Lake Bell's earlier work, but this is certainly one of Pegg's better non-Cornetto roles, yes.


Does the film achieve what it sets out to do?
I think it does, although it's best to remember that it's never trying to be anytning more than an amiable rom-com.


Will I think less of you if we disagree about how good/bad this film is?
Nope.


Oh, and is there a Wilhelm Scream in it?
Nope.


…but what's the Star Wars connection?
Man Up stars none other than the perennial prequel-basher himself, Simon Pegg, who voice-starred in the prequel-era animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars as fearsome ESB bounty hunter Dengar, who falls off a moving train during a light scuffle, rubs his head comedically and says "Ah, poodoo!" in a broad Cockney accent.
I wish I was making that up
.


And if I HAD to put a number on it…




DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Friday 29 May 2015

Review: Poltergeist

World of Blackout Film Review

Poltergeist (2015) Poster

Poltergeist (2015) (3D)
Cert: 15 / 94 mins / Dir. Gil Kenan / Trailer
WoB Rating: 3/7


Picture the scene. A slightly drab office interior in Hollywood, California. A battered table seats a room of weary junior film execs, tasked with reinvigorating a classic franchise for today's demanding audience. Today, 'horror' is on the agenda, and one cocksure young upstart has just the answer: "Okay you guys, what's scarier than a clown-doll?" … "Uh, I dunno Johnny, what?" … "Ha! A whole goddamn BOX of clown-dolls!"… "KER-CHING! Then they can come to goddamn LIFE with the poltergeists moving them!" Yes, welcome to #FridayAfternoonScreenwritingClub, where cliche is the currency and only the laziest survive. You'll be finished the script and in the pub by 3:30.

Because the world was crying out for a remake of Poltergeist which does absolutely nothing new with either the story or the genre.

Now in all fairness, in terms of your classic Haunted House Horror™, Poltergeist is only ever as 'bad' as the original, but it's never as good. The intervening years have not been kind to the format. The real problem with a flat-out 'remake' is that you also port over all the things (from a writing point-of-view) which make the film feel dated because they've been flogged to death in the years between the original outing and the new one. Although lets not be too precious about the 1982 flick; it was great for its time, but it hasn't aged particularly well and it spawned two unnecessary sequels and a TV series.

You've got to feel for poor old Sam Rockwell, now cast into 'dad' roles and mumbling his way through the film with an embarrassed contrition akin to a teenager who's been recognised going into a church by two classmates, and who's hoping they'll pretend they didn't see him when Monday comes. We saw you, Sam. We all fucking saw you. Luckily the pressure's taken off Rockwell in the third act when Jared Harris arrives to shoulder the enormous burden of eccentric cliché and further devalue his already patchy CV. Worse yet, Jared seems to have borrowed Colin Farrell's accent to do it with. God help us all.

And the audibly sensitive will be saddened to learn that Poltergeist is another horror flick with the volume set to 'far too high'. AGAIN. Serious questions for those of you in the know: Is the audio-level locked automatically on digital films these days, or do the projection-staff*1 get a note giving them the recommended volume? If it's the first one, is there an override? If it's the second, does anyone know of any cinemas who actively discard such 'advice' and use their common sense when it comes to not wrecking the hearing of their audience? And the 3D: yeah, whatever mate.

Oh, and how the fuck can screenwriter David Linsday-Abaire justify gimmicking-in some GPS trackers and an iPad controlled drone for the film's finale, when the lost spirits of the damned have spent the entire film beforehand disrupting every electrical item they float past??

Like its stablemates, Carrie and A Nightmare On Elm Street, Poltergeist is so close to the original film as to render it artistically pointless. Worst of all, the film is barely even 'creepy', let alone scary. As horror movies go, there's no greater failure.

Fuck it, I've seen worse.
But what kind of justification is that for a film as half-arsed as this?



Is this film worth paying £10+ to see?
No.


Well, I don't like the cinema. Buy it, rent it, or wait for it to be on telly?
A better option still would just be to imagine the mixture of vague disappointment and boredom you'll inevitably feel by watching this.


Does this film represent the best work of the leading performer(s)?
Get out of my house.


Does the film achieve what it sets out to do?
…what, to make you actually miss Craig T Nelson?


Will I think less of you if we disagree about how good/bad this film is?
I will, yes.


Oh, and is there a Wilhelm Scream in it?
There isn't, no.


…but what's the Star Wars connection?
Poor ol' Sam Rockwell appeared in 2005's Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, as did Warwick 'Wicket' Davis.


And if I HAD to put a number on it…




*1 I know they can't really be called 'projectionists' any more, but I also know it's not the same job as the folks who serve you the popcorn.

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Thursday 28 May 2015

Review: Tomorrowland - A World Beyond

World of Blackout Film Review

Tomorrowland: A World Beyond Poster

Tomorrowland: A World Beyond
Cert: 12A / 130 mins / Dir. Brad Bird / Trailer
WoB Rating: 5/7


And so, the House of Mouse jump into the fray with a live-action, original composition which isn't part of an existing franchise, something they've often had trouble with in the past. Inspired heavily by the Disney ethos of optimism, community and progress towards utopia, it's easy to dismiss the film as part fluff-piece and part adventure-by-numbers - especially if the trailers are all you're going off.

I was pleasantly surprised, however, as the film itself is a lot more confident and slick than those promos had suggested, opening with a George Clooney narrated, 1964 sequence which is part Joe Johnston's Rocketeer and part Howard Stark. Once the film works into the present day we're on more familiar ground, but it never loses that sense of adventure, thanks in no small part to central performances from Clooney as despondent inventor Frank Walker, Britt Robertson as his young charge Casey and Raffey Cassidy as Athena, an ageless robot audio-animatronic recruiter agent. Hugh Laurie gets to have fun as the film's quasi-antagonist, Governor Nix of the trans-dimensional Tomorrowland itself.

All credit to Disney for taking a very traditionally structured story and keeping it family-friendly without kiddy-fying too much. The potential is there for a much darker film (and in the right hands, arguably a much better one), but despite a few broad questions on the nature of fatalism, the closest we get to apocalyptic grit is a very Douglas Adams-esque subplot about an 'A-Ark' of creatives, scientists and engineers. The only real downside is that the film often seems to pleased with the mechanics of its own plot that it loses sight of the flow of it, leading to quite a bump for the audience when things are put back on track.

Fans of schlocky sci-fi, dimension-jumping and big adventure should enjoy Tomorrowland on a level enough to make it worth the watch. The film gets quite preachy in its third act, but its heart's in the right place, and I'll be interested to see what they do with a sequel.

And there'd better be a sequel, otherwise this has been a very expensive marketing exercise just to sell badges…



Is this film worth paying £10+ to see?
As much as I enjoyed it, I'm not sure that it is.


Well, I don't like the cinema. Buy it, rent it, or wait for it to be on telly?
You probably won't get too many watches out of it until more installments come along, so a rental until it's cheap on the shelf.


Does this film represent the best work of the leading performer(s)?
Britt Robertson holds her own among the cast, and I haven't seen George Clooney having this much fun since From Dusk Till Dawn.


Does the film achieve what it sets out to do?
It does, but in a very round/about sort of way.


Will I think less of you if we disagree about how good/bad this film is?
Nah.


Oh, and is there a Wilhelm Scream in it?
Not that I heard.


…but what's the Star Wars connection?
As well as featuring a scene in a sci-fi memorabilia store packed (packed) with Star Wars merchandise old and new, Tomorrowland stars George Clooney, who appeared in The Men Who Stare At Goats alongside Ewan 'Kenobi' McGregor.


And if I HAD to put a number on it…
^^ That's a strong five, but a five nonetheless.




DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Tuesday 26 May 2015

Review: San Andreas

World of Blackout Film Review

San Andreas (3D)
Cert: 12A / 114 mins / Dir. Brad Peyton / Trailer
WoB Rating: 1/7


NO MORE STUPID, WARN MOVIE CHIEFS.
Scriptwriters' In Crisis as Reserves Run Dry


San Andreas Poster A press statement issued by Warner Bros today warned of a drought of cinematic stupidity following the release of their Summer disaster epic, SAN ANDREAS. In a Tinseltown first, the valley's major studios joined forces to trim the ineptitude from the season's tent-pole releases in order to boost Warner's earthquake movie to previously unimagined levels of face-palming. Critics and audiences had expected large amounts of idiocy from a film in which Dwayne Johnson is left in charge of a helicopter whilst half of America collapses under the weight of a clichéd script, but the studio has confirmed that the quantity of bone-headedness required by the writers and production team meant that the season's other releases have had to relinquish their share of absurd drivel. As a result, this year's average blockbuster movie will be 60% less moronic, with the worst-hit films containing almost no imbecilic qualities at all.

GRATEFUL

"We're incredibly grateful for the commitment of our colleagues right across the Hollywood studio-network that's gone into achieving this." said CEO Ian Warner, "After pooling our resources, we're mathematically certain we've made the year's stupidest film. Earthquakes, helicopters, Dwayne Johnson, fatuous scaremongering backed up by bullshit science, speedboats, the deaths of millions of people off-screen being nowhere near as important as the survival of the handful of inherently unlikeable stereotypes which the film follows, Dwayne Johnson, a script so unremittingly dense it's developed its own gravity-well, shaky-cam, screaming, someone spills their coffee, Dwayne Johnson… we never thought we'd top Into The Storm, but oh yeah, we did it."

WALKING

While the news has been favourably received by many who can now safely avoid San Andreas, not everyone is happy. Film blogger Stephen Keyboard told us "It's not like the year's other films have replaced the stupidity with subtext, meaningful dialogue or actual intelligence; they've just had the puerile elements removed, and sometimes the film doesn't have enough left to cover the gap. Mad Max, for example, should have been a gloriously incoherent montage of utter nonsense. As it stands, the movie is a beautifully filmed car chase through the desert in which everything is explained neatly, if noncommittally. It still makes little-to-no sense, of course, but without the idiocy needed to push the film through the stupid-barrier, the result is kind of boring. And how the hell can a two-hour car chase be boring? It's like the entertainment industry learned nothing from Roland Emmerich's excesses in that 2012 movie…"

DIA DE LOS

Professional film critic Roger Opinion is more optimistic. "This is great news for the films which aren't trying to be worthy Oscar-contenders, but which would usually put off more highbrow audiences with their array of explosions and ticking-countdown-timer endings. The best case example of this is Age Of Ultron; now that movie should have been monumentally dumb, but after Marvel Studios transferred 95% of the screenplay's stupidity to San Andreas, you're left with a story where a crazed robot builds a magic engine to lift an entire city into the stratosphere and drop it back down onto the Earth, and yet the film still works, somehow. That's even with the inclusion of one of the characters explaining that the film makes no sense. This type of move could bode well for the future of cinema, if we can scrape all of Hollywood's moronity into one, maybe two films a year, clearing the way for the rest of the release schedule. Although after watching Paul Blart 2, I'm wondering where all this year's comedy is being transferred. Because it doesn't look like it's gone into Spy…"

At Tuesday's press conference, Ian Warner concluded by saying "In terms of value for money, San Andreas will give viewers everything they could possibly want from a Summer blockbuster. Assuming of course that they value sheer stupidity above their money. Rest assured, Warner Bros, Village Roadshow and New Line Cinema share the public's value of imbecility. Although we value their money more. Obviously."


A representative for 20th Century Fox who asked not to be named later told us "While we were happy to help with the San Andreas project, superhero fans eagerly anticipating our reboot of Fantastic Four needn't worry too much. We made sure there was plenty of weapons-grade fuckwittedness left in the tank for that one…"



Is this film worth paying £10+ to see?
*looks over spectacles*.


Well, I don't like the cinema. Buy it, rent it, or wait for it to be on telly?
*breathes intently*.


Does this film represent the best work of the leading performer(s)?
This film represents Dwayne Johnson finally giving up.


Does the film achieve what it sets out to do?
*shrugs*.


Will I think less of you if we disagree about how good/bad this film is?
I… it….


Oh, and is there a Wilhelm Scream in it?
I have absolutely no idea. It's basically two hours of people screaming. There could be a Wilhelm buried in there but I wouldn't have heard it because I was too busy punching myself in the head once the Hoover Dam popped like it was made of Lego during the kind of earthquake that The Scientists™ claimed they could finally predict, and yet hadn't actually predicted…


…but what's the Star Wars connection?
The film stars Carla Gugino, who appeared in the highly-questionable Sucker Punch, alongside Oscar 'Poe Dameron' Isaac from The Force Awakens.


And if I HAD to put a number on it…




DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.