SOUTHLAND TALES (2006) - Richard Kelly

When I first saw Donnie Darko way back in 2001, I was, like many other people, pretty blown away by it. It had all the right elements, and appealed to that dark, lonely side my of us have when trying to figure out who we are. So I eagrely awaited Richard Kelly’s Director’s Cut version. Which I bought upon release, watched once, and vowed never to watch again. Kelly had managed to completely suck all that was great out of the theatrical cut of the film. It was dreadful. So I was a little wary when Southland Tales came out. Through a series of unfortunate events, and warnings from friends, I never got to see the film. Until now. I was kind of hoping it’d turn out to be good. When you have certain expectations from a film, sometimes you can be pleasantly, or otherwise... surprised...

It’s July 2008, three years after a number of nuclear attacks on the United States. The US is at war, the draft has been reinstated and most of the country is a police state. A new substance called Fluid Karma has been developed to replace the need for fossil fuels. However, Fluid Karma and it’s application has caused a rift in the space-time continuum that threatens to destroy the world. Meanwhile, an amnesia-stricken actor named Boxer Santaros and his new girlfriend, porn-star Krysta Kapowski have developed a film script that begins to mirror events in Santaros’ real life. And police office Roland Taverner is really a neo-marxist impersonating his own twin brother in order to use Santaros as leverage for the neo-marxist plans to blackmail Santaros’ Republican senator father in law.



Sounds complicated? Yeah, it is. It’s also one of the most pointless, muddled, incoherent and needlessly dull films I’ve ever sat through. It’s mind-numbingly idiotic. If you read about films, you’ll have heard about Southland Tales’ adventure at Cannes. How it was booed, and some even went so far as to say it was probably the worst film ever to compete at the festival. That was before the film was cut by Kelly himself in order to make it less lumbering and more accessible. And THIS is what he was left with?! In some sado-masochistic way, I’d love to see what the original cut was like. Thought I really don’t think I could put myself through this film ever again.

The film attempts to satirise the course that the US was headed down directly after the attack on the World Trade Centre. The increase in security and the clamp-down on liberties of the average citizen. However, Kelly’s ham-fisted attempt at subtlety goes nowhere fast. His vision of the near-future (which is now actually the past) looks nowhere near believable. Visually, it’s pretty close to Paul Verhoven’s future in Starship Troopers, but where as that film’s satire fit in with the aesthetic of the film and was actually funny, Kelly’s vision (especially with the bafflingly dour narration by Justin Timberlake) is a mess of ideas that don’t gell.

The script... good christ, the script is a disaster. Most of the actors clearly don’t have a clue what their characters are babbling on about. The characters themselves are a mish-mash of cliches, and cardboard-cutouts that are neither believable nor edgy, nor funny. Events unfold in a way that either leaves you confused, or without caring an iota about what happens. And then, in the middle of the mess, Justin Timberlake’s Pilot Abilene bursts into a drunken mime of The Killers’ All These Things That I’ve Done, which makes for one of the most infuriatingly ill-judged and pointless scenes of recent cinema history. It’s up there with the emo-strut scene from Spiderman 3.



The actors. To be honest, you’re not going to really give a shit what their performances are like. You’re too busy writhing in agony at the sound of the dialogue to worry about how it’s delivered. I actually felt sorry for Seann William Scott, Dwayne Johnson and Sarah Michelle Gellar. Clearly they saw Kelly as some sort of visionary genius and leapt on board thinking that it didn’t matter if they didn’t understand the script, Kelly knows what he’s doing. Nope. He didn’t. And the performances are ground-breakingly bad. But I really don’t think it’s the actors’ fault. The characters are just so poorly written.

Kelly’s a director who got sweapt up in his own hype. He attempts to out-Lynch David Lynch and instead falls spectacularly flat on his face. His writing is an incoherent mess of biblical proportions and his direction is pedestrian and in no way innovative. At certain points in the film, I wondered if Kelly had ever even seen a film before making Southland Tales. The film didn’t kill his career, but in an age where people like Roland Emmerich, Stephen Sommers and Brett Ratner still have careers, that’s not really all that surprising. I should have listened to the warnings. Don’t make the mistake I did. Southland Tales is unwatchable.

Oh, and there’s a scene in which two cars have sex through their exhausts. I shit you not.


1/10

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE (2009) - David Yates

Right, so we’re at film six in the Harry Potter saga. Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince is the penultimate book, but not the penultimate film, as The Deathly Hallows is split into two parts, in order to fit all the story elements in. Or all the dollars they can squeeze out of us. But that’s probably just the cynic in me speaking. Taking place six months after Harry’s godfather Sirius Black was unceremoniously killed off, it’s a dark time for the kids of Hogwarts. Looks like bad boy Voldermort’s gonna wreck things up something awful. But while a dark tone overtakes the series, does the film hold up against the previous films?

Sirius Black is dead. Voldermort is gaining strength. And Harry can’t get a date. All in all, things aren’t exactly great for teenager Harry Potter. But we’ve all had to deal with those awkward teenage years where the undead murderer of our parents is trying to kill us with magic. Ho-hum! But the Dark Lord and his band of Death Eaters aren’t the only threat to the kids of Hogwarts. Raging hormones are sweeping through the halls of the school like the smell of a hundred unflushed turds and nobody’s safe. Harry’s fending off love-potion wielding wenches with a pointed stick... eh, his wand. While the real object of his affection is his best friend’s sister, and she has her tongue down the throat of another guy. While making eyes at Harry. It’s all very Dawson’s Creek. Meanwhile, Harry’s come into possession of a potions book that belonged to someone known only as the Half-Blood Prince. While the book does help Harry ace his potions class, his professor is a man of a questionable history, whom Dumbledore wants Harry to get to know. There is something in Professor Slughorn’s past that links him to Voldermort. Harry must find out what that is.



I’ve never been a huge fan of the Harry Potter series. I pretty much hated the first two films, and while the subsequent three films were far better, there’s always been something a little twee about the series. Maybe it’s the names of the characters and situations, that they’re all head-slapping puns. Maybe it’s the fact that all the heroes are kids. But then, you did have characters like Sirius Black and Mad-Eye Moody who were pretty badass. Anyway, it was with a sense of relief that I was told by a Potter-fan friend of mine that this story ups the ante somewhat. But that was the book. Something was lost in the film translation. I was aware of a pretty big story element that was going to happen and was ready for some gut-wrenching emotion. But really, I was left cold.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but it does have quite a few flaws that, when added up, detract from the overall experience. Primarily, there is a distinct lack of urgency in the film. Voldermort is gaining strength and his agents are attacking even the muggle world now. Yet, nobody in Hogwarts seems that worried about it. Sure, there is some talk about how the parents of the students are concerned about sending them back to school, but that’s about it. Dumbledore isn’t too concerned with Harry’s safety and stays in the background for most of two thirds of the film. It’s only in the final third of the film that he really leaps to life. And that in itself is a big problem. The majority of the film doesn’t seem to deal with any of the overall plot that runs through the entire series. I thought that Harry Potter dealt with the sole survivor of an attack by the evilest wizard in the history of magic and his attempt to defend himself and ultimately defeat the Dark Lord. What we have for the majority of the film is a series of bumbling encounters with kids driven by their discovery of hormones and the opposite sex. The whole Half-Blood Prince aspect is merely mentioned and feels like even a tertiary subplot. A more appropriate title would have been Harry Potter And The Sexual Awakening. But then that wouldn’t have gotten past the draft stage.



The great characters played by heavy-weight actors are also sadly missing from the film. There’s no Gary Oldman’s Sirius Black. There’s no Brendan Gleeson’s Mad-Eye Moody. There’s no Jason Isaac’s Lucius Malfoy. Even Ralph Fiennes, Voldermort is missing for Christ sake. Now, other than Moody, there are legitimate reasons as to why these characters are absent. But the film feels like it’s missing something without these characters. Only David Thewlis’ Remus Lupin and Alan Rickman’s Severus Snape pop up, and even those are mere cameos. I was informed Snape really comes into his own in this story, and after seeing the film, you can see how he would have, but his character feels castrated. It’s kind of a big disappointment.

I have to say, most of the actors who play the kids have really come into their own over the course of the series. In particular, Tom Felton who plays Draco Malfoy and Rupert Grint who plays Ron Weasley have come pretty far. Felton in particular has a pretty important role in this film and he carries himself very well, even when playing off a seasoned veteran like Alan Rickman. Even Emma Watson pulls of her wide range of emotions very well. The same can’t be said for Daniel Radcliffe, however. His acting started off bad and hasn’t gotten any better really. At one point, I thought I’d missed a plot point where somebody sucked out Harry’s soul, because Radcliffe emoted with all the soul of a marionette. Thankfully Radcliffe is surrounded by a pretty heavyweight cast, so he’s naturally propped up by that.



David Yates’ direction is good enough for the series. It’s not exactly ground-breaking as he seems to have lifted bits from Alfonso Cuaron and a great deal of other directors for this film. Which is ironic, as in the last film, I felt his direction was dull at best. In this film, however, at moments, I felt like a was watching a best of compilation of other directors’ work, and in one particular scene which shall remain unnamed, I thought somebody had accidentally spliced in some footage from Fellowship Of The Ring. Naturally, there are elements of each series that are similar. But for a director to use a shot that was pretty much identical to another film is just lazy. And it’s down to Yates that there was no sense of urgency in the film. Sure, there was a lot of plot to get through, and fair dues, the film never really ground to a halt at any moment. But the best bits were flashbacks, moments that involved Severus Snape and the Death Eaters. All of which were secondary to the main plot.

Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince isn’t a great film. And it is nowhere near as good as The Prisoner Of Azkaban, which is still by a great deal the best film of the franchise. But The Half-Blood Prince isn’t terrible either. I realise that there was a hell of a lot of plot to get through. But other films have had the same task and handled it far better. There is just something inherently lacking in this film. Maybe it’ll become clear after seeing The Deathly Hallows, which this film feels somewhat of a set-up for. But this film is just a massive anti-climax. As the film ended, I wondered where the hell the action that was in the last film went. Especially after the huge plot point that had just passed. If Harry was to get a report card after this year in Hogwarts, it would read ‘A lot of potential wasted. Must do better.’


6/10

BRUNO (2009) - Larry Charles

Sacha Baron Cohen has reached the zenith of his satirical interview technique. There’s nowhere else to go. When he first appeared on British television in his Ali G guise, the possibilities were endless. Nobody knew who he was, and people gave themselves over fully to his ridiculous interviews. But Ali G grew tired quickly, so to keep things fresh, Cohen created Borat, the Kazakh television interviewer and Bruno, the gay Austrian fashion icon. With Larry Charles, Cohen took Borat to the big screen in 2006, and in 2009, it’s Bruno’s turn. Borat was a huge success, but can lightning strike twice?

Bruno fronts the show Funkyzeith Mit Bruno, a fashion show where the titular character interviews the movers and shakers in the fashion world. But after a disastrous incident involving a Velcro suit at the Milan Fashion Week, Bruno is fired from his show, and loses his Philipino midget boyfriend. So, in an attempt to get back to the top, Bruno and his assistant, Lutz, hit the United States in order to propel Bruno back to the top of the celebrity ladder.



Plot details are really play second fiddle to the real draw from these films. And that’s the awkward situations Cohen sets up to play with his targets. And after seeing Bruno, it’s really amazing how far some people will go before they snap and can’t continue with the interviews. Borat set up some pretty outrageous situations. And got some pretty decent laughs out of them. But Bruno takes things to a whole other level. There are things in the film that leave you agape with shock that Cohen had the balls (no pun intended) to pull them off. There’s no question that he is pretty committed to his art and will gladly sacrifice his own safety in order to carry out an idea.

But is the film funny? When the film attempts to drive plot forward, no. Obviously, there has to be a plot, no matter how thin, to keep the film from just being a series of increasingly awkward interviews and situations. These moments can feel a little contrived when put next to the real-world situations. But when those situations arise, the film hits it’s stride. And when at these moments, it’s outrageous, shocking, and hilarious. There is one moment in the film that was so funny, I can’t remember a time when I laughed harder in the cinema. I won’t give anything away, but I had tears of laughter running down my face at the sheer craziness of the situation, and the thoughts that must have been running through the people who were the targets of the prank.



There’s not much that can be said about the film without giving too much away. It’s funnier than Borat, and at times, funnier than most written comedies. But reality is always funnier or more shocking than fiction. When the film deals with fiction, it’ll make you chuckle at best. But when it comes to the ‘reality,’ Bruno will have you cringing in horror and guffawing with laughter.


8/10

PUBLIC ENEMIES (2009) - Michael Mann

I’ll start this off by saying this- Michael Mann is one of my all-time favourite directors. He consistently makes quality, intelligent films, and even his weaker films are streets ahead of most of the competition. I really enjoyed Miami Vice. Despite the negative reaction to it from some people, it’s still a very good film. And Heat is one of the greatest heist films ever. So, in a summer that has so far proven absolutely abysmal, the prospect of a new Mann film had me pretty excited. Public Enemies brings together two great modern actors playing out the story of 1930’s bank robber, John Dillinger.

It’s the 1930’s, and the depression has hit America hard. A wave of crime spreads across America and the criminals are becoming celebrities in their own rights. The leading name amongst the bank-robbers is John Dillinger. J Edgar Hoover is struggling to create the Federal Bureau of Investigation in order to investigate crime across the United States. His primary goal is to take down Dillinger. In order to do this, Hoover gives the task to Melvin Purvis, a young agent who has just taken down Pretty Boy Floyd, another notorious bank robber. Dillinger wants one last job in order to disappear off the map with his girlfriend, Billie Frechette. And Purvis is determined to bring the criminal to justice. At any cost.



There are similarities that can be drawn between Heat and Public Enemies. Both films focus on two men, from different sides of the track. One a master criminal, one a lawman. Neither film paints the criminal as a simple bad guy. And both films have kick-ass gun fights in them. However, Public Enemies is by far the weaker film for a number of reasons. The main problem with Public Enemies is that none of the characters in the film are explored enough. The film is a presentation of facts that misses that very important to film detail, character development. Perhaps it was Mann’s desire to stick to the facts, but the lack of character development unfortunately leaves the film without much in the way of emotional impact.

Mann has recently decided to make the move to digital filmmaking. His first major foray into digital came with Collateral, a contemporary thriller about a hitman. He shot Miami Vice in digital. And in both those films, the digital worked very well with the story. Both were glossy films set in modern day, and the realism that digital brings complemented the stories. However, it for some reason fails in Public Enemies. At times, the digital works very well. At other times, it is a little to jarring. In one particular shoot-out, set at night, the action jumps from a wood, to inside a hotel. While outside, the digital works. However, when we cut to inside, the film looks like it was shot by somebody with a digital camcorder. It’s moments like this that confuse the viewer. And while the scene is action packed, it still takes you out of the film momentarily.



One thing that’s great to see is Johnny Depp finally acting again. After the rubbish pantomime performances in the appalling Pirates of the Caribbean series, Depp finally goes back to what he does best, acting. He’s cast very well as Dillinger. Dillinger was somewhat of a celebrity in his time, so it makes sense to have one of the most famous actors of our time playing him. While the character could have had more depth to him, Depp takes what he’s given and makes the most of it. Which is something that can’t be said for Christian Bale. Don’t get me wrong, Bale has delivered some great performances. But I’m beginning to have my concerns about his acting. After Terminator Salvation, and quite honestly, a flat performance here, I hope that it’s just the scripts that are letting him down. He’s not terrible in Public Enemies, but he’s just not as good as you’d hope.
Marion Cotillard, however, probably delivers the strongest performance in the film. Again, there’s not much for her to do. And after her lengthy enough introduction, she disappears for a great deal of the film. But in the second half of the film, in one scene in particular, she steals the show.

Public Enemies isn’t the great film I’d hoped it would be. But it isn’t terrible either. When measured against the likes of Heat, The Insider, Manhunter and even Miami Vice, it’s not close to Mann’s best. However, Michael Mann’s weaker films are still far better than other filmmakers’ best. And after weeks of what can only be described as shit, it’s nice to have a film that isn’t ludicrously bad. 2009 is proving to be a stinker of a year. But Public Enemies is one of the better films so far.


7/10

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (2009) - Michael Bay

Heh heh heh. Hee hee hee. Ya know, there’s a part of me that is secretly relishing the prospect of writing what I’m about to write. I’m excited at the catharsis I’ll feel having vented about Michael Bay’s latest piece of cinematic art. Because for the last twelve hours... minus the few hours sleep I got... I have stewed slowly. I’ve allowed what I witnessed last night to seep slowly into my brain, and I’ve attempted to arrange the images and sounds into an understandable and comprehensible series of sequences so that I can give Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen the review it deserves.

Okay, it’s been two years since Optimus Prime and his little human buddy Sam Witwicky (having still not changed his name by deed poll) defeated Megatron and the Decepticons. Sam is now ready to head off to college. He will be leaving behind his parents, girlfriend Mikaela, and best buddy and Autobot, Bumblebee. However, once Sam hits the campus, things go wrong. It seems the Decepticons are searching for Megatron’s body in order to resurrect him. It turns out Megatron is only second in command to another Decepticon, The Fallen, who wants to return to Earth (he was here at the dawn of civilisation.... don’t ask) to destroy our sun in order to get the power to give birth to more Decepticons.... Queue explosions and all manner of utter bollocks for two and a half bloody hours.



There is so much that is wrong with Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, that it’s difficult to know where to start. I’m not that easily offended by movies. Admittedly, I actively seek out the films that create controversy and make people walk out of theatres. It’s not that I enjoy being repulsed. Though there is some sick fascination with the depth to which some directors stoop in order to shock. Take Martyrs or Cannibal Holocaust as examples. They’re both pretty reprehensible films. But they’re made for a specific type of viewer and don’t in any way try to be entertainment for the masses. What I absolutely object to, however, is a director who is so low-brow, he makes Rob Schneider look like the 21st Century’s Lawrence Olivier. Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen is the freak bastard child that would emerge if Nuts magazine got absolutely twisted drunk and had sex with Top Gear and a military recruitment video. Michael Bay is the sick voyeuristic neighbour filming it all to jerk off to later.

The film is incredibly misogynistic. There are three female characters in the film. Bay treats them with all the subtlety and depth of a slap-happy pimp. When not filming Magan Fox as is she’s in the opening few scenes of a hard-core porno, he’s getting up-skirt shots of some other starlet or treating Sam’s mother with sneering disdain for her kooky antics. Were he able to get away with it, I’d imagine Bay would have had Sam’s father go Ray Winstone on her ass and beat her into the ground a la Nil By Mouth... although with swooping camera moves and slow motion impacts. All Megan Fox has to do for the entire film is wear a low-cut top, keep a permanent pout on her face and occasionally run awkwardly from an explosion. Which, thankfully for her, encompasses the entirety of her talents. She is a dreadful actress. And I’m pretty sure she was born without a soul. Whenever the camera stared, nay, leered into her unquestionably beautiful eyes, you can’t quite help but feel there’s a deep, gaping, black void of humanity staring back. I don’t know whether that’s Bay’s work, or Fox herself, but it was somewhat unnerving.



Then there’s the xenophobia. Good christ, there’s plenty of that. Bay has made some sort of deal with the US military, because the last hour of the film is just an army recruitment video shot, again, as explosion porno. Planes, tanks, trucks, guns, missiles, aircraft carriers, high-tech weaponry are all wheeled out and fired at the enemy, who, for the record, are completely ineffectual against humans. I mean, THEY’RE GIANT FUCKING ROBOTS. Yet none of them are capable of defeating a small platoon of squishy humans with guns that fire tiny bullets. Anyway, all this ordnance is fired at the Decepticons in the last battle, which takes place in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. And as a consequence, pyramids and thousands of years of history are wiped out and reduced to dust. And do the Yanks care? Not a jot. Bay may as well have gone the final step and had one of the GI Joes prance to the top of the crumbled remains of the pyramids and jam an American flag into place. In one spectacularly ‘look how stupid Johnny Foreigner is’ moment, Sam and his pals try to cross the Jordan-Egypt border. It is here that they encounter Johnny foreigner’s army, which has a midget in charge. Yup, a midget. I thought crossing borders was a difficult thing in today’s political climate. But apparently shouting ‘NEW YORK’ in an American accent gains you access to any country. Stupid foreign army. Trey Parker and Matt Stone parodied this attitude in Team America World Police. But Bay obviously doesn’t get parody or irony and took that film as a serious appraisal of American Foreign Policy.

The special effects are spectacular. There’s no denying that. Hundreds of millions of dollars were pumped into the film and it shows. The team at ILM and Digital Domain are top-notch and you can feel the heat in every explosion. But special effects should be there to help tell a story. Not be the centre-piece that the story is written around. And that is how this film feels. The story is all over the place. Every few minutes, everybody has to stop to explain to one-another what’s going on. When that’s not happening, logic is thrown out the window. One scene takes place in the Smithsonian Air And Space Museum. The characters crash through a wall, and are in the desert. The wall was obviously some sort of portal through space-time, because the last time I checked, the Smithsonian is in the middle of Washington DC. A FUCKING CITY. It’s this utter contempt for the intelligence of the audience that I really have a problem with.



The problems with the film are innumerable. It’s indefensibly bad. The script is a bloody mess of confusing decisions, illogical situations and ludicrous events that defy reality; I know it’s a film about giant robots, but when a man rings an aircraft carrier and gets them to use a top-secret experimental weapon without any question of authority, chain of command or procedure, you’re going too far from reality. The acting is terrible. It’s really shocking to see John Turturro slumming it so badly. The guy was a darling of the Coen Brothers. What the fuck is he doing in this crap?
There’s also the question of the Autobot twins, two of the most ill-conceived and insulting sidekicks since Jar Jar Binks. Every moment of their screen-time sucks out a bit of your soul. They aren’t funny. They’re cringeworthy. Shame of the writers for creating them, shame on the designers for making them look like they do. Shame on all involved.

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen is a film made by idiotic scumbags for the entertainment of imbeciles. If you think two small dogs fucking is hilarious, then this film right up your alley. And for that, fuck you. It is the intellectual equivalent of a home movies television show. It’s a lads’ magazine filmed for the big screen. It’s like climbing into the mind of a hyperactive thirteen year old boy who’s been sitting at his Playstation for too long. I don’t object to a bit of entertainment for entertainment’s sake. But I do think that this kind of film sums up exactly what’s wrong with the industry. It’s a prime example of what happens when film companies aim to squeeze as much money out of the audience’s pocket as possible. The executives at Dreamworks and Paramount may as well drop to their knees and start giving blow-jobs for pennies. Because there is infinitely more dignity in that than having your name attached to this film. And I’m an idiot for spending money I worked for on this shit.
Fuck you Michael Bay. Fuck you Dreamworks Pictures. Fuck you audience around me who laughed at all the incredibly unfunny jokes and stared slack-jawed at the shiney things and ‘splosions. Fuck you universe for allowing this film to happen.

Oh, and just before I forget... Decepticon testicles... Fuck you, Michael Bay.


1/10

THE HANGOVER (2009) - Todd Phillips

You’ll have to excuse the briefness of this review as I’m writing it, and my thoughts on Transformers both in one sitting, and I’m just dying to get onto Transformers. The Hangover is a comedy from Todd Phillips, the writer-director of Old School and Road Trip. In a way, The Hangover is like a melding of those two films. It’s part road movie, part grown up guys having a good time with consequences film, although in this film, we only see their partying.

Doug is due to get married. Two days before his wedding, his best friends, Phil and Stu, and Doug’s soon-to-be brother in law, Alan take him on his bachelor weekend in Las Vegas. Phil is a married teacher and wants to party hard before he has to settle for good. Stu is a man on the verge of proposing to his girlfriend, a thundering bitch who keeps tabs on him twenty four seven. And Alan is a bit of an idiot, but well-meaning at the heart of it. Things go awry when Phil, Stu and Alan wake up after the party with no memory of what had happened and no sign of Doug’s whereabouts. So they must begin an odyssey to find their friend before the wedding.



There’s not much that can really be said about The Hangover. It’s a really entertaining, genuinely funny buddy comedy that relies less on gross-out humour and more on situational comedy. It’s too easy to just gross the audience into laughter in comedies these days. But rather than rely on that, Phillips lets his characters and the messes they get themselves into create the laughs. Ed Helms, who is a central character on The Office seems most at home when it comes to comedy. He’s a very funny performer, and while Stu, his character in the Hangover isn’t as ludicrous as The Office’s Andy Bernard, he still handles the situations very well.

Zach Galifianakis plays the idiot of the piece, which, along with Bradley Cooper’s pretty asshole character, is a staple of these types of comedies. It’d be too easy to mess this character up, but Galifianakis gets some pretty big laughs throughout the film. He spends most of the film with a blank expression on his face, but the is part of his schtick, and carries the character.



The most uncomfortable part of the film is a cameo by Mike Tyson. It’s impossible to separate Tyson from the controversies that have dogged him throughout his career. And when he does turn up, you can’t help but feel he’s going to lose it, step out of the screen and punch you right in the face. However, seeing Tyson singing and air-drumming along Phil Collins’ ‘In The Air Tonight’ is worth the price of admission alone, and much more entertaining than a drumming ape in a chocolate advertisement.

A very solid and entertaining comedy, The Hangover shows that resorting to lowest common denominator laughs isn’t the only way to garner a chuckle from the audience. Far better than Phillips’ other two hits, The Hangover is a quality film amidst a swathe of really terrible summer blockbusters.


8/10

TERMINATOR SALVATION (2009) - McG

Let’s face it. There are very very few people who don’t like the Terminator franchise. And when I say Terminator franchise, I mean Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Rise of the Machines was a Terminator film only in name. Otherwise it was a dreadfully misjudged film that should be cast into oblivion and forgotten about. However, it did prove that the series still had some pulling power. And thus, six years later, we have Terminator Salvation. The McG film takes place after Judgement Day and chronicles the struggles of John Connor and his band of merry resistance fighters as they attempt to overpower Skynet and gain control of the planet once again.

As mentioned, Judgement Day has been and gone. The world is very different. Humans are an endangered species and struggle to survive and fight back against the machines. John Connor is the man fated to lead humanity back from the brink. But something has changed. Connor sees his present as different to the future he was told about by his mother. The appearance of Marcus Wright further complicates things. And when Connor discovers that his father, a teenage Kyle Reese has been targeted and captured by Skynet, he must learn to trust Marcus Wright, defy his superiors and infiltrate Skynet in order to free Reese. All this while the humans are planning to mount their largest attack on Skynet.



Terminator Salvation is a difficult film to nail down. It has some great moments. The first 50 minutes are really enjoyable. And it’s even got Michael Ironside in it, for Christ sake. But for some reason... some three-lettered reason, the film fails. Let’s start with the good. The first 50 minutes. In this section, we see the lengths the resistance are going to in order to fight Skynet. We saw briefly in flash... backs... or is it flash-forwards, in the previous films what the post-Judgement Day world looked like. We saw the fight against the machines. Terminator Salvation expands on this, and shows us John Connor leading a raid on a Skynet R’n’D facility. Now, unfortunately, while the entire film is set in this world, we don’t see enough of what you’d expect from the post-Judgement Day world. A glaring problem is that the lines are too clearly drawn. Skynet stays on their side, the resistance stays on theirs. Occasionally, each side will venture into their enemy’s territory, but this is not what we were expecting from this world. It just feels... wrong.

Sam Worthington is brilliant as Marcus Wright. He is, but a long-shot, the best thing about the film. If you’ve seen the trailers for the film, you know the big ‘surprise.’ If you haven’t, skip this paragraph, as it’s about to give a part of the film away. Wright is a tortured soul. In the opening few minutes of the film, set in 2003, Wright is executed for the murder of his brother and two cops. His body is donated to Cyberdyne Systems. He wakes up fifteen years later and is pretty confused. He hooks up with Kyle Reese (played by Anton Yelchin doing a pretty nifty imitation of Michael Biehn’s Terminator performance) and when Reese is taken, he does all in his power to get him back. When he is revealed as a terminator, Worthington is pretty damn convincing. He’s torn apart by the crime he committed but also by being a monster. This is his film, not John Connor’s. It’s Marcus Wright’s redemption and he carries the film very well.



They are the strong points, but they’re not without problems. And this film has many problems. Primarily the biggest problem is the sense of urgency. There is none. Terminator and it’s sequel kept you on the edge of your seat. They were incredibly tense films with a real sense that if the heroes fail, we’re all doomed. While they’re films that deal with a small story (despite the huge ramifications if things go wrong) they never let you feel like things were easy. The huge problem with Salvation is, you just find yourself thinking ‘so what?’ You’re left feeling that if things go wrong, it’s not the end of the world. And this isn’t just a problem with McG’s direction. It’s also down to the fact that in a world that’s close to being overrun by Skynet, there is very little Skynet presence. The T-600s (the precursors to the iconic T-800s) seem to wander about in single figures, making them very easy to deal with. You get the sense that Skynet really isn’t trying to wipe the humans out. Once Skynet reveals it’s evil plan, it becomes very clear that the AI really isn’t very smart. And where they had countless opportunities to win the war, they just didn’t bother because it that way wouldn’t be elaborate enough. Skynet is like a clichéd Bond villain that won’t just shoot Bond in the head. It insists on a long, drawn-out, elaborate execution plan that does little but provide the heroes with an easy way to escape. It’s bad, lazy, and sloppy writing.


Speaking of bad and sloppy, the editing in the film is terrible. Editing itself is an art form. The audience has watched countless films. It has developed a keen sense of timing. And therefore, bad editing, bad camera-work, bad direction stand out. Even if some members of the audience cannot explain why. It’s just something we’ve become accustomed to. And Terminator Salvation is full of these problems. Scenes are jarringly cut, you feel like sections have been left on the editing room floor, screwing with the logical progression of an idea or sequence and some scenes even feel like they’re thrown in for no reason while some ideas aren’t developed enough. I know there were script problems with the film (a problem that doesn’t seem to have been resolved). And the film definitely feels like it has been cut to make it a PG-13 film. But to castrate a film just for the sake of money is a really sad reflection of the state of the industry. I’m not saying the film would have been better had there been more “fucks”, a tit or two and some splatter effects. But if you are going to cut parts of the film out, it would help things greatly if scenes were tidied up a lot more.

Another glaringly obvious indication that the script and direction are all over the place is Christian Bale’s performance. In one spectacularly badly edited sequence, Connor is imploring the resistance around the world not to attack Skynet until he gives the order. He spreads his message over the radio. At one moment, he speaks with gravitas, utilising the Dark Knight growl. In the next cut, Connor seems to be panic-stricken almost screaming his words through the radio. It’s a small example of the sloppy nature of the entire film. I like Bale. I think he’s a great actor. But he has very little to do in the film other than being pissed off with the whole situation. It’s a very one-dimensional performance and is eclipsed by a far better Sam Worthington.



There are a whole laundry list of problems with Terminator Salvation. At times you feel like McG just made a list of really cool shots and moments from films such as Blade Runner, Lord of the Rings, Black Hawk Down, Apocalypse Now, the previous Terminator films, Minority Report, The Matrix, and a whole load of other films, wrote a Terminator story to tie them all together and then shot a film. It’s a really derivative and poorly-executed film. Like I said, there are some cool moments. And the first 50 minutes work pretty well. But they worked pretty well in other films before this one.
Terrible direction and sloppy editing (surprisingly, from the editor of Terminator 2) and a distinct lack of urgency let Terminator Salvation badly down. It’s more of a Terminator film than Rise of the Machines, that’s for sure. But it is leagues away from James Cameron’s films.


4/10

ANGELS & DEMONS (2009) - Ron Howard

The Da Vinci Code was a massive global success. It was one of those books that comes along every so often and you couldn’t help but see people everywhere reading it. I read it myself, eager to see what the big deal was. It was entertaining enough, but ultimately throw-away pulp trash. The film version of the book, released in 2006 was set to be huge. But it was pretty much a mess of a film and while doing good box-office, was pretty much a critical flop. Angels & Demons, the prequel (although filmed as a sequel) is released this year, reteaming director Ron Howard with Tom Hanks as Indiana Jones with no balls, Robert Langdon. The book is seen by many as far better than The Da Vinci Code. Does the film follow suit?

No. It does not. It’s a fucking mess. It is a film so incredibly stupid and ridiculous that I actually felt like somewhere, Ron Howard was laughing at me for being duped into seeing it. In fact, he’s probably laughing at the world. As is Brian Grazer, his producer. Because they are making a shed load of cash from one of the dumbest, idiotic and insulting films I’ve ever seen. It takes place just after the death of the Pope, and while the new Pope is being decided by a bunch of cardinals during what is known within the church as Pope-Idol. Just before Pope-Idol, a particle of anti-matter is knicked from the Large Hadron Collider (I shit you not). This plot point, not in the book, is a blatant attempt to make things up-to-date. The Higgs boson particle has the ability to reduce Vatican City to a smouldering hole. The Illuminati, long thought to have been wiped out by the Church have kidnapped the four Pope-Idol finalists and are holding all and sundry to ransom. Only Robert Langdon, a personality vacuum in human form can stop the Illuminati and help the new Pope take his place as King of the Catholics.



To start off, the plot of the film ranges from snore-inducingly boring to laugh-out-loud hilarious. One of the major complaints that emerged after The Da Vinci Code was released was that everyone stood around explaining things to each other. It proved to be surprisingly boring. Ron Howard took these issues on board, and fair dues, he did ramp things up for this film. Instead of standing around explaining things, now everybody runs around explaining things. Oh yes, by making people both move and talk, the action has been ramped up a billion percent.

However, the first half of the film remains overwhelmingly dull. Robert Langdon, a man of non-action wanders from church to church staring at statues that, and I am not exaggerating here, point in the direction of the next clue. He is literally following a series of really nicely sculpted signposts. The dialogue ranges from boring exposition to dull history lessons, to incredibly clunky lines like ‘GET ME A MAP WITH ALL ROME’S CHURCHES ON IT!’ Tom Hanks, whom I like as an actor is essentially just a face to pull in the crowds. His Langdon is nothing more than a book with a stupid hair-cut. He has all the personality of a damp sock and the daring of a petrified field mouse. In one spectacularly action-free moment, Langdon watches while the main villain kills two policemen. Instead of doing something to save the second policeman, he stands and watches as the killer stalks the cop and very slowly kills him. I was half expecting Hanks to pull up a chair, grab some pasta and enjoy the proceedings.



Joining Langdon on his quest to kill suspense is Vittoria Vetra a sexy and unbelievable scientist who wants her particle back. She is absolutely inconsequential to the plot aside from the fact that her character is also incompetent. She needs to get the particle chamber back before the battery powering it fails, resulting in a matter-anti-matter explosion that will kill millions. Had she brought a spare battery, things would have been a lot easier on all.

But by far the highlight of the film is Ewan McGreggor as Oirish priest, Camerlengo Patrick McKenna. McGreggor provides the comic relief of the film as he stumbles over the script with an accent which is ludicrously bad. From what I’ve seen of McGreggor on The Long Way Round, he seems like a genuinely likeable and nice guy. He does good work for charity. But by Christ, the guy is a shockingly awful actor. Aside from a pretty decent performance in Trainspotting, where he was none-the-less overshadowed by a far stronger supporting cast, he really hasn’t delivered one outstanding role. And Angels & Demons ranks up there with his worst.

As with all action films, the second half of Angels & Demons is where things kick into overdrive. And it’s at this point where logic, believability and reality are ritually burned at the stake. At this point, proceedings become so incredibly stupid that I thought I’d passed out from boredom, hit my head and was seeing things that weren’t there. I’m strongly tempted to spoil the high-point of this carnival of the absurd, but I really wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise. I am just sorry I can’t be there with you to hear the guffaws of laughter that will inevitably ensue. It was with no amount of surprise, that during the credits, I saw David Koepp’s name. From the guy who brought you Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. You should begin to know what to expect. And, like that film, the main character stands aside and watches everyone else do the work. It would be no surprise if it emerged that Koepp did little writing but took credit for a team of other writers’ work.



Angels & Demons is insultingly bad. Twists and turns are performed with all the ineptitude of a bad slight-of-hand artist. It attempts to distract you with one thing while setting up a twist. But if you take a second to actually think about things, you know exactly where proceedings are going. Apart from that bit I mentioned above. Nobody could see that coming. Set-ups are blatantly sign-posted and pay-offs are subsequently dull and predictable. Characters gleefully (if not literally) announce ‘listen, I have this ability. If it comes in handy at some point, you know where I am’ making plot points as subtle as a Fox News Anchor. It’s really lowest, lowest-common denominator stuff.

Many claim Angels & Demons is a better story and film than The Da Vinci Code. I disagree. While The Da Vinci Code was dull, silly and stupid, at least it wasn’t mind-bogglingly stupid. After watching Angels & Demons, you feel like someone has beaten you with a hammer of idiocy. It’s going to be hard to top this for the worst film of 2009. And it’s still only May.


1/10

STAR TREK (2009) - J.J. Abrams

For as long back as I can remember, Star Trek has been around in my life. I remember the first time seeing The Next Generation way when I was about nine years old, and since then, in some way shape or form, Trek has been around. So when the series seemed to die off a few years ago, it seemed like something was missing. Despite the decline in quality since the end of Deep Space Nine, the affection for Kirk, Spock, Picard and all the rest still remained. So it was with a sense of trepidation I sat down to watch J.J. Abrams’ reimagining of the origins of the most famous of the varied Trek casts, with Star Trek, the eleventh movie in the series.

Star Trek opens with the birth of James T. Kirk, a birth literally under fire. Kirk’s parents are crew members of the USS Kelvin which has come under attack from a gigantic Romulan vessel that has emerged from a special anomaly. Kirk’s father is killed and we jump a few years ahead. The young James Kirk is a man seemingly without a purpose. He’s a smart and capable young man, but lacks direction. After a bar room brawl, Kirk is approached by Captain Christopher Pike, a man who served with his father. He challenges Kirk to do better than his father. Something Kirk initially rejects, but then signs up with Star Fleet. Meanwhile, on Vulcan, a young Spock has gained entry to the Vulcan Academy. He has achieved this, despite what his elders view as his deficiency. Spock is half-Vulcan, half-Human. Rejecting his elders, Spock also joins Star Fleet. Three years later, the cadets are due to graduate. However, Vulcan is attacked by the same Romulan ship that destroyed the Kelvin. Kirk, Spock, and eventually all the familiar faces board the Enterprise to rescue Vulcan.



First off, a trend is broken. Star Trek, which is the eleventh in the series falls into the category of the odd Star Trek film. Throughout the series, the odd-numbered films have been the poorer of the series, but despite this trend, Star Trek manages to break free and become one of the best of all the Star Trek films. It seems unfair to put it up against the others, however. Firstly, the film features only one member of the original cast, or even the Next Generation cast. Leonard Nimoy makes an appearance as older Spock. But that’s all that will be mentioned about that. Also, the film sets in motion an alternate universe featuring familiar names, albeit with different faces. So to put this film alongside the others seems redundant.

J.J. Abrams has yet again struck gold with this film. It is by far one of the most purely entertaining films of this year. From the opening battle to the closing credits, there is barely a moment wasted. Abrams fills every frame with a high attention to detail and plot point after plot point. The film is packed full of sly references to the original series, but while these moments are put there for the legions of fans, the film is still totally accessible to the newcomer. It’s a delicate balance that Abrams has managed to pull off magnificently. The only real complaint I have with his production is his choice of composer. Michael Giacchino creates the music for the film, having worked on Abrams’ highly successful television series, Lost. There are moments when the music seem to have been lifted straight out of the show and dropped into the film. For someone who has watched both Lost and Star Trek, it takes you out of the film for a moment. However, this is a minor complaint is an otherwise excellent film.



The most decisive element to the film, which would either alienate or draw in audiences, was the choice in casting. And once again, Abrams has nailed it. Chris Pine takes over the iconic role of James Tiberius Kirk from William Shatner, who has defined his career as the Captain of the Enterprise. It’s a tough and unenviable job for Pine to do, but he really is excellent as Kirk. He nails every nuance of the character, and is extremely watchable. The other iconic role is that of Spock. And in Zachary Quinto, Abrams has found an actor eerily similar to Leonard Nimoy’s early performance. These two characters are the most essential to get right, as they are the foundation of the series. And both Pine and Quinto are perfectly cast in their roles. Eric Bana plays the villain, Nero. Along with Bruce Greenwood, who plays Christopher Pike, Bana is one of the most experienced actors in the cast. But neither of these actors ever overshadow the younger cast. They do enough for the other cast members to showcase their talents and provide ample support. To go through each cast member would take forever, so I’ll just say that they’re all excellent in their roles. Each of them takes enough of the characteristics from the original characters so that we know for sure who they are. But they never descend into charicature.



The only other complaint I would have with the film is that it doesn’t seem ‘big’ enough. What I mean is, I kind of expected a more epic threat to the Federation than one man, his ship and his cronies. When it comes down to it, it was a film about two ships going head to head, rather than a large-scale encounter between two forces. Although, it does make sense to keep things small. Like a great many prequels, this is an introduction film, and as such must concentrate on characters over plot. But this is not to say the set pieces aren’t entertaining. The special effects are top-notch, the action sequences are exciting and the pace is relentless. After seeing a dreadful prequel in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, it’s good to see that when a bit of care and attention is put into a film, the results are fantastic. It’s a damn shame George Lucas couldn’t have let someone like Abrams take the reins on The Phantom Menace. Star Trek shows how it should be done. The saga is in good hands.


9/10

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE (2009) - Gavin Hood

Another month, another superhero movie. It’s getting a little tedious at this stage. The big names, Batman, Superman, Spiderman, X-Men have all been done. And yet, in an attempt to squeeze another few pennies out of a dying genre, the big studious continue to wheel out these movies. Sure, some are entertaining. Some are even genre-defying. And then, you have films like X-Men Origins: Wolverine. An attempt to set up a franchise spin-off from another franchise. Seriously, Fox should just rename these films Cash Cow: Wolverine. Gavin Hood attempts to give us the mysterious back-story to X-Men’s most iconic character, Wolverine.

We all know Wolverine. The nigh-invulnerable, adamantium-boned, claw-slasher. As the anti-hero of the X-Men, he is inevitably the most popular character. But his past is shrouded in mystery. He’s a product of the Weapon X program. Where he’s come from is unknown. But in this film, which is essentially a 2-hour flashback, the missing pieces are put into place. We see kiddie Wolverine, born sometime in the mid-nineteenth century. After a disaster involving his father, Wolverine and his half-brother, Victor, also known as Sabretooth wander the earth, getting involved in the American Civil War, both World Wars, Vietnam until their both recruited into a special ops program run by William Stryker. After a crisis of consciousness, Wolverine leaves the program to lead a quiet life with his girlfriend. But things don’t quite work out when Sabretooth returns to kill Wolverine’s gal and draw him out of hiding. Wolverine agrees to take part in Stryker’s Weapon X program in return for a chance at revenge.



I liked X-Men. I liked X-Men 2. The third film was a dreadful piece of shit, thanks to Fox’s interference in production and a hack director in Brett Ratner. So hopes were high that this film would restore some of the magic that made the first two X-Men films very enjoyable. Oh, how misplaced our hopes were. To put it simply, X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a complete disaster of a film. At every level of the production, the film is a failure. The script is a complete and utter mess. Characters are never fully realised or fleshed out. For a film that explores what makes established characters act and think the way they do, there is very little character development. From the moment the opening titles began, I knew the film was in trouble. But the script is not the only problem.

The production itself is quite shockingly poor. The CGI, which is an essential part of these big-budget special effects fests, is jaw-droppingly bad. At moments, I found myself really asking if what I was watching was a complete film or had the cinema I was in been slipped a copy of the workprint that was leaked to the world. I am not kidding when I say that the CGI in this film is some of the worst I’ve ever seen. At one point, Wolverine is examining his newly adamantium-clad claws in a bathroom. The effects are so bad that the claws look like cartoons. In other moments, they float over Wolverine’s hands where they’re supposed to be protruding from his hand. It’s incredibly sloppy.

The direction is piss-poor. Gavin Hood may have some small amount talent for doing drama, as seen in Rendition. However, if X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a showcase of his abilities for doing big budget, high concept actioners, he shouldn’t be allowed behind the camera again. Scenes are badly composed, action sequences are horribly shot, and the editing is all over the place. At one point, Wolverine knocks Gabit out with a punch. Literally seconds later, Gambit is sprinting across a roof and leaps off, only to land back where he’d just been punched, without any explanation as to how or why he got back onto the roof in the first place. That’s just one is a long laundry-list of badly executed scenes.



The acting in the film isn’t the worst part of the production. Hugh Jackman is pretty comfortable in the Wolverine role, and when he has things to do, he does them well. Otherwise, he wanders about looking dour and waiting for things to explode behind him. It’s unfortunate for Jackman that he’s left with a god-awful script to work with. Liev Schreiber, also a good actor, is given very little to do as Sabretooth. Turn up, growl and leap about. Not exactly a challenging role. Everyone else is barely worth mentioning. Except for Will I Am. Note to future filmmakers- rappers do not make good actors.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is terrible. It is a terrible, awful, disaster of a film. The number of awful superhero movies vastly outnumbers the good. Maybe it’s time to cease the genre and allow maybe one or two superhero movies come along every few years. Maybe when the scripts are polished, the productions are planned properly and the studios allow creatives to control the making of the film. X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a prime example of a badly executed attempt to cash in on a popular property. It’s just a shame further films from this dying franchise are already in production.


3/10