REVIEW: The Grey

I like it when a film surprises me. I'll admit, I didn't know a lot about The Grey before I went in, except that I thought it was a survival film about some characters who manage to live through a plane crash.

While I was partially right (the film was a survival film), what I wasn't expecting was a film that also mixed in some good old-fashioned horror (the slasher film, no less!) with a hint of drama.

The Grey is a film about Ottway (Liam Neeson) who boards a flight home from his job in Alaska (he hunts wolves to make sure they don't kill his co-workers) desperate to get home to his wife. The plane crash lands in the middle of the icy landscape and Ottway, with a handful of survivors, are left to face the elements... and a pack of blood thirsty wolves who are out to defend their den.

For a survival film, the characters are key. As the audience, we need to care about them and will them on to actually survive their ordeal and get back to their homes. While The Grey suffers a little bit from too many characters, the key character that we are supposed to care about (Ottway) is left as mysterious and brooding. However, this kind of works. We are given glimpses of his wife and also his childhood (in a rather awkward flashback scene) that provides the crux of the film's message - that it's all down to our own choices as to whether we live or die on this day. The backstory of his wife is minimal but does help to provide some emotional backbone to our protagonist. I couldn't help but feel that a little bit more about his wife was needed to truly make it effective though.

Another character that the film builds up brilliantly is the setting, Alaska. It's unrelenting in it's power, strength and hostility. The constant howl of the wind provides not only an obstacle for the characters, but for the audience as well - you just wish it would shut up!! The rocky landscapes, blinding blizzards and unwelcoming environment all help create the constant secondary villain, behind the wolves, for our characters to face.

However, as I said before, the film majorly surprised me with it's use of the typical slasher film plot when the wolves were introduced as the main threat and tension in the film. While it was a refreshing take on the survival genre, (imagine the wolves were replaced with a pack of inbred "hicks", and you have films like Wrong Turn and The Hills Have Eyes all over again) it sometimes uses it's cliches a bit too much. Like when one of the characters on night watch decides to go off into the dark night to take a wee instead of watching over the group, we know he is going to die. Or, when the character who is scared of heights must face his fear and traverse across a gorge to the other side, we know he is going to die (a scene that was surprisingly reminiscent of the beginning of Cliffhanger!)

Also, like many slasher films before it, some of the comedy relief in The Grey is a little mistimed. The hacking off of a wolves' head and tossing it back as to goad on the rest of the wolf pack is a little overly long and silly. Some of the characters' chat over the nightly campfires are a welcome respite from the action, but also sometimes a little overly long.

Having said all of that, these are aren't issues that will spoil enjoyment too much, as The Grey is actually a pretty solid film. Even though some of the characters are a little "thin", the fact that we are shoved into the environment with them means that we want them to survive. The wolves are built up as a formidable force to be reckoned with (and the CGI/effects work on them is actually quite impressive - in your face crappy CGI wolves from The Day After Tomorrow!!)

So overall, I do recommend going to see The Grey. Just be prepared for a few jump scares peppered around here and there (because I wasn't!)

**** / *****

REVIEW: The Descendants

I have mentioned quite a bit about the importance about who is in the audience when you watch a film and how they can either make it or break it. I also pointed towards the "unwritten rules" of the cinema that we should all follow (it's just common sense really, not an actual list of rules.)

Today, when watching The Descendants, I encountered someone breaking the unwritten rule #313 (and recently added due to modern technology) - do not go on your freakin' iPAD during a film in the cinema.

I mean if a small lit up phone screen wasn't distracting enough for everyone around you, imagine how distracting a bloody iPad screen is...

Apart from that complete lack of sense and complete stupidity from one man in the audience, I actually kind of enjoyed The Descendants (but not in such a way that I would rush out and see it again or buy the DVD.)

It's another kind of slow burner - a Father, Matt King (George Clooney) is looking after his wife while she is in a coma after being in an unfortunate boating accident. While he is doing this, he must reconnect with his two daughters, Scottie King (Amara Miller) and Alexandra King (Shailene Woodley) before being dropped the bombshell that his wife will never wake up from her coma. What follows is a moving portrayal of how a Father comes to terms with the loss of his wife, telling his children the news, finding out about his wife's shady past and also dealing with a big landowner deal that could make or break his family's finances.

To be honest, the landowner deal is kind of put to the back burner, as this film largely deals with the family conflicts and fallouts between Matt King and his two daughters, while their Mother and Wife deteriorates on the hospital bed in front of them.

My couple of criticisms of the film are that it is actually a bit slow. As I've said before, I'm a bit of a fan of slow-burning films, but this one could have easily had about 20 minutes to half an hour cut out and still be a pretty decent film.

Secondly, the film suffers from a couple of awkward acting moments, where the actors look a bit unsure of how to use the material that they had been given. While the film is largely very good at balancing the heavy emotional stuff with moments of comic relief, there are some moments where you are unsure whether to laugh or cry at how pathetically hopeless the situation is that the characters are facing. Like the moment when King starts shouting at his wife (who is in a coma) and starts demanding a response from her - I get that it was showing how desperate he is to find out the reasons for her shady past, but the editing choices to cut back to her face (looking like death) provided moments of comedy in a scene that should have been played purely for emotion.

However, the film overcomes these slight issues and draws in it's audience through tugging on their heart strings. When the youngest daughter, Scottie finds out the truth about how her Mother is actually dying, it's played through a silent montage of the Doctor telling her (rather than her Father telling her) with some beautiful Hawaiian music playing in the background. She tears up, the audience tears up... the film has done it's job that it set out to do.

Also, the backdrop setting of Hawaii was perfect for a film that dealt with such a heavy subject matter of death and saying "Goodbye" to someone that we love. It goes to show that outward appearances are not everything and that darkness can be just around the corner wherever we live, even if we do live in "paradise".

As Clooney says in the opening narrative, "Just because we live in Hawaii, people think we live in paradise... Paradise can go f*ck itself."

*** / *****

DVD REVIEW: Drive

Before I properly start this review, I have a little bit of a confession.

I'm really bad for watching DVDs properly. Terrible in fact. I'm really useless because I usually like watching a DVD in parts; pausing it for when I have suddenly thought of something else I need to do, pausing it because I have to go somewhere else or simply pausing it so I can come back to it later. It's almost like I want to watch the film like a TV show in small chunks rather than as a whole.

However, I didn't do that with Drive. It literally grabbed me from the beginning and I didn't stop it until the credits finished rolling.

I do need to say though that I can really see Drive as a love it or hate it kind of film. It's definitely more niche than a lot of films and requires a lot of patience from it's audience. Going by the title and poster alone, you would be forgiven if you were expecting to see an all-action, fast paced action/thriller with some rather extensive car chases. Drive just isn't really that.

Think more like Deathproof and you are halfway there. While Deathproof relied on intriguing characters and witty dialogue to keep the audiences' interest, Drive prefers to weave a drama storyline that focuses on the troubled neighbours of the main character (played by Ryan Gosling), mixed with some low-key american gangster style heist films and finally peppered with a couple of brilliant car chases.

While the film does a bit of a 180 in the middle and suddenly decides to up the gore ante by about 100 times more than the first half of the film, I think it works really well. Gosling's character is introduced to us as a bit of a loner who keeps to himself. We don't know much about him and we are never told much by the end of the film either. We know that he is a Hollywood stunt driver during the day and a heist driver by night, but that's about it - we don't know any of his past at all. And it works, it really does. The long brooding looks to other characters just serves to remind us that we are still working out who this guy is along with everyone else.

Now, I mentioned the gore because it's almost like it's a character trait of Gosling. He can fight... he can definitely fight and it gets rather messy in the process. It's almost like a shock to us as the audience as it comes out of nowhere and just further proves to us that we don't actually know our protagonist very well.

The soundtrack was also mesmerising. It literally had me transfixed at some points and the choice of song played over the revenge at the end was almost perfect.

The only criticism that I can really say is that the film was kind of predictable. There was one shock half way through the film that I didn't see coming and was the plot point that actually kick started the film into becoming a revenge flick. However, everything else after that was a bit paint-by-numbers. We know who the bad guys are and it almost becomes routine when each one of them are sent off to try and get the money back from Gosling but they are then soon dispatched of quickly.

This really is just a minor quibble though, because like I said, the film is just so mesmerising and beautifully shot that I can almost forgive the slightly predictable plot. After all, don't we watch and choose films because we want to watch something we are familiar with?

Otherwise, why would the local Blockbuster be split into genre sections?!

**** 1/2 / *****

REVIEW: The Sitter

If you listen to a lot of "old school" film critics, then you will quickly get the picture that they think going to the cinema started to die with the birth of the multiplex.

It seems that the moment we started to get more choice (higher number of films and a larger number of screens to watch them on) going to the cinema has started to become more like flicking on the TV at home.

The reason I am bringing this up is because I want to talk cinema etiquette for a moment. They are kind of unwritten rules that everyone should understand, but what a lot of people are choosing to ignore at the moment. Some of these rules include; don't go on your mobile phone once the lights have dimmed and the film has started, resort to whispering once the film has started (only if absolutely necessary) and don't shout out remarks/opinions during a film, because no one cares.

When I went to see The Sitter, the person who sat in front of me decided to break unwritten rule #217; when you are forced to take a seat in front of someone in a crowded cinema, you have to slouch down so they can see.

Instead, the person who sat in front of me decided to sit bolt upright. I was literally sitting there like a meercat for half of the film trying to catch at least half of the screen in front of me.

This is just another prime example of who you watch a film with (both with your friends and the absolute strangers who you share the cinema with) can have a massive impact on what you think of a film. I mentioned before that with Horrors I prefer to watch them on my own however, in the case of a comedy I much prefer to watch them with a group of people I know.

The Sitter revolves around a slacker, Noah (Jonah Hill) who decides to babysit his neighbours three children so his Mother can go out to a party and meet a new man after divorcing Noah's Father. What follows is a collection of cliches and situations that have very little plot stringing them together as Noah tries to repay a drug dealer for the cocaine he lost while trying to score drugs for his "girlfriend" (a girl who he gives sexual favours to... not really his girlfriend).

While I say it's a collection of cliches, it doesn't really harm the film as going by the poster alone (which features a rather firm looking pole dancers rear end) I hope you won't be going to this film to see a deep dramatic storyline.

While Hill does a fairly good job of stringing the film along with his loveable, good-natured but dim-witted character, the film does fall a bit flat in the middle. It just doesn't seem to go anywhere for ages and the threat from the drug dealer is never properly established.

Think of The Hangover - the characters in that film are constantly being checked up by the fiancee in order to find the missing Groom-to-be and the antics that they got up to the previous night catch up with them all the time to create some really funny conflict in the storyline.

The Sitter just never really uses the conflict that it created properly. For example, there is a scene right near the beginning where Hill is confronted by a child's clothes shop employee and asks why he is waiting for someone in the child's underwear section. While risqué, the running joke of Hill being an untrustworthy creepy man in a car full of children could have been quite funny.

However, The Sitter does provide enough laughs in order to keep you entertained and can easily help you waste a lazy afternoon. I don't know if it's too early to say, but definitely keep an eye out for the young Landry Bender (who plays the daughter, Blithe) who provides a brilliant and biting look at the youth of today's obsession with celebrity culture.

*** / *****

DVD REVIEW: The Woman

To truly enjoy a film, you must completely immerse yourself into the world and the story that you are being told through the screen. Of course, a film needs to be captivating enough for this to happen but I suppose it's all too easy to blame a film for "not being good enough" on our inability to believe or accept what we are being shown on screen.

Having said all of that, one of my biggest pet peeves when watching horror films with other people is when they decide to laugh... at parts that are not funny.

To me, laughter during horror films is a bit of a weak defence mechanism. As though horror films are designed to scare us, I don't appreciate when someone decides to laugh to show us how totally not scared they are (and then invariably comment after the laugh with something like, "What the hell was that?!" or "That was stupid!")

This is exactly the reason why I decide to watch most horror films on my own and why I'm glad that I saw The Woman with no one else around.

This is because, the premise of the film is a little... different and requires it's audience to be accepting of what is happening on-screen without thinking "what if..." too much.

Now, this sounds like I am making excuses for a film with a really weak plot, but actually I found The Woman to be told in such a captivating way that I found it easy to be taken in so much by the film.

The film revolves around one of the last surviving members of a wild and violent clan that has been completely void of any sense of civilisation. She is feral and aggressive and is simply known as, 'The Woman' (played by Pollyanna McIntosh). She is captured by a country lawyer and father, Chris Cleek (played by Sean Bridgers) who ties her up in his cellar and attempts to civilise her into modern society with the help of his family. What follows is a slow descent into madness as Chris and his son, Brian Cleek (Zach Rand) start to become obsessive over The Woman locked in their cellar while the rest of their family look on anxiously.

Of course, it comes by no surprise and doesn't take a genius to guess that at the end of the film some sort of revenge takes place.

Like I said, even though the premise of the film can be seen as a little bit weird, the comparison of the wild and feral Woman to the kitsch and outwardly "perfect" family is spot on. The film does a good job at teasing us with feeling some sympathy towards The Woman (difficult, as though she is introduced to us as wild and untamed) by making us realise that looks are not everything and sometimes the real evil can be in the places that we least expect it.

Some of the problems that the film faces is a rather tacked on sub-plot involving the daughter and her teacher. The scenes with the teacher, Miss Hindle (played by Lauren Petre) and the daughter, Peggy Cleek (played by Lauren Ashley Carter) are some of the weakest in the film. The acting from the teacher was just odd and the daughter didn't really bring anything to the plot until the final act, where she played a pivotal role.

However, this is insignificant compared to the rest of the film where we are left with a disturbing but very different type of horror film. While not as gory or disgusting as most modern "torture porn" films (apart from maybe the final act of the film, which suddenly amps up the gore ten-fold), it is still a film definitely worth catching...

... That is of course, if you feel that you are able to watch it without laughing.

**** / *****

REVIEW: Haywire

I've only ever walked out of the cinema once. That was when I went to see the film 'Spy Game' starring Brad Pitt. I would have been 15 and I wanted to see an all-action, mindless film. What I remember seeing (before I walked out) was a drama interwoven between short scenes of action.

When I went to see Haywire today, I felt like I was 15 again. I cannot really describe how disappointed I am with this film.

I'll admit, I didn't follow the production of this film at all and the first time I heard about it was when I saw the trailers in the cinema a couple of weeks ago. What I saw lead me to believe that it would be the typical spy film, with a subplot of revenge, mixed with a thumping soundtrack and cool fight scenes.

But, what Haywire actually is, is a slow-burning, gritty and "realistic" drama interwoven with a couple of fight scenes.

My main issue is the fact that this film had a slow plot. I don't have an aversion to films that like to slowly build up their plot at all. In fact, a couple of my favourite films include House of the Devil and Deathproof (films that couldn't be compared to Haywire in anyway, except that they have a slow story.)

However, the way that Haywire differs for me is that it's a slow plot with slow scenes as well... Let me try to explain; Deathproof was slow because it didn't have many car chase scenes (considering it was a road movie) but it featured lots of scenes with the female characters having witty dialogue full of banter. House of the Devil was slow because it was primarily one location for the majority of the film and had one character house sitting by themselves, but it had the nostalgia of the late 70s/early 80s to keep you entertained. Haywire was slow because it had lengthy scenes of the main character, Mallory (Gina Carano) walking silently down a street, interspersed between gritty fight scenes and minimal dialogue.

The film was just too silent for my liking. I have a busy life and I'm generally pretty tired a lot of the time (like I think most people are), so I need a film to grab me in some way and Haywire just didn't do that.

This brings me to my next two points about the film. Firstly, the main character played by Gina Carano was just not good enough. She was surrounded by supporting talent such as Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor and Antonio Bandaras, which just helped to prove that she just cannot act at all. Now, this partly seems to be not her fault - apparently they altered her voice in Post-Production to make her sound deeper, which made her sound really odd. However, I just did not believe for one second in the film that she was a trained assassin capable of killing people, even during the fight scenes.

The second point I wanted to make was that the music for this film was terrible. I've read online that some people are comparing the soundtrack to that of a TV film and I kind of agree (although I thought it sounded more like it belonged to the video game L.A. Noire in some places.) The fact that the fight scenes were silent actually added to the grittiness and realism of them in my opinion, but the scenes of drama and dialogue were in some desperate need of an effective soundtrack to help carry any emotion (because Carano was certainly struggling on her own.)

OK, so I may have sounded a bit harsh in my review, but I just felt like I was seriously cheated by the advertising for this film. I think I missed the credit in the trailer saying it was a Steven Soderbergh film (I liked Contagian) and I think I would of had different expectations if I knew it was him directing.

So, my advice to you if you choose to go and see Haywire is this... Make sure you go in expecting gritty fight scenes (but only a couple of them), a minimal soundtrack, some dodgy acting from the lead actress and a slow-burning plot (not something you would normally expect from an action spy film.)

** / *****

It's The End Of The World As We Know It...

So, it's 2012. And apparently by the time December 21st rolls around, we will all be nothing but specks of dust as the world will come to an end.

Or... it's just how far the Mayan Calendar could be bothered to go, and by December 22nd we will all be fine.

Whatever the outcome will be at the end of this year, I thought it was a good opportunity to list and review some of my favourite disaster films ever (I am also a bit of a disaster movie fanatic!)

The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

Ahhh, probably my favourite film out of the lot. The only thing holding this back from being the top of a disaster film list is that the action is contained on the one ship... and so doesn't really affect a lot of people.

Still, the characters we are introduced to are brilliantly written and brought together so well - it's a proper rag-tag group of survivors as they try to make their way safely to the surface, which is now the bottom of the ship (as it was flipped over by a rogue wave).

If you want to see how a remake can suck the entire soul out of an original film and only be a hollow shell of what the original film was, check out the remake of this film, Poseidon (2006). In all honesty, the remake is terrible (with great special effects), but the original is a brilliant film (with slightly ropey special effects!)

2012 (2009)

Even though it's not really a great film in the slightest bit, I couldn't leave this film off a list dedicated to disaster films in the year 2012.

Released just under three years ago now (time flies!) Roland Emmerich made a film that was a first mainstream dabble into the idea that our world will end in 2012. And visually, this film is stunning. Honestly, I remember being open-mouthed when watching the special effect set pieces... It's just a shame that the 'story' (if you can call it that) woven in-between the special effects is pretty laughable.

I guess you could argue that you would never go to a film like this to focus on the drama and that you would want to see brilliant special effects, but the completely laughable dialogue ("It's Russian!") and insanely stupid plot points make certain points of this film unwatchable (the main characters survive twice, maybe three times, certain death the exact same way - a plane taking off from a crumbling runway and the said plane then outruns a pyroclastic cloud. Now, I'm not a scientist, but even I know that outrunning a pyroclastic cloud is impossible...)

Airport 1975 (1974)

Going back to the old school 1970s vibe again, I'm including the sequel to the original Airport (1970). The reason that I'm going straight for the sequel is that this one had a much more straight-forward 'plane-in-crisis' plot, whereas the original followed the daily drama in lots of characters lives. I preferred the straight-forward plot in the sequel - like I said before, disaster films are for the special effects and the disasters... save the drama for elsewhere! (Although, I will admit I still love the original Airport film).

If you've seen the spoof film of this, Airplane (1980), then you will pretty much know exactly how this film will go down. A small bi-plane hits the cockpit of a commercial aeroplane leaving the pilot injured and unable to fly the plane full of passengers (including a guitar playing nun and a young girl on the way to get a heart transplant!) The only person left to save them? The air stewardess!

Like The Poseidon Adventure this film suffers slightly from being a true disaster film in the sense that all the action is limited to one small location (a commercial aeroplane), but it still manages to hook you in with the various challenges faced.

And at the end of the film? The passengers get to use those cool blow up escape slides and the air stewardess gets to leave the aeroplane with her head held high and her hair still hairsprayed into place. God bless those industrial strength 70s hairsprays...

The Towering Inferno (1974)

Another 70s disaster film again, and this time it's the world's tallest building that's on fire! With an all-star cart including Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Faye Dunaway and Fred Astaire, this film boasts a star in almost every single frame!

The film is set up nicely - it's the opening night of the world's newest and tallest building - and the disaster is introduced when we see that the control centre is experiencing some... short circuit problems. As the fire slowly creeps around the building, tension also builds as we see our all-star cast slowly get themselves into a pickle!

This film follows the conventional 70s disaster film plot, in that it's confined to the one man-made location that is just waiting for human error and nature to make it go wrong... but again, it works!

The special effects are a bit ropey again by today's standards, but that just seems to add to the film's charm.

Armageddon / Deep Impact (1998)

I have linked these films together, because they are pretty similar (plot wise) and being released mere months apart, comparisons are inevitable.

I remember the big box office smash of these two films - I don't think I saw either of them at the cinema - but I remember catching them on video and loving them (but loving Deep Impact that little bit more).

I remember running to my Dad after seeing Deep Impact and raving about when the first asteroid hit earth and then when the tidal wave destroyed cities and buildings. I think it was then that my love of the disaster film was truly born. It's always been said that a good story in a film is all about conflict and there was just something so scary and thrilling about the conflict being

between man and nature - could we really survive an asteroid hitting earth?!

Whilst Armageddon boasted Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler (that scene where she has to say goodbye to her Dad still makes me weep), Deep Impact just seemed to deliver more on the end of the world destruction - even though I'm pretty sure the only disaster special effects comes right towards the end of the film.

I guess the end of the film just stuck with me!

Dante's Peak (1997)

Ahhhh... James Bond, I mean, Pierce Brosnan in the height of his 007 career decides to do a disaster film based around volcanoes.

This film is pretty much a guilty pleasure. The sub-plot revolving around his (kind of) 'revenge' against volcanoes is pretty laughable (we are introduced to Brosnan's character at the beginning as his fiancé is killed by an erupting volcano). I suppose this film was taking notes from the film Twister, but I just remember it coming off as a little bit cheesy in this film!

However, the film does deliver on it's volcano destruction. The ticking clock of the erupting volcano set against an ignorant town that finds the volcano too beautiful to ever think it could erupt adds some nice tension to the film.

Also, I remember this film being my education into what pyroclastic clouds are (see 2012!) Who said films cannot be educational?!

The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

The last film on my list is another effort from Roland Emmerich (he loves destroying the world!) And following a similar narrative to his later film, 2012, this film looks at the end of the entire world through the next ice age (we've come a long way since the small time disasters of the 1970s!)

The thing I remember about this film was that it started my man crush on Jake Gyllenhaal. I liked him in Donnie Darko, but I didn't really like the film. I remember seeing the promos for this and seeing how infectiously into the role he was and the possibility of him playing something more mainstream and it instantly made me respect him as an actor.

Some of the stuff is a bit dodgy in this film (Computer Graphic wolves?!) but overall, it was a good predecessor film to Emmerich's massive 2012.

Again, I remember marvelling over the massive tidal wave and tornado scenes to the point where my fan-boy obsession with disaster films came flooding back to me! Of course, 2012 wiped the floor with this film later with it's own special effects, but this one has a better (but still cheesy) dramatic story to it.

So there you have it. A small insight into some of my favourite disaster films. So now all you need to do is curl up, grab a notebook and pen and make notes on how you plan to survive the end of the world this year!!

REVIEW: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

My 2012 in films has finally got better... slightly.

I'm a bit late with this one, but I have finally seen David Fincher's remake of the Swedish film (and novel), 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo'. It's edgy, it's hard-hitting but it also drags a little in places.

The plot basically revolves around Daniel Craig playing the character of Mikael Blomkvist, a disgraced writer who is hired by Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to investigate the murder of his niece (which links with the serial killings of several other women from the 1960s.) Rooney Mara plays Lisbeth Salander, an awkward character, who is described as "mentally unstable" by many of the other characters in the film, and together they must solve the mystery of the serial killings.

Now, I'm going to be honest and say that, as of yet, I still have not seen the original Swedish film...

I know, I know. How could I possibly judge a remake without seeing the original film first? Well, I'm going to give it my best shot.

The film feels like it's a bit confused at times. It starts off with a Bond-esque opening title sequence complete with a thumping soundtrack and girls looking sultry covered in a jet-black liquid. But, from watching the film that followed, I guess Daniel Craig is also trying to prove he is not just good at being James Bond, and this film could never be a direct comparison to the Bond franchise. The final third act is a little bit too much like 'Mission: Impossible', which is a complete 180 turn from the style of the rest of the film that has preceded it. But what follows that title sequence is a film that mostly plods along slowly revealing small details at a time through character's investigations.

I'm including this, because after seeing the film I really don't understand why they used that title sequence, because it's the thing that really sets the first impressions of the film with the audience and it's a completely wrong first impression.

Which brings me to my next point. The character of Lisbeth was introduced to us as being "different" and also someone who is not of a sound mind. Mikael was also introduced to us as being a disgraced writer who is currently in the process of being sued because of a story he had written. However, for the first half hour or so of the film, Lisbeth and Mikael were not even brought together. Mikael was at least driving the plot forward with his investigations into the serial killings, however I was unsure why I was being subjected to watching Lisbeth being raped by her twisted accountant every time she wanted money from what she had been left behind, as it seemed to bring nothing to the plot.

When the two were finally brought together, it finally seemed like the film was going somewhere, but before that it felt like the film was being dragged down by the introduction of Lisbeth.

Having said all of this, I am still a big fan of David Fincher. I loved his work with 'Seven', 'Zodiac' and even 'Alien 3', and 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' has not changed any of that. He does really well with bringing a bleak and harsh feel to the film, which matched the subject matter of the plot really well (murder and rape). The only criticism I can think of Fincher is that sometimes I think he can be a bit too preoccupied with his characters over the plot. While the plot for this film was interesting and kept me thinking all the way through, the characters overshadowed it a bit. Like I said before, the introduction to Lisbeth with her accountant before she had anything to do with the investigation was overly long and the serial killings themselves never felt properly developed or interesting enough for me to care for the women involved.

I know many films are criticised for having style over substance and having paper-thin characters that no one cares about (see my review of 'The Darkest Hour'!) But Fincher seems to have the exact opposite as his problem - he is brilliant at introducing and developing his characters, but he now needs to start letting the plot of his films shine through a bit more.

After all, isn't the whole point of us going to the cinema is so that we are told a story?

*** 1/2 / *****

REVIEW: The Darkest Hour

My start to 2012 has been a bit of a mixed bag. It started off quite well, but unfortunately for me, the films I see keep progressively getting worse and worse.

Let me start by saying this; I have no idea how 'The Darkest Hour' got it's way into theatres, I have no idea why 'The Darkest Hour' was in 3D and I have no idea how the script could be so full of stiff dialogue. Those are my main gripes with the film really.

Firstly, it was obvious from as soon as the film started that it felt like they were filming from a first draft working script rather than an actual polished up version. It was full of clangers such as, "A country cannot survive without religion or alcohol, so that's why I drink religiously!" and cliche Horror/Sci-Fi dialogue such as "If we go outside, we're dust!!" (That second line was delivered right after the main characters had just spent a lengthy montage running outside across Moscow unharmed, so the threat by that point didn't seem too great.) But, just imagine those nuggets of dialogue being delivered in the most wooden and uninspired way possible and you will be imagining 'The Darkest Hour'. I don't know if the actors gave up because they knew what they were in should have been a TV film (at best) or that was their actual best efforts?!

Also, there was absolutely no tension in the film whatsoever. The main characters are locked in a basement for the first four/five days with someone who has just stolen their investment idea that was going to make them millions. Yet, about 5 minutes later into the film, they seem to have forgiven him and want to work as a team. The group leave the safety of their basement without even so much as one argument about where it's safer to be - they all just accept they need to run outside with the invisible aliens. Story telling is all about conflict and when the film seems to be void of any conflict then it becomes very boring very quickly.

Which brings me to my next point; there is no way this film should have been in cinemas. It just didn't feel grand enough to be in cinemas and it felt like I was watching something that really should have been on TV. They had scenes that showed the aftermath of what could have been visually impressive 'set-pieces' (a plane crashed into a shopping centre, a warship that had destroyed a bridge etc) but we never actually see much of the devastation happening (we see some empty buildings collapse at the end, but it just doesn't seem to make up for it.) The rest of the film felt like they had filmed it in the back alleys of Moscow and disused buildings. It just didn't feel grand enough. (It actually made me angry that tripe like this can make it to cinemas while legitimate indie writers/actors/directors struggle to get their work seen.)

And finally, the 3D. There was absolutely no point to this film being in 3D. None at all. Why would you make a 3D 'visual spectacular' film about invisible aliens?! There was nothing to see, literally, so most of the time it felt like I was watching a 2D film with awkward glasses on. But when the aliens were actually revealed, there was still no point in the 3D. A couple of pieces flew at the screen when they exploded, but nothing was really worth it. And when the aliens were revealed, it felt like the graphics had been lifted straight out of a video game. Granted, I'll pay the film some respect, because the rest of the visual effects were pretty spot on (the people being changed into dust was pretty well done and the mining ores, as seen on the bottom half of the poster, were also visually sound) but when the aliens were revealed it was like they had suddenly ran out of budget.

So, what I'm trying to get at is please don't waste your hard earned cash on 'The Darkest Hour'. I'll admit, the poster looks pretty decent, but looks can be deceiving. I generally don't watch a Sci-Fi film like this to be wowed by Oscar winning performances (unless Ridley Scott is directing... c'mon 'Prometheus'!) But when you have a film that throws an inconceivable plot at you, such as a character turning up miles away in the middle of the city mere minutes after falling off a capsized boat (don't ask!) then you have to start asking yourself, did the creators of this film really think this film through at all?!

* / *****

REVIEW: Goon

Goon. By the title alone, you should know what you're getting yourself in for. A slapstick, stupid, brain-dead film (that's about Ice Hockey, if you managed to read a quick plot synopsis before you could pop to the cinema). A picture of the battered and bruised Seann William Scott on the poster should clue you in that violence is involved. And finally, the claim that it's the new comedy (from the co-writer of) 'Superbad' and 'Pineapple Express' should also give you a clue as to what the jokes are like.

However, strangely enough, 'Goon' doesn't really deliver on any of these... oh, except the violence, the violence is definitely there.

I was surprised to spend most of the time in the cinema watching a romantic comedy film woven in-between a story about a new and failing ice hockey player. Seann William Scott plays the character, Doug Glatt who is a dim-witted bouncer who is soon picked up by a failing ice-hockey team because he is good with his fists. Shortly after that, he is swept up in another failing team in order to bring some 'mojo' back to their play (aka. make sure that all the opponents are "dealt with" if they mess with any of Glatt's team). While the film sets up the failing team's lack of wins as the main problem, this is soon solved by the half way point, and what's left is a film that aimlessly tries to provide our main character Glatt with a new love interest (Alison Pill as 'Eva') and then have Glatt face off against his predecessor "goon", Ross Rhea (Liev Schreiber).

And that's exactly the film's problem. Once Glatt's team has finally won their first game, there is no real reason for the film to continue. Glatt gets his girl with no real main issues or problems to overcome and the face-off at the end between Glatt and Rhea is a bit of an anti-climax, mainly because Rhea is never really properly developed as a character. We know he is a "goon", like Glatt (someone hired for the hockey team, purely for the fact that they can fight, not play), but we don't know anything else about him.

It is there that lies another problem with the film. The characters are really quite flat. The film has been compared to 'Dodgeball', but the reason that 'Dodgeball' is a much better film is because it was more of an ensemble piece, whereas 'Goon' only really introduces us properly to Glatt and one other player of the team and the manager. However, we only really get to know Glatt properly, as the other characters were paper-thin.

The final issue I had with 'Goon' was that it was just not very funny. I wanted to go in and have a laugh every minute (like I did when I first watched 'Dodgeball'), but I don't know if it's because I've grown up a bit or that the film just wasn't that funny, but I didn't laugh much at all. I cringed quite a bit from all the gratuitous violence and the amount of swearing (call me a prude, but there was a lot of swearing) but I didn't really laugh all that much.

I wanted to like 'Goon' as much as I liked 'Dodgeball', I really did. But, unfortunately I didn't. What I ended up seeing was a little bit of a boring sports drama, with a few jokes and a love story tossed in half way through. Go and see 'Goon' if you like lots of violence, swearing and Ice Hockey, but if you don't, I'd give this one a miss.

** / *****

REVIEW: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Now, I have to be honest to begin with. My mind is a little fuzzy on the previous Mission Impossible films. It's been so long since I saw the first two, and the third one was good, but I just cannot seem to remember much about it. Is it the hectic lifestyle that I lead or my terrible memory? Probably a mixture of both...

So, I will be completely objective with this review as I have no previous (memorable) opinion on the Mission Impossible series. You may think that's a little silly, considering I just went to see the fourth film in a film series, but this film is starting to emulate the Bond series. What I mean by this is that each film is becoming it's own tied up mission with only a tiny narrative strand connecting it to the previous film (Ethan Hunt's (Cruise) wife, in the case of MI:Ghost Protocol).

The film started off really well. It hooked you in immediately by launching us in the middle of a mission and then breaking Ethan Hunt (Cruise) out of his predicament. It was a bit of a shift back towards the typical spy film fare to be honest, considering that the main thing I remember that made MI:III stand out was JJ Abrams distinct style of directing. With MI: Ghost Protocol, the directing is a pretty standard fare, and the story slips a little into cliche Bond situations in the middle of the film. For example, we are taken to the Burj Khalifa Hotel in Dubai, which provides us with a nice nod to the second film when Hunt starts climbing on the outside of the hotel (remember the cliff climbing from MI2?!) However, a window gets taken out in the hotel room, and then a girl on girl fight starts in the same hotel room a few minutes later. All the way through the fight scene I was thinking, "Someone's going to go through that window!"
And low and behold, they did. We didn't get a money shot of them falling from the world's tallest building (is it still classed as the world's tallest building? Either way, it's pretty huge), but we can hear them scream on the way down.

Now, like I said, the film suffers slightly in the second act and never really recovers from when it starts to use cheesy and convenient 'spy film moments' and even has Hunt say "Mission complete!" when he tries to push the big red button to save the day. Yes, the characters do call out how cheesy he was in saying that line in the next scene, but MI: Ghost Protocol seems to welcome the cheese moments this time.

Having said that, Simon Pegg was brilliant with his timely comic moments when the tension was lifted. I found him to be slightly overrated when he first came onto the scene (I think people were too quick to praise him before he truely found his feet) but here he shows just how to deliver comic moments without coming across too slapstick.

Overall, I would say MI: Ghost Protocol is starting to take the Mission Impossible series into the dangerous territory of becoming generic spy films, but it's still worth the watch. A much stronger narrative link between the films is needed if it were to try and be different to the rest, but if you want tense and thrilling action sequences (the climb on the outside of the Burj Khalifa really had my heart going!) then this is a film for you!

*** 1/2 / *****

A Year to Look Forward to...

With 2012 now having arrived, I thought it would be interesting to list the films that I am most looking forward to seeing (in the effort of looking back when I review them and see if I was right or wrong to be excited!)

The Amazing Spiderman

Trailer link here.

I was a fan of the original Sam Raimi/Toby Maguire trilogy, even if 'Spiderman 3' was a complete mess of a film. From the trailer, it looks like they are going back to the roots of Spiderman (again), so it will be interesting to see how the characters are played by new actors and actresses. I'm not too sure about the POV shot of Spiderman swinging through the city - while the reveal of his suit in the glass windows was kind of cool, it has a bit of a video game feel to it rather than a film (if you want to know why this is a bad idea, check out the film 'Doom').

Prometheus

Trailer link here.

If you haven't seen the trailer yet, what's wrong with you?! Check it out right now and then tell me you aren't excited to see Ridley Scott back into the genre he (kind of) defined with the original 'Alien' film.

You don't like Sci-Fi/Horror films? Then I don't like you... Just sayin'.

The Woman in Black

Trailer link here.

I've recently seen the stage play, and I can honestly say that I was quite scared. I explained it to my friend that I don't mind horror films in the cinema, because I know that I'm safe. The monster is stuck behind the cinema screen and it can't get me. I felt vulnerable in the theatre though. The ghost literally popped up everywhere, the characters were all over the theatre (regularly coming out into the audience) and it was so well told that I was completely captivated.

Hammer Films have a lot to live up to with the film. They recently did really well with 'Let Me In' (I actually liked it better than 'Let The Right One In') but then they completely lost it with 'The Resident'. The film needs to rely on suspense, atmosphere and a well told story and hopefully not fall into the trap of shock/jump scares (which is my only criticism of the stage play really).

Wrath of the Titans

Trailer link here.

I'm worried about ruining my credibility here, but I'm really hoping that I enjoy 'Wrath of the Titans'. This is surprising, since 'Clash of the Titans' was so bad... really bad in fact. The 3D was flat, the characters were so paper thin I didn't care or know who they were when someone died and the final battle was a bit of a mess with a lacklustre pay-off for the audience.

However, I'm a bit of a sucker for sword and sandal epic films (see '300' and 'Immortals'), so I'm really hoping that they tidy up the reputation of the first film with this one. It's not looking great at the moment, as the trailer follows the exact same pattern as the first film (which suggests that this film will be a bit of a copy) and the film is being directed by Jonathan Liebesman (see 'Battle: Los Angeles' and 'Darkness Falls' for previous filmmaking efforts), but I'm still holding out a glimmer of hope.

The Cabin in the Woods

Trailer link here.

This is supposed to be the horror film to end all other horror films. I'm a little bit sceptical - giving the film such a hype can only usually lead to a massive disappointment, but the trailer certainly looks interesting.

I'm not sure if I've been spoiled the ending already, but I read something online about the script's apparent ending and if it's the truth, then it will be a massive disappointment in my eyes (see the tiny * at the bottom if you want to know what I read).

However, the film seems to start off like any other horror film - teens on a camping holiday in the woods - but then it seems to take a slightly off kilter path when they get there!

Have a look at the trailer and see if you can guess what is going to happen?!

The Hunger Games

Trailer link here.

This looks like a semi-remake of 'Battle Royale' but for the Western audience. Seems quite interesting, but I haven't read the books that it's based on.

I'm only really including it here because I loved the 'Battle Royale' films, even the dodgy sequel!

The Avengers

Trailer link here.

Like I said with my review of 'Thor', I'm a sucker for superhero films. This has about 10 superheroes put into one film! It could be "epic" (as all the kids say), or it could be a right mess with about 10 superheroes that you just don't care for.

We shall see...

And films I'm not so looking forward to include...

American Reunion

American Pie... twelve years later? I remember seeing the original three films in cinemas when they came out, but I don't really have a desire to see any more now. Who is the actual audience for this film?!

The Dictator

'Borat' was kind of one time watch film - funny the first time, but not so much afterwards - and I didn't even bother with 'Brüno'. This film looks just as bad.

Titanic 3D

Does the ship still sink? In 3D?! Wow!

The Expendables 2

The first film was terrible and terribly boring. I feel it was a bit of an ego boost for ol' Sly Stallone to be acting in it and directing it! I can't see this film being much better.

* Apparently the teenagers are stalked by all kinds of horror monsters from previous horror films - swamp things, zombies, serial killers etc. before a 'hand of God' reaches up from the ground and pulls them all underneath. Sounds a bit... 'eh' to me!