Month: August 2014

Starring: Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler), Jessica Alba (Machete), Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Don Jon), Eva Green (Casino Royale), Rosario Dawson (Clerks II), Powers Boothe (The Avengers), Bruce Willis (Die Hard)

Directors: Robert Rodriguez (Desperado) & Frank Miller (The Spirit)

Writer: Frank Miller

Runtime: 1 hour 42 minutes

Release Date: 22 August (US), 25 August (UK)

Sin City was an aesthetic achievement back when it came out, being easily the most accurate page-to-screen adaptation of a comic book ever made whilst creating a distinctive and unforgettable atmosphere and style that many have tried to emulate. But that was nine years ago; tastes have changed, two cast members have died, and Frank Miller has only gotten more insane. Even after all that, Rodriguez and Miller have persevered and finally delivered A Dame to Kill For as promised. Better late than never I suppose, but was it all worth it in the end?

Like the first film, there are multiple stories here and I’m going to judge them all individually. “Just Another Saturday Night” is very inconsequential with little meaning or purpose, but it does quickly reel you back into Basin City and reintroduce Marv (Rourke) in a satisfying way. “The Long Bad Night” is probably the best story out of the bunch: a simple tale of pride and honour versus greed and power. It’s not the most original of tales but it mainly works thanks to the efforts of Gordon-Levitt and Boothe, though I did find its conclusion somewhat rushed and anti-climactic. The eponymous “A Dame to Kill For” takes up most of the running time, and by ‘take up’ I mean ‘engulf’. It’s a basic femme fatale story without much new to offer, and it could have easily been simplified to give more weight to the more needing stories. It’s not exactly a good sign when your main story is your weakest, but that is the case here. Finally, the movie comes to a close with “Nancy’s Last Dance”, which could have been the most interesting story if it had any meat to it. The story quickly resolves itself before it really has a chance to start, almost like the whole thing was an afterthought. As in the original, the dialogue is typical Frank Miller; very pulpy and stylised with lots of fragmented sentences and people comparing the city to things, which does add to the cool aura of the picture but does also lead to some odd line readings. The stories don’t flow as well as the first and the pacing lags behind too, making this 100 minute film feel at least twenty minutes longer if not more.

Rodriguez and Miller have assembled an all-star cast of familiar and new faces, as well some replacements, with mixed results. Mickey Rourke truly is Marv and is clearly having a ball here, relishing every little moment he gets and it’s his presence that keeps the movie alive during its duller moments. As said before, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s suave charm seems very fitting to the landscape of Basin City and he’s a fun addition to the cast. Josh Brolin, taking over for Clive Owen, does a decent job of acting but I never really felt he was ever the same person as Owen no matter how much they dress him up. Powers Boothe gets a lot more to do here than he did in the first, and his menacing performance is another highlight. Eva Green eats up the scenery as Ava Lord, going full-on in more ways than one in a performance that bares more than she did in 300: Rise of an Empire but not quite as entertaining. Jessica Alba gives one of the better performances of her career here but that’s not saying much, whilst Bruce Willis sleepwalks through his minor role. There are also plenty of cameos sprinkled throughout from some odd faces, but I’ll leave those to you.

As with the dialogue, the film has all the typical Miller aesthetics: dark empty streets, over the top violence and lots and lots of women dressed in questionable outfits. Love it or hate it (I can tolerate it in small doses), it’s what Sin City is and it delivers it. The problem is that we’ve all seen it before; the film does exactly what the first one did, taking away nothing but not adding anything either. Other than the minor improvements to green screen technology and the addition of 3-D (which admittedly does add to certain moments), it looks exactly like the first one. Same design, same camera and lighting tricks, same score. As I said before, we’ve moved on and what was impressive a decade ago is now somewhat passé, and so by sticking so close to the original aesthetic it actually diminishes the quality.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is like a magician who only does one magic trick; you’ll admit that it is an impressive trick, but once you’ve seen it there’s no reason to see it again. It often feels like the table scraps of the first film, which basically used up all the best material and that doesn’t leave much for this follow-up to work with. It certainly has its moments and die-hard fans of the first one will still get a kick out of it, but I think this is a major case of too little too late. Never say never, but I think this return to Basin City may also be our last.

FINAL VERDICT: 5/10

Starring: Scarlett Johansson (Under the Skin), Morgan Freeman (The Dark Knight), Choi Min-sik (Oldboy), Amr Waked (Contagion), Analeigh Tipton (Crazy, Stupid Love)

Writer/Director: Luc Besson (The Fifth Element)

Runtime: 1 hour 29 minutes

Release Date: 25 July (US), 22 August (UK)

Let’s just get this out of the way first: the whole “humans only use 10% of their brains” thing is utter bullshit; an urban myth. There is still plenty about the human brain we don’t yet understand, but that doesn’t mean that most of it is just sitting there doing nothing. That said, the concept has allowed for some interesting fiction jumping off that idea such as the criminally underrated Limitless. But where that film took a silly little idea and turned it into something cool, Lucy is under the impression that that silly little idea is something unparalleled and therefore gets lost in its own pretentious immaturity.

Lucy is most comparable to this year’s Transcendence, and not just because both movies have Morgan Freeman in them. They are similar because both of them are movies trying to be smarter than they are, and in the process only make themselves look that much more stupid. The plot is flimsy and ill conceived, dashing from plot point to plot point before reaching a baffling and laughably “deep” conclusion that, despite its ridiculousness, still manages to disappoint. Though the story moves briskly and with little downtime, it lacks any sense of tension. Once Lucy (Johansson) begins gaining her powers, any sense of danger or threat is immediately disintegrated because there’s nothing that can stop her. It’s like playing a video game with all the cheats on: it may be cathartic fun at first, but without any challenge the experience loses lustre. Perhaps if there was some threat that could match her ability, give her an adversary that actually tests her, maybe then there would have been something. But no, instead we just get Lucy defeating people without any resistance. If our main character is so blasé about what’s going on around her, why should we care?

Which brings us to another problem stemming from that lack of threat: because Lucy quickly becomes this ponderous shell with no emotion or feeling, it’s hard to connect with her. Before she becomes that, when there is still some threat to her life, Johansson does get to shine and perfectly sells this shallow but frightened young woman. There is also a great scene where she calls her parents soon after gaining her powers that is actually quite touching and makes we wish there were more moments like that. But after that, her humanity becomes ripped out and any sense of a person that was there is gone. Then again, it seems the filmmakers were aware of this, which is why we get the superfluous character of Del Rio (Waked), who in the second half of the movie is basically there to just gawp at Lucy as she does cool stuff and to give us something to vaguely connect to; this is blatantly made clear when he says “I don’t think I’m much help to you”, to which Lucy replies “You’re a reminder” [face palm]. Morgan Freeman here seems to serve the same role he did in Transcendence: saying a load of science-y bollocks to convince us that this is all plausible because, hey, if Morgan Freeman says it, it must be true. Choi Min-sik feels utterly wasted in this film as the generic psycho bad guy who, as said before, poses no threat whatsoever because we know Lucy could evaporate him at any moment. In fact, she gets several chances to do so in the movie and she never does. Wouldn’t someone so disconnected from humanity see his existence as a threat to her goals and take him out of the equation, deadly force or not? Oh yeah, but then we wouldn’t have adversaries to inconsequentially take out during the rushed climax.

Though the action sequences lack tension, they at least look pretty. The cinematography and production design have a bright and cool feel to them, giving the film a good deal of visual identity. Unfortunately, one of its main technical quirks is just bizarre and unnecessary. Often during the film, they will cut to some nature footage to convey something metaphorical. For example, when Lucy is being asked to deliver a briefcase at the beginning, there is a quick cut to a mouse being lured into a mousetrap. Why? To slam the obvious metaphor into your head, of course. It’s like Luc Besson is trying to emulate Terrence Malick or something, but completely doesn’t get what Malick is doing. Then again, who does?

Lucy is that rare breed of film that is both pretentious and idiotic. It’s almost endearing how smart this film thinks it is when all it’s really doing is procrastinating about life and intelligence to cover up the fact that all it is is just a dumb sci-fi action flick, and not a particularly good one at that. If the film actually had a formidable antagonist and dropped all pretence by just accepting what it is, this could have been goofy fun. Kinda like the films Luc Besson used to make. You know, the good ones. But other than some pretty visuals, a mildly diverting car chase and a solid but wasted effort on Johansson’s part, there’s nothing to recommended here. If you want a similar but better experience, just watch The Fifth Element and Limitless simultaneously, and you’ll be better off.

FINAL VERDICT: 3/10

Starring: Sylvester Stallone (Rambo), Jason Statham (Crank), Wesley Snipes (Blade), Antonio Banderas (Desperado), Terry Crews (Idiocracy), Randy Couture (The Expendables), Kelsey Grammer (Transformers: Age of Extinction), Kellan Lutz (The Legend of Hercules), Ronda Rousey (Fast & Furious 7), Jet Li (Unleashed), Mel Gibson (Mad Max), Harrison Ford (Air Force One), Arnold Schwarzenegger (Predator)

Director: Patrick Hughes (Red Hill)

Writers: Sylvester Stallone (Rocky) and Creighton Rothenberger & Katrin Benedikt (Olympus Has Fallen)

Runtime: 2 hours 6 minutes

Release Date: 14 August (UK), 15 August (US)

The Expendables franchise is a prime example of wasted potential; a good germ of an idea that wasn’t thought through properly and marginalised into something bland. The first Expendables was an absolutely incoherent mess whilst its sequel, whilst better, was still little more than milquetoast action fodder. So how does the third instalment fare? Do you really need to ask?

None of these movies are particularly well written, but Expendables 3 does have the best story of the bunch; not much to brag about, but it’s something. Whilst the first two films had such bland narratives that I can’t even recount them for you, this time around it feels a bit more solid because there seems to be a much more personal stake here. Rather than fighting just some random sadistic warlord, they’re fighting against a former brother (Gibson)…who has become a sadistic warlord (hey, you can’t expect them to completely change the formula?). It’s a simple story you’ve heard a million times before, but I at least can remember what the plot was. But that doesn’t mean the movie is free from any other action clichés, as the film delights in putting those in constantly and without any sense of irony. The film also suffers from terribly inconsistent pacing. A good portion of the second act is taken up by Stallone and Grammer wandering around picking up teammates like we’re watching Ocean’s Eleven or something, with these scenes and the dead spaces between action beats filled with “witty banter” that’s mostly just the cast referencing their résumé. They just go on and on about nothing, padding out the film to just over two hours and killing all tension and interest I had with it.

Stallone has once again assembled an impressive cast, but my main problem with this franchise still lingers: take away all of the star power, and these characters are nothing but dry cliché-ridden caricatures of either roles these actors have played before or just generic action hero stereotypes in general. They all have only one character trait each (though some of them can’t even muster that much), and with so many faces flying around none of them get decent amounts of screen time or development. The cast seems to be having fun, but that enjoyment doesn’t translate to the screen; it all feels so self-congratulatory. In terms of the fresh faces, the new group of young Expendables are weak and unremarkable; when Kellan Lutz is the most recognisable out of the bunch, you know there’s a problem. Antonio Banderas is a motormouth who gets on the characters’ nerves as well as the audience’s, Harrison Ford mumbles stone-faced through his performance, and Kelsey Grammer feels extremely miscast in a thankless role. Mel Gibson thankfully livens the proceedings in an eccentric performance, but he lacks any kind of physical threat. I’ll give Jean-Claude Van Damme’s character from Expendables 2 this much: he was incredibly bland, but at least he could still fight.

The Expendables 3 has succumbed to PG-13 neutering in the name of bigger box office, and though I didn’t find it too egregious considering how bad the CG gore was in the first two were it doesn’t make the film any better, especially when it’s clear it was shot with a harder rating in mind. The action sequences themselves are competently shot and choreographed, but none of them do anything particularly spectacular. The film’s climax is entertaining at times, but it goes on forever with barely a moment to catch your breath. It all just lacks any sense of originality or flair, content with just giving us the same thing over and over again. None of it comes off as incompetent, but it’s still lazy. That is except for the horrendous dubbing present in several parts of the film. Multiple times they’ve dubbed lines in that in no way synch with the actor on screen; most hilariously during a bit where you can hear Banderas blabbing away incessantly in the background but his lips are obviously not moving that much. It’s embarrassingly incompetent; especially considering it’s all in the name of yet more useless prattling dialogue.

I’d confidently say The Expendables 3 is the best of the franchise, but that’s like bragging about being the best player for a really sh*t sports team; it’s not much of an accomplishment when there was hardly any competition. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if it weren’t for all the actors in these movies, they would barely scrape by as those direct-to-video action flicks you always see clogging up Netflix. Despite mildly more competent writing and direction, the unoriginality on display here is just so numbingly dull that it’s very hard to care about the carnage on screen. It’s certainly not a bad movie, but it doesn’t really do anything to justify its existence, and the world wouldn’t be much of a different place without it. I guess you could say this movie is…expendable.

C’mon, that joke’s on about the same level as most of the gags in these movies.

FINAL VERDICT: 5/10

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Zoe Kazan (Ruby Sparks), Adam Driver (Inside Llewyn Davis), Mackenzie Davis (That Awkward Moment), Rafe Spall (I Give It a Year)

Director: Michael Dowse (Take Me Home Tonight)

Writer: Elan Mastai (Alone in the Dark)

Runtime: 1 hour 42 minutes

Release Date: 8 August (US), 20 August (UK)

The romantic comedy genre is so stale and predictable at this point that even making that statement is pretty redundant. But, much like the horror genre, there are usually one or two every year that make the concept seem fresh and enjoyable again. I wouldn’t say What If is one of those movies, but is certainly comes closer than most.

What If’s premise revolves around that time-honoured classic situation: the friend zone. Whilst the idea of basing the entire movie around that does seem stale, it does at least view it from a mature and very un-movie like standpoint. There’s no wacky misunderstanding or questionable character behaviour, hallmarks of the bad rom com, and instead the story does take the more interesting route of viewing this situation in a down-to-earth manner. The film does try to evoke classics like Annie Hall and When Harry Met Sally, and though it never reaches the heights of those movies it does at least make a concerted effort. But just because it avoids certain rom com stereotypes, that doesn’t mean it avoids all of them. There are still large plot coincidences to create awkward situations, some slapstick and plenty of cheesy speeches, and even when viewed through the film’s cynical and muddy lens it still doesn’t make them seem any fresher. The film does also drag on too long despite a reasonable runtime, which especially annoys during the more predictable parts of the narrative.

What ultimately makes What If a worthwhile watch is its two lead stars. Daniel Radcliffe seems right at home in this sort of material, able to show a more human and dorky side of himself that his previous roles haven’t allowed. Zoe Kazan is also an enjoyable presence, even if her character is basically a less pixie-like version of her role in Ruby Sparks. Their chemistry together is fantastic, managing to take every bit of the somewhat overwritten dialogue and make it sound like eloquent small talk. By themselves they do OK, but when together the screen lights up. Adam Driver and Mackenzie Davis come off as kind of obnoxious, which is what their characters are supposed to be but it does seem a little overplayed especially given the otherwise grounded nature of the film. Regardless, both of them have their good moments, most notably a scene between Radcliffe and Davis before the latter’s wedding. The cast member I take the most umbrage with is Rafe Spall, mainly due to the somewhat muddled nature of the character’s morality. In the standard rom com, his role would most certainly played for the highest levels of asshole so that the audience wants our hero to succeed that much more. But in a bizarre mix, whilst the script certainly doesn’t paint the character of Ben as an asshole, Spall’s performance does and that ultimately overpowers the words. Honestly, I think a far more ambiguous approach to the character would have made the film so much better, as it would have again ground the film in reality and made Radcliffe’s plight that much more compelling.

What If is ultimately a perfectly decent piece of fluff that thinks it’s more subversive than it actually is. An overall generic and drawn out premise combined with and unfocused tone grates, but is saved by Radcliffe and Kazan’s spell-binding chemistry and a few genuinely touching moments. It’s pretty inconsequential, but if you’re struggling for something to watch on date night it’s not a bad idea.

FINAL VERDICT: 6.5/10