and then some

THE GREY - review ★★★★

We’re going to get a large branch and sharpen the end of it, and we’re going to shove it up this thing’s ass. Then we’re going to eat it.

So it’s like this. You see a movie trailer one day for a film that hadn’t exactly been on your radar as one to watch. You’d heard about it sure, you dig the director, the main star is usually pretty good but overall you weren’t that bothered by the set up. But then the trailer throws everything out the window by showing ya a whole bunch of bad ass action, good looking scenery and general all round awesomness. Suddenly it’s on your 2012 ‘need to see’ list. When you finally do get to check it out for yourself…it not only dutifully delivers in a big fucking way, but it actually seems better than what you were expecting. 

In short: This movie rocks.

And ok, maybe I’m a sucker for people in peril type flicks you know? Like stories about a band of survivors battling to stay alive, after being marooned and cut off from the rest of society, fighting insurmountable odds and a bunch of not so friendly creatures intent on causing them bodily harm. Like ALIENS, PREDATOR or THE DESCENT. Even THE ABYSS to a lesser extent. Sure there is this to the movie, with shades of ALIVE naturally, but at the same time THE GREY has a pure original heart beating from within, with questions of mortality, our place on earth, faith and the very real sense of man versus nature. And I dug the shit out of it.

Continue Reading…

THIS MEANS WAR - review ★★

I know I know - I shooda taken more notice of the signs and stayed well away. And for a while i was genuinely like shit that so doesn’t look like anything i wanna see. But then for some reason i ended up catching some clip online of Tom Hardy running around with a paintball gun destroying everything in his path - and you know, it was kinda funny. And more importantly - it was fucking Tom hardy. And recently when has this motherfucker not turned in a worthy performance? So maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as i predicted after all…I mean, Chris Pine is cool - dug him a whole lot in SMOKIN’ ACES and STAR TREK - and ok, while not exactly a follower of fucking Reese Witherspoon, she isn’t so bad either….

But no…I failed to listen to my inner self who was trying to warn me as loud as he could with the same three letters over and over again. McG…McG…Mc fucking G!! And it’s true, the guy is merely a vacuous sap asshole, a hack for hire who cannot a reasonable, coherent, mildly intelligent movie make…

As the extremely more talented film maker Kev Smith said recently, quoting some dude from Disney, the whole thing has changed so much that movies don’t even warrant a reasonably good story anymore. Being that they are now more business than they’ve ever been and so long as the picture has enough loud bangs, flashing lights and whirly things that go whoooop - the moronic general audiences will lap it up and keep giving crap of this kind good box office. Movies are spectacle only. A funfair ride. To hell with an interesting story. Thanks a fucking lot AVATAR!!

Plus…and this pretty much tells us just how bad the industry has fallen…this comes on the day when McG’s obvious hero Michael fucking Bay signs on to direct the forth film in what must be the best, most impressive, unbelievably written and acted series of movies ever - TRANSFORMERS. Because he is now the highest paid director working today. Oh Hollywood, how do you always manage to get things so damn right?

THE PROBLEMS

Anyway…the review.

So yeah, for the first half I was actually willing to let some of the dodgier direlogue and cheesy action shots lie ‘cause of somehow being invested in the main three characters and their threeway romantic ‘predicament’. Sure the set up was kinda terrible and you had to stretch implausibility quite a bit but hey, I kinda expected this much from the trailer am I right? Unfortunately come act 2, and the director’s style (and yeah, i do mean complete lack of it) - eventually took over and we were subjugated to the usual shite we’ve seen so many times before with a lame-ass, rushed over the top ‘actioney’ climax that gave us nothing new, felt like a complete and total cop out and then a disgusting happy coda ending where the audience are supposed to be all - ah well that’s ok then, everyone turned out alright in the end, the barely written bad guy dies in a fireball on the LA freeway but we’re not actually supposed to even notice since it’s all about Pine and Reese ending up together while poor Tom Hardy out of the blue realises actually he’s not that bothered anyway (even though earlier stating he was in love with her) ‘cause wouldn’t you know, he has a kid and ex after all, who for no reason whatsoever just happen to be watching the six o’clock news and see him doing some heroic spy shit out the side of a speeding vehicle, shot from a news chopper hovering so far away that in reality he’d be merely a blip on the screen and no, actually I’m not a travel agent and shit, you know what, let’s all get back together and live happily ever….fuck me give me a break. Total pandering for the lowest common denominator bullshit…just sitting in the cinema urging the fucker to END NOW PLEASE!!

Oh and guess what? The majority of the audience sitting around me? Howling with laughter and general enjoyment. Need I say more?

THE PLAYERS 

Reese does as good as she can no doubt playing another version of herself - kooky funny and cute (especially in the pre-requestite overly sexualised scene of her and Pine finally getting down to the dirty) - delivering the goods of looking very hot in white underwear boosted onto the kitchen bench-top as a shirtless Pine moves on top of her. An obvious but not exactly unnecessary scene from a rom-com perspective which immediately fades to black as soon as it looks like things are about to get a little more heated, McG not even having the balls to show us anything further. 

Pine and Hardy, both on the brink of universal stardom after the STAR TREK sequel and DARK KNIGHT RISES are released, both do fine within the genre but unfortunately just that. Obviously weighed down by the cliched script, dull dialogue and nothing to fully allow their talents to shine - they struggle to find any real substance to their characters and for me Hardy is the better of the two, giving another interesting character to add to his back catalogue. Nowhere near as layered as his most recent turn in the outstanding WARRIOR, but at least a nice take on the good humoured english gentleman.

The handling of the best friend and main bad guy roles were not so fortunate however.

Playing Reese’s close confident was comedienne Chelsea Handler who I liked quite a bit and thought took home a few of the funnier lines out of a script peppered with some real embarrasing and cliched gems (from three separate writers who were seemingly more interested with jerking off to how funny a concept they had on their hands, than actually come up with anything resembling any note or substance). So what does McG and the writers do to her character seeing that she was in her late thirties/early forties? Keep making disgusting and misogynistic digs at her ‘supposed’ ugliness, like calling her a man, or Reese’s mom, or blatantly disposing of her when the story (what story? oh, we’ve been there already) needs her to exit stage left, so the three ‘oh so attractive stars’ can do their thing, literally jettisoning her off the freeway in an out of control VW Beetle, flying 100 feet through the air and into a nearby lake. Which naturally is supposed to be ho ho ho so hysterical and wasn’t that an amusing epitaph to Chelsea’s fun character? No. Not in any way. That full blown crash into the water, especially in a soft top, should either have killed her outright or at the very least, put her in traction for several weeks….you sexist fucking idiots.

And then there’s Til Schweiger, the very awesome Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz - backabowm- outta INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, now relegated to playing the token bad guy and some kinda terrorist or some such fucker, who is basically given jack shit to do. And not even jack wanted the gig. Like almost an afterthought that McG figured should go into his movie ‘cause, you know, you always need a bad guy right? But let’s not waste any screen time on him or give him one bit of character and hell, just have him appear near the end to chase the good guys across the freeway before…ah shit I don’t know, death and dismemberment in a truck explosion off screen? Ok, nice. 

And the less said about Angela Basset the better. So good and kickass in Kathryn Bigelow’s very cool STRANGE DAYS, here we have her playing a CIA boss who seemingly needs to deliver every line by shouting. It. Loud. and does nothing more than act pissed all the time with her sub ordinate operatives. Like bad boss acting 101. A total waste.  

So in the end, pointless scenes are followed by….wait for it….more pointless scenes. To very obviously move towards the finale and wrap up. Case in point - Pine and Hardy suddenly remember that actually they are CIA operatives and should probably get back to work away from the illegal and highly dodgy surveillance and manipulation of their joint girlfriend. So they head to a bar, meet some poker player bad guys, shoot and kill pretty much all of ‘em, then continue on with their day cheerful as fuck and back to wooing Reese.

Definitely not a movie to see at the cinema, this probably coulda passed as reasonable if it were a download in your front room, especially if you had managed to miss the trailer which gives away the only good bits. The afor mentioned paintball shootout was the standout scene - Hardy getting to jump all over the place in his attempts to prove he’s dangerous to his bewildered girlfriend, shooting people in the face, grenading a pack of kids hiding in a dugout and generally having a bunch of fun. But then straight after, the director fluffs it by elongating what should have been a quick easy joke about Reese firing a paintball at Hardy a little too close for comfort, so as to really spell the fucking thing out to his brain dead audience. Which i guess is the point. They have to be morons to enjoy this shit. 

So fuck you McG. Yes i know you directed the so bad it’s hideous CHARLIES ANGELS films, and then follwed them with the critically panned TERMINATOR 4 - a movie I will never stoop so low to watch - but still I wanted to give you the chance to prove my inner self wrong. Naturally you blew it. And to be honest, SUMMER HEIGHTS’ fucking mr G. could have done a better job.

A movie that in other hands could have been a whole lot more, but ultimately ends up a very average action rom-com, nothing like as fun and as clever as KNIGHT AND DAY, with the three leads giving it their best but ultimately failing at the hands of their incompetent director. First there was Bay, then along came Ratner. Now McG you can feel assured, you have joined their team…

Do not bother.

WORST BIT:

Probably the whole last half hour. That and the “I’m Yoko Ono” line from Reese in the middle of the preposterous freeway chase. Enough said.