Review: Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Posted on July 26, 2016 by Sam S-P
Star-Trek-Beyond

Stark Trek Beyond (2016): Paramount Pictures/Bad Robot/Perfect Storm Entertainment

Just a few tweaks is all it takes. The simple act of splitting up the crew and making them think  their way around impossible situations keeps the plot of STAR TREK BEYOND loose and fun. The script co-written by Simon Pegg deliberately harks back to the well-trodden formula of the original series, but it wisely avoids being overly reverential and retains the energy of JJ Abrams’ two Treks (Justin Lin takes over). It’s a ride.

Following the destruction of the Starship Enterprise by the ferocious fanatic Krall (Idris Elba), Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and his crew are left marooned across the surface of a hostile planet. They must regroup, find another ship and take the fight to their new enemy as the very future of the United Federation of Planets hangs in the balance.

What I thought that INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE missed out on the most was the everyday. What do ordinary people’s lives look like in the future? In Beyond, there is a stunning sweep through a space station made up of cities perched on a vast tangle of intertwining ribbon structures. On the ground, ordinary people go about their daily lives, taking flying trams or being beamed across the city from transporter booths on street corners. On the Enterprise, the crew are just over halfway through their five-year mission, they are starting to miss the comforts of home and tempers are starting to fray. There’s evidence of workplace affairs (good and bad) and we even see people eat, drink, and presumably go to the bathroom as well.

Karl Urban is given the best moments in Bones’ signature deadpan style. Urban would also have the privilege of uttering what I think must be the franchise’s first F-bomb were it not for a transporter cutting him short for a gag. When it comes to light a family necklace gifted by Spock (Zachary Quinto) to Uhura (Zoe Saldana) is made of a rare Vulcan rock that Spock can zero in on, Bones asks incredulously, “You gave your girlfriend a tracking device?”. Suffice to say Uhura and Spock’s now-troubled relationship and Bones’ sardonic advice results in a lot of the film’s best moments. If partnering up Bones and Quinto’s hot-cold Spock made for a delightfully odd couple, Pegg’s Scotty (with slightly inconsistent accent) and kick-ass survivalist Jaylah (Sofia Boutella) also play off each other very well. Pine’s Kirk does most of the dramatic heavy lifting, and the internal conflict still taking up a lot of his very being provides some potentially fascinating character-driven storytelling opportunities in the future.

The spectacular finale is big and silly and very fitting considering the wider story this new trilogy has been telling. Once the more immediate threat is out of the way, time is given to give colour to Krall, and for once it’s a deft twist on a villainous motivation rather than a retread. I’d argue that in these final moments that the Federation is in jeopardy, he becomes far more interesting than Nero or Khan were before him. You don’t even really mind that much that the superweapon MacGuffin is a retread of the same in THOR: THE DARK WORLD.

The editing of the film during the more high-octane action can be a bit choppy, a few characters have little to do except get captured (disappointingly it’s the characters who would have been seen as weaker in the 60s series, despite seeing what the new takes on the characters are capable of in the previous two movies). I also got a few too many flashbacks to STAR TREK: INSURRECTION due to certain plot devices and design choices, but aside from these points it’s all really solid stuff.

It might be my imagination, but it looks like the film’s final scene has been tweaked slightly to linger on Anton Yelchin. This, and the epitaph to him and Leonard Nimoy are pitched about right and are a fitting tribute to two very different talents.

Star Trek Beyond more than makes up for the clumsiness of INTO DARKNESS and wisely keeps the focus locked on to these appealing new iterations of beloved characters. There’s plenty of spectacle and sly readings of the wider Trek canon, but most importantly of all the fun factor is back. SSP

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Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)

Posted on July 25, 2016 by Sam S-P
Lily James;Bella Heathcote

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016): Cross Creek Pictures/MadRiver Pictures/QC Entertainment

There are projects that very obviously started with a catchy title and worked backwards from there. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES is just such an idea and continues Seth Grahame-Smith’s penchant for adding an oddity to a familiar story following ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t. I think this lands somewhere in the middle.

You know this story, but not with the addition of zombies. Elizabeth Bennett (Lily James) must not only contend with affairs of the heart and what happens when her heirless father (Charles Dance) passes away, but also contend with an infestation of zombies in England. Together with Mr Darcy (Sam Riley) and her highly-trained sisters, Elizabeth must fight off the horde between her family estate and London. 

Despite good work from Lily James as Elizabeth and an amusingly awkward turn from Matt Smith as Parson Collins, everyone else in the cast looks a little lost. You feel like this should have either been played more for laughs or stonier-faced. It’s caught in that uncomfortable in-between tone. We don’t need the events of the zombie outbreak explained to us (though they are in a handsome marionette style recap narrated by Charles Dance) and it’s taken as a given that all the characters are used to daily dealings with the undead.

There aren’t all that many outright gags beyond the Bennett sisters tooling up for battle (in flashy montage of course) and the opening “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie is in need of more brains”. For a film with such an eye-catching B-movie title, the action and the horror really should be punchier, or at the very least more extreme. Mr Darcy’s first zombie kill, following his ingenious method to spot the undead hiding amongst the living, is shot with a POV cutaway at the most violent point, but this at least results in a memorable image. The rest is oddly bloodless and restrained, the choreography flat and the editing during fight scenes clunky at best, confusing at worst.

The choice of having young women fighting zombies over marrying as a metaphor for female independence almost works. But all that subtext was already there in Austen’s words, but now this has become text, with no work required at all on the part of the viewer. I liked the classist idea that the aristocracy send their daughters to train in Japan and the middle-classes go instead to China, but it’s not really explored in any real detail, instead functioning as an excuse for the Bennetts to use South East Asian swords and fight using martial arts. Think of BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF and how it didn’t feel the need to explain the aesthetic of its fights. They just used kung fu because it looked cool.

You sometimes just want Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to embrace its inherent schlockiness more whole-heartedly. Make it cheaper and more cheerful, give us some splatter. That’s probably what viewers paid to see, not a half-baked semi-adaptation of Austen. Zombie fans will be disappointed that this is so tame, Austen fans that even as a twist on the author’s story it’s not a very interesting one. At least the latter have LOVE & FRIENDSHIP to satisfy their appetite this year, what do the fanbase of everything shuffling and brain devouring have?

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies isn’t a bad film but because it can’t balance action-horror tropes with literary reverence it ends up being quite an unsatisfying one. SSP

 

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Wonder of Wonders

Posted on July 24, 2016 by Sam S-P

Alright Warner Brothers, you have my attention. The coveted high-profile Hall H panels at San Diego Comic Con as always boasted the very shiniest footage from big studios’ upcoming extravaganzas, but by far the most promising was our first proper look at next year’s WONDER WOMAN.

One of the only people who managed to escape the abysmal an po-faced BATMAN V SUPERMAN with dignity was Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, who shone at every turn. From the trailer, which has the Amazon warrior running around the battlefields of WWI after pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crashes on her island, it looks like we’re in for quite the ride, a colourful (tonally speaking, not literally colourful as Warner Bros will insist on desaturating everything) juxtaposition of the real and the fantastical. Gadot looks to be utterly inhabiting the role and giving WW the power and poise she needs; the way this literal divine stands out against the grey ugliness of trench warfare really is quite striking.

Having an out-there character taking part in a real conflict immediately brings to mind CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER and the strange and advanced “other world” on the periphery of our own might make you think of THOR, so Marvel is clearly the model here. Wonder Woman herself predates both of those properties on the page though, and she has a long and rich history and fascinating mythology to draw upon. I ashamedly admit that I’ve never read a Wonder Woman comic (I haven’t really read much DC, Batman aside) and my knowledge of her is mostly from her appearances in DC’s Animated movies, video games and her status as a pop cultural icon.

Unless I missed it, there’s still not much indication of what villain Diana might be facing, though her involvement in a very human conflict (notably one of the most wasteful and pointless wars in history) has real potential. From the footage it looks like she’s defending both her Amazonian home of Themyscira (watched over by Connie Nelson’s Queen Hippolyta) and fighting against Germany in the world of men. You have to think she will end up taking a stand against all forms of war, accounting for her being disillusioned and in hiding by the time Batman v Superman takes place.

The trailer indicates that a lot of the film’s humour might come from Pine’s period-appropriate incredulity at an all-female liberated society. They might not want to lean too heavily on that, but director Patty Jenkins (MONSTER) is a talent known for bringing complex characters to life, and the writers have a good track record in the comics industry, not to mention trying their utmost to get this property to the screen for years, so I’m sure they know what they’re doing.

I’ve got to reiterate how awesome Wonder Woman’s electric cello theme from BvS is, and I hope it’s used liberally (no word on whether MAD MAX’s Junkie XL is back to score) and becomes as iconic as John Williams’ theme for SUPERMAN. It’s been a long time coming, but finally we’re getting the Wonder Woman movie that is (hopefully) everything we’ve been yearning for. All signs at the moment point to it fulfilling expectations and then some. SSP

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Review: The Fundamentals of Caring (2016)

Posted on July 21, 2016 by Sam S-P
fundamentals

The Fundamentals of Caring (2016): Worldwide Pants/Netflix

I really want movies like this to do well. It’s great that Netflix is democratising filmmaking, allowing for talent and Adam Sandler to find an audience and  bypass the Hollywood system. Of course not all of it can be gold, and unfortunately THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CARING, for all its good intentions, misses the mark by quite a margin.

After completing a care-giving course, the grieving Ben Benjamin (Paul Rudd) starts to look after Trevor (Craig Roberts) a challenging young man with muscular dystrophy. Despite Trevor’s initial resentment and to help him deal with his own issues, Ben decides to get his charge out to see the world, ao they embark on a sightseeing road trip, picking up others along the way.

The film establishes what makes a good carer straight away; caring but not caring too much, gaining that same level of kind detachment that those in the medical profession must maintain to function in their jobs. It’s a fine balance to strike, and a very real everyday challenge to anyone with a duty of care for a non-family member.

From the start, Fundamentals is trying awfully hard to be a distinctive indie. Early on Ben is filmed from directly above on a bench as a crowd-swarm swirls around him. A cool alternative soundtrack also fits like a glove with this material, and often accompanying what are probably important character moments that we aren’t allowed to hear.

The film does pose an interesting question: what if a person in need of care is an absolute jerk? What caps it all is that as well as Trevor being a manipulative, rude, prankster jerk, Ben is also a self-hating and self-pitying one so it’s one jerk looking after another jerk. I don’t think their life-or-death joshing is all that funny, especially when you’re preparing for it to go all Boy Who Cried Wolf at some point.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: characters don’t have to be likeable, they just have to be interesting. That’s where The Fundamentals of Caring ultimately fails. The premise is fine and so are the performances from Roberts and Rudd, but it falls completely flat with the characters on the page. Trevor is disabled and bitter about it and that’s his primary attribute, his whole character. Ditto for Ben who is defined almost solely by his guilt. This also goes for Selena Gomez’s Dot and Megan Furguson’s Peaches, who are the character with daddy issues and the pregnant one respectively. There is no next layer to any of them – that’s your lot.

Now obviously it’s a good thing that Trevor experiences something outside his familiar shut-in lifestyle and he seems to strike up a quick friendship with Ben, but his mum (Jennifer Ehle) agrees to the idea of their spontaneous adventure awfully quickly. That’s the price of fluid film storytelling I guess.

Now I know it’s been a long-running debate about the portrayal of disabled characters – should able-bodied actors be allowed to do it? Usually I’d say yes, because named actors help a wide audience to understand important real-world issues through their performances and often the film’s wouldn’t get made at all without star power. But here the film was picked up by Netflix, it was getting made as an exclusive indie attraction no matter what, plus Paul Rudd and Selina Gomez bring with them considerable established audiences. As good as Roberts is, there is no reason why the role of Trevor shouldn’t go to a disabled actor whose opportunities might be few and far between. It’s an unfortunate missed opportunity.

It’s earnest and its heart is in the right place, but too much is misjudged of feels inappropriate to make this one to recommend. The actors are talented, the issues being discussed are real and very relevant to so many, but they all deserve to be better served on film than they are here. SSP

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Review: Zoolander 2 (2016)

Posted on July 19, 2016 by Sam S-P
zoolander 2

Zoolander 2 (2016): Red Hour Films/Scott Rudin Productions

There’s a list out there of sequels that have no reason to exist. While ZOOLANDER may have found a second life as a cult gem, ten years on I don’t think anybody was really clamoring for a second go-around with Derek and co. It was the same with ANCHORMAN 2, but that mostly worked by sticking to the old adage of “Go hard or go home”. ZOOLANDER 2 certainly feels like a re-tread, but it’s not a write-off and a few moments make it almost worthwhile.

Fifteen years after he saved the Prime Minister of Malaysia and following a very public tragedy, supermodel Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) retreats from the public eye. He returns to save the fashion world along with Hansel (Owen Wilson) when beautiful celebrities begin dying at an alarming rate and Valentina Valencia (Penélope Cruz) of Interpol’s Fashion Division recruits them. After all, Fashion Prison can’t hold the diabolical Mugatu (Will Ferrell) forever…

There are a fair few chucklesome moments to be found here. Justin Bieber is killed in the opening scene (not a spoiler – it was in the trailer) and has to set just the right Instagram filter for his final selfie. Derek decides to retreat from the public eye and “live as a hermit crab” in “Extreme Northern New Jersey”. Derek refers to his verbose son (Cyrus Arnold) as a “walking tyrannosaurus”. Hansel’s harem now includes a pregnant Kiefer Sutherland. Mugatu is incarcerated in “Fashion Prison for the Criminally Insane and Totally Out There”.

At one point Sting theorises that “There’s only a few genes separating the greatest rock stars in history from male models…the ones for talent and intelligence”. It’s Derek and Hansel’s relentless stupidity that becomes the basis of many of the less-inspired jokes or those that try to repeat what was funny last time round. Of course 2016 Derek would use a selfie stick, and of course he uses one at an inopportune moment and it ends in disaster (which is funny but it doesn’t top the gasoline fight from the first movie).

There’s a terrifying grafting of Fred Armisen’s head on to a child’s body to make him look like someone with a form of dwarfism…for some reason, plus an even more terrifying plastic surgery monstrosity who pronounces “faces” as “feces” and “fashion” as “fish on” played by Kristen Wiig. I think only on of these was intended to be terrifying and I’ve no idea why the other even exists.

You want to see Ben Stiller as a cow centaur? Er, why? OK, you got it. The film is best when it’s at its silliest. The conspiracy at its core is an elaborate dogma joke complete with extravagant Biblical imagery. The finale has Derek and Hansel and a surprise guest trying to stop a lava bomb from blowing up the fashion world and Rome with combined catwalk “looks”.

The film caused massive controversy when an early trailer revealed that Benedict Cumberbatch was playing a transgender model called All. His introduction is immediately followed by a hugely transphobic joke from Hansel that gives the film at this point quite a nasty feel. In context, the scene is only a minor part of the overall story and it is never brought up again. This doesn’t get Stiller and his writers off the hook though, since it doesn’t add anything to the film you have to question why it is there at all? Just to get a cheap laugh from the ignorant?

As comedy sequels go, Zoolander 2 is fine. That’s about it really. It gave me a few good laughs and a few more weak smiles. The jokes are of the same vintage and the characters haven’t changed at all despite the world around them transforming considerably. See it if you have some strange attachment to Derek and Hansel, by all means, but it’s far from essential viewing. SSP

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Review: Ghostbusters (2016)

Posted on July 17, 2016 by Sam S-P
ghostbusters2016

Ghostbusters (2016): Columbia Pictures/Feigco Entertainment/Ghostcorps

I think I might have mentioned this before, but I’ve never really been that into GHOSTBUSTERS. Paul Feig’s new take has nods to the original and cameos, but otherwise strikes out on its own and largely it’s a successful venture.

When strange apparitions begin to appear across New York City, three academics with a penchant for the paranormal (Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy and Kate McKinnon) and a street-smart subway worker (Leslie Jones) team up as the Ghostbusters to save their city.

Feig’s film makes Ghostbusters scarier than it ever has been. The ghost designs are eclectic, impressively realised, and the horror elements push the boundary of what you can do in a 12A/PG13 movie, notably the genuinely spooky opening of the film. It’s not just because of the modern CGI that this film looks better either – the cinematography is more polished, space is better utilised in the frame and the action scenes are far more inventive and dynamic.

Next to the new Spider-Man, Holtzmann may very well be my favourite film character of 2016. McKinnon eclipses everyone else as the borderline-psychotic engineer with a tendency to dance while operating dual blowtorches, providing the team with a full proton arsenal. Jones is great as well, taking Patty far beyond a stereotype (though still, annoyingly, the non-scientist in the group is again the black person). Wiig and McCarthy have their moments as Erin and Abby but end up essentially having to share the Aykroyd-esque straight-man role. Chris Hemsworth, as we know from his Marvel movies, has really good comic timing, and he relishes playing perhaps the thickest support character in film history, Kevin the secretary.

There are some great zingers – after a ghost is hit and carried off by a train, Patty quips “Well he’s on his way to Queens…and he’s only the second scariest guy heading there tonight!” and the throwaway gag of a tour guide (Zach Woods) describing an “anti-Irish” security fence that used to surround a haunted mansion. I won’t say every setup or punchline lands, but you can’t go far wrong when Kate McKinnon can make just standing there or sitting down with her feet up funny.

What really works in the film is that this team feel a lot more like outcasts. Aside from being women in what is essentially still a boys club (Steve Higgins’ Dean is very surprised to find out their department still exists) they are exploited by the authorities (happy to accept their ghost-busting, less willing to publicly acknowledge them) and their personalities tend to set them apart from the mainstream (Erin and Abby weren’t invited to parties, Patty attracts subway weirdos and nobody really knows what to make of Holtzmann). They also finally establish a motivation for why rational scientists would believe in the paranormal, and this results in Wiig’s finest, most heart-wrenching moment.

Aside from a couple of setup scenes that outstay their welcome, an awful Fall Out Boy cover of Ray Parker Jr’s theme (other musical nods to the original are pretty clever) and a very first-draft villain (Neil Casey, more interesting when he possesses someone else), I have few complaints. There are few things that I’ll wax lyrical about either apart from the beautiful production design, but as I opened with, I’m not a Ghostbusters guy. It is irritating that after a perfectly serviceable finale where the team use their full array of proton gadgets to fight an army of ghosts in an ingeniously choreographed street battle, we have to sit through a second finale which is essentially the finale of the 1984 film re-skinned, but hey, Hollywood likes doing that.

So, the elephant in the room – does it matter that Ghostbusters has been rebooted with an all-female cast? Not in the slightest. The gender of the Ghostbusters has no impact on their ability, their motivations or the story. Even if you’re clinging to the characters, the new carriers of the proton packs fit pretty comfortably into the same archetypes. Anyone who was clamoring to finally see a proper third film with the original cast, I have to ask what would the story be? Older past-it Ghostbusters forced back into the job and the hearts of New Yorkers when a new supernatural threat emerges? That’s the plot of Ghostbusters II. If I’m honest the cameos by the orignal cast here don’t all work. Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts all have fleeting, amusing appearances, but Bill Murray is given an extended scene where he looks like he’d prefer to be anywhere else. Coming back many years later to tell the same-but-different story has a really patchy history. For every FORCE AWAKENS you’ve got a KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL.

The Ghostcorps thing – complete with prominent and shiny logo placed before the film’s opening – is both concerning and depressing. Sony, in their wisdom, have decided that Ghostbusters deserves the “Shared Universe” treatment of many connected films (much like they mistakenly thought with SPIDER-MAN) that Marvel have exploited so well, so have created a whole sub-studio to handle this. This is the most worrying thing, not that anyone dared to remake Ghostbusters or that they’re women now. The film does its job, providing a fresh take on a familiar story that delivers laughs and thrills more often than not. It’s the studio that might be heading for disaster. SSP

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Film Confessional: Ghostbusters

Posted on July 14, 2016 by Sam S-P
originalghostbusters

Ghostbusters (1984): Black Rhino Productions/Columbia Pictures Corporation/Delphi Films

Just in time for the remake to hit the screen, I have a confession to make…I can take or leave the original GHOSTBUSTERS. I can understand people liking it – the characters are good, it’s pretty funny – but loving it? I’ve just never got what all the fuss is about, and I don’t think I ever will.

In case somehow it’s bypassed you, Ghostbusters follows three colourful academics (Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis) and a guy who answers an ad in the paper (Ernie Hudson) as they fight to save New York from a paranormal threat.

Murray does his thing and does it well. You can see he had a lot of fun riffing with nary a glance at Aykroyd and Ramis’ script (Ramis steals most other scenes himself). But let’s not kid ourselves – at one point Peter Venkman is accused of being a creep, and he is, he really is. Imagine how it would go down today if a character we are supposed to root for turned out to be a borderline sexual predator, and that this was just meant to be taken as a bit of a laugh? At least Sigourney Weaver puts up a fight and doesn’t easily succumb to his slimy charms.

The film is now 32 years old, and it looks it. The striking special effects combining early CGI, puppets and traditional animation might start to look shonky today, but this isn’t necessarily a negative, in fact it’s part of the film’s charm that they still look so distinctive. I am convinced that the film never looked good on a craft level, though. Ivan Reitman is a good comedy director and he always makes room for his performers to add colour to scenes. He can’t cope with action though. Shots are framed clumsily throughout with the top halves of people’s bodies cut off or too much empty space when scenes move quicker than planned and the actual scenes depicting ghost busting are unimaginative. Also am I the only one bothered by the fact that the Ghostbusters’ final fight isn’t against something dead? They should rebrand as Godbusters. I also don’t like that they are able to break their one “It would be bad” rule without any discernible consequences.

The central premise and gag of following what happens when rational people (scientists) research the irrational (ghosts) is still the most interesting thing about the movie, but this conceit could have always been taken further. Aykroyd is a famous believer in the supernatural and I’m surprised he didn’t explore why the characters believe what they believe before their first encounter with an apparition in the library.

The film does come in at a tight 1hr 45 and there’s no messing around with the story – characters are established, the problem is introduced, the problem is solved. It’s one of those films that I might watch a few minutes of when it’s on just because it’s so undemanding, but seldom will I actively revisit it.

Was this a film that needed a remake? Not really. Am I offended by the existence of a remake? Not in the slightest. Let’s be honest, it’s not LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, it’s not BEN-HUR (that remake is coming soon). It’s Ghostbusters. It was fine in 1984, it’s still fine today and I have a sneaking suspicion that gathering some of the funniest people working today, just like they did three decades ago, will result in something fine again. Probably. It’ll certainly be an experience watching it with my friend who happens to be a Ghostbusters megafan. SSP

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Review: The Neon Demon (2016)

Posted on July 12, 2016 by Sam S-P
cannes2016-critique-review-neon-demon-film-nicolas-winding-refn

Mirror metaphor: Space Rocket Nation/Vendian Entertainment/Bold Films

The fashion industry really is taking a kicking from film this year. Far from the silly and playful taunts in ZOOLANDER 2 and ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS, now Nicolas Winding Refn goes for the jugular with THE NEON DEMON. Being a Nicolas Winding Refn film, there’s a whole lot to unpack here. I’ll do my best and try not to get lost in all the bright lights and hedonism along the way.

16 year-old small-town dreamer Jesse (Elle Fanning) moves to LA to attract the attention of a modelling agency. She is a natural beauty and walks into high-profile jobs despite her inexperience, but is at risk of losing her soul to the cruel, base industry she loves, not to mention the immediate danger of jealous rivals and those who would exploit her.

I think all of Refn’s films are about confused identity, alienation and a failure to communicate to a large extent. Much like how Ryan Gosling’s almost-silent character in DRIVE could only express himself through violent action, the models in The Neon Demon can only live vicariously through others. It’s almost the exact negative of The Driver’s arc, who was fighting to become human, to grow beyond his function and his profession, whereas Fanning’s Jesse wants to become only an image, losing her humanity, her sense of reality, in the process.

Fanning is phenomenal here. She imbues Jesse with a wonderful nervous energy before allowing her to be consumed by pride and struggle to subdue her ecstasy at being born better than everyone else. The supporting players including Jena Malone, Bella Heathcote,  Abby Lee, Alessandro Nivola all play one of many shades of repulsive, but for once it’s a pretty even split between despicable men and the women, with neither gender demonised more than the other, just the industry they are part of. Christina Hendricks has a scene as an agency executive and is perhaps responsible for the only flicker of genuine kindness in the film by advising Jesse of what to expect (shortly before brutally dismissing another hopeful). In another small role Keanu Reeves gives his best peformance in years as a seedy and lurking owner of a motel frequented by junkies and prostitutes, perhaps suggesting that even close proximity to the vanity of the LA modelling world is corrosive.

The film (photographed by Natasha Braier) is long and indulgent in its pacing but there’s rarely not something interesting to look at. Refn doesn’t really do subtle (he even has his initials emblazoned over the opening credits seemingly as a stamp of quality) but the boldness of his imagery and the symbolism therein marries well with the industry he is discussing. A mountain lion gets into Jesse’s motel room just before she commits to being a full-time model. A photographer (Desmond Harrington) walks Jesse into the empty, emotionless white void of his studio backdrop. There are more mirrors and people staring into them trying to comprehend their image than at a funfair hall. A key and increasingly trippy scene has Jesse waiting to take to the stage and the bright neon geometric shapes adorning the walls change from innocent blue to sinful scarlet just as she crosses over and relinquishes her empathy, her own image utterly consuming her.

The film constantly subverts your expectations of where the threat will come from. Jesse fears the creepy overseer of her apartment block, she’s wary of pretty much every man she meets until they help her satisfy her own ends, but she never even considers that her ambition might be severely damaging, or that her fellow models are out to destroy her.

Refn and kindred spirit composer Cliff Martinez are masters of combining a strong aesthetic with a sumptuous soundscape to tell a story. While Refn as a filmmaker still hadn’t topped Drive, I think this might be Martinez’s finest work to date. Much like the story being told his electronic music is equally beautiful and ugly, atmospheric and oppressive, climbing, falling, disintegrating and transforming just as the characters do.

A lot has been said about a scene about two thirds of the way through the film. From this disturbing image onwards, everything becomes quite bizarre and deeply unsettling. Here it graduates from psych-horror to full-blown horror. I don’t think this final stretch quite worked, I’m not sure what everything meant, what exactly is supposed to take place or whether Refn wanted us to know, but suffice to say it becomes the stuff of nightmares.

It’s very appropriate that Refn apparently got Fanning to watch BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS in preparation for this film, as they share a lot of DNA in their story arcs and general structures. The Neon Demon is arguably far deeper and looks much better, but Russ Meyer and Roger Ebert’s guilty pleasure also acted as an expose of a self-obsessed profession, and the two films would make an interesting double-bill.

I can’t say that this will be one for everyone. The Neon Demon completely split its audience at Cannes, much like Refn’s previous difficult watch, ONLY GOD FORGIVES. The rather twisted Danish-LA explorer of the id has said he was rather happy with this reception, that it was what he is going for – to provoke debate. He’ll have certainly done that here, and the fashion world aren’t going to forgive him for attempted murder of their industry any time soon. SSP

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Review: Grimsby (2016)

Posted on July 10, 2016 by Sam S-P
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Grimsby (2016): Big Talk Productions/Columbia Pictures/Working Title

I never thought I’d say this, but thank God for the already-infamous elephant scene. More on that later. The only reason that GRIMSBY isn’t a worse 2016 comedy than Adam Sandler’s THE DO-OVER is that I laughed a couple of times while watching it.

25 years ago, Nobby Butcher (Sacha Baron Cohen) lost his brother. Now, with a diabolical plot to foil, his secret agent baby brother Sebastian (Mark Strong) resurfaces and reluctantly takes Nobby for the ride of his life. Working together, will the Butcher Brothers be able to combine their…um…skills and save the world, England and Grimsby, and perhaps get to watch the footie along the way?

I’d like to be clear here: I like Sacha Baron Cohen. He’s a funny guy. That is, when he cares. BORAT and BRÜNO both allowed him years to develop, transform into, and live as, a single character. Even THE DICTATOR had a pleasing satirical edge for all its shortcuts. But aside from a couple of sights I will never forget in the South Africa segment and Nobby’s time-bubble names for his many children (Skelator is the eldest, Django Unchained the youngest) this ends up being Cohen’s weakest work by far.

Mark Strong is being an awful good sport about all of this. He makes a good Bond-alike and I really hope he got something out of the bottom-shelf humiliation Cohen put him through. Rebel Wilson turns up for a fat joke and a BASIC INSTINCT reference, then disappears entirely until the end. Daniel Radcliffe apparently said no to making a cameo where he ingests HIV-positive blood, so they rely on an unconvincing lookalike. They don’t even bother doing that with Donald Trump, simply superimposing his head on someone in a crowd (see if you can spot the studio sweating about this during the end credits). The cream of British TV comedy turn up for a single shot (Rebecca Front) or if they’re (un)lucky, a couple of lines (Ricky Tomlinson still in his ROYLE FAMILY costume) and everyone involved really should be looking for new agents.

At least the elephant scene – beyond tasteless, so extreme and excessive – is funny. I can’t deny it that. The sheer onslaught of what you witness, which I shall not describe here, forces a reaction from you and that reaction for me was an uncontrollable fit of giggles. It was about time I found a release because I found it incredibly difficult to laugh elsewhere.

The idea that the English football team would reach the final of anything should be a joke in itself, but bizarrely here it’s played straight. The only thing we’re supposed to laugh at about Nobby’s chest tattoo proclaiming “England! World Champions! 200016!” is Nobby being 198,000 years out on the date.

Grimsby is mean-spirited, low-hanging fruit comedy. It tries to proclaim a working-class, anti-establishment hurrah in its final moments despite clinging to cruel stereotypes throughout and giving us nobody to root for. It wouldn’t have been any better without the over-the-top spy antics. Louis Leterrier’s interest clearly lies in the film’s glossy POV action sequences, and these are fine, but the film sags when it returns to what should be the meat of the story, namely the love between brothers. The flashbacks with Nobby and Sebastian are played completely straight, almost kitchen sink drama-esque, and they just don’t work. If they were more maudlin they’d almost be funny for trying too hard, but as they are they’re just dull.

Grimsby isn’t even worth getting angry about. Aside for the considerable work by the production design team in creating the film’s central revolting set-piece, no thought whatsoever was put into the meanness or the bad taste here, it was just easy. So rather than froth at the mouth at Sacha Baron Cohen’s nerve, you should pity him. You should pity Mark Strong and the supporting cast who said yes to being in this film. You should certainly pity the people of the town of Grimsby, who as well as being the butt of most of the jokes didn’t even get the film crew visiting as compensation – it was all made in Essex. SSP

 

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Review: 13 Hours (2016)

Posted on July 7, 2016 by Sam S-P
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13 Hours (2016): 3 Arts Entertainment

13 HOURS is supposedly Michael Bay being serious, talking about a still-raw real-world event, namely the aftermath of The Arab Spring uprisings in Libya. Yet we still have a character saying of a neutralised weapons smuggler:”We gotta find his stash and level it with hellfire!” and a paramilitary asset announcing his arrival with: “I need a bagful of money and a flight to Benghazi”. You can’t have it both ways, Michael.

Following revolution and the fall of Colonel Gaddafi, Libya, and especially the populous city of Benghazi, became one of the most dangerous locations in the world to find yourself trapped. On September 11 2012 a team of CIA agents acting as bodyguards for a diplomatic envoy found their compound besieged by Islamist militants. This is their story. 

Bay still likes having his camera fawn over people. In TRANSFORMERS it famously focussed on Megan Fox bending over a car. Here, with a lack of scantily clad women (predictably for Bay, he has cast the most beautiful diplomatic office in history, but they are thankfully all dressed appropriately) he instead oggles his manly men working out, leering over rippling six-packs and shiny biceps.

It’s nice to see a change of pace from Michael Bay in the film’s first 45 minutes or so where we just follow the operatives chatting about life and their families and joshing frat-style with each other. Bay just holds back and lets this real situation wash over us. It is here, and towards the end when the chaos dies down that Jack (John Krasinki) and his brother Rone (James Badge Dale) are given room to emote and bring out what nuance there is in Chuck Hogan’s script. Then everything kicks off, Bay chucks his tripod aside, rubble flies and Lorne Balfe’s soundtrack begins to blare constantly.

That shot prominently featured in the trailer of Islamist militants machine-gunning a mournfully billowing American flag in slow motion is in there, essentially signalling the start of the action, and it’s as terrible and misjudged an idea in the film as in the marketing. It’s fine that Bay is a patriot, what’s less fine is him bellowing jingoistically to drown out a far from one-sided debate.

The battles can be confusing, but I actually think this was intentional. So many groups are running around shooting at each other and it’s rarely clear who is who and what they are fighting for. The line between friend and foe remains indistinct throughout and we are left in doubt even about the Libyan friendlies by the end. This all sums up the convoluted motivations driving the Arab Spring nicely for Hollywood storytelling purposes. The Americans have one group fighting with them, several other groups fighting against them and one guy fighting with them turns out to have one of their adversaries’ mobile phone numbers.

I must admit that I was drifting during the second half of the film. The gunfire and explosions quickly become monotonous and the linking scenes where tactics are planned are pretty tedious. A moment where Jack realises to his equal horror and bemusement, that he hasn’t thought about his family throughout their desperate operation is the only reminder of the humanity of this story. Even this reminder of people feeling people things is only from an American perspective. Though the story one-sided, I guess it’s the only way it could be presented with the characters we are focussing on – soldiers dying “In a place they don’t need to be over something they don’t understand”. It’s almost an anti-war stance from the usually gung ho Bay. Almost.

At the end of it all we are left to count the cost. Bay gives the Libyan dead a cursory mention then dedicates nearly ten minutes to mourn the American heroes. A tattered American flag lies in a muddied pool. When Michael Bay isn’t bludgeoning you over the head with Stars and Stripes and allows the talent of Krasinski and Dale to come to the fore, this is pretty good stuff. But when he falls back on his worst habits he undermines the story he is telling and so 13 Hours ends up being purely competent rather than anything that will stay with you, at least not for the right reasons. SSP

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