Playing Catchup: The Masterpieces

Posted on August 2, 2016 by Sam S-P

It’s that time again: time for me to admit to some classic films I hadn’t until very recently seen, and how they have impacted me on my first watch. This time I thought I’d catch up on two that have been proclaimed masterpieces, and both, interestingly enough, discuss at length what war does to a man.

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The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957): Columbia Pictures

THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (1957) David Lean doesn’t half love his morally grey protagonists. From Peter O’Toole’s egotistical charm monster in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA to Alec Guinness’ obsessive, broken pillar of the British class system here, none of his heroes are knights in shining armour in the traditional sense. They don’t even tend to be that likeable, but they’re certainly interesting.

Guinness as Colonel Nicholson sells his harrowing physical and mental ordeal completely and utterly and clearly relishes showing how a proud and mannered man slowly but surely unravels. His mastery of screen comedy lends itself well to Nicholson’s witty retorts to the grimmest of situations, much to the frustration of Sessue Hayakawa’s increasingly riled Colonel Saito. Speaking of ordeals, Lean’s efforts to get this made the way he wanted on location and as real as it could be (there really wasn’t any other way to do it) is an epic tale of endurance in itself.

The broad strokes of this story are true, but the film still functions as a bit of a wish fulfillment fantasy for unassailable British values, a stiff upper lip and unshakable resolve seeing us through thick and thin. Yes, the glorification of the British Empire is a little uncomfortable today, and it is annoying that they parachute in a Hollywood star like they did with THE GREAT ESCAPE in order to sell the thing across the pond (especially when he escapes the Japanese and recuperates in a convenient and friendly tribal village) but William Holden’s character serves a purpose, and it’s a decent performance. This isn’t quite Lawrence, but it’s an emotional ride.

deer_hunter

The Deer Hunter (1978): Columbia-EMI-Warner

THE DEER HUNTER (1978) Earlier this year we lost Michael Cimino and though I was certainly aware of him, to my horror I realised I’d never actually watched any of his movies. I thought I’d start with the one everyone talks about. Cimino certainly likes to take his time. Strictly speaking, you don’t need to see an entire Russian Orthodox wedding ceremony or the entire wedding celebration afterwards. But strictly speaking, without taking the time for this you wouldn’t be as invested in these characters, this involved in their story when things turn very South in the second half of the film.

Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken rightly get recognition for their portrayal of two small-town Pennsylvania steelworkers-turned-soldiers being affected by Vietnam very differently. The vacant horror etched on the face of a Green Beret the boys want to worship sums it up wonderfully simply, but little can we guess the level of atrocity and character deformation to come. I think the most common reading of it must be a story of friendship torn apart, but I think there is definitely enough in the subtext to argue it’s a literal unrequited love story between De Niro and Walken’s characters, and that’s heartbreaking.

Cimino’s encouragement of naturalistic performances and dialogue, the immaculate (both immaculately beautiful and immaculately horrific) look of the film courtesy of Vilmos Zsigmond (another sad loss in 2016) and the swelling score by Stanley Myers all help to make this a film that lasts. It’s far more than a series of infamous Russian Roulette scenes. Controversial on release, and problematic when discussed today in terms of representation of the Vietnamese, it’s still for me an undeniably affecting war epic.

 Most pleased I’ve now seen: The Deer Hunter (because it’s a real thrill when a critical darling lives up to expectations and you can understand why it still hits so many so hard, outdated representations or no). SSP

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Review: Batman: The Killing Joke (2016)

Posted on July 31, 2016 by Sam S-P
batman-killing-joke-movie-dvd-blu-ray

Batman: The Killing Joke (2016): The Answer Studio/Warner Bros

This review contains spoilers for the 1988 graphic novel THE KILLING JOKE.

By Batman’s underpants, they almost fixed The Killing Joke! The iconic, but overrated and problematic comic by Alan Moore had Barbara Gordon appear, get shot and paralysed then disappear entirely except in the form of graphic Polaroids. She was a plot device, a reason for Batman to go after the Joker and nothing more, and I can understand why people get so angry about that.

When Barbara Gordon (Tara Strong) realises she is in too deep as the masked crimefighter Batgirl, she decides to quit before anyone else gets hurt. Unfortunately her early retirement coincides with The Joker (Mark Hamill) escaping once more from Arkham Asylum, and this time he wants to prove a point to his old foe Batman (Kevin Conroy).

Thankfully, in adapting this comic, Brian Azzarello realised that this story would be much improved if Barbara was allowed to be an actual character. We open on a peaceful Gotham skyline and Barbara’s voiceover asking us, “I bet this isn’t how you thought this story would start?”, almost calling out the comic’s nastiness and sense of utter hopelessness. While the second half of the film is a very faithful adaptation of the comic, warts and all, the first half is an entirely new story of Batgirl getting to be Batgirl, kicking ass and coming very close to the edge. This new material elevates what is to come, gives Barbara a full arc not to mention considerably shaking up character dynamics in a manner which I’m sure will be divisive among fans.

While there is an argument that the story being told us still inherently misogynist no matter how you try and tweak it, I think giving Barbara her own struggles to overcome (an additional scene to follow the closing panel of the comic certainly suggests her place as an active player in the fight against crime in Gotham is far from over) and to make her a fallible, flawed and interesting woman makes this adaptation much more worthy of attention. It’s Batman who comes across badly here as an egotistical jerk who proclaims “We’re partners, not equals!” with such venom. He’s shown to be a failure as a mentor and a failure as a father figure throughout, forever preoccupied with settling his own scores on his own terms, and not even Conroy, as talented as he is, can convince you to side with him.

Though it’s a seriously dark story, there are moments of levity, and some nice Easter Eggs. Walking through Arkham Asylum, Batman passes a cell with a two-headed dollar lying sadly outside and a hand manically clawing through the grill to get it back. When Batman brings up a gallery of the Joker’s appearances on the Batcomputer you can distinctly see Heath Ledger’s take in the top right of the screen. This story famously ended on a joke, and they retain that exactly here (it’s still a good one) and Hamill has a blast throughout playing his most grotesque and gleeful Joker ever. The aim of the original plot was to humanise and rationalise the way The Joker has ended up (in a very twisted Alan Moore fashion) and in my opinion that didn’t quite work on the page. It doesn’t work on screen either really – he’s shown to be human, to have had a life before crime, but considering the atrocities he is responsible for, you never come close to sympathising with him, and if I’m honest that’s probably for the best.

There are animated Batman films that flow better, that are more satisfying on a storytelling level, but then again there are better Batman comics to base your story on. While I wouldn’t sacrifice the Batgirl-centric first half for anything as her character being compelling and relatable is key to the story having its punch, it does fell very different from the wretched melodrama that we end on. The half-time shock that perfectly and horribly realises the comic’s most infamous panel signals a complete change of tone and pace that is really quite jarring, and I think that’s the point. The Killing Joke, despite its place (undeserved or not) as one of the Batman stories, was always going to be problematic to adapt, flawed in whatever form it finally took. It’s certainly an interesting watch, but you wonder whether love of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES and seeing its key players reunite twenty years later is enough of a reason to sit through it. SSP

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Review: Justice League vs. Teen Titans (2016)

Posted on July 28, 2016 by Sam S-P
Justice-League-vs-Teen-Titans

Justice League vs. Teen Titans (2016): DC Comics/Warner Bros Animation

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if only Warner Brothers could find a way to make their live-action superhero output as compelling as their animated straight-to-video features. If they could take a leaf out of Warner Bros Animation’s book and not outstay their welcome and maybe even occasionally crack a smile then they might not need to re-jig things to such a panicked extent to keep producing movies.

The continuing adventures of the son of Batman, Damian Wayne (Stuart Allan). After another reckless act during a mission that endangered innocent lives, Batman (Jason O’Mara) leaves his young protege with the Teen Titans with the hope that they will help him to curb his bloodlust and learn responsibility and care for others. Though he was meant to be safer amongst a team his own age, the new Robin’s interactions with the mysterious and powerful Raven (Taissa Farmiga) brings a grave new threat not just to the Titans but the wider Justice League…

There are some wonderful flights of imagination in this animation’s imagery. There really are no limits to aesthetic potential in the mind of an animator controlling a roster with superpowers . From creative super-choreography to apocalyptic scenes of destruction, there are so many striking images to choose from. I think my favourite was the sight of The Flash flying towards his airborne opponent by stepping on individual droplets of water in the air.

It’s also nice to have a sense of humour in the previously mirthless Damian Wayne films. Nightwing gets an eyeful but doesn’t do a very good job of hiding it as he chats to a just-showered Starfire over Skype; Cyborg advises that Batman really doesn’t want to know where his food goes due to his lack of a digestive system; The Flash asks if Batman has considered a boarding school for Damian then immediately cowers under The Dark Knight’s withering glare. In fact a lot of the best gags come from Batman not seeing the funny side of any situation, for as we know the Bat tends to be a bit of a killjoy, and Jason O’Mara’s wonderful deadpan is perfect to convey this.

The film explores Superman’s vulnerability to magic, a big thing in the comics but seldom covered on screen (mostly because it’s a pretty hard tonal balancing act) and this effectively takes him out of play for much of the action. This is a mistake that MAN OF STEEL and BATMAN V SUPERMAN made – avoiding the more bizarre and therefore striking comic-booky elements of the DC Universe entirely or desaturating these elements to fit in with our real world. You can get away more with more out-there characters in animation (the shape-and-size-shifting Beast Boy, alien warrior Starfire who has glowing eyes and wears a swimming costume into battle) where everything is exaggerated because of the limitations (and virtues) of the form and the very most is made of this.

What’s also nice to see is an acknowledgement that the Teen Titans are, well, teens. They have extraordinary abilities but at their heart they are a group of troubled young people living together. I understand why it’s such a popular comics line to adapt for TV as the slow character development and taking time to explore the ups and downs of being a dangerous adolescent lends itself well to the long-form (see: SMALLVILLE, BUFFY). I also think what these films have been lacking is someone for Damian to bounce off, to empathise with, but he finds that with Raven, and their developing relationship and the layers of tragedy at the heart of Raven’s story (helped a lot by Farmiga’s delicate voicework) is enthralling.

Between this and BAD BLOOD, and with THE KILLING JOKE just released, 2016 could go down as Warner Bros Animation’s most successful years. Who needs big-screen audiences when you have a loyal following watching quality adaptations of great stories at home? Animation is not a lesser medium and should not be dismissed, especially not for realising material that began as simple colours and lines on a page with colours and lines on a screen. With animation, the only limit really is your imagination. SSP

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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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