Review: Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Sam S-P
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Independence Day: Resurgence (2016): Centropolis Entertainment/TSG Entertainment

I wanted Roland Emmerich to bring his unique brand of big, dumb action back to the big screen in 2016. By golly does he deliver it with INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE. He also brings painful scripting (courtesy of four writers, no less), leaden exposition and crippling miscalculations of tone. Let’s take a closer look at what might end up being one of the year’s biggest, funnest flops.

Twenty years after aliens made their presence known and humanity (just) managed to drive back an invasion, the would-be-conquerers from beyond the stars have returned. Only scientist David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum), former President Thomas Whitmore (Bill Pullman) and a group of talented pilots who were all profoundly and tragically affected by the War of 96 can save their planet again.

The film’s considerable budget is certainly up on screen. Emmerich still loves his painterly action compositions, and there is memorable imagery throughout. The Moon’s surface being sucked into a wormhole; a tidal wave carrying buildings, boats and landmarks past the camera; more landmarks raining down on London’s own landmarks (“They like to get the landmarks”); the shadow of a flying saucer eclipsing a tiny yellow school bus fleeing across salt flats. It’s bold, colourful and creative stuff in extreme contrast with the grey-brown films of Michael Bay and Zack Snyder.

Jeff Goldblum returns as David Levinson, still balancing the awkward confidence of being the smartest guy in the room with borderline despair at mankind’s inevitable doom. He also makes a great noise when he’s scared. Bill Pullman plays a broken, mentally scarred former President Whitmore and Brent Spiner steals the show as the surprisingly-not-dead and still completely batty Dr Okun (the screentime split between these three oldies may surprise you). Liam Hemsworth does his best to bring the snarky charm in the replacement Will Smith role, but sadly Jesse T Usher, who actually plays Hiller’s son, does not seem to possess a teaspoonful of charisma. Maika Monroe makes no impact as the grown up president’s daughter (not entirely her fault, there’s nothing to the character) and Judd Hirsch, though entertaining once again as David’s dad Julius, is asked to be funny at entirely inappropriate moments.

We spend an irritating amount of time being regaled with what has happened in the preceding 20 years. There are frequent reminders of what each character’s primary (alright, let’s not kid ourselves – singular) motivation or special skill is – just in case this happens to come up later. The writers, chiefly Dean Devlin, have the gall to tease us with a far more interesting plot prospect of a ten-year land war between a crashed alien battalion and African mercenaries, but we never get to see it. A late-stage plot turn (following the grin-inducing dunderheaded sight of Dr Okun trying to crack open a mysterious alien object with a powerful laser) promises to turn the film into something else entirely, liberally borrowing visuals and ideas from other sources. Sadly shortly after this we revert to pretty much the same final act as the first film but with a special effects upgrade.

Potential for some interesting ideas is pretty much squandered, with humanity’s adoption of alien tech seemingly resulting in little more than hover trams, bigger guns and fighter jets that can fly in space. The world seems more harmonious since their first tussle with ET, but we get no sense of how large lives of civilians might have changed over two decades. There’s a nice moment with a kid telling Julius his family doesn’t think David ever went to space, that it was all a conspiracy. It goes to show that even after witnessing spaceships the size of countries in their skies, humanity remains a cynical beast.

Relationships get a short shrift as well – David has a new beau in fellow brainbox Catherine (Charlotte Gainsbourg) but no real indication of their history, Jake (Hemsworth) and Patricia (Monroe) share hardly any scenes together. Elsewhere, the much-publicised censoring of Dr Okun’s gay relationship – perhaps to help the film’s release in China – is nothing short of tragic, especially for such a proud champion of LGBT rights as Emmerich. It’s this lack of empathy, of humanity that ultimately makes Independence Day: Resurgence crash. No-one is denying Roland Emmerich remains an artisan of the apocalypse, a craftsman of chaos. Fatally, without the beating heart that was present and correct in the original INDEPENDENCE DAY, the sequel’s many thrills will remain empty ones. SSP

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Review: The Lobster (2015)

Posted on July 3, 2016 by Sam S-P
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The Lobster (2015): Element Pictures/Scarlet Films/Farliro House Productions

Well file this one comfortably (or uncomfortably) under “flawed but fascinating”. THE LOBSTER is a symphony to loneliness, an essay to alienation. It constructs a bizarre and jarring world inhabited by the miserable and the hollow, then asks you to reside in it for a spell. Good luck…

In a society where being single has been deemed illegal, David (Colin Farrell) finds himself without a mate. He is sent to a luxury hotel full of likewise lost souls and given a choice: find a suitable companion within 45 days or be turned into an animal and released into the woods. The one silver lining is that he gets to choose what he will become.

The conceit is simple one: being single in this world is seen as an illness, as dangerous for society as a whole so you have to find a partner through formula to save yourself from forced transformation into an animal. Everyone plays it monotone and awkward (an interesting choice, but arguably an excuse for wooden performances as well); personalities are defined almost exclusively by people’s distinctive physical traits or interests and everything about this reality is a little wrong. This wrongness makes it difficult for us to like, or even be all that interested in anybody, but also allows for some clever gags. You’ll find humour here that exists nowhere else, like how the evil hotel staff use guests’ libidos against them to force them to find a suitable partner out of desperation (David’s response to a cruel and unusual daily torment “That’s just…awful”); Olivia Colman’s Hotel Manager stating that any couples who begin to argue on a regular basis “will be assigned children”.

The tone of the thing is admittedly weird. Some of the stylistic refrains – particularly a regularly repeated musical motif and the completely unnecessary narration – irritate greatly after a while. We see David feel something, then the narration reiterates what he feels then we get a burst of that grating music. The emotionless commentary on events are tied to the way a particular character is written, but in practice it doesn’t work. It’s at these points you want writer-director Yorgos Lanthimos to stop faffing and just get on with it.

It’s great to see Colin Farrell in an interesting lead role again, and he plays vulnerability with humour like nobody else can. Rachel Weisz does what she can with her limited character and the final act of the film achieves poignancy mostly through her, but the supporting players in the film’s first half, chiefly Colman, Ben Whishaw and Michael Smiley, eclipse her without really having to try.

The film certainly loses something when it leaves the confines of the hotel. I think this kind of oddball story only really works within the limitations of that kind of space. The final stretch consists of a lot of moping around the deserted woods (where you wouldn’t be surprised if they bumped into the cast of THE SURVIVALIST) or moping around deserted cities. A plotline involving otherthrowing the establishment goes nowhere so you wonder why it was included at all. I guess there had to be something else in addition to the relationship drama if so much effort is being put into you not being able to feel for these couples.

The Lobster is a film I can appreciate from afar rather than really enjoy. So much distance is intentionally kept between characters and their emotions, in addition to distance between the viewer and the characters, that it becomes quite hard to care. It evokes a feeling of otherness throughout really well, but ultimately glimmers of brilliance and twisted humour are eclipsed by an exhausting premise and unnecessarily brash styling. SSP

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Review: Dad’s Army (2016)

Posted on June 26, 2016 by Sam S-P

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Dad’s Army (2016): DJ Films

Just in case you’re reading this in a country the BBC doesn’t directly beam its content to, DAD’S ARMY was a British sitcom that broadcast from the late 1960s to the late 1970s that followed an incompetent platoon of WWII Home Guardsmen. It was cosy, gentle and witty, with beloved characters brought to life by some of the finest talent on TV at the time. Now, almost 50 years since it first graced our screen, the big screen remake has landed with a dull thud.

In sleepy seaside town Walmington-on-Sea, the only hope to stop a Nazi spy from smuggling secrets of the British war effort back to Germany lies with a small platoon of Local Defence Volunteers. Unfortunately this group of doddery old men and inexperienced boys are not the finest their country has to offer, and lead by Captain Mainwaring (Toby Jones) and Sergeant Wilson (Bill Nighy) they must try and not balls-up the whole thing.  

After a title sequence consisting of an awful CGI pigeon flying to “Ride of the Valkyries” we go straight in to a weirdly misjudged serious take on the sitcom’s “You have been watching…” (which we get a proper version of at the end anyway). After that it’s the bull scene you’ve probably already seen in the trailers, and the old boys slowly walking away from an equally slow (but we’re told, angry) bull is no funnier here.

The wives (Felicity Montagu and a completely wasted Sarah Lancashire and Alison Steadman) are great additions to the regular cast of characters, perhaps the one thing that was lacking in the original show – formidable women to keep their silly old men in check. The scene in the Mainwarings’ shelter during an air raid is made memorable by Mrs M’s determination to not lose out on sleep no matter what is flying overhead – she having erected a sizeable bunk bed in there for just such a night. As Elizabeth, Felicity Montagu steals every scene she’s in, fully living up to the fearsome reputation her character (unseen, but referred to frequently in the sitcom) has built up.

Sergeant Wilson’s oft-hinted at infidelity and misdemeanours are made far more explicit and Nighy has fun with his snide, borderline maverick take on the character originated by John Le Mesurier. The others fit the moulds you expect, but rarely shine. Tom Courtenay’s Lance-Corporal Jones only raises a smile when he confides his out-of-the-blue philosophical conundrum, “If none of us exist, who would I sell my sausages to?”. I’m not sure Toby Jones’ gentle buffoon really competes with Arthur Lowe’s stuck up blowhard Captain Mainwaring, but at least Jones isn’t trying to do an impression of his predecessor.

The number one sin on radio is said to be dead air. This film all-too-often is the visual and comic equivalent of that. You can almost hear the embarrassed coughing in the background when the jokes don’t land or a pratfall is slightly off. Mainwaring tripping over things and over his words and Jones’ sausage-based innuendo aren’t exactly the height of comic sophistication, but they could have worked if well-timed, or at least if they form only a part of the routine. But in Dad’s Army “whoops” and “I saw you give her your sausage” is your lot.

It’s nice to have an acknowledgement that incompetent platoons of the Home Guard would of course be found out eventually. They weren’t a joke in the war, just a backup force back in Blighty, a chance for those unable to join up because of their age or their health serve their country. Of course having the platoon in dire straits at the end of the second act is simply to add a little more jeopardy than you’d see on the small screen. I don’t know how you’d get the runtime without this fabrication, but it still feels forced.

Dad’s Army is not only underwhelming and unfunny, but a pretty pointless exercise. Fans of the sitcom won’t give it the time of day, and it’s too dull and comically misjudged to find a new audience. Bill Nighy and Felicity Montagu on fine form can’t save this misfire. I think I’ll just stick to watching the original show, still repeated every Saturday night on the BBC, whenever I visit my grandad. SSP

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20 Years On: Independence Day (1996)

Posted on June 23, 2016 by Sam S-P
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Independence Day (1996): Centropolis Entertainment/20th Century Fox

Roland Emmerich really does turn massive-scale destruction into an art form. Michael Bay can make things go boom then throw them at you while juggling the camera, but Emmerich really seems to relish his careful construction of sequences and giving his audience breathing room for the cost of disaster to register, even to find a little beauty in chaos. INDEPENDENCE DAY is still so loved after two decades not because of the spectacle, which is considerable, or the effects, which haven’t aged too badly, but because of the enduring cast characters the story is built around.

When a worldwide alien invasion forces mankind to reevaluate its position in the universe, only a group of talented and determined individuals – scientists, politicians, soldiers and ordinary people – can prevent the human race being wiped off the planet.

The alien invasion-meets-disaster epic plot is serviceable and economic, rarely wasting time on extraneous details but just getting us where we need to go. The script is solid enough, with some nice one-liners and winks to the audience about the way these sorts of movies usually go, plus a key death midway through is handled sensitively, honestly and with a rare intimacy for a blockbuster.

The scale of human peril only has its impact because the film takes time to build our unlikely group of survivors (sometimes too) conveniently brought together. For almost an hour, the aliens are moving into position and what isn’t guys in uniforms looking at screens and talking in code is really good character stuff. We see David’s (Jeff Goldblum) single-mindedness in the workplace; Steven’s (Will Smith) dreams of joining NASA crushed; Jasmine (Vivica A Fox) having to take her young son to the Go-Go club she dances at because she can’t afford a sitter; Julius (Judd Hirsch) gently mocking his son for his life-choices and rediscovering his faith; President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) worrying what his public perception has become; Russell (Randy Quaid) drowning trauma in a bottle at the expense of his family. Each character has more shades and nuance to them than the entire casts of other lesser big summer movies. They start out as broad archetypes, but as they work together for survival and share their experiences, they grow beyond their character boundaries as the destruction commences and they do what they have to. We love them all and we want to see them make it through OK.

It’s still got the feelgood factor, if you can withstand a little (OK, a lot of) cheese. What makes such granstanding and patriotism towards Independence Day’s finale so palatable rather than disturbing is the aforementioned characters and our affection for them, and the earnestness with which the whole affair is played. I do find it amusing that Emmerich, a liberal European, is so good at making destruction porn, though always with a heart. I wish he’d have cut out those “English” soldiers who sound like they’re from a black-and-white film in the buildup to the final battle. We know it’s an American perspective, just tell us what the other countries are doing rather than embarrassing  yourself by portraying them.

Even the mostly miniature-based special effects haven’t aged too disgracefully. I’m of the belief that 90s blockbusters tend to stand the test of time a little better than others as it was the decade of combining cutting-edge practical effects with new developments in computer animation, and combinations of techniques tend to fool your eye better (just look at JURASSIC PARK and PAN’S LABYRINTH for evidence of this). The miniatures blowing up still look fine, as do the guys in rubber suits and animatronics playing aliens; it’s the CG-heavy spaceship vs fighter jets scenes that have started to look hokey.

I’ve actually got high hopes for INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE. Lightning might not quite strike twice, but I very much doubt Roland will let us down. He’ll have kept us waiting for something spectacular, and hopefully with a healthy serving of heart as well. That is, unless he’s managed to replicate the same toxic sludge that produced 10,000 BC. SSP

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Review: The Nice Guys (2016)

Posted on June 20, 2016 by Sam S-P
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The Nice Guys (2016): Silver Pictures/Waypoint Entertainment/RatPac-Dune Entertainment

Watch THE NICE GUYS for a wonderfully shambolic Ryan Gosling teaming up with Russell Crowe playing a tank in a leather jacket. Remember it for Shane Black’s unique and sharply self-aware take on film noir. Black has been Hollywood’s go-to writer of dark buddy comedies for nigh-on 30 years now, but has always felt like a bit of an outsider. The Nice Guys may only his third film as director, but it further cements Black’s signature style and voice.

Los Angeles 1977. When a porn star dies in mysterious circumstances, two private eyes grudgingly team up to get to solve the mystery. Drunken and haunted single dad Holland March (Ryan Gosling) and bitter bruiser Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) soon realise how out of depth they are as multiple seemingly unrelated investigations blend together and shady characters armed to the teeth come after them.

Shane Black still does mismatched pairings forever torn between saving the day and biting each other’s heads off like nobody else. His screenplay is full of hilarious Black-isms: Healy’s bitter aside on marriage “just buying a house for someone you hate”, March’s repeated correction of his daughter’s conversational tic “Don’t say n stuff. Just say, Dad there are whores  here” along with copious creative swearing.

The Nice Guys is the best example yet of Gosling’s talent for comedy. We know he can do deadly serious (HALF NELSON) and silent physicality (DRIVE) but he’s funny as hell as well. As March he shrieks and stumbles and panics constantly, thoroughly justifying his daughter referring to him as “the world’s worst detective”; his gift for slapstick best exemplified by the already-infamous toilet stall scene (does it get less funny if you’ve seen it about ten times? Nope). I don’t think Crowe had to work particularly hard at becoming a past his prime tough nut, but Healy makes for a good (slightly) more competent contrast to the unapologetic mess of a man that is Holland March. Both are acted off the screen, and their characters repeatedly humiliated by, the intelligence and natural-born detective instincts of Holland’s daughter Holly (Angourie Rice) who tags along for a lot of the fun.

There’s a nice little cameo for IRON MAN 3’s Ty Simpkins in the opening scene that immediately sets the seedy tone Black was going for with the film. There’s a much much stranger cameo from a key 70s figure at an important moment later on too that I won’t ruin here. Elsewhere Keith David plays a well-dressed thug and Kim Basinger’s Senator character could really have done with more screentime to develop her motivations beyond by-the-numbers.

Plot-wise I missed the intricacy of Black’s KISS KISS BANG BANG. He’s not lacking for character chemistry and chucklesome memorable moments, but the plot is pretty basic fare. It’s perfectly serviceable as a story and gets you from A to B, but though built up to be a twisty-turny gumshoe investigation, Black seems to lose interest and prefer to chuck muddled shootouts and falling off high buildings at us rather than any real intrigue. The final act certainly loses something when it is revealed how linear the mystery was and you wonder whether March and Healy going through all that was worth it.

What I also missed is some real darkness. It really puts the comic emphaisis on black comedy, and I’d have preferred it the other way round. It’s seedy, there’s dodgy and immoral stuff going on, but when you compare what Match and Healy go through here compared to their equivalents in other noirish fare like CHINATOWN, THE LONG GOODBYE or GET CARTER it’s sorely missing an exploration of the blackest depths of the human soul. At the base level, one of our heroes is an alcoholic, the other is violent and they get chased by guys with guns. It’s a glossy telling of this story, but you clamour for some added depth.

The Nice Guys has moments that feel pleasingly anarchic, and is fizzy and funny throughout. This isn’t up there with the best of Black’s back catalogue, feeling a little blunted and overblown towards the end and really missing a few good shocks and darker turns. It still ends up being one of the more entertaining star-lead vehicles released this year though, and makes you appreciate that Hollywood is lucky to be making films with a talent like Shane Black, even when he’s not quite on top form. SSP

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Hard-Hitting Netflix Original Documentary Double Bill

Posted on June 16, 2016 by Sam S-P

How catchy is the title of this piece? Anyway, isn’t streaming brilliant? Convenience and value for money aside, so many interesting documentaries that might otherwise have never found the right outlet for release can now be beamed straight into your curious eyeballs at a time of your choosing. Here are just two of the most notable, made for, and available now, on Netflix.

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My Beautiful Broken Brain (2014): Netflix

MY BEAUTIFUL BROKEN BRAIN (2014/16) In 2011, Lotje Sodderland suffered from a stroke at the age of 34. This is her story told in a manner only possible because it comes from a dynamic artist. Lotje’s terrifying and life-changing experience is reconstructed in chilling and immediate fashion, the visceral footage adding real weight to the standard family and friends talking heads giving their recollections on the event. The first time we actually see Lotje she makes a very pragmatic statement straight to camera, cheerily confirming that “I’m definitely not dead”. Lotje then graciously allows us to follow her recovery process, talking directly to us throughout, of rewiring her brain every slow and painful step of the way.

The documentary certainly makes you appreciate how much we as a species take communication for granted as we watch a witty and erudite adult grapple for the simplest words that elude her, having to attempt to re-learn to speak, read and write almost from scratch. We obviously can’t experience precisely what Lotje is going through but she, a filmmaker herself, and fellow filmmaker Sophie Robinson who was enlisted to get this most personal of projects off the ground, know how important it is to make your audience go through something other than pity. If there was one thing I wasn’t expecting in a serious documentary, it the film’s effectively otherworldly Lynchian horror visuals (a certain bequiffed filmmaker just may make an appearance later on). The slightly off, eerie imagery  combined with Lotje’s magnetic personality and superhuman struggle makes MY BEAUTIFUL BROKEN BRAIN not just a must-watch, but a must-experience. It’s frightening, contemplative and artistic without style ever overtaking substance.

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Team Foxcatcher (2016): Netflix

TEAM FOXCATCHER (2016) As creepy and fascinating as this true story is, this documentary has the misfortune of coming out the year after Bennett Miller’s superlative drama FOXCATCHER. What the documentary gets across that the feature arguably did not is the desperation of many of the young athletes living and training on John du Pont’s farm. Some had nothing but the clothes on their back and a born talent for wrestling, those better off still had to worry about supporting their families when they inevitably retired, so no wonder did they all take up his offer of unlimited resources and zero real-world distractions.

The wealth of archive footage is mesmeric and it really gets across what an open and charming sporting prodigy (one tragically caught in the wrong place at the wrong time) Dave Schultz was, all the while keeping his murderer John du Pont elusive and sinister, tragic and pitiable, try as he might to beguile. None of his quirks that were dangerously indulged by those around him were exaggerated in popular media, but some, like du Pont claiming to be the Dalai Lama when he wore red or his belief that he could control the weather, or the firing of brilliant athletes because they were black, “the colour of death” come to startling light in this documentary. You’re also allowed to get to know the Foxcatcher community – all the athletes from over the world living on the farm together with their families, all these people whose lives were destroyed by the actions of one deeply disturbed individual. With all the evidence laid out before you, you can see that there were warning signs, but how were those involved ever meant to know how far it would go? This is a thoughtful gut-punch of a documentary feature. SSP

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Review: Love & Friendship (2016)

Posted on June 14, 2016 by Sam S-P
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Love & Friendship (2016): Westerly Films/Blinder Films/Chic Films

It’s Jane Austen, but not quite as we know it. Whit Stillman’s LOVE & FRIENDSHIP adapts one of the titanically influential novelist’s lesser-known and unfinished stories (originally titled LADY SUSAN) and the result is a film that is both delicate and incredibly funny, often in a rather modern manner.

Recently widowed Lady Susan Verson (Kate Beckinsale) stays with her in-laws and lays out her plans for wedding her daughter Frederica (Morfydd Clark) and maintaining her own privileged position in society. Idiot suitors and interested parties come and go, but Lady Susan has been playing this game for a long time, and will stop at nothing to make sure she comes out on top. 

In a world where multiple UNDERWORLD movies and a remake of TOTAL RECALL exist, you’d be forgiven for forgetting just how good Kate Beckinsale can be – here she gives Lady Susan presence, relentless determination and razor-sharp wit. She plays society, men and women alike so expertly and is always one step ahead of everyone else in the drawing room in order maintain her self-reliance and comfortable lifestyle. Lady Susan’s show is nearly stolen by adorable idiot Sir James (Tom Bennett), a man rich enough to get away with being a complete moron, who is run circles around by everyone he meets but never quite realises it. He tries, bless him, he appears a good-natured enough soul, and you are laughing with more than at him by the end. The supporting cast of lords and ladies played by talent including Morfydd Clark, James Fleet and Justin Edwards make for a good ensemble who inhabit their characters seamlessly.

As an unfinished Austen, Love & Friendship feels understandably enough like it’s trying out ideas and testing some of the author’s soon-to-be hallmark themes and character archetypes. It’s refreshingly scrappy and unpolished, but it also feels very real. Everyone looks uncomfortable and mannered in their period clothes, not because they’re bad or miscast performers, but because clothes of that period were awkward, restrictive and uncomfortable. This is a slight and undemanding story, but a very watchable and entertaining one all the same.

There are some lovely stylistic details to make this tale distinctive, and to add colour to some of the recurring jokes. The characters in each household hold a pose for the camera (Sir James is so stupid he carries on moving as normal as the people around him pause) and all are introduced with snide captions commenting on their status, age, or respective usefulness. Seeing the handwriting floating and faltering on screen as Sir Reginald (James Fleet) struggles to regale his wife (Jemma Redgrave) with Lady Susan’s correspondence with enough personality to engage her is also an amusing idea.

The scenes with Chloë Sevigny are much less satisfying, with Sevigny’s Alicia simply acting as a sounding board for Lady Susan as she plans her next move. You don’t really get a sense of why they are friends at all really – Lady Susan just shows off and Alicia lets her, not expressing herself or who she is in any real fashion. I don’t really see the point in Stephen Fry being part of this either as he’s usually just in the background of Sevigny’s scenes contributing very little. At least he didn’t pick up any bad habits from SHERLOCK HOLMES and thankfully keeps his trousers on this time.

I will have to see this one again to pick up some of the intricacies of the dialogue, but the performances of the key players throughout still make it a hugely enjoyable watch. Love & Friendship isn’t a swooner, in fact it’s refreshingly pragmatic about relationships and what they amounted to for aristocratic women in the Nineteenth Century. Lady Susan’s means to an end attitude to marriage for herself and her nearest and dearest must have reflected many in her privileged yet limited position. For a brisk and modest film without any real shocking twists or revelations, this is a pleasingly layered and satisfying affair. SSP

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Review: Radiator (2014/15)

Posted on June 9, 2016 by Sam S-P
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Radiator (2014): Turnchapel Films

I’d like to forewarn you that anyone with an ailing friend or relative, or who has witnessed someone with a duty of care not up to that task, will find that a lot of RADIATOR hits very close to home and is difficult to watch. Fear not though, there is low-key humour sprinkled throughout as well to keep it from being too much of a downer. I see this as a beautiful and worthwhile piece of British independent cinema to seek out.

When Daniel (Daniel Cerqueira) returns to his rural childhood home to help his mother (Gemma Jones) care for his ailing and estranged father (Richard Johnson), little does he suspect that this charitable role will take up far more time and energy than he can willfully give. Will his time in the challenging company of Leonard and his doting Maria soften him or reaffirm why he left for London in the first place?

Tom Brown’s film embraces the beautiful and unforgiving power of the close-up, and you couldn’t get more thematically appropriate scenery than the desolate serenity of the Lake District. I went to the lakes a lot as a child and they can be imposing, unforgiving and the very last place you’d want to have to trek to in order to care for an ailing relative. Think of where they go for their miserable holiday in WITHNAIL & I – it’s exactly like that. This region of Northern England is also stunningly beautiful and tranquil; just the place one might want to retire for peace and quiet. So even putting aside their historical fallouts and general dislike for each other Leonard and Daniel are starting from a point of animosity – Daniel has had a long and hard journey to see this old wretch.

The best chapter in the film is an occasion when father and son are forced to get along as Maria leaves for a few days to see friends. They get along famously until they have an explosive argument over, of all things, cutlery. That’s families for you – you have to love them but you don’t have to like to them and you fall out over the stupidest things. Richard Johnson’s final performance is one to savour, a storm of contradictions. Leonard is abrasive but vulnerable, quick to complain but equally quick to brush off any assistance offered with utter indignity. He’s not a nice bloke in short, but he is funny and you wonder how much you’d put up with if he was one of your own relatives. Cerqueira’s obstinate Daniel and especially Jones as the always-warm Maria are saints for looking after him, and the film never pretends otherwise.

Leonard and Maria’s converted farmhouse home is wonderfully ramshackle. I’m sure most people know someone who has lived in a place not so dissimilar. Everything in its place; that place being the floor, leaning against walls, serving as architecturally essential supports for the wider structure or just generally strewn around. Just look at the perfect fit of desperation as Daniel claws through the chaos of his parents’ cutlery drawer looking for a fork, or the ever-present mouse watching their every move from corners of the room.

If I had one criticism, as hard-hitting and soulful as Radiator is, the plot is structured exactly as you’d expect it to be. The moments of pathos appear right on cue, and you can pretty much guess where the characters will be at and how far they will, or won’t have come by the end. But hey, sometimes real life, which is what this film strives to represent, sticks to the script. Cruel twists of fate, ups, downs and in-betweens come at regular intervals and advance all our life stories. If you have any opportunity to track down and watch Radiator, I implore you do so. If nothing else, it’ll make most of you appreciate your own families. SSP

 

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Review: Warcraft (2016)

Posted on June 5, 2016 by Sam S-P
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Warcraft (2016): Legendary Pictures/Blizzard Entertainment/Atlas Entertainment

Despite being a regular gamer myself, WORLD OF WARCRAFT is something that has passed me by. You can’t not be aware of it as a phenomenon, but I’ve never played it and have no real familiarity with the story. I went into Duncan Jones’ WARCRAFT film adaptation ignorant but with an open mind. I came out bewildered and slightly annoyed I spent an evening with it.

The world of Azeroth must prepare for war as a horde of Orcs invade through an unholy portal sustained by sinister magic to their ruined homeland. Warriors, wizards and kings must work together to mount a counter-attack.

First, the good. I liked the portrayal of magic in this world as an elemental, corrosive and terrifying power. One of the few things the film does really well is to sell what it costs someone to wield it. From seeing a sorcerer standing atop a mountain to summon a lightning storm to turn the tide of battle, then immediately requiring power replenishment as their lifeforce leaves them, to the rapid corruption of body and soul some magic-users go through in the film, it all comes at a price. It’s an awesome force, but using it for as a weapon affects you far more than just swinging a sword.

The visuals are admittedly dazzling throughout, though the constant onslaught of visual information and bright colours (refreshing as it may be in a world of grey and sepia blockbusters) quickly becomes a more painful than pleasurable experience. The Orcs are very well realised with the same sophisticated motion-capture technology used in the latest PLANET OF THE APES movies. The sheer size and mass of the ten-foot Orcs fighting human knights in armour raises some interesting possibilities for the action, though the entertainment value drops drastically once the conflict grows from brutal and immediate skirmishes to hectic full-blown battle scenes. On a side note, how come in a 12A/PG-13 movie you can show swords thrust through faces and blood gushing from severed arms as long as it’s green blood? A human gets his neck crushed in an Orc’s fist as well at one point, but since there’s no visible blood it’s apparently it’s OK to show this violent death to a mixed-age audience as well.

Performance-wise there unfortunately isn’t a lot to write home about. Toby Kebbell does what he can in terms of injecting humanity (irony not lost) into new daddy Orc Durotan, though he doesn’t quite hit the perfect pathos of Koba in DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES and Ben Foster channels Nicol Williamson as Merlin-esque wild-eyed campy sorcerer Medivh. Elsewhere we’re supposed to root for Travis Fimmel as a smirky warrior, Ben Schnetzer’s baby-faced “chosen one” cutout and a green Paula Patton, who is more than talented enough to bring something interesting to the role of conflicted half-Orc Garona, if only the script would give her room to do so. Meanwhile, we’re meant to boo Daniel Wu and Clancy Brown’s ferocious Orc leaders Gul’dan and Blackhand, who both  have striking designs but do next-to-nothing interesting and rarely say anything you can make out because they growl through tusks.

Important scenes and character moments are continually cut short or feel rushed, the film seems compelled to get it over and done with as soon as possible, yet it’s still two hours long, and a grueling two hours at that. I don’t know if massive swathes of extra exposition would improve matters, and once they stop explaining everything (about 20 minutes in) Warcraft becomes more watchable but also more confusing if you’re not familiar with the lore.

Duncan Jones is a dedicated player of the game and clearly he would have wanted to put everything he loves about it on screen (fully supported by games developer Blizzard), but I don’t know how all that passion results in something so lacking in personality. As a director, he works with big ideas on a modest scale and his stories tend to be driven primarily by character. I’m not sure this plot-driven fantasy epic was quite the right fit for his talents. I really hope his next project MUTE, firmly back in Jones’ wheelhouse of low-key sci-fi is a little more compelling. SSP

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Review: The Do-Over (2016)

Posted on June 2, 2016 by Sam S-P
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The Do-Over (2016): Happy Madison Productions/Netflix

I was planning to bite the bullet and get through this one quick (I had already paid for my Netflix subscription after all) but my internet provider had other ideas, perhaps in protest, when it went down over the whole bank holiday weekend. Adam Sandler’s comedy has previously alternated between the downright offensive and the juvenile, but now he’s hit middle age (on the outside at least) he’s just sad. A slight air of melancholy, summed up by Sandler glumly reminiscing about being “stuck in shop class building bird cages and foot stools” is probably the only good thing about THE DO-OVER.

After bumping into old school friend Max (Adam Sandler) at a high school reunion, down-in-the-dumps bank manager Charlie (David Spade) takes a break with his buddy. When Max fakes their deaths and steals a pile of cash belonging to the man whose identity he has stolen, he and Charlie find themselves on the run from some bad men.

Adam Sandler’s boat (I’m going to keep calling him Adam Sandler rather than Max because he’s never not playing Adam Sandler) is called Fish ‘n’ Chicks. That’s not only unfunny, it doesn’t even really work as a pun. It’s still probably the best gag in the film, the script of which, by Kevin Barnett and Chris Papas, seems to have set out to destroy mirth.

There might as well be a massive Corona logo stuck to the corner of the screen throughout the Do-Over – the advertising deal they got for this movie must have been lucrative, with at least a bottle or better a blatant “I love this brand of beer” shoutout in every scene. Incredibly it makes the FAST & FURIOUS franchise look positively subtle in comparison, and Dom Toretto really likes his Mexican beverages.

You think the story might go in an interesting direction when Charlie’s expository voiceover is broken off mid-sentence by an explosion. It doesn’t, with laboured scene after laboured scene utterly devoid of humour following the plot (such as it is) kicking into gear.

Goons bouncing off the bumpers of speeding vehicles are about as sophisticated as the jokes get, but Adam Sandler and Charlie also use the same tactic to gain an ally – stalking and running over Heather (Paula Patton) with their car – and that’s apparently meant to be cute rather than cartoonily misogynistic. This only gets more sickening as we get to see our supposed protagonists getting a kick out of woman-on-woman brutality in the final set piece.

Being misogynistic would be enough to write this off as not worth your time, but The Do-Over is also homophobic (“aren’t men who like men equally funny and scary, right guys?” the film seems to say in a quite literally tortuous final act scene); it’s derogatory to the handicapped (Sandler’s senile mother plastered with makeup like a pantomime dame and her debilitating condition constantly mocked by her son is the basis for an entire sequence) and very one-note Adam Sandler-y (two utterly repellant guys who somehow aren’t shot at more often).

It took me several attempts, but I did get through the Do-Over. I think I only finished it because I didn’t want such a pathetic movie to defeat me. There’s nothing to it accept backwards man-childishness, and it’s even worse when Sandler tries to be serious, when he tries to make us care and appreciate a Hallmark card ending after showing utter disdain for us for 75 % of the movie. This didn’t defeat me, and if you start it you might as well finish it just to reaffirm that you are better than Sandler. But if you haven’t yet hit play, I’d strongly advise that you don’t bother. Only pain will you find. SSP

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