Review: Nina Forever (2015/16)

Posted on April 14, 2016 by Sam S-P
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Nina Forever (2015): Charlie Productions/Jeva Films

Raise your hand if you remember how rubbish LIFE AFTER BETH was? NINA FOREVER excels in pretty much every way its totally wonky American cousin fails – it’s sincere, soulful and has something important to say about losing a loved one before their time.

When trainee paramedic and reluctant supermarket worker Holly (Abigail Hardingham) strikes up a fast romance with Rob (Cian Barry) it seems like her life is finally coming together. Rob finally begins to raise himself out of a black pit of depression too, but despite the new couple’s passion and their connection, there is a problem. That problem is Nina (Fiona O’Shaughnessy)  – Rob’s ex who has died horribly but won’t let that stop her from coming between them.

The film’s opening scene is a beautiful illustration of stillness and all its implications – a static camera, a motorcycle crash beside a placid lake, a failing flickering indicator light in time to a failing, flickering heartbeat. Then death becomes life once more as the pulse steadies and the prone body stirs and the circle of life keeps on spinning.

Holly is described as “vanilla” by a condescending colleague at one point, in stark contrast to the raw intensity of actress Abigail Hardingham’s heartfelt performance. Not everyone could manage to eat a pomegranate seductively, but Hardingham somehow manages it (just look at Rob’s face – he’s impressed too!). Cian Barry has the thousand-yard-stare of a man at war with himself and the sturdiest of three-handers is completed with Fiona O’Shaughnessy who gamely spends most of the film stark naked and caked in claret and impresses with her unsettling ruined body movements and by balancing playing Nina as heartbroken from beyond the grave and tossing out catty insults.

Nina Forever always walks a very difficult line, between life and death, love and regret, fun and danger. The first lovemaking scene between Rob and Holly starts off sexy and ends up pretty terrifying as the lovers hurriedly disentangle to get away from the bloody spectre of Nina rising out of their bed like a more talkative J-Horror ghoul. The scene really is one-of-a-kind, segwaying straight from abject horror to awkwardly introducing the ex (who just happens to be dead). The second lovemaking scene where Holly and Rob seem to embrace Nina’s supernatural intrusion almost as a fetish element in their relationship is even weirder and more striking. It really has got to be seen to believed.

As well as his new girlfriend, Rob has some perfectly lovely in-laws (David Troughton and Elizabeth Elvin) who invite him over every week for Sunday lunch and insist he needs to move on from, but never forget, their daughter Nina. The film’s take on loss and mourning is not a clear-cut one as a truly heartbreaking scene between Rob and Nina’s parents in a crowded restaurant makes clear. As the ghostly Nina points out to Rob “We never broke up”. Erm, she’s not wrong. Grief never really leaves you and will always be part of you, but you can’t let it rule you. There is always more out there for someone who has gone through the trauma of loss and once you find someone to share your grief with you can better overcome, or at the very least live with less pain. Later in the film when Rob and Holly commit to their relationship they also commit to Nina’s bloody apparition being part of their life and stock up on clean sheets accordingly, a pragmatic and progressive way to look at loss.

Anyone dismissing this film with a sneer as “emo” isn’t worth engaging in civilised conversation. It may be destined for cult status due to its genre-melding and plentiful gallows humour, but Nina Forever doesn’t seem to be gunning for this. Co-writer-directors Ben Blaine and Chris Blaine simply want to have an honest and insightful conversation about grief and people’s inability to cope with this most tragic and cruel fact of human existence. A scene towards the end seems ever so slightly too gruesome for the sake of it, but this doesn’t lessen the impact of the piece as a whole, and Nina Forever ends up being an emotionally fulfilling thesis on grief and one of the most unique British horrors for years. SSP

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Review: Steve Jobs (2015)

Posted on April 8, 2016 by Sam S-P
Film Title: Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs (2015): Legendary Pictures/Scott Rudin Productions/Mark Gordan Company

Let’s not sugarcoat it: Steve Jobs was an awful human being. A great marketer, a technology rock star, a man with a vision, but as a person he is rightly reviled. Danny Boyle’s Aaron Sorkin-scripted character study does not shy away from this, even having the man himself admit he is “poorly made” at one point. STEVE JOBS sees its subject at his ugliest and we witness all the pain and torment he causes others behind the scenes of his glossy tech demonstrations and shiny branding.

1984, 1988, 1998. Three product launches all fronted by, and obsessed over, by Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender). This is the story of the buildup to the main event, to Jobs taking stage and selling to an enraptured audience, upsetting everybody and distancing himself from the rest of humanity all along the way.

Though a good chunk of the film’s appeal hangs on the performances of the cast, of their well-honed skills making Sorkin’s script sing, there is also ample room for Boyle to make things cinematic. Steve Jobs is constructed in such a way that it would work really well on stage and a future adaptation isn’t beyond the realms of possibility as Sorkin has written for broadway before. Fassbender’s Jobs is present in every scene with the rest of the ensemble constantly coming and going exactly as though they’re hanging around just off-stage.

Boyle loves the bend our concept of reality much in the same way Jobs was said to exploit a “reality distortion field”. Just look at how he justifies his actions – personal and professional – highlighting innovations of the past to confidant Joanna (Kate Winslet) as imagery illustrating his points is superimposed vividly on the corridor behind them like one of his Apple presentations to a captivated audience. He never drops his guard and we struggle to see where public Jobs ends and the real Jobs begins (if there even is a real Jobs) – he is always working, always with the next “great” thing for his company in sight and any real human connection at the very back of his mind.

It was pointed out when Michael Fassbender stepped in at a late stage to play the Apple maverick that he looks nothing like Steve Jobs. That’s true, he doesn’t. But that doesn’t matter because you believe Fassbender is Jobs. His performance, comfortably among the strongest in an impressive career, is completely magnetic and he counter-intuitively manages to make the man both a detestable figure and a tragic human being. Kate Winslet, Seth Rogan and Michael Stuhlbarg are all strong as respectively Jobs’ long-suffering marketing guru Joanna Hoffman; Apple co-founder and the real brains behind anything truly technical Steve Wozniak and underappreciated engineer Andy Hertzfeld. Their support sturdy as it is struggles to escape the all-consuming singularity that is the face of their company and the actor playing him. Oddly appropriate isn’t it?

Sorkin’s script is of course like a well-oiled machine for doling out wit – so layered, rhythmic and sharp that you’ll find yourself laughing out loud on reflex even if the joke didn’t quite register. It’s certainly worth multiple watches so you can pick out every gag and appreciate all the nuance.

The film has a lot of fun at Apple’s expense, emphasising that Jobs seemingly committed to a closed system (purpose-designed from the outset and uncompatable with everything without a fruit on it) just to be awkward, to have complete control over his market. Anyone who has ever owned an Apple anything (who hasn’t?) knows how tempting they are to buy and how frustrating they are to run. Jobs was apparently obsessed with the things that don’t matter. He was prepared to humiliate one of the geniuses behind his product just because he couldn’t get a computer to say hello. He wanted one of his products to be a slightly off cube to make it look more cube-like (something to do with a trick of the eye) before all the gubbins inside were finished, plus a transparent housing for the i-Mac so you could see the inner workings but still couldn’t open and repair it even if you knew how.

Steve Jobs is a perceptive and profound look at a divisive figure. Boyle, Sorkin and Fassbender have somehow managed to craft a richer and broader picture, a more human (though no less detail-obsessed) view than the man himself arguably ever had on his own world. SSP

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Review: High-Rise (2015/16)

Posted on April 1, 2016 by Sam S-P
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Grey is in this season: Film4/HanWay Films

Like all of Brit Wunderkind Ben Wheatley’s films, HIGH RISE is a fascinating concoction. Bold in tone and extremely stylish, it also ends up being his most inconsistent work to date.

In a dystopian  1975, Dr Robert Laing (Tom Hiddleston) moves into an imposing tower block where residents where society is split with the rich inhabiting the opulent upper floors while the bottom rung of society is left to fight for finite space lower to the ground. Laing is caught up in the chaos when volatile artist Richard Wilder (Luke Evans) sparks a rebellion over dwindling resources, while the tower block’s mastermind Anthony Royal (Jeremy Irons) watches his creation tear itself apart.

High-Rise is without doubt the best-looking film Wheatley has crafted, with care and attention going into designing every shot and set to make the viewer feel introspective and uneasy, a task helped no end by Clint Mansell’s superb electro-classical score. The mirrored lift scenes featured in the trailers are beautifully lit and key for externally conveying character’s inner turmoil and one ultra-slow-motion death that ends the first act will remain branded on my mind for a long time. On the action front, Wheatley finally has a moderate budget enough to mount a couple of frighteningly primal brawls, but don’t go in expecting THE RAID.

The themes work in broad strokes, adding class conflict and inequality to Wheatley’s usual go-to exploration of the dark side of humanity. Annoyingly, as the film progresses the message Wheatley and writer Amy Jump are trying to convey becomes increasingly muddy and indistinct. Whereas the first half of the film is an entertaining satire with raucous parties, witty asides and Hiddleston peeling the face off a cadaver, following a key skirmish about halfway through the film collapses under the weight of its own self-importance. JG Ballard’s novel had a series of divisive British governments to attack (even seeming to predict the evils of Thatcherism), but despite the film retaining a sort-of 1970s setting there is now little relevant socio-political context. David Cameron’s government have pushed through some unpopular policies under the guise of austerity, but he doesn’t quite raise the level of bile ripe for satire that the governments of the turbulent 1970s did (yet). The story is more about warring classes than particular sections of society being victimised (a criticism of Cameron’s governments most unpopular policies) and the British class system is now much harder to delineate so a sense of immediacy and relevance is lost for a contemporary British audience.

Broadly the film can be described as, what if the 1970s and all its societal problems happened in a tower block? As such I found myself thinking a lot of SPACE STATION 76 (what if the 70s happened in space?) in the way ever character behaves and looks period-appropriate in an unusual setting. Chain-smoking, bad hair and fashion, archaic attitudes to sex and gender, self-made professionals clashing with artists and the rich elite. It might have been nice to see a wider cross-section of society contained in this troubled world, or at least someone who isn’t rich, white and heterosexual or poor, white and heterosexual. OK, Reece Shearsmith’s character might not have been strictly heterosexual, but his character is incidental.

Hiddleston as Laing serves as our window into this world, but as a character is unfortunately about as interesting as the wall he paints in his apartment (what would you call that colour, blueberry yoghurt? That’s how interesting Laing is). As a social high-riser he can basically be summed up by the famous sketch from THE FROST REPORT: “I am middle class so look up to him but look down on him…”. Though he is the face of the film and his most marketable name, Hiddleston is completely outclassed by a feral Luke Evans and incredibly expressive child actor Louis Suc. It’s good to see Jeremy Irons working for his paycheque again as the high-rise’s coldly watchful architect and James Purefoy just makes such a good upper-class twit. Elsewhere it can be like watching a BBC comedy highlights package such is the array of British talent Wheatley has filled out the ranks of his cast with.

Despite being a little half-baked in its ideology, High-Rise boasts the same dizzying imagination, swaggering style and anarchic energy present in all of Ben Wheatley’s films. I may not be able to fully lose myself in this retro-dystopia and you might not be able to either, but it stays with you, that’s for sure. SSP

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Review: Batman: Bad Blood (2016)

Posted on March 30, 2016 by Sam S-P
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Batman: Bad Blood (2016): Warner Bros Animation

More-or-less following on from the iffy SON OF BATMAN, BAD BLOOD is straight in with a well-staged brawl between Batman, Batwoman, and multiple C-Grade villains from the Dark Knight’s rogues gallery. In less sure hands, this would be a messy start to a story, but it actually ends up being a very solid animated Batman movie.

Batman (Jason O’Mara) has vanished. Last seen engulfed by an explosion, his allies start to fear the worst and former protégé Dick Grayson (Sean Maher) takes up the cowl in Bruce Wayne’s stead. Meanwhile, copycat vigilante Batwoman (Yvonne Strahovski) and Wayne’s rebellious lovechild Damian Wayne (Stuart Allan) are back in Gotham, and enemies are massing…

“Dressing like a bat doesn’t make you a hero, it just makes you a target!”. The film primarily follows Batman’s extended “family” and their efforts to keep his legend alive. There’s a  pretty amusing recurring gag involving how bad a Batman impression Dick Grayson does when he is reluctantly promoted from Nightwing to Batman. He might think he looks like him, and the animators don’t make much of a distinction in the batsuits other than differences in the characters’ movement speed and agility, but as soon as Dick opens his mouth, everyone knows he’s not the Batman they expected. Another moment of black levity has Damian show how much he has learned and how far he has come on a moral level, only to crew it all up completely by accident the next moment.

Visually, the film is up there with the best of the Caped Crusader’s cinematic adventures. A striking nightmare sequence sees Bruce being figuratively and literally drowned by the guilt of failing his loved ones. The primary antagonist of the film observes that “It’s as if he’s defined by his pain”, and that pretty much sums up Batman as a character. The action is consistently imaginative throughout the film, is often quite violent and always kinetic.

The sexuality of Kate Kane/Batwoman comes up pleasantly casually in conversation. Hopefully the day will come where we won’t have to comment on any kind of entertainment media prominently featuring non-heterosexual protagonists, but the world being as it is it’s still worth highlighting when LGBT characters are well-represented. Batwoman’s fully-rounded portrayal and nuanced vocal performance from Strahovski certainly goes a long way to make up for the character’s simplistic, sexist and borderline misogynistic appearance in the early Batman animated movie MYSTERY OF THE BATWOMAN two decades ago.

Bad Blood is admittedly a film of odd contrasts. It has pathos and a tight script with good one-liners and real feeling behind it but it also has a scene featuring Nightwing and Batwoman fighting “nunjas” (they’re exactly what they sound like). The final set piece and our heroes’ solution is nicked unashamedly from THE AVENGERS, but it’s nice to see DC/Warner Brothers – in the animation department at least – seem to want to have as much fun as Marvel. By the time the end credits roll, we are left in a pretty interesting place for future animated adventures if this storyline is continued.

Bad Blood sadly does share some of the weaknesses of the previous Damian Wayne films  – Wayne Jr is still a pretty insufferable character and the dark forces manipulating him are pretty two-dimensional, but overall it’s well worth dedicating just over an hour of your time to. At least this Batman doesn’t kill people, and there’s a key character moment that reemphasises that point. Take note Mr Miller, Burton, Snyder and everyone else that has mishandled the Bat – a 70 minute animated movie is a better Batman than yours! SSP

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Review: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Sam S-P
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Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016): Warner Bros Pictures

It’s been quite a journey to this one. I’m not just talking about the long wait, delays and steady build of hype throughout the production of BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE, which have all been considerable, but also note that it spans the lifetime of this very blog. One of the first pieces I posted was about who could possibly play a new Batman. Anyway, now it’s out and the verdict is in. As the late great Roger Ebert might have said: Mr Snyder, your movie sucks.

Eighteen months after Superman (Henry Cavill) fought off an alien invasion, the world, and especially the city of Metropolis is still counting the cost. The government pushes for regulation of his seemingly unlimited powers, and two billionaires, Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) and Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) plan to stop the Man of Steel once and for all for the sake of the safety of mankind and the balance of power, respectively. Soon enough, everything comes down to a clash of heroes with very different ideas of justice.

The plotting of the film is awful, pure and simple. It’s disjointed, laboured and frequently tells rather than shows, all the wrong details. The dialogue isn’t much better and a lot of these lines were probably meant to be profound statements, but end up being characters having internal debates aloud. How was something so clumsy, with lines like “The only way this world makes sense is if we force it” penned by Chris Terrio? That man has an Oscar! On the rare occasion where we’re allowed to keep track of characters’ motivations or values, we are lost all over again by confusing geography, timescales and baffling leaps of logic. When Superman is called to answer for his actions in front of a Senatorial hearing, he is asked what he was doing in Africa where he’s just rescued Lois Lane (Amy Adams) from a battle between terrorists and mercenaries. They might well ask, the only problem is we aren’t told as an audience either why Lois and by extension her man, was there. Batman chastises Superman for his unlimited destructive power but doesn’t hesitate in killing bad guys outright. Superman gives Superman a final warning to retire after a destructive chase in the Batmobile, but we don’t know what brought Superman to Gotham in the first place or understand what gives him a right to lecture Batman on not saving people nicely. Superman’s there in a blink to rescue Lois, but has to see an orphanage in Mexico burning down on the news with everyone else before rushes off to play hero.

Even on the basic level of pure spectacle, objects in the foreground are detailed (clearly where all the money went) but pop out alarmingly against obviously fake backgrounds (where the money ran out). At this level of filmmaking that just shouldn’t happen. Zack Snyder’s trademark slow-motion into “speed ramping” in action scenes is getting pretty stale too following its excessive use in 300, WATCHMEN, SUCKER PUNCH and now here.

The titular fight is polished and diverting enough but apart from the draw of witnessing two icons locked in battle, it doesn’t break any new ground. Like MAN OF STEEL you just get through one monotone fight only to go straight into the next. Also the eventual reason for the two heroes to set aside their differences is absolutely hilarious.

So, to the cast. Ben Affleck does well enough as Frank Miller’s hulking, glum Dark Knight and makes Christian Bale’s look like he was doing a stand-up routine. The character’s origin is re-told in the film’s very first scene, a scene which might be the most Zack Snyder-y scene ever, before Bruce runs around a 9/11 imagery-heavy Metropolis trying to save his employees from the fallout of Superman fighting Zod. Henry Cavill sadly looks a little lost, almost peeved that he has been pushed to one side in his own franchise, though the way he plays a gag in his rumble with the Bat is pretty amusing. I respect Jesse Eisenberg for doing something different with Lex, playing him as utterly deranged and broken, but he does perhaps over-do the physical and verbal tics. Gal Gadot finally brings Wonder Woman to the big screen in fine scene-stealing fashion (complete with neat Junkie XL/Hans Zimmer theme music) but doesn’t get long enough to really shine. Amazingly the best performance of the ensemble comes not from the heroes but from Jeremy Irons as a dry, sleeves-rolled-up Alfred.

I had horrible flashbacks to my all-time most hated superhero movie, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 during a scene that hurriedly tries to set up JUSTICE LEAGUE. Stop showing us tantalising surveillance clips and significant objects locked in vaults and just get on with it! When will screenwriters learn that you can only tell one story (well) at a time? If everyone involved had concentrated on making the project at hand the best it could be, we might not have ended up with $250 million flushed down the proverbial toilet. Justice League has a whole lot of work to do to make this dreck worth watching if it even still comes out when we’ve been told it will. At least WONDER WOMAN looks promising, and less busy… SSP

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Sons, Knights, Tights and Bat-nipples: The Best and Worst of Batman and Superman

Posted on March 25, 2016 by Sam S-P

With BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE finally hitting theatres, I thought I’d take a look at some of DC’s two most iconic heroes’ cinematic outings of the past – the good, the bad, and the mishandled.

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Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010): Warner Home Video

Best Batman: BATMAN: UNDER THE RED HOOD (2010) In which Batman soul-searches and confronts a ghost from his past. You know, it pained me to not choose something with Kevin Conroy – the best Batman – in, but Bruce Greenwood does a fine job in his place. His Knight is a force to be reckoned with, and bring an appropriate melancholy and nuance to proceedings. Michael Keaton remains the definitive Bruce Wayne thanks to his recognising the comic in addition to the tragic side of the character, but unfortunately Tim Burton’s Batman kills people. This is all about the Knight not being infallible, making mistakes and living with them. The performances and animated choreography consistently impress, but the film is made by two powerful scenes bookending the story that debate, perhaps in the most cogent fashion we’ve ever seen, how and why Batman is trapped in the most vicious of circles.

I am vengeance, I am the night, I am: A fascinating exploration of Batman’s demons and flawed code.

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Superman (1978): Warner Bros

Best Superman: SUPERMAN (1978) In which Kal-El is saved by his parents from his dying planet and sent to Earth to become the hero humanity needs to become the best they can be. Christopher Reeve is charming, unironic and otherworldly, we know this. His complete embodiment of the Last Son of Krypton makes him one of the canniest pieces of casting in cinema history and for many he remains the only true Superman. Reeve is also adept at slapstick clowning and wholeheartedly embraces the “aw shucks” corniness of Clark and has killer chemistry with Lois (Margot Kidder). The Krypton opening manages to be both grand and pulpy and the rest is an adventure of pure joy that doesn’t require Superman to fight anybody, only to sit through Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) talk real estate and try to save everyone he can. Note: This is only my favourite Superman if you don’t let me count Richard Donner’s cut of the sequel.

For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you: The template for the hopeful superhero movie.

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Batman & Robin (1997): Warner Bros

Worst Batman: BATMAN & ROBIN (1997) In which Batman tries to thwart Mr Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Poison Ivy’s (Uma Thurman) scheme to freeze Gotham with the help of Robin (Chris O’Donnell) and Batgirl (Alicia Silverstone). This was the first, but certainly not the last superhero movie with far too much crammed in. An embarrassed George Clooney is restricted by a comical suit and deeply uncomfortable with cracking wise. Clooney looks even more embarrassed with his face fully exposed and doing his damnedest to look sad at the right prompt.I know everyone harps on about Schwarzenegger’s puns, but the real foot-dragger is Thurman, who looks like she’s reading cue cards and hasn’t noticed that Ivy’s stake in the plan makes less than no sense (a new ice age will help plants…how?). This is almost bearable if you’re watching inebriated or if you’re under 10, but is rightly derided by everyone else.

I am vengeance, I am the night, I am: An amusement park ride with a tone-deaf script and sinful performances.

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Superman III (1983): Warner Bros

Worst Superman: SUPERMAN III (1983) In which Superman goes up against a tycoon (Robert Vaughan) and a misguided hacker (Richard Pryor) and struggles to remain himself when he is poisoned. Here Supes is either helping people out with mundane everyday problems or acting like a superpowered schoolyard bully (“evil” Superman never convinces). He famously pushes the Leaning Tower of Pisa straight and nearly outright murders people after a lengthy session as a barfly. Also Superman grows a five o’ clock shadow to demonstrate just how far he’s fallen (snigger). Reeve doesn’t do well as a bad guy and looks bored with Clark’s storyline and his re-connection with school sweetheart Lana (Annette O’Toole) back home in Smallville – what should be the heart of a film with a mostly absent Lois – lacks fizz. The Big Blue Boy Scout should never be an afterthought in his own movie, and someone should have told Richard Lester returning from re-shooting most of Donner’s SUPERMAN II just how badly he was handling this material. 

For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you:
An ugly pile of discarded Richard Pryor skits, plus Superman, I guess, if we must.

But what about THE DARK KNIGHT I hear you ask? I’m not denying the quality of Christopher Nolan’s middle chapter in his Bruce Wayne chronicle, I just consider it more a crime thriller that happens to feature Batman than a Batman movie per se. Looking at the other end of the scale I actually think SUPERMAN IV has a certain charm. See you all after we see whether Zack Snyder’s royal rumble was worth it. SSP

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Review: The Survivalist (2015/16)

Posted on March 19, 2016 by Sam S-P

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Who needs an expository text dump to establish your film’s world? The state of the future in THE SURVIVALIST is illustrated as simply as it could possibly be with two coloured lines representing oil production and the human population steadily climbing and inevitably falling. It immediately grounds the story, sets up what has been and gone and what is at stake, plus nobody has to explain the situation to you.

In the near-future human society has collapsed. In a world where all that matters is living another day, a lone survivalist (Martin McCann) comes across a mother and daughter (Olwen Fouere and Mia Goth) begging for shelter. But can he really trust anybody in such a harsh, dog-eat-dog world?

In this future the simple things are all that matter. Fire is more important than religion or love, as illustrated by the protagonist burning a bible and family pictures with only the slightest of hesitation. His distrust of everyone he meets is only natural. He has been alone for a long time and there is no room for compassion when living to see the next dawn hinges on keeping your meagre allotment-for-one well-tended and your shack in the woods as warm and dry as possible.

The main character doesn’t say anything in the first 20 minutes of the film so has to convey a lot with a look or a change in posture, a challenge the lean and unfussy Martin McCann is well up for. Even after he (we never learn his name) speaks he doesn’t say all that much – this is an inhospitable world full of cruel people and words would be wasted. There’s a great moment where he realises with a look of abject horror just how vulnerable he is and another where non-verbal human comfort after a harrowing night morphs seamlessly into grim acceptance of what is necessary for continued survival.

I don’t know where he gets fuel for his cigarette lighter or why he bothers to maintain designer stubble after the world has come to an end, but everything else in the film feels genuine and believable. Caveman regression meets modern bushcraft is the order of survival here and I was particularly taken with the demonstration of a primitive but ingenious way of sweating out a blood infection. There’s uncompromising, unglamorous and brutal imagery throughout and it can be a difficult watch, but it always keeps you riveted, or at least cruelly fascinated.

The finale is tense but brief – just three shots and a crossbow bolt fired in the final skirmish – and it rounds off such a measured film nicely. A hail of bullets or the sudden appearance of an army would feel out of place, and appropriately it just comes down to our tiny core group coming across a slightly larger and better-armed band. The minimal action the film has feels immediate, kinetic and nasty. Cinematographer Damien Elliott is equally comfortable with naturalistically capturing human behaviour documentary-style as he is with composing a beautiful sweeping crane arc to link hunter and hunted who are both hiding in tall grass.

Science fiction doesn’t have to be big, but it does have to be clever. All you need is a good idea (I say all like it’s easy…), a distinctive style and something to say about the world today and the world to come. A shed, some woodland in Northern Ireland and three talented main actors prove to be a winning combination in the hands of writer-director Stephen Fingleton. With Hollywood becoming ever more excessive and wasteful, it’s so refreshing to see what can be achieved with modest resources, and it’s my hope that The Survivalist does well enough to allow other talented filmmakers like Fingleton get their work out there. SSP

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Review: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (2016)

Posted on March 13, 2016 by Sam S-P

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In 2000 audiences and critics across the world were blown away by CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. The product of international co-operation between studios and directed by Ang Lee, an auteur celebrated both in his native Taiwan and China and in the West, Crouching Tiger became the martial arts film loved by people who didn’t like martial arts films. As well as distinctive fight scenes it had painterly landscapes and poetic melodrama in abundance in addition to cementing Lee’s position as one of the most in-demand directors in the world. A decade and a half later Netflix and the China Film Group have produced a sequel, SWORD OF DESTINY directed by Yuen Woo-Ping which doesn’t come close to escaping its predecessors imposing shadow.

Sixteen years after the death of her master, Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) returns from self-imposed exile to Peking to once again protect the legendary sword the Green Destiny. Young prodigy Snow Vase (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), old flame Silent Wolf (Donnie Yen) and Hades Dai (Jason Scott Lee), a powerful warlord seeking to control all of Martial China with the Green Destiny, await her…

Great effort has been taken to replicate the look of Ang Lee’s Oscar-winner. The vibrant colours, sumptuous costumes and floaty action with bursts of speed and dexterity are all present and correct. Those worried about Netflix original productions looking cheaper than big screen releases need not worry such is the level of craftsmanship on display. A fight on a rapidly disintegrating frozen lake has to be up there with the top action scenes of the year – it’s thrilling and beautiful to behold. The only time the cracks start to show is with iffy CG set and background extensions, but these thankfully only come with establishing shots when the story shifts location.

There’s a lot more comedy this time round too – Silent Wolf’s recruitment of an honourable band of warriors to defend Shu Lien’s compound riffs on SEVEN SAMURAI and each fighter’s demonstration of their preferred methods of combat in a wood-splintering tavern brawl is creative and pretty amusing (though basically a re-tread of a similar scene in the first film). I hate it when movies are dismissed by lazy critics as looking like video games, but parts of this film do feel like a Role Playing Game. RPGs usually require you to bring together party members with different skills and contrasting personalities and the film’s campfire gossiping scene certainly has the air of the conversations you initiate with characters between missions in Bioware games like DRAGON AGE or MASS EFFECT.

The key problem is they’ve named this Crouching Tiger sequel after the MacGuffin of the first film. Last time it was a tale of passion and self-discovery that just happened to involve the battle for possession of a special sword. This time it’s the same stakes, only the person trying to take the sword is a much less interesting. Gone is the conflicted and layered Jen and in comes Hades Dai who is such a two-dimensional antagonist he makes the baddies who faced Stallone and Schwarzenegger in the 80s look nuanced. The film is lucky to still have Yeoh’s sturdy performance at its heart, and Yen playing his character like a wushu Man with No Name works but comic relief aside the rest of the newcomers have very little to add.

It’s all perfectly watchable and you’ll rarely be bored but director Yuen (a choreographer who has worked with Jackie Chan, Jet Lee and Quentin Tarantino) seems much less interested in giving his film any heart than he is in constructing eye-popping action. It’s in English presumably because Netflix hasn’t taken off in China yet, which is a little weird but you soon get used to it. The concept of big films being financed and premiering on streaming services is still a new concept but I hope it catches on for the sake of accessibility and the potential for more interesting projects than Sword of Destiny finding an outlet. SSP

 

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Review: Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Posted on March 8, 2016 by Sam S-P

hail_caesar_brolin

The problem when you have a really good run is that even the slightest stumble becomes very noticeable. Over the last decade NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, A SERIOUS MAN and especially INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS made you forget that these are also the guys who also ham-fistedly remade THE LADYKILLERS. HAIL, CAESAR! has its moments for sure, but it’s not quite in the same league as the rest of the Coen Brothers’ recent works, all of which were funnier, smarter, deeper and more consistent in quality.

Los Angeles, 1954. Eddie Mannix’s (Josh Brolin) job of making sure everything runs smoothly at Capitol Pictures becomes considerably more challenging when one of the studios’ most valuable stars, Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) is kidnapped by persons unknown. But of course time is big money in this business and Mannix toils to get ambitious epic Hail, Caesar! completed with or without his star, in addition to keeping the rest of the talent happy and the press of his back.

Until reading about the film afterwards I had no idea Eddie Mannix was a real person. I’d obviously forgotten that Bob Hoskins played him in HOLLYWOODLAND, a film that shares a lot of DNA, if not its tone, with Hail, Caesar! Mannix serves as a stand-in for most scary producer-types from Hollywood’s Golden Age, as well as acting as gumshoe for the film’s noirish plot. Brolin is fantastically assured in the role; another of the Coens’ serious men, but considerably more appreciated than Larry Gopnik or Llewyn Davis. Just because people know how powerful a figure he is in Hollywood doesn’t mean Mannix has an easy ride – he has a lot riding on his shoulders and his roundabout journey to discover whether he would prefer to keep doing a hard job he loves or take on something easier but less fulfilling is a relatively compelling one. Elsewhere the ensemble play comic takes on real stars and archetypes – Clooney is a mega star like Richard Burton or Charlton Heston; Tatum is essentially playing Gene Kelly and Ralph Fiennes represents every classically-trained theatre director who managed to make it in the artistically frustrating Hollywood Studio System.

Speaking of Kelly and the Studio System, as clever and well put together as the film’s skits lampooning the genre factory of mass-produced filmmaking are, none of them can hope to compare with the satirical brilliance of SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN. Everything worth saying about the flawed hegemony of Hollywood in the 1950s was already said in that superlative musical. Hail, Caesar! does have the benefit of hindsight in talking about a filmmaking boom period we know is on the verge of collapse, and it also makes for a pretty amusing companion piece to films like THE MAJESTIC or TRUMBO because it incorporates Cold War paranoia as a plot point in almost exactly the opposite way that they do.

Being a Coen Brothers film it sounds good when people open their mouths and looks even better when they don’t because the Coens got Roger Deakins back to film it for them and work his usual magic.

When all’s said and done though, the connective tissue of film isn’t quite there. Individual sequences work – Alden Ehrenreich’s rootin’ tootin’ Western star getting to grips with lavish Broadway adaptations; Mannix getting a focus group of religious leaders to give their seal of approval to his movie’s depiction of “The Christ” – but outside these set pieces, jokes fall flat and the narrative lacks direction. Even if you treat Hail, Caesar! as a character piece where plot is less important, only a couple of the ensemble get any real arc and some players are introduced then forgotten about again almost instantaneously.

Diverting in part and with moments of usual Coen-y brilliance, but underwhelming as a whole, Hail, Caesar! goes straight to the middle of the pile in terms of the Two-Headed-Director’s oeuvre. SSP

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If Batman v Superman somehow bombs, what then?

Posted on March 6, 2016 by Sam S-P

Batman-v-Superman

It’s almost unthinkable, I know, but what would it mean if BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE bombs critically and/or commercially when it is finally released later this month? At the very least it might sound the death knell for Warner Brothers producing anything superheroic not featuring Batman and no one else front-and-centre. Batman sells and Batman is critically appreciated in the hands of the right director – he’s a safe bet.

Warner Bros has put all its eggs in the film industry’s biggest basket. The budget, including marketing, is reportedly around $400 million, so the film not only has to do well at the box office but go stratospheric. If this venture doesn’t justify itself, say goodbye to JUSTICE LEAGUE for the forseeable future. SUICIDE SQUAD is in the can already, and WONDER WOMAN well on its way, so they’re safe, but everything else without bat-ears will be dead and buried.

What has got me so worried about one of the most anticipated movies ever? I’ve sort-of just answered my own question. As a fan of massive blockbusters based on comic books, and as a card-holding geek in general, I tend to get carried away by sheer anticipation. But having written film reviews for just under a decade now, I’m also conditioned for disappointment.

It was recently announced that the film would get an R-rated director’s cut released on DVD. Since DEADPOOL proved that more adult superhero fare can make money, the news that we’ll be getting a more brutal version of the film later on home media might make the more cynical audience members snort with derision. If this cut adds something worth seeing then why aren’t we seeing this cut on the big screen, especially if it would still make money? Because with the amount riding on this release Warner Bros don’t just want to make money, they want to make all the money! Someone at the studio clearly noticed that Peter Jackson has made a nice little nest egg from selling his movies to us twice for 15 years now, so there’s that as well.

The trailers we’ve seen so far (they’re still coming with three weeks to go) indicate that Warners have once again got Batman right despite what Ben Affleck’s detractors might say. It also looks like Jeremy Irons’ take on Alfred is pretty spot-on – sarcastic, supportive and far more hands-on than previous iterations. We’re finally seeing Wonder Woman’s big-screen debut with Gal Gadot and she certainly looks the part, though I still don’t get why she couldn’t get her own film out there before she had to tag along with the boys. Actually, scrap that, I know exactly why this is the case. Warners, as well as knowing Batman sells, also “know” female superheroes don’t. They cynically wanted to give WW a test drive as part of a “sure thing” before they trusted her with her own vehicle.

Everything else that I’ve seen makes me a little uneasy. It all looks mirthless, and very dark and psychoanalytical because that what worked (mostly) for Christopher Nolan’s DARK KNIGHT trilogy. Everyone seems to have realised all-of-a-sudden that Superman destroyed a city in MAN OF STEEL and maybe that was a bad thing. Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor could go either way. The rest of the Justice League are supposed to get at the very least a cameo (possibly more for Jason Mamoa’s Aquaman). Genetically-engineered Superman-killer Doomsday is in it because there apparently wasn’t enough going on already.

Look, it’s probably all going to be fine. I like Zack Snyder’s work, but we’re long past the expiry date for brooding superhero epics and at some point this bubble has to burst and destroy a film studio through pure hubris. But who’s to say this will be the movie to do it? We’ve got a 2-part Justice League and ditto for AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR in a few years to complete that challenge. SSP

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