Review: Midnight Special (2016)

Posted on April 29, 2016 by Sam S-P
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Honey, do you have to stargaze right now?: Faliro House Productions/Tri-State Pictures

Jeff Nichols has followed up doom-laden psychological horror TAKE SHELTER and big-hearted fable MUD with MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, his biggest film to date. While there’s plenty in it to talk about, it’s admittedly far wonkier than what has come before.

A father (Michael Shannon) and a son (Jaeden Lieberher) are on the run from the government and fanatic tag-alongs. They are not criminals, but young Alton is no ordinary young boy and the cult built around him and the relentless G-men driving the search have designs on his wondrous and destructive special powers. Alton, along with his father, mother (Kirsten Dunst) and protector (Joel Edgerton) embarks on a high-risk journey for his freedom.

I can’t really fault the honest intentions behind the film (Nichols is reflecting on a father’s need to protect), or the (mostly) sparing use of special effects and eerie sound design. What I will say is that the pacing in Midnight Special is way off. Whenever the story builds any momentum it is lost again almost immediately by Nichols’ tendency to cut to a serene landscape somewhere in the American South. These still moments have their place of course, helping a story not feel monotonous and providing the viewer with time for reflection. They also kill tension when placed midway through action scenes or immediately following plot advancement. Speaking of plot advancement, we learn a lot of key information through the central quartet of characters watching news reports on what is supposed to be going on, and this is an incredibly clumsy device.

The cast are pretty good across the board, particularly Dunst’s pained, instinctual mother, Driver’s inquisitive, decent NSA man and Jaeden Lieberher’s Alton, the otherworldly “special” of the title. Shannon and Edgerton are both intense but I really struggled to penetrate their Southern drawl and at times it seemed like they were in a war of escalation in mumbling. I don’t understand why you’d hire a character actor with such presence as Sam Shepard and only give him one scene at the beginning of your film though. Nichols clearly likes working with Shepard, casting him again after Mud so it seems odd he gave him such a nothing role here.

Said scene with Shepard kicks off a storyline involving a backwater cult (unfortunately resembling the one from UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT) that goes precisely nowhere. They send some goons after the family and are working with the government to no certain ends, but they are pretty much dumped by the wayside early on.

A lot of what transpires, what characters see and what is really real is left up to the viewer’s interpretation. What we see as an audience though, despite raising possibilities aplenty, tends to collapse under the weight of even the slightest intrusion of logic.

The emotions of Midnight Special are very real, and Jeff Nichols clearly isn’t quite ready to hand in his indie credentials yet, but is this destined to be anything beyond a curiosity? It provokes discussion points, feels oddball and moody and has a very distinctive aesthetic, but the way the plot hangs together and lack of commitment to a strong central idea makes the film less than the sum of its parts. People will talk about this one, but it might be more out of frustration than passion. SSP

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Review: Hush (2016)

Posted on April 25, 2016 by Sam S-P
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Hush (2016): Blumhouse Productions/Intrepid Pictures

Coming from Mike Flanagan, the director behind the striking, eerie, uneven OCULUS, HUSH tweaks existing horror movie formula to come up with an effective and tense little chiller.

Deaf writer Maddie (Kate Siegel) can’t decide on an ending for her second novel. As she waits for inspiration to hit her and settles in for a long night, a masked man wielding a crossbow (John Gallagher Jr) tries to gain entry to her isolated house…

From the outset sound and silence are emphasised. Noiseless production company logos transition straight into the clattering and sizzling of cooking and back to the void the deaf protagonist hears. Sound editing is sometimes a devalued branch of filmmaking, but here it is key for the drama and this department deserve particular notice for this movie.

They throw down the gauntlet early by commenting that Maddie can keep her readers from guessing the ending of her stories and that’s the least that this film should achieve. For the most part it succeeds in being unpredictable and the screenplay by Flanagan and Kate Siegel is dialogue-light and compelling. The expected beats of a home invasion/slasher horror over the decades are all in there somewhere but not necessarily in the place you’d expect and there are some good plot curve-balls and shocks thrown in for good measure. A clever sequence where Maddie plays the various fatal scenarios of her trying to escape in her head with her internal commentary at how bad an idea each is reminded me a lot (in a good way) of the multiple-choice horror game UNTIL DAWN from last year.

There’s a slasher movie mask early in, but it’s ditched pretty quick. Maddie isn’t being stalked by the uncanny or the vaguely supernatural but by one very human and seriously disturbed guy who enjoys playing with his prey as much as Maddie’s cat does. Kate Siegel is dignified and raw as Maddie, John Gallagher Jr terrifyingly removed from his nice-guy support worker in SHORT TERM 12.

There’s some nice ideas built around how this isn’t the ordinary battle of wits. The killer works out quickly how handicapped his victim is and exploits her almost sole reliance on sight by hiding just out of her field of vision and Maddie in turn must survive by her wits alone, distracting her opponent and using her highly attuned other senses to her advantage (she feels the vibrations of him moving on the floorboards above her hiding place and knows he’s behind her from his breath on her neck later on). It’s a creepy movie and also an eye-opening movie about abusive sickos who get even more of a kick out praying on the vulnerable. The scariest thing the film does is exploring how liberating Ease of Access technology can be for the disabled, but equally how crippling it can be to an individual once it is suddenly taken away again.

It becomes a real battle of the senses in the film’s final act when Maddie decides her only chance is to fight and to improvise with an interesting array of household objects. The horror movie “final girl” cliché is turned on its head as Maddie really starts and ends the film as the final girl. For much of the movie it’s a two-hander between her and her tormentor. The only real thing that changes is that she decides not to be the victim.

It probably wasn’t necessary to have Maddie’s backstory explained on the dust jacket of one of her books. Couldn’t she just be a character born deaf? Her would-be killer didn’t need a backstory so why did she?

The way sound is played with throughout is interesting and it would have been even more so, not to mention braver and bolder to do the whole thing as a silent movie. Even considering these niggles, Hush cements Mike Flanagan’s position as a horror director to watch and makes me hopeful the next script he works on stands out from the crowd as proudly as this one. SSP

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A Few Thoughts More: The Force Awakens

Posted on April 23, 2016 by Sam S-P
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Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015): Lucasfilm Ltd/Bad Robot Productions

This piece contains spoilers for THE FORCE AWAKENS, but if you care and haven’t seen it yet then where have you been? There’s also a reference to the twist in IRON MAN 3, just FYI.

I’ve seen the seventh STAR WARS film four times now and, five months on, what I said in my original review from December for me still broadly holds true.

All the references to the previous entries in the saga and the love of the craft shown in every scene makes this an entertaining Star Wars movie. Despite annoyingly repeating the same flying-into-something-to-blow-it-up finale, it’s the chemistry between, and soul behind characters old and especially new makes this a good movie all-round.

What makes The Force Awakens such an interesting film is arguably as much the questions it doesn’t answer as those it does. JJ Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan sure know how to leave you dangling, but they also make you yearn to find out more over the course of another adventure.

The big questions from the fandom seem to be threefold: 1. Who is Rey? 2. Who is Snoke? 3. Why did Luke leave?

As to the first question a popular fan theory points to Rey being Obi-wan’s granddaughter. I think it would be too obvious for her to be another Skywalker, although Leia does seem to give her a subtext-heavy hug during the film’s finale. I could buy the Obi-wan theory as there are references to him throughout the film (notably Rey’s Force vision), their behaviour is similar and despite being a celibate Jedi, Kenobi was in exile on Tatooine for years. I do have to wonder if Rey really has to be related to any original series character. Couldn’t she just be Rey, who is who she is purely because she is strong off of her own back, abandoned in the wasteland by unloving, unready and unknown parents? The Force might be more likely to manifest in families strong with it, but as far as we can gather (just look at Anakin) things can just happen. The Force works in mysterious ways…

Next, who or what is Snoke? Fan theories have ranged from Palpatine’s supposedly murdered master Darth Plagueis (the top result on Google) to a resurrected Darth Vader (aparently they look like they share scars), but from what we’ve seen of him the answer may be far simpler. All we know is that he chooses to manifest as a giant hologram and can exert a lot of influence over others. Snoke may well be less than meets the eye. I think it would be a bold and interesting decision to reveal the new Emperor as a charlatan who’s just really good at manipulating his image. If this were the case it might annoy some viewers, but I loved the similar divisive twist in IRON MAN 3, so you can see the kind of brave plot turns I tend to appreciate.

Finally, why did Luke leave? This one is brought up by Han Solo aboard the Millennium Falcon. He says that Luke began training the next generation of Jedi until his nephew Ben/Kylo Ren turned to the dark side and destroyed all his good work. Then he vanished, said to be searching for the first Jedi temple in the far reaches of the galaxy. Was he trying to find the source of the Force or a means to turn Ben back to the light or was he simply ashamed and in need of solitude. When we finally see him being confronted by Rey holding out his old lightsaber, I would imagine he is feeling conflicted. Optimists might say Luke was just waiting for the next promising student to prove themselves by finding him, but it might just be that he never wanted to be found, that he self-imposed his exile like Yoda and Obi-wan did before him.

In addition we never find out how Kylo Ren got Vader’s helmet or how Maz Kanata got Luke’s lightsaber, whether Han committed suicide or if Ben was always going to murder his father or what the New Galactic Republic is doing as The Resistance fights its war against the ambiguously powerful First Order. I’m sure we’ll find the answers to some of these questions in sequels and others will perhaps be left open to interpretation. I hope that when they do come, the answers we do get are at least interesting, or at least not the most obvious options available. SSP

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Review: The Jungle Book (2016)

Posted on April 20, 2016 by Sam S-P
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One of these is not like the other: Walt Disney Pictures

Last year I asked on this very blog what Disney were playing at in remaking their animated back catalogue. I might have to eat my words soon because I’ve really liked most of this production cycle. MALEFICENT was reprehensible but CINDERELLA was well-appointed and now THE JUNGLE BOOK is the latest roaring success.

In a re-telling midway between Rudyard and Walt, Man-cub Mowgli (Neel Sethi) reluctantly leaves his jungle home guided by Bagheera the panther (Ben Kingsley) to rejoin his own kind after a threat from ferocious tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba). His journey will not be an easy one, his story will captivate generations to come.

What a cast director Jon Favreau has assembled. Newcomer Neel Sethi makes an intuitive and mischievous Mowgli and grounds the effects-heavy story well. The impressive voice talent includes a crooning Baloo (Bill Murray); Kingsley’s boarding school master Bagheera; Elba’s seething thug Shere Khan and King Louie by way of The Godfather (Christopher Walken). Kingsley’s honeyed and authoritative narration is the perfect glue for this story and both establishes the rules of this world and underlines the moral content in the most elegant manner possible.

The entirely CGI jungle (based on real-world photographic reference material) is photo-real, the animals and their interaction with Mowgli are totally convincing and always compelling. For all the fun, very real dangers are in evidence too – we witness first-hand how much destruction fire or the “red flower” as the animals call it causes and the fights between animals are about as brutal as you could get away with in a Disney film, cutting before you actually see mortal injuries even though you know exactly how much damage these teeth and claws are doing.

The classic songs are there at key moments, with Murray doing a fun rendition of “The Bare Necessities” as a lounge track and King Louie using “I wanna be like you” as an elaborate threat. Murray’s love of performing comes across, but Walken basically speak-sings his number (tweaked by Robert Sherman himself to somehow work Gigantopithecus into rhyme) allowing for little jazzy foot-tapping but ample opportunity for Walken to intimidate and impart some far more sinister implications. I would warn that the King Louie scene might be a little intense for your littlest ones, but elsewhere there are some decent jump scares to keep them lively. Stay through the credits for some nice musical surprises as well.

I like the idea of leaving the elephants as unknown elementals, respected and feared by most and appropriately deified for the story’s setting. I also liked that man remained an enigma and that when Mowgli finally finds his way back to his own kind he sees them just like the furrier inhabitants of the jungle do – horrific shapes silhouetted against fierce firelight. I never expected Baloo to come out with a politics joke for the parents and neither did I expect to find a reference to CASABLANCA here, but Baloo lying to Mowgli about his feelings to save him towards the end of the film is just what that key scene is.

It’s not perfect by any means. An innuendo-filled scene of Baloo and his jungle pals watching Mowgli do their dirty work feels a little cheap and I don’t really think Kaa (Scarlett Johansson) piling on exposition through “trust in me” hypnosis really works either – stylistically it doesn’t really match the rest of the film and it implies the serpent is a little too omnipotent.

The Jungle Book is a treat for all the family and should please fans of Disney’s iconic animation and Rudyard Kipling’s fables alike. Favreau’s film is visually splendorous, emotionally affecting and hugely entertaining throughout. If this is any indication of the quality of Disney’s future re-adaptations, their dominance of the film and entertainment industry will likely continue for a long while yet, and that might not be a bad thing. SSP

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Review: Victor Frankenstein (2015)

Posted on April 18, 2016 by Sam S-P
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Victor Frankenstein (2015): Davis Entertainment Company/TSG Entertainment

I know you shouldn’t pre-judge, but I was preparing to get angry at VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN. I do try and avoid preconceptions, but Frankenstein feels very personal to me after dedicating an awful lot of time and effort to my MA dissertation on the numerous adaptations. Well now I’ve seen it – was I wrong to jump to conclusions? Not entirely.

The life of a hunchbacked clown (Daniel Radcliffe) is changed forever when he is rescued from the circus by Doctor Victor Frankenstein (James McAvoy). Given physiotherapy, a name and a purpose in life, Igor uses his considerable surgical skills to facilitate his master’s experiments to create life from death…

I am so sick of “you know this story” as the lead-in to a reimagining. At the very least it’s condescending and seems specifically designed to justify telling a tale for the umpteenth time and pre-emptively thwart anyone criticising deviations from the source material.

As with most Frankenstein movies there are more references to the pre-war Universal series of films than there are to Mary Shelley. The Monster is brought to life with electricity, he has a flat head (“Why? / Because I like it!”), Henry Frankenstein from James Whale’s 1931 film is name-checked and Igor was not a character in any form before Bela Lugosi requested his creation for SON OF FRANKENSTEIN. OK they do drop “The Modern Prometheus” into dialogue, but this nod to the novel’s subtitle is about all that’s going for Shelley.

I will say Victor Frankenstein has incredible production design. The sets, costumes, hair and makeup, gears and mechanisms fell lived-in, grimy and gothic. Speaking of hair, I would love to know Igor’s trick to get his locks so perfect and glossy using only a cutthroat razor and a bar of soap. Igor’s imagining Da Vinci-esque anatomy diagrams over living, breathing things is a neat and well-visualised idea and the scenes of what passed for surgery in the Victorian era are shudder-inducingly convincing as well. They didn’t have that many sophisticated methods in the 1800s, but the techniques available were at once brilliant, harsh and cruel.

James McAvoy is wonderful as Frankenstein, a raving, conniving charlatan who only succeeds because of the brilliance of his assistant. It may be an unfaithful depiction of Shelley’s layered and guilt-ridden dreamer but it’s certainly an entertaining character. I wouldn’t give up him shouting about “babies in vats” at a high society function for any amount of nuance. Elsewhere, Radcliffe is just OK as our mistreated genius and there really isn’t much of anything to Andrew Scott’s zealous policeman or  Igor’s would-be love interest Lorelei (Jessica Brown Findlay).

Scott’s Inspector Turpin is monumentally thick. Though he might not recognise the now straight-backed fugitive Igor just from a rough sketched wanted poster, he somehow still struggles to find Frankenstein, a well-known lecturer and surgeon with a daily routine even after he put on a very public demonstration that went awry. He just asks Igor again, “Get me Frankenstein” and duly he does. Another minor detail, he calls him “Mr Frankenstein” and I don’t think even the most inept and god-fearing cop would ignore a suspect’s title in the interview process.

The issue here is that the filmmakers claim to want to tell the story of Frankenstein’s under-appreciated assistant, a self-aware sideways glance on Shelley’s tale, but writer Max Landis can’t fight the temptation to tell the same old story. Victor Frankenstein is fine when it’s exploring new avenues (the colourful circus opener and Igor finding a new life for himself are the strongest elements) but when it returns to Shelley or Universal Horror it becomes quite tedious. Shelley’s themes aren’t explored in any great depth, it’s not compelling and The Monster (Spencer Wilding) itself only appears for the last set piece of the film and there only as a brute to throw his creators around for five minutes. I don’t have an issue with it not being Shelley’s verbose and conniving creature, (only Robert De Niro and Rory Kinnear have really played the character from the page so far) but if it’s going to be silent and animalistic it’s got to be in some way sympathetic as well – that’s why Boris Karloff’s pitiful child-monster worked.

A talented production design crew and McAvoy thoroughly enjoying putting the “mad” back in mad scientist are not enough to recommend Victor Frankenstein. At the very least it had to be different, but instead of focussing on the promised and potentially interesting growth of Igor as a character it gets stuck with flogging an inferior Shelley/Universal Horror homunculus. SSP

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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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