If I lived in a world where everyone broke into show tunes as frequently as they do in ‘Into the Woods’, I’m pretty sure I’d be a serial killer.
A Review of ‘Into the Woods’ (2014)
Tag: CrudeReviews
A Review of the ‘Star Trek: Beyond Trailer’ (2015)
I have “opinions” about Star Trek. Opinions strong enough to be facts in my mind. Opinions such as, but not limited to:
- Arguments about the “Best Captain” are as pointless as arguments about the “Best Alcoholic Drink”.
- Being proud about knowing the technical details of pretend spaceships is like being proud of a fungal infection.
- About 60% of Star Trek is abject dreck.
- About 5% of Star Trek is some of the best Sci-Fi you’ll ever experience.
- Riker’s Beard is a more compelling character than most of the cast of ‘Enterprise’.
- Unless you’re talking about The Original Series, the first two seasons of any Star Trek show are crap.
- ‘Wrath of Khan’. Just, ‘Wrath of Khan’.
You might disagree, and that’s fine, other people’s opinions mean very little to me.
I also have “opinions” about the latest film to be released, ‘Star Trek: Into Darkness’. When I first saw it at the cinema, I loved it. It was exciting. It was dramatic. Great opening scene. Brilliant cast. Fantastic directing. Delightful music.
It was so good that I went back to watch it a second time, and the cracks began to show.
I bought the DVD and by the time the credits were rolling, so were my eyes.
‘Into Darkness’ is bad. Like, really very bad. All of its components are superb, except one: The Story.
People who say that the reboot films “aren’t like Star Trek” have probably never seen an episode of the Original Series. For those of you haven’t, the Original Series is that one with Kirk in it, where he laments having a woman as his yeoman and where most of his clashes with aliens are resolved with punching and karate-chops.
‘Star Trek’ (2009) succeeded as a movie because it was fun, it was exciting, it had a simple story that didn’t warrant too much scrutiny and it was fresh. I hated its interpretation of the Kobayashi Maru test, but that’s mostly because I bum ‘Wrath of Khan’ so much that hearing the first five bars of its soundtrack gives me an erection.
‘Star Trek: Into Darkness’ failed as a movie because, and I’ll keep this concise because I still haven’t talked about the trailer for the new film yet, but ‘Into Darkness’ failed because most of its plot is told in exposition, and that plot makes as much sense as a vomit-flavoured chocolate suppository.
Here’s a list of things you need for a Star Trek production to be ‘Star Trek’:
- People.
- Aliens (who might be people).
- At least one spaceship.
That’s it. That’s all that the collective Star Trek franchise had consistently through its entire run prior to J. J. Abrams taking the helm. Seriously, go back and check. That’s what has always constituted something being “Star Trek”.
Now, here’s a list of things you need for a Star Trek production to be ‘Crap’:
- Stupid stories that make no sense.
I mean, other things might make a crap Trek, but mostly if you get a good story going, you won’t go far wrong. And that’s why I’m still hopeful for ‘Star Trek: Beyond’.
‘Star Trek: Beyond’ has done something revolutionary, which even Ridley Scott couldn’t conceive of: it has told Damon Lindelof to fuck off.
Damon Lindelof is the “mind” (that word used with artistic license) behind such incredibly bewilderingly baffling stories as ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Star Trek: Into Darkness’ and the ‘Lost’ television series. He is the hackiest of hacks, the dickiest of heads, a fraud, a villain and a charlatan.
And he’s now gone. In his place is British hero Simon Pegg.
Mr. Pegg has written some of the cleverest movie scripts in the last ten years. He’s got huge “nerd” credentials, he cares about the material, and he’s proven himself capable of writing stories that are both entertaining and comprehensible.
The first trailer of ‘Star Trek: Beyond’ is little more than a series of bright and colourful images, with a couple of good lines of dialogue thrown in. It shows McCoy being McCoy, it shows some fun action, humour, and what looks like the bridge of an old starship with some startlingly, reassuringly familiar design touches.
But it doesn’t hint at any pointless references to the rest of the franchise; we’re not getting “Benedict Khanabatch” with this one. Neither has it flashed us with gratuitous shots of Women In Underwear, a level of titillation truly mundane since the invention of both the Internet, and clothes shops.
It hasn’t simply shown us a string of scenes of people screaming emotionally, and it hasn’t particularly made any huge promises about sprawling, in-depth storylines. Indeed, the story as best as I can make out is: “Crew must survive without their ship”, and that seems like it could be really cool.
All this film now has to do to avoid annoying me to the point that I’m spitting spinal fluid is to Keep Things Simple. ‘Into Darkness’ attempted a complex espionage plot and failed appallingly due to a lack of any espionage and an absence of higher brain functions in its lead writer. ‘Beyond’ just has to stick to formula, give us the characters we love doing exciting things and I’m sold.
Yes, there’s a motorbike and yes, it looks almost identical to ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ but, let’s be honest, what did you think was going to happen? Picard set the precedent for off-road vehicles in Star Trek in the abominable ‘Nemesis’, and ‘Guardians’ was popular enough that of course new sci-fi trailers will be shaped to draw in a lot of Marvel’s audience.
For now, I am going to maintain hopeless optimism that Star Trek is still capable of producing quality content.
A Review of ‘Batman v Superman’ (2015)
I was not particularly fond of ‘Man of Steel’ – indeed, I felt it was one of the worst things since sliced bread buttered with salmonella. However, I am aware that it was fairly successful, so I was surprised wen its sequel, ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’, came out with so little aplomb – just a couple of teaser trailers before widespread release at the beginning of the month.
I should confess, I didn’t exactly watch this film legitimately – indeed, I watched it on Youtube.com. I’m not proud of this, but it was the only place I could find it to watch it – none of the local cinemas were showing it, which was also baffling given how big a budget it must have had – I would have expected at least one or two major cities to be showing it somewhere.
Anyway, if you do get a chance to watch it on the big screen, I would recommend it. The Youtube upload I watched has likely been taken down by now, and the special effects are definitely worthy of the
Look, fuck it. You get the joke by now. Warner Brothers and DC have, in their wisdom, released the entire fucking film in the form of a two-minute trailer. From start to finish, they have revealed every key scene and plot development that the audience is going to find interesting.
The only thing we don’t see is the climax, but given it’s called “Superman v Batman’ and the only other character revealed only arrives in the final fight scene, and that this is the beginning of DC’s own fucking ‘Justice League’ franchise, we can be pretty fucking sure that they’re not going to pull off anything bold like having the good guys lose this one.
Seriously, go and watch the ‘Dawn of Justice’ trailer and try to pretend, with a straight face, that you now don’t understand in very specific terms the plot of the movie. I’m actually going to hold myself above the publishers here and NOT describe it all, because fuck it, there ought to be some fucking mystery left in the world.
Y’know, J. J. Abrams managed to convince himself that he’d convinced us that we had no idea who Benedict Cumberbatch’s character really was in ‘Star Trek: Into Darkness’, at least he was bloody trying to hold something back, unlike Mr. Zack “Slow It Down, Now Speed It Up Again” Snyder.
If J. J. Abrams were being interrogated for state secrets, you can bet you could run 10,000 volts between his gonads before he’d even confirm his name – sat next to him, Zack “My Movies Empower Women” Snyder would be blubbering uncontrollably whilst writing down the names and addresses of every allied agent East of Paris as soon as a guard lit a cigarette.
I mean, movie trailers are meant to tease and excite you, get you eager to see what’s still hidden from view – they’re the opening act of a striptease. You don’t start a striptease by dropping all your clothes in the first ten seconds and then slapping your client around the face with your genitals.
At least, I don’t.
A Review of ‘Robin Hood’ (2010)
Alright, I’m going to try something different. I’m going to do a running review of Ridley Scott’s ‘Robin Hood’ (2015). I remember seeing bits of it a while ago and not being too impressed, but maybe it deserves a little more attention. Got a bottle of wine and everything ready to go – let’s do this.
00:50 – Nice studio intros. Nice music. ‘Scott Free’ is always nice to see.
01:00 – Standard Olde Worlde text prologue. “The Outlaw takes his place in history.” DRAMATIC.
01:27 – Ooh, the moon!
02:00 – Somebody’s running. In Nottingham, apparently.
02:32 – Since when was Cate Blanchett a brunette?
02:57 – And why does she have a bow?
03:36 – She’s nailing the accent though. I think.
04:10 – More Olde Worlde text titles. Hang on, did they just spoil the plot of the film? Jesus.
05:00 – THERE’S Russell Crowe. He looks old. Wasn’t Robin Hood young? Why is Robin Hood old?
06:58 – Okay, why did that man immediately catch fire? Like, a fire arrow hit him, but he wasn’t all oily. What was it, a napalm arrow? I thought fire arrows were just bits of cloth soaked in a bit of oil. Like, not enough oil to immediately engulf a man in flames. Whatever.
07:20 – So far this castle assault has, like, all the elements of something that’s exciting, but I don’t know any of these characters. If one of them dies, am I meant to care? I don’t think I would care.
08:13 – Okay, I know FOR A FACT that bags of oil wouldn’t explode like that. I mean, not, like, scientific fact, but I’m pretty sure a bag of petrol wouldn’t fucking explode like that, and that’s PETROL. Also, paraffin can’t melt steel gates.
08:44 – Wow, London’s a shithole.
09:56 – Neat, it’s Poe Dameron. Erm, Oscar Isaac. No, wait, it’s fuckin’ Standard! Man, ‘Drive’ was a great movie. I loved the way all the lighting was done, every shot was like a Hopper painting. And the limited dialogue, and oh! The music! Oh, shit, ‘Robin Hood’ is still on.
11:36 – Okay, missed a bit there, but I think Standard Dameron is the king. Or will be the king. Also, his mother doesn’t approve of his girlfriend. But, hang on, his mother’s not Guatemalan, or South American at all, and neither’s King Richard, so why is… Wait, is is he Kind Richard’s son? Shit, film’s still going.
12:34 – King Richard kind of looks like Billy Connolly. Also I think the other dude is Cate Blanchett’s husband. Just about been paying enough attention.
14:39 – I know this is the “Dark Ages” but did they have to have a fight scene in pitch black? If I can’t see Russell Crowe punching people then why am I watching?
17:07 – The King’s done that thing that never actually happens except in movies and plays and reality TV shows and pretended to not be the king so that he could get kicked in the head and then shout at Robin Hood for doing what he was told. OR SOMETHING.
17:29 – Russell Crowe is now in the stocks. Sad times.
18:25 – Oooh, is that Mark Strong? He’s great. He was great in ‘The Guard’ and ‘Kingsman’ and ‘John Carter’ and just fucking every movie he’s in. What’s he doing with this French bloke?
19:31 – Ooooh, treachery. And Mark Strong being evil again. Standard.
20:45 – FUCK ME the King just got owned by the soup boy. Seems… unlikely. But I guess this is a documentary so what do I know.
21:53 – “The more the merrier.” I get it! Like, the Merry Men, right? Man, this movie is clever.
22:08 – Wow, for an archer, Robin Hood’s got a pretty good handle on regional economics. He must be clever, too.
22:53 – Some kind of ambush in the woods, but I don’t know who’s getting ambushed and I don’t know who’s doing the ambushing. Maybe it’s a bacon tree.
24:52 – Ohhhh, it was Cate Blanchett’s husband getting ambushed. It was so easy to tell because he’s so distinctive-looking and almost 30% of his face was uncovered by his helmet. Otherwise I would’ve been confused and would have needed him to say who he was. Also he had the crown? Like, that was the most urgent thing, not leading England’s army back to England, but getting the Crown back, yeah. Wait, wasn’t he the smart one? Shit, more movie.
25:14 – Robin Hood is apparently also a horse whisperer.
28:27 – That was an awkward death scene. Ol’ Dead Loxley made Robin promise to take his sword back to his father, but it was, like, really forced and conceited? None of the dialogue seemed natural. And then Loxley died literally once the deal was done. I guess the spear in his lung was waiting for the most dramatic point before doing the most damage.
30:26 – Is Robin Hood Irish or something? He kind of sounds Irish sometimes, but then other times he doesn’t sound so Irish. I’m confused.
30:39 – Fuckin’ Robert Baratheon! As a priest, it seems. Mark Addy’s wonderful.
32:05 – Cate Blanchett really knows how to do exposition.
35:26 – What a nice shot of a river. Visually, this film’s pretty good.
37:17 – Ooh, think I just saw William Hurt. Wait, aren’t there any British actors in this thing? ‘Pacific Rim’ was, like, 50% British, and that was the most American film I’ve seen ’cause it had nukes and punching. This film’s set in fucking Britain for Christ’s sakes and they’re all bloody Antipodean or American. God damn it.
40:58 – Poe John II isn’t a very nice king.
46:10 – In the last few minutes, Cate Blanchett has been sexually harassed by the Sheriff of Nottingham (bad guy) and Mark Strong (bad guy) has asked the big French dude from ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ (bad guy) to kill Robin Hood and now Robin Hood has just sworn to go see the old Man of Nottingham and it’s all been a bit.. dull. It’s good that the bad guys all make clear how they’re bad guys and not good guys, though. This is a gritty, realistic retelling after all, so you need cartoonish villains so you know who not to root for.
47:10 – Oscar Isaac is a good actor. They’re all good.
51:14 – Now King Not The Nicest is being more less-nice. Apparently he’s a bit greedy. Still all a bit slow and dull.
51:33 – Did I take the bins out? Shit, not sure if I took the bins out. Eh, they’ll wait, it’s cold and wet outside.
53:30 – Why does Friar Tuck not think they’ve heard of mead? Hasn’t mead been around since, like… 2800-1800 BC? Man, I love Wikipedia. Also, those blokes would totally of heard of “what we call ‘Mead’.” What a plonker.
53:48 – Music’s quite nice.
54:05 – Yeah Robin, check out that fine Cate Blanchett arse. You can definitely appreciate it underneath that heavy woolen gown, and it is definitely distinguishable from many other things, like, say, a bag of clothes, or a sack of rocks, or my own arse in a heavy woolen gown.
54:45 – Why did the camera suddenly zoom in on her face like that? Like, we know that she’s finding out about her dead husband, we’ve been watching the movie, and we could already see her face clearly. That was weird.
56:51 – Is that Max von Sydow? I preferred BRIAN BLESSED.
58:29 – Okay, I hate to seem like some popcorn-munching mouth-breather in need of instant gratification, but it’s been almost twenty minutes since the last plot development. Can we have some pacing, at least, in this film? Like, even just a bit? We’re close to an hour in and all that’s really happened to our protagonist is that he’s escaped the army and picked up a sword.
58:45 – By this point in ‘Gladiator’ there’d been a lot more killing.
59:40 – Apparently Robin needs help with his armour but this is so transparently just and excuse to force some chemistry between the characters.
1:00:10 – He’s in good shape, mind.
1:02:58 – Okay, so Old Loxley wants Robin to pose as his dead son so the tax man won’t take away their home. Didn’t ‘Frasier’ have an episode with this exact plot?
1:06:28 – Much like Robin, I would love to be sat watching an open fire right now. It would probably have a deeper plot than this. Certainly more warmth. Aren’t Robin Hood stories meant to be exciting?
1:07:16 – These two have the same chemistry as Indie and that woman in ‘Temple of Doom’. By which I mean, they’re doing their best but nobody’s convinced.
1:10:51 – Robin is also a philosopher, apparently.
1:13:57 – Over half way in, we’ve just had Robin’s first instance of “Hoodliness” – he promised not to snitch on Mark Addy’s bees if… wait, if Mark Addy steals the grain? Basically, they’re stealing grain. Well, talking about stealing grain. Riveting.
1:15:55 – Okay, they nicked the grain. Pitch black, took ten seconds, two people got bonked on the head.
1:16:18 – Jesus, did Ridley Scott forget to pay his electricity bill or something?
1:18:15 – Apparently the Big French Dude From ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ just flat-out ignored Mark Strong, because he’s sat right there next to him, patently NOT killing Robin Hood. Or even trying. Villainous.
1:19:04 – Don’t got a battering ram? Two horses will break solid oak gates, apparently. If only I’d known that in all those games of ‘Medieval: Total War’.
1:33:16 – Wait, so, Robin’s dad was some great stone-mason-philosopher, and Old Loxley know all of this, and it just so happened that Robin was the one to escape Richard’s army, happen upon Young Loxley during the exact two minutes he was dying (in the middle of some French woods), happen to be the one Young Loxley asked to return his sword, managed to not die through any of this, now to be told his father’s history by the one man old enough to remember? Like, does that not seem like, y’know, A BIT OF A COINCIDENCE? Fuck, George fucking Lucas would be rolling his eyes at that one.
1:38:04 – That’s right, Robin, use the family heirloom that’s the cause of THE ENTIRE STORY as a hammer/crowbar. Probably fine. Don’t bother with the enormous fucking lump-axe your buddy’s holding. Just use a sword blade to lever up a masonry flag. Fucking pleb.
1:47:56 – Alright, did you really have to make the French guy a rapist? Like, he’s robbing people, killing civilians, his troops are burning people alive, does he also have to attempt to rape Cate Blanchett? I mean, they couldn’t show him actually raping her, that would be insensitive, but threatening her with it, that’s fine I guess. I mean, as a woman, I suppose it’s not enough to threaten her with death, like a man, since only men need to worry about death in films, and women only need to worry about getting raped. That’s how it works. Also, a villain isn’t a real villain unless they’ve doing the most villainous thing they can possibly be doing at every possible moment, which means if there’s men around, they must be killing those men, and if there’s women, they must obviously be attempting to (but not actually, because of sensitivity) raping them, and if they have a moustache, they must be twirling it, whilst wearing clothes made of puppy fur and talking at the theatre. Otherwise, there’s no way to be sure that they’re really villains.
Fuck this movie.
1:50:11 – Ooh, ooh, now Robin’s an expert cavalryman, capable of out-jousting men-at-arms! Wow, the archer-training program is pretty fucking comprehensive.
1:52:44 – Now they’re burning Old Loxley (he died, by the way), and for some reason it occurs to me that the only “Hoodly” things we’ve seen Robin “Hood” do this entire film is pinch some grain and carry out some really fucking minor-level vandalism.
1:53:25 – He’s got a really modern haircut, too. This annoys me, because I got a haircut today and she made my fringe look medieval.
1:53:53 – Why does he love her? They’ve had about four conversations, now they’re in love? Well, I suppose it wouldn’t do TO KISS SOMEONE WITHOUT BEING IN LOVE WITH THEM, WOULD IT?? FUCK ME.
1:58:18 – Why are the French charging out of their totally-non-anachronistic landing craft like this is Omaha fucking Beach? They’re just landing an army, not carrying out a beach assault. They thought they were landing in secret, too. There isn’t even an English army there yet! WHY ARE THEY ALL SHOUTING AND RAISING THEIR WEAPONS? AREN’T THEY MORE WORRIED ABOUT DROWNING? WHAT’S WRONG WITH THEM?!?!?
1:58:57 – That boat flipped upside down, but, like, it’s not in the water, it’s hanging above the water, like it’s a rushed special effect or something. I mean, couldn’t you just capsize a boat? Why is the boat now hovering above the water? Oh, wait, I paused the movie. Still, though.
2:01:04 – No. No, I refuse to accept that Marion is somehow now a cavalywoman. She explicitly stated that she was a… I dunno, a minor noble widow’s daughter, or something, and since then has been farming. Modern-day women can do anything men can do, sure, but Medieval England, someone who is essentially a farmer’s wife is NOT going to be leading a cavalry unit into battle, that’s horseshit. It’s bad enough Robin doing it, but at least you can pretend he MIGHT have had some fucking experience in all the fucking wars he’s been in, but Marion has been fucking FARMING for the last TEN YEARS, HOW IS SHE SUPPOSED TO HAVE THE EXPERTISE TO RIDE A WARHORSE INTO BATTLE, IT’S NOT LIKE PLOUGHING A FIELD MARION, YOU MAD WOMAN, JESUS JOSEPH GORDON LEVITT. Ooh, that’s a “Robin” reference!
2:02:15 – THE TWELVE-YEAR-OLD ORPHAN PEASANTS ARE NOW TRAINED RIDERS TOO. JESUS. JESUS FUCK. FUCK ME. NO. NO. THIS IS, and I hate this word, BUT THIS IS RETARDED. FUCK. DO YOU KNOW HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO TRAIN TO RIDE A HORSE? AND THEN TO RIDE A HORSE INTO NOISY, CHAOTIC, TERRIFYING BATTLE? PRETTY FUCKING DIFFICULT, YOU STUPID CUNTS.
2:02:35 – The English didn’t have mounted archers. That wasn’t a thing. Unless it was. Was that a thing?
2:02:57 – Now the anonymous, unarmoured twelve-year-old who grew up in the woods is taking on two or three trained, armoured French soldiers at a time. This isn’t fucking ‘Bugsy Malone’, what the shit?
2:03:39 – Okay, fine, Cate Blanchett looks pretty badass in the armour. But it’s still stupid.
2:05:40 – After a moronic fight against Mark Strong, Robin just shot him. With a bow that he found floating in the water. Pretty sure trying to take a long-range shot with a soaking wet bow is a considered a poor tactical choice.
2:06:15 – Yeah, don’t worry about the battle, Robin, just keep snogging. You prick.
2:09:10 – Shit King IV just said he’s making Robin Hood an outlaw. Literally based on the last 20 seconds of the last scene where apparently the army were all cheering Robin for no particular reason. So now Robin Hood is an outlaw for no real reason. Wow. That’s satisfying.
2:09:26 – Here’s the sheriff again. What a cock.
2:09:47 – Yeah, he’s a cock.
2:11:34 – “And so the legend begins.” Wait, this was a fuckig ORIGIN STORY??? WHAT THE SHIT? THIS WHOLE THING JUST SO’S HE CAN BE CALLED “ROBIN OF THE HOOD” AT THE END? WHAT THE HELL. THAT’S SO STUPID. FUCK.
2:14:10 – What’s with all this stupid cartoon shit? I mean, it’s more exciting than the rest of the movie, but what the hell is it about? I DON’T UNDERSTAND.
This movie was boring and stupid. It replaces fun with “grittyness” and ends up being miserable, makes no sense, relies on huge coincidences to advance the plot and pretends it’s all historical and stuff but is about as historical as fucking ‘Back to the Future 3’.
What the fucking hell, Ridley Scott, what the fucking hell.
A Review of Emily Blunt (1983)
Emily Blunt is just about my favourite actor currently active. I find her as enjoyable as any of her contemporaries, possessed of an easy charisma and capable of a great acting range. She’s smart, funny and I would marry the shit out of her.
I haven’t seen nearly enough of her films, but there are three that stand out and that happily are all linked in unusual ways. They are all about Fate or Destiny, they all feature poorly-understood manipulation of space/time, and they all put Ms. Blunt opposite veteran male actors who are arguably at the tops of their respective games.
And she pretty much owns all three of them.
‘Looper’ (2012)
‘Looper’ is a tidy little time-travel film, starring Joseph Gordon Brandon Lee-Cooper-Smurfit and Bruce Willis. For some reason, they elected to add prosthetics to Jim Goon-Brown’s face to make him look more like Bruce. Probably wasn’t necessary, he kind of looks like a Bajoran now, and really not like Bruce Willis at all.
Weird Star Trek references aside, George Henry-Lee is on top form. He’s a great young actor. Bruce Willis is there too, and he’s fine and all, but this is no ‘Hudson Hawk’. Thank fuck.
Bruce and Joint Strike-Fighter play the old and young versions respectively of a low-level hitman/enforcer: someone who kills thugs from the future who get sent back in time for execution to avoid the murders being discovered in their original timeline. OR SOMETHING.
Look, the details of the plot aren’t important. Brucey even explains as much in a great diner-based scene between the two of them. What is important is Emily Blunt, in a relatively subdued role as a tough but struggling single mother who looks after her son on an isolated farm.
Just Add-Water’s quest to stop… Himself takes him to Blunt’s farm, resulting in what I found to be a relatively emotionally satisfying conclusion to the film. And Blunt’s performance is top-notch. She nails the role of an independent but vulnerable woman; she’s protective of her son, but manages to avoid defining herself simply by the other characters around her.
There’s a great, very intimate scene where she calls Justin… erm, Bieber-Wetwipe into her room, and straight up initiates the shagging. It’s great to see a female character acting in a sexually proactive way without it being a defining trait of her personality; she’s just a confident person who decides to pursue what she wants at that point in time, and the film doesn’t even make much of a point of it. We need more female interactions like this.
‘Looper’ is a good, solid film, made by people who knew what they were doing. It tries probably a little too hard to be the ‘Blade Runner’ of its age and falls short, but it never really takes a wrong step. And it’s certainly buoyed by some gritty, believable performances, not least by Emily Blunt.
‘Adjustment Bureau’ (2011)
One of my favourite films of all time, and definitely my favourite romantic movie, there’s simply too much for me to like about ‘Adjustment Bureau’. It’s clever, it’s well-written, it uses restrained, carefully-applied special effects to provide a visually striking journey, it’s just great. It makes ‘City of Angels’ look like… like a Fleshlight. Plus, it features Terence Stamp, which is always a plus.
It opens with Matt Damon as a politician who’s just lost an election. He stops by the mens’ room to get his shit together and practice his “I’m a loser” speech, only to discover a half-drunk Emily Blunt spying on him from one of the stalls.
The interaction that follows between them sets the tone for the rest of the movie. There’s a casual familiarity between them, and it’s great to see two actors achieving so much chemistry in a fairly mundane setting. Blunt’s loose, impetuous characterisation is immediately appealing, and there’s never a point at which the attraction between them is anything but obvious and relatable. This is no “Kili/Tauriel”. Thank fuck.
The main story of the film is viewed from Damon’s perspective. Not long after he meets Blunt we find out that there are Sinister Agents working to prevent him from meeting her ever again. They use neat little tricks and subtle powers to carefully manipulate Damon’s fate, all the while keeping their ultimate motivations mysterious and slightly otherworldly.
Anthony Mackie does a great job as a sympathetic antagonist, but Terence Stamp is where the money’s at – the man drips brutal menace and intellectual domination. He’s like the orphan child of Darth Vader and ‘Farscape’s Scorpius, raised by an erudite shark. He’s Darth Sharkius. And that’s terrifying.
The thing that really I really love about this film is that I find myself actually rooting for the leading couple. Normally the happiness of others causes me physical discomfort, so I usually back the villains in most movies. But here I’m left hoping that Damon and Blunt get to stay together. That’s a testament to a great performance by both of them and to a film that has been very well put together.
‘Edge of Tomorrow’ (2014)
I like Tom Cruise. I mean, I’m not saying that I know him very well, and certainly there are aspects of his personal life that I find… troubling. But he ends up in some great movies, and he invariably gives a solid performance. I’ll concede that he suffers a little from mostly just playing himself, and if you’ve read my ‘Gravity’ review then you’ll know that makes me a hypocrite. Blow me.
‘Edge of Tomorrow’ was, for me, THE movie of 2014, and it went up against some stiff competition, especially from ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’, ‘Interstellar’ and ‘Nightcrawler’. Hell, even ‘Kingsman’ came out in the same year. It was a great year for movies, but it’s the Blunt/Cruise that wins out for me. It’s just so enjoyable.
Don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t got the same emotional punch as Nolan’s sci-fi masterpiece, nor is it as bold as the intensely disturbing Gyllenhaal vehicle, but it does feature a smart script, memorable characters, fantastic action, and Emily Blunt in power armour. That last one really does it for me. She’s great. Did I mention that I want to be her husband?
Aliens have invaded Earth. Specifically, Europe, and very successfully at that. With supplies of decent cheese and overpriced wine quickly dwindling, and with no back-up reserves of olives, humanity stages a final, last-ditch, all-out assault to bring down the extraterrestrial menace.
Cruise finds himself, though every fault of his own, on the front lines of this attack, but luckily for him it doesn’t last long when he gets roundly annihilated after only a few moments. To his surprise, he sleeps off this nasty case of Death and awakens a day earlier, just before the doomed attack is about to start.
Naturally, he gets killed again pretty quickly, only to reawaken before the attack all over again. This loop continues for a little while, until he meets Emily Blunt, the harsh, brutal “Angel of Verdun”. She’s a legend in this war already, and she lives up her reputation. She’s just as convincing portraying the “Full Metal Bitch” as she is a captivating ballet dancer, and although the action takes place from Cruise’s perspective, for me at least Blunt is the real hero of the story.
Credit should also go to the supporting cast, especially Bill Paxton, who turns in a shining comic performance as a bible-thumping drill sergeant, and to all of Cruise’s ‘Kelly’s Heroes’-inspired military unit, who offer a fun and amicable squad of sidekicks. Throw in some flawless special effects and a fun take on the ‘Groundhog Day’ premise, and this becomes an outstanding action-adventure flick that deserved a lot more success.
There are lots of very talented contemporary female actors, of course. Emily Blunt is my particular favourite but my real motivation for highlighting her in this post is twofold: all three of these films are great, fun pieces of science fiction, and in all three Ms. Blunt plays characters not defined by their gender.
Whilst in ‘Looper’ her role is as the mother of a plot-relevant child, and in ‘Adjustment Bureau’ she’s essentially the Love Interest, in both cases she has a personality and character arc and interests that go beyond her relevance to the men in the story; her characters are portrayed as having a relatively complete existence outside of their appearances in the films, and this is wholly realised in ‘Edge of Tomorrow’, as the story progresses and more is revealed about her character.
This is a growing trend in lots of major releases these days, and I very much hope it continues. And it’s generally the mark of a superior story; Emily Browning’s role in ‘Pompeii’ exists purely to be the object of her male co-stars desires, her life beyond this context never explored or made relevant. But even great pieces of work, such as Netflix’s beautifully dark ‘Daredevil’ series, fall foul of underdeveloped female characters, with Rosario Dawson and Ayelet Zurer both playing satellite characters of their respective male partners.
It’s not my intention to jump upon a soap box on this matter, so I’ll simply advise that if you haven’t seen the three movies covered above, watch them as soon as you can. And, if you do have Emily Blunt’s phone number, if you could leave it in the comments section I’d be grateful.
A Review of the movie ‘The Martian’ (2015)
‘The Martian’ is lovely. It’s warm and comforting and funny. It’s Ridley Scott doing Space again, but instead of messing it up with rampant philosophy and the Monster Mash, he strays away from the pitfalls of ‘Prometheus’ and keeps everything focused around the humanity of the characters involved.
The book upon which the film is based, by Andy Weir, is sublime. It covers the intricacies of spaceflight in sumptuous detail, all the things that can go wrong in a tiny pressure vessel millions of miles from home. Of course, the film can’t afford the same level of scientific insight in a manageable run-time, but it more than makes up for it in in other ways.
Okay, this is starting to look like an actual review rather than my usual inane ramblings, so let’s get back to our regular transmission.
‘The Martian’ makes ‘Gravity’ look like a dildo. Where ‘Gravity’ drains four D-cells in an attempt to vibrate you to satisfaction as reliably as possible, ‘The Martian’ offers the benefits of a sensitive and considerate lover that tends to your needs and actually maintains eye contact for most of it.
Indeed, ‘The Martian’ only ramps up the tension and the drama right at the point of climax. It moves at different speeds to satisfy its audience, rather than the “On/Off, all-or-nothing” approach of ‘Gravity’. ‘The Martian’ understands that you need laughter as well as stimulation; it understands that pounding the G-Spot like a Rousey Cannonade is just a part of the overall process.
This even applies to the cast; Bullock and Clooney are there just to stimulate the right areas, appendages extending the film’s main oscillatory function. But Damon and Chastain, Daniels and Wiig, Ejiofor and Bean all bring their own charm to the affair, their own interest; they’re the wandering lips and searching hands that remind you that this is the real thing. Even Donald Glover’s minor role is perfectly realised by the young actor; he’s sadly outclassed by more experienced colleagues, but even though it’s not exactly what gets you going you still appreciate the film’s openness to experimentation.
Oh yes, ‘The Martian’ will try Butt Stuff.
And, whereas ‘Gravity’ finishes on the oh-so-subtle imagery of its protagonist swimming upwards into the light (METHAPHORICAL), ‘The Martian’ offers you a quick but fulfilling epilogue to each of its characters. In essence, ‘The Martian’ helps you clean up afterwards, where ‘Gravity’ just gets a quick wipe before going back in the drawer.
Comparing these two films is arguably unfair; you ought to know with ‘Gravity’ that you’re just going in for a session of instant gratification; it’s a simulation of the best bits of the real thing, but it’s never going to be as satisfying. No, ‘The Martian’ has much more in common with the genre-defining ‘Apollo 13’.
Indeed, you could well view ‘The Martian’ as the modern-day successor to Ron Howard’s 1995 tour de force. It takes full advantage of contemporary special effects and uses them to tell an amazing story that actually leaves you feeling inspired and hopeful, and it has so much scientific authenticity that if feels like it’s based on a historical event.
‘The Martian’ is invested in the story it tells, and its authenticity extends to its characters, the stories that they each will tell once it’s all over. In a short space of time it presents a different perspective for each of them, but flawlessly ties them all together about the fate of the eponymous hero. Each person there has a different reason for caring about the same thing, and with some deliciously clever acting and a few light directorial touches, it explores each character exactly as much as it needs to. By the end I felt like I knew even minor characters, like the low-ranking satellite operator, better than I did the main protagonists of much more extravagant movies. Like fucking ‘Gravity’.
I just hope Scott takes his successes here and applies them to his inevitable ‘Prometheus’ sequels. If there’s one fucking thing those movies will need, it’s some sensible characterisation.
An Angry Review of ‘Mars et Avril’ (2012)
So, a while ago I was sharing a house with some friends. One of them, we’ll call him “Matt”, read a review of a foreign-language film on the internet somewhere, which is weird, because he only visits Pornhub and I didn’t think they did movie reviews. But apparently, this film was really good, so we watched it.
Fuck you Matt. I know you’re reading this. Fuck you.
‘Mars et Avril’ is a Canadian film that somehow manages to be Eurotrash, and normally I’d never even use that word. At least, not as a derogative. But in this case, “Eurotrash” is probably one of the nicest words I could have used; other appropriate words include, but are not limited to:
“crap”, “bollocks”, “boring”, “pretentious”, “wank”, “masturbatory”, “redundant”, “tautological”, “snobbish”, “smug”, “annoying”, “fuck”, “arsewater”, “nonsensical”, “eyebrows” and “idiotic”.
I hate this film. Most other films I’d watch again before reviewing, but no, nothing could make me want to re-watch ‘Mars et Avril’. Not even a set-in-stone guarantee of mind-blowing sex with the entire cast of ‘Reaper’. The only thing this film guarantees is that by the end I’ll be sat in the shower, crying and drawing on myself.
I’m going to use the phrase “or something” a lot in this review. Really, that should have been the film’s title, especially because “Random Events In A Random Order And A Lot Of Meaningless Dialogue” is too long to fit on a DVD case.
It starts with some pretentious arse-wank concert with some old men playing weird instruments. There’s some buffoonery about how the old main guy plays instruments shaped like women because the shape of the woman’s body changes the sound OR SOMETHING. None of it made sense.
He picks the models for his instruments, then everyone thinks he sleeps with them OR SOMETHING but he doesn’t, but he apparently has some legendary sex-life but we only find out about that when everyone acts surprised that he doesn’t have some amazing sex life and by now I’m already confused and angry.
A lot, and I mean most of, the story of this film occurs without us actually seeing it; instead we just see the character’s reactions to the story that presumably happened, OR SOMETHING. If the story made sense, then this would be a bold and creative way of telling it, but the story doesn’t make sense, so instead it’s just stupid.
I’ll try and summarise the rest of the story in a paragraph:
Some dudes are going to Mars but might not be, as they might be holograms. The girl sleeps with the old dude, who hadn’t fucked anyone before and everyone’s shocked by this. Some guy without eyebrows is upset about this specific fucking as he wanted to fuck the girl because she was attractive OR SOMETHING. Both she and the old dude step in a teleporter which we never see used in the film previously, but she ends up on Mars, where the astronauts are all bored because apparently they thought there was a rollercoaster there, then she almost dies but they get her back to Earth but now the old dude is dying but they use his lungs to replace hers because, and I shit you not, they genuinely think that an eighty-year-old’s lungs will be in top-notch condition because he plays woodwind. Credits roll.
Was this film meant to be funny? Because it plays like a parody. Nothing that anybody does makes any sense. The old dude calls the teleporter people to tell them that someone has literally disappeared and is probably dead OR SOMETHING, and they just tell him it’s not their problem and that he should fuck off. But, this isn’t portrayed as some corporate nightmare dystopia, that’s just how people act, OR SOMETHING.
Then there’s all this nuisance about how the Mars mission is actually an illusion, or hologram OR SOMETHING. The film thinks it’s so clever playing with all these high-end philosophical concepts, but that’s all it’s doing, is playing with them. I used to play with my dad’s power-tools but that didn’t make me a fucking builder. It did make me nervous around cordless drills, however.
I love weird, off-the-wall science fiction. ‘Farscape’ is great, ‘Solaris’ is brilliant, but ‘Mars et Avril’ is just meaningless. It fails to entertain because nothing in it is entertaining. It asks questions that nobody wants answered, it answers nothing in terms of its own story, its characters are baffling to the point that they could be figures in a dream-sequence from another film… The whole thing is tripe.
The film fails to establish key plot-points upon which it later relies. The teleporter network is one; the main character’s status as a sex icon is another. The fact that the music he plays slows time down OR SOMETHING is left pointless, because apparently that doesn’t apply if you’re trying to sleep with someone OR SOMETHING.
‘Mars et Avril’ seems to assume that we, the audience, are already completely familiar with the world in which it is set, which could be fine if it wasn’t so random and ridiculous.
The special effects are appalling, something I’d be willing to forgive if it didn’t rely upon them so much. If you want to create a completely zany and imaginative world, you need to be able to do it believably. Alternatively, work within your limitations! Instead, this film aims high and lands so, so low.
The smartest bit of the film by far is the fact that there’s a character who’s a “Pneumatologist”, who is an expert in both spirituality AND breathing disorders. That one bit of wordplay is as close as this film gets to quality. Of course, the character in question is some over-the-top self-indulgent pointless-drivel-peddling fuckbadger, so even the one GOOD bit of the film is ruined. Well done, film, well done.
Basically, this film is rubbish. Utter, abject, narcissistic chaff pinched out from the over-creative sphincter of the kind of person who watches dreck like this and then tells his friends about how he understood all of the intricacies of the plot and the deep meaningfulness of its characterisation whilst the people subject to his inane self-indulgence silently contemplate how easily they could hide his fetid carcass.
The only redeeming features of this film are some of the trivia about its production. Feel free to read those, and then never, ever subject yourself to the most pretentious hour-and-a-half of your short, precious life.
A Review of the movie ‘Gravity’ (2013)
I didn’t think it was possible for a film to somehow be less scientifically accurate than ‘Pacific Rim‘, but so many people praised ‘Gravity’ for its ambition that it’s not too surprising that it achieved that mantle.
‘Gravity’ looks amazing, and so perfectly showcases the visual journey of the single-most-unlucky person alive that it will leave you breathless. Breathless from the sheer spectacle of it, and breathless from laughter.
‘Gravity’ is the story of Dr. Mrs. Sandra Spacewoman, and her desperate struggle to regain a career after the dizzying heights of ‘Miss Congeniality’. I’m sure Sandra Bullock’s a lovely person, I’ll bet she vaccinates her children and hardly ever kills dogs just for fun, but I have always struggled to accept the premise that she’s an actor.
She seems to just Be In Movies, smiling and being nice and not really actually, y’know, portraying a character or anything. Maybe I’m being unfair. I’m not saying she’s a bad performer. It never looks like she’s reading her lines from an off-screen cue-card.
But put her next to someone like Anne Hathaway or Scarlet Johanssen… Let’s put it this way. Emily Blunt in ‘Adjustment Bureau’ is not the same Emily Blunt in ‘Edge of Tomorrow’. Have you ever seen Sandra Bullock being anyone other than Sandra Bullock?
My irrational distaste for S-Meister B aside, ‘Gravity’ is exhausting. That’s almost a credit to the film itself; I left the cinema feeling almost as tired as Spacera Blastoff’s character presumably felt, but for the wrong reasons. Every scene stretched my suspension of disbelief to breaking point.
The fanciest, most realistic effects in the world don’t make the string of incredibly unlucky events that follow each other (all within the space of an hour) any easier to believe. I greeted each new development in the story with a dismissive “Yeah, right.”
Partly that was due to my space-nerdery telling me that Things Don’t Work Like That In Space. The story kicks off when a rogue Russian missile blows up a satellite, which creates a debris cloud which then systematically destroys every single man-made thing in the solar system, apparently.
But Starra Blofeld’s a tough cookie, and she survives each new disaster that befalls her. She gets to the shuttle, but it’s been wrecked. She makes it to the ISS, but Jean-Luc Picard’s pulled a drive-by “Self Destruct” on the thing, seemingly, as it immediately starts collapsing around her.
She escapes the lethality of the space station (have we really had people living on it for years? That thing’s a deathtrap, apparently) to go some other places, all of which are equally terrible and deadly.
Apparently, every space program around the world is run by the same tribes who built all of the temples in the ‘Indiana Jones’ trilogy. All space things are apparently rigged to instantly kill the first person to set foot inside of them. Maybe it’s an allegory for Australia.
She has a baffling moment of respite where she briefly turns into a werewolf. I guess it’s always a full moon in space. Once she’s done with that, she does what any other sensible human being would do and decides “God has a plan for me, and that plan is short-term, so I will obey his wishes” and turns the oxygen off.
Sadly, that’s not the end of the movie, as Clorge Mooney reappears (we’ll get to him in a bit) and gives her the pep-talk she needs to get her shit together and get out of this Space Jam! Some more stuff blows up spontaneously, she lands in a pond, credits roll.
I could write for days about the scientific inaccuracies and plot-holes in this film. I really could. I won’t. Just go play Kerbal Space Program for half an hour and you’ll get the idea.
What I do want to write about is the only other character with a face in the film, George Clooney. And isn’t it a lovely face? Let’s look at it for a moment.
Wasn’t that lovely? I think so.
In ‘Gravity’ he plays the experienced, about-to-retire Manstronaut who knows what’s up, who rescues Sandy Bumhole initially and later reappears to her as a dream-ghost, giving her the inspiration and drive she needs to Not Die A Pointless Death.
He’s mostly a loose stereotype, played with great charisma, obviously, but it’s his significance to Bullock’s primary character that irks me. The story could’ve been about the Toughest Girl In The Galaxy, about her own will and drive to keep going, keep surviving, and it just about is.
But for me, it gets side-tracked by Gooney’s reappearance at that critical point. Now, it’s about a Girl Who Is The Toughest In The Galaxy As Long As She Has The Example Of A Man To Inspire Her.
I mean, this is a really minor point, and it works more-or-less fine in the film, but could we have had a woman in Jorge’s place? ‘The Martian’ had Jessica Chastain to prove that you can have a capable badass female astronaut who takes names and kicks arse; would it have been such a stretch to have, say, Sigourney Weaver as the veteran, the one who saves Panda Hillock and later inspires her to keep going? THAT could have been neat.
Or maybe just have Shandy Bulmers inspire herself into survival. Maybe she looks at a picture of her dead daughter and decides “No, somebody needs to remember her”. Or maybe she just looks out at the stars, realises internally that her life is shaped by more than the things that happen to her, and decides that she’s going to go down fighting no matter what.
I dunno, maybe this isn’t the place for advancing a feminist agenda. But maybe “First All-Female Science Fiction Movie” might have been a better title to have than “Somehow Less Realistic Than Giant Robots”.
Oh, and in the final scene, she starts swimming up to the water’s surface after having landed in a pond, and a piece of seaweed starts to wrap around her leg, and people in the cinema, myself included, actually started laughing.
I would have enjoyed this movie more if the creators had been brave enough to have the main character get drowned by seaweed.
Then they could have called it ‘Buoyancy’.
A Review of ‘Pacific Rim’ (2013)
Okay, cards on table, I really, really want to like this film. Almost every individual component of this film works for me. The effects, the soundtrack, the cast, the robots, the monsters. It’s all great.
But in the same way that Grenadine, Jägermeister, Glenfiddich and Lemsip are all amazing in their own way, they just don’t work together. In Pacific Rim, even individual cast members manage to pull off great performances that are in no way compatible with the performances of their colleagues.
For that reason, ‘Pacific Rim’ makes me sad.
For example, WHY are Idris Elba and Charlie Day in the same movie? Elba is always wonderful. I love him. He’s the acting equivalent of a duvet on a rainy winter day, if duvets were angry and terrifying. He brings a smouldering intensity to every scene, and that doesn’t work with Day’s glorious comical style.
It’s like mixing horse manure with an atom bomb. One of them is good for growing crops; the other is good for destroying enemy cities. If I have both at the same time, I just feel disgusted and anxious.
Even the fight scenes make me feel ambivalent. Lashing rain at night is awesome for setting a dark, moody tone. When giant robots with rocket-fists fight big wobbly space monsters, my emotional tone is not DARK AND MOODY.
Jesus, all I want to do is see some fucking robots punching some fucking monsters. But the robots are dark-grey, and the monsters are dark-brown, and the backgrounds are all dark-blue, SO I CAN’T SEE SHIT. The ‘Mona Lisa’ isn’t on display behind frosted glass, so why do all of my MONSTER FIGHTS HAPPEN IN THE FUCKING DARK. Christ.
Oh yeah, here we go, my favourite fucking scene, Idris stands on the foot of his Yeegeger and gets his acting chops out and delivers this amazing, rousing, exciting, fucking “CANCELLING THE APOCALYPSE” speech to the assembled troops. But all the people fighting are stood behind him, and the people he’s addressing are the plumbers and electricians who have ALREADY DONE THEIR FUCKING JOBS, WHY DO THEY NEED MOTIVATING IDRIS, WHY? OH YEAH, GONNA MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE THAT DEREK OVER THERE WITH THE WRENCH HEARD THAT SPEECH AS HE SITS ON A BOX PLAYING CARDS AND LISTENING TO THE RADIO. FUCK.
God, I mean, okay, so the EMP blast shuts down the whole base, but it’s fine because Randy Loggins or whatever the fuck his name is says that the big stompy robot from the opening scene is “analogue” because she has a nuclear reactor or something, BUT THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS, WHAT ABOUT ALL THE COMPUTER SCREENS, THEY’RE NOT ALL PAL-ENCODED YOU DRIBBLING MORON, HEY, GOOD LUCK MANAGING A NUCLEAR REACTOR WITH GEARS AND PULLEYS YOU COLOSSAL FUCKING TROGLODYTE.
Yeah, that’s right ‘Pacific Rim’, keep painting the Australian dude as the bad guy, even though he’s FUCKING RIGHT ALL OF THE TIME YOU USELESS CUNTS. Every time he calls out Bally Furtrade and Kimiko Bluehair on being shit he’s fucking right, they are shit, they nearly blow up the fucking base for fuck’s sakes! Why’s he the one being framed as the douche? Bellends.
Oh, the sword, THE SWORD, MY FRIENDS. Cool as fuck, completely inexhaustible, kills monsters in a single sweep, AND YOU ONLY JUST USED IT NOW??? WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU MORONS? ACTUALLY, DON’T ANSWER THAT, WE’LL BE HERE ALL FUCKING NIGHT. I MEAN REALLY, YOU PUT THE SWORD IN THE MONSTERS AND IT KILLS THE MONSTERS. USE THE SWORD! USE THE FUCKING SWORD!!! WHAT, DID YOU FORGET? DID YOU BOTH FORGET ABOUT IT? DID ALL THE PEOPLE AT THE BASE FORGET TOO? IF YOU’RE THE BEST HUMANITY’S GOT THEN WE DESERVE EXTINCTION. THE APOCALYPSE WASN’T CANCELLED, IT WAS JUST POSTPONED. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.
FUCK.
Fuck.
I mean, this wasn’t the worst movie of 2013, not by a long shot, and it’d be fun with mates and snacks on a big wide-screen TV after pizza and beer. Y’know, end-of-the-night, it’s two in the morning but you’re all still buzzing.
Just don’t watch it for the plot. It’s like reading the comments section of a popular news article. You think you’ll be able to stay objective, but you’re just going to end up angry.
A Review of the movie ‘Pompeii’ (2014)
My review of the movie ‘Pompeii’ (2014).
2014 is the date of the film, not the date of the review. It’s 2015 as I write this review.
This film stars Jon Snow, of the Knights of Watch. How he ended up in Pompeii is beyond me. I think it’s because the Romans showed up at Winterfell and killed his parents, Mr and Mrs No-Lines.
Kiefer Sutherland is also in this movie, very-nearly doing the same thing as lots of of veteran actors in movies like this and over-acting joyfully. But his over-acting isn’t joyful, it just makes me feel like he’s not a very good actor.
Jared Harris is also in this film. Jared Harris is great but not in this film because he doesn’t do very much.
Carrie-Anne-Moss has her name in the credits. She has five lines. Apparently she had more scenes but they were cut. Possibly because they were just her saying “Don’t. Fuck. With. Aria.” over and over again.
Mr. Eko is in this film. He plays Black Man Near Retirement. Surprisingly, Mel Gibson is not in this film, which is surprising as a lot of non-Christians get killed in this film and I would have thought he’d be well up for that.
This film is like a disaster movie mixed with a history movie. Specifically, it is like ‘Titanic’ mixed with ‘Gladiator’. What I mean by that is that, I believe the director took all of the odd-numbered pages of the ‘Titanic’ screenplay, all of the even-numbered pages of the ‘Gladiator’ script and stapled them together. I think after that he called it a day and went to the pub. He probably had a shandy. Or a Pimms.
Other things that this film “draws inspiration from” (in the same way that photocopiers “draw inspiration from” the original document) include, but are not limited to, ‘300’, ‘Game of Thrones’, and getting Chlamydia from a toilet seat.
The music is very nice. In fact, a song from this film appeared on my Spotify ‘Discover Weekly’ playlist, which is why I watched this film. I have since sent several letters of complaint to Spotify. I have not sent any letters to the makers of this film as I do not believe many of them can read.
In actual fact, this film is not terrible. I could very much enjoy watching this film whilst drinking with friends, doing something else or being in another room. This film is better than both ‘Immortals’ and ‘In Time’. It’s probably better than both of them put together.
The most consistent character in this film was the Volcano. It had the fewest random motivations and character decisions. Even the horses in this film did silly things. And they’re horses. All they have to do is be horsey. How do you fuck up being a horse?
This film found a way.
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