The Bourne Legacy (2012)



Director:  Tony Gilroy

Writers:  Tony Gilroy (screenplay), Dan Gilroy (screenplay)

Stars:  Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz and Edward Norton

 

An expansion of the universe from Robert Ludlum's novels, centered on a new hero whose stakes have been triggered by the events of the previous three films.

“The Bourne Redundancy.” That’s what Paul Greengrass, who had directed the last two Jason Bourne movies, proposed as the title of any future installment. When there’ve been three movies about the spy with an identity crisis, and the third episode was called Ultimatum, why go on? But for the brass at Universal Pictures, the question was: Why stop now? Worldwide box-office revenue for movies made from the Robert Ludlum novels had ballooned from $214 million for the 2002 Identity to $288.5 million for the 2004 Supremacy to $442.8 million for the 2007 Ultimatum. That’s close to a billion dollars for three movies. Any studio boss would want to go for four.
So though Greengrass passed on another Bourne, and star Matt Damon also said no, Tony Gilroy, who’d co-scripted the first three films, signed on as director, co-writer and keeper of the franchise. The Bourne Legacy, with The Hurt Locker’s Jeremy Renner as the new hero, has a couple of scenes crackling with fatal friction, plus lots of talking that implicates the CIA as Worst Government Agency Ever; but the overall tone is familiar, refried, redundant. The comment that U.S. Intelligence guru Edward Norton makes of his colleagues — “We are morally indefensible and absolutely necessary” — applies to the film as well. The Bourne Legacy has no compelling reason to be, except as a continuing geyser of profits. Which, to any Hollywood studio, is absolutely necessary.

The coolest part of this movie is the ad line: “There was never just one.” Renner’s Aaron Cross is part of a new CIA program. He’s one of nine secret agents, all injected with super-meds to increase their strength, speed, stamina and cunning. They’re spies on steroids, gaining the same advantage on their rivals as some baseball players a decade ago; the film could be called The Bonds Legacy. It’s a wonder the producers of the James Bond films didn’t diversify their hero this way. After 007, there could have been 008 and 009 — The Bond Legacy. But the whole point of the Bond films was that, despite the myriad spy-movie imitators, there was always just one Bond. These days, through the miracle of 21st-century medicine and Hollywood habit, a secret agent can be Bourne again and again and again.
In the screenplay by Gilroy and his brother Dan, we find Cross in the Alaskan woods, a lone surviver in the killing chill. In his spare time he engages in an ultimate fight with a ferocious wolf, as if trying to out-macho Liam Neeson in The Grey. A spy who is literally ready to come in from the cold — to be brought back to D.C. by the agency he works for — Cross finds himself the target of a U.S. drone attack. Wait a minute: the guys in Bethesda at their video consoles are supposed to eliminate the odd Taliban rebel and Afghani civilian, not their most resourceful agent. In these scenes, Legacy connects with the real crime of modern warfare, where the shooters at Mission Control can isolate a human target 10,000 miles away, and kill him without risking anything but their honor.

But enough brain food. Soon it’s back to fulfilling genre conventions: rooftop rambles, reckless driving and the globe-trotting location shoots (New York, Chicago, D.C., Seoul, Karachi, Manila) that turn filmmakers into frequent flyers. Also imperiled romance, in the person of microbiologist Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz). The good doctor works at the company that hatched Cross’s enabling, deadly medication, though, she wanly protests, “I was there for science!” As his one link to the meds, Marta must run from the CIA — there’s a nicely tense interrogation with a motherly psychologist who explodes into a lethal agent — and get Cross to the manufacturing plant in Manila. Toward the end, Legacy promises a battle between Cross and a next-generation killer, a sort of Terminator Bourne; but that climactic brawl is reduced to the sort of car chase you’ve seen before, and better, in roughly 126 action films.
Most moviegoers won’t mind that the Legacy tropes are familiar; that’s why they go to the movies. What they’ll notice is the new leading man in the wake of Damon’s defection. Renner is a curious candidate for a Hollywood action figure. Not a dreamy hunk by any means, he’s a valued supporting player recently promoted to leading roles. Go back 40 years, and he’s Gene Hackman, with muscles (every actor has muscles now) but with the suggestion of a less roiling interior life. That was exactly Renner’s salient quality in Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker. Dismantling bombs in Baghdad, his Sgt. James was all business, no introspection; he was what he did. Sure, James could have been driven by infernal forces or a grand mission, but no, he was just a guy supremely good at his job and putting his expertise to life-saving use.

Renner’s anonymity worked splendidly in The Hurt Locker. Since then, in standard-issue action fare like The Avengers and the fourth Mission: Impossible, he has looked uncomfortable, trying to Act when the other performers, more used to the camera’s rapt gaze, know how to simulate having a good time.
Now, a star without star quality, Renner plays it a little too nice as the junked-up renegade spy. The Cross character has no backstory to clue the viewer to deep roilings, and Renner can suggest sullenness but not satanic or superhuman threat. If Sgt. James was a man who defused, and fused with, machines, Cross is more machine than man, a total creation of his CIA overlords — their quiet-spoken Frankenstein. Or you could say Cross is a drone in human form, efficient but impersonal, like this redundant Legacy.

Read More



The Expendables 2 (2012)

Director:  Simon West

Writers:  Richard Wenk (screenplay), Sylvester Stallone (screenplay)

Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Liam Hemsworth and Randy Couture 

Mr. Church reunites the Expendables for what should be an easy paycheck, but when one of their men is murdered on the job, their quest for revenge puts them deep in enemy territory and up against an unexpected threat.

The Expendables are reunited when Mr. Church enlists them to take on a seemingly simple job. When things go wrong, the Expendables are compelled to seek revenge in hostile territory, where the odds are stacked against them. Hell-bent on payback, the crew cuts a swath of destruction through opposing forces, wreaking havoc and shutting down an unexpected threat in the nick of time - five tons of weapons-grade plutonium, more than enough to change the balance of power in the world. But that's nothing compared to the justice they serve against the villainous adversary they seek revenge from.

Read More

The Hunger Games (2012)

Director: Gary Ross

Writers: Gary Ross (screenplay), Suzanne Collins (screenplay)

Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth

In a dystopian future, the totalitarian nation of Panem is divided between 12 districts and the Capitol. Each year two young representatives from each district are selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games. Part entertainment, part brutal retribution for a past rebellion, the televised games are broadcast throughout Panem. The 24 participants are forced to eliminate their competitors while the citizens of Panem are required to watch. When 16-year-old Katniss's young sister, Prim, is selected as District 12's female representative, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She and her male counterpart Peeta, are pitted against bigger, stronger representatives, some of whom have trained for this their whole lives.


Watch Trailer

Read More

Total Recall (2012)

Director: Len Wiseman

Writers:  Kurt Wimmer (screenplay), Mark Bomback (screenplay),

Stars: Colin Farrell, Bokeem Woodbine and Bryan Cranston

 

A factory worker, Douglas Quaid, begins to suspect that he is a spy after visiting Rekall - a company that provides its clients with implanted fake memories of a life they would like to have led - goes wrong and he finds himself on the run.

Read More

The Avengers (2012)

Director: Joss Whedon

Writers: Joss Whedon (screenplay), Zak Penn (story) 

Stars: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson

Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. brings together a team of super humans to form The Avengers to help save the Earth from Loki and his army. 

Read More

WALL·E (2008)

Director: Andrew Stanton

Writers: Andrew Stanton (original story), Pete Docter (original story)

Stars: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight and Jeff Garlin

 In the distant future, a small waste collecting robot inadvertently embarks on a space journey that will ultimately decide the fate of mankind. 

 

Read More

The Dark Knight (2008)

Director: Christopher Nolan

Writers: Jonathan Nolan (screenplay), Christopher Nolan (screenplay)

Stars: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart

When Batman, Gordon and Harvey Dent launch an assault on the mob, they let the clown out of the box, the Joker, bent on turning Gotham on itself and bringing any heroes down to his level.

Read More

The Intouchables (2011)

Directors: Olivier Nakache, Eric Toledano

Writers: Olivier Nakache, Eric Toledano

Stars: François Cluzet, Omar Sy and Anne Le Ny

After he becomes a quadriplegic from a paragliding accident, an aristocrat hires a young man from the projects to be his caretaker.

Read More

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

 

 Director: Christopher Nolan

Writers: Jonathan Nolan (screenplay), Christopher Nolan (screenplay) 

Stars: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy and Anne Hathaway

Eight years on, a new terrorist leader, Bane, overwhelms Gotham's finest, and the Dark Knight resurfaces to protect a city that has branded him an enemy.

Read More

Outlander (2008)

Outlander

Director: Howard McCain

Writers: Dirk Blackman, Howard McCain

Stars: Jim Caviezel, Sophia Myles and Ron Perlman

During the reign of the Vikings, Kainan, a man from a far-off world, crash lands on Earth, bringing with him an alien predator known as the Moorwen. Though both man and monster are seeking revenge for violence committed against them, Kainan leads the alliance to kill the Moorwen by fusing his advanced technology with the Viking's Iron Age weaponry.

The Plot: Buckle up boys and girls we've got a seriously steep plot to climb here. A human warrior (Jim "Evil" Caviezel) from a distant star system crash lands in Norway circa 700 AD. Tribes of Vikings aren't the only threat to our wayward starfighter. Brought down with him in the wreckage is an alien being of incalculable size, strength and appetite. Can he find a way to band his Earthling kinfolk against this alien threat? And if he does will this actually make for a decent movie???

The Good: As Gomer Pyle famously said: Sur-prise, sur-prise, sur-priiise... Outlander's actually good. Is it great? Probably not. But I think anyone keeping an eye on this whacked-out film mash-up was only really hoping for good - and good is what we get here. Vikings and space aliens shouldn't meet - for battle, for drinks, for pretty much any affair. Here they do. The result could have been high comedy, instead we get a big beautiful bonanza of 80's cinematic idealism compounded with modern technology. 

By 80's cinematic idealism I mean those movies that the cocaine era spawned pretty much routinely. Movies like Krull. Beastmaster. Dragonslayer. Richard Donner's awesome Ladyhawke and Ridley Scott's Legend. It's like some post-modern Indiana Jones went on an archaeological dig in the cellars of Tinseltown and found an old dusty script from that era called Outlander, took it out of retirement and actually followed through with making the picture a reality. These movies rarely happen anymore. The last few have been Reign of Fire :-) Pathfinder :-( and  maybe Neil Marshall's Doomsday :-| (I just used Emoticons! up until now I thought these were Transformers that listened to Fallout Boy...) 

So does Outlander prove that there's still some private corners of the movie studio world stuffing piles of cocaine down their nasal cavities? I hope so. We need more whacked-out films like this. And better yet we need them to work - maybe not miracles - but actually work. Outlander works. Kind of like a Japanese robot dog works. It can't chase a stick and retrieve it, but it won't be sh*tting on the rug either. 

Jim Caviezel sort of lends this flick his Jesus-cred and manages to keep the movie somewhere in the realm of respectable. His "outlander" character has a pretty decent back-story and some seriously sweet space-toys when the film starts. It was a bit of a wash-out that as the flick continued we don't really feel like his character is from an advanced society in any way. He just sort of shrugs off technology and science and picks up a sword with the rest of the heathen hordes to fight the dragon medieval style. It would have been a better move to at least toss some science fiction into this fantasy movie other than back-story and a few fleeting scenes near the opening of the film. Though I'll admit it right here, right now - the swords they do end up designing out of the hull of his crashed space ship, gawdamn I want one of those. Swords are characters in this film strain. William Wallace had a big cool sword. Aragorn had one. Conan had one. This is the first selection of film swords I would actually fork over a weighty wad of cash to own. I still just might.

On the monster front, Outlander actually has a pretty cool beast these boys of the horny-helmet must contend with. The Moorwen has a great design to it. Part dragon, part pitbull, part angler fish. It makes for a formidable foe, but...
The Bad: If only the money men would have sunk just a few more bucks into the special effects in this movie. It's not Wolverine 2009 bad, but it's not Reign of Fire good either. The Moorwen looks great, but moves like he's the product of a Playstation game cut-scene. I can't help but think what a few more dollars would have delivered here. 

And speaking of short-changing... Can we get a few decent-looking wigs and fake beards for a major motion picture anytime soon? We do have space stations now. This is the modern era. Some of these guys, (Ron Perlman/John Hurt) look like their heads are going through pubic hair relocation treatment. The 70's porn industry didn't pack this much muff. Want to make a 100 million dollar movie look like a 2 million dollar B-movie? Use bad wigs. It's that simple.
The Ugly: Hmmmmmm..... I don't think there's really anything too seriously wrong here. Outlander didn't go all Pathfinder on my ass so maybe I'll just move on.

The Verdict: The Detroit News is fabulously misquoted on the box art for this DVD. The quote says: "Honestly. Best. Movie. Ever." What they fail to add on the DVD packaging is the rest of the critic's broken sentences which read: "Well, not really". Which is fine. It's a ballsy way to review the thing, and an even ballsier move selectively quoting from it. If I had to get Detroit Newsy about Outlander I'd say: "Better. Than. It. Has. Any. Bloody. Right. To. Be." and leave it at that. 

Read More

Star Trek (2009)

Until not long ago, they said that you could easily divide filmgoers into “Star Trek” fans, “Star Wars” ones and the in-between group, those who liked neither. With J.J. Abrams’ 2009 “Star Trek,” the origin story, such classification becomes as redundant as it is unwanted. The director, an already well-known name in the industry for his artistic vision, as well as for his ability to literally take objects on screen, blow them up and have the explosion blast reach even the viewer in the last row in the theater, has managed to do the unthinkable: make “Star Trek” cool, an extremely enjoyable experience and one amazing ride for every viewer out there.

Top movie critics – but, most importantly, fans – agree that perhaps the greatest merit of this film, this summer’s first smashing blockbuster, is the fact that screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have discovered a means of having their own way with the story without stepping on the (sometimes highly sensitive) toes of even the most diehard fans.  

It’s called an “alternate reality” and, of course, it allows both cast and director to present the world with a brand new “Star Trek” (believed to be an impossible feat following 726 hours of television episodes and no less than 10 feature films), while also staying true to the mythology. What the viewers get in return is a film so frantic and overwhelming that it swallows them the instant it starts playing onscreen, and spits them out at the end, dazed and confused, but still wanting and asking for more – if one may be excused such a blunt comparison.

“Star Trek” features, as fans must already know by now, a cast of relatively unknown actors – yet all of them manage to shine so bright that one is almost left wondering how come no one thought of featuring them in major productions until now. The duo that sets the pace of the action is, as expected, positively jaw-dropping: Chris Pine makes for an unruly, fun and charming to the utmost James T. Kirk, while Zachary Quinto as Spock proves himself by not letting the pointy ears act for him, as the critics put it.

Strangely enough, the more Kirk gets beaten, tossed and thrown around like a piece of rag just because he can’t seem to keep his mouth shut, the more clearly it becomes that he is indeed the calculated, highly intelligent Kirk fans know ever since the ’60 early series. Spock, on the other hand, is so charming and fascinating for his Vulcan-human dual nature that he can’t seem to control just yet that it’s no wonder Nyota Uhura (Zoe Saldana), along with all the women in the audience, fall so hard for him.

Eric Bana, although almost unrecognizable as the baddie Nero, puts an equally stunning performance. Still, critics point out, it could very well be that he drew the short stick on this one, since Nero is simply not given enough screen time to fully justify his evil, vengeful nature – which, of course, is not to say that he lets anyone down the little time he gets to show just how mean he can be for the camera. Quite on the contrary, it is being said.  

Simon Pegg as Scotty and Anton Yelchin as Pavel Chekov are also adorable, and each time they open their mouth, they’re bound to cause waves of hysteria. Yet they too might have deserved at least a couple of minutes more of film, critics point out. On the other hand, they say, perhaps allowing these three characters to have more exposure would have dampened the Kirk-Spock relationship, and that would have certainly disappointed many fans.

The truth about “Star Trek,” perhaps the only movie in the longstanding franchise that has managed to score so superbly with both critics and fans, is that it actually makes the entire Star Trek universe cool for anyone, no matter the gender, age or previous knowledge of the ways of the Trekkiness, so to speak. It’s a fun, light (in terms of plotline – which couldn’t have been otherwise, since the film was meant to introduce the characters to non-Trekkies as well) and highly entertaining production.

At the same time, it’s also extremely exciting and overwhelming, so attentive to even the most minute details and so gripping that the 126 minutes of runtime feel like 12, or even less for diehard fans. “Star Trek” is, in short, a big budget film that shows quality is not necessarily about star power, and which proves that Hollywood can still put out amazing movies, even if they look for inspiration in older ones. It not only warrants a sequel, it would better have one or else, fans and critics say.

“Star Trek” opened in select US theaters in April. It is now running in most European countries, opened widely in the US and UK on May 8, and will conclude its theatrical run in Japan on May 29.

The Good

Director J.J. Abrams and the wonderful cast of “Star Trek” manage to create a world that seems as fascinating and gripping as it seems possible. It’s a fun and crazy-paced sci-fi film that only a mad person could not enjoy, critics say. “Star Trek” is, as of now, the best critically received film of 2009, while also being a smashing hit with audiences worldwide, and that should speak volumes on its part.

The Bad

“Star Trek” is, surprisingly to many, a film about which one can hardly find anything negative to say. Granted, Nero, Scotty, Chekov and even U.S.S Enterprise could have used more screen time, but this is something that is completely forgotten when looking at the bigger picture.

The Truth

“Star Trek” is a must see, critics urge. Even those who usually shun hyped, niche productions like this one will have a blast from second 1 to minute 126 guaranteed, because “Star Trek” is simply the kind of film that shows that, sometimes, you just have to go with the flow and put all prejudices aside. A superb (and quite good-looking) cast, breathtaking special effects, a mind-blowing score and J.J. Abrams’ skilled hand orchestrating everything as if from above make this film a unique and wonderful viewing experience. 

  

Read More

Deja Vu (2006)

 

Director: Tony Scott

Writers: Bill Marsilii, Terry Rossio

Stars:  Denzel Washington, Paula Patton and Jim Caviezel

Deja Vu is the sixth collaboration between director Tony Scott and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who previously worked together on Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cops II, Days Of Thunder, Crimson Tide and Enemy Of The State). It is also Tony Scott's third collaboration with Denzel Washington (after Crimson Tide and Man On Fire). So you might be forgiven for supposing that the film's title is an ironic promise of old routines and formulae knowingly re-trodden. It is a suspicion that the film's first act seems to confirm, with its explosive opening followed by the kind of painstaking post-mortem detective work 'already seen' many times before in Bruckheimer's TV series 'CSI'.

Yet Doug Carlin (Washington), a New Orleans-based federal agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, realises this is going to be no ordinary case. During his investigation of the bombing of a ferryboat that has left 543 people dead, Carlin ascertains that one of the victims, Claire Kuchever (Patton), was in fact killed several hours before the ferry explosion. Thanks to his keen mind and local knowledge, he finds himself co-opted into a new FBI investigations unit headed by Agent Pryzwarra (Kilmer). It turns out that Pryzwarra's team of physicists has chanced upon a wormhole into the past, and is cautiously test-driving equipment that enables them to monitor from any angle events of four and a half days ago as they unfold in real time on a high-tech screen.

With no idea who the bomber is, Carlin uses the time-leaping equipment to focus on Claire's last days, gathering evidence that will solve the crime and pinpoint the killer. As his sense of outrage and horror grows, he tries to prevent the crime from happening, first by sending clues back in time to himself, and then by sending himself back with just hours remaining before the bombing takes place. In the head-spinning maelstrom of paradoxes that follows, the future may never be the same again - which is just as well, since Carlin is about to make, or at least to have made, the ultimate sacrifice.

Time can play funny tricks. When Bill Marsilii began writing Deja Vu in 1997, it was essentially a fantasy response to the Oklahoma bombing of two years earlier - but then the terrorist assaults on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon came around in 2001, requiring that the script be updated to a post-9/11 context. Just before principal shooting was due to begin in New Orleans in 2005, the city was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, necessitating further changes to the screenplay. Like his protagonist Carlin, Marsilli kept having to go back and look again in the light of events unfolding on the ground, and so he and his subsequent co-writer Tony Rossio have crafted a piece of multi-layered plotting that has traces of not one, but three recent American disasters encoded into its fabric.

Whether the result is regarded as complex and subtle, or just an unholy mess, this conflation of several rather different tragedies ensures that the film is free from the sort of disappointingly reactionary oversimplifications to be found in earlier Scott films. Here the villain is a terrorist, to be sure, but he is also a home-grown patriot who fervently supports the troops in Iraq (as a sticker in his house reveals), and who parrots neo-con nonsense about the validity of 'human collateral'.

When Carlin and his colleagues finally get their man, Pryzwarra's triumphal declaration of "mission accomplished" rings hollow, not least because it is the very expression which, in a carefully choreographed 'Top Gun moment', one George W. Bush used to announce what in fact turned out to be only the beginning of a protracted conflict in Iraq. Things, the film suggests, are never quite so simple - even with 20/20 hindsight.

For, unlike much of Scott's more tendentious work (Top Gun, say, or more recently Man On Fire), Deja Vu is a film of clashing viewpoints and mixed messages. Even the film's status as Christian allegory (complete with a hero who sacrifices himself to save others and miraculously returns from the grave) is complicated by the casting of Caviezel, best known for playing Jesus in The Passion Of The Christ (2004), as the devil of the piece. Certainly the debate between science and religion that runs through the film remains unresolved to the enigmatic ending, which enters the sort of speculative realms where faith and physics can happily co-exist.

Such ideological irresolution does not hamper Scott's power to forge a compelling story from difficult, potentially confusing materials. With its time-traveling conundrums and parallel narratives, Deja Vu recalls the high-concept convolutions of Frequency (2000), Primer (2004) or The Lake House (2006). Here exposition is well-integrated and kept to a minimum, while the director's trademark fluid camerawork and scatter-gun editing drive the plot forward (and backwards) at a relentless pace. It is testimony to Scott's mastery of visual storytelling that many of the film's sequences, including one of the most ingenious car chases ever committed to film, are easily followed on screen even as they utterly defy verbal summary.

Add to this a typically charismatic performance from Washington and a witty script, and you have that rarest of beasts, a thrilling action blockbuster that does not underestimate the intelligence of its viewers. Like Carlin, you may find yourself wanting to see it more than once to appreciate how everything fits together - which earns Deja Vu the status of a classic, at least for the future.

Verdict

Ingeniously plotted and never less than engaging, Tony Scott's Deja Vu is destined to be a time-travel classic.

Read More

The Island (2005)

 

Director: Michael Bay

Writers: Caspian Tredwell-Owen (screenplay), Alex Kurtzman (screenplay) 

Stars: Scarlett Johansson, Ewan McGregor and Djimon Hounsou

 

 

There is so much product placement in Michael Bay's bombastic The Island that it's like reading 'Marketing Week' in a washing machine. Halfway through the film, safely past the intriguing set-up and blithely blasting from one deranged chase to another, your thoughts turn to the role of brands in the modern action-adventure movie. Here's hoping Microsoft, Nokia, Aquafina, Michelob, Budweiser, Calvin Klein, Ben & Jerry and Puma got their money's worth. Each time their brands pop up, we are knocked out of the film's world and back into our boring old one. Sponsored content is the big thing in Hollywood right now. Suspension of disbelief, it seems, is old hat.

If this seems like a minor point to open with, it is indicative of how flippantly constructed The Island is. Characters get out of impossible predicaments with no explanation, or desultory ones. Plot lines are introduced and not developed. Michael Bay directs as if he is wearing boxing gloves and the only punch in his repertoire is the haymaker. No feint, no jab, no fancy footwork. Just slug after slug after slug. He sets out to resuscitate cliché with bombast, but after each jolt of pyrotechnics the corpse flops back on the slab.

Squinting past all the sound and fury, you can just make out a decent idea for a film. What if the super-rich paid to have a clone made of themselves that could be harvested for organs when their own excesses get the better of them? What would the life of that clone be like? And what if that clone escaped out into the world to confront their original self? It's the kind of premise Philip K Dick would have made psychedelic hay out of. In fact, it is exactly the premise of Michael Marshall Smith's novel 'Spares', which DreamWorks had an option on for an age, but everyone has decided to be an asshole about that, and Marshall Smith gets no credit here. 

Read More

Iron Man (2008)

Director: Jon Favreau

Writers: Mark Fergus (screenplay), Hawk Ostby (screenplay)

Stars: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow and Terrence Howard 

When wealthy industrialist Tony Stark is forced to build an armored suit after a life-threatening incident, he ultimately decides to use its technology to fight against evil.

If you're not familiar with the superhero Iron Man then know this: he's not an alien, he doesn't get his powers from radiation exposure nor did he react to his parents' murder by dressing up as a bat. The movie adaptation was in gestation for nearly 20 years, but as comic book characters go, Iron Man is not well known to the general public. So, is director Jon Favreau's film just a desperate barrel-scraper limping out after all the other major crime fighters have been given the movie treatment?

With a soundtrack of cranked-up rock and Robert Downey Jr nailing his role as arrogant playboy arms manufacturer Tony Stark, this isn't as angsty as the Spider-Man films or the X-Men franchise, with their superheroes fretting over their personal lives.

Even waking up to discover that he's been kidnapped by Afghan terrorists who demand he construct them a missile doesn't faze Stark, nor does the electro magnet wedged into his chest and running off a car battery, thereby preventing a shrapnel wound from killing him. The terrorists foolishly leave Stark and his new friend Yinsen (Taub) to work alone, so they shouldn't be surprised when the pair lash together a fully-armoured mechanical death suit and escape.

The film shifts gear dramatically here, like switching channels from a John Pilger documentary to an episode of 'The A-Team'. The movie acknowledges this, reveling in its mix of the audacious and the absurd. Later scenes of a totally redesigned Iron Man landing in an Afghan village, sorting out a terrorist siege in a couple of seconds by shooting the bad guys, then flying off again verge on the same glorious lack of liberal hand-wringing that made Team America World Police so fantastic.
Show more of this review

Verdict

Even though the classic Marvel characters appealed to readers precisely because they had hang-ups and wretched private lives, it's fantastic to see a superhero movie getting away from the navel-gazing to serve up overboard action with a knowing sense of humour. Downey Jr gets the lead role exactly right.

Read More

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

Director: Rupert Wyatt

Writers: Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, and 1 more credit 

Stars: James Franco, Andy Serkis and Freida Pinto | See full cast and crew 

A substance, designed to help the brain repair itself, gives rise to a super-intelligent chimp who leads an ape uprising. 

When a scientist (James Franco) investigating a cure for Alzheimer's is ordered to shut down his lab after the chimpanzee test subjects go berserk and are terminated, he manages to save one adorable little chimp (Andy Serkis via state-of-the-art Weta FX). Unfortunately the lil fella develops into a Spartacus sort with ambitions to free his people from the tyranny of man, setting in motion events that apparently will eventually lead to the Planet we saw in the original Charlton Heston movie, which was made in 1968, but set many years in the future after the events depicted in this 2011 sequel... remake... prequel... reboot... thing. Confused? Ok, it's a movie about a smart ape.

Everyone's favourite laconic Oscar host James Franco here rises to the challenge of acting against a mo-capped Andy Serkis with remarkable success. You'll soon forget that when he's staring encouragingly into the face of Caesar the chimpanzee, hugging Caesar or leading Caesar around on a leash, he was actually doing all these things to a man wearing a grey skintight leotard covered with electrical blobby doohickeys. That's the magic of cinema for you.

Of course, Serkis, who played King Kong himself in Peter Jackson's 2005 version of the great ape epic, isn't new to the whole mo-cap monkey business. Or as purists would have it, performance-capture primates. Serkis is at the forefront of a new wave of actors advocating 'performance capture' as the preferred term for a job every bit as demanding and skilled as acting of the traditional variety. And his performance really is the reason to see the film. Caesar is the lead, Caesar has the most sympathetic story arc, and it's Caesar who we want to see more from, because really, this is an origin story, with precious little plot and oodles of character development. The final-act action is well-directed and staged, but this careful, thoughtful film feels like a taster reel for things to come.

Verdict

He came, he saw, he conquered: Caesar is a wholly convincing lead, he just needs a more satisfying story. Roll on the sequel.

Read More