Locke

I read a hilarious review of Locke just after I had seen it in which the person was complaining that 50% of the film is taken up with discussions about concrete. Frankly, they're not too far wrong. To explain further, the film follows construction manager Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy) as he attempts to supervise a large concrete pour planned for the next day. Now, when I say follows, this is the crux of the matter, as Steven Knight's film takes place entirely inside Locke's car. It's hardly a revelatory approach and there's that famous film quote (well the quote that isn't the one about the gun and the girl) which says that all you need to produce a film is a camera, a light and an actor. Knight is most well known for being the co-creator of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, though he has also written many a screenplay as well as having one previous film (the little seen Hummingbird) as director under his belt. Knight's script (plus Hardy's solid performance - not sure about the Welsh accent mind) just about keeps this on the right side of entertaining, with Locke taking numerous phone calls as both his personal and professional lives unravel. On that note, Knight gives even screen time to each of Locke's problems, but his domestic issues hardly set the film alight (not helped by them all being Locke's own fault). More fun is had with his manic attempts to organise the concrete pour, especially his comic conversations with colleague Donal (Andrew Scott). On that note you can have fun trying to decipher the actors voices popping up on the hands free as the film progresses (Scott sounded so much like Chris O'Dowd I had to do a double take when the end credits came up). Apart from that there isn't much else here to hold the attention and even with a short running time this feels like it's outstaying its welcome well before the end. However, if you fancy seeing something different then give this a chance - Blockbuster fans need not apply. Rating: 6/10.

The Double

For his directorial debut Richard Ayoade adapted Joe Dunthorne’s Submarine with critical success. For his follow up feature he’s also turned to a literary source, that of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Double. Dostoyevsky’s work splits people who read it and there’s no real agreed analysis as to what the final interpretation should be. Though Ayoade’s film doesn’t actually stick all that closely to it’s source material, I think the diagnosis will be the same i.e. enjoyably confusing, but somewhat ruined by its ambiguity. Due to the success of Submarine, Ayoade has a stronger cast to play with here with Jesse Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowska taking the lead roles. Well, I say “leads”, but it’s Eisenberg who does most of the heavy lifting. We follow Simon James (Eisenberg), a sad sack employee in a nameless and soulless organisation, who’s duty of going to visit his frail mother and from-a-distance yearning for his colleague Hannah (Wasikowska) the only things lifting him out of his drones existence. Soon enough though things take a turn for the bizarre when a doppelganger of James (called James Simon – also played by Eisenberg) shows up at his place of work and becomes everything James is not, i.e. a hit with colleagues and, much to James’ chagrin, Hannah. Where it goes from there would be too spoiler-rific, but this is one of those classic productions where the good and minus points pretty much even themselves out and you’re left with something that is good as opposed to great. Eisenberg clearly has fun playing both parts and there are amusing cameos from a number of people, not least Sally Hawkins in a blink and miss it role at a party and (rejoice!) the lesser spotted Chris Morris as a member of personnel with a Catch 22 approach to giving someone a new ID card. Script wise things don’t really click mind (the constant references to the red tape and bureaucracy that hold James back wear thin), not helped by James being so wet you just think he deserves all he gets when Simon start to exploit him. Things are better on the aesthetics side of things and James’ place of work is nicely realised with a set design that is a bland and dreary Kafka-esque nightmare, though some may find it a rip off of Brazil. Ayoade is already known as being somewhat of a cineaste when it comes to being behind the camera and he does some nice work here, including a great Hitchcockian moment when James, whilst spying on Hannah through a telescope, spots a man on a ledge who waves at him and then promptly jumps off. Overall: Enjoyable, but a backwards step for Ayoade from Submarine. Rating: 6/10.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier / The Amazing Spider-Man 2 / X-Men: Days of Future Past

I’m bunging these latest Marvel films (stop yawning at the back) together as its the perfect opportunity to make an overall comment on the films that make the big bucks these days and their, in the main, lack of quality. I read a great article recently comparing the box office hits of 1984 with what we have this year. The roll call for 1984 is barely believable: Gremlins, Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, Beverley Hills Cop, The Karate Kid, Romancing The Stone, The Neverending Story, A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Terminator. Now granted not all those films are bona fide classics or appeal to everyone, but there's a wide mixture of genres in there and how many households worldwide don't have a least a couple of them resting on their DVD shelves? Now compare that list to three of the top five films (in terms of box-office returns) so far this year: X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. In effect, just further churning out of the same old same old, with only the law of averages meaning every now and then we get a great film. The usual defence is that if these films really were so bad people wouldn’t go and see them, but for a long time now (Hello, Michael Bay) the connection between quality and returns is a fractured and unquantifiable one. I won’t deny that part of my moan comes about as a generational thing, but even the staunchest comic book fan would be hard pressed in keeping a straight face in claiming that any of these films are ones for the annals. Lets start with the best of these three, that being the return of Chris Evans as Steve Rogers in the somewhat grammatically misleading (what the film and you’ll understand) Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Director’s Anthony and Joe Russo’s last film was, ahem, You, Me and Dupree so I can only assume they got the gig here as the production was running short on coin. However, this is a fine effort, especially when you consider that the plot itself is as old as they come (there’s a spy in the ranks, but people believe it to be Capt himself). There’s a sleekness to their direction and many of the set pieces are short and sharp, plus we get arguably the funniest Stan Lee cameo yet. Producer Kevin Feige’s talk that this is modelled on classic 1970’s political thrillers doesn’t hold true though (despite casting Robert Redford!) and the talk of practical effects over CGI has to be taken with a serious pinch of salt. However, the little touches just about see this one home, especially in the form of the “Catch-Up” list that Cap refers to at the start of the film. Depending on what territory and country you’re watching in, the list varies to reflect the culture of the area. Hmm, if it’s not included as one of the DVD extra’s, I can already see geeks worldwide trying to get their hands on all the different versions in order to complete their Marvel collections. Moving on to The Amazing Spider-Man 2, being the sequel to an unamazing film to start with. this didn’t have to do much to be an improvement on its predecessor. It’s a shame then that despite a step up in quality, they really haven’t done much to get there. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone put in the requisite effort so hats off to them, but the rest of the film is mainly a large blur of effects and the film suffers from what was eventually Sam Raimi’s undoing with its introduction of character after character. The narrative can’t cope and we move from different storyline to different storyline with no real structure underpinning the whole thing. Keeping in line with it’s lighter approach than other’s within the Marvel stable there are a few nice one-liners, but it’s unclear from the rest of the cast (Jamie Foxx, Paul Giamatti, Dane DeHann – who appears to be getting typecast as a nutter for hire early on in his career) whether they should be knowingly hamming it up or not. It’s all too one dimensional and sluggish, summed up by the Stan Lee cameo which appears to have been thought up in a thirty second brainstorm in a break between filming. It’s odd then that the film finishes with such an emotional and weighty gut-punch. Even with this surprising development, it doesn’t alter the impression that the film makers are just happy to settle on what’s tried and trusted box office wise, rather than putting effort into giving us something different. Such accusations of laziness also hold true against X-Men: Days of Future Past. Nice title aside, this brings little originality to the party and comes across as a quasi-“X-Men: The Greatest Hits”. The main problem the film has is that it’s time travel premise is old hat and all the stock scenes are here (i.e. the time-traveller waking up in a strange place; having to convince the person that sent him through time that it was them that sent them etc.) that you would expect to find in films that have a similar concept. Director Bryan Singer apparently spent ages revising time travel and related japery such as string theory, but has somewhat missed the point that it’s all (currently, for you facetious types out there) a load of balls anyway. X-Men: First Class was surprisingly enjoyable for such a late entry in a film series, with the “re-boot” in the form of the new actors involved being the main reason. Here though it appears the well of ideas has quickly run dry, highlighted by the fact the film can’t find a balance between the “old” and “new” X-Men. Throw in the fact there’s no real villain and bizarre scripting decisions (at one point we’re introduced to a mutant who has such super fast speed he seems to be the saviour of all problems, but he suddenly disappears from the film for no apparent reason) and you can see why original director Matthew Vaughn did a runner early on. So, going back to my original discussion, will any of these films have the longevity of 1984’s crop and will we be watching any of them in 2044? I’d say about as much chance as me sitting through the end credits of any of these films to catch any additional scenes. America Rating: 7/10. Spidey Rating: 5/10. X-Men Rating: 5/10.

Rio 2

Back by popular demand! Sorry, back by contractual demand, Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway reprise their roles as the blue macaws from 2011's Rio, a film that was enjoyable enough, but certainly doesn't warrant a sequel. Money talks though and so here we are. This time the macaws make their way into the Amazon to help out other members of their species, though it mainly comes across as an animated version of Meet The Parents. It's all pretty lazy with Carlos Saldanha's direction lurching from dull to head-spinning with no rhyme or reason and all the voice actors sounding like their just going through the motions (Eisenberg's whiny shtick really starts to grate in films like this). Kids will love it, but there's nothing here for adults unless you want to decipher exactly what the film is about. Numerous plots and messages run throughout, but it's a complete mess, highlighted by the producers dropping an eco-message of serious contradictions into the script in respect of logging. The denouement involves the birds and other animals of the rain forest protecting their precious land from loggers and developers. Why are these events occurring in the first place, though? Ah yes, because the human population is growing at an unsustainable rate and so more natural resources need to be destroyed to cope with the demand. In effect, the film's target audience is what's causing the destruction of our land. Nice one Blue Sky Studios. Overall this should have been a straight to DVD release, but if you've got kids you want to keep distracted for a couple of hours, then you won't really go wrong with this. Rating: 5/10.

Starred Up

The list of excellent prison movies is a long one and the low budget Starred Up is the latest new entrant into that particular roll call of honour. David Mackenzie’s film follows Eric (Jack O’Connell) as he’s “starred up” (being moved ahead of schedule from a Young Offenders Institute to an adult prison – so now you know) and how he integrates into his new surroundings. With a bang is probably the best way to describe it, as no sooner has he put his bag of belongings down in his cell a misinterpretation of events ends up with Eric putting someone into the infirmary. Things are made more complicated for Eric in the fact that his father Neville (Ben Mendelsohn) is also in the same prison wing. Much like Jacques Audiard’s excellent A Prophet, the reason for Eric’s incarceration is only briefly mentioned, but the message is clear – this boy (now man) is a caged tiger. Though most recently seen getting lost amongst the CGI in the dire 300: Rise of an Empire, if you know your low budget British films you’ll more likely recognise O’Connell from such fare as Harry Brown and Eden Lake. He usually plays unlovable angry characters, but here he’s channelled that aggression into something of more substance. Despite his quick hands and arrogant swagger, it’s clear he’s been sculpted this way due to his upbringing and you can’t help root for him. Jonathan Assers script is based on his own experiences working in a prison as a therapist, so whilst it does heavily skew at time towards the inmates sitting on plastic chairs talking about the feelings, its pretty sharp all the way through with nods to both addressing the relationship between Eric and Neville and the usual grind through the official and unofficial prison hierarchy. On that note, you get to see Sam Spruell as the Deputy Governor of the prison, a man born with a face to play such a sneering role. Yes, it is grim at times (hey, it’s a British prison film), but there are some moment of humour thrown in, not least when father and son are pulled from their cells and embark on a stream of sweary insults that would please Malcolm Tucker. There are some negatives. Mendelsohn’s character is meant to be one of the daddies (though not the daddy), but he comes across a bit of a snivelling buffoon and Rupert Friend’s position (as a quasi con-counsellor – obviously the Assers role) is never fully explained. Plus, the film does slip into prison movie clichés at times (shower attacks, bent Screws etc), but the argument against that would be that it’s a film set in a prison, so what else would you be expecting to see? MacKenzie’s direction is palm-sweatingly claustrophobic and despite the father-son dynamic he never lets things dip into over-sentimentality. Plus, when MacKenzie holds the shot of the final scene of Eric disappearing through a revolving door, you really do wonder what route in life the young man will eventually end up taking. Mackenzie’s CV has been middling so far, but this will burn brightly from it for many a year to come. Rating: 8/10.

Labor Day

So, Labor Day. A film following the exploits of Ed Milliband as he goes about his daily grind? Or a snapshot of a day in the life of a hospitals maternity ward? Ah, no. This is the US kind of labor, though there is little hard graft on show in Jason Reitman’s drama unless you find cooking peach pies particularly taxing. Based on Joyce Maynard’s novel of the same name, we follow single mum Adele (Kate Winslet), who when out on a shopping trip with her son is accosted by a injured stranger (Josh Brolin) and forced to take him back to her house. Alice and rugrat soon discover that their new guest, Frank, is in fact an escaped convict. From the poster you can guess the rest. Yep, Frank becomes a father figure to the boy and Adele and Frank fall for each other. It’s all fairly straight forward, though there are a couple of mysteries that the script keeps well hidden in the form of what crime Frank was actually convicted of (shown in flashback with Tom Lipinski bearing an incredible resemblance to a young Brolin) and as the neighbours and townsfolk grow ever more suspicious of Adele and Franks actions you genuinely don’t know what the final outcome for them will be. Reitman is one of the more reliable directors around, but his wont of mixing up his genres from film to film fails him here as there isn’t enough going on to overlook the implausibility of the script. It’s hinted that Alice suffers from depression, but its never addressed to the point that intimates she’s so lonely that she would allow a threat like Frank into her life. Plus despite being set in 1987 the look and feel is a lot more contemporary than that. The film shares its DNA with Clint Eastwood's vastly superior A Perfect World, so if you’ve seen that you don’t need to bother with this. Probably best filed under: “If you like this sort of thing….”. Rating: 6/10.

Muppets Most Wanted / 22 Jump Street

Though Muppets Most Wanted isn't a sequel per se (it's actually the eighth Muppet film all in all) it has a similar approach to 22 Jump Street when addressing how follow up films can better what came previously. That is, they just blatantly say they can't and what you're about to watch is basically the same as what you paid for last time out. Hell, the Muppets film even starts with a song and dance number addressing this exact point. It's a risky approach and, the intentional irony aside, the self-prophecy soon comes true. Starting with the puppets first, the last film was a right barrel of laughs, helped in no end by the decision to have many of the chuckles based on a self-referential basis. This film follows the same approach, with the gags dotted around the plot which involves the Muppets getting unintentionally mixed up in a number of jewel heists thanks to a Kermit the Frog lookalike. Director James Bobin returns and does a steady job, but the film misses the affection that Jason Siegel's input into the last script bought to the previous outing and this feels more like we're just going through the motions, not helped by a ridiculous number of pointless and unfunny cameos (Lady Gaga is literally in it for about three seconds). On the plus side Ty Burrell is great as a French Interpol agent, Tina Fey looks pleased to be doing something other than 30 Rock and it's hard to be totally against a film starring Kermit and Co, especially one that throws in a reference to Park Chan-wook's Oldboy! Moving on to 22 Jump Street, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are Hollywood's current golden boys, but even they falter somewhat here with the "wink-wink-it's the same plot" approach (this time Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill are trying to infiltrate a drugs ring in college as opposed to high school). Using irony as the excuse of repeating the same storyline over again can't cover the laziness of the approach of Hill and Michael Bacall's treatment. On the plus side, though it lacks the smarts of Lord and Miller's previous work, it just about falls on the right side of the line due to still being very funny in parts, particularly during the end credits which are utterly hilarious and have had more thought put into them than the whole script of most Hollywood comedies. There's also a great gag revolving round the mis-pronunciation of Cate Blanchett and nobody does a better unimpressed face than Ice Cube. Basically, it's a case of if you like 21 you'll like 22, but this is vastly inferior to the original film with great moments counter-balanced by too many segments that fall flat. An extra mark mind for those cracking end credits. Muppets Rating: 6/10. Jump Rating: 7/10.

Under The Skin

A film where Scarlett Johansson plays an alien who picks up hitchhiker's and then harvests their skins? Hmmm..sounds kinda intriguing. What's that? You get to see Scarjo in the nuddy? Sold! Cynicism aside re that second point, this is a tough watch for anyone unless, like Monty Python once said, you're the type of person "...who talks loudly in restaurants". From it's bizarre 2001-style opening, Jonathan Glazer's latest film moves along in slow motion and just never gets going. Glazer's background is mainly in music videos and commercials and he struggles with this longer format of entertainment. Much has been made of the guerrilla style of filming Glazer used in making this (Johansson basically interacting with unsuspecting members of the public via hidden cameras), but that can't compensate for a lack of substance. What saves it from being a total disaster though is Johansson's superb performance and the actual portrayal of the difficulty of an alien trying to fit in to contemporary society is nicely realised. Plus, the way the unsuspecting humans are killed is different than the usual "killed by zappers" and somewhat queasy to watch (think implosion and innards). You'll also elicit a wry smile as well when you think of foreign audiences trying to decipher some of the molten thick Glaswegian accents. Things aren't helped along the way though by the obtrusive score that is so over the top it elicited a few unintentional laughs in the screening I was in. Glazer's approach has obviously been less is more, which works up to a point, though the script is far too clunky, shown up by a key moment in the film where the alien appears to want to understand humanity, but the first person she stumbles across happens to be an opportunist rapist! So, will this be remembered as an intriguing study of an outsiders perspective on the human condition? Or will it be known as that dull arse film where Scarlett Johanssen drives around Scotland in a van and not much happens? I suspect it will be the latter. Rating: 6/10.