Godzilla / The Fault In Our Stars / Chef / As Above So Below

An eclectic mix of films here to briefly go over, all falling within the solid if like that sort of thing bracket, but unlikely to elicit second viewings. First up is Gareth Edwards new take on Godzilla - a genre in itself. You'll be aware of the irony of Edwards taking this on as his sophomore effort as his debut feature, the slightly over praised Monsters, featured very little in the way of creature action. Edwards sticks to that blue-print here, giving us a slow and lengthy build up to the main engagements of the film. This isn't a problem and it's well marshalled by Edwards, and the main twist of the film has been nicely disguised pre-release. The drawbacks begin with the analysis of the script, which treatments from numerous writers (Frank Darabont and David S. Goyer amongst them). Edwards has said that Jaws has been an influence on this film, which is clearly covered by the drip-drip build up, but, whereas Jaws had fully developed protagonists we cared about whilst we were waiting for the mayhem to occur, not much effort has been made in Godzilla to flesh out the characters. There's just the standard Hollywood family tragedy back story applied and this is one of those films were anyone could have taken on the main roles and the film would have been exactly the same. Overall it looks and sounds great, and though it can't be denied that Edwards has honoured the legacy of Godzilla, it's just a shame he didn't do it via a more entertaining film. Moving on from monsters we tackle a genre that many people find monstrous - that of the dramedy concerning serious illness. The Fault In Our Stars (based on the book by John Green) stars up and comer Shailene Woodley as a teenage cancer sufferer who meets and falls in love with fellow afflicted teenager Ansel Elgort. Teenagers (or the easily manipulated emotionally) will lap this up and it will certainly do the trick for its intended audience. Director Josh Boone doesn't rock the boat and just simply joins the dots from scene to scene and Woodley and Elgort certainly click as the main couple, though Elgort does come across as unbearably smug at times. That's down to the script though, which touches on pretentiousness and is also a little cold in it's engineering of the tears. Plus, as an examination of cancer it's laughably trite - these are the healthiest looking people you'll ever see suffering from the dreaded illness. Moving on, it's food time in Chef as Jon Favreau stars as professional cook Carl who, following an altercation with a restaurant critic, quits his high profile job in order to start over again on the culinary front in the form of his own food truck. As you'd expect the nosh on show looks amazing and this is well acted (Hello John Leguizamo!), with a number of decent comic moments. The script is a bit muddled though (at times it could be a documentary about an examination of how modern social media can make or break a person / business), with the family dynamic as clichéd as it comes and the sticky feel good ending is just plain daft. Faverau's cronyism also means we have Robert Downey Jr. stinking the place out with a conceited cameo. Director Favreau  has stepped back from the glare of blockbuster territory with this low budget effort and whilst it's a passable film, Favreau himself has stated he pretty much made it for himself. No doubt he's earned the right to do that, but whether the general public will indulge is a different matter. Finally, time for a few silly thrills in John Erick Dowdle's As Above, So Below. This is Dowdle's first film since 2010's Devil and he continues the theme of supernatural shenanigans directing from a script penned with his brother as we follow a team of young explorers as they venture into the catacombs below the streets of Paris. Yep, you've guessed it, before long strange things begin to occur. This wasn't screened in advance for critics, but it's not that bad an effort. With it's eye catching poster, this also employs the current dynamic for horror films: Low budget, no name stars (though look for the chap that bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Ruud van Nistelrooy) and healthy box office returns. It also has an authentic touch, as the film was actually shot within the real catacombs of France's capital. That trivia aside, plot wise its eye-rollingly stupid at times (look for the moment when the characters stumble upon some handily placed cleaning products!), but at least it avoids the dark and ambiguous endings that have somewhat blighted recent horror productions. Rating for all films: 6/10.

Edge Of Tomorrow

Doug Liman is supposedly a massive pain in the arse, which would go some way to explaining his hardly prolific output since his 1994 debut Getting In. The excellent Swingers and Go followed soon after, but he hasn't really made a memorable film since then (Bourne only really got going when Paul Greengrass arrived on the scene) with 2010's poor Fair Game suggesting Liman's early promise had been lost for good. Time for a surprise though as his new film Edge Of Tomorrow (though its somewhat confusingly been pushed as Live. Die. Repeat. on the marketing front) is big screen entertainment and Liman's best since that mid to late 90's heyday. Based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka's novel All You Need Is Kill, the film is based in the near future where aliens have had their standard fun following an invasion but, hurrah(!), the humans are staging a fight back. However, some are more reluctant than others to get their hands dirty and when Major William Cage (Tom Cruise), an army PR man with no combat experience, attempts to blackmail his way our of fighting for the cause he is forced into battle, soon becoming brown bread. So that's the "Live" and "Die" bits covered then. Soon comes the "Repeat" as Cage is resurrected and starts his mission over again before croaking it once more. We're in time loop territory here and on each of his life cycles, with the help of real soldier Vrataski (Emily Brunt), his knowledge of fighting the aliens improves with the aim of finally defeating the imposters. You can take your pick of film mash ups here (Independence Day v Groundhog Day et al), but Liman brings a freshness to the film and, for a subject matter that revolves around repeated killing, it's surprisingly funny. That freshness comes from the way the story is crafted. Initially the audience's knowledge is on a par with Cage's, but a sudden piece of sleight of hand in the middle (slowly revealed by Cruise and Blunt's excellent acting - both using body language to intimate unsaid things) reveals that we're now possibly hundreds or thousands of "repeats" into the future. From then on we have only snippets of conversation that hint at what's happened over the "repeats" with a nod to Cage's and Vrataski's back stories. It's surprising that the script has turned out so nicely balanced as there were problems with the screenplay before and during the shoot (Liman actually started filming before an ending was even penned in), but everything has turned out for the best. On the acting front Cruise is genuinely convincing as a coward thrown into a terrifying situation, plus the smart narrative solves the usual credibility stretching problem of the man on the street becoming a gun-toting hero within two hours of the running time. Blunt is great as the kick-ass soldier and what a joy to finally see a kosher strong female character in a film like this. You also get a fun cameo from Bill Paxton as a no-nonsense army Sergeant (somewhat amazingly the first film starring Paxton and Cruise together, so a new link for fans of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game). On the down side, the alien creatures are portrayed as such vicious speedy killers when any of them are killed its somewhat unbelievable and the film goes off the rails slightly right at the end (it's painfully apparent that some of the final "outdoor" scenes are being shot internally), but overall this is great fun, keeping you on the edge of your seat throughout and it has the greatest moment involving a hand grenade pin since Leon. Rating: 8/10.

Sabotage / Fury

I've linked these reviews together for a purpose, that being to highlight what an odd choice David Ayer was to direct Fury, a film supposedly showing the bleakness of war and it's human side at the same time. Ayer doesn't do subtlety, so why, especially when you consider his back catalogue, was he chosen for Hollywood's latest stab at humanising the horror's of war? Let's start with Sabotage though, Ayer's previous film to Fury and Arnold Schwarzenegger's next film in his (not really cheered by anyone) return to mainstream films. It tells the story of an elite (aren't they all?) drugs task force led by Arnie who, following some pilfering of a cartels moolah, find themselves being bumped off one by one by unknown forces. It's basically Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None with added swearing, violence and gore. What's frustrating is that there's a good film in here somewhere, but Ayer doesn't have the subtlety or patience to explore it further, though Ayer himself claims that the studio cut the film to make it resemble an action film as opposed to a mystery thriller. Whatever the truth, no-one comes out shining from this, but one prize the film does win though is an entry into the worst line of the year category. Brace yourselves: "Some of us are getting paid, the rest of us are just getting dead". Try and say that with a straight face at your next audition. To be fair, this isn't actually a really terrible film and if you like Arnie and this kind of thing you should get by. Leaving Sabotage behind, let's move on to Fury and return to my original question. Is the man behind Harsh Times, Street Kings, End Of Watch and, yes, Sabotage, really the person you'd hand the reigns to for a mature consideration of some of the world's darkest years? I think the end result speaks for itself. A quick summation is that we follow a US tank crew (lead by Brad Pitt) as it rumbles into the heart of Nazi Germany during the latter months of the war. Much has already been written about Ayer and Pitt's research into tank warfare and the conflict in general, but they appear to have jettisoned it all in favour of producing a movie that more often than not resembles a video game and appears to be designed for the Marvel crowd. What veterans of the conflict would make of this fantasy rubbish I dread to think. Before you go off on one with the old "..but it's a film" defence (I myself use that all the time), the main reason for my annoyance is that Ayer and Pitt have promoted the film as being the complete opposite of what they've actually constructed. The claim is that Fury isn't really concerned with action or any event in particular, but more a portrayal of the people involved in the conflict, concentrating particularly on Pitt's tank crew. If that's the case, why then is there virtually no examination of the characters or, and this is something Ayer and Pitt really pushed in interviews, life inside the tank itself? If that is the kind of film you do want to see, then check out Samuel Maoz's vastly superior Lebanon instead. What you have here is the "war is hell" mantra shoved down your throat by one of the most unsubtle directors working today. Faces are blown off, heads disintegrate, children are found hanged and people cut open fresh horse carcases for meat. Shame that such carnage isn't equalised out by a script that addresses the lives of the protagonists, as there is little characterisation regarding the Allies and the Germans are just embarrassing "Hun" standard stereotypes. Laziness permeates throughout, from the majority of the tanks crew (Shia LaBeouf, Michael Pena, Jon Bernthal) mumbling their lines so much it resembles a Bane convention at times to a scene at the end that flicks from daylight to night time in about five seconds of screen time with no logical explanation. This is light years away from Saving Private Ryan (arguably it's most comparable challenger for the balance of horror, action and appraisal of character) and, judging by the reports of how much the cast loved being directed by hard task master Ayer, comes across as no more than jobs for the boys. Sabotage Rating: 5/10. Fury Rating: 4/10.

Blue Ruin

Jeremy Saulnier's debut film was the love it or hate it Murder Party back in 2007. The good news for Saulnier was that enough people must have enjoyed it for him to get a second crack at the big screen (albeit a number of years later). It's also good news for the cinema going public as Blue Ruin is one of the thrillers of the year. A slow moving story of revenge punctuated with scenes of tension and high violence, Saulnier's film has struggled to get a mainstream release and returned only average box office. I would say that's a travesty, but hardly surprising given that (political comment alert!) film audiences are becoming less cerebral year on year. Though the producers do have themselves somewhat to blame as well, what with the awkward film title and marketing campaign that at times just seemed to centre around a bearded hobo in a vest. Said vagrant is Dwight Evans (Macon Blair) who, on hearing that the man who murdered his parents is to be released from prison, returns to his home town in order to gain brutal revenge. However, when things don't go quite to plan Evans finds himself in a desperate battle against the local hoodlums who want to bump him off and his estranged family. To say more would be to spoil what is a cracking film, told with economy and efficiency by Saulnier. Where the film really works is that Saulnier's script is the inverse to the perfectly planned "hit". Everything's a struggle for Dwight, from the moment he steals a gun, swiftly followed by the realisation he won't be able to use it, to a hilarious moment at one of the film's key points where he's interrupted by someone asking him to pass the Ketchup. It's nice touches like this from Saulnier's writing that give this a real-life feel as opposed to watching fiction. Overall there's comparison with the Coen Brothers (and I'm taking good Coen Brothers here) what with the moments of black comedy and fierceness (brace yourself for one of the most gruesome head shots since John Hillcoat's The Proposition) mixed in with the straightforward narrative. Blair is great in the lead role, his everyday man looks (think Nathan Lane meets Kermit The Frog) just adding to the feel that this could be a tangible tale you'd read in the paper one day. No doubt this is destined to become a cult favourite, with a number of quotable on-liners, not least when Dwight, showing that this is a tragedy at heart, utters "You know what's awful? Just 'cause my Dad loved your Mum, we all end up dead....and he was right". This is film making for adults at its best. Rating: 8/10.

How To Train Your Dragon 2

Unless it's a blatant standalone story (a la Pixar's Up) the one guaranteed thing that a money spinning animated film will bring is the inevitable follow up a few years later down the line. So Dreamworks' 2010 success How To Train Your Dragon begats 2014's How To Train Your Dragon 2: Train Harder. I've made that strap-line up by the way, but the fact Dreamworks couldn't be bothered with a sub-heading just shows that they already know they have the audience in the palm of their hands following the first film's success. The good news is they haven't been complacent with the final production though. Dean DeBlois, co-director of the first film, takes the reigns all on his own this time out whilst also penning the screenplay as well. He can be pleased with his efforts. A simple summation of the plot has a now older Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) meeting his long lost mother and the villagers under attack from a big bad who can control dragons at whim. The film is a success as it builds on the first outing, developing the overall story and doesn't revert to rehashing the same jokes. Despite a number of great laughs (including arguably the most adult (and funniest) gag regarding homosexuality in an animated film for quite some time) the tone here is also a lot darker, with a third act that has an emotional and hard edge that comes as quite a shock. Visuals wise this is the first Dreamworks film made using "scalable multi-core processing", so there's one for you if you're ever struggling for a chat up line. Joking aside, such is the quality of virtually all animated films these days I think you'd have to watch the two films back to back to see if your peepers can spot the difference. Something that isn't quality is the bete noire of modern day cinema: 3D. I hate it at the best of times, but its calibre here is very suspect, affecting the (visual) focus of the film on numerous occasions, particularly during the first 10 minutes. Other downers are the surprising (considering the rest of the film) lack of thought that has gone into Djimon Hounsou's villainous Drago (he looks like he was drawn up over a sandwich at lunchtime and bears a resemblance to a Gene Simmons / Al Pacino love child) and some members of the audience might find the script a bit too heavy on the family dynamic when there's battles that could be fought instead (on that note, look for a neat twist on the fire from the nostrils standard). Whether this leaves you yearning for more or not, you'll be unsurprised to hear that How To Train Your Dragon 3: Train Hard With A Vengeance is already in the pipeline. Rating: 7/10.

The Inbetweeners 2 / The Expendables 3

Sequels time again, this time with a couple of films that already have a following based on a standard template, so you'll be unsurprised to hear that things don't vary far from the norm with either of these productions. Starting off with teenage exploits, it was more by chance rather than preparation for watching The Inbetweeners 2 that I recently happened to catch the first film again. I wasn’t overly impressed first time I watched it, but this further viewing made me shift my opinion slightly so perhaps I had already been influenced pre-review by the below average third series and the terrible conversion rate of British TV comedies to the big screen. This time though there can be no mistake. The Inbetweeners 2 scrapes the bottom of the comedy barrel and only die hard fans need apply. The storyline is basically exactly the same as last time, but this time just substitute Malia for Australia. The main problem is that the crudeness has been increased to lowest common denominator levels and far too many one liners are leader than the leadest of balloons. Though the suggestions from some commentators that the film is misogynistic is laughable - they're fictional characters you bumders! However, I think it says something that the funniest gag from the whole thing ("Fire wankers!") comes from the teaser trailer and isn't even in the final film. Rumour was that 50% of the main cast didn't even want to do this film and that the series creators (Damon Beesley and Iain Morris) weren't keen on stepping up to directorial duties, which goes some way to explaining the by the numbers final output. Moving on, the protagonists of The Expendables 3 have more to worry about than getting their end away, what with a new motley collection of baddies intent on removing them from the face of the planet via various violent means. Having said that, this is the first film in the series where series overlord Sylvester Stallone and his producers have made the conscious decision to tone down the violence in order to get better footfall. It hasn't worked as the box-office has been poor and the film itself just looks badly edited. Patrick Hughes is the director here and he's clearly just a man for hire and badly out of his depth (a great shame as his debut feature was the excellent, though little seen, low budget modern western Red Hill).You don't need the plot for an Expendables film as you already know what you're going to get, i.e. lots of explosions, bad dialogue and thoughts of “Blimey, he really is getting on a bit”. They have tried to mix things up here as well though with the introduction of a new younger group of Expendables (i.e. basically going against the idea of the whole franchise), but almost everything is ruined by the total over-reliance on CGI. Virtually every explosion, shot of a helicopter et al. is digital and it just looks awful. Things also aren't helped by Stallone (hardly known for his sense of irony) taking the whole thing far too seriously (the script has Arnie saying a version of “Get to da chopper” twice, with no hint of contrariness). On the plus side the start of the film begins with a stupendous performance from Wesley Snipes (yes, you’re reading that correctly), but unfortunately his character is soon just relegated back into the cluster of also-rans. I think the fact that I fell asleep halfway through watching this but, within a minute of waking up, had already worked out what I had missed pretty much tells you this ain't Shakespeare, baby. Rating (both films): 4/10.

Frank

Despite sounding like a rejected member of ABBA, Lenny Abrahamson is an Irish director whose previous low budget films have been generally well received. He steps up a level here with a larger pot to play with and some major names within the cast. The plot is simple mind: Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), an aspiring young musician, joins a band ("You play C, F and G?", "Yeah", "You're in"), travels to Ireland with them to record an album and attempts to raise their profile via social media. However the band is full of eccentric characters meaning Jon and his band "mates" spend as much time arguing as they do putting down tracks. For British fans of surrealist comedy the main draw here will be the sight of band leader Frank (Michael Fassbender) wearing a papier-mache head for the majority of the film a la Chris Sievey's Frank Sidebottom character. However, apart from that striking visual, Abrahamson's film has little connection to Sievey's invention. In fact, what Abrahamson is actually aiming for is slightly unclear as he throws in so many themes (some of them contradictory) the film never quite settles in a sufficient fashion to be narratively coherent. The tone is a bit all over the place at times as well (there's a blackly comic moment where one of the main characters brutally stabs another), but Abrahamson just about pulls the film off by making it oddly endearing throughout. There's some nice digs at the pretentiousness of the music scene and the people who inhabit it (the band are so dysfunctional they don’t even know how to pronounce their own name) and we also get the best ashes gag since The Big Lebowski. If you can't stand indie quirk (cinematically or musically) then this won't be for you, but if you've got Captain Beefheart hidden away somewhere on your iPod then I suspect you'll enjoy this more than the average cinema goer. Rating: 6/10.