“GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS”

Godzilla, King of the monsters is the second entry in the recent Godzilla reboot for western audiences. As well as being the third film in was it currently being a kaiju or monster cinematic universe, with the second entry being Kong – Skull Island.

The franchise has certainly been through a rather rocky road. Kong – Skull Island did not perform as well in the box office as people had hoped and this Godzilla film seems to have had some real development troubles. Gareth Edwards directed the film back in 2014 and it didn’t exactly come out to universal praise. It’s been a very divisive film.

My personal feeling on Godzilla 2014 is that I actually quite liked it. Admittedly I wish there was more of Godzilla in the film, but they did manage to make human characters I was actually interested in, in any sense of the word. Though I really didn’t liked the design of Godzilla’s foes the Muto’s even which I found, bland, unitersting and clearly ripped off from Cloverfield.

Also, I didn’t like the fact that half of the fight scenes were either cut away from or happen in environments so dark you can barely tell what’s going on. But as far as a Godzilla film goes, it’s actually fairly decent!

Gareth Edwards is not on board for this belated sequel. Instead, in the director’s chair, we have Michael Dougherty who was a screen play writer for comic films, most notably X-Men II and Superman Returns. Though he has since moved in to becoming a director for horror films, particularly Trick R Treat and Krampus. He has also written a screen play for the next film in this franchise which is already in post-production.

Godzilla, King of the monsters is a film that I believe is going to be even more divisive than Godzilla 2014 given its reaction, so I really need to give my 2 cents on this.

The basic plot is that the Monarch, which is this universe’s equivalent of Shield, have been observing all the monsters since the first film was done. There’s an eco-terrorist called Jonah Alan played by Charles Dance who uses a scientist Dr. Emma Russell played by Vera Farmiga to unleash a monster in Antarctica called King Ghidorah in the hopes that they will in turn, wipe out most of the human race and restart things up. It’s the typical eco warrior, believing that by wiping out most of humanity they’ll end up sorting out half the shit that’s gone wrong. The only hope for humanity is that Godzilla can come back and defeat Ghidorah.

Okay, here’s a few of the things that Godzilla – King of the monsters does not fix.
The human characters once again are not too interesting. Though they are an improvement over the 2014 film. Does anyone remember that Aaron Taylor-Johnson was in that film for example? I sure didn’t until someone pointed it out! That’s even emphasised by the fact that they actually have returning cast members such as Sally Hawkins and she’s reprising her role. I completely forgot she was in the first one!

Another thing not fixed is that they didn’t manage to brighten up half of the action scenes again! I’m with James Rolph on this one, can we have one of these monster fights scene happen in the daytime?! This was made even worse by the fact that I saw the film in 3D, got the best possible screen (iMax 3D) and even though admittedly the fights scenes are easier to see than the first film, some day light fighting would be much appreciated. I think there’s only one that takes place in the daytime in the entire movie. It’s not as if this is done to cover up that they don’t have a special effects budget, they certainly do but man that has not succeeded on that front.

The casting is also a bit of an interesting one. It’s basically a lot of ‘Oh it’s him or her from that’. So ‘Oh it’s her from Stranger Things’ or ‘It’s him from Game of Thrones’. The cast including such talent as Carl Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown, Ken Watanabe reprising his role, Ziyi Zhang, Billy Whitford, O’Shea Jackson Jr. The problem is, with such a large cast is that they are obviously going to be playing second fiddle to the special effects, but they’re often enough not given anything to do. I will say though, at least that most of the characters actually have a reason to be in the plot. The down side is, is that most of these characters are really dumb. They kind of make decisions like ‘Okay I have this plan; I have done the plan… now what?’ It’s almost as if they forgot there has to be a phase 3 to this plan and didn’t realise until they finished phase 2.

That being said, when the film is finally all is said and done, this film’s an improvement on Godzilla 2014. There’s way more of Godzilla in the film, the fight scenes are more interesting. The fact that Ghidorah makes it as the villain makes it a hell of a lot more interesting and Ghidorah has way more personality than the Muto’s did in the first film. Once more we get even more kaiju in this movie. We got Rodan as well as Mothra (who has one of the best introductions out of any of the monsters so far).

This might have been a film that’s been really spoiled by its own trailer but it’s certainly not an unwatchable film as a result. It’s a film that I would best describe as, it’s been made for fans. There’re tons of references to Godzilla. The original theme songs in places, the closing credits song is a redo of ‘Go Go Godzilla’ by Blue Oyster Cult. There’re tons of references to the films made by Toho, even some of the really obscure ones. I’d also like to say in terms of the human cast Ken Watanabe is one of the best things about this film, as usual.

What the film doesn’t do as good a job as the first one did was actually scaling the monsters to give us an idea of their actual size. In terms of fight choreography and using the monsters to the full effect, they seem to have done a much better job. I wish we were allowed to witness more of the destruction but that being said, when it’s on screen, it’s fantastic! What’s more, this film definitely has more of a sense of humour about itself than Godzilla 2014 did. When you’re doing Godzilla films, it’s important to have that because Godzilla is inherently ridiculous.

The themes have seemed to have moved on. The original Godzilla was all a commentary to nuclear destruction from the second world war. These ones seem to be more eco-based. It still has this idea of humans causing their own apocalyptic destruction, but it certainly feels less apt here.

My biggest problem with the film is it seems to have been targeting the audience of fans who know about these films, so much so, it’s almost at the expense of everyone else. Yeah you could reference Godzilla vs Destoroyah all you want. I guarantee you that half of the audience in the cinema are not going to get that reference. I feel like that’s what’s going to divide the audiences. But that being said, as cheesy popcorn fun and being a pure blockbuster that you can just enjoy, King of the monsters succeeds at this for the most part.

Godzilla, King of the monsters is not really a perfect film, but I think it’s an improvement over the ‘taking itself too seriously’ 2014 film. It actually delivers what a lot of the monster fans have really wanted. The film has its issues and I think it’s going to be a very divisive film, but I stand by that I think the film is fairly decent and it’s nice to see a film that seems like it’s genuinely trying to please fans.

Just how far this cinematic universe can go is another matter, but we’ll save that conversation for another day. The kaiju cinematic universe will be back next year with the release of Godzilla vs Kong. I’m actually interested to see how the films go with trying to cross over these two films.

“ALADDIN 2019”

Aladdin is a childhood classic of mine. I’ve watched that film so many times and you know what, I actually re-watched it in preparation for seeing this film and it’s still really dammed good! If you want testament for its quality, you have to remember this was for the longest time Disney’s most successful film. It wasn’t until the Lion King came out that its record smashed. It also seems kind of interesting that this is coming out the same year as a Lion King remake.

Now Aladdin’s remake has been on the cards for quite a bit, along with these other Disney live action remakes and I was kind of on board with it when I heard Guy Ritchie was directing though my hopes have kind of soured with my recent reviews of Disney remakes. Especially with films like the terrible Beauty and the Beast remake and the most recent Tim Burton movie Dumbo. Both received scathing reviews from myself. I was really dreading Aladdin was going to have the same treatment so let’s just get to the point and discuss it.

I feel like discussing the plot of Aladdin is a bit of a misnomer. It’s virtually the same plot as the original. In fact, there’s very few differences. The biggest one to note is that Aladdin and Jasmine (played by Mena Massoud and Naomi Scott respectively), meet each other in a slightly different way with slightly different encounters and a few of the sequences are slightly different.

The biggest difference this time round is the film length. The original 1992 film Aladdin came in at a total of an hour and half, a nice brisk pace for a Disney animated film. That film uses its time quality to it best extent. The remake is 30 minutes longer and that’s very much this films detriment since the screen writers clearly had no idea what they were doing.

This film has achieved something outstanding for me. It somehow managed to be both way too condensed in many of the plot points repeating and very drawn out at the same time. Early portions of the film feel like it’s trying to get through as much of the film as possible without really taking the time to really let those moments breath. And yet somehow, it’s also trying to draw out the film.

Prime example early on about this is the sequence for ‘One Jump Ahead’ which not only adds Jasmine into the mix of the sequence but also adds tons of parkour moments which break up the song. In fact, I actually watched a YouTube video in the process of writing this review which showed the original animated sequence being played along with audio from the remake’s songs dubbed over. (In case you’re wondering as to where I’m going to come in on the sound track, we’ll get to that later).

It quite frankly has a similar problem to Beauty and the Beast which it hasn’t actually changed all that much up. But here’s where I think it’s a better film than Beauty and the Beast 2017. For a start it’s not trying so hard to be a one for one remake with a bunch of pointless adaptational changes. They don’t try to add too many elements from the original story back into it unnecessarily. It doesn’t feel like it’s adding loads of pointless crap without making unnecessary changes to accommodate it.

I feel like I should be a bit positive about this film so let’s talk about a few of the things I liked.

What else does it succeed in? Some of the changes actually kind of work but then there’s been quite a few that don’t. For example, there’s actually a hinted back story about Jafar being potentially very similar to Aladdin in his past. However, it doesn’t work, but it’s actually one of the more interesting aspect of his character. The unfortunate fact is that they never go all out with this.

If I want to talk about vanilla things well start with Jasmine. Jasmines role has attempted to be really expanded for this film. They do this whole thing about her wanting to govern and to have her own voice be heard. Now I find this a nice expansion to the character, it’s something new. I don’t have a problem with the fact that they’re trying to expand the character, my problem is it feels like it’s from a completely different film and almost seems to have been crowbarred into the plot. I’m also hoping this was not done by some inherent belief that Jasmine was a bad character. I like Jasmine’s character in the original and I think she has a decent arc. Naomi Scott though really puts her whole into this, and it actually, for the most part, does work. The only down side is that it kind of takes the focus away from some of the other portions of the film. Most particularly Aladdin’s biggest failing in the first film, when he rejects his responsibility.

See in the original film Aladdin rejects his responsibility to everyone after he caves under the weight of pressure that marrying Jasmine means he’ll be put in a position to be Sultan of Agrabah. By having Jasmine now wanting to govern and it now seems like there’s no real reason for Aladdin to reject that responsibility. In fact, if anything he kind of comes off as more of a jerk by doing it. That’s what this film is for me.

It’s a lot of decent ideas not executed properly. Expanding Jasmine’s character, good idea, not executed properly. Giving Jafar a bit more of a back story, good idea, not executed properly. It’s very similar to what was in Beauty and the Beast but whereas those choices where insulting, these ones feel more misguided. For example, Dalia’s been added as Jasmine’s hand maid, the problem is, she takes away from what Jasmine had in the original and what she really probably should have had in this version, which is her sense of isolation. By giving her a friend, it takes away from her character more than it adds since it robs her of one of the majour attractions she as to Aladdin which is the sense of compionship and adventure she’s been longing for. No offence to Nasim Pedrad she’s doing her best in her role. But as was pointed out in one review, she basically is playing the best friend in a romantic comedy character.

The other major issue is it lost a ton in translation to live action. Now I’m not saying a live action Aladdin couldn’t have worked, it easily could of. The special effects artists do an excellent job with Will Smith’s character for example. But as I pointed out in my Beauty and the Beast review, there’s a bunch of points, especially the musical moments which you realise are inherently way more ridiculous the second you translate them to live action.

I was feeling this most during the Prince Ali sequence which is not nearly as interesting as the sequence in the original version. If we want to talk about mis-casting however, I’m not the first person to state the Marwan Kenzari is kind of miscast in the role of Jafar. I think he’s trying to do a good job, but he doesn’t have the same presence that Jafar has. They at least actually fixed a problem I thought was in the original which was Jafar’s second wish. Which I won’t spoilt that moment.

The rest of the cast itself is doing a decent job all round though I feel Navid Negahban who you might recognise from ‘Homeland’ is doing a good job for his character but his character feels a bit toned down especially since they’ve gotten rid of the whole Sultan being a massive man child. That also brings up another issue with the film. The films try to be more authentic to the region which is fair enough and an interesting idea. Its works on the whole. The set designs are actually really damn good, and the location shots are really good. But it’s also lacking in personality. The original went for an idea of an Arabia meets Las Vegas. As a result, it kind of feels like something is missing this time round. I’m glad they went for their own distinct idea, but it hasn’t quite worked since a lot of the wonder is gone when half the sets would fit into a Scorpion king movie. But the biggest issue I have with the film is Iago. What was the point in hiring Alan Tudyk for this role when they really can’t give him anything to do this time except squawk and repeat back lines. Man, I have never missed Gilbert Gottfried more in one film. This is one of the changes I wish they hadn’t made and just stuck with the original film. I can’t imagine it would have been hard to call up Gilbert Godfrey and get him to reprise his role.

Okay let’s talk soundtrack. Aladdin’s soundtrack is iconic. The composer Alan Menken who returns to work on his score yet again earned himself an Oscar for best original song for a ‘Whole New World’. Not to mention that ‘Friend Like Me’ also received a nomination in that same category. The fact he managed to achieve this though is amazing given during the process of writing these songs he was close to retirement, in grief for long time musical partner Howard Ashman. Alan’s once again working on this one, he’s not partnered up with Tim Rice this time round. He doesn’t have to really do much again since most the score is just reused from the original film but man these guys are not working with your songs. Auto tuning is definitely a factor once again but again the songs don’t work as a whole. Jafar’s song is entirely absent which is a shame because this actor really could have used a few moments to try and ham up this role. But amazingly ‘A Friend Like Me’ turned out alright though.

Some of the other sets of problems with the film is a lot of subtle changes which actually end up taking away from the original, more than they add. This is from simple things like way too much use of the drums in ‘A Whole New World’ which actually add way too much to the song. The only major change soundtrack wise is Jasmine is given a new song called ‘Speechless’ which is actually one of the better songs in the film since it’s actually something new and works for the character. The problem is, the sequences they go with, don’t work entirely. They have their moments but, there’s some misguided ideas. And this is where another point comes up.

Guy Ritchie really does not know how to direct a musical! He really doesn’t know how to do the set direction or how the shots work. I’m not saying I’d do much better in his position but it’s actually something I was expecting him to do a bit better given that he actually does a good job at shooting film and bringing his distinctive style to it. You can see that in films like his Sherlock Holmes movies. The problem is, I was expecting more something along the lines of like how Baz Luhrmann directs his films. Similar to Mulan Rouge and the Great Gatsby. But man, once again it feels like something is missing.

It feels like with some of the big-name directors that have been brought to do these films, they haven’t been trusted to bring their own style to the film in a similar fashion to how they trusted Kenneth Branner to bring his own style to Cinderella. Jon Favreau got to bring his own style to the Jungle Book and despite how badly it turned out you can still tell that Dumbo is a Tim Burton film. The fact is, Guy Ritchie is the director of the screen, but his presence is really not felt in this film. I actually forgot half way through that it was him directing. And I know that once again Film Brain has beaten me at making that point so you can go ahead and call me a massive rip off of him.

Aladdin 2019 is a film that is not as bad as the god-awful Beauty and the Beast remake or the terrible Dumbo remake but man it could have been so much better! As it stands the film is okay, despite the fact I’ve been rather negative in this review, I’d actually describe the film as O.K. But that’s just it. It’s just O.K. It’s nothing ground breaking and it’s not something in which you can compare the two versions. This is hardly Cinderella or the Jungle Book where comparisons would be genuinely rather interesting. It’s just “O.K, that’s fine”. I’m personally glad the film came out because it gave me a good excuse to go back and watch the 1992 film but this 2019 version, I suspect is not a version I’ll be revisiting. But, this Is not a Disney remake I actively hate, but again, if these films are only going to make minor changes that really don’t add much to the films in the first place, I once again have to ask, what is the point?

“JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 – PARABELLUM”

This is the third entry in the John Wick series. I have reviewed both of the previous films; you can get my thoughts on them there although I would say don’t go back to my original John Wick review since I didn’t fully appreciate it when I first saw it.

Once again in the director’s chair we have former stunt man turned director Chad Stahelski and there’s not much more to add to this one. So with a warning for spoilers for the end of John Wick 2, let’s talk about John Wick chapter 3.

This time round, John Wick chapter 3 takes place virtually mere hours after the events of John Wick chapter 2, which in itself, takes place mere hours after the events of the original chapter. So it’s been quite a week for John!

At this point John Wick (once again played by Keanu Reeves) is on the run having broken the rules of the High Table and by assassinating the villain of the second film on consecrated ground.

Oh boy. Where to go with this one!?

But of course, we know John’s pedigree, so, as Winston (once again played by Ian McShane) points out, a fourteen-million-dollar bounty on his head and virtually every assassin in the city after him, I’d say the odds are about even.

As Film Brain said in his review (as he got his out before mine) the opening segment of this film is extraordinary. It’s a scene that gets you to distrust every single person on camera. You really feel like anyone of them could be an assassin out to get Wick. And of course, once again, the fight scenes are amazing!

The third John Wick film once again sets the standard for how fight scenes should be shot. It’s phenomenal how well they’re choregraphed. Many reviewers have pointed out that the John Wick films treat action scenes like musicals treat dance performances and that’s very accurate.

It seems like the directors and writers know this because there is a nod to in the fact that one of the characters, ‘The Director’ played by Anjelica Huston, is a ballet instructor and we do get an action scene interspersed with a ballet performance. What they do with these action scenes is phenomenal once again. There’s actually ninja styled combat in this one and if you’re thinking ‘well I’ve seen virtually everything I can see on camera in regard to ninjas’, you are mistaken. They actually managed to make the actors disappear and then suddenly reappear out of the shadows.

Judging by the way its shot this looks like this is done through simple lighting placement and good choice in costumes rather than through computer effects, It’s outstanding how it’s done. There are some excellent fights that stand out, including a knife fight in an antique shop and a fight in Casablanca involving two very well-trained Alsatian dogs.

Okay, so you should be able to get my point. Once again, they’re doing lots of long continuous shots and they take advantage of the choreography. That’s all well and good but what does the story do this time? Well, I’ve already mentioned that this one has John Wick being hunted and, in a position, where he has virtually no help. But as much as I like this film, and I really do like this film, it does feel like the writers are kind of stretching it now. They’re not really sure what to do with most of these characters which is one of the reasons why I find it interesting that this film seemed to introduce a few more, most notably Sofia, played by Halle Berry who takes to the role like a duck to water and is honestly one of the best parts about this film.

Returning characters don’t do that much in the film. Winston is pretty much side-lined up until towards the end of the film. Laurence Fishburne’s character who’s only in the film for a few scenes and some characters who you would expect to come back, haven’t. The assassin played by Common for example is not in the film at all and it’s a real shame, considering that their rivalry was one of the best parts of the last film. His role has been taken up by Hawaiian actor Mark Dacascos who you might recognise from films like “Drive” and “The Island of Doctor Moreau” and honestly, his role as being a sort of John Wick fan boy who really wants to kill him is amazing.

Newcomers also include Game of Thrones star Jerome Flynn, who no, we still have not forgiven you for Resident Evil The Final Chapter and I think a few other names which I won’t give away entirely.

This film, unlike the other two, seem to have a bit more of a sense of humour about itself with a few of its lines. Particularly one line, which is a homage (or as I call it in this case, a complete line for line repeat) of something from one of Keanu’s most famous movies. I think I’ve already said too much just by saying that! As well as the fact that the film just seemed to have a few more one liners and stuff like that.

Now as for the villains, here’s the thing though, we’ve only got so much we can do with this whole thing and that’s not to say that the film wastes this premise but it’s starting to feel like the franchise is on thin ice, with only so many places it could go from here.

Now as great as the action is you can’t base an entire film around that and fortunately John Wick chapter 3 manages to get in line with that telling an excellent story and doing a really good job, all things considered. However, I think a fourth film would be pushing it. In fact, I did expect John Wick chapter 3 to be the final entry however the ending does suggest that this is not the final film. If this is the case, the direction that they’re going to go in actually makes me think that I wouldn’t mind a fourth movie however I’m also fearful that this next entry could be the films undoing.

John Wick chapter 3 is another excellent entry and while I don’t feel it quite reaches the height of the first two films it’s still another excellent movie that is a standard bearer for action films. The new cast members do really add to the film and the old ones do also seem to fill their roles pretty well, without being overly extended due to popularity.

If you like the other John Wick films you’ve almost certainly already gone to see this one. If you’re waiting for it to come out on DVD, I assure you, seeing this in the cinema is probably the best way possible. I think it will really make you appreciate the amount of effort that’s gone into making this film.

If there is to be a John Wick chapter 4 I’m all on board with it, however, I feel like the franchise might be starting to run out of steam and over pushing it, might cause it to be in a very precarious position, however I remain optimistic. Hopefully that optimism will carry me through next week because I have a bad feeling about the film I’m going to be seeing.

“POKÉMON: DETECTIVE PIKACHU”

Anyone following this site for a while knows my real nostalgic love for Pokémon and with this being now the 22nd Pokémon film if we’re counting it amongst all the other Animé films then we’re heading towards this becoming a Bond style franchise. This is the first ever Western produced Pokémon film in live action and it’s not the fact that I wasn’t actually on board with the concept of the film prior to seeing the trailer. The trailers did convince me that there could be something in this.

In the director’s chair is Robert Letterman who was not exactly my first choice given his track record. If you look at his previous directing jobs, he directed the rather mediocre ‘Goosebumps’ film, the pretty poor ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ with Jack Black in it, ‘Monsters v Aliens’, which is a rather “meh” film and the god awful ‘Shark Tale’. So basically, any time he works with Jack Black he doesn’t make that many great films. In fact, this is his first directing job in 4 years.

If you are familiar with the game ‘Detective Pikachu’, the plot is very similar; a kid named Tim played by Justice Smith travels to Rhyme City to pick up his father Harry’s things after he is reported dead and he then discovers a Pikachu wearing a detective’s hat in the building, played by Ryan Reynolds, who tells him he has no memories and he wants to solve the case about where Harry is, believing that he is not actually dead, from there it goes into a being a real mystery about what’s going on, mainly surrounding this new gas that’s going around that’s a raging Pokémon. Detective Pikachu feels as though it does take place in the Pokémon Universe, there are several nods and winks to various aspects of the franchise. The Kanto and Shino regions are referenced, there are minor hints about the gym leader’s circuit and there are a couple of other nods to some of the previous games, leaving us to suspect that this does take place within the continuity of the video games. Rhyme City is supposed to be within the context of the Pokémon Universe, a more western style region, mainly akin to America, although again, speaking to my friends on the subject of this, it definitely seems as though they are aiming for a London aesthetic. There are certain streets that look like areas like Canary Wharf, or Camden Market than there are The Bronx and Manhattan and I’m saying that as someone who hasn’t actually been to New York yet.

If you are going into this film for a really big mystery, don’t bother, the villain is really obvious and it never tries to really do much of anything like that, although there are a few minor plot twists and revelations, but you will see most of them coming. That doesn’t take away from the film, however, because at the end of the day, it is a really great equivalent of a buddy/cop film. The low review scores have been really bothering me with Detective Pikachu because really this film is just really nice. It’s definitely a bit nostalgia bating, but it’s nostalgia bating in the best way possible, this comes from the problem that most of the press reviewing this film are not Pokémon fans, and as a result, Detective Pikachu feels almost as though it’s being unfairly judged because for Pokémon fans there is quite a bit to work with here, they play around with a few decent concepts and some of the Pokémon look really good, Pikachu looks like you could reach out and touch him although some of them appear to be overly CGI’d. Balbazar looks cute but he definitely doesn’t feel as much as though you can reach out and touch him and a few others are a bit like that. I think the biggest offender in this is Mewtwo and yes I’m not giving away any spoilers with that one, he was in the second trailer. Mewtwo does tie into the plot quite significantly but the Uncanny Valley is definitely an effect with him, and I know Mewtwo is an artificially created Pokémon so it makes some sense that he would look a bit weird, but again he looks way too much like an overly CGI’d creation.

The majority though, however, do look great. There definitely seems to have been real sport to this but some of the Pokémon sound a bit weird. Balbazar has lost his trademark noise for another rather weird one, which is a shame considering my nostalgia still has that voice from the animé stuck in my head and Psyduck has got a really weird voice, again probably because I’m used to the original one. Talking about the cast list however, Justice Smith is actually pretty good, the only thing I had seen him in prior to this was ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’, where he didn’t give a very good performance but this time he has really allowed to prove that he is worth being in a leading role. I don’t think he is worth taking another chance on after this film. Ryan Reynolds once again does another scene stealing performance, it feels like people have now finally discovered how to use Ryan Reynolds properly in their films and when you’re watching it, you’re not too distracted by the fact that Deadpool’s voice is coming out of Pikachu although I’m looking forward to the jokes that I am going to get about this in Deadpool 3.

Now one of the biggest flaws as a Pokémon fan I have with this film is the fact that Detective Pikachu is rather lacking in the two things that are very much this idea of what we expect from a Pokémon film, which are battles and catching, there is only scene of Pokémon catching and there’s only one underground battle scene, this is because the plot of the film has Rhyme City being this idea that it’s where Pokémon humans live side by side and there aren’t catching and battles which again sounds great in theory but Pokémon aren’t just these creatures we like to look at, half the deal is the battling, the type advantages and that good stuff that comes with it and by doing a Pokémon film where they are not allowed to battle as much is a bit out of place. There is some good stuff, like the fights with the Greninjas are pretty good but it does feel as though it’s a bit lacking in that department, I certainly hope that there are plans for more films within this film’s continuity, we actually get a Pokémon story that is actually closer to what we would expect from Pokémon.

Ok, I’m stalling for time trying to be as fair as possible, but I really enjoyed ‘Pokémon: Detective Pikachu’, this is one of the best video game movies to date and although that bar is not exactly high, this should now be the standard that people look into going forwards, it certainly seems as though a few things are missing from the Pokémon experience but it still works very well to tell the story that it wants to tell. I haven’t even mentioned some of the rest of the really great cast, including Kathryn Newton, Bill Nighy, Ken Watanabe and Chris Geere. There are some very inventive uses for the Pokémon, and it tells a very different story that what we would expect, people like a decent side story and Justice Smith and Ryan Reynolds have excellent chemistry on screen, the special effects are really good, and I genuinely hope we get more films within this continuity. This is one of the few times I actually would like to see the spin out into the cinematic universe. If you like Pokémon you really owe it to yourself to see this film. Just be warned, as I mentioned there are not many battles and there is not much catching Pokémon, which is a shame because I wish there was more of that.

Well, that’s it for me this week, next week I’m doing a pure action film, as I’m going to review John Wick: Chapter 3.

“THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA”

The Curse of La Llorona is the latest film in the current ‘Conjuring’ extended Universe. This time John Woo once again staying on in the role as a producer, although this time directing duties have been given to first time feature director, Michael Chaves, who will also direct the upcoming third entry in the main franchise.

Putting aside my whole issue of ‘what’s the whole point of having a Conjuring extended Universe’. What’s it building to? Some kind of Avengers style crossover? At least the Conjuring Universe films have actually managed to get out, and seem to be on a stable production, but their quality has really been all over the place as will be noted by anyone who has seen my previous reviews of the films, most recently I reviewed ‘The Nun’ which I gave a very poor review to.

Because La Llorona has a bit of a difference to it than most of the other extended Universe films in the sense that this one is not an exploration of one of the demonic characters from the previous films, this La Llorona is an entirely new entity this time round based on Mexican folklore. This time is about a mother from child protection services who inadvertently ends up releasing La Llorona during one of her visits, the mother being played by Linda Cardellini, who you might recognise as playing Velma in the live action Scooby Doo films and from there we go to your typical Conjuring film hauntings.

My biggest problem with the Conjuring films is the moral ethicality of promoting the Warrens who don’t even get a cameo this time around in this film but my other big problem with it is because it is based on, and I use this in the loosest terms possible, ‘true’ stories, there is no chance of having a body count so there is really no tension going into these films, you know virtually no one is going to die, in fact the extended Universe films actually don’t have that issue, but again, because they have to be set in some semblance of the real world it has a similar problem. Now the major Conjuring films actually do a pretty good job at making up for this by building up atmosphere and the worst ones are the ones that go back to basic horror tricks, hence one of the reasons why I wasn’t a big fan of ‘The Nun’, but even that film was a bit better than this one.

‘The Curse of La Llorona’ is an apt title because it made me want to weep at how low the franchise has sunk. This film commits a worse crime than ‘The Nun’, I had a lot to say about that film about how I found it really boring and how it wastes whatever potential it had, but at least it had potential, at least there were some scenes that were well shot and made you look at the background quite a few times, that was one of its few decent qualities, hence why I gave it such a bad review when it squandered that. La Llorona I don’t even think it has that, it’s just your typical horror film you’ve seen a hundred times, if fact, nothing about it is very consistent. I know The Conjuring films have very inconsistent monsters in them, but La Llorona takes us to new heights, I wouldn’t say off the top of my head that this film is worse than Annabelle because that was shockingly bad, but again at least that film is so bad it’s memorable. ‘The Curse of La Llorona’ is so boring! I have not been this bored watching a horror film in a long time.

There are so many ‘nothing’ characters in this film. In fact many of them just sort of go after a while. There are tonnes of plot lines that just seem to be ‘there’ and also as I mentioned, there is not much tying this to the overall Conjuring Universe, there is not even any cameos by the Warrens, the obligatory cameo from someone we recognise is from the returning Tony Amendola, who played Father Perez in the Annabelle films. This time we introduce the character Rafael Olvera to be the standard exorcist priest that rips off the characters from the Exorcist, only this time with an Hispanic edge, who is played by Raymond Cruz, who’s IMDB page lists most of his work and it is quite clear that he has spent all of his time doing TV work, in fact the last major feature film was Alien Resurrection. Not something I imagine he puts on his CV. Raymond is trying his best in these scenes, but I swear the director is giving him the direction of play most of these scenes like you’re stoned and couldn’t give a shit! In fact, this film has one of the weirdest directions in terms of acting, because everyone is either overacting beyond belief or underacting to an absurd extent. Tony Amendola is about the only one who seems to have got away scot free and that’s because he is barely in the movie.

I’m really stalling for time with this because the reality is, all this film is, is ‘quiet, quiet, quiet, JUMPSCARE’, that’s it, there is nothing to this film, there is a never a tense atmosphere whatsoever. I don’t want to sound like a complete purist when it comes to films, because years of reviewing has kind of taught me that purism to a source material can actually damage a film just as much as going off the story to do your own thing, but man, why was this film not set in Mexico? I know I’m not the first reviewer to say that, other than to tie it in with the Conjuring Universe, I don’t see why this had to take place in 1970s Los Angeles, with an entirely white family, in fact the Hispanic characters kind of feel like a token gesture, which feels really weird in a film called ‘The Curse of La Llorona’! The basic point I want to get to say is that it is generic, now generic is not a bad thing, I was discussing this the other day with another friend; the Marvel films are, by their very formula, generic films, but the Marvel films really make it work by using that formula to its best degree. Things that are formulaic are not automatically bad, it’s when you rest on the laurels of that formula that they fall down and that’s exactly what La Llorona has done. You have seen this horror film hundreds and hundreds of times, except this time you know because it is a Conjuring film you’re not going to get many deaths, hence why you have never seen any of the Conjuring films feature on the YouTube series ‘The Kill Count’ #shamelessplugforashowIlike and there is really my big issue.

This was a film that I was practically wanting to fall asleep when I was watching it. II think the creators of the film knew this because the film is frightfully short, it only comes in at 93 minutes and I’m pretty sure most of it was the credits. It is also made really clear by the end of this that these characters probably won’t be playing up a larger role in upcoming Conjuring Universe films and I think the poor reviews for this are definitely going to be a factor. What’s more, La Llorona is frightfully poor design, say what you like about the other Conjuring films, but at least the monster looked different. ‘The Nun’ at least stands out in a crowd and Annabelle to a certain extent does actually stand out, which is a lot to say considering how many creepy doll characters there have been. La Llorona, you could probably mix her up for any ghost in any other film. There is nothing distinct about this design.

‘The Curse of La Llorona’ is one of the most boring horror films I have seen I have seen in recent memory, the plot line is appallingly generic, the cast is clearly being poorly directed in their performances and the plot relies on tropes without any chance to build atmosphere. It is a mess of a movie and if this director is going on to direct the upcoming ‘Conjuring 3’, I wouldn’t get your hopes up for that film if you are a fan of it. Honestly, the film’s downfall doesn’t really bother me because I do find the Conjuring films rather ethically repulsive by the fact that they prop up people who have been accused of being con artists, but at least the film makers seem like they are always trying to make something decent, but I didn’t get that with this one and if La Llorona is not in my worst films of the year, I will be very surprised. The Conjuring Universe is returning next time again with another Annabelle film, which I actually saw the trailer of before I went to see it and it actually looks quite good, so I would actually recommend possibly checking that out in the future, but if you are a fan of the Conjuring films, this one is entirely skippable.

Well that’s it for another week and next week I need something better, so I am going to review ‘Pokémon: Detective Pikachu’.

“AVENGERS: ENDGAME”

Avengers: Endgame has been an agonising year long wait for the Russo brothers to give us the final portion of the Cinematic Universe. With Endgame finally upon us, people have been begging for no spoilers and as a result, this review will contain no spoilers for Endgame, however, I will talk about the ending of Infinity War, so be warned. Now Endgame was the most hyped film I was waiting for all year and rather like last year, not much has been given away in the trailer, so as a result this will be a rather short review to avoid those spoilers and might be a little bit vague.

As you’d expect, this film takes place after the events of Infinity War, with Thanos, once again played by Josh Brolin, having wiped out half of the universe using the Infinity Stones. The film chronicles the aftermath of that scenario and the Marvel Universe going forwards. Endgame is less of an epic than Infinity War was meant to be for the most part, it’s actually kind of a sombre film and it takes a while until a lot of what we expect from the Marvel Cinematic Universe becomes apparent, but they’re all there. The Russo brothers really, once again knock it out of the park. Endgame is a phenomenal film as well.

The entire MCU up to this point has been building to this film and it will not disappoint. The film is fantastic in every sense of the word, it does have its issues here and there and the fact that because it doesn’t quite feel as much of an epic film, really because it takes a while for the epic-ness to really go off but at the same time, everything that happens does feel very appropriate.

There are some excellent moments in this film, however, I really cannot go into detail about many of them but believe me this film is going to surprise you in a few ways and I am genuinely wondering how the ending is going to affect this franchise going forward since Marvel is continuing into a 4th phase. The ending certainly feels appropriate and much of the Marvel fan base are going to really lose their minds at many of the moments of these films.

The cast is once again phenomenal and while many parts of it could be seen as a bit predictable, there is also a lot of genuine surprise and many of the actors are giving excellent performances once again, including Josh Brolin’s Thanos, Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark, Chris Evans as Captain America and of course Chris Hemsworth as Thor and the film fortunately actually answers a few questions about the ending of Thor: Ragnarok, so we’re happy about that. The fight scenes, well they’re all done once again brilliantly. The Russo brothers should really be the standard bearer for how good action scenes are shot and believe me they, once again, do an excellent job. I’m not going to lie, Endgame is a hard one to talk about since I can’t really discuss much of the film because of just everything that happens in it and I don’t want to spoil it, but man, was it a great film!

The second part feels like it’s an excellent ending to this phase of Marvel and I would be interested to see where the Cinematic Universe is going post this film. It feels as though 11 years has been building to this point and it has really paid off. Endgame is once again an excellent standard bearer for superhero movies. I don’t know how long spoilers are going to be avoided with this film so I would say it’s really pertinent that you go and see this film as soon as possible.

Well that’s it for me this week. Next week I’m going to review the latest Conjuring film The Curse of La Llrona.

“RED JOAN”

Red Joan’s story is based on a book which was, in itself inspired by a true story of a pensioner who had been outed as being a spy for the Russian Government during the twilight years of her life. It’s a fascinating idea as a story to tell, but it’s frankly one that I wasn’t entirely could be an interesting idea for a story, but I was intrigued enough by the trailer.

In the Director’s chair we have Trevor Nun, a man who has done a lot of soundtrack work and also done a lot of work for the Royal Shakespeare Company, although his actual directing credits are fairly slim, he has mostly done TV movies, including a 2008 version of King Lear, rather unsurprising given his background in theatre and I’m keen to point out the guy is a theatre director, he hasn’t really done films, in fact this is his first feature film to go do cinema since 1986 and even then it’s his first work behind a camera since 2008.

Now, Red Joan is not entirely one for one true story, it’s very fictionalised to such an extent that it’s pretty much entirely fictionalised, although they do go into detail about some of the actual true events during the end credits. The titular Joan Stanley is played by Judy Dench. Dench has just been arrested after some secrets of a Cambridge spy being released to the British Government and the film goes back and forth between her and a younger version of herself, rather than revealing how she became a part of that life, the younger version being played by Sophie Cookson, of Kingsman fame.

Now you might be forgiven, from the trailers to think that Judy Dench is a big part of this film, or that most of the film, if not half and half is told from the perspective of the older version of Joan. It’s not. Most of the film is told in the flashbacks and basically this becomes a period piece drama about the Communist society and her becoming friends with them and a romance she has with a Russian sympathiser named Leo, played by Tom Hughes, putting on a very dodgy accent!

This film is fundamentally one of the most dull films I’ve seen this year and that’s because it really fundamentally misses the most interesting aspect of this film. Judy Dench could actually be a scene stealer in this movie, but she is simply not brought on screen long enough to actually do anything. I went to this film with this idea that this is an old woman who has finally been forced to face the music of her action several decades down the line but is ultimately considered basically the ‘B’ plot! The motivations behind Joan’s actions are very weird. It’s almost this idea of ‘if everyone has access to nukes then no one will go to war with one another’ because then it’s human stupidity having a factor. But again, the film doesn’t explore that idea until down the line and never truly becomes a factor, in fact there’s not much moral ambiguity and as a result the film feels rather weird.

This was a film that I was really wondering why it wasn’t on television. As I mentioned, Trevor Nun has mostly done tv movies and it shows, this really feels like something that should have played on ITV or Channel 4 during a Bank Holiday weekend. He even shoots the film as though it’s a TV movie. Nothing about it feels very cinematic in a sense.

Now I know I’m not the first critic to point out that they have cut out one of the most fundamentally interesting aspects of this film, Robbie Collins beat me to it, but it does bear mentioning and it’s a real shame because I actually thought that Sophie Cookson was one of the best parts of Kingsman for me and this is the first chance at a proper leading role and despite the fact the posters have ‘bigged up’ Judy Dench’s role, she is the lead role in this film and she gives a decent performance for the character she has to play. My problem is that I struggled throughout the film to believe that this was a younger version of the same woman, they don’t seem to have many of the same mannerisms or speech patterns and it just seems to take you out of the experience, it almost feels like you’re looking at two different characters. Take for example, Titanic, now in that film, the two actresses who play Rose do feel slightly different, but at least they do bear some similarities leading you to believe that they are the same person and what’s more, that film kind of has an excuse, the difference is that this version of Rose is the product of several lifetime experiences after the events of Titanic. If this was intentional then they were trying to do a similar thing with this version, however, it still doesn’t quite work and again the two actresses who play Rose do have similar speech patterns and mannerisms. I know it’s hard for two actors to play the same character, I get that, but it was just bugging me throughout the entire film.

This film should also really be called ‘Sub-plot: The Movie’! There are tonnes of sub-plots in this film and most of them feel like they are only on screen for about 7-10 minutes. I have a feeling that this script was messed around with several times during the production. As a period piece, however, it’s actually somewhat decent, authenticity and accuracy really seems to be a factor they have put a lot of effort in to and it’s one of the things that I can really praise about the film. Red Joan is, at the end of the day, a rather dull film. This has been one of the hardest films for me to review, simply because I have left the cinema with no real feelings on the film, it’s really is as bland as they come and it’s a real shame, considering that I actually like the cast, and everyone involved. Trevor Nun puts in some effort, but he feels like a director who is out of his depth in this position and as a result it doesn’t really feel like a film that should have gone to cinemas. It’s not a total mess, there are aspects of it that work including the fact that the actors are giving decent performances and the period accuracy is really paid a lot of attention to, but I think the film has more to say than it really does. It tries to go into some moral ambiguities but doesn’t really succeed at them. This is not really a film I can recommend as a result, this is one that you might want to watch if it turns up on TV one time, maybe!

Well, that’s it for me this week. Next week, it’s the big one for me. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been leading to this point. It’s time for Avenger’s: End Game.

“HELLBOY”

Hellboy is one Guillermo del Toro’s most well known films and probably one of the films that largely brought him to public attention. Now, he made two films with star Ron Perlman, setting up an arc, that unfortunately was never quite fulfilled, but that being said, even with that in mind the first two Hellboy films are actually relatively strong films. Honestly I would actually say, go back and watch those films, I think they have held up a lot better than people remember.

The fact of the matter is though, Hellboy was definitely due another film and with Lionsgate holding the rights, another film was in production, however due to various back and forths and creative decisions, Director Guillermo del Toro and star Ron Perlman were not on board and believe me, this film went through a hell of a production.

I’m going to talk about some of the other faults in the film’s production in the review, but let’s just say that this film went through quite a few phases, it was originally meant to be a follow on from the continuity of the first two films and basically be Hellboy 3, that fell through and in its place it was announced that the film would be a reboot. It kind of feels weird to reboot Hellboy now considering it hasn’t been that long since the last film, but I have heard of other comic franchises that have rebooted quicker, I mean, let’s look at the Spiderman films, for crying out loud, that’s been rebooted twice in the space of two decades.

In the director’s chair is Neil Marshall, director of such films as “Doomsday”, “Dog Soldiers” and the “Descent”. He’s actually a decent choice to direct Hellboy, he has actually been away from big films like this for quite a while. In the lead role replacing Ron Perlman, we have “Stranger Things” actor, David Harbour, again not too bad of a choice.

There is a lot to say about this film but let’s start with the plot. Ok, now Hellboy, as I mentioned, this 2019 film is now a reboot of the franchise but it’s supposedly sticking closer to the comic series created by Mike Mignola, more on that in a minute, but the basic plot is that Hellboy, played by David Harbour, is investigating several incidences around the world which lead to a plot to unleash a Queen who had been cut up into several parts by Arthur in Excalabur, the Queen is being played by Milla Jovovich of Resident Evil fame. The film then sets up a loose plot of should Hellboy really be helping the humans considering that there is some level of persecution towards the monsters which he might be a part of and, oh my god, that is an over simplified version of the plot of this film because dear god, Hellboy is all over the place! I am not joking, you think my introduction’s rushed, you should actually see the film. This film has probably one of the most rushed intros I have ever seen in my life. Ian McShane who has a minor role in this film, and I use the word minor very accurately, it feels as though he came on to set in between takes of John Wick. But man, he sounds like he’s trying to get through the script as fast as possible in this scene just because he needs to go to the toilet!! That’s the least of this film’s problems, this film’s plot is such a mess, there is so little connecting any of the scenes together, it’s like a multitude of ideas and sub-plots.

The cast is also really all over the place, we have a character called Alice, being played by Sasha Lane as well as another character played by Daniel Dae Kim, who were given so little to do, they feel completely useless in the film. It also doesn’t help that there is virtually nothing new added to this version of Hellboy, it follows so many of the plot beats of the other films without really adding any flair of its own. Everyuthing about this film feels inferior to del Toro’s films. There was something niggling in the back of my head and it wasn’t until we got to an action scene involving giants that I kind of realised what this film wanted to be and when I saw all the gore in that scene is when I realised, this film wants to be “Deadpool”. The del Toro films had PG13 ratings, this film is the first one to get an R rating and it’s very clear that the studio Lionsgate were aiming for 20th Century Fox’s market with the success with R rated comic films, with Deadpool and Logan. The thing is though “Deadpool” and “Logan” made sense to be R rated, those characters and their plotlines had been held back in previous films because they were particularly violent characters that coulnd’t go all out. I don’t think anything is added to Hellboy by giving it an R rating, if anything it feels rather unnecessary and almost kind of juvenile.

Now, the imagery in this film is actually quite imaginative and some of the practical and CGI effects at least hold up. The only issue is that they are not entirely consistent between scenes. The action scenes are actually something I can say something positive about, not all of them hit, some of them are terribly, but the ones that are shot well are shot very well. But good god, this film needed a more compelling villain! Now, this is not entirely Milla Jovovich’s fault, I have often said in the past that I’ve found her to be a rather one note actress, but in this instance, the script is failing her. She can’t play an interesting villain because she’s not written to be an interesting villain. It’s that classic “join me, I’m not the real enemy”, even though I clearly am! For god’s sake, it’s possible to do this plot point properly, I don’t get why people keep getting this wrong and oh, dear god, this film has some of the worst plot structure I have seen. I have no idea what the hell was going on with the script, because it just feels like a bunch of jumbled ideas that have been stitched together. This film has clearly been destroyed in the editing room and there have clearly been several different people trying to mess with it. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if down the line we get a superior director’s cut from Neil Marshall, who seems to have really distanced himself from the film, most noted by the fact that he has been rather absent from the press tour. It’s also kind of a shame because David Harbour is not doing a bad job playing the main character. I don’t think he is as good as Ron Perlman in the role, but he is clearly trying his best, but again, the script fails him repeatedly. Most of the talented people in this cast deserved a lot better than to be in this film.

Hellboy might not be fantastic for levels of bad, but man it is one of the worst comic films in recent memory, staggeringly bad, a dreadfully boring and incoherent plot that is trying to hang on some decently shot fight scenes which don’t make up for the fact that there is no reason care about them. Poor performances and a film that has clearly been ruined in the editing suite by too many people getting their hands on the film with their own visions. It’s a mess, pure and simple and I suspect that this film will definitely be in my 10 worst films of the year list. If you like the original films, this one is going to be really hard to get through when you’re not experiencing, in theory a déjà vu and it’s kind of proof that Guillermo del Toro really understood what made the character work so well and if this film does stick closely to the comics, more that del Toro’s films did, it’s a prime example that sticking closely to a source material is not a guarantee of quality.

Well that’s it for me this week. Next week I review the film based on a true life story, staring Judy Dench with “Red Joan”.

“SHAZAM!”

Shazam! is an interesting superhero film. The characters origins going back to when he was originally being called Captain Marvel, before DC would later change his name to Shazam! feels rather ironic and appropriate given that his film was now coming out mere weeks after Captain Marvel.

Shazam! has had a rather troubled history as a film, it was originally announced as part of DC’s plans going forward but after Justice League, the franchise of the DC extended universe is all over the place. With Aquaman’s success, however, there did seem like there was some life in the project, but it doesn’t change the fact that DC still does not have a clear plan for these films going forward. Shazam! is hopefully going to put things back on track since as a DC fan boy, I would really like to see DC have some success again and be a genuine rival to Marvel. With Shazam!, however, they were running into a few problems; for one thing, he’s not exactly the most popular character, he’s had some decent appearances, but outside of DC knowhow, not many people really know him per se. Secondly, he hasn’t really been that much involved in the comics line for DC fans, so yeah, he’s been rather out of the DC universe for quite some time making only sporadic appearances.

In the director’s chair, we have David F. Sandberg, who was an odd choice initially since he is mostly a horror director, having directed films like ‘Lights Out’, which I really enjoyed and Annabelle Creation, which I haven’t seen but I’ve heard good things about and in the writing chair, is Henry Gayden, who’s IMDB page is rather stark, this being his first major production as a writer. Now as a DC fanboy I know the origin story of Shazam! quite well, but of course, he is not that well known. The story is of a 14 year old Billy Batson, played by Asher Angel, a foster child who is looking for his mother when he is taken in by a foster family and befriends a young kid named Freddy, played by Jack Dylan Grazer and one day after defending them from bullies, he runs onto a subway train, where he is approached by the wizard Shazam!, played by Djimon Hounsou, who imbues him with power to stop a group of demons that represent the seven deadly sins, that have imbued power to Dr Thaddeus Silvana, played by Mark Strong, when saying the wizard’s name, he gains the power of the superhero Shazam!, which transforms him into a more adult version of himself, played by Zachary Levi. From there, it’s your prototypical superhero movie.

Now people who are familiar with DC’s new 52 storyline, will know mostly what’s going on here because the film borrows very heavily from that storyline, in fact it’s almost note for note. Rather like that one and rather fortunately, Billy is not exactly the pure of heart kid that he is in the 40s, in this storyline, he is not as much of an arse as he is in the comic storyline initially, but he is still not exactly the best behaved kid but honestly I think this is a change much for the better, as it makes him seem more human.

The biggest difference from the comic storyline to the film is the villain, in the comic it’s Black Adam, who was initially announced to be the villain and was going to be played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, it’s now been changed to let Black Adam have his own film because DC is obsessed with villains, we’ll see if that gets off the ground!

Dr Silvana is actually an interesting new choice and I actually think it kind of works out better. For one thing, Black Adam might be the reverse of Shazam!, but he would have had to have established a lot more about the character including the nation that he rules and the plight of his character and by doing it this way, it allows Shazam! to remain the focus but Silvana works out as a great villain because he represents the opposite of Billy, they have very similar back stories and they have similar attitudes towards the power and surprisingly Zachary Levi and Mark Strong do a good job playing off one another. Now Silvana is not the most compelling of villains since he is kind of a power for the sake of power, however, I’ve seen a lot worse and hell, some Marvel villains have been a lot blander than this, although that being said, when the focus is on Shazam! and his friendship with Freddy, it is actually some of the best stuff in the film.

You get a sense that Zachary Levi and Asher Angel have spent a lot of time together because Zachary Levi really does a good job playing a sort of version of himself in a grown up body, in fact, a lot of people are going to make a lot of comparisons, well it’s ‘Big’ if ‘Big’ was a superhero, in fact there is actually an homage to ‘Big’ during one of the action scenes and also both actors do a great job playing the role that they are put in and the film does a really good job introducing Shazam!, his world, his powers, the various aspects of him and they don’t do too much of a job trying to tie into the DC Cinematic Universe, there are only a few references to Superman, Batman and Aquaman. How Shazam! is going to fit into all of this is another matter, but at least this is one film where they at least make sure to get the main character down and do a film that would work fine as a solo film, then try to build the universe around it, rather than the other way around. Shazam! however, also really does make a good job of its primary focus, in fact there were several factors I wasn’t expecting to turn up in this film, including one aspect of it that I suspected that they were saving for the sequel, but man was I glad of its inclusion, but to avoid spoilers, I won’t be going into it. The film also does a decent job trying to reflect the YouTube phenomenon idea with much of Billy testing his powers being recorded by Freddy and being uploaded to YouTube.

Now, it’s one of those films where you obviously know this hasn’t been shot on a phone camera, but I really like the nature of these, even if a few of these references might date the film horribly. Most notably, the references to Fortnight and possibly Game of Thrones.

Ok, I will now talk about the action scenes which are really damn good, they make excellent use of Shazam!’s powers, they are well shot, well-paced and rather like Marvel, they are also lighter in tone. DC has clearly been looking at what Marvel’s success has been and making the most of it. The action is also superb, I have already gone on about Zachary Levi, but Mark Strong is also really good as well as excellent performances from almost the entire cast. It is also one film where the young actors, like Faithe Herman, Ian Chen, Grace Fulton and Jovan Armand are some of the better young performers in recent memory and even some of the extra performances that I won’t dare give away but as the cast goes, they actually do a really good job. There is even an excellent performance from John Glover in a role that looks as though it could feel wasted if he didn’t give such an amazing performance in the scenes he had.

Ok, I’ve gone on about what’s been good about the film, I will be fair and say there are a couple of things that stop me from saying that I think this film is the best DCU film so far, the major one being that the middle act feels like it drags on a little bit and there are few clichés I wish could do without, for example the one dimensional bullies and the obvious revenge fantasy that comes with some of these superhero films, things like that can really drag the film a little bit, but the film really makes up for it in the third act. This film also has one of the best final fight scenes in recent memory.

Shazam! is one of the better DCU films in recent memory and it would probably be the best film if Wonder Woman wasn’t a thing. Shazam! ultimately has great appeal, a great cast, a brilliant story and introduces the character well into the modern world. I seriously hope he ends up in the next Justice League film if that ever gets made. Everyone is well suited to it, everyone is well acted, and the fight scenes are well choreographed and make use of the powers very well. It is one of those films you really have to see. DC fans will get a lot out of it and I think even some of the Marvel crowd might start to appreciate it. Comic fans should apply, and superhero fans should definitely apply to see this.

Well, that’s it for another week for me and since I am done with Shazam!, it’s time to move onto the next, in what has inadvertently seems to have become a month of mainly comic book movie reviews, so I will be moving on next week to the reboot of “Hellboy”.

“DUMBO”

Dumbo is the first of 3 Disney Live Action remakes that are coming out this year, the other two being Aladdin, which is directed by Guy Ritchie and The Lion King, directed by Jon Favreau. Dumbo is directed by Tim Burton, last time he remade a Disney classic, it turned our appallingly with his version of Alice in Wonderland, which is a strong candidate for his worst film. Although that being said, I went into Dumbo with low expectations, I actually thought Burton might be able to make something out of this and he has done pretty well in the past, plus he had Ehren Kruger working on the screenplay, who wrote the screenplay for The Ring and Scream 3, as a recent Ghost in the Shell reboot, but then you remember that he also wrote the screenplays for most of the Transformers films, so he’s a shaky writer at best!

Now I will make it very clear, I have no real nostalgia for the original Dumbo, it’s not one of those Disney films I go back to every so often, or one that was a big part of my childhood, so basically, this film is definitely going with no nostalgic immunity from me. So that’s where I stood when it came to preparing for this film coming out. It’s not like Aladdin or The Lion King, which I am going to be having a lot more of an investment in when they come out, but I actually felt that would be a strength for me since it would mean that I thought it would mean that I would judge the film a bit more objectively.

If you are familiar with the plot of the original Dumbo, there’s not much change here, it’s once again about the new elephant with very big ears that can fly when he holds a feather, the only difference is that this time he is trained by a pair of kids, called Milly and Joe, played by Nico Parker and Finley Hobbins, who are the children of one of the rodeo riders returned from the war, Holt Farrier, played by Colin Farrell, who lost an arm during the war and now can’t do his act. The big difference plot wise this time is that most of the plot of the first film is skimmed over in the first 15 minutes. In that time we have lady Jumbo being taken after a rampage in the circus and Dumbo gaining his confidence and flying in front of a crowd, they even do a recreation of the famous scene, although in this case the kids are involved. Then we move into this rather strange moment where the circus acts are all moving to this new location called Dreamland which is run by a tycoon named V. A. Vandevere, played by Michael Keaton, who forms a partnership with the ring master, Max Medici, played by Danny DeVito. He wants to use Dumbo to be a new attraction to the theme park and is also setting up with an act for his girlfriend, Collette, played by Eva Green, who is a high rise acrobat to do an act with him. Good god, how do you manage to complicate a Dumbo movie this much!

Ok, I am going to honest and say straight out, the Dumbo remake is not a very good film, so I’m going to start by talking about the positives I found with the film. For one thing, the CGI is not too distracting, and Dumbo’s personality is mostly intact for the most part. The other factor you should also be really thankful for, as is expected, this is a Tim Burton movie so as a result it’s very grandiose and it has its usual thing about outsiders, something that I don’t expect him to stray from anytime soon. Burton really should be the right choice to direct a Dumbo film, so it feels really bad to say that it feels as though most of the goodwill I had for him with Big Eyes seems to have slipped away.

Ok, there are also some good news in the fact that some of the plot lines do work, but if there’s anything that is holding this film back it’s both rushed and confused. This is one of the most confused films I have seen all year. It’s trying to juggle a couple of plots and to a certain extent the films feels more about the kids and their dad, if anything Dumbo is actually kind of an afterthought. Dumbo really doesn’t play as big a role this time round and I was actually surprised how many scenes could go by without him playing much of a factor. Now, they did get his personality down right and Tim Burton does use some interesting camera editing to convey Dumbo’s internal thought process through visuals alone. But it is ultimately just kind of “meh”, that’s this film in a nutshell, it’s very “meh”.

I’ve already mentioned the fact that they speed through most of the 1940s film in the space of about 15 minutes, but there are a few more problems with that, the famous song is kind of ruined by the fact that it’s actually one of the circus acts that sings it this time round, which guts the scene. The film never really decides what it wants to do, it has far too much going on. As a result, many characters are rather inconsistent. This is most notable with Danny DeVito, who I swear Burton set up tonnes of plot lines for him only for them to fall down or be forgotten in later scenes. By the way, who would have thought this film would be a Batman Returns reunion for Tim Burton, Danny DeVito and Michael Keaton, speaking of which, Michael Keaton’s character is the villain this time round, another of many, many characters invented entirely for this film and he hams it up epically. This is one of the funniest roles he has done in recent memory, it’s laughable how he is in most scenes and how ridiculous the wig is that he has to wear for his character. Then again you’ve got an all-star cast in this film and it feels like they are all being stretched so far that there’s no time for any of them to shine, this is especially notable considering the fact that most of the characters from the original are gone. Ok, leaving the crows from the original film out is understandable, by today’s standards that wouldn’t really fly, no pun intended, but what the hell happened to Timothy? You know, the really important character from the first movie! I reckon if you accumulated up the amount of time he spends in the movie, you would read a total of two minutes and that’s if I’m being generous.

What’s more, this film also has another problem I have with a lot of Burton films, the environment feels very, very insular, a lot of his films suffer from having environments that feel as though they are in a sound stage, rather than a living, breathing world, you can see this noticeably in a couple of his earlier films, particularly if you go back and to Batman Returns, this is actually a prime example of this. Gotham in that film never feels like a fully functioning city since the streets are deserted most of the time and I noticed a lot of that in this film. Dreamland in particular feels far too enclosed. What’s more though is that Burton’s direction seems to have really hampered a lot of more about the film, for one thing, because of the serious amount of additions that have been made, it feels like a Burton film first and a Dumbo remake second and the ending is where it all goes insane. To a certain extent I was thinking the entire time, “really, this is a Dumbo movie, right?!”. I’m not going to lie, Dumbo is really not great. If I’m judging it as a Burton film, it is one of his weakest in recent memory, having come off the really good film, Big Eyes, and despite being rather average, I definitely preferred Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and this feels like a step down and step backwards to what was causing his films to fail in the first place, however, this is not a total disaster on the level of some of Burton’s really awful films, namely Alice in Wonderland, The Planet of the Apes remake from 2001, the Dark Shadows or the really poor Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and if I’m comparing it to the recent rise of Disney live action remakes, I would say it is a cut above Beauty and the Beast but that’s as far as I’m willing to go. I still much prefer the Jungle Book and Cinderella, compared to this film.

It’s kind of a mess and trying to be several things at once and never quite sticking to anything and as a result it doesn’t really work. I don’t see fans of the original film liking this and I don’t think this will be a nostalgic treasure for the current generation of kids and I think it says a lot that the next group of films are playing to the Disney renaissance generation. Dumbo is a film that should work, but it’s another case of a film that Tim Burton should be perfect to direct but is ultimately where his style overtakes the film. The acting’s not great, the script doesn’t really work and at its best moments, the film is painfully average. Save your money, there’s better films coming out and I suspect you would be better off waiting for the Aladdin remake.

Well next week I’m skipping the Steven King’s Pet Semetary remake, I’m going to the DC extended universe again for their latest film, Shazam!

“US”

Us is the latest film from Writer/Director Jordan Peele whose previous film “Get Out”, I reviewed very favourably. But at that time, I wasn’t anticipating the levels of success that Jordan Peel was going to receive from the film, not only was it a box office hit, but it also managed to gain several Oscar nominations including Best Director, Best Actor and Best Picture. It sadly failed to win any of those awards which was even more annoying as out of all the films nominated that year, “Get Out” was my favourite of the bunch, but it was nice to see the recognition there. (P.S. I am aware that the Oscars have become a complete joke by its nomination process, but if you are going to buy into it, I am at least going to say that the film deserves to have won it).

Now the thing that surprised me is the fact that Jordan Peele has come up with his follow up film after just 2 years, I suspected that we would be waiting a bit longer but fortunately he seems to have brought out another film through his production company “Monkey Paw Studios”, though from the outset and the advertising campaign, it would appear that Jordan Peele is aiming for this to be a slightly more ambitious film than “Get Out”.

Now the plot of “Us” has quite a lot going on in it, as a result this review might be a bit shorter than usual since I don’t want to go into too much detail about the film, even more so than usual for fear of spoilers. If you have seen the trailers for this film then you know the basic plot. A family going on vacation to a vacation house when they are confronted outside the house one night by another family who are their doppelgangers and the film then turns into a home invasion film. This is really all I’m going to say about the film because to go into any more detail would completely ruin some of the best parts about this film.

The thing is though, this film has a lot going on, but it’s also trying to do quite a lot in a short space of time, and I don’t mean in terms of the run time. The beginning of the film seems to want to throw tonnes of things in your face all at once, then it includes an opening text box, which doesn’t really seem to talk about anything, a flashback sequence and the general set up of the storyline. On a lot of levels, it’s very weird film, but as a horror film it really works, it’s not incredibly scary, per se, you’re not exactly going to be scared of this film, but it’s definitely an effective film. The film holds your attention constantly trying to figure out everything that is going on and Jordan Peele writes a very good script for the film, the writing is the real strong point of the film. Also, I have to give real credit to the acting, including a brilliant dual performance by Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke, who you might recognise from the film “Black Panther”. The kid actors are actually pretty good as well, there’s an excellent performance by Shahadi Wright Joseph and Evan Alex, who actually takes to the script a lot better than I was expecting him to. You initially think Evan Alex’s character is going to be the typical creepy kid persona that horror films have judging from trailers and the fact that he walks around with a Halloween mask on half of the time and they kind of do that, but that’s the thing, each of the four main actors have to play dual roles and it’s very interesting as far as an acting class goes, I suspect many of the performances in the film may get nominated at the coming award season as it seems to be the kind of thing that the academy seems to like.

Now Jordan Peele’s inspiration in this film seems to be around a home invasion theme, which seem to be getting in short supply I’m noticing in recent memory. these days. He does a really good job of it, the sheer concept works very well but it is also done with a very knowing tongue in cheek take for fans of horror films, but not to the same extent of a full blown comedy and there is definitely a lot to read into it. Without going into too much detail about it there is a lot of social commentary in the film as well. To me, it reminded me a lot of films that are directed by people like Wes Craven and George Camero. Some of the references might not do so well with an international audience. I don’t know how many people remember some of the historical events as referenced early on in the film. The only reason I knew about it is because they referenced it in a Simpson’s episode and I might have thought it was a made up thing for the film, if I didn’t know otherwise.

As mentioned, Jordan Peele’s direction makes these scenes very, very effective, the man knows how to do these sorts of films and do them well, but again, he knows horror is on some level inherently kind of ridiculous and he plays to it, some of the dialogue in the film is really rather funny. As much as I was a glued to the screen and invested in all the different turns the film was taking, a scene involving an Alexa knock off, because they couldn’t get the rights to the product placement was one of the funniest things I’ve seen all year, I was pissing myself laughing!

Now I could go on and on and on and on about the themes of these films and all the individual little bits and bobs, but I’d have to spoil the review for that and I may come back and do that when this film comes out on DVD, though I don’t make any promises on that. But trust me, this is one film that really has great characters, a great plot and does some really cool and effective horror and it also has tonnes of twists and turns. That is where one of my problems lie with the film too, some of the twists leave a few more questions than they do answers, but I’m sure someone will point out why they’re not questions. This is one of those films that is going to warrant a few viewings, you’re not going to get everything on the first viewing but I would like it noted that I correctly guessed the final twist very early on and even then I was starting to question my deduction part way through the film though sticking to my guns did pay off and it did not erode the film. Guessing that twist successfully doesn’t make you guess half of everything else that happens in the film nor does it diminish your enjoyment.

However, compared to Get Out, I think Us is the weaker film by a bit, the script just isn’t quite as tight or fit together and trying to be a slightly more complicated plot, it doesn’t quite work as well as Get Out’s rather simple plot which I imagined stemmed from the conversation of what’s the scariest thing for someone to do – meet the in-laws for the first time. That’s not a detraction against Us, I think it’s definitely a film you need to check out because Jordan Peele is on a roll right now, Us is a film that really sold me its plot, direction and even its performances, even though I think Lupita Nyong’o’s performance as an alternative side drew a few more laughs when she first appeared on screen than scares for the voice, which I’m not sure was intentional, but luckily the film recovers and she does deliver probably the best performance in the film. It is a film that will really warrant repeat viewings to be able to figure everything out and to really absorb it, but I really recommend watching it now as it will really enhance your viewing for when it comes out on DVD and Netflix. If you really like good horror films then this is definitely one to check out and you liked Get Out then this film proves that Jordan Peele’s success on that was not a one-time thing. Really see this one!

Well next week I will be back to more family friendly content when I will be reviewing the first of three live action Disney remakes coming out this year with Tim Burton’s “Dumbo”.

“FISHERMAN’S FRIENDS”

This film is a fictionalised documentation of the lives of a group of fishermen from Port Isaac, Cornwall who got famous after appearing on television after they were hired to perform the National Anthem. Although what actually happened I won’t spoil since this is actually covered in the film. The film looks, from the outside, to be a proper classic British film, which is what you could probably expect from this type of film. It’s a pretty quintessential type of story that you get from our neck of the woods.

In the director’s seat is Chris Foggin, you may remember he has worked as an assistant or second unit director but has directed some short films including a Judy Dench short film “Friend Request Pending” although this is the first time I’ve seen one of his movies and while you may not have heard of his own filmography, you will have heard of most of the films he was a second or third unit director on, such as “World’s End”, “The Iron Lady” and “The Deep Blue Sea”.

Now, I won’t bore you with the plot and say I’ve basically kind of explained it, but basically it is essentially about a music manager named Danny, played by Daniel Mays, who is travelling to Cornwall for part of a stag do. His boss, Troy, played by Noel Clarke insists that he signs the group up to perform a street show, not realising this is a joke he goes ahead and makes a tonne of promises only to then be told it’s a joke. Obviously he’s now met the men, realises how nice they are and doesn’t want to back out of the deal and so now he has to try to get them a contract. It is as gentile as it gets, do not go into this film expecting any sort of surprise whatsoever, if you know how quintessential British films go, you will see everything in this film coming a mile ahead. Does this make it bad, hell no! Fisherman’s Friends is not exactly an exciting film or even all that great in certain parts, but as a purely inoffensive film with not much bite to it, you can certainly do a hell of a lot worse and I will freely admit since I am a man with a soft spot for sea shanties, this one was really rather enjoyable.

I will freely admit I have only been to Cornwall once and even I know that the characterisation of the locals is a bit over the top and it can devolve into accent jokes and stereotype jokes, but it doesn’t ever get particularly offensive, in fact the whole film feels as though it has been designed by the Cornish Tourist Board, helped by the fact that this is a very well shot film.

The cinematography is actually genuinely pretty good, the editing could use a bit of work though as it kind of fails in a few parts although it is a genuinely well shot film. Need I say more, the soundtrack is excellent, as you would expect. The only problem I had with the soundtrack is something that was pointed out in Mark Commode’s review of the film, which I only checked out after seeing the film, where he pointed out something that I had noticed which is, if there are instruments that you can hear being played in the scenes, then somebody has to be playing those instruments!

The whole film was also propped up by a stellar cast, including Daniel Mays, giving us a brilliant performance, Tuppence Middleton doing a very good job as Alwyn, the daughter of one of the fisherman, who Daniel Mays takes a liking to, another great British actor, James Purefoy who finally gets a film to sink his teeth into. Daniel Hayman, Christian Brassington and of course if you’ve seen I, Daniel Blake you will recognise Dave Johns from a mile off. What’s great about this cast is that they know what film they are in and they don’t try to overdo it, the fishermen themselves have excellent chemistry on screen, you can believe that they are from a tight knit community and everyone knows each other and genuinely cares for one another. This is also propped up by one of Noel Clarke’s hammiest performances to date, the man chews(?) the scenery of any scene he is in and it’s blooming excellent. His American accent is worth seeing the film for alone.

Fisherman’s Friends is not, however, a perfect film, it falls down in quite a few areas. I have already mentioned the editing can be a bit weird on occasion and the fact that the film doesn’t exactly go against type. The film is also very jarringly paced; at times it can feel as though it is rushing its plot quite a bit trying to condense quite a lot of story in a short time period and Dear God, the third act really lost me, it rushes out the ending so fast it was unbelievable and it has one of the most forced conflicts I’ve seen in a long time and it gets resolved just as quickly, it’s kind of weird. Also, I didn’t really believe the love story as much as I think the film wanted me to. Daniel Mays and Tuppence Middleton do a good job trying to bring some chemistry to the characters, but the writing is where it falls down and it felt like the most fictionalised part of the film. The fact of the matter remains, however, as much as I can rip apart several factors now I know it’s not that great on a technical level, I still came out of the cinema with a bit of a smile. It is a genuinely enjoyable film and while the humour isn’t really there on occasions, it did make me laugh a couple of times. I liked the acting in the film, the cinematography was great and the use of the actual town the Fishermen were from was a stroke of genius. It just has a really strong soundtrack. The third act is where the film falls down for me and perhaps a further re-write might have ironed that out. I reckon it will be a nice film to watch at Christmas, but I think this film will have more success on television or DVD than at the cinema. However, if you really can’t be bothered to see it when it comes out on DVD and you’re still on the fence, then you’d still be well off going to the cinema to see it. It is pretty damn good.

So that’s it from me for this week. Next week I’m going to be checking out the latest film from writer and director Jordan Peel, who brought us “Get Out”, with his new film “Us”.