“THE GRINCH”

Me and Dr Seuss adaptations don’t get along. That’s not too say I don’t like Dr Seuss, his books are fine, in fact some of them have actually held up remarkably well. The problem is that, well, his movies are not so great, and that’s basically because most of these films were not made whilst he was alive… in fact the only ones made when he was alive were the animated shorts by Chuck Jones, Dr Seuss knew his stories inside and out, they were meant to be short and to the point. Seuss rejected several offers over the years to turn his books into live action films. Unfortunately, his widow decided to basically sell them to the highest bidder every time which resulted in several terrible adaptations. This includes Mike Myers and that god awful Cat in the Hat film which is a blight on human eyes and intelligence. The terrible adaptation of The Lorax, which misses the plot of the book entirely. Horton Hears a Who which is probably the best of the bunch by proxy, even though it has terrible out of no where Anime references for some bizarre reason. The problem I have with Dr Seuss films is that they’re so crass. They have a terrible sense of being very much a marketing ploy. The Grinch is the first in this instance, since this is the first time we are getting the film done again, what is it the 3rd? If you count the Chuck Jones short which starred Boris Karloff, which was pretty good and was my first exposure to The Grinch story, I remember watching it at Christmas on Cartoon Network, and I still think it’s worth a watch. Then you’ve got the terrible Jim Carrey film which I would happily burn in a fire, simply for how much it screws up just about everything. Not to mention this was basically when everyone was trying to milk Jim Carrey for all he was worth.

When it was announced that Illumination Pictures would be doing this film I was rather sceptical considering I’ve not really reviewed many Illumination Picture films all that well, although I was slightly convinced by the casting of Benedict Cumberbatch in the role of The Grinch. Though whatever my positives are and whatever my criticisms are for this film I stand by that this film has come out way too soon. The November 9th release is designed so they don’t seem like they’re coming out too late for competing with Disney’s, The Nutcracker, which while I haven’t seen that film at time of writing, judging by Rotten Tomatoes score, they probably shouldn’t have even bothered, releasing this thing in about 2 weeks’ time they probably would have still dominated the box office.

Let’s see if they managed to do this one semi competently… You’re probably familiar with the story of The Grinch, the usual thing, green guy played by Benedict Cumberbatch, doesn’t like Christmas and doesn’t like the people of Whoville being so joyous and celebrating it, so decides he is going to make a point and steal their Christmas so they are just as miserable as him, and he doesn’t have to put up with it anymore. All whilst this film is being narrated by Pharrell Williams, yes, the guy who did the song Happy.

Ok, I eluded that I thought this film was going to be terrible, so let’s start with one of my biggest complaints of this film. The new version of ‘You’re a mean one Mr Grinch is appalling. Whoever decided to turn that song into a hip hop mix, I am officially tracking you down. It just is crap! I didn’t like the sort of jazzy version that we got in a few of the trailers, but that was a lot better than this one.

Ok, now I got that rant out the way, I will say one thing… It’s better than the Jim Carey film, and that is not a back handed compliment, there is a lot to like about this film. Cumberbatch’s casting is actually pretty damn good, I would actually say I like they dynamic between him and Max in this film. Max the dog has often been silent in most adaptations, giving him more to do this time is actually a benefit. There are a few new characters I presume, but none of them feel like they take up too much room or time. As you expect Cindy-Lou Who is in the film, played by Cameron Seely. Un like the last time where she’s trying to find out The Grinch’s past and asking loads of questions to the people of Whoville of what his deal is, in this one se has a more personal arc in trying to stay up for Santa so that he can grant her a wish to make her mother less over-worked. It didn’t really amount to much but I will say I appreciated it more than what her character was given in. the Jim Carey version. There is also another character that gets a few scenes, Mr Bricklebaum, who is played by Kenan Thompson from the Kenan and Kel series, who verges on being annoying but luckily, he’s not in the film too much, and never overstays his welcome, and is just a pretty nice guy. It is also a cue to Kenan Thompsons talent since I didn’t actually recognise it was him for a lot of the film.

This film also benefits greatly from the fact that it’s animated rather than live action. If there is one thing that is both The Grinch and The Cat in the Hat, is that Dr Seuss’ stories were never meant to be seen in 3D or live action, it just looks weird and terrible.

Luckily this film is animated and they fortunately haven’t overloaded this film with voices you can’t recognise. The only one picked for marketing purposes is Pharrell Williams, with that being said he did a lot better of a job than I was expecting, he actually does nail some of Seuss’ original lines that have been put into the film. As well as some of the lines that have been written specifically for the film. The only other voice you might recognise is Angela Lansbury from Murder She Wrote.

Now as I mentioned the film does a pretty good job extending its run time in a decent way. Comparing it again to the Jim Carey film: in that film it is padded like hell, plus it makes the Whovians way to materialistic which means the message is kind of a shot in the foot by the end if you think that The Grinch might actually have a reason to be annoyed with everyone. In this version they spend a lot more time showing The Grinch preparing his plan for how he is going to steal everyone’s Christmas, and while it does feel a little unnecessary they do give him some decent reason as to why he doesn’t like Christmas. They also keep the Whovians wholesome. They do like Christmas and they do have a few things that they genuinely want, and go a bit over the top. At the end of the day they do seem genuinely good hearted people. The film fortunately doesn’t give the fact that they need to learn a lesson along with The Grinch.

Going back to the soundtrack they did keep in that song from the Rankin/Bass short which is greatly appreciated. Though some of the carols they did put in the film were a bit weird considering they all make direct reference to the birth of Jesus, which fully confirms there must be some sort of Christianity in the Dr Seuss universe. Wow, that actually gets weirder the more you think about it…

Getting back on top, the animated designs are actually also well done. They definitely feel like they have come out of the same universe as The Lorax and Horton Hears A Who. The new characters that have been created are not too bad, including Fred the reindeer who unfortunately had all of his best moments ruined by the trailers.

In fact, that is a really big negative for this film, with many kids films these days most of the best bits are in the trailer. While I’m on the subject or groan inducing, that was how I felt about the Minions short that played before this film. I’m getting sick of the Minions at this point, they were kind of funny in the first two Despicable Me films but they’ve been over saturated too hell, this unnecessary short highlighted the point. This film also has very few extra jokes than were in the trailer, if you’ve been following these trailers as much as I have since I spend tonnes of time in cinemas and see tonnes of trailers, you’ve pretty much seen most of the film. If they made you laugh in the trailer they may not make you laugh again.

The biggest problem with The Grinch however, is it’s a rather forgettable film. This is something that’s going to play a lot at Christmas and I wouldn’t object, I probably would watch that if it was on TV but I wouldn’t actively seek out to watch it again. It has a nice message, certainly nicer than the live action film. Some of the physical comedy is actually pretty damn good. If you have kids around I would recommend this much more than the Jim Carey film, which if you couldn’t tell by now, I despise!

What it does well it does alright and it’s not overloaded with celebrities and marketing. The only thing I groaned at the most was the terrible use of the screaming goat meme, which would have dated this film if the meme wasn’t already dated by the time of this films release.

This film cost me extra to see on opening weekend, so it might be worth actually waiting to see it around Christmas. Judging by the Rotten Tomatoes scores I would actually say go and see this over The Nutcracker, if you have to see a Christmas film this year.

Well that’s The Grinch out the way, while it was better than I was expecting, let’s move on to a sequel of a film I have already reviewed. Next week I’m going back to Harry Potter, to review Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald.

“”

“MIRAI”

Mirai is the latest film from director Mamoru Hosoda, who is one of my favourite directors. I could go on about him and his career but I devoted a portion of my upcoming book ‘The Nerd Consultant’s Guide to Anime’ to talk about his career and his previous films. I want people to actually read that book, so all I will say at this point is, you really have to check out his other films, including: ‘The Girl Who Leapt Through Time’, ‘Summer Wars’, ‘Wolf Children’ and ‘The Boy and The Beast’, which ended up in my best films of 2017 list. The man is a very credible director in television, having got his star from the series ‘Digimon’; he has done excellent in television but I would urge you to watch those four films I mentioned. They are all excellent in one form or another.

‘Mirai’ was one of the films I was most anticipating for this year, though I wasn’t entirely certain it was going to play in the UK, or at least not to a general audience. It did play at the London Film Festival which I was unable to attend this year, as well as the festival Scotland Loves Anime, for which the line-up was so good I’m actually considering going to check it out next year. Yeah, that would be worth a trip to Scotland.

Mamoru Hosoda has often been compared to Hayao Miyazaki, but his work has never quite hit the same in critical and financial capacity that Miyazaki has managed. That’s not to say that he hasn’t achieved a lot of success. Much like Miyazaki, he has managed to break out and form his own studio, in this case Studio Chizu, though they still affiliate with Madhouse who largely finance the movies.

This latest film is another excellent one up to its standard. The film is a rather interesting one. The story is about Kun-Chan, a little boy who finds out he’s going to be a big brother and his parents arrive home with his new baby sister, Mirai. However, being a typical toddler, he is obviously not too happy with her and the attention she is getting from his parents. He later begins to realise that when he is going into the garden he seems to be going into time warps, which means he is meeting a version of his sister from the future and the film then goes into a series of mis-adventures.

The film’s marketing is promoting the idea that it’s just him meeting his little sister from the future, however the time travel aspect means he comes into contact with various other family members from various times, including his mother when she was his age, his great grandfather, as well as a human version of the family dog who is played by Crispin Freeman, who is one of my favourite dub Anime actors.

Unlike other Hosoda works which have had a flowing narrative, this one is much more episodic. Kun goes through something then goes off in a strop, has an experience and then things get a little bit better. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. After about the third time, it actually starts to become a bit tedious and that’s a weird thing to be saying about a Hosoda production. Say what you like about the man, but his films are never boring. And this is certainly the case with ‘Mirai’. This is not a boring film, it’s just not as fulfilling, for lack of a better term, as you would get from some of his other films. Hosoda has certainly used family as a running narrative for most of his films, with the few exceptions of ‘The Girl Who Leapt Through Time’ as well as parts of the ‘Digimon’ movie he directed, but even there you’ve got a sense of that. In fact, family being a big part of the parts in ‘Digimon’ he contributed to. This one involves similar themes to the other ones but whilst it is still a repeated theme, it’s a little but different this time; it’s one thing in a different dynamic. Whereas the other films did different sorts of bonds, such as the case of ‘The Boy and the Beast’ which was about fathers and sons, and in ‘Summer Wars’ it was about your first time meeting the in-laws (which just happened to coincide with an apocalyptic cyber virus that threatens to destroy all of humanity by hacking into nuclear weapons- it’s Anime – it’s weird as shit), this one is about becoming a new sibling.

Let’s talk about the positives of this film. Kun is a realistic little boy for his age. He gets into stupid fights, he has tantrums, he doesn’t pick up his toys properly. He is basically an average little kid. Now this is good as most films will tend to have kids be way mature beyond their years or be really damn annoying for the most stupid of reasons. At least when Kun is annoying he’s annoying in the way a normal kid would be, so it’s slightly forgivable.

Here’s the other factor: the paranormal elements, when introduced, all look brilliant. This is once again Hosoda’s signature style and it looks like he brought a lot of his left over ideas to the piece. The animation is very recognisable if you’re familiar with his previous works and he does another excellent job here. In fact, a lot of the 3D animation is excellent and compliments the 2D animation pretty well, bringing up memories of his brilliant ‘Summer Wars’ production.

Okay, that’s all the real positives.

Now, the rest of the movie does try to bring out a large cast of characters, but it feels rather blank. ‘Mirai’, as a result, feels like a very short film and it is quite short; it is one of Hosoda’s shortest films to date. It comes in at a total of an hour and thirty eight minutes. Granted, it is the exact same length as ‘The Girl Who Went Through Time’ but his other films all came in at just under two hours. Even though it has the same time as ‘The Girl Who Went Through Time’, that at least felt longer. I think the film’s structuring really doesn’t help this. It also doesn’t help that Kun really doesn’t completely develop as much as you’d like. I know it’s probably to add a sense of realism but he’s just not as compelling a character as other protagonists in Hosoda productions. Now, he’s not a terrible lead but your tolerance levels with toddlers will dictate your enjoyment of the film.

The side cast is also remarkably thin. One of my favourites was actually Kun’s great great grandfather, who’s in the film for a small portion of it and probably leaves the most lasting impression but the rest of the side characters feel rather vaguely defined. Now, I saw the film in the English language dub – don’t have a go at me all you ‘subtitles only people’ – I didn’t have the opportunity to see this film in Liverpool in its original Japanese with subtitles: they are only playing the English language dub. Like the other Hosoda productions, the film’s been licenced by Funimation, which is affiliated with all the Anime over here. And, as usual, Funimation brings in a lot of its usual voice cast, including the previously mentioned Crispin Freeman, who’ll be the most stand out actor for the people who regularly watch dubbed Anime since he has one of those very distinctive voices that he never changes between roles. The fact that he’s putting on his voice, usually reserved for very serious tones, adds to the sense of comedy since he plays the human spirit version of the family dog. But the thing that I found most surprising was the inclusion of celebrity voices this time round, which is normally reserved for a Ghibli production. The father in the production is played by John Cho, who I talked about in the previously reviewed ‘Searching’ but if you don’t remember that, he’s Harrold from ‘Harrold and Kumar’ and he currently plays Sulu in the ‘Star Trek’ films, and the mother is played by Rebecca Hall, who you might recognise from films like ‘The Town’ and she was also in the film ‘The BFG’. The casting is actually one of the more interesting ones since they don’t add as much as you’d expect. In fact, Cho’s performance is very underplayed, though Rebecca Hall does an excellent job in her role. In fact, Cho’s casting is one of the few times I can actually think that an Asian-American actor has been hired for the English language version of an Anime. There you go, figure. Kind of ironic when you think about it.

If you’re stuck with the dub version, you’re not getting a collection of bad performances. In fact, they do do a very good job with the material they’re given. The lip syncing doesn’t match up entirely, which is rather strange given that it’s a Funimation localisation and they’re normally very good at that and if you regularly watch dubs by Funimation you will recognise a few of the voices in here. I’m probably making it sound like ‘Mirai’ is a film I didn’t like but I wouldn’t say I didn’t like it. It was a good movie: it certainly has its good points but this is one of the most underwhelming films from this studio so far. It’s definitely Hosoda’s weakest film since the ‘Digimon’ movie but I wouldn’t hold that against him since that film had the problem of studio interference when Studio Fox licenced it (more on that in my book – #shameless plug). ‘Mirai’ is a nice relaxing watch. It has a good family feel and a good family message and I kind of like the fact Hosoda tried to make a decent down to earth film, which he hasn’t done for quite some time and he does a decent job of it here. It’s just I don’t think Hosoda is as good at doing that as his rather more narratively driven plots and the film feels like a serious downgrade after ‘The Boy and the Beast’, which was a film I seriously enjoyed.

I would urge you to give ‘Mirai’ a go but I would say if you haven’t seen Hosoda’s films, this might be the one to start on cause if you see this after you’ve seen all of those other films you might not get as much enjoyment out of it like I did. Once again, I wanna stress that this film is not a disaster. Far from it. Parts of it are genuinely good and the last third is probably the best part of the film but whereas the other Hosoda films had finales that felt like they were earnt, this one felt like it was just there. Overall, a mixed bag I’d say.

“Deep joy”, he says sarcastically. I’m reviewing ‘The Grinch’.

“BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY”

Bohemian Rhapsody hasn’t been without its controversy. The first factor of this was this film’s gone between directors through the space of filming. The film was originally held by X-Men director Bryan Singer who left the project half way through to be taken over by Dexter Fletcher of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels fame.

Then the films trailer came out and fans complained that the trailer implied they were not going to concentrate enough on Freddie Mercury’s sexuality or his eventual AIDs diagnosis which would take his life. The fact of the matter is though, the film was still highly anticipated, the marketing for this film has been all over the place and the talks that this will lead to an Oscar nomination were being speculated prior to the film’s release. Before they make those speculations however, I think they should see the film.

Bohemian Rhapsody is the story of Freddie Mercury at the end of the day, he gets most of the focus outside the other band members. The film starts in a genius way with a glimpse into the iconic Live Aid performance they did in the 80’s. The film then flashes back to show the rides of their career, through the various stages of their life as well as Freddie Mercury’s self-destructive lifestyle. But the film also focuses quite heavily on his relationship with his first fiancée Mary Austin, played by Lucy Boynton.

Okay, here’s the fact of the matter, this is a film I describe as being very weird and rather unfocused, it’s very clear that this film’s had a change of director because it feels like two directions that are constantly in conflict with one another. If you are very familiar with Queens history, this film doesn’t really do anything you wouldn’t expect and it’s not exactly enlightening. I suspect the fact the relationship between Freddie and Lucy being played out over many of Freddie’s gay relationships is going to cause some controversy. Though the second half of the film definitely focuses on it a lot more.

The film is also bizarre in another sense. It seems like the music almost comes second. The film keeps going on about Freddie Mercury being this absolute legend of music, which he damn well was, but then in the second half of the film the music almost feels secondary about him. This is where the focus issue really comes into play. There’s a lot of points which seem rather dropped and there’s not much time to show transition. For example, Freddie Mercury’s family is actually rather brushed aside. They appear very briefly at the beginning of the film, then disappear for much of the middle act before turning up at the end of the film.

Much of the writing behind the music is also on and off. As you expect certain songs get more focus than others. The recording of the album Night at the Opera which featured Bohemian Rhapsody and many other of their great songs and is widely considered their best album, gets the majority of the focus. But there’s also a bit of a look into the process of songs like: We will Rock you as well as Another one bites the dust. The use of the song is actually one of the few times they fit the song in with the state of Freddie Mercury at the time. The best way to describe this is the film feels like a dramatized documentary from a book you’ve already read and that’s pretty much how I would go with it.

The film is rather interesting at points, it has some good moments, dives into some of Freddie Mercury’s performances pretty well, and damn the music performances do a good job.

I’ve not actually looked too much into the film for time constraints, but I’m assuming that he’s had dubbed over Freddie Mercury bits, including for live performance because frankly it would be damn near impossible. I’ve heard tribute acts that don’t come close to Freddie Mercury’s range.

In fact, one of the best moments of the film is the actual recreation of the Live Aid performance which is done almost to its entirety. But that being said, that is the best bit of the film. Something that I could go on YouTube and watch, or pick up a DVD from HMV. It was probably the biggest concert in the world, and it was a big deal for reasons that I won’t go into too much considering I wouldn’t mind people going to see this film but that does stand at reason, that’s one of the best parts of the film and that’s not a good selling point.

The film can also show some good heart and emotion but it can also feel a bit manufactured. By most biopics I’m definitely sure it’s going to receive a lot of “well that didn’t actually happen” comments, not realising this is actually meant to be a dramatization not a factual documentary, contrary to my previous statement.

The cast also has an interesting mix. You’ve got performances from guys like Aiden Gillen as John Reid, Tom Hollander as Jim Beach. Lucy Boynton does a pretty good job as Mary Austin. As well as an interesting performance from Aaron McCusker a Jim Hutton. One of the interesting ones for me was Mike Myers playing record producer, Ray Foster, I’m just glad to know that he’s still working. Gwilym Lee really embodies Brian May pretty damn well. The guy they got to play Bob Geldof really embodies him quite well, including the famous “send us your money bit” which has obviously been toned down from what has actually been said.

If there’s another film I can take props too it’s the cinematography which is excellent. I am amazed at how well they got it right. That’s just one of many points. The period accuracy is pretty damn good. There was clearly a lot of effort made with the authenticity of this, and it had clearly been written and made by people who really like Queens music. At the end of the day, it’s kind of all good intentions.

Bohemian Rhapsody at the end of the day is a film made with good intentions, but I get a sense of that it’s a film trying to please everyone, and not quite succeeding. Rami Malek’s performance alone raises this film much more that it would have been handled with a lesser actor and the actual music performances are damn excellent.

The film however does not give an extra insight. I think people that are interested in Freddie Mercury’s private life and his sexuality will not be entirely impressed by the film. People interested in Queens music will probably come off even more disappointed.

I commend Dexter Fletcher for taking over the project half way through and doing it to the best of his ability, but this does feel like a film that’s been fixed in post.

Well that’s Bohemian Rhapsody down. Next week I’ve decided to review the latest film from one of my favourite directors. Which if you’re reading this on day of release, it’s out today and will be repeated in cinemas on Sunday and this will be your last chance to see this film before it comes out fully on DVD and Blu-Ray. I would really recommend seeing it in cinemas. It’s Mirai.

“HALLOWEEN (2018)”

Halloween (1978) is one of my favourite films. I am a huge fan of the original film, which not only started the slasher genre but also set the template for how all these films were going to appear in the future, you have to really give credit. It’s also directed by one of my top 10 favourite directors of all time, John Carpenter, who also directed my favourite horror film, The Thing.

Now normally I talk about very long running franchises with tonnes of sequels, now believe me Halloween has had tonnes of sequels, its normally where I say the other films are not that great but Halloween is actually one of the few exceptions to that rule. Well none of the films have been too amazing, they’re not exactly what I would call exceptional, but they’re very passable films which do a very decent job. There are only 4 appalling films out of the now 11 films. Those films being: Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers, Halloween Resurrection and the two appalling Rob Zombie reboots which failed miserably, mainly because they gave Michael Myers too much of a back story. This is something that would not go away with the Slasher genre.

Rob Zombie had actually battled for several years to try and make a third Halloween film, even trying to incorporate 3D into the mix. After his last two efforts receiving such appalling reviews and not doing well at the Box Office, so he was denied that.

Halloween seemed to be one of the few Slasher franchises that hasn’t really been seen for most of the decade. This joins such other franchises such as Nightmare on Elm Street which hasn’t been seen since 2010, Friday the 13th which is constantly being listed as being in development despite the fact we haven’t seen a single film since 2009 and the closest which is probably Texas Chainsaw Massacre which did see a 3D film come out in 2013, but has since been entirely absent due to that film making a tonne of money in opening weekend and then bombing hard the next week.

Unlike many of these films, John Carpenter is involved in the production this time, although he’s only there as an Executive Producer. The film has been directed and co-written by David Gordon Green, a Director I was not that familiar with prior to this film. He has mostly done television work for series like Red Oaks, but he also directed Pineapple Express, which is probably his most high profile job up until this point. He has also co-written the script along with Danny McBride who is a name that you probably would recognise and realise who he is if you look at his IMDB page and Jeff Fradley who has also worked with Green on Vice Principles.
This film boasted to be a back to basics. The question is really, how did it all pan out? If you’re going to this film not wondering exactly how the timeline works, here is the basic gist of it. This is rather like H2o which was the 20th anniversary of Halloween, this one is another 20 years later, this is the 40th anniversary of the original film and has erased all sequels, thank fully Rob Zombies film, positioning this as a direct sequel. If anyone’s questioning it, because I was when I went into it, you establish Halloween 2 hasn’t happened, though it does create the question of how Michael got caught after that film ended but really by this point just go with it.

Being set 40 years after the events of that film, a couple of bloggers come by to the institute that is housing Michael Myers, trying to get answers out of him, the man hasn’t spoken in the 40 years he’s been imprisoned. They then present him with the mask which drives him nuts, and he quietly contemplates an escape.

Meanwhile Laurie Strode, played once again by Jamie Lee Curtis, has been preparing for him coming out, fortifying her house, developing several defence measures and buying several guns. This is much to the detriment of her daughter Karen, played by Judy Greer, as well as her granddaughter Allyson, played by Andi Matichak. Now Michael is back on another killing spree, and despite it being 4 years later he doesn’t appear to be any less brutal than before.

There’s a lot of positives to Halloween, but let’s get a few negatives out the way. While this film does make some quite clever throwbacks to the original film, there’s far too many of them. I was actually enjoying them initially and thought it was quite a decent call back to the original film, but you get to a stage when you’re thinking they’ve done too many. I’m kind of staggered by some of the plot twists in this film. There is one plot twist around half way through the film that I easily could have seen coming. By cutting out Halloween 2 they also establish that Laurie is not Michaels little sister who he failed to kill on the night when he was a little boy. So, his pursuit of Laurie in this film doesn’t make as much sense. They try to go with this angle that it’s a hunter pursuing his pray and this has been his obsession for years, but really, why? The extra motivation might have added to it. I suppose they didn’t want this film to be too much like H2o considering how much its borrowing from that film, but it does kind of stand out a bit.

Okay, let’s get down to the good points. It is certainly a much better film that the other sequels and remakes. Halloween 2018 knows exactly what it wants to be. It’s a back to basics Despite the fact we have this image in our head of Michael killing tonnes and tonnes of people, he doesn’t actually kill that many. In fact, I think he only killed about 5 people in the first Halloween.
Props to whoever did the cinematography, there is some excellent one take panning shots, which allows us to see in the mind of Michael Myers as he stalks people and there is a variety of victims. A lot of scenes in the film know how to build tension and its one of the few horror films that uses darkness to its advantage, rather than to cover up the cheapness of the film, kind of ironic considering how much of a budget the original Halloween was under.

You do have to wonder though, how Michael Myers is this agile, considering he must be in his late 60’s within the films timeline, seeing as the original film takes place in 1978. The actor they got to play Michael Myers is quite interesting. We never see his face, which does mask the age demographic and he is a decently imposing figure. There is a bit of an obsession with people trying to get him to talk, which might not have been intentional, but is a massive screw you to Rob Zombie for when he got Michael to talk in Halloween 2. Yeah, I’m still bitter about that.

At the centre is Jamie Lee Curtis who is once again excellent in these films. Every time she comes back she seems to prove how much she really cares about the character, this is no exception really adding extra dimension to Laurie as this damaged sole that’s been desperately preparing for another showdown. The film builds to the showdown really well. One of the things not given enough credit though is Judy Greer’s excellent performance as Laurie’s daughter, Karen. As well as the performance from Andi Matichak an up and coming actress, who played Meadow in Orange Is the New Black. The performances in this film are actually all pretty good, including Will Patton, Haluk Bilginer and also some of the miner performances. There are a tonne of excellent character actors and people that appeared in smaller roles prior to this, giving them a real chance to shine.

The biggest praise I can give to this film is that its rated 18, YES! Thank god! I am so sick of horror films being rated 15 and 12 and being toned down to get a teen demographic on half terms and weekends. This is a full out proper horror film as a result they can go everywhere with the gore and violence and they do it to its full degree.

Some of these effects are actually pretty brutal, props to the special effects department for doing this. It also really adds a tone of suburban feel on Halloween night, which adds to a sense of realism which has been missing from the series quite a bit. It almost feels like this film really does once again examine its idea of what if a Slasher villain actually took place in the real world. If you notice something a lot of these Slasher films are in very isolated areas, which adds to the sense of helplessness. By doing it in a suburban area, which feels like a rather safe environment, they add an extra dimension of real terror, by making the whole thing feel very real.

With that being said I suspect there is a few scenes which have been cut a bit. I noticed a couple of characters that seemed to just vanish from the film and a couple of them seemed as though they were being set up for kills. A couple of really jackass things just disappeared from the film. There are also a few characters jumping from locations at a whim, which makes me think again a couple of scenes were cut for time. I’m not saying these scenes were necessary, there were a couple of them that should have been, especially considering we probably missed out on a couple of kills as a result.

Halloween 2018 is not a great Slasher film, but it is a really great back to basics film, and I’m hoping any success it has in the box office will lead to other franchises like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street to do the same.

The film has excellent cinematography, excellent writing and I’m really quite happy with the way it turned out. It does have issues of feeling like your treading water and it doesn’t really push the franchise any further, but at this stage I fell it is perfectly fine and serviceable. Maybe my bar of judgement has been lowered a bit, thanks to the Rob Zombie re-films, but really, I’m not to bothered and I give excellent props to the performances of Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer and Andi Matichak in particular. Yeah, some of the characters are a bit too broad and over the top, but really it’s a Slasher film based on a franchise going back to the 70’s what more do you want.

Honestly this has been one of the best horror films of the year, just by simply not sucking in anyway. That is unfortunately the last horror film I’m going to see in October, since studios don’t seem to think it’s a good idea to release tonnes of horror films around Halloween anymore. So next week I am going to review the Bio-pic about Freddie Mercury which has been in development, its Bohemian Rhapsody.

“FIRST MAN”

First Man is the first bio pic to detail the life and career of Neil Armstrong, who famously was the first man to walk on the surface of the moon.

It comes to us from director Damien Chazelle who I’ve previously talked about on this site. He is an Oscar nominated director, though his previous nominations where for his written screen plays, Whiplash and the previously reviewed La La Land, which was the only film where he also received a directors nomination which he won. Clearly unsatisfied with only one Oscar he’s gone for this film, which to be fair is a very ambitious project for him. Granted La La Land was a big production, but not to the scale First Man is attempting. Unlike La La Land and Whiplash, Damien Chazelle has not written the screenplay, that has been handled by Josh Singer, who has written some screenplays for Law and Order, The West Wing as well as The Fifth Estate and the previously reviewed Spotlight and The Post. Spotlight of course being the film that gained him his Oscar. So here we have two Oscar winners trying to create a story that most of us already know.

I thought recently about what made the film Apollo 13 work. It was basically just by showing how much danger they were in, which creates jeopardy to a story we already know. The First Man has a similar issue, you do know what’s going to happen. Neil Armstrong becomes the first man on the moon, and it’s a big triumph for America in the height of the Cold War.

There’s two ways in which Damien Chazelle tries to make this film work. The first is that he tries to show just how important this was. One of the early lines is that the Soviet Union had practically beaten America to virtually every major space accomplishment. The Americans have achieved much but they had to succeed in one way. It also shows the incredible amount of time and effort that took place. The film actually begins in 1962 and tells the story over a seven year period to the famous mission. The second is, it tries to put you front and centre to the missions. It shows man y of the early tests that Neil Armstrong was involved in and it also makes you feel like you’re there in person. It just shows how much of a gamble it truly was, some of this stuff is dangerous by todays standards. You’ve got to imagine how injurious it would have been back in the 60’s.

The film also does that usual bio pic thing of trying to get into the subject that we know. Mainly in this case in. one of the early parts of the film it is about Neil Armstrong’s bereavement in early life, having lost his young daughter to cancer, and how the grief affected him in multiple ways. It also talks about the relationship with his wife Janet, played by Claire Foy. Now I’m not incredibly knowledgeable on the historical accuracy of a lot of these events. The film itself was based on a book by James R Hansen, but from what I’ve researched into it, doesn’t look like they’ve embellished too much on the storyline and it does pain t a picture of basically a man trying to find his place and find some purpose, even if that is at the sacrifice of himself.

Ryan Gosling is put in the role of Neil Armstrong and he once again sells the part very well. I actually thought his casting was a bit of a weird choice, considering that if you’ve seen a Ryan Gosling film, he really doesn’t look much like Neil Armstrong. But fair play to the make-up and hair department they did an excellent job at making him look like him. Ryan is clearly putting his best into the role and this is probably his best performance since Blade Runner 2049.

Now I suspect some people will say this is an inaccurate film in one way or another, but as a biopic it does a pretty decent job. The film has drummed some controversy though, for stupid reasons, some people were annoyed that it didn’t show Neil Armstrong erecting the American flag on the moon, which seems rather odd considering that they clearly judged this film before they saw it, this is one of the most American patriotic films I have seen in a while. There are several scenes with the American flag in the film, including a scene where a child raises a flag.

Controversy aside the characters are all pretty damn decent. Including an excellent performance from Claire Foy, who I am fairly certain will be getting her first Oscar nomination for this film. Other great performances include Kyle Chandler but of particular note is Jason Clarke who really sold the role as Edward Higgins White, considering I’ve not been a fan of a lot of the films he’s been in, I’m actually really routing for him to get a best supporting actor nomination off the back of this film.

Mind you, not everyone is so happy. I like Corey Stroll as much as the next man and he delivers a good performance in this film, though I suspect the real Buzz Aldrin won’t be pleased with the way he’s written in this film, considering he has quite a lot of moments where he acts like a jackass and I am certainly someone who doesn’t think of Buzz Aldrin in that sense, mind you I don’t know what’s going on in the process of writing this film, maybe something got lost in cross wires.

If there is one thing were first man really succeeds though is the set designs, cinematography and the effects. The effects in particular are amazing. The film starts out with an excellent test flight sequence and it only gets better from there. The film really throws you into the first person. This film has a lot of shaky cam but it understands exactly why you should use it, because the film uses shaky cam properly. It is used to emphasise danger and unease, as well as really putting you in the front and centre with some of the more risky operations. This makes a nice breath of change, where shaky cam is often used to cover up poor choreography in action films. The authenticity of the films historic character is amazing. I’ve already mentioned how great the cinematography is but just how much effort was put into recreating some of the stuff that was used at the time is damn brilliant. This film really should be up for a lot of the technical categories come Oscar season.

Sadly, First Man is not a perfect film. This film is 2 hours and 21 minutes long, and it really has no right to be. I reckon you could have cut 20 minutes of this film and it wouldn’t have felt worst off. This is definitely an example of a story that out stays its welcome. Though unlike many films where this could ruin it, if this film was a person I would have been a bit annoyed that they stayed too long, but where our first half of the conversation was actually alright, I wouldn’t mind inviting them back. The film also suffers from a few pacing issues as well. While I appreciated there was minimal dialogue at a lot of points in this film, I think it might be a bit of a deal breaker for some people. I noticed a pair of people did walk out of the cinema before the end of it. Like I said though, the lack of dialogue for me is a positive since a lot of this film is told through simple expressiveness.

One thing though, I am kind of worried about with this film is the fact that there is a lot of points of this film which feel a little bit like they didn’t need to be there. Just a couple of points where I said, “I reckon I might have cut that” or “I’m not sure that really lead to much”.

First Man I reckon is a film that’s going to divide people. I actually think it’s a pretty good film. It is a little too long and has a few points that don’t entirely work, but as a whole it’s an interesting look into the life of Neil Armstrong. Special props to the performances of Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy and Jason Clarke. This film also has some of the best cinematography and effects I have seen all year. It’s a film that was actually rather surprising in a sense, but in another was also quite predictable. I’ve seen quite a few biopics like this and you really can get the feel that this film is aimed at the awards season.

If you haven’t seen First Man yet I really recommend seeing it in cinemas since I think it will play best on a big screen.

Well that’s it for another film, next week I look at a film that more than likely won’t get any Oscar nominations, but it is the follow up to one of my all-time favourite horror films it’s Halloween, directed by David Gordon Green.

“VENOM”

Venom is a project that has been around for quite a while. He is one of the most popular villains in Spiderman’s books. I’ve always kind of liked Venom as a villain mainly because he was kind of this interesting alter Spiderman. He knew everything about him and how to counter him, and of course there’s been a lot of mystery built up ever since its first appearance in the Marvel Event comic, Secret Wars.

Plans for the movie had been around for quite a while, in fact there’s been quite a few scripts thrown around. Sony at one point was planning to start their own sort of Spiderman universe to rival that of the Marvel cinematic universe, with other plans to create films such as Sinister 6 which never got off the ground and Marvel essentially got Spiderman back. However, Sony still had some rights to some of Spiderman’s stable of characters and kept pushing ahead with this idea of a Venom movie, which made no real sense in my opinion.

The director they finally settled on is Ruben Fleischer, who is a decent director having directed films such as Gangster Squad, but most notably he directed the 2009 film Zombie Land, which I actually really enjoyed. Sadly however, Ruben Fleischer hasn’t really saved this film. I know I’m jumping the gun a bit and I saw this film on the Saturday after it came out I wasn’t immune to the word of mouth of the film, but I did go in the film with as much of an open mind as I could.

The film is kind of what you would expect. A spaceship crashes into earth carrying alien life forms, for the life organisation led by Carlton Drake, played by Riz Ahmed, who is apparently up to some shady business, our obvious bad guy. He is currently being investigated by journalist Eddie Brock, played by Tom Hardy, who after Drake puts in permissions to ruin his life, goes about it in the best way possible by carrying on investigating him after a few benders, which leads to him becoming infected by one of the symbiote suits, which means he now has dual personality with the alien being Venom, now he’s trying to avoid being killed by Drakes men and also trying to keep Venom under control.

I have no real enthusiasm to talk about this film, I’ve heard people give this film a bit of a pass but personally I really despise it. This is something I’ve had a problem with for a while, the idea of turning Venom into an anti-hero. It just doesn’t work. Even with the current Marvel books it hasn’t really worked. Marvel has constantly tried to turn Venom into an anti-hero, but I’ve never been a fan of the idea, I just don’t buy it. Venom at the end of the day is well and truly a villain. I don’t like this idea of the popular villain gets their own sort of book where they’re the focus. Marvel does it all the time. If you think I’m just going to bash Marvel, DC can be even worse about this, dedicating one of their event comics to villains for crying out loud!

Then if you’re expecting accuracy to the comics, well you’re not going to get much of it here, this is really not the version of Eddie Brock that was in the comics. To put it simply Eddie Brock most incarnations is not really a nice guy. In fact, if anything he’s every jock bully that just happens to have been given super powers. In comic storylines, the irony of it is that he basically does cause his own downfall and does become Venom pretty much out of choice. Whereas in this film he is sort of forced into the role and I don’t think that works as well. They also kind of go for the duel body Jekyll and Hyde idea with Venom in this. Which again I think detracts from this. I might be reading this wrong, but in the comics, Venom just brought out the worst side. Since Eddie Brock wasn’t that great of a guy to start with, the idea of him having a symbiote suit to bring out the worst side of him makes him even worse. In this film since he’s a pretty nice guy it doesn’t feel very genuine. In. fact Tom Hardy plays this character where he flip flops constantly and you’re never able to get a grip on the character whatsoever. There was actually one scene where he was very horrified with the symbiote, then he’s suddenly really into it, there is no real internal debate about it. Sort of like Spiderman 3, at least there was kind of a progression around the suit, it wasn’t good progression and lead to that awful emo Peter Parker scene but damn it was just weird.

If there is one thing I can see about this film it’s that it clearly had producers trying to fix it in post. Now the film does come in at a run time of 1 hour and 52 minutes but I was in disbelief by this! it felt like the film only went on for an hour and a half. The film is so devoid of progression, it feels like its missing a middle act. This is a very long first act and a final act, as a result there is so many plot threads dropped. There is actually quite a few symbiote suits that are in the film but only two of them make full appearances. One is teased but is then just dropped part way through the film. Several sub-plots and side characters have story lines that go absolutely nowhere and it’s very clear form that and Tom Hardy’s statement that this film was pretty much gutted in the editing suite.

For a film that they claim to be dark, this film sure has a tonne of light moments. This film is way to jokey to be a dark movie. They keep trying to do this whole darker, edgy side to it but then also try to be snarkier like the Marvel cinematic universe films. It fails miserably. The times this film tries to be edgy it basically sounds like one of those pretentious kids that you meet in school, you know that whole ‘I’m doing this because it makes me look bad’ idea. Where we then go, ‘No you’re not, you’re incredibly tame, you wouldn’t even know the meaning of the word edgy’. That’s this film in a nutshell.

The script in this film is appalling. If you’re going for humour I barely laughed during this film and the performances do not help this script. Tom Hardy’s alright, but I think that’s because he is Tom Hardy and he can seem to act his way out of any bad role he is in most of the time. Then you have Michelle Williams who seems bored out of her mind throughout the entire film. Riz Ahmed plays one of the most appalling one note villains in recent memory. Woody Harrelson has a cameo that teases the audience for something in the future, god help us. Reid Scott is another actor who feels wasted again. The whole thing is just weird.

Now the special effects vary from piece to piece, some of them are quite good but some of them look incredibly awful and outdated. It doesn’t help that this films cinematography is the worst! It is shockingly bad! In a bunch of the action scenes I had no idea what was happening, and some of them were damn painful to watch. Not to mention this film is shot in way to dark conditions. It gives Fantastic Four a run for its money, god help you if you try and watch this film in. 3D. I’m glad I went to this in 2D otherwise if it was in 3D I would barely be able to see the movie. Not to mention the action scenes are really dull, they try to use a symbiote suit to the best of their ability, but again because we can barely see anything it doesn’t really work. For a film that borrows so much from the Marvel cinematic universe you would think they would have borrowed some of that great choreography.

Venom is a prime example of a bad idea that should have been squashed a lot sooner than it did. This film’s been given a pass by way too many people and it really doesn’t deserve it. This is one of the dullest comic films I’ve seen in recent memory. It’s so all over the place I have no idea what to make of it. The film makers clearly try to fix it in post. It might not be as bad as some of the film makers made it out to be, but at the same time it is absolutely nowhere near as competent as some critics have made it out to be.

It is a film that I would really not want to see again and it’s further proof that this character will not work outside in its own film, but because of its box office taking the likely of a sequel seems there. God help us!

Well that’s it from me for another week and I’m hoping for better things, so next week I’m going to look into Oscar nominated director Damien Chazelle’s latest bio pic into the life of Neil Armstrong with First Man.

“THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN”

It’s a tradition round here that I review all the DC animated films that come out every year and for the fourth year in a row I decided to finish off that selection. This year has been a rather mixed bag with my reviews of Batman: Gotham and Suicide Squad: hell to pay being prime examples of this.

The Death of Superman is essentially what you expect. It’s a build up to and the combination of Superman’s climatic battle with Doomsday, there’s really no reason to go into too much of a plot synopsis. The only difference is this time the Justice League is more incorporated into the storyline, which initially to me seemed like a bad decision since I expected it would be like The Throne of Atlantis movie where they took what was essentially an aqua man story and had the Justice League sort of turn up and be well kind of in the way. The thing is, this time they actually get this idea right. This is essentially a Superman story. It is mainly about him deciding whether or not he’s going to reveal his identity to Lois Lane, does he fear bringing her into the mix. This film does what Man of Steel and Batman v Superman failed to do, it gives Superman humanity. The one thing Zac Sneider has never got about Superman is the fact that he’s very human as a concept. In this film we definitely see much of it, we see a conversation with his parents, his relationship with Lois, and even in the sense of just the people he meets on the street. There is an old sailor that’s in the film who becomes a minor supporting character who is just a fan of Superman, but he plays a bigger role later in the film to truly advertise what effect Superman has on the community. The film also adds Lex Luthor to the mix, who once again, this time they get it right. While his character is a bit whiney they do show what a cold and devious character he truly is. Unfortunately, he is not played by Steve Bloom anymore and this time is voiced by Rainn Wilson who played Dwight in the American version of The Office, and is horribly miss cast. No offence to Rainn Wilson he’s a genuinely good actor and I have really enjoyed him in several films but he does not have the right voice, despite the fact he has a very good script, he does not have the right voice to pull it off, and it’s a shame because Rainn is really trying his hardest in this role.

I definitely cannot say the same for Superman, now that he’s finally given the good reigns to work with he really pulls it off. Superman in this movie is very much the character we deserve, Jerry O’Conner really brings a tonne to it. This is also backed up by Rebecca Romijn as Lois Lane who once again does a really good job with the character. This is also backed up by several minor roles from the other characters, with Rosario Dawson once again reprising her role as Wonder Woman, and they actually kind of got Wonder Woman’s character right for once and holy crap, it’s good to have a good Wonder Woman back in the universe.

Christopher Gorham is The Flash, Matt Lanter again as Aquaman and Jason O’Mara is still really good as Batman as well as perfect casting with Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern. There is a lot here to really like. Here’s the thing, there’s a tonne of characters in this one and admittedly a bunch of them are kind of wasted.

Going into this you know there is only going to be so many outcomes with this film, so how do you do a well-known storyline with a well-known outcome and do it well. I actually watched a recent Mitch Ben post on Solo a Star Wars film, which I would highly recommend watching since its really good, but he actually made a point on Apollo 13, trust me it does relate to the casting of Ron Howard as the director of that film, and in that he questioned how you do this type of idea of a jeopardy and in the case of Apollo 13, you have to just show how screwed they were. That’s where the jeopardy comes from. You know they’re going to make it out alive, but if you really want the attention just to show how bad it really was. This is what Death of Superman does really well. We see the Justice League go all out on Doomsday, who by the way has a much cooler design than his Batman V Superman counterpart. That’s the thing, that proves how necessary Superman is. They have to give it their all, and it’s still not good enough. That’s how you emphasise an action scene.

I asked myself the question of would I care this much of this version of Superman, considering he hasn’t been that defined in the other films. This continuity of the DC animated films has only been going on since Justice League War came out, all the way back in 2014. In that time, we haven’t had a single solo Superman film, he’s only been a character in the Justice League films. Even then, not a big part in some of those films, we got a very ill defined character, so this film has to find more about him and make us care about him. The film succeeds tremendously in that factor. I was wondering how the hell they managed to get it right this time compared to other films. Then I saw that Peter Tomasi was writing the script, the guy behind son of Superman, one of the best story lines to come out in years and pretty much revitalise that character all over again. Yeah, he writes the script for this. Once again, he does a fantastic job. I was kind of disappointed that he’s no longer writing Superman anymore which is a shame, but if it was to do this film, at least he done a damn good job. I’m kind of glad he’s coming back to do the script for the next part.

The action scenes are once again shot really well, and again put the shame the version done in Batman V Superman since that film does not do a good job, despite the fact it’s the same set up that this movie had.

The Death of Superman in a nutshell is the film I really wanted, I didn’t think it was going to work out really well. This has been one of the most surprising DC animated films for a few years and I’m really stoked that the DC anime films are getting good again.

The Death of Superman really stands out, and that’s saying a lot considering the calibre of superhero films this year, it gives me hope of the DC anime universe going into next year.

“THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS”

The House with a Clock in Its Walls is a film that took me off guard in several factors. I actually didn’t know it was coming out for one, and on the other hand it was also a film that surprised me when I found out more about it. This film was to be a family friendly film but it was directed by Eli Roth, if you’re aware of films you know those two wouldn’t necessarily go well together. In case you don’t know Eli Roth is a world-renowned horror director, having directed the 2002 version of Cabin Fever, as well as Hostel which helped bring in the torture porn genre along with its sequel, a segment for Inglorious Bastards and lastly Knock, Knock. Now in recent memory he has started to move away from that. This year alone he directed the death wish remake starring Bruce Willis which I haven’t seen ye but have heard mixed reports on. So needless to say, this seemed like a really weird decision director wise, especially considering working with Jack Black who is a family orientated actor.

The film is based on a book from the 1970’s with the same name, by John Bellairs which hasn’t received an adaptation until now, probably because of the high concept of the idea, would mean that special effects would have to cover long before it could have been done. I suspect Universal Studios who are distributing the film, were trying to bank on the nostalgia craze set by Stranger Things, a little more on that later.

So how do I think it turned out… Let’s start with the plot. The House with a Clock in Its Walls is about a young boy named Lewis, played by Owen Vaccaro, having to move to a new town after his parents die in a freak accident, to live with his Uncle Jonathan, played by Jack Black, who has a crazy neighbour named Florence Zimmerman, played by Kate Blanchett. He soon discovers that his Uncle is in fact at a warlock and has to be taught in the art of witch craft. His Uncle kind of reluctantly accepts that as a way of bonding and he slowly begins to learn. However, it is becoming apparent that his Uncle is tormented by a clock that shows inement danger, has been placed in the walls by old friend Isaac, played by Kyle MacLachlan and they have to find the clock before it stops ticking.

Ok, I envy Eli Roth for trying something new, but this film is all over the place. The one thing I have commonly heard from people who have seen this film is they have no idea who this film is aimed at. I actually got a first hand example of this when I went to see the film. I saw the film at around midday on a Friday, so obviously there wasn’t too many younger kids at the screening, though there was a few in there for whatever reason. This was a film where they were kind of into it at first, and then it dropped off toward the end. This is because the second half of the film, took a much darker tone. Not full on dark, they would never get away with that but wow does this film get much darker in the second half. Which incidentally is where I thought the film actually improved.

The first half was just a very generic family film, you’ve seen it a hundred times, this sort of things been done before etc. You get the drift. There have been a million films like this. In fact, it very heavily reminded me of the recent Goosebumps film, not helped by the fact that Jack Black had a leading role in both films.

The second half of the film, where it takes the darker tone, things do improve since it goes a bit against type, but it still tries to maintain a bit of its family values. Clearly it doesn’t quite work for younger children, because I actually saw a few walk out of the cinema when I was there. I was actually a bit annoyed by this as I thought their parents were being right snowflakes and they are the reason why family films are so much less edgy than they used to be and children’s entertainment has become so sanitised. However, it does highlight a very decent point, which is that this film is clearly not succeeding in that regard.

So maybe this film is aimed at a bit of an older crowd such as pre-teens and younger teenagers, but I don’t think it works in that regard as they would be bored by the first half, which is much more childish. For example, there is a living lion hedge that has a gag about pooping leaves, yeah it’s just as crude as you think it is. I groaned every time that cat was on screen. The film also has many more gags like that, and its generally not a very funny film.

The real problem with the film is that it’s lacking in direction. There is a few sub plots that really don’t mean much by the end of the film, and the villains part is weird. I’m not joking, I really don’t get the villain, it’s another part of how dark this film got, but for a lack of a better term, he suffers from Final Fantasy villain. Anyone who has played the Final Fantasy video games will probably get that reference because the Final Fantasy villains from recent memory have all suffered the exact same god damn plan. This is particularly highlighted with the villain from Final Fantasy 10.

If I can say one thing it will be that the practical effects were actually quite good in this film, but, the digital effects are atrocious. This is a film where the effects feel very out of date and i’m not sure where the budget entirely went.

Jack Black is very good in his role and he has good chemistry with Owen Vaccaro. In fact, it kind of made me wish the whole film was about them, more slice of life story. Kate Blanchett is also pretty good in her role, she’s actually one of the best parts of the film. The less so can be said about some of the other actors.

As I said this film feels like it’s trying to capitalise the nostalgia craze set by Stranger Things, but I think that’s another part about the films confused tone, since the film is set in the 1950’s. While it does have some nostalgic elements, like some of the stalls that Lewis goes to the biggest throwback is to cereals such as Flash Gordon. Pulpy sci-fi is referenced in this film quite a bit.

Now I will say something positive about the film. Eli Roth is trying something different and he does put his own touch on the film. The problem is that only really comes out in the second part of the film, by then it, kind of lost me on at least one level. The first half of the film I really was saying, where’s Eli Roth’s personality. It’s an ambitious film for Eli Roth but it’s one that feels like it’s at the expense of its audience.

The film is too dark for younger children, but it’s not dark enough for their older siblings. The theme comes off as a bit of a generic mess. Jack Black, Kate Blanchett and Owen Vaccaro are all putting in good performances and their characters do at least have some dimension to them, but the script fails them constantly. The effects are tragic, the only thing more tragic is the humour which did not get me to laugh all that much.

This film is really a rental or if you ever see it on Netflix it might be worth a watch around Halloween, which is another thing that staggers me about this film. Its late September release means it won’t make the money it could have made if it had come out around Halloween time.

Well that’s it for another week. Next week I need to do some unfinished business. I’ve done two DC films this year so it’s time to do the last one since I make it a rule for myself every year. I’m reviewing The Death of Superman.

“THE PREDATOR”

The Predator is the latest in what should be a long line of movies, but The Predator franchise despite its pedigree of being one of the films that help put Arnold Schwarzenegger on the map has surprisingly had fewer entries than you really remember. The series had to entries back in the day, but they largely lagged for quite some time. This was largely due to a lot of rights disputes and getting things in place for the Alien vs Predator films, which as we now know from experience, were not very good movies. The franchise tried a revival in 2010 in a movie that had Adrian Brodie in the lead role, which didn’t really receive too good reviews when it came out, but I was actually a fan of it, though that being said it may have been due to the fact that after the Alien vs Predator films I was looking for just about anything with even a remote resemblance to the classic movies.

Talks of the new Predator films have been through the roof for years and rumours have been spreading for quite a while, it was however later confirmed that a Predator film was going to be productid and in the Director’s chair would be Shane Black, who is well known as a very incredible writer but also for directing in recent memory such as the films: Kiss kiss bang bang, Iron Man 3 and most recently The Nice Guys. I actually enjoyed all three of those movies. Shane Black was also an actor in the original Predator film. Despite the fact I had a lot of confidence in this film, it kind of dwindled when I saw the trailer which looked like it wouldn’t be taking me back to the basics of the Predator film I was hoping for. Never the less I went into the film with an open mind and well… Let’s discuss the film.

The Predator is actually quite confusing in its plot, it seems to act like maybe some of the film has happened, but at the same time it kind of has the sense that it doesn’t know which films have and haven’t happened and there is some sort of history there which we are unaware of. The film follows a Sniper named Quinn McKenna played by Boyd Holbrook who you may recognise from last year’s Logan. During a mission he comes across one of the Predator ships. He is taken in by a government agency lead by Nebraska Williams played by Trevante Rhodes and is placed on a bus of soldiers who have been deemed unfit for combat due to mental health issues. The soldiers include: Traeger played by Sterling K. Brown, Coyle played by Keegan-Michael Key, Baxley played by Thomas Jane, Lynch played by Alfie Allen and Nettles played by Augusto Aguilera. They are also joined by scientist Casey Bracket played by Olivia Munn. They soon realise that the evidence that Quinn had taken of the Predators appearance has now been mailed to his Autistic son Rory, played by Jacob Tremblay, since he couldn’t pay for his PO box and now the Predators are after him. I say the Predators but there is one Predator that has gone rogue for some reason and taken something the other predators want. Now there is a massive uber predator that is going after him, this is the one you see in the trailer.

Ok, here is the fact of the matter, the Predator should have been a very much back to basics film for the franchise. However, it falls down very quickly. See, here’s where the problem lies, I have no clue on what the Predators aspect of the plot is, there is a few things here and there but it is not really elaborated on. Any sort of horror elements this film had are half arsed.

The film phenomenally suffers from an identity crisis since it wants to be a straight up action film. There are tonnes of call backs but they all feel out of place, these include a couple of cringeworthy repeated lines from the original movie, which unless they are said by Arnold Schwarzenegger, they don’t work. What’s more is the film feels like a complete waste.

These actors are all really good, you’ve got a great comedic actor in Keegan-Michael Key who can elevate even the worst scripts that he is given. Sterling K. Brown is always great, Jacob Tremblay despite being in that god awful Smurf sequel, showed a tonne of promise when he was in Room and is actually one of the best performances in the film, who in several scenes can really nail the characteristics of an Autistic child and unlike last year’s Power Rangers they actually stick with that aspect of the character rather than drop it half way through the film. Thomas Jane was amazing in Firefly. That’s this film in a nutshell, it’s tonnes of wasted potential. The script is phenomenally awful, giving nowhere for these characters to go. I suspect there has been several scenes shot and this has been messed about with in editing.

The film is what I would describe as very much a been there, done that, but lost a lot of what it had before. The film at least tries to set up the characters but the position is very painfully obvious and the characters do still do a bunch of stupid stuff they really shouldn’t, that makes no sense whatsoever.

The action scenes are actually very interestingly shot for the most part, but once again there a tonne of plots that are set up, but are never really elaborated on. There is some explanation around the Predators deflection but it is not fully elaborated on, obviously setting up room for a possible sequel, that will probably never happen as I expect this film is going to tank in the box office.

Despite the fact this film does technically have an R rating, it’s not really fully exploited. This is certainly better than the Alien vs Predator films which were rated PG 13 which meant they couldn’t go all out with the gore factor, which was a big part of both franchises. Apart from a few scenes early on it doesn’t feel like they are really going all out with the gore, so much of it is done through digital effects, it’s not exactly what I would call believable. The Mortal Combat games look more realistic than this film.

If you had told me this was a Shane Black film after I had seen it, I would be surprised as there is not a lot of his usual style in this film. In fact, if anything, it feels like this film has been compromised by the studio. Studio interference has certainly ruined films in the past, and it would not surprise me if that had been involved here. What’s more, this film is just dull. It kind of has some funny moments here and there, but the film never really feels like it does its job too well.

Their picture of mental health is not exactly great if I’m honest. It’s not horribly offensive, but it’s borderline there, though I appreciate some of it is used to humanise the characters. Though that being said as I mentioned the character played by Jacob Tremblay is where they mostly get it right, although apparently super sophisticated alien technology that cannot be figured out by the US government’s top scientists, can be figured out by one Autistic child from Oregon, is a bit of a stretch. This plot is actually used later on and when it is, it’s really, really stupid. I believe this films appeal with an Autistic audience will vary from person to person.

The effects are alright, they certainly borrow a lot from the Alien vs Predator movies, which for all their faults, I do think the predator suits were well designed and some of the technology which was put into those films were done well. In this film some of it is carried over. Here’s a tip though, I went to see this film in 3D because of the timing that I went to see it, do NOT see this film in 3D, it is barely noticeable and because most of this film is shot in the dark some scenes are almost impossible to be able to see what’s going on. The darkening effect of the 3D glasses makes these scenes even darker. I keep telling people, 3D works best when there is plenty of light. HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I SAID THIS SINCE I TOOK THIS JOB ON! Even without the 3D darkening effect this film is to dark, like seriously, find an excuse and turn on a light.

The Predator is a prime example of missed potential. What could have been a back to basics for the franchise, ends up falling down miserably. Shane Blacks direction is either half arsed or has been compromised. It is a film that has cringeworthy gags, a terrible script, good cast that feels wasted in their roles and some of the plot points this film takes are incredibly stupid. There are tonnes of plot points that go absolutely nowhere and some that are non-existent.

In all honesty this film is just down right dull. It’s entertaining in parts and some of the action scenes are well done but as a whole this is a film that really doesn’t work. Although I wouldn’t say it’s as awful as some reviews have made it out to be. This isn’t a worst film of the year candidate but it’s a damn shame.

So that’s another week from me done, since I’ve got some good time next week I’m going to review the latest live action Disney film, though fortunately this one’s not a live action remake of one of their classics. Next week I’m going to be reviewing… The House with a Clock in its Walls.

“THE NUN”

Conjuring part 2 is so fabricated, and it is a big stretch to say it’s inspired by true stories!

Long time series creator James Wan does not have a credit on this film and has simply invented the story handing the writing credits to Gary Dauberman, who wrote the last two Annabelle movies. Dauberman also wrote the script for Stephen King’s “IT” movie, which I reviewed last year. Dauberman is also writing the sequel for the “IT” movie, which does have some potential. In the directing chair (for The Nun) is Corin Hardy, the director of the Hollow, which is another film I won’t claim to have seen.

The Nun’s time & place is set in 1952, and in context the Annabelle films take place in the 60’s, the two “Conjuring” movies take place in 1970’s.

The story line is that a disturbing incident takes place in an Abbey in Rumania. Following this, the Abbey gets the attention of the Vatican which sends in Father Burke, played by Demian Birchir, and sister Irene, played by Taissa Farmiga. Sister Irene has yet to take her final vows. I know this sounds like a weird exposition but they bring that up for a reason. The pair are joined by Frenchie, played by Jonas Bloquet, and that’s not just me being coy: it’s genuinely his name, and an investigation into the incident starts to take place. It soon becomes clear that the Abbey has a presence to it. Anyone who watched the Conjuring 2 remembers the Nun’s creepy painting which led to the nun being one of the main entities of that film (Conjuring 2). Just for the record, there was never any evidence of a nun being part of the Enfield Poltergeist phenomenon. Just throwing that out there. This film was meant to expand on the character and its laws. If you go into this film with that mind set this film is a massive disappointment. For a film that’s supposed to expand on the origins, it does very little that actually touches on the characters’ origins. Now that probably goes against what I have said in the past in that the more you know about an entity the less frightening they are, this is what destroyed remakes like Rob Zombies Halloween remake and Michael Bay’s Nightmare on Elm Street remake. The thing about The Nun and these other films, I would say that this is one of the few times when it would have been better for the creator to go into further detail. From what I’ve heard, Annabelle creation actually does a pretty good job with that character’s origins and it deals with a very similar subject. The thing is though The Nun really is kind of dull as a film. This film has some of the most predictable scares you’ll ever see. There’s a tonne of jump scares and it’s the type that are so choreographed you will see them coming instantly. I actually managed to point at the screen at exactly the right moment when the jump scares were going to happen. It was that predictable. It does make for a really great game!

There are a few creepy ideas here: we rarely see any of the nun’s actual faces as they all look very similar to the titular demonic character, any one of them could be her. The shots are very effective. Irene’s character is genuinely likeable and has good character. In fact, the weak character is Father Burke who is very much designed similar to the lead role in The Exorcist. In fact, he has a very similar character to a few lead roles in the Exorcist. The pair spend a lot of time together and it makes you realise that they are basically stand ins for the Warrens. And it makes you wish you were watching a film about those characters. This film has actually been billed as one of the darker films in the Conjuring franchise, but I have found it to be one of the most tame by comparison. The film is actually very dull when you stop and look at it; not much actually happens. In fact, Frenchie provides the comic relief for the film and is probably the most interesting character, and for a film that is going for a darker tone than predecessors, his presence has brightened the mood. Not exactly the mood they were going for. He’s along for the trip and he discovered the body of the nun who committed suicide. A few plots it does resolve; if you are wondering how the nun got involved with the Enfield Poltergeist thing that does kind of get to an explanation by the end of the film, but it is really damn stupid.

I found this film to be a very well shot but at times it seems to cheat its system. The buried alive scene, for example, which was used in a lot of the trailers is an example of this. I think the film makers knew that this scene was not going to have any presence as it appeared 10 minutes from when it was foreshadowed hence why they stuck it in the trailers. They knew there was actually no chance of scaring any one with it. This is a film that is nominal and tries way too hard and as a result has a very low score on Rotten Tomatoes. I think it’s more of an unremarkable film than a bad film. It certainly doesn’t expand the Conjuring universe, it actually feels more of a filler for a potential part 3. With everything that has been done in this film, there really is nothing to do any more with the characters. The ending certainly puts the kibosh on a lot of it and given how the Conjuring 2 ended, it’s fairly unlikely that you can do any more with the character, which also strengthens the belief that there is going to be a Conjuring part 3 considering they are going to have to introduce new characters and similar spin offs, which further proves the idea that doing a Conjuring cinematic universe is not necessarily the best idea in the world. The Nun is a film that is very ambitious and has some creepy shots in it but is rather lacking in characters and a severe tonal issue. It’s further proof that just because a character is popular it shouldn’t get its own movie. The film may have been slammed rather heavily by the critics, but this is one occasion where I think they have been a bit too harsh. The film is not exactly awful, it’s just very much a dull film rather than a bad film. Ultimately, it will make it a more forgettable entry in the franchise.

Save your money: there are hopefully far better horror films coming out in the next few weeks. So, another entry in the Conjuring down and it’s time for me to move on. Next time, I am going to be looking into a new entry into the classic sci-fi franchise with The Predator. With all that has been said, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this review as I have enjoyed writing it.

“SEARCHING”

Searching is the directorial debut of Aneesh Chaganty and is his first feature film to date. The film did very well at The Sundance film festival and when trailers came out for it, it suggested a conceiving concept. The concept is not entirely new and I will be getting into more detail about it down the line, but with not much else to say here let’s just dive straight into it.

Searching is a film set entirely through screens, mostly computer desktops and mobile phones, most notably FaceTime. The film is about David Kim (played by John Cho), who after the death of his wife is beginning to struggle communicating with his daughter Margot played (by Michelle La). However, after he misses a series of FaceTime requests from Margot, he discovers the next morning she has not been to class, and gone missing. He joins in on the investigation along with Detective Vick (played by Debra Messing), to search for her. As he looks through her social media to ask her friends it turns out he may not know as much as he first thought about his daughter and she may have been keeping a few secrets from him herself.

You may recall a reviewed a film in 2015 called Unfriended, it was one of the worst films I saw that year, the main reason for that was once you took away its gimmick, there was a pretty lame and generic horror film. Now Unfriended is a comparison seeing as they are very similar, most of the film takes place in a computer screen, Unfriended using Skype and Searching using FaceTime to tell its story. The comparisons don’t stop there seeing as both films share a producer. However, unlike Unfriended the thing that makes Searching a much better film is because it knows it’s a film. I don’t think this would count as a found footage movie since it doesn’t really play like one. The film is edited like a film and it plays like a film, at certain times the camera zooms in to certain points and there is an actual score over the film, plus there is no static setting, like a found footage film would normally have. As a result, the film does get to cheat on occasion, which Unfriended also did, but with Unfriended it was less forgivable, given that it was shot to be like a continuous Skype conversation, so when a character clicked away to another window on the laptop and we couldn’t hear the ongoing Skype conversation, it become more noticeable. Skype might not have given their license but Apple is certainly all over the place, now don’t worry Windows users, a couple of people do use Windows computers as well, in fact one of the early desktops that shows the exposition is a Windows XP computer, for all you people with nostalgia for that.

The film uses excellent use of its computer screen ideas, for example we see the characters using internet searching and typing on iMessage really applies a window to his mind. We see him typing words, only to delete them later and we see his frantic searches. Several people have given their licence for them to use their products, for example: Facebook is very regular, YouTube turns up in the film, Spotify is used and Pokémon also gets a lot of licensing which you will read about further down. iPhones appear to be the most used technology in the film. The film does invent a streaming site for some its own plots called Ucast, which kind of works as sort of a hybrid between Snapchat and live streams on YouTube. It is where some of the biggest events in the film happen, mainly because it is where Margot films a lot of her inner thoughts that she has been keeping from her Dad, which play a big role in the investigation.

You might have noticed I’ve not really been talking about the plot, you might have thought that’s because the plots rather thin, but it’s actually not. Well, at times it is predictable, but it does do what a thriller should do, and keeps you guessing. The film is constantly keeping you in suspense. There are several times you think you might be on to something, only for it to be dashed a minute later. The film is constantly playing with your expectations. The film does present a lot of ideas, for example the trailer points out that one idea is Margot might have run away from home, but then there are also other factors which suggest the opposite, such as them finding her Pokémon key chain.

The film is actually an interesting psychological look into a family and it really confronts on our relationship with technology. As a result, the film feels like it’s a fly on the wall documentary. It does show a darker side of the internet later on down the line as the investigation becomes more public. The films mystery really ramps up more and. More, especially when it seems to be getting really dark. The film does a good job keeping its answer from you, throwing several red herrings until it reaches the conclusion. Put it this way, I actually guessed the solution to the mystery and then retracted it, only to have been proven correct the first time.

Now the film is very well researched when it comes to how the technology is actually used, so you won’t be watching the film thinking that’s not how you do that or that’s not how that works. Everything is played out very well and the editing in the film is extremely good. It uses traditional filming techniques mixed with the pretty new gimmick very well, as a result it kind of rises above it being a gimmick.

The performances are excellent. Debra Messing plays an excellent role in this film but John Cho should definitely be nominated for best actor for this film at the Oscars.

The film is just excellent all round. Searching is an amazing thriller and the film is not bogged down by a new film style that is pretending it hasn’t been done before. Its biggest strength is that it doesn’t pretend to be real. It knows it’s a film and acts like a film, delivering a much better story as a result, the mystery suspense will keep you guessing throughout most of the film and the acting and use of technology are just excellent.

Well that’s it from me this week. Next week I am going to review another spin off of the Conjuring franchise, with The Nunn.

“SLENDER MAN”

Slender Man is essentially a modern myth that was created for a photoshop competition. That’s really all there is to him. A tonne of people claim there is some reality to him but, no, investigation has found he was just a photoshop competition entry. This later transitioned into a mobile game, which would also spark a lot of people’s interest. The character and the concept do work as a whole and it has shown up in several independent films, including the series Marble Hornets and Everyman HYBRID, those series actually still hold up pretty well. Despite the fact I have kind of given away the big twist that Slender Man is there, it’s still worth a watch, because there are tonnes of little Easter eggs early on. Independent studios have taken a shot at putting the character in his own movie, such as Canadas shot at it with Windigo, which is not a great film and just looks like it was cheap to shoot.

Slender Man is the first big budget Hollywood film to put an attempt at it. It’s actually Sony Pictures who have taken on the task and handing it off to screen gems. In the Director’s chair we have Sylvian White, honestly, I have tried to find something of his that I’ve actually watched, and I’ve found nothing. The major reason being… he is not a film director, apart from TV series, this is his first big budget feature. He directed shows like Hawaii Five-0, The Mentalist and one episode of CSI: Miami. Oh, and also one episode of the Lethal Weapon TV series which I still haven’t seen.

This has probably been one of the most advertised horror movies in recent memory, but even then, I find it was really only advertised at the beginning of the year. I actually forgot this film was even coming out until 2 weeks ago when I saw a random trailer for it on YouTube. I know I like to be ambiguous but Slender Man does not get a good start in Hollywood.

Ok… The film was about 4 girls: Wren, Hallie, Chloe and Katie played by Joey King, Julia Goldani Telles, Jaz Sinclair and Annalise Basso who all one night follow a website video, I’m not joking that’s actually what they call it because they didn’t get the rights to use YouTube, which is probably a good thing, because YouTube knew to run miles from this. They use this video to summon Slender Man, because apparently that’s what teenagers do. The problem is when the man starts invading their syce and then Katie goes missing without any sight of her whatsoever.

The trailer did not fill me with expectation but oh boy did I not realise how bad Slender Man was going to be. The one thing that surprised me most about this film, it’s not a found footage movie. This is really surprising considering that most Slender Man works prior to this found footage concept. This is the one character with a found footage concept that really works. But, then again if they had have done that with this environment I expect they would have been accused with ripping off The Blair Witch Project, believe me whatever you think of The Blair Witch Project, this film is nowhere near as good as that movie. In fact, the film rips from a number of sources, most notably with the use of the branches, Sylvian White has clearly watched a lot of Evil Dead.

This is some of the worst special effects I have seen in recent horror movies, not only is there a lack of creativity with the Slender Man gimmick, the actresses give appalling performances, which I don’t want to blame them for because the script is terrible, they are clearly working their best with what they’ve got, but this film is BORING! It’s been a long time since I’ve been bored by a horror film. I think the last time I was this bored was when I went to see unfriended, even then there was more happening than there is in Slender Man. You know how those horror films pick a protagonist and stick with it, ok, you occasionally get the fake out protagonist who dies really early, Wes Craven liked to use that a lot, but this film doesn’t even pick one. It kind of starts out having Wren in that role, Joey King is slightly recognisable, especially since she’s been in the Conjuring, Independence Day: Resurgence and The Flash, but then the film changes its mind half way through and has Hayley as the main Protagonist. Now people reading this won’t realise that when I was constructing that sentence, I had to go back to the IMDB page to look up the name of the character. These characters are so nothing, even by horror movie standards. At least in the classic horror films they gave their characters some quirks. I couldn’t tell you a thing about these people. I think there was a whole thing about Hayley having a track and field thing, that goes nowhere. Katie has an alcoholic father, that’s relevant only for the first 10/20 minutes of the film, they don’t even use that as a sort of fake out idea- that he might have killed her and the Slender Man thing is all in their heads. Nope, Slender Man is definitely real, the fact that he could have been in their heads is what makes Slender Man such a good idea.

The worst part about this film is the DIABOLICAL script. This is one of the worst scrips for a horror film I have seen in a long time. In fact, it’s one of the worst scripts I’ve seen in a long time. There’re tonnes of plot points that go absolutely nowhere. The film is way to jump scare heavy, but its sign posted by jump scares so heavily that they have no effectiveness of jump scare standards. If you jumped to this film, you clearly haven’t seen many horror films in recent memory, because they really signpost when these things are going to happen. I didn’t jump once during this film, usually the worst jump scares can pull that off, then I hate myself because I realise that is NOT scary. How many times do I have to say this in my reviews, JUMP SCARES ARE NOT SCARY, THEY ARE STARTLING. As I mentioned before there is really no creativity, the most creative thing the film does is have Slender Man stalk his victims using FaceTime which is a rather shameless plug for iPhones and also makes me really question how Slender Man is doing that… what, did he go into Carphone Warehouse to take out a deal. Here is the real kicker, these scenes are few and far between. It also kind of goes against the Slender Man myth though, since the character is supposed to be able to interfere with technology, he shouldn’t be able to use it like that. The woods as a motif could have potentially been a good idea, but again, looks like scenes they have ripped form Blaire Witch and the Evil Dead, not helped by the fact both have had new entries in the last few years.

The effects are atrocious. They couldn’t even get Slender Man right. He looks so poorly rendered half the time. I could forgive this if it was a found footage film and he was interfering with the technology, similar to how they did in Windigo, but what the hell was this! Maybe it’s something about the cinema I saw it in, but this film is way too dark in its lighting, there was scenes I could barely even see. I know it’s a horror film and its supposed to be dark but I can’t see the movie. There was points where I was begging for a day time shot. Also, you’re supposed to have Slender Man subtly appear in the background, it warrants repeat viewings. Marble Hornets and EverymanHYBRID got this right, there are several shots where Slender Man can be seen in the background, with the tension being pulled to him. The film doesn’t pull that off very often, even when it does it’s too blatant. There is also a boyfriend character that is introduced later on down the line, but he doesn’t really do anything. There’s some hinting if you looked at the video, does that go anywhere, no.

Slender Man is a flaming pile of rubbish! This film really needed to be a lot subtler than it is. It’s just a poorly acted, poorly written, with poor effects and an ending so tragically awful. I fail to call it an ending, the film just kind of stops. Not to mention there is a couple of scenes from the trailers which have been cut from the final product. The plot points that don’t go anywhere, leads me to think this film has been gutted in the editing studio. It’s not as if this is a long film so they have had to cut the time, the film is only an hour and a half long. But man is it a BORING movie! Genuinely the most boring movie of 2018 so far.

“CHRISTOPHER ROBIN”

Not to be confused with the film Goodbye Christopher Robin which I reviewed last year. Disney already had their own film that works, with them still retaining the right of this specific image of Winnie the Pooh. The actual characters in the books themselves I believe are currently public domain which is why Disney had absolutely no involvement with Goodbye Christopher Robin. Considering the new lights that film put the books in, it feels rather badly timed for Disney to be releasing a film like this. Goodbye Christopher Robin really did expose some of the darker sides of the books creation and what it did to the family of the author. On the one hand it brought them together, then on the other it also drove them into public life and drove a wedge between them.

Mill’s stories of Christopher Robin and his collection of animal friends in the 100-acre wood were based on his son’s teddy bear collection. It certainly captured a lot of people’s imagination. I’ve got to put in, I’m not exactly nostalgic for Winnie the Pooh when I reviewed Goodbye Christopher Robin and that’s still not changed, I still hold no real nostalgia for the books and the stories, though I do remember watching a few of them occasionally. Christopher Robin though did seem genuinely interesting. A grown-up Christopher Robin is certainly a decent idea, the problem is, it’s not as if this idea hasn’t been done before.

Christopher Robin is the story of him as a grown up, years after leaving his childhood home in Sussex, to start work in London. He is played by Ewan McGregor. He meets his wife named Evelyn (played by Hayley Atwell), and they have a daughter named Madeline (played by Bronte Carmichael). His boss- Giles Winslow (played by Mark Gatiss) sets him a tough assignment over the weekend, and the pressure is on, which means he can’t spend the time with his family at his old country home. However, when the pressure really does start to get to him, his old family friend, Winnie the Pooh, (played by Jim Cummings), comes to him in the hope Christopher Robin will help him find his friends as they have gone missing. Probably just as a way to get out of doing the work, he does go to the 100-acre wood, though it is becoming apparent that there is more he needs to know, and he needs to reconnect with what made him who he was.

Christopher Robin is pretty much the by the numbers, overpaid, parent cliché. There is nothing new you are getting with this film, though if you are a fan of Winnie the Pooh, relax, this is very much in the spirit of the books. Fans of the Disney animated films and series will be happy to hear Jim Cummings reprise his role from those films both as Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, frankly doing this film without him in those roles would have felt off. I am glad Disney didn’t go with the temptation to cast a celebrity voice cast to play those characters as it would have felt out of place. That’s not to say a celebrity voice cast isn’t used for the characters, there are celebrity voices in some of the roles, such as Peter Capaldi as Rabbit, Toby Jones as Owl and Sophie Okonedo as Kanga. If you are familiar with their voices you will be very hard-pressed to figure out that its them. Seriously, I really could not tell. Peter Capaldi was especially good at hiding his voice and considering how recognisable Toby Jones voice is, I am surprised that he was the Owl. Nick Mohammed as Piglet was another stand out performance and especially Brad Garrett as Eeyore who is one of the funniest characters in the film, responsible for most of my laughs.

Despite the fact this film is very unoriginal and pretty by the numbers, the script itself is actually pretty good. The script was written by Greg Brooker and Mark Steven Johnson, which is a very weird combination, considering one was the writer of Stuart Little and the other was the writer and director of the dare devil and Ghost Rider movies. If you think that’s weird you should see who actually wrote the screenplay, Alex Ross Perry, who’s probably not written much you are aware of, except maybe Golden Exits from last year and The Colour of the Wheel from 2011. You also have Tom McCarthy, of all people, the writer and director of the Oscar winning movie Spotlight, anyone who has seen that movie knows how out of place this is. Alison Schroeder, who wrote Pineapple Express and Hidden Figures, this is not sort of team you would expect to write a screenplay for a Winnie the Pooh story, but their screenplay is very much in the spirit of the books. They really understand what the dialogue is meant to sound like. Pooh’s lines for example are almost to the note of his character. A memorable line which has been used in the trailers is a good example of this, when he says, “People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing everyday”. Another strong factor of this film is that it is directed by Marc Forster, a BAFTA nominated director for both his films Finding Neverland and The Kite Runner. He definitely brings a lot from what he did in Finding Neverland to this movie.

If there is one thing I will say about the film, if I’m going to positive is the special effects, the effects they use to bring the characters to life are pretty damn good. The characters in the 100-acre wood could have easily looked like CGI monstrosity’s if they tried to make them to photo realistic. However, what they smartly do is go back to the routes of the books creation and make them look like stuffed teddy bears that have come to life. The effects are damn brilliant. This is a film that should definitely be nominated for several special effects Oscars. They work well, especially with Jim Cummings very recognisable voice, it doesn’t seem out of place. What’s more the character designs are so well done and they’ve done a great job on the costumes.

There are other factors that go back to the book’s creation, such as Christopher Robin serving in World War 2, just as the way that the son of the Author also served in the second World War, in the early portions of the film. They fortunately don’t go down a PTSD route in this film, imagine trying to explain that to your kids. It didn’t make me think, Nazis are now in the Winnie the Pooh cannon, that’s a very disturbing thought.

The 100-acre wood itself also looks like it was also filmed on the exact same set as Goodbye Christopher Robin. Some of the scenes look note for note, and I know both the films were going on the locations in the books but it is eerily similar.

Despite the fact Ewan McGregor is a bit off in a few of his parts, he is clearly having a good time in this role. His work doesn’t really create much interest in the role and the climax and solution feels a bit weird seeing as I’m pretty sure companies where doing the solution that he has to his problem years ago, in fact I’m pretty sure Ford was pioneering the idea. So historical accuracy is completely out the window.

If anything, Mark Gatiss role in the film is probably one of the weirdest parts. He’s not in the film all that long but he’s so recognisable as Mycroft Holmes from the BBC Sherlock, that I think it’s going to be very difficult to separate him out.

This film is clearly aiming for the Paddington market, trying to capitalise on the success of those films which have made a lot of money at the box office. I’m not sure if it’s going to entirely work. Paddington had its own issues, but I think the films worked better than Christopher Robin because they didn’t take themselves too seriously. They knew they were practically a live action cartoon. Christopher Robin is trying to act as though this sort of thing hasn’t been done before, when it clearly has. Granted, it is a bit unfair to compare the two films, but financially I think this will probably do better in America where Winnie the Pooh is more popular than Paddington. But at the same time, I think this film is not destined to get as much of a following as those films are and I don’t expect a sequel anytime soon, not that there is much room for a sequel following this.

Christopher Robin is a very ambitious project and one that is in the spirit of its original books for brief moments, but it is a film that won’t excite people much throughout the running. Props to the well written script and the excellent special effects work, the characters performances really range. I think it tries too hard to please both kids and adults, but at certain points are at expense of the other. It is certainly something to take your kids too, but, if you saw Goodbye Christopher Robin last year, it might impact on your enjoyment of this film although I think they would work well together as a double feature. If you like Winnie the Pooh you really owe yourself to go see it, if not this one won’t change your mind.

Well that’s it from me for this week, next week I am going to do a review of a horror film based on an internet meme, Slender Man.

“HOTEL ARTEMIS”

Look, this is going to be a short one as I had a technical hiccup and I was rushed for time so this is going to be a very quick review.

‘Hotel Artemis’ is written and directed by Drew Pearce, who wrote the screen plays for ‘Iron Man 3’ and ‘Mission Impossible’ and this marks his directorial debut for a feature film.

‘Hotel Artemis’ has several interesting plots surrounding a group of criminals taking shelter in a hospital during an LA riot over privatisation of water, which is run by The Nurse, who is played by Jodie Foster and a man named Everest, played by Dave Bautista. It is basically revolving around a number of plots, one of which is about a crime kingpin, played by Jeff Goldblum. A bunch of bank robbers try to hide out after making a horrible mistake, one of which is played by Stirling K. Brown and an assassin played by Sophie Boutella and also, for some reason Charlie Day is in this, even though he doesn’t contribute much to the actual film. ‘Hotel Artemis’ is probably one of the most average films all year; it is padded as hell in its plot, which I get sense was meant to be a much shorter film; it only runs at an hour and a half but it feels like it goes on a lot longer. And that’s the thing: they add too many subplots. It kind of suffers from the same issue that ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ suffered from where it has too many characters all fighting for screen time. The difference here is that all of these plots converge on one so as a result, every character has a meaning to be her. Well, you don’t exactly have a Celia Imerie in this case.

Frankly, it also feels like this film is, well, just there. The action scenes are actually shot nice and the cinematography is pretty good but as a whole the film is rather jarring. The futuristic technology is really rather interesting given that this film is set 10 years from now, in the year 2028, which undoubtedly is going to date the film at some point. And it clearly has taken influence from ‘John Wick’. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Keanu Reeves turns up dressed as the character halfway through the film. The problem is, the film simply doesn’t have enough substance to it, like the ‘John Wick’ films do. I know the ‘John Wick’ films, at the end of the day, are pretty simplistic but they work as a whole. I get the sense that this one has a lot of ambition but doesn’t quite live up to its ambition.

It’s alright, but that being said, I kind of had some fun with the film. It’s not a terrible film, all things considered. It’s actually genuinely decent. There were some good performances, particularly from Jodie Foster and Dave Bautista who, despite the fact that they sound like the weirdest pairing in the world, actually do quite well playing off one another. And of course, Jeff Goldblum is entertaining in anything he’s in. But then again, that’s because he’s Jeff ‘freakin’ Goldblum. And the film has been very much sold on its cast. This film has one of the best all star casts in recent memory but as I’ve said of other films: a cast does not make a film and ‘Hotel Artemis’ really suffers from that. Charlie Day, for example. Not only does his character not have too much reason to be there, he just kind of does the same performance that he did in the recent ‘Pacific Rim’ film and I don’t really like him all that much in that film. Fortunately, his character is much better so it suits this film.

The film also has a few contrivances to the plot which make you go, “Really?” However, on the other hand it does alright, all things considered. I have certainly seen many plots that have tried to pull tis off in much worse ways. Again, this is really just Jodie Foster’s gig: she’s front and centre for pretty much all of the film. Although, I also have to once again commend Dave Batista, who has proven to be one of the big successes of wrestler turned actor.

‘Hotel Artemis’ though is dripping in style. There’s a lot of good style to this. I’ve already mentioned about the technology but there are some interesting ideas here, such as 3D printers creating new organs and laser scalpels. Ideas that would not seem that out of place in what we know of how medical science is advancing. As I’ve mentioned, the cinematography and direction are particularly good. Drew Pearce knows how to shoot action. And particularly, some of the scenes with Sophia Patel really prove that; she is finally given a role that she deserves.

The thing is though, as I’m writing this, ‘Hotel Artemis’ is a film that I feel so unmotivated to write about since it elicits not much out of me. ‘Hotel Artemis’ is probably one of the weaker films I saw all year. It really has not much to it and I can’t really recommend seeing it in a cinema. I grant you I think it looks better than the current releases; I certainly would recommend it over the new ‘Mamma Mia’ and that’s without even seeing that film. And no, I have no intention of doing so. But I certainly wouldn’t say that this is one to rush out to, considering what is coming up in listings. This is one that I reckon you should get as a rental from Amazon when it comes out, or if it comes up on Netflix it might be worth a watch. It’s another film that kind of thinks it’s a bit smarter than it is but when it does embrace its style, it really does quite well.

Well, again, sorry for the shorter review but I was pressed for time. I’m unfortunately going to be gone for 2 weeks so there will be 2 weeks without Film Society reviews but when back, I will be giving my thoughts on the new Marvell movies, with ‘Ant-Man and ‘The Wasp’.