“EARLY MAN”

Early Man is the latest film from Aardman Animation and Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park. Now I’ve never really talked about Aardman Animation in my past reviews, but, I am a fan. I grew up on Wallace and Gromit and Chicken run and I am fan of both films. I’ve also really liked their recent entries. The Pirates and Adventures with Scientists was an excellent film in my opinion and Arthur Christmas is one of my favourite Christmas films. For me, the only weak film in the bunch if Flushed Away, which felt like it was lacking a lot of what usually makes Aardman what they are. Though, to be fair, they were experimenting with new technology at the time.

Early Man, however, promised a very interesting idea and looked like it would be in the normal vein of Aardman Animation. These films are very funny and as a result I find myself really enjoying them. How did Early Man turn out, however?

Early Man tells the story of a Stone Age society, which is home to Dug, (voiced by Eddie Redmayne). His tribe does nothing except hunt rabbits, it’s a content life, but what are you going to do. Despite wanting to hunt bigger animals and thinks the tribe are worth more than that, the chief, (voiced by Timothy Spall) decides they shouldn’t take the risk. It’s all peaceful until one day, a society from the Bronze Age, led by Lord Nooth, (voiced by Tom Hiddleston, doing a very fake French accent), takes the valley for the valuable ore. When Dug travels to their town to get the valley back, he challenges them when he notices that they play a game similar to that of his ancestors, which they call football. The rules are simple, if Dug’s tribe can win the game, if the Stone Age tribe can beat the Bronze Age tribe, they will win the valley back and if they lose, they stay down a mine. They don’t do so well at their training at first, but then they receive back up in the form of training from one of the Bronze Age girls, who desperately wants to play football, called Goona, (voiced by Maisie Williams). (Yes I know what the reference is, it doesn’t get much funnier).

You can really tell that this is an Aardman Animation production, I mean, who else could come up with the plot of the Stone Age versus the Bronze Age in a game of football and it have any possibility of working. Early Man is not about merit, for starters and I know I don’t normally talk about technical department, but once again, the stop motion animation is fantastic as usual. Nick Park really finds a way to take these very homemade like clay pieces and really bring them to life. If there is one thing he has not succeeded at, however, is knowing how to use computer generated effects. The film uses a good healthy mix and the majority of computer generated effects blend well into the stop motion. The green scene effects, however, are another matter. Many of the backgrounds look very unpolished, which shows that Aardman is still having some growing pains with using computer effects. Though, that being said, I have certainly seen worse, though film’s like Kubo and the Two Strings and Para Norman, which both also use a combination of stop motion and computer effects, managed to blend the two better. Second, this film has some very good jokes. As usual, with Aardman Animations there is some good broad humour and there are a few little bits and bobs, including some background jokes as well and the film is excellent at doing physical comedy. Of course, there are some genuinely funny one liners and jokes, the problem though, is that there are quite a few running gags throughout the film that feel rather over played. I suspect many of the jokes might go over the head of an American audience, which will receive the film later this month.

But that would all be fine if I just didn’t think the film was rather average. Yes, I am not joking, this is the most average Aardman film I have seen. I certainly prefer it to Flushed Away, but I didn’t enjoy this film as much as, say, The Pirates and Adventures with Scientists, which was the Aardman film I watched in preparation for this film, along with Curse of the Were Rabbit, which I also really enjoyed, despite the fact that I thought that film exposed a lot of the weaknesses that were placed inherently in Wallace and Gromit when they placed a longer running time.

Early Man’s biggest problem is basically its environment. The setting doesn’t allow for as many possibilities of gags, so as a result, the humour I felt, went a bit more broader and to the nose, no pun intended for the villain design! The villain is a pretty good example, Lord Nooth is probably one of the best parts of the film. This is mainly because Tom Hiddleston delivers a very funny performance and he gets most of the funniest lines. I think he will probably be one of the most memorable part of the film. The rest of the cast, however, are really bland and forgettable. Honestly, I remember much more about the villain than any one else in this film and it’s very clichéd at the end of the day. However, unlike a film like Coco, I noticed it a lot more and as a result, the film feels kind of drawn out. This is an idea that certainly would work, but it feels like it could have been cut down and turned into a forty-five minute to an hour short that you could have shown on the BBC at Christmas, since the majority of it seems like it’s to set up the whole football match, which is where a lot of the gags come from. When the gags hit though, they are really funny. The problem is that I felt most of the gags didn’t hit a good middle ground. There were several jokes just aimed at the parents and several jokes just aimed at the kids and I felt like the film went constantly back and forth between with who it was trying to entertain. Also, some of the gags just aren’t quite broad enough. For example, many of the best jokes in Pirates and Adventures of the Scientist were in the background, we saw pub names and signs. However, the biggest one of these was that the football team from the Bronze Age is called Real Bronzio, which feels really weird because doesn’t quite tie into Real Madrid’s name, could they have called them something like SCC Bronzeanola, to tie into SCC Barcelona, at least they both begin with a B. Or, since you are already aiming this at a British audience, what about West Bronze Albion!! I know I am over explaining a joke and that’s the very definition of what makes a joke not funny, but it’s some of the things like that that I was really noticing throughout the film. Not to mention that the main female lead’s name is a reference to Arsenal supporters, like myself. Something I confess I didn’t actually realise until I looked her name up on IMDB. The one thing I seriously appreciate about this film though is, that none of the Bronze Age team is played by football players, thank god, after David Beckham in King Arthur Legend of the Sword, I don’t want to see another football player trying to act again!!

As I have said, Lord Nooth has all the funniest lines and moments, including one moment where he receives a massage from a Wart Hog, makes sense in context and he gets some great lines. But the fact of the matter is, this film kind of left me feeling cold as a whole because I wished the rest of the film had much more put into it. The whole film feels rather predictable, it’s not much different from other family films and while there were a lot of moments that made me laugh, I didn’t feel like this one made me laugh quite as much.

The cast is also an excellent part of this film. There are several recognisable voices in here. Eddie Redmayne delivers a decent performance and his voice is probably the least recognisable, apart from the possible exception of Tom Hiddleston, and he sheds a lot of his accent in this role, you won’t remember, initially, that this guy played Newt Scamander in Fantastic Beasts. The rest, though, kind of suffer from the whole, ‘you struggle to see the character, you mostly see the celebrity in the recording booth’. This is especially evident with a lot of the side one note characters, who seem to be mostly played by comedians, which you will instantly recognise, if like me, you spend and inordinately long time watching British panel shows, like, Mock the Week, Would I Lie to You and Eight Out of Ten Cats. Now, granted, Timothy Spall gives a good performance as always and Maisie Williams is funny in her role and at least she is putting on a genuine voice to play the character. Tom Hiddleston’s French accent is just hilarious! Rob Brydon is rather an interesting one, since he is having to play three roles, the problem is, despite the fact that he is trying to put on three accents, he is really one of those actors who can’t stave off his natural accent, so when he is playing both of the football commentators, one of them just sounds like Rob Brydon putting on a Scottish accent, which kind of breaks the immersion. Though I will say he does a good job as the message bird. Gina Yashere is also in a small role, which I found relatively amusing. Richard Ayoade is in a role that should be much funnier than it is, which is not his fault, since his part is not that interestingly written, but it is certainly nowhere near the level of humour he brings to panel shows or his role in the IT Crowd. His cameo in Paddington 2 did a much better job of transferring his style of humour to a family friendly setting. Johnny Vegas also appears in the film as the character Asbo, but unlike Richard Ayoade, who at least gets a gag of being a cowardly character and being embarrassed by his mum, I don’t even know what Johnny Vegas’s character is meant to be, he is not really in the film long enough to sustain much of a presence. But, one of the weird scene stealers, who I seriously forgot was in this film and was a brilliant pleasant surprise is the brilliant Miriam Margolyes and the Queen, who once again, delivers an absolute scene stealing performance. I really hope there is some footage of her in the recording booth because I reckon she screwed up a couple of times in the booth, or went off script and ended up swearing. If that footage exists, I really hope it is a DVD extra, I would buy the DVD just for that!!

I have already talked about the animation and my thoughts on it. The animation is still really good, even now, but I have a problem with the mix of the computer generated effects, which I think don’t blend too well. I will at least say the character designs are pretty dam good. They are all in the vein of Wallace and Gromit designs, which do make you think that this film could take place in the same Universe. They even recycle the rabbit designs that they used in Curse of the Were Rabbit, which I thought were great, since they were some of my favourite parts of that film.

Early Man has a lot of what is typical of an Aardman production and a lot of what Nick Park is. But this time I think that a lot of the magic isn’t quite there. The film is very funny in moments and I would hardly say that I think the film is bad and that I don’t like it as a whole, on the whole I think it is alright. It’s just not quite there, this is something to the lower end of the Aardman films in my opinion. The humour is just not quite all there, it never quite hits the right bounce it needs to and the whole thing feels a little too predictable. If you like Aardman Animations and are a fan of the Wallace and Gromit type films, this will certainly keep you entertained and I have seen a lot worse animated films since I started the Axia Film Society. But I can’t fully recommend this one, it just feels very average at this time. If you are going to see an animated film right now in cinema’s I would recommend seeing Coco over this.

Well, that’s me for this week.

Instead, join me next time where I will be reviewing a gothic horror film based on a supposedly true story, Winchester, The House That Ghosts Built.

“THE POST”

The Post is a reference to the Washington Post, one of the world’s most famous newspapers, which you may have seen recently being attacked by the current President of the United States for spreading what he calls “fake news”. The film with its subject matter feels rather timely and Steven Spielberg either saw the writing on the wall of what was going to be happening, or he just got very lucky with his timing. Yes, this is a Spielberg production, another film he has done when I really wish he would just get around to doing another Tin Tin film. Please Steven, I am waiting, I want to see another Tin Tin movie, I loved the last one.

Whatever you think of Spielberg, his name certainly commands respect and he has done an excellent job with many films. He does have a few stinkers to his name, off the top of my head I would say his weaker films are films like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Artificial Intelligence: AI. But, when he is on form, he is great, I’m not just talking about films like Jurassic Park, I have already mentioned Tin Tin, which seemed like a real return to Blockbuster form, which he unfortunately he hasn’t gone back to much in recent memory, but even some of his more poignant films seem to be working quite well. I really enjoyed 2015’s Bridge of Spies and I am really much excited for him going back to that Blockbuster form for the upcoming Ready Player One, which will be out at the end of March.

The Post, however, felt like a very interesting project. I was happy to be doing something similar to Bridge of Spies and the way it was structured and the trailer definitely gave off that impression. It also helped that one of the co-writers on this film is Josh Singer who wrote screenplays for Spotlight and the Fifth Estate, yes I know the latter wasn’t that good a movie, but he kind of redeemed himself a bit with Spotlight, which I did review. Plus, we have the talents of Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, who seem to be memorable even in terrible films, in Tom Hanks case see Cloud Atlas for that alone. The very thing I was wondering was, how did the film turn out overall?

Normally this is where I would go into the plot detail, but it’s very simple and it is so marred in history, it almost feels like a dramatised documentary. The long and short of it is; During the latter years of the Nixon era, the New York Times managed to get hold of a report that had been made Top Secret that showed that the United States government had actively misled the US public about the Vietnam War, but had kept going to save face. It was a bid deal, however an embargo was put on the New York Times, who were going to have to go towards the Supreme Court. The Washington Post, however, managed to get hold of several other documents and since they weren’t part of this embargo, they could publish. There is an awful lot in the film about sources, then the legal ramifications of several factors of making sure the articles were worded in the correct way, but this really was the moment that turned the Washington Post into the big Global organisation it is. It’s mainly about the conflict in the process of whether they would publish or wouldn’t and the various back and forths between the head of the paper Kay Graham, played by Meryl Streep, whose husband and father previously ran the paper and the paper’s editor, Ben Bradlee, played by Tom Hanks. Now that sounds very interesting and you are probably thinking I am describing most of the first half of the film. Well, this is rather annoying because to talk about this film, I basically have to talk mostly about the second half. Yes, NO JOKE, I am having to talk about the second half of the film. The Post has to have one of the most boring introduction first half’s that I have ever seen. The film really meanders for quite some time and as a result it is a drolled mess.

Luckily, things pick back up in the second half of the movie, where the most interesting aspect of the film is. I think the film does a good job of actively talking about the idea of bouncing between government secrecy and the freedom of the press. It also weighs the gravity of what an absolute disaster the Vietnam War was and actively goes with how history would see the Vietnam War. That’s really is. This is a very middling film in my opinion. The one thing I was thinking when I watched this film was, you know when at half time you hear some Jackass on Television or the radio of whatever from some alternative upright group say that Hollywood has a liberal media bias. I think this is the film they are picturing. I don’t say that as a negative stance, I agree with most of the points put into this film, but that is the thing that bugs me the most. This film is like a film that is made more to make a statement, not tell a story. It certainly feels very compelling and very interesting, but it feels like there are tons of symbolism put in place for things like feminism, the freedom of the press over government or privacy. All good point, which I firmly agree with. But, by doing it in this sense, it almost makes it seem like the subject matter of the actual events which led to this are not the first things on the director and writer’s minds and that they don’t really care that much about the subject matter. Most films based on true stories like this, tend to after the credits, tend to explain what happened to all the various people after the events of the film. The Post doesn’t have that. I stayed around for most of the credits just to make sure. In fact, the film has a rather baffling ending, which I won’t spoil, but felt rather unnecessary in my head. That’s my biggest point complaint with it. It’s boring and at times doesn’t care about its story, but cares more about its subject matter.

Ok, that’s my big complaint. Because the rest of the time I think it’s a pretty decent film. It does a really good job of conveying this story. You realise what a big deal this was. It makes you angry that the Washington Post has been labelled as a fake news organisation because they say things that an American administration does not like. That’s just it. The film does good parallels, aided by the fact that they used actual recordings of Richard Nixon, since the guy seemed to like to record virtually everything he did. Yes, one thing that Nixon and Trump seem to have in common is that they are both paranoid nutcases!!! On some points. I don’t feel the film goes far enough. Certain scenes are added in that don’t really add much. I have already mentioned that the first half of the film is loaded with padding, this feels more like it should have been a one hour TV special than a two hour film. As a result, I was kind of watching my watch (figuratively speaking, I don’t actually have a watch)! This is definitely the sort of film that you think of when you hear Oscar bation, in fact I suspect that by the time this review goes out and the Oscar nominations have been announced it will have received several nominations to go with its six Golden Globe nominations and its BAFTA nominations. This, however, does not change the fact that this is actually kind of a dull film for the most part and by the time it picks up it’s almost feels “too little too late”.

The reason it does work, however, is the acting. The actors are actually fantastic in their roles and try to make the most of what they have. Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep are on top form as usual, in fact Meryl Streep really proves why she is a top class actress and there’s no guessing for why she took the role on. Tom Hanks and Spielberg work together for the fifth time and once again, they do an excellent job together, but I would also like to give special mention to the performance of Bod Odenkirk, which is probably one of the best performances of the film. Not to mention the other actors, including, Alison Brie, Sarah Paulson, Matthew Rhys, Bruce Greenwood and Bradley Whitford, to name just a few. We also have an excellent performance from David Cross, who I actually didn’t recognise initially when he was in the film, I only realised when I saw the credits.

The Post is also an excellent period piece. They don’t skimp on the 70’s look and aesthetics of the time period. I will say, the costume and props department did an excellent job. The cinematography is pretty good for what it is worth too.

I am sorry if this review is a bit shorter than usual, but I really don’t have much to say about The Post. It is the most middling film I have seen in quite a while. The film is aided by excellent performances and good direction, but it suffers from a really dull first half and it feels very disconnected from its subject matter and feels like the film should have been much shorter than it really was. I think this will make an interesting complimentary piece with a documentary on the subject, however, I am unaware how accurate this was to the actual story so if you are aware of the story because I suspect some facts have been changed to fit the story matter, which, for some reason people really care really desperately about with a true story aspect. My own personal view being, that if you stick to the heart and spirit of the story and don’s misrepresent the person too much, you’ll do fine. It’s not one of Spielberg’s worst, but it’s not one of his better ones either.

Next week, I am looking into Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park’s latest stop motion animated film Early Man.

“COCO”

So, Pixar are at it again and this looked like a good way to start the year. Coco is something that I have been aware of for quite some time, but I didn’t actually go in to it thinking it would be anything that amazing. But the film looked like it had some promise, this is Pixar’s first new property, however, since the previously reviewed Inside Out with Cars 3 being their obligatory sequel, which, if I can remind you, wasn’t offensive, but I thought it was pretty boring. Coco also didn’t intrigue me with its trailer considering it looked like it was going to resemble The Book of Life, a film which also dealt with the subject of a Hispanic Holiday of The Day of the Dead. While the Holiday itself is a very interesting idea to make a film around, and several successful films have been made surrounding it, I wouldn’t count The Book of Life in that. Yes, I know a lot of people enjoyed that film, personally, I wasn’t one of them, I found the film to be painfully average at best.

The film has been directed by Toy Story 3’s director Lee Unkrich, which has also been co-directed alongside Adrian Molina, who also co-wrote the screen play. Though this is his first time being put in a director’s position, though he had done additional screen play material for The Good Dinosaur (which I previously reviewed) and Monster’s University, not necessarily something to give you much hope for, though he also wrote the screen play of Mathew Aldridge, who wrote the Samuel L Jackson and Ed Harris film Cleaner and let’s not forget that Jason Katz was also involved in development of this film and he in fact is one of the people who made Pixar what it is today. The film has been delayed in its release over here by several months, in fact it was a 2017 release in the States, why it took so long to come to Britain, I have no idea! I think that there was a worry that the film would not do so well with European audiences considering how much of the film is set in Latin America and Latin America tradition, something that is familiar to American audiences, but not as familiar to a European audience. But, I personally thought the Pixar logo would have overcome any suspicions of that one. Coco also comes off the back of receiving a BAFTA nomination for Best Animated feature, and, hopefully by the time this review comes out, it has received an Oscar nomination. In the BAFTA’s it’s going up against Loving Vincent and My Life as a Courgette, two excellent animated films, the latter of which I really should have talked about in my Top Ten Films of 2017. Those are the films I would be directly comparing it to, but how does Coco turn out?? I was going to say, ‘is Coco dead on arrival’, but frankly I would want to shoot myself if I said that.

Coco is the story of Miguel, (played by Anthony Gonzalez) and his family. Miguel longs to be a musician, like his idol, Ernesto de la Cruz, (played by Benjamin Bratt). His family, however, are staunch shoe makers, after the founder of their shoe making business, his great great grandmother Imelda walked out on her and her daughter Mama Coco, (played by Ana Ofelia Murguia). After a falling out with his family, Miguel wants to enter a talent show to prove what a good musician he could be. After believing that he has discovered that Ernesto may be his great great grandfather. He decides, therefore, to take Ernesto’s guitar, however, because this is on the day of the Dead Festival Celebrations, that counts as stealing from the dead and not giving back to the dead and so he is pulled in to the world of the dead for his crimes, where he meets his father including his great great grandmother Mama Imelda (played by Alanna Ubach). The only way he can get back is with his family’s blessing, however, he won’t accept the family’s blessing because they will only send him back if he promises never to play music again. Believing that Ernesto can give him his way back home, he teams up with a con man called Hector, played by Gael Garcia Bernal, with the deal being that if Hector can get him back home, he will hang his picture up so that he can go home and see his family during the Day of the Dead Festival.

That’s kind of half the plot of Coco really, in terms of a lot of what it brings, it’s not exactly ground breaking, it’s not even that long a film. It’s actually a 1hr 45mins, not the standard 2hr running time. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your feelings towards Frozen, because it was released after Christmas over here, it’s meant that the Frozen short that went with the US release has not made its way over to the UK, though I suspect that short will eventually become available. The fact of the matter is though, it was only after I had seen the film and looked up the running time that I realised it only run for 1hr 45mins, I did think it was a 2hr film.

Despite the fact that Coco is brimming with tones of clichés, it has a ton of substance to it as well. Yes, there’s always the misunderstanding between the family, the lifelong lesson, two characters making a plot to help each other out for their own ends, bad a bing, bad a boom. Despite what many reviews have said, this is not exactly what I would call a challenging film, it’s a very standard film. However, you might be expecting me to say that it is painfully average, hell no, the writing in Coco is just fantastic. Coco really adds a ton of heart in its writing and characters, which really sells the film, it also doesn’t linger on the clichés too long, it gets most of them out of the way pretty quickly, which does give the film a somewhat unpredictable nature. Also, I feel Miguel is a real kid, he doesn’t feel like he has been synthetically written by a committee that doesn’t remember what it is like to be a child and goes by either making the kid too perfect or too whiney. Something I have noticed that Pixar is getting good at between Miguel from this film and Riley from Inside Out. The film also has some decent twists, you can see a couple of them coming, but a couple caught me off guard and they also make sense in the story. Many people may be expecting a much more thematicall dissidence between the land of the living and the land of the dead, similar to that of the Tim Burton film Corpse Bride, where the land of the dead was very lively compared to the land of the living which felt very droll and dull. This is one of the clichés the film dispenses with, both worlds feel very lively and very colourful. The land of the dead is much more colourful though in a sense.

The film is also very well researched. Whereas Book of Life seemed to use the Day of the Dead Festival, where the belief is that ancestors return to visit their families from the land of the dead, was just kind of a back drop in Book of Life. Coco puts the festival front and centre and is thematically part of the story. The film shows a real understanding towards the festival and is treated with a lot of love and respect. I suspect there was a large amount of consultancy and research done with Hispanic communities to get the film right, similarly to how Moana had tons of research and consultancy towards the South Pacific island community with the making of that film. The biggest difference with the land of the dead is the skeletal design of the inhabitants, something that has been used very heavily in the marketing campaign for the film. I also think the film has been mis-sold about how light hearted it is, the film is never afraid to have quiet moment and real tension and stakes, something that I know a lot of family films are unfortunately trying to strive away from as a lot of film makers seem to believe that kids need constant movement and sound to entertain them. This film does not treat kids like idiots and as a result, gives a much better overall story and experience. That’s not to say that Coco is not a fun film, kids will love it and I believe their parents will be happy with it as well. I was really getting invested in this film. There are some light moments, some of the jokes are incredibly funny in this film, what’s more, the ending had me choked up. This was one helluva enjoyable film.

I loved the characters, especially the companionship between Hector and Migueal and of course the entire family unit. With the exception of Coco, who the film is named after, Miguel’s grandmother from the living world, the family unit kind of feel under-utilised and in the background. I remember seeing Doug Walker’s review of this film, which I say prior to writing this one, where he said the parents could have easily been killed off since they don’t contribute much to the story. I disagree with that point, but I see his point. For a film about the family, we only get to know a few members of the family and most of those are from the land of the dead. It also comes up with an interesting concept for what the dead have to fear. They obviously can’t die so how do you add tension and status to this film. Well, one of the tensions is that Miguel will die and become a complete part of the land of the dead if he doesn’t get back to the living world before sunrise. But, they also had the brilliant idea that the dead people will disappear completely into nothingness if they are forgotten by the worlds living, that is a great concept.

The writing in this film is really what has to be praised. This film has so many clichés that I normally don’t like and am getting sick of, but for some reason, I am not going to knock it down for it, it’s that well done.

The cast is also fantastic. The film could easily have had some A lister’s in several of these roles. However, it chose in order for the film to be authentic and not to get any accusation of white washing, has an entirely Hispanic cast. There are not all Hispanic A listers, there is a commentary that I can only think of two A list celebrities of Hispanic descent to be in the film, ie, ?? and Antonio Banderas. Benjamin Bratt is probably the most recognisable, who was in Law and Order briefly and you may recognise his voice if you are familiar with the Despicable Me films, in which he played Eduardo. Though he also had a small role in Dr Strange. Other than that, I think the stand out performance in this film is Gael Garcia Bernal who is a highly under-rated actor, many with Amazon Prime accounts may recognise him from playing Rodrigo in Mozart in the Jungle. He has had several successes in Spanish cinema, but I am hoping this role will lead him to more success over here that he rightly deserves. Anthony Gonzalez is also fantastic in his role. The other great stand out is Alanna Ubach, who you may recognise as the actress who played Isabelle in Meet the Fockers, though, she has done various voices in the Ben 10 series, but delivers a hell of a performance in this role. The entire cast deserves excellent praise for their excellent voice acting. But, this review has gone on long enough, so I unfortunately can’t name too many names.

As for the animation, I think this is probably one of Pixar’s best films to date. While it doesn’t have to do as much imaginative work as say Toy Story or Inside Out, it still does a good job with both the land of the living and the land of the dead. The colours and the designs in this are phenomenal. I saw the film in 2D and apart from a couple of sections, I didn’t see much that would have aided the film if you saw it in 3D, so don’t bother with that at this point. The character designs are good and fit in with Hispanic myth and legend very well.

Seriously, as soon as you have seen the film, get the soundtrack, it’s phenomenal.

Next week we move on to another film which I am certain has received a nomination for an Oscar and will have annoyed several of the outright Jackasses. It’s Meryl Street and Tom Hanks in The Post.

Thanks a lot for reading my review. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it and if you are reading this review having not seen Coco, what are you doing, get out there and see it, and don’t forget to buy the soundtrack on the way home.

“TOP 10 WORST FILMS 2017”

2017 has been and gone and it’s very much in the rear view mirror, but as tradition stands, we go through my thoughts on the best and worst of the year list.

Now this year I wasn’t able to be as definitive as I normally am because I didn’t see as many films this year. This is mainly down to several aspects including several train strikes, which meant that for the majority of the beginning of the year I was confined to watching films in Manchester because of rail works.

I also started side project ‘Anime Amigos’, so as a result, I had to watch a lot more Anime than I normally do and I was on deadline to watch several projects. So you will forgive me if I didn’t go the cinema as much as I could have done, since, going to the cinema for me takes up at least half of my day, as most of my local cinemas are out of my way and the easiest one for me to get to is in Liverpool.

This year was one of my best years for films so as a result, the Worst of list was a bit harder to do since most of the bombs I saw were very high profile. It’s also, because of that, that I didn’t go to see a lot of films that had terrible reviews, a few exceptions withstanding. This is the major reason I didn’t see films like Geo Storm, as I didn’t want to see another dumb Gerard Butler action film, which makes you really think that Mean Tweet might be correct and he might actually be trying to pay off a student load debt, which is the reason he is in so many of these terrible films. Or, for example, the poor adaptation of The Dark Tower, which proves that Stephen King might have had a good year with It, but, of course, for every one good adaptation of one of his books we seem to get a bad one. I also didn’t see many of the films that made Mark Commode’s list, including the Charles Manson biopic, that chose not to be a biopic and I also didn’t see Tom Hanks and Emma Watson vehicle, The Circle. Though, considering the low amount of publicity, I am not entirely sure that this has come out in the UK yet, so that might be a warning in advance.

As for the worst films I saw this year, there were some pretty poor showings. Now, usually my Worst Films of the Year list consists mostly of the dread that comes out between January and March and this year was not much of an exception. But, I actually found some of my Best films were out at the same time too and the bad films were most of the exception rather than the rule. In fact, some of my Worst films came out around Blockbuster season. Granted, I didn’t see a lot of awful films this year, most of the film’s I gave negative reviews for were rather underwhelming, which is why you won’t see films like, Valerian, City of a Thousand Planets on this list.

Alien Covenant – Despite the fact I said this was one of the better sequels, I went to see it a second time after hearing the criticism for the film and, yes, my feelings are rather soured to this one. Alien Covenant is by no means the worst Alien sequel, I still stand by that insurrection, but Covenant is really a nothing film that has a problem explaining way too much, where explanation wasn’t needed. It didn’t make the list, however, though, because as I said, I didn’t think it was the worst Alien sequel to date.

Boss Baby – While it’s not entirely fair to have the Boss Baby on the list, since for the most part it is a harmless kids film, it’s not exactly good either. It’s very much a ‘by the numbers animated film’ and was one of the worst animated films I saw all year, though, granted that probably because I didn’t see films like The Nut Job 2, but I am certain the Nut Job 2 was probably worse that I have decided to not put it on the list for that reason.

Fast and Furious 8 – Fast and Furious fans might get a kick out of this one, but I am really sick of this franchise now and this film feels even dumber. The film doesn’t even have the courtesy to kill of Paul Walker’s character. By no means the worst film Vin Diesel did, the reason it nearly made the list, was because it’s just not that fun anymore and just feels even stupider than usual. But the reason it didn’t make the list was because the one film that tried to imitate it’s success and did it much worse!

Sword Art Online Ordinal Scale – This is one long trek that has almost completely killed my interest in Sword Art Online. The film was designed to be a bridge gap between the second and upcoming third season that will premier later this year, but I suspect it will kill off even the most hard core fans of this franchise. It doesn’t make the list, however, because, let’s fact it, Sword Art Online has been going downhill for a while now, what chance did this film of taking things back.

Forty Seven Metres Down – The final dishonourable mention really comes in because I thought this was going to be much more clever shark film that it actually turned out to be. It is probably the worst horror film I saw all year by a long stretch, because it just feels stupid and I didn’t really like the conclusion, all things considered. And, yes, that does mean I didn’t see Rings, before anyone asks but I am certain that would have made the list if I had seen it.

Now, for the actual list.

10. Beauty and the Beast

This entry is going to make me some enemies, but I don’t care. Beauty and the Beast is the most pointless remake I have seen in a long time. The film coast by on the success of the original animated film from 1992, but it doesn’t realise what made that film successful. Half-heartedly doing these scenes with terrible renditions of Alan Menkin’s songs including some new ones that feel crow barred in, with some of the worst examples of auto-tuning I have heard in a musical in a long time. It will make you wonder what Emma Watson was thinking when she turned down La La Land to be in this film! Not only is this film so much of a shot for shot remake of the original with almost nothing that made the original work in this one, it also has some new elements added in that have no consequence whatsoever and feel like they have been crow barred in just to add some difference between the two. The film was clearly made by people that really liked the original and didn’t want to change anything, but as a result, I have no reason to enjoy it or compare it to, rather like the rather different but very interesting re-makes of Cinderella and the Jungle Book. Here’s hoping the upcoming remakes of Aladdin and the Lion King are better than this.

9. The Party

The Party was one of several films that I saw at the London Film Festival and this was easily the worst dreg of the festival. This is clearly made for ‘snobby London people’ that when you say you didn’t like the film, they will say “oh, you didn’t get it”. Yes, well I did get it and it was still appallingly bad. The film is just a collection or horrible people doing horrible things for no rhyme or reason and wouldn’t know a good plot twist if it was thrown in its face! The film lasts only seventy-six minutes and it feels like it is two hours long! This is one of the worst written films I saw all year and it’s mainly because it thinks it’s ‘pretentious twaddle’ disguising itself as acting like its smart. It’s a shame too as the cast is made up of very talented performers, including Cillian Murphy, Timothy Spall and Christian Scott Thomas, who deserve a much better script. Do not seek this one out.

8. The Mummy

Yes, I know I am jumping on the band wagon, but I don’t care. This is one boring film that seems to only exist to create the dark Universe. The film is incredibly exposition heavy, and all of it seems to set up to create this idea of this wider mythology that is entirely unnecessary. The film sets up this idea, but forgets to be its own movie. As a result, it’s one dull dreg that I didn’t really have much fun watching. It can’t decide if it wants to be serious like the early Karloff film or a fun romp like the Stephen Summer’s film that starred Brendan Frasier, it should have picked one and stuck with it and as a result, it’s mediocre at best and downright terrible at worst. Avoid.

7. King Arthur Legend of the Sword

Yes, my hopes for the Aladdin remake being any good have severely plummeted considering that Guy Ritchie this year gave us this film, which is easily his worst to date. Here is an idea, let’s make Arthurian Legend by mixing Game of Thrones with a cockney knees up!! This film is incredibly long, over complicated and a terrible script. This is one of the dumbest scripts I have seen all year. Also, the editing is atrocious. The action scenes in this film are so appalling that it was downright impossible to tell what is happening. It’s not just those, the dialogue scenes were also atrociously edited, how do you manage that! I saw the film in 3D and because of the darkening effect the glasses have, these action scenes were even harder to see. This film gets nothing right and it is a terrible vehicle for Viking star Charlie Hunnam and I suspect he won’t be getting many more film roles after starring in this piece of crap!!

6. Triple X The Return of Xander Cage

Hey everyone, it’s the third entry in the franchise you all forgot about! Seriously, who was asking for another Triple X film, this was a franchise clearly set in late 1990’s early 2000’s extreme sports craze and it has not aged well. And, since that fad is almost entirely dead, the film has no choice but try and be a lame Fast and Furious rip off. This film is one boring, terribly directed film that is coasting by on a franchise you probably forgot even existed. Granted, I didn’t mind the first Triple X film, I thought it was a fine enough film, if a bit boring and dated in parts, but it actually had some fun moments and kind of had the ‘it’s so bad’ it’s good quality to it. The Return of Xander Cage has none of that, it takes itself way too seriously and as a result, leaves you with a film you couldn’t possible enjoy and it sets up for future sequels that no one is going to ask for. Save your money and send the message that we don’t want any more of these films.

5. Assassins Creed

The first film I saw this year and nearly ended up being my worst, good thing this wasn’t on omen of the year to come. Assassins Creed is one of the worst video game adaptations I have ever seen and I have not minced my words when I have said that. How can a Shakespearean director doing Assassins Creed fail as miserably as this! It’s very clear the director has no idea how to direct action scenes especially the par core scenes since these scenes are so terribly edited, I lost complete focus about what was actually happening. You could say that Michael Fassbender is at least delivering a decent performance, but the film has no idea what to focus on. It doesn’t balance its two plot lines out like the Games do relatively well, or stick to the past as later entries have wisely done, but stays more in the present day, which is the least interesting aspect of any Assassins Creed story.

Also, the changes made from the game made absolutely no sense. I will say at least the films aesthetically looks like it is from the Assassins Creed Universe, but god is this a bad one. Seriously stay away from this one and this has really lowered my expectations for the next upcoming Lara Croft film, which you can expect a review of some time around February or March when it comes out.

4. Chips, California Highway Patrol

Now, it’s a remake of a show from the seventies which you probably forgot existed. I have never seen this show prior to watching this film, but I think, even if I had, it wouldn’t have helped and from I have heard from people who have seen this show, this film is nothing like that. Chips is one crude awful comedy that had me gagging every five minutes. The film has some incredibly awful homophobic humour, when it is not trying to gross you out with some scatological humour. Also, there is a running gag about one of the highway patrol guys having a phobia of cat litter trays. No, that is not a mistype, that is genuinely in the film!! Michael Pena, with every film he has done since Ant Man seems to be burning every bridge he has had with the critics since that film. Thank Christ he has got another one of those ones coming out this year to rebound his reputation. I could go into more detail about why this film is atonally awful and all over the place, but frankly I don’t want to talk any more about this film. It’s just terrible in every sense of the word.

3. Transformers the Last Knight

Yes, anybody that read my review of this one is probably surprised this isn’t number one and any other year it almost certainly would have been, but there were two films this year that put even less effort in than Transformers did and when I am saying that, you should be retiring from film making!! It doesn’t help that Transformers The Last Night is the same god dammed movie as every single other film!!! Nothing has changed, it’s the same jock humour, the same awful effects, the same awful action scenes that cater to the lowest common denominator of film goers. These films actually treat their audiences like idiots and this film is no different. You want an example of it, the Nostalgia critic did and entire review of this film, having not seen it, describing what he felt the plot was going to be and he was one hundred percent correct. These films are stupid, awful and don’t have any more place in the cinema. Fortunately, it seems like everyone voted with their wallets considering that film made a lot less than the previous films, which might finally show Paramount that we are sick of them.

2. Resident Evil The Final Chapter

This is a film that wasn’t just bad in a sense that this was another awful Resident Evil film, it actually made my entire watch through of all five of the previous films prior to seeing this one, entirely pointless. The film seems to abandon half of what had built up to this point, if not most of its plot points, just to suit a conclusion that was also awful. This film is just terrible in every sense of the word, not only does it abandon every terrible plot point that came before it, it comes up with ones that are even worse. That’s not before it brings back a villain from a previous film purely because the actor got big on Game of Thrones, which means Albert Westger had to be demoted, but its final conclusions were so stupid I could not believe what I was watching. That’s not before it decides to rip off the plot of the first Kingsman film towards the end. Seriously it is time to quit with Resident Evil. Please let this be the final chapter, I cannot take any more of Paul Anderson showing off his wife Milla Jovovich in these films and making her a complete Mary Sue character no one could possible root for. Let’s hope the re-boot of Resident Evil coming out will be better than this.

1. Emoji Movie

So that is my list of the Worst Films of 2017. Let me know if any films I have missed deserve to be on this list.

“TOP 10 BEST FILMS 2017”

The best films of 2017 were really some brilliant pieces of work. I have had a real ball going to the cinema this year and it wasn’t just because of these films, even the films that were never going to make the list were alright. Films that I was expecting not to be very good turned out pretty well, for example Power Rangers exceeded my expectations even though it wasn’t as good as I was expecting it to be.

Kong Skull Island was actually better than I thought, which is interesting considering that I am kind of in the minority that seemed to like that film and I got to see many brilliant films at the London Film Festival, many of which don’t even qualify for this list since they didn’t receive general releases this year, but still. Incidentally a lot of films that got very good reviews I didn’t see, such as Call Me By Your Name, Moonlight and the Big Sick, which was a shame because I reckon I would have got a lot of joy out of it, but because of the afore mentioned reasons, I didn’t get a chance, though I fully intend to see it if it gets an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, which will make me see it as soon as possible, but other than that, I do intend to see it at some point considering how well it has been reviewed.

I am going to look back on what I consider have been some of the best things I have seen this year. For the record, here’s what I think have been some of the best things I have seen this year, so far.

As usual, here are my honourable mentions, in alphabetical order, the films that were very close, but didn’t quite make the list:

Brigsby Bear – This is described by its creator’s as a delightful dramatic comedy about child abduction, which is a very apt description of it. If you are put off by that, don’t be, this is a very heart-warming film with a ton of very funny moments. The film was unfortunately not very well distributed when it got its release and I think most people who saw it saw it with me and Ren at the London Film Festival, but I would recommend tracking it down since it is worth a watch.

In This Corner of the World – This is a very interesting animated film about War time Japan and the various struggles that the people of Japan faced during that time. Like many animated productions and Japanese cinemas depict this time period, it is no way sympathetic to the Japanese war cause, but is sympathetic to the innocent bystanders on the street that were caught in the mix. It’s a very well made animated film and I wouldn’t mind seeing it nominated for an Oscar if it gets the nod.

It – I might not have enjoyed this as much as Ren who reviewed this film with me, but I still think this is one of the better Stephen King adaptations in recent memory. It’s certainly scarier than the than the original TV mini-series. Its problem lies in the fact that it doesn’t go all out and takes itself a little too seriously, which means when a silly moment does crop up it feel tonally dissonant. I still recommend it, however and I am looking forward to It Chapter 2 which is coming out in 2019 which will tell the next story in the list.

Lego Batman Movie – If it wasn’t for another film that made the list, this would have been the funniest film I have seen all year. Lego Batman is one joyful fun movie and while I may not have got around to seeing Lego Ninjago, which I didn’t hear amazing things about, I suspect this still would have been my favourite of the two Lego films that came out this year. People are asking for a sequel to this film, but frankly I don’t think it is necessary since this one is fine on its own. It’s a good choice to give to your kids.

Spiderman Homecoming – Yes, this is the first year where a Marvel film did not make my Top 10 Best of the Year list. That’s not to say Marvel’s output was worse off this year, they just had a ton of competition. But out of all the Marvel films that came out this year, this was the best, and by far. Is it the best Spiderman film? I am still debating, but it is still a contender. If you enjoy the Spiderman character, I would give it a go. Special props should go to not only Tom Holland’s performance as Spiderman, but Michael Keaton’s brilliant performance as the vulture, creating one of the best villains in the MCU to date.

The Man Who Invented Christmas – Christmas movies are not generally on my radar and I am not a big fan of them, but I am a massive fan of A Christmas Carol and this gives a new insight into the story that I didn’t think was possible and gave me a new found respect for it. This will made a great double bill with any of the faithful adaptations of a Christmas Carol, or in fact, any of the great versions of it. It’s one hell of a really good film. Special props should go to the brilliant performances of both Dan Stephens and Jonathan Price. I decided that it didn’t make the list, however, since I felt in order to really enjoys this film, you would have to have some awareness of a Christmas Carol. While I am at it, let’s not forget the brilliant performance of Christopher Plummer, who makes a very good Ebenezer Scrooge.

Now we get to the actual list. The best 10 films I saw in 2017, that came out in UK cinema’s, for the record, Your Name won’t make the list since it got a release in 2016, but if it had counted, it would have been top of the list.

10. Blade Runner 2049

I didn’t have incredibly high hopes for this follow-up to Blade Runner, since I kind of went ‘how do you follow up Blade Runner’. Both the book and the film didn’t really leave much room. This, however, is a prime example of how you do a sequel to a well-established franchise. Director, Denis Villeneuve has now done two years in a row of being in my 10 Best Films of the Year List, having previously directed the brilliant Sci-Fi epic Arrival and he brings a lot of his brilliant direction into this film. The films also includes excellent performances from Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling and Felicity Jones. This is one hell of a film. The film has brilliant atmosphere, cinematography and action scenes. This is one brilliant way to follow-up one of the greatest Sci-Fi films ever made and it does feel like something in the vein of what Phillip K Dick would do, which shows some great understanding towards the source material.

9. Loving Vincent

A very interesting animated film that looks into the life and last days of Vincent Van Gogh. What makes this take unique is the fact that this is the first ever entirely oil painted animated film. The team spent four years getting it together and the effort really shows and pays off. With some amazing performances from one hell of a talented cast list, this is seriously an amazing film and I highly recommend it. It is heavily emotional, beautifully made and is a joy to look at. It not only looks into his life, it also examines what made his art as great as it did and how much the world should have taken him more seriously.

8. The Disaster Artist

The funniest film I saw all year and one of the best things I saw all year. If this is not up for Best Picture at the Oscars, something has gone horribly wrong. The Disaster Artist is a brilliant piece from director and star James Franco who amazingly embodies the personality of Tommy Wiseau. I thought this film was brilliant and you can’t knock it for what it did. Not to mention that this film had one of the best scripts I saw all year.

7. Wonder Woman

Yes, who would have thought this year that the best Superhero of the year would come out DC after their troubles in 2016. While DC may not have finished the film brilliantly with the rather average Justice League movie, they started the year with a bang with giving us one amazing Wonder Woman film. The movie does address its gender politics but it doesn’t let itself be engulfed by them, which as a result, speaks wonders and addresses it’s point a lot better than a more heavy handed film would have. Not to mention the brilliant performance from Gal Gadot and I even liked Chris Pine. Even the reveal of Aries in the film was brilliantly handled and I won’t dare spoil the twist for anyone who hasn’t seen it. This is one hell of a great film and I really hope the DC cinematic universe does not collapse because I would like to see more from this character.

6. Logan

What could possibly be the final X Men film in this continuity, Logan is also a contender for its best film. I loved this one. With the R rating, they can finally gall out to tell this brilliant Wolverine story that is basically a western with an X Men twist to it. It does adopt its old man Logan story pretty well and while this film is a rather sombre movie, which feels like witnessing the last days of a very good friend, it’s very well done, very well told and if this is the last film to be told in this X Men continuity, I think it has gone out with a bang, which is looking even more likely considering that Fox has now been purchased by Disney. Hugh Jackman definitely deserves a Best Actor nomination and Patrick Stewart really should be receiving a Best Supporting Actor nomination.

5. War For The Planet of the Apes

This Planet of the Apes trilogy comes to it’s phenomenal conclusion with this film, making this one of the few perfect trilogies in cinema. While it may not be topping the originality scale, this film really concludes the franchise well, looking into the final days of humanity before it truly becomes the Planet of the Apes. None of these are storyline great, but the performances from Woody Harrelson and once again a brilliant performance from Andy Circus, playing the main character Cesaer, with brilliant motion capture technology cannot be understated. These films have been real highlights for me and I am really looking forward to see what director Matt Reeves does next, especially if he is going to stay on a future Batman film.

4. John Wick Chapter 2

The first John Wick is an action marvel and is one hell of a revenge film. The second film, it’s pretty much the same, but dam is it really good, this has some of the best choreographed action scenes I have seen all year. This film commands your attention and does a brilliant job of it. Keanue Reeves delivers one of the best performances of his career and unlike many sequel films, this is not just a re-hash of the first film, it actually has its own identity and can stand alone as it. The film aims to take John Wick out of his territory and instead of him being the hunter makes him the hunted this time and it’s a joy ride to watch, especially considering this film finally has a great performance from Common, playing one of the main rivals to John Wick. The film does end rather abruptly, but at this point I wouldn’t have expected less and did set up the possibility to the now confirmed John Wick Chapter 3 which I am really excited to see. You really need to see these John Wick films, these are the prime example of how you should be directing action films in the modern day

3. Get Out

Whilst very difficult to classify Get Out, since it doesn’t fit any particular genre, it doesn’t deny the fact that it is one of the best films I saw all year and should easily be up for Best Picture at the Oscars. Get Out is one hell of an interesting film. It may have its plot holes and elements that don’t work, especially considering one of the plot twists is basically one of the ideas Karl Pilkington had for one of his films, which I am surprised no one has pointed out, but it doesn’t alter the fact that it did everything in a very smart way and worked very well, although I may have guessed the first plot twist, I didn’t exactly get the second one and I think this film is really going to be full of surprises for a lot of people. The first time director of Jordan Peel of Keel and Peel fame, really makes an excellent directorial debut and I really hope he gets a nomination for Best Director of the back of this as he really deserves it.

2. The Boy and the Beast

It may be predictable to have films like this, but frankly Mamoru Hosoda has really earnt my trust. I was considering leaving this off this list since it only had a limited release in 2017, but this is the only chance I get to rank it as high as it deserves and I am going to take advantage of that. The Boy and the Beast is one hell of an interesting film, dealing with several aspects of family, honour and finding one’s place in the world. It almost feels like a myth or fairy tale that you read to kids at night, but it also feels very mature and adult at the same time. Even if you are not a big animated fan I would seriously recommend this and both his previous films Wolf Children and Summer Wars, both of which are amazing films.

1. A Silent Voice

So, there you go, 2017’s best films, I hope you get a good recommendation out of these.

Thank you very much for reading these lists and for sticking with me for another year, now I normally would roll on to 2018 but this year I decided to do something different hence why this list was lat I’lll be back to normal rviews in 2 weeks with a review of The Comuter but next week I’m gonna do my Anime Yearbook for 2017

Thanks a lot for reading my reviews. I hope you have enjoyed reading them as much as I have enjoyed writing them and here’s hoping 2018 will be another excellent year for cinema.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“STAR WARS
THE LAST JEDI”

Yes, apologies for this review being later than expected, this was down to a few circumstances that were a bit out of my control.

Star Wars The Last Jedi is the eight entry now in the franchise and it comes off the heels of the phenomenal Star Wars The Force Awakens, which involved J J Abrams adding to the franchise in a way that almost redeemed it following the prequel trilogy. If you want my thoughts on that, check out my previous review on it, I actually thought it was a pretty good film. In fact, I put it at number 2 in my 10 Best Films of 2015.

The Last Jedi had a lot to live up to considering that there were many unanswered questions following the conclusion of that film. But, this time there is a change in writer/director, J J Abrams being moved into a Producers credit. The writing and directing job was handed over to Rian Johnson, whose most notable credit prior to this film was the 2012 Sci Fi thriller, Looper, which is a film I don’t feel has got its due, I actually liked the film, but I don’t see a lot of people having the same praise for it I have. Let’s just say it’s one of Bruce Willis’s better films over the last few years. Now, obviously it’s almost impossible to talk about this film without talking about Force Awakens so I will have to spoil to plot of that film to talk about this one. I will not, however, spoil the plot of The Last Jedi. If you have seen the film and want a spoiler review of it, myself and Ren did a Vlog on the topic. This is a strictly non-spoiler review.

The Last Jedi’s plot is really focused some time after the events of Force Awakens, they are a bit all over the place with time line at this point. The First Order is taking back most of the Galaxy and Leia, played by Carrie Fisher is leading the charge against it, alongside several other members of the resistance including Poe Dameron, played by Oscar Isaac. Meanwhile, there is another sub-plot with the First Order able to track them through hyper-space travel, resistance members Finn, played by John Boyega and Rose played by Kelly Marie Tran travel to track down a missing code breaker so they can disable the tracker. Meanwhile Rey, played by Daisy Ridley has sought out Luke Skywalker, played by Mark Hamill, they want to train her in the ways of the Force. However, she is in constant conflict due to her connection with Kylo Ren, played by Adam Driver and they both seem to believe they can turn the other one to their side.

There is a ton of plot in The Last Jedi. But in almost every regard, The Last Jedi is a pretty dam good Star Wars film. The quality of these films have just been brilliant. That’s not to say I don’t think The Last Jedi has it’s niggling points, I’m not sure its quite as good as Force Awakens and doesn’t quite have the same impact for me. But at the same time, it also fixes one of the problems I have with Force Awakens, which is I don’t believe it has much of a reliance over nostalgia. Force Awakens had a nasty tendency to recycle plots from most of the original trilogy. The Last Jedi on the other hand has a much more original plot, borrowing much less significantly, though there are a few points that feel eerily similar to scenes from Return of the Jedi, in fact some of the lines from Supreme Leader Snoke, played by Andy Serkis feel very similar to the scenes with Emperor Pablatine in those films. The Last Jedi also has a nasty tendency, that these films have not really given the scope of the Star Wars Universe, and I think it’s more to tie in with the sort of world that the original trilogy created. As much as the prequels aren’t great films, they did do a pretty good job expanding the Star Wars Universe to make it seem even wider and more epic and I wish this film would take more advantage of it and that’s probably my biggest problem with the film. In terms of a running plot, I actually think this one is pretty dam good. The plot is well written, there are some excellent character moments, though I think Luke is slightly inconsistent, something that I have heard is a common criticism of the film. I do have to slightly agree, however, I don’t believe it’s to the extent that people have made it out to be and I think when we get the full back story of his history with Kylo Ren, it’s actually kind of understandable.

Even with a couple of nit pics, the film never quite falls down, it actually builds on some of the plot points from Force Awakens pretty well, though, not to the point that we can’t spot some inconsistencies.

The film is two and a half hours long and it uses the time to its advantage. In fact, this is one of the few rare films that suits a two and a half hour running time, even if I did think the plot was starting to drag slightly towards the end. The film maybe could have done with being ten minutes shorter.

Kylo Ren is also turning into a more interesting villain, he has basically kind have become a better written of Anakin Skywalkers fall to the dark side from the prequels. Granted, he has a few whiny moments but at the same time, he actually has the ability to back up since he has a lot of bad ass moments as well. Despite her death, you may be surprised to hear that Leia has a much more prominent role than I was expecting in this film. She is actually a big part of it and it was one of the biggest genuine surprises of the film. Pleasant surprise, but none the less a surprise. I actually think they handled it pretty well. The whole film feels like a tribute to her and I felt that everything was done pretty well.

Now, while the film does have three competing plot lines, but one of the things that pleased me with this film is that these films are not too Jedi heavy. In fact the Jedi plot is actually rather relegated for a couple of points and at some moments it feels like it has gone permanently. There are also quite a few reveals in this film and a couple of them are really good, especially one in particular that I felt could have been really confusing and open up a million plot holes, but it is actually handled really well and makes sense and really strengthened the characters. The new characters are given a chance to be their own. With Luke being the only prominent character from the iconic trilogy to have a prominent role this time around, the film gives much more room for these new characters to build their identity. Something I appreciated, as without giving too much away, the next film is going to even more reliant on them.

Now, again, if you are like me, you are probably wondering how good are the light sabre battles. Well, I don’t think they have improved all that much on Force Awakens, but they have not exactly gone downhill either. In fact, one of the action scenes is so good, that it sold the movie for me. Again, I have to be very vague, as to not give away plot spoilers, but let’s just say the light sabre fight scenes are, on some levels better and on some levels, not much better. The rest of the action scenes are handled brilliantly, all things considered, however, I’m do think they are a bit too few and far between, but I like the fact that there is a plot exposition and we aren’t constantly in fight scenes. I think the effects have got a bit better too.

Now I did see the film in 2D, so I’m not sure how the 3D effects were in this film, but judging by the 3D in Force Awakens and the way this film looks very similar, I would say, don’t bother. If I am going on about production design, I loved the design of some of these new worlds. They are very interesting editions to the Star Wars Universe and fit in quite well. Once again, rather like the previous film none of the planets this time around have featured in previous Star Wars films. So, it’s a new experience all round. I would particularly like to point out the Red Dessert planet which I particularly liked and didn’t feel like a Tattoo Eden clone, and, of course, it’s a Star Wars film so the make-up effects are fantastic to create the aliens.

Of course, John Williams score is fantastic.

As for the performances, they are all brilliant as well. Daisy Ridley gives a phenomenal performance. Adam Driver I think is really coming into his own with Kylo Ren. Carrie Fisher gives a brilliant final performance in this film and it’s a credit for her to go out on her iconic character. John Boyega is once again pretty good, even if he is slightly down played this time around, I also really enjoyed Oscar Isaac. I am also kind of a fan of newcomer Kelly Marie Tran who gives a more expanded role. Of course you have more returning cast members including Domhall Gleeson who is on good form, Anthony Daniels reprises his role as C-3P0 and does a really good job and Andy Serkis once again returns to play Snoke, I actually think he is pretty dam good in this film, though, again, is nothing compared to his performance as Ceasar in War For The Planet of the Apes. Seriously, if Andy Serkis doesn’t get an Oscar nomination for that role at last, it’s a travesty. There are also newcomers, Gwendoline Christie who does a good performance, Laura Dern does a pretty dam good job and I enjoyed Benicio Del Toro in his performance as DJ. Plus there are a ton of cameo’s in there, including one very famous Star Wars one, which I won’t dare spoil.

The Last Jedi is not a perfect film, but I dam well enjoyed it. It’s definitely showing signs that the franchise is moving towards another trilogy that we can all get behind and I am really enjoying the films so far. The cast is brilliant, the effects are brilliant and I think it tells a rather compelling story. It feels very interesting as we are now moving into the ninth film, which will be out in 2019 and I am thoroughly looking forward to it, especially with J J Abrams returning to direct. It’s a solid entry in the franchise but it again suffers from the fact that it has to be the middle portion of trilogy, so as a result, can’t be definitive with much. Though personally, I thought this film was great, I really think you should go and check it out.

That’s it for 2017 with the Axia Film Society. Another year gone.

Thanks a lot for reading my review. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it and I am on my two week Christmas break now.

“THE DISASTER ARTIST”

Ever heard of a little film from 2003 called The Room, you probably have because it’s probably the most infamous bad film ever made. It probably would have faded into obscurity had it not been for the fact that the film’s writer, director, producer and star Tommy Wiseau paid a lot of money to have a two weeks screening in Los Angeles. I have now seen the film, it’s insane, it’s the epitome of “it’s so bad it’s good”, nothing about this film is right, nothing about film making is done to the correct standard with and it’s glorious in how terrible it is.

Now, granted, Tommy Wiseau is for the lack of a better term, an absolute raving lunatic and that’s what makes his persona. The film arguably could have faded into obscurity, however, another thing that he hasn’t quite realised is that the Internet has kind of made him famous. Yes, The Room was infamous beforehand, but the amount of people that got to see it through YouTube and critics talking about it, most famously the nostalgia critics review of it pointing out what an insanely bad film it is, has made this film a success and spread it worldwide. Till, later, Tommy thankfully put a take-down notice on the nostalgia critics review and threatened to sue him in open court for defamation. It has since been settled, they hugged it out and now the review is online for anyone to see. Got check it out, I would really recommend it, it’s one the nostalgia critics best reviews.

Now, The Disaster Artist was announced to be a biopic, based on a book that was written by the film’s co-star, Grace ??? and when I heard about it I was excited, especially considering this would also be the directorial debut of James Franco, who, much like the counter-parts that he is playing, would also be the main star. As for the writing team, we got Scott Neustadter and Michael H Weber, who are the writing team behind the adaptation of A Fault in our Stars and Five Hundred Days of Summer. Despite the fact that I am not the biggest fan of A Fault in our Stars, I felt they were the capable writers to do this story justice and believe me, I am going to say after that right now, whether you like this or you don’t, the story behind this film is just as insane as the movie it’s about.

Based on true events, the story tells the story of Greg, played by Dave Franco and Tommy, played by James Franco. Unable to really break into the acting world, they move to LA together and really give it a go. However, when their acting careers start to fail miserably and Tommy is told that it is almost impossible for him to break into being the leading hero and would more suit playing villains, he decides to cut his losses and write his dream script for The Room. However with his limited knowledge of how the film world works, he starts dictating the production to suit his whim and chaos arrives into it being an absolute glorious mess.

How else would you describe this film, it’s telling the insane story behind The Room and this film is almost as insane as that film. You really can tell how well researched this film is and how much it is pored over. You get several sense of the theomatic elements that inspired (in the loosest terms) the original film. However, it’s more than just that. James Franco clearly put a lot of effort into the shot for shots remakes of the scenes from The Room. In fact, he is so confident in them, that he actually placed them side by side before the closing credits. In fact, there were a couple of occasions where I had trouble telling which one was which. Now, despite the fact that Tommy Wiseau has become the most famous person to come out The Room’ wealth of success, (there is no other way of putting it), this really is Greg’s story, since Greg is kind of the outsider who Tommy wants to bring into his world and use any sense of him trying to break off and do his own thing as a sense of betrayal, which if it is to be believed, means that Tommy wasn’t exactly that far off his character in the movie. But if there is one reason why this film is so good, it’s its comedic value. This is one of the funniest films I have seen all year, I frickin loved this movie. This movie is just brilliant. I haven’t been this entertained by a biopic in ages. There’s a clear effort put in place to tell this story, and the reason why it works so well is because everything is placed so dead pan, so when something insane happens, it in real start contrast to the intents. Something that many comedy films get wrong by having insanity in intentional insanity. Which can work, however, it has to be very well written. I’m actually kind of surprised Tommy agreed to this film being made since he doesn’t exactly come out looking favourable by the end of it. In fact, he actually comes off as being a bit of a jerk. It is very clear, if you haven’t already seen The Room, that he has absolutely no idea how the film making process actually works and when anyone tries to point it out, he goes nuts.

The film really is about the friendship between Greg and Tommy and how both of them kind of start out motivating one another. However, Greg genuinely wants a career out of this and potentially feels that he is going to be hampered by this process. Now Greg initially starts out thinking that he has got nothing to lose since he is not getting any offers, however, when he realises that he does have something to lose with The Room, he starts turning his back on Tommy and begins to realise that the guy is a sketchy man. Considering the film never answers, and to this day has not been answered exactly how old Tommy is and where he is originally from. He still claims he is the same age as Greg and he is from New Orleans, which would mean, if he is telling the truth, that at this point in time, he is in his thirties. Just google a picture of him and make up your mind for yourself. It also makes out that he is a bit of a sketchy blagard, since the film also highlights that we still don’t know how he financed everything. The film reportedly cost $6,000,000.00, granted that’s a low budget, but considering that this was done by no production company, by an out of work actor and considering he had two apartments, in both San Francisco and Los Angeles, and had money to afford a big premiere and keep the film in cinema’s for two weeks, you really have to wonder. Where is this money coming from, none of the cheques bounced at all. Everyone got paid, it was all done. To this day, no one knows how this film was financed. In fact, if anything, this is my only problem with The Disaster Artist, it becomes so much about Tommy that it almost threatens to over-shadow Greg’s story, and arguably this film is his story. In fact by the time we do actually get back on track, it’s almost too late for that. That being said, it’s a minor nit pic and I can’t go too far into it.

This is a film that will have you laughing your head off throughout most of its run time and the great thing about this film is that unlike The Room, it never takes itself too seriously.

As for the acting, it’s once again just brilliant. Dave Franco, probably gives one of the best performance of his career so far, and I am hoping that he will start making more films like this, though I also kind of hope he starts breaking away too. I felt his performance is well deserving of some award nominations, he really plays it well. If James Franco does not get a nomination for best supporting actor it is a travesty!! He is the embodiment of Tommy Wiseau in this performance and honestly, it is probably one of the best performances, if not the best performance I have seen all year. Seriously, this man deserves an Oscar, if it is not for best director, he must win best supporting actor. The cast is also made up of some excellent supporting roles, including a brilliant performance from Seth Rogen, who I am convinced is breaking out well from his type casting to prove what a talent he really is. Ari Gaynor gives a good performance, along with Alison Brie, Jackie Weaver has a good cameo, I quite liked Zac Efron in this role, and there are some other great cameos, including Melanie Griffith, Joe Mande and even Jason Mantzoukas, who actually, for once is in a role where I can actually stand him. Oh, yes and keep an eye out because Tommy himself actually has a cameo.

The cinematography is fantastic, seriously, you have got to check this film out. These are some of the best shots of Los Angeles I have seen in a long time, even if they do kind of look like they are made for the tourist board.

The Disaster Artist is one of the best films I have seen this year so far. It’s utterly brilliant in how fun, over the top and dare I say even well acted it is. James Franco proves he can be an excellent director and I really hope this is not the last time he steps into the role, which I am pleased, to say, he has several lines down the line which he will be continuing. As I said, I think the film had a couple of issues towards the end and it worked as a whole. I don’t think I have laughed at any film this year more than this one and considering I only have one or two review to go, I think it is fairly evident it’s probably one of my best comedies. It is probably going to be in my best films of the year list. If this film doesn’t receive several Oscar nominations then that is a travesty, especially best supporting actor for James Franco.

Well, it’s time for the big one. Next time when you come back, for the third year in a row, we are capping off the year of the Axia film society with a Star Wars review. That’s right, it’s Star Wars Episode 8, The Last Jedi.

“THE MAN WHO INVENTED CHRISTMAS”

The Man Who Invented Christmas peaked my interest because it sort of tells the untold story behind the book, which I will get into more detail about in my review, but it’s kind of fascinating and as a fan of the book I thought that I really needed to see this film, so I decided to break my rule about Christmas movies and give it a shot and I am not really breaking it as technically this is kind of an adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

The film is directed by Bharat Nalluri, who has been nominated for a prime time Emmy, though he has mostly done TV work, having directed episodes like Torchwood and Life of Mars, though he has some feature film credits, such as, the film version of MI5 and Miss Peregrew Lives for a Day, films which I won’t claim to have seen as well as a recent TV movie Mars Project. The Man Who Invented Christmas is clearly his most ambitious project yet, so, how does he handle it?

The Man Who Invented Christmas is obviously the story of Charles Dickens, (played by Dan Stevens) going through a mid-life crisis. After being in America following the success of Oliver Twist and being hailed like a rock star, he has come home and failed to capitalise on a follow-up, having had a couple of flops afterwards. However, on a walk home, after promising a new book in order to get himself out of his rising debt, he gains inspiration when he accidentally ends up wandering into a funeral where the only attendee is one grumpy old man and the man being buried had no friends in life to take care of him in his last days. Struck by several inspirations, he develops the story of A Christmas Carol and as he begins to develop his characters they start coming to life and he begins to develop the story alongside his creation, Ebenezer Scrooge (played by Christopher Plummer). That’s a very basic telling of the story, but yes, that is kind of the drift of it.

My biggest advise with this one is, if you are going in expecting a simple movie, you are not getting it. The Man Who Invented Christmas is rather complex in a nutshell. It’s kind of bold and brash actually, all things considered. It feels a rather modern film in a sense. If you are not familiar with A Christmas Carol and have only seen snippets of it then you won’t get the same amount pleasure out of the film as someone who is familiar with it, since the film is rather under the assumption that you have seen other adaptions, or better yet, read the book. Since there are several moments where several characters quoting book dialogue. In fact, there are actually quite a few references. I would highly recommend seeing at least one version of A Christmas Carol before seeing this, preferably one of the few I mentioned earlier as those ones were the ones that were closer to the book, with the obvious exceptions being The Muppets version. I would say though, air a word of caution with the 1984 version and the most popular version, the Alistair Sim version since both of those tend to twist book dialogue and add a lot of additional scenes that weren’t in the book and you may be asking why the film didn’t reference something that it was never going to reference in the first place.

The film is more about Charles Dickens confronting his life in a sense. A Christmas Carol was a very stressful experience for him since he was up to his eyeballs in debt, he was having to self-publish the book since his actual publishers didn’t believe they could publish the book in time. He had to borrow money left, right and centre and he had another child on the way. The film examines a couple of his relationships. The major one to talk about being his father John played by Jonathan Pryce, though we get a couple of scenes with his wife Kate, played by Morfydd Clark and his live in servant Tara played by Anna Murphy, who takes a fascination in reading, particularly his books and also doubles up to serve as his inspiration for the ghost of Christmas past, which is one of the minor nit pics of deviations the film has since the book has a much more fantastical image of what the ghost of Christmas past looks like. In fact, it’s actually one of the few times that the Muppets film was probably one of the closest that came to the book. Trust me, if you have read the book it makes a lot more sense, though the 2009 version probably was technically the closest. Now that tangent is out of the way!

I really like all the relationships that it explored, it’s at times genuinely touching, it’s seeing a man go through his creative experiences, he has a great idea, but needs to get it out and he is doing everything in his power to do it. While there is definitely the fear of going bankrupt, I think it’s also more of a fear of him failing that I get a sense of. It is also essentially his relationship with his creations, though, he rarely interacts with Scrooge all that much, which really leads me to my biggest nit pic of the film. Let me just say this right now, Christopher Plummer is one of the best things about this film and he does make a good Ebenezer Scrooge, I have no doubt in my mind about that, in fact, I could definitely see him play the character in a straight adaptation. However, I don’t think the writers have quite got Scrooge. The best versions of Scrooge are not exactly mean spirited in a sense. A lot of people make the mistake of believing Scrooge is a wicked and mean man, he is not, he is just a sad and dejected man who is afraid of the world, and has a particular dislike for Christmas considering that most of the worst events of his life have taken place around that time of the year. These include him being left at boarding school, his fiancé leaving him and his best friend dying. However, this Scrooge is more confrontational more than anything else, it serves the plot part well, but it feels like at times, Christopher Plummer is going in and out of playing Scrooge and just another character. That being said, when he is playing Scrooge, he is fantastic in the role and this is a very good version of the character. Obviously it can’t explore all the avenues of the character, that was pretty obvious because this is not an adaptation of A Christmas Carol, but the one thing the films gets is not only what made the book so good, but they really manage to inject the essence of the story into this one since we get a lot of reveals about Charles Dickens past that not a lot of people are aware of and particularly why he is one of the few writers around that time that were writing about the poorer members of society. We also see his inspiration for characters like Marley and the ghost of Christmas present, and of course, he faces that massive thing that anyone who has tried to write a book gets, ‘writers block’ and they seem to visualise all of these stages brilliantly.

The reason why A Christmas Carol kind of works so well is because Charles Dickens wasn’t just at the time writing about a man confronting his past, present and potential future, he was living that at the time, so doing a story like this actually kind of works. As a result, it’s just a brilliant story. You get a sense of everything that poured into his story and why it is a classic, that we are still talking about adapting over a hundred years after its creation. It never feels cynical, that’s what I like about this film, but it never tries to not tackle heavy projects, and that’s really my thing, this is not a family film, it’s actually quite a dark film all things considered. But I would recommend double billing this film with A Christmas Carol at the same time, since it works pretty well, though I would recommend doing it with one of the more faithful adaptations than one of the more goofier ones.

If there is one area where this film succeeded however, it was not only just brilliant story-telling, it was its brilliant acting. The cast is just brilliant with the cream of the British crop signing up to be in the film, including Jonathan Pryce of Game of Thrones and Pirates of the Caribbean fame, Simon Callow, Miriam Margolyes, Donald Sumpter, Bill Paterson, Miles Jupp, Justin Edwards, and Ian McNeice, whose casting felt extra brilliant for me since he also played Fezziwig in the 1999 adaptation of A Christmas Carol and he is probably one of the better actors to portray that part. Everyone gives brilliant performances, but the stand-out ones by far include Christopher Plummer who gives an amazing performance in this film and in terms of the way he is described in the book, Christopher Plummer probably is one of the closest live action actors to look like the way Ebenezer Scrooge is described in the book, not counting Jim Carey’s motion capture performance considering he had the aid of digital effects to look like the character. But by far the best performance is by Dan Stevens in the role of Charles Dickens, who is probably giving one of the best performances of his career. He seriously for me, has redeemed himself after the terrible Beauty and the Beast remake. He can make you laugh an feel real emotion within the same scene and he delivers some of the best lines of the entire movie and does them all brilliantly.

Does the film have issues?

“THE BOY AND THE BEAST”

The Boy and the Beast is a film I have wanted to talk about for quite some time, but have only just found an opportunity to do so. The film was released in Japan back in 2015, however it briefly received a limited release in America last March, in fact, it was the same weekend as Zootopia. I was expecting it to receive a British release on DVD shortly thereafter, however, that did not materialise.

I did manage to see the film when it played in Birmingham at the Flat Pack Film Festival and did make the decision that I was going to review it as soon as it got a British release. That was meant to happen in September, however, at the last minute, Studio Canal pulled the release of the DVD and Blu-Ray and went very quiet with it. I assumed it had been outright cancelled. That was until it was announced that it would be received a very limited weekend release in July. Unfortunately, I couldn’t actually make that cinematic screening, however, it is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray and I decided that I am going to give myself an early Christmas present and review this bad boy.

So why was I so excited to see this and I went all the way to Birmingham to see it? Well, it’s the film’s director. This film is directed by Mamoru Hosoda, who is a name you are not that familiar with, however, you really should be. If it wasn’t for Miyazaki coming out of retirement, I would probably say Mamoru Hosoda is probably my favourite working director. Ok, Digimon has a lot of good and bad in it, but most of the really great stuff of that series came around the time when Hosoda was the show runner. He may be accredited for doing a lot of the Digimon movie, but don’t blame him for that, that was clearly an American shop job! But that is not the reason that I am into Hosoda, his solo films have been fantastic, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a brilliant film and while I have not read the book it is based on, I think it’s worth a watch. Then he moved on to an even better film with Summer Wars, a fantastic movie that I have highly recommended. It’s kind of his re-make of Digimon Our War Game, which you may recognise as the second segment of the Digimon film, but man did he had a ton of heart to it. It is such a good film. Then he moved on to Wolf Children, which should really be his magnum opus, it’s a phenomenal movie, probably in my ten favourite films of all-time list. I absolutely adore it, please if you take nothing else from this review, go track down a copy of Wolf Children, don’t download it off the Internet illegally, don’t do that, buy it, this deserves to be in your DVD collection. You can understand that with all that, I would be very, very keen to check out Hosoda’s latest film, which he also co-wrote the screenplay and developed the story for. However, this is my review of my second viewing of the film, so keep that in mind, this is from the perspective of someone who has now seen the film twice.

The Boy and the Beast is the story of Ren, (played by Aoi Miyazaki and Luci Christian). After his mother dies and his mother’s side of the family take control of his life, seeing as how they don’t believe his father is capable of taking care of him, he runs away to live on the streets. He is then approached by a beast named Kumatetsu (played by Koyo Yakusho and John Swasey). Out of curiosity, he follows him into the beast world where he discovers more of Kumatetsu and ends up living with him, or at least spending the night with him for the time being. Next morning, not wanting to be Kumatetsu’s apprentice as requested he discovers that Kumatetsu is in conflict with Iozan, (played by Kazuhiro Yamaji and Sean Hennigan), both are battling to see who can become the new grand master after he ascends to become a god. After seeing the lack of respect that Kumatetsu gets from his community, Ren decides that it is worth a shot and decides to become his apprentice, being renamed Kyuta.

I won’t go into any more detail about the plot from then on, because frankly, you are missing out the best moments, it’s best to go into this film as blind as possible. If you are very familiar with Mamoru Hosoda’s films though, this film won’t entirely be a surprise, he does the same sort of themes about family bonding that he has done in all of his films prior to this one, with the possible exception of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Something I am hoping he will distance himself from in his next film since I am hoping he hasn’t become a one trick pony. That being said, however, if he has, he is very good at this trick because The Boy and the Beast is yet another phenomenal film. It’s one heartfelt, well-crafted movie, that at the time I first saw it, I thought might be disappearing with Studio Ghibli, and luckily, between this film and the previously reviewed Your Name and A Silent Voice, I can definitely say that everything I love about Japanese film making still exists. It’s a well-crafted story about fathers and sons and the nature of adopted families, something that I think will really transcend with a lot of its audience. Just everything about it is not only exquisitely looking, it feels like it has come from the heart. Mamoru Hosoda’s is rather like Miyasaki, in a sense of, you get a sense that his films feel like passion projects, they don’t feel like they have been made to appease someone. I can see why Hosoda was initially given the job of directing Hal’s Moving Castle, which he was later booted from, because he wasn’t fitting the template they were asking for.

Let’s now discuss the characters. My goodness, the characters are great in this film. They are distinct, recognisable in both personality and look and it just feels a joy to be in their presence. Kyuta is probably one of Hosoda’s best main characters because he feels very relatable. He is just a lost kid looking for a home and he goes through an excellent character arc. The other thing that sells it is his relationship with Kumatetsu. Their progression together is just fantastic. Like most of Hosoda’s films, you really feel for the character, even some of the characters which in other films would probably be written to be a lot more one dimensional than they are here. In fact, a later plot twist involving some other characters really highlights the themes well, especially that of father’s raising their sons. Anyone who has seen the film will know what I am talking about with that one.

Now Hosoda has had full control of this work. This is not based on a Munga or light novel or any sort of previous intellectual property. However, unlike most directors that now get the chance to make their own intellectual property, he doesn’t pace this like he is adapting another work. Yes, something I have noticed about modern Anime trends is that a lot of the original works don’t tend to still be paced like they are attempting to adapt an intellectual property. Even some of the good ones like Princess Principal. It’s not necessarily a knock, it’s just a bit of a curious thing.

However, with all that in place I would have thought this film would have been longer than it was. Again, I think it’s perfectly paced but I am surprised that Hosoda didn’t try to make this film longer. One of the reasons I think he has worked so well with this is because if he had over extended it, he would have over worked the characters and every character arc would have been stretched out beyond belief. In this sense, we get just enough with all of them, we see the growth and progression. We get to a stage where Kyuta is learning from Kumatetsu and Kumatetsu is also learning from Kyuta. (Kyuta is meant to be a play on the Japanese word for nine, which is the age that he comes to Kumatetsu in).

Without giving too much away, the film eventually has a time jump to where Kuyta is seventeen and he is played by Shota Sometani in the sub and Eric Vale in the Dub. Now, again, without giving too much away, this segment also introduces a love interest called Kaede played by Suzu Hirose and Bryn Apprill. She is an interesting character, since she is meant Kyuta back to his humanity after he almost goes full beast. She doesn’t come into the plot too much, but I kind of liked her contribution. It was kind of fortunate that she wasn’t in the film too much as I think the romance between them might have been a bit dragged out. Not to say it’s bad, far from it, it’s just not so good as Hosoda’s writing in a film like Summer Wars, but on another sense, it is actually kind of better than that film since it seems a lot more natural than Summer Wars. I would say they are about half and half on a level, though Summer Wars slightly eases over, but that is ok because that was not meant to be one of this films main themes. She does confuse the plot in other ways, but again, I don’t want to spoil this film for you. Let’s just say, she is in just the right amount of the film and I would be remiss to mention her. One of the most interesting characters who I felt didn’t get enough screen time was Iozan, who is meant to be Kumatetsu’s rival and meant to be a stronger, more well trained beast, who has many more apprentice’s since Kumatetsu only has Kyuta as his apprentice since no other beast would take on the job. I kind of wished we had seen a bit more of him, he seems like an interesting character, though he does get a good amount of development down the line, though we really see more of his sons, Ichirohiko and Jiromaru, who are the only other characters who age and time skip. I won’t go into too much detail about them since I would have to give away too much, but let’s just say, they play a much bigger role in the film than first thought and also are some of the best characters in the film. I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention Chico, who I own a plushy of, thank you very much Loot Anime, who is frankly going to adore anyone else who sees him and of course the Grand Master is just hilarious, this is one of Hosoda’s funniest characters to date, but they never forget to mention how he genuinely is a wise man, but what makes him so funny is the fact that they don’t overplay him.

Is there much to say negatively about the plot, not really, this film is one dam near perfect film. I just really think it is fantastic in every sense of the word. It has tons of amazing set pieces, tons of amazing world building it explores its themes very well and to the point to tell a very beautiful heart-warming story, it’s a seriously amazing plot.

As for the actors, well, I saw this film initially in its sub-titled version with the original Japanese actors, but for the purposes of this review, I did see the English dub, which the studio now has licensed for the European market for distribution, but the dub itself was handled by Funamation Entertainment, who seem to be one of the few dub companies still standing right now. If you are aware of Funamation, you will recognise quite a few of the voices, since they do tend to repeat voice actors. The dub is actually very good, this is a very passable dub. If you are aware of the Japanese voice actors, the casting of the English voice actors is perfectly serviceable and I think they do the job just fine. In fact, some of my favourite voice actors are in this film, including Luci Christian, Ian Sinclair, Sean Hennigan as well as Eric Vale, who played Sanji in one piece Trunks in Dragon Ball Z, Loki in Fairytale and also now voices Phoenix Wright and I must admit one of the best performances in the film is John Swaysey who voiced Shinigami in Soul Eater as well as Shinji’s father in Evagellion.

Now despite the fact that I think this is a very good dub, all things considered, I am going to stand by my next opinion and not to sound like a sub purist, which I am definitely not, I think you should try and watch this on in the original Japanese. As good as the dub actors are and they are doing a good job with this one, the English localisation team should be very proud of themselves, I don’t think it quite holds a candle to the amazing performances by the Japanese cast, in fact when I watch it again, I am going to watch it in the Japanese this time. The performances are simply phenomenal. Special mention definitely to Koji Yakusho who is brilliant as Kumatetsu as well as Aoi Miyazaki for the younger version of Kuyta.

The Boy and the Beast is something that needs to be in your DVD collection now.

The big question is, do I think this film is better than Wolf Children, no, as much as I loved this film, I think Wolf Children is slightly better in a couple of ways, but I still think this is his next best film, it’s just amazing. Please, give this one a go, you will not regret it. I will probably run out of things to talk about when it inevitably gets into my Best Films of 2017 list. Go out a buy the Mamou Hosoda collection, it contains all three of his previous films that he has had complete control over and then buy this separately, it’s an excellent purchase, you are getting four amazing films.

Well, that’s it for me this week and you remember when I said I would never review a Christmas film, unless it was another adaptation of A Christmas Carol, since that’s one of my favourite stories and I think it has some staying power in which to review it. Well, I’m kind of breaking the rule a bit for the next week, but then again, at the same time I’m not. Next week I am going to do my review of The Man Who Invented Christmas, starring Dan Stephens and Christopher Plummer, chronicling Charles Dickens time writing A Christmas Carol.

“JUSTICE LEAGUE”

No joke, I am a huge Justice League fan, or at least I was with the animated series. If anyone actually asked me now what would be in your ten favourite TV shows, Justice league would be on that list. It was a real culmination of what Bruce Tim had visioned what DC’s animated department could be and in a sense, they kind of beat Marvel to a Cinematic Universe. Granted, there had only been three series prior to its creation, but it was a real Fx series, every episode was multi-part, so as a result, it led to every story line having an epic feel.

For the record, this is a non-spoiler review,

Following the death of Superman, Batman, (played by Ben Affleck) is noticing the comings of an alien invasion and without Superman, the world needs a vision of hope. He starts to bring a team together. A villainous demon from apocalypse, named Steppenwolf, (played by Ciaran Hinds) is attempting to gain three mother boxes to ravage the planet and make it more like his home in order for a full scale invasion from the apocalypse. Batman alone cannot defeat it so in order to do so he rallies a team together including Wonder Woman (played by Gal Gadot), Arthur Curry, aka Aquaman (played by Jason Momoa), Barry Allen, aka The Flash (played by Ezra Miller) and Victor Stone, aka Cyborg (played by Ray Fisher). The team unites under the cohort to prevent Steppenwolf from getting the last mother box. However, it’s beginning to look like even this Justice League is not quite enough.

Now, rather like Batman V Superman, Justice League has a lot to tackle in a space of time, in terms of character introductions and dynamics, setting up several worlds and really building this Cinematic Universe, however, it kind of succeeds. Well, at least more so than Batman v Superman did. There is certainly a decent set up for Aquaman and The Flash’s movies, which will be coming out next year and I certainly liked a lot of the characters and the character dynamic. Granted, I don’t think this film has got them down as well as, say, Wonder Woman has, but it’s nice to know that DC was addressing a lot of the complaints they had with previous films. The world is a lot brighter, there is a lot less of the awful dialogue and symbolism there was in previous films and the characters at least feel like their comic counterparts, for the most part, I still think Batman is a bit off and I am beginning to see Affleck’s disdain for playing the character, which suggests to me that Batman might not be sticking around for too much longer, unfortunately.

That being said, however, this a film that feel underwhelming. Everything about this film is underwhelming, it’s almost as if the bare minimum required has been put into the film. For the very first time we are seeing the Justice League on screen, nothing about this whole thing feels very epic. It just feels that it is like their attempt to get their foot in the door so they can compete with Marvel. Everything just doesn’t feel like it’s there!! In fact, by the end of the film I just said, “is that it”!! In fact. the whole thing is a lot shorter. This is the shortest of the DC Cinematic Films to date, coming in at just two hours, but I think this film warranted a two and a half hours running time, There are several character moments that could have had an entire arc dedicated to them and I think an extra thirty minutes could have delivered that. Unlike Batman V Superman, it’s not trying to do too much in too little a time. It knows what it wants to be, gets it all out and gets it out of the way. The problem is, it doesn’t fully work. That’s not to say it doesn’t get anything right, far from it, there are a few things it gets very well done. I think they got The Flash down right, they had a slightly Autistic edge to him, which felt a bit out of character from the comics, but I thought it was done pretty well. So, that’s why I personally think it’s alright, although, unlike Power Rangers, it’s not outright stated. The problem is, though, that a lot of the characters do not feel fleshed out. We don’t even see the origins for these characters, presumably they are all being saved for their individual solo films, though why Cyborg is getting a solo film, I have no clue!! But at least this film, unlike Batman V Superman has the characters acting like hero’s. I just wish there was more to it. It all felt just “ehh”. But, to be honest, I think this film could have been worse. In all honesty I was looking for several moments to see, “is that a Weedon moment” or “is that a Snyder moment” and most of the best ones I think, were done by Weedon. A lot of insider reports suggest that Weedon fixed what was a very bad film, so he has probably rescued it. To be honest, if these are his additions, he has done a pretty good job with it. The world feels brighter and more colourful, it’s a much more engaging film. I don’t know which one of them did the action scenes, but they are really good, but more on that later. The fights have weight to them because it feels like there is a worth to it.

The weakest part of this film is Steppenwolf. Christ, he is a bad choice for a first Justice League villain! Ok, I am glad they didn’t go all the way and use Dark Side as the very first Justice League villain, that’s the big bad of the DC Universe and he would have been an unwise choice for the first villain. But they could have gone with another alien threat like Starro the Conqueror, in fact, one of the dream sequences, or flash backs or whatever the hell was going on in Batman V Superman, he’s entirely unnecessary, so he doesn’t play a part in this film, like I was expecting it to. So, if that is going to have any r significance in any future films from now, because they don’t elaborate on it at all. Granted, Justice League has a lot to work with and it does use that to its best degree, but you get a sense, the entire time that it’s a case of ‘I want to love this film’, but I am struggling, because it is makes a bad move and ultimately it feels there should be more here, in fact, I actually wouldn’t mind an extended edition of this film.

We do get a few hints to upcoming films including the brief introduction of the concept of two famous DC characters who have already been confirmed to have future movies, plus it feels like the larger DC Universe has been realised, however, you can’t help but feel that there is nothing epic about this. In fact, one of the scenes looks almost identical to the Battle for Manhattan in the Avengers film to try and give it an epic adventure, but the point is, it was epic in the Avengers because we had a film for each of these characters so it meant more when they all came together. This film doesn’t quite have that.

Ben Affleck is doing his best, but you can tell he is not quite as into the role as when he first started. One of the reasons I was hoping this film would be a success was to keep him around because I think he could make a very good Batman, though the film now does elaborate that Batman has been active for twenty years, which does add a lot more to the portrayal of this version of the character. Gal Gadot is once again fantastic as Wonder Woman, honestly forget the Fast and Furious films, this feels like this is the role she was born to play. Jason Momoa has been introduced very well as Aquaman even if he is basically spouting a lot of one-liners for most of the film. Ezra Miller makes a pretty good Flash, and I personally felt he did a pretty good job, though his is not as good in the role as Grant Gustin from the TV series, in fact I am quite glad they didn’t go too far into his origin considering how many people are aware of it from the TV series. Newcomer Ray Fisher is once again really good as Victor Stone and Ciaran Hinds, I love the fact that he trying to put a lot into the voice of Steppenwolf, but he is hampered by a poor script. Other actors to note are Amy Adams as Lois Lane, again, you feel like she could play a brilliant Lois Lane, but is once again hampered by the script. Jeremy Irons is once again pretty good as Alfred and the film also does a decent job of introducing Joe Morton who makes a very good Silas Stone and J K Simmons as this DC Universe’s version of Commissioner Gordon, who, despite the fact that he isn’t on screen a whole lot, really feels like he embodies the character, he is honestly a pretty good choice.

Now, let’s talk about presentation. Halleluiah, they actually got some bright colours into the DC Universe and kept it going for two more films. The costumes just look a bit better, none of them feel that out of place, even Aquaman’s costume was better than I was expecting it to be, the promotional material made it look way too grey! I felt fortunate that they decided to go down that route. The action scenes are decently well shot, a few are weaker than others, including a few of fights with Steppenwolf, there’s a really cool scene with the Amazons a pretty decent underwater action scene to give us an idea of what Aquaman is going to be like in his solo film. Hell, they even got Batman’s action down a bit better.

I saw the film in 3D, but I would recommend you don’t see the film in that format. The film is still in darkening environments, which affects the 3D quite a lot and I would say I lost the 3D effect very quickly and it’s almost un-noticeable, in other words, 3D is almost entirely unnecessary for this film.

Justice League is ultimately the most underwhelming film I have seen all year. It has good parts and bad parts, but I ultimately felt it was just a rather “there movie”. That’s not to say it has put me of the DC Cinematic Universe entirely, I am still going to check these films out, but I am not going into them with much enthusiasm any more. I think Joss Weedon has probably done a lot of work and this film could have been a lot worse, but I am not judging this film by what it could have been, I am judging it on what it is and right now, it doesn’t entirely work. I think if you have enjoyed the DC movies up to now, you will probably enjoy this one, if you haven’t enjoyed them, this one isn’t going to change your mind. If you enjoyed Wonder Woman it is worth a watch because you get more of her and she is one of the best parts of the film. I can safely say, if I was to rank it, I like the film more than Man of Steel, I liked it more that Batman V Superman Dawn of Justice, I liked it more than Suicide Squad, but Wonder Woman was a much, much better film. If you do go, stick around until the very end, there are two post-credit scenes, one which is a rather amusing joke one, which was fun and I quite liked and the other is a set up for a sequel, but it introduces a very well-known DC character, who you won’t want to miss.

Time to move on, and I am keeping going with a review of film I saw in 2016 at a film festival that just got a dvd The Boy and The Beast

Thanks a lot for reading my review. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it and well, I guess it didn’t suck, that’s a plus!!