“FLATLINERS”

Flatliners is a film whose trailer caught my attention, however, for reasons you wouldn’t expect. Flatliners to me looked like it could be an interesting concept though it looked like it borrowed heavily from the Final Destination films, a series of films that I believe went down in rapid succession with every sequel, which kind of proves that this was pretty much a good idea for only one film and two at the absolute most. For the record, I did see the original 1990 film prior to watching this film, which may have been a large reason why this review either was close to, or was delayed getting out. It’s not very good when you have to delay a film review because you have to watch another one just to compare the two together and it was made even worse by the fact that I had to watch this film in particular.

Flatliners is, in my opinion, a very dull film. It may have an interesting premise, which I will go into when I discuss the plot of the film, and it has a stellar cast, including Keifer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin and Oliver Platt, but all these guys have done much better films in other locations. Watching this is basically the equivalent of watching a very boring thriller that you have seen a lot of times over with some weird WTF imagery that will come out of nowhere more frequently than a Randy Orton RKO. I also think one of the reasons I didn’t like this film was because it is directed by one of my most hated directors, Joel Schumacher. Yes, everyone wants to hit on the guy for Batman and Robin, but frankly this guy really hasn’t made any good films. He directed the film St Elmo’s Fire, which, despite having the John Parr theme song stuck in everyone’s heads in an awful film of Titanic proportions and it is evident in the fact that John Parr hadn’t even seen the film prior to the song, hence why the song bears little or no resemblance to the film itself. Also, who could forget his appalling screenplay for the adaptation of the Wiz, a Jazz and Motown version of Wizard of Oz and he hasn’t really directed since the really ill-advised and appalling adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera 2004. Flatliners is probably one of his better films but it is only because he doesn’t delve too far into a lot of the tropes that really screwed him over the years.

The directing duties this time went to Niels Arden Oplev a Swedish director whose only notable credit prior to this film was the Swedish version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which is a film I kind of recommend. If you have only seen the David Lynch film starring Daniel Craig it’s still worth a watch. You aren’t going to get too many surprises since both films are relatively loyal to the book, but the Swedish film is more loyal to the book, for one thing it retains the ending of the book, though it veers off on a couple of occasions, plus if you want to see a follow-up, this one got sequels, neither of which Oplev directed. Though from what I could find looking at his filmography, this is his first English language film. So, with that rather than longer than usual introduction, how does Flatliners hold up? Did it improve at all on what I consider a rather boring film?

If you are aware of the original 1990 film, most of what I am going to say now is not going to come as a shock to you.

Right, let’s start with the positives, this film did not bore me, unlike the original one, this film kept me engaged throughout most of the film. This new version’s main changes are all around the updates and technology, which is something I think greatly improved the film. In the original, they just document what they see down on pen and paper, they don’t really analyse it all that much. Granted, that’s a problem they have in this film, after the third go of doing this, but because they are put in the MRI scanner, we actually can see some tangible results and some research analysis, something which was profoundly missing from the original. I also liked the fact that while the original had their visions tied back to their sins, this time, because more characters went under we got to see not only more, but they almost always tied back to what was disturbing them in life. As I said, the original did do this, but it also tended to dive a lot more into WTF territory and it almost seemed like Joel Schumacher was putting whatever he wanted on screen. The new film also benefits from the fact that these characters actually look like medical students and this actually looks like a medical facility. Trust me, Joel Schumacher is not great with his sets, I almost think if you watch a Joel Schumacher film you would never believe that the actors are in their organic environment, you often can see the cracks and you can often tell it’s a sound stage.

The character arcs, once again, are pretty interesting and again they are all updated for the modern world. In fact, most people from the original will be happy to know that not only is this not a clone for clone remake in terms of the plot, it’s also not a clone for clone remake in terms of the characters. These are all new characters with all different grievances and back stories. The personalities and the back stories are kind of amalgams of the various characters. Certain characters pick up certain traits from different character, so, one of them for example, will get a bit of Kiefer Sutherland’s role in the group, but they will also retain something of Julia Robert’s back story, if you catch my drift. Diego Luna’s Ray is the only one who seems like he is rather mimicking any of the characters in the original, seeming to be very much the figure similar to Kevin Bacon’s character, being that he is the sensible one that believes the experiment goes too far, but sticks by the group because it is the bond he has developed with his friends.

The sins themselves this time range from once again, the death of a family member to a sexting scandal and even some of them go in quite interesting directions. Most of them feel more up to date with the modern world, despite the fact that I was kind of into a lot of the ideas they were going with, they are rather weak for the most parts. What I mean by that is the resolution feels week, only one of them is given a long time to develop. In the 1990 film, I at least appreciated that it took a while to develop the characters in that sense, this one doesn’t seem to be able to do that as much, in fact, the padding of the plot is still there, something that is not improved in either version. With this one, none of that padding time is taken up with character development, something which made this one significantly worse.

In the first half of Flatliners it has a lot more strengths to it than it has weakness and I was starting to get into the plot. There were some interesting ideas and the updated effects made a lot of the scenes very fun to watch. However, the halfway point is where it all comes crashing down!!! What was a rather interesting thriller, that seemed to be updating and improving on the original, turned into a generic horror film! It comes with all the tropes and the problems that come with those films. A lot of the second half of the film is stuff you would find out of place in a Poltergeist film. I’m not joking! The characters even go on about the idea of an evil identity pursuing them because of their thoughts of regret, something that was nowhere in the original and the original was all the better for it. In fact, it doesn’t even entertain the idea that this is all potentially in their heads from deprived oxygen causing potential brain damage. In fact, the film is so jump scare heavy it’s unbelievable. These scenes are phenomenally crap and predictable. In fact, I actually was surprised that this was a 2017 film, it feels like it should have been made ten years ago. Honestly, this is stuff that a lot of YouTube critics make fun of. Granted, it still has some potentially good ideas, but it never goes fully out with it, but the fact of the matter remains, it becomes a really generic film at that point and I found myself on auto pilot for the rest of the film. It also doesn’t help that the film’s ending feels like a weaker alternative resolution from the first film. By the way, if you have seen the first one, they set up the ending to be the same as the original one, but don’t stick the landing, though what you are expecting, does kind of happen, though it happens earlier than expected. The point I am making is that I appreciate this film tried to do something different, I did not want a shot for shot remake of Flatliners, but it took all the goodwill it had earnt in the first half and screwed it over.

Flatliner’s characters are also a bit too stuck. Further tying into the whole generic horror film vibe which didn’t help. I feel like this film has been made to appeal to jump scare heavy teens as a sort of a young adult’s horror film and it might appeal to some of that crowd, however, I think many of that crowd might be put off by it because it’s a bit too mild and though it will be jump scare heavy, which I have established are startles, not actual scares!! What’s phenomenal about Flatliners is how remarkably silly the plot is at times and at certain films you feel like you can’t take the film seriously. Plus, once again, the characters can be quite annoying at times. I won’t go into any further details because I am already veering close into breaking my rule of no spoilers with half of what I have said in this review, but I felt it necessary to really explain what my thoughts on the film are otherwise I would have an incredibly vague review. You probably feed out from that statement about the plot what worked and what didn’t in my opinion.

As for the cast, well, I think they are a mixed bag. I am a big Ellen Page fan ever since Juno and I think she is a good actress and she is one of the better actors in the film and she can really deliver on the emotional moments, however, I feel like she has been given a bit of poor direction in certain scenes because in some scenes she felt a bit robotic. That being said, however, I am really looking forward to seeing her in the Cured because that film looks amazing and trust me, this film is not going to break her career. Diego Luna is one of the better actors in the film, you may remember him from playing Cassian in Star Wars Rogue One which I reviewed in December. Bulgarian actress Nina Dobrev is pretty dam good for the most part, in fact, I wasn’t aware she was a Bulgarian actress until I looked it up, which proves that her American accent is very good, although she may live in America and that may be her natural accent, in which case I profusely apologise to her. James Norton, who if you are aware of the BBC series Happy Valley, he played Tommy in that series, is pretty good for the most part, though he does play one of the character archetypes which I didn’t really enjoy initially and he doesn’t really get to show his chops until towards the end of the film. Kiersey Clemons is probably one of the most interesting actors in the film. I previously saw her brilliant performance in the film Dope, which is a film I would recommend watching and she gave a brilliant performance in that film. However, in this film, I think she was a bit of a mixed bag, she gives good performances in her scenes early on, but some of the later scenes, particularly one where she really had to deliver it, and I wasn’t fully convinced, however, I have high expectations for her in the future, especially with her playing Iris West in the DC Cinematic Universe starting with the upcoming Justice League movie next month. Most of the cast do a decent job. The only other major note is Kiefer Sutherland returning in this film, as a nice nod and wink to fans of the original, though don’t get too excited, he is an extended cameo and only appears in three scenes. In fact, he looks so much like his 1990 counterpart you could almost believe this was a sequel taking place in the same Universe and it often feels somewhat distracting.

The effects for the most part are actually pretty good and I felt the soundtrack this time was an improvement on the original. Though the previous film is twenty-seven years old so it is not surprising that the effects have improved in that time, however, I found these ones delivered more in the punch and got them across. However, compared to a lot of the films that are coming out right now, the effects are not much to look at and they are very CGI heavy.

The 2017 version of Flatliners is a film that started out with some cool interest and intrigue but crashed and burned by the end. The film is trying to play it too easy and too safe for a younger audience and feels like it’s trying to appeal to the crowd who liked the Final Destination films. It’s not a mess, there was way too much I enjoyed about the film to call it a mess, but I will say it is a bad film on a purely technical level. I think compared to the original, they are on even planes, certain areas improved on the 1990 film and certain areas were much worse. I really don’t know how to classify it, personally to me it felt like a mixed bag and I wouldn’t take it over the original any day of the week. Honestly, I am probably just going to forget both films and never return to either. Doing this review involved me seeing two films and as a result it was rather exhausting.

I’m not sure when we will be back, but it will be prior to November and we will be reviewing Four Ragnarok and also potentially Happy Death Day.

Thanks a lot for reading this review. I hoped you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it and keep an eye out for the return of the Axia ASD Ltd Film Society, we will be back in a couple of weeks.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE”

This is another example where I really don’t have to go into my thoughts on what I thought of a previous film in a series, well, I have reviewed it already, you can already go through the archives the Axia Film Society to get my entire thoughts on Kingsman the Secret Service, but it also turned up at number three in my best films of 2015. Considering that all the hype of the films for that year, for that film to come out of anywhere and put many, if not all of them to shame, was a massive deal. Granted, with a success like that, a sequel is almost certainly inevitable, but even before it was announced I was speculating on the possibility that Matthew Vaughn would not return to direct it seeing as how he did not return to do the sequel to his previously directed, Mark Miller graphic novel adaptation, Kick Ass 2, resigning himself to producer role, with his co-writer Jane Goldman not returning at all. Thankfully this time, both Goldman and Vaughn have returned, so that gives some hope to the final project, plus the entire cast from the previous film have returned, with the exception of Samuel L Jackson, for obvious reasons.

Now I loved the original Kingsman, and I won’t reiterate exactly why, I want it to be known I am going into this film with an open mind and I won’t lest nostalgia blind me to any points where it might fail. As usual, this will be a non-spoiler review, however, Ren and I will be releasing a Vlog review of it soon, so if you want to catch my entire thoughts on the film, my thoughts on various plot points in detail, we will be discussing spoilers in that one. In short, what did we think? We didn’t really agree on this film!!

Kingsman The Golden Circle takes place, I would say about a year or so after the events of the first film, maybe two, they don’t make it that clear! After Eggsy, (played by Taron Egerton) gets into a fight with Kingsman reject Charlie, (played by Edward Holcroft), it becomes clear that someone is after the Kingsman, not helped at the time when drug lord Poppy, (played by Julianne Moore) uses a series of missile strikes to destroy their base and the homes of all Kingsman employees, leaving only Eggsy and Merlin, (played by Mark Strong), alive. Following a Doomsday protocol, they discover a bottle of Statesman Whisky, which leads them to a brewery in Kentucky which is the cover for the Kingsman’s American counterpart, The Statesman, led by agent Champ, (played by Jess Bridges) along with his counterparts Whiskey, (played by Pedro Pascal), Tequila, (played by Channing Tatum) and Ginger, (played by Halle Berry). Now it is up to the Kingsman and the Statesman to work together to avoid a national crisis as a deadly new virus seems to be surfacing under Poppy’s control, plus it turns out that Statesman have Harry, (played by Colin Firth) there, still alive, but suffering from amnesia.

Yes, in case you are wondering, they really pulled out a half-arsed explanation as to why Harris is still alive in this sequel, but fortunately they don’t go with the amnesia sub plot too long.

Now Ren thought this film was really bad, however, I’m not going so far as that, I actually think it has some merit to it. For one thing, I was glad to see the majority of the original cast back, even Colin Firth, who despite the fact I don’t think his character was necessary to come back, his presence did lend the film some extra merit. The biggest change is the majority of the film having an American cast and there is a large American setting to it, which does feel on some levels to be a concession to an American audience where the film was a surprise success. That being said, however, I feel the American characters are for the most part, pretty good. For one, thing, I think they all have interesting personalities and play off each other and they are not just complete clones of the British characters with an American edge. One of my biggest problems though, is the destruction of the Kingsman, which means Roxie is not in the film, which is a shame because Sophie Cookson was one of my favourite parts of the first film and it kind of loses a bit of that British charm that the first film had. Fortunately, however, it is not entirely absent. The film still has the same look and feel the first one did, however, it’s not entirely there! The plot itself is, well, it’s kind of all over the place, it feels like a lot of ideas have been thrown at the wall and not all of them stick entirely. This is especially evident in the villain plot, which seems to feel like it has literally put down every single thing they can think of in the hope that they get one thing right. It has a technology theme to a plan but it doesn’t really go anywhere except for a few fight scenes towards the end of the film. But it’s mainly centred around the virus she is controlling. There is also a secondary villain who is actually the President of the United States who is trying to use the virus as a means of political gain, who is such an obvious Donald Trump allegory that I am amazed that they actually kept him in the film like that. If Trump hadn’t actually got elected and started doing some despicable things, I actually would have said that there is no way half of these events would have happened or even that anyone would be that despicable about human life, but again, we have already seen what Donald Trump has done in several months, so I wouldn’t say that’s entirely unlikely. Though this film has clearly been written and shot before he got elected, so I can’t help but think that this plot point might have actually been even more absurd had the Americans done the right thing and elected Hilary Clinton. Charlie is a returning character, but he is just not as interesting as last time, as he is an obvious clone of the Blade Runner Gazelle from the last movie, except this time, he has got a robotic arm. Also, Poppy is such a weird character, she is obsessed with the fifties for some reason, but then she goes about kidnapping Elton John, apparently trying to steal him in the mix up with what Valentine was doing in the last film, and yes, Elton John actually appears in the movie, I will get to that later.

Now Ren has mentioned that he found a few scenes uncomfortable, but I think that is kind of the point. Most of the film fits Mark Miller’s brand of writing, but I am not the biggest Mark Miller fan. Granted he does lay the ground work for these really good films now between both Kick Ass and Kingsman, but the thing is, those films were successful because they toned down aspects of the source material and didn’t take it to the often gruesome degrees that those graphic novels did and the difference is, this time is that Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman don’t have a graphic novel to work off, there was no sequel comic to The Secret Service, despite the fact that the graphic novel did leave room open to have a sequel. Now it’s not entirely out of place that it could have done so, but in the same sense, they did not have a platform in which to improve a source material, so they were working blind. So, as a result, they want to stick close to Mark Miller’s original idea, but as a result, they don’t have anything they know needs to be toned down to deal with a general audience, so they are left with a weird middle ground that doesn’t quite work. I also don’t think that Whiskey is as interesting a character that the film makes him out to be. He is certainly quite good at first and gets some very good fight scenes, but he is definitely no replacement for Colin Firth’s character in the first film. Speaking of which, I don’t think Colin Firth’s character is as good this time as he was in the first film because a lot of this does have a lot of the elements that I think we were afraid we were going to get with Colin Firth in an action film. That being said, he does get better as the film goes on so I am not going to complain.

I’m probably making it sound like I absolutely hated this film but I actually have a lot of positive things to say because well, it’s still recognisably a Kingsman story and I really enjoyed the first film. I think the thing that saves is for me is that it still retains enough of the elements that made the first film great to be entertaining overall. All the characters are back and most of them are in character, there is a ton of interesting ideas, it does quite work. It still a rather tongue in cheek take on the Bond films of old, though it does now seem to be going into other territories, which I can’t quite put my finger on. Also, give it credit, this is a spy film with a female main villain, something that the Bond films haven’t done by this point, which I am rather surprised by. We are getting a female Doctor, why can’t we have a female Bond villain.

The plot may be a bit confused, but it is ultimately quite entertaining. So we can always say this film is a “slight downgrade” in its plot.

The acting, well Taron Egerton is once again fantastic in the role and he is becoming one of the actors that I think is someone to look out for. Edward Holcroft seems to be doing a good job again which is rather surprising since I wasn’t expecting him to show up in this film altogether. Mark Strong is doing his best for his expanded role for this film and I was a fan of Halle Berry as his American counterpart, even if she isn’t given much to do. Hannah Alstrom is alright, although again, she doesn’t get much to do and Colin Firth is really good when he is back in the role. Jeff Bridges is once again wonderfully charming, though he seems to be embodying a more happier version of his character from True Grit. Julianne Moore is giving a very hammy performance as the film’s passive aggressive villain. There are also a few cameo’s in there, like Michael Gambon as the new leader of Kingsman and Keith Allen gets a short one as well as the Henchman and of course there is the ridiculous extended cameo of Elton John, who I would be very surprised at if he kept a straight face if he read ahead what he had to do in the script!! You may notice one cast member I haven’t mentioned at this point and that’s Channing Tatum, well really, he is a cameo, he is so insignificant to the plot that I was wondering why he was banded around the advertisements so much. Honestly, this guy seems to turn up in a lot of films where he doesn’t seem to do much in them, I know he is a good actor but I don’t think he can keep getting away with this, has to do more heftier roles. That being said, his is one of the funniest parts of the movie when he is on screen.

Now the fight scenes, once again are fantastic. This joins Mad Max Fury Road, as one of the recent action films with some of the best choreography in recent memory. This film does have a lot of that in place. There are some very, very good action scenes that have been lovingly choreographed, though a couple are obvious homages to the previous film, including an almost note for note version of the famous “bar fight”. The effects also, really vary, some are decently done, though some are really ones you have to wonder if they ever expected us the believe that they were real. If there is one thing I will say negatively about the action scenes, although I think they are once again, fantastic, it’s that I don’t think any of them rise to the heights of the bar fight or the church fight from the last film.

Kingsman The Golden Circle, is in my opinion, a slight downgrade from the previous one, but it’s not a wholly unwatchable film. This film felt like it was an interesting take and progression of the franchise and I frankly enjoyed it overall. However, it’s not going to be for everyone and I think a lot of Kingsman fans may come out disappointed and the good actors and brilliant action scenes can’t help what seems to be a rather confused script, the obvious product of having to get a sequel out fast to a film that was a surprise success. My hope is that they are given more time to work with it with the already announced Kingsman 3 because I think there are a lot more places to go with the franchise.

No mini reviews this week as I have just come back from my holiday.

Thanks a lot for reading my review. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it and I still say the Bond franchise needs to do better before they catch up to the first Kingsman film.

“IT”

This is going to be a difficult one to do without sounding redundant and repetitive!!

I’m not a massive Stephen King fan and I don’t make any exception to that. I really find him to be an overrated writer. Ok granted, he has written some great stories in the past, but I often think a lot of the changes that adaptations of his work make tend to be for the better rather than the worse. Take the Shining, for example, the original was an amazing film, but if you had actually read the book you would be amazed to find that most of the iconic moments of that film were not in the book, they were film inventions. Whereas you take the adaptation that was incredibly loyal to Stephen King’s book that he wrote the screenplay for himself, you realise that this film is a boring mess. Now part of that is due to the fact that it adapts the book so loyally that it comes off as just a literal translation of the novel, which doesn’t match so well in the pacing department. For example you could give a description of several mundane activities to build tension, but when you do it too long in a film, it comes off as mundane and boring.

It is not one of my favourite adaptations and as Rob Walker pointed out, most people who like Stephen King’s work will even say it’s not one of his best works. I haven’t actually read the book so I am not aware of how close an adaptation this how, however, I have seen the original TV mini-series, which I re-watched in preparation for seeing this film and let’s just say, if you ever wanted a prime example of what Stephen King seems to put in a lot of his work, this would be a good example. It does have a lot of his clichés in it. So as much as Stephen King does do a variety of stories, he definitely has a few tropes that he seems to keep coming back to again and again on some level, so rather like that film, I would not recommend you play the Stephen King drinking game whilst watching this film.

Now I would go over the writers and directors of this film, but in this case I haven’t actually seen any of their previous works, so I haven’t got anything to judge about expectations going into it, so that leaves just going over the plot.

Now, if you are familiar with the last adaptation, nothing I tell you here is going to surprise you. In the town of Derry, Main, several children have been disappearing. In fact, their disappearance rate is six times the average rate in America. Seven kids, Bill, Ben, Beverly, Richie, Mike, Eddie and Stanley (played by, Jaeden Lieberher, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer and Wyatt Oleff) respectively all start seeing sightings of very strange things including a clown called Pennywise, (played by Bill Skarsgard). The believe the clown is a paranormal entity responsible for the various disappearances, but just how do they beat it and come out alive?

I really don’t want to go into too much detail in case you haven’t seen the original and want to go in blind since there are a few genuinely interesting mysteries surrounding this one. Though, if like me, you are aware of the mini-series and have seen it, nothing here is going to surprise you although I will say that the writers and directors seem to have in mind that a lot of people did see it and are still frightened by the original, can’t understand why though, because I think this version does a lot of what that did better. For example, however interesting Tim Curry was in the role, he wasn’t that frightening per say. I think Bill Skarsgard’s version is a bit more creepy. The major reason being is the special effects, they are actually very good in this film for pretty much the most part, though some of them do play out for the 3D market, which is something they never should have aimed to have got in the first place.

The effects allow the creative to team to go all out with this one in a way that the TV mini-series could not, which will leave people that saw the mini-series rather shocked in the very first scene of the movie, mainly because in every other sense it actually plays out almost word for word with the original movie, but has a rather shocking end. It also has some fore shadowing, which I can’t go into because it’s a spoiler in more ways than one, oh, and incidentally, everyone who is aware of the revelation in the credits will know what I am on about.

The film is rather long, it comes in a 2 hr 10 mins, though if you are aware of the mini-series, there are no flashbacks, the entire film is told from the point of view of the children, cutting out the adult storyline entirely, this is much to the film’s benefit since that was the part of the mini-series that I enjoyed, and when compared with this version, it allows that story to be told out much better. The R rating also helps, because as a result they can go all out with the themes, for example, there is a Paedophilia storyline that was either cut out of the last one or is a film addition for this version. As I said, I haven’t read the book, so I don’t know if it was in the book. Also, the bullies are allowed to be a lot more generally Psychotic, we see this in the sense that they actually use the pocket knife that they carry to carve his name into Ben’s chest (or at least attempt to) whereas the mini-series didn’t get round to that.

I promise I won’t make this review just tons of comparisons between this and the mini-series, since that’s rather unfair, I am only going to use it to compare characters later on down the line. So to take this film on its own merit, it’s actually kind of fun if you enjoy horror films. It’s quite dark and quite disturbing. There are some good scenes and some good moments. I think the best description I heard of this film is that it is basically either the Goonies or Stand By Me if you add a killer clown to the mix!! Now while that does sound slightly disjointed, they do work it in quite well. The clown actually becomes an interesting metaphor for various fears and aspects of the children growing up, since all these kids have turned thirteen and they have all hit puberty. It’s almost a fear of the unknown and growing up. That being said, however, I think the metaphor might be quite lost at times. There are some truly odd scenes that go nowhere at times, but that’s a minor complaint about the film. The clowns feel is a lot more effective this time around and as a result, he does seem to be a bit more deadly. No offence to the version with Tim Curry in. Tim Curry had a good job to do, but because of censorship rules of American Television, he wasn’t really allowed to go into graphic detail of killing the kids. This film has a much larger body count. As a result, it does feel like anyone can be picked off for death, although the tension may be lost on you if you have read the book, or the film, since as far as I can tell, they don’t go off script on who lives and who dies, it’s almost the exact same outcome, leaving me to suggest that both versions are, in different ways, loyal to the book. The other fact of the matter is, if you are aware of Stephen King stories, nothing much here is going to surprise you. You have everything, the story is being set in Main, you have the Rednecks, the comments on religion, the one dimensional bullies with no redeeming feature, and before anyone says anything about one of them coming from an abusive household, no that doesn’t count because it’s one scene, doesn’t really go anywhere and he goes back to exactly the way he was the next scene!! In fact the only thing that’s kind of missing is the alcoholic and the poet, although I think at least one of the kids parents was an alcoholic.

If there’s one thing I didn’t like about this film, it’s the dialogue. The story is set in the 80’s, the original book takes place in the 50’s, however, they have tried to modernise the dialogue even further. I am quite glad that they have tried to modernise and update things, but in this case I don’t think the kids now would talk like this. Seriously, some of the dialogue in this film is just repulsive and it really threw me out of a few scenes.

So, what do I like about the film? It’s creepy as hell!! Seriously, this is one of the creepiest films I have seen all year, plus, when the kids characters are written well, they are really enjoyable to be around and the child actors they got to play them are all excellent. I wouldn’t want to single any of them out because frankly that would be doing them a disservice. Bill Skarsgard is also in a real pickle here, he is the only other actor really mentioned, he has to step into Tim Curry’s shoes which is already a hard task to do considering how iconic the original Tim Curry version was. However, I do stand by that I think Bill Skarsgard did a better job in the role, although I think it’s because he had a much better written part. The only other actor I really feel is of mention is Stephen Bogaert, who plays Beverly’s dad in a really creepy role that he delivers all the right notes in.

As for the special effects, they are all dam good. I think the special effects department did a decent job this time around. There is nothing too amazing about them, but I will say the film does stand out, though at times they can appear a bit too CGI heavy and a few pixels are a bit out of place, something I think won’t look as bad on a Television screen when it comes out on DVD.

Also, while I am at it, the film’s soundtrack is pretty good all things considered. It matches the time period, which it also keeps reminding you of, with signs for Batmand and Nightmare on Elm Street, ok, we get it, it’s 1989!! You have pointed it out already!! But the film’s score is also fantastic, this could potentially get a few nominations, I know I have been saying this quite a bit this year, but I will say once again, I believe this one could potentially be in line for a few of the technical categories at the Oscars.

Should you see Stephen King’s It?

My advice is, if you like good horror films this one is definitely going to give you something interesting. If you are not that into horror films, however, I’m not sure this on is for you, this won’t change your mind really. The effects are pretty decent and it’s trying to tap into the nostalgia that Stranger Things put on us and in fact there are a lot of comparisons you can make to Stranger Things, not helped by the fact that one of the kids is actually played by one of the kids from Stranger Things. I do, though, think that this one is pretty good.

No mini-reviews this week as I have been away, but join me next Friday where I will be giving my thoughts on Kingsman The Golden Circle, the sequel to one of my favourite films of 2015.

“THE LIMEHOUSE GOLEM”

The Limehouse Golem is a film based on the book Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem by Peter Ackroyd, which I won’t claim to have read so I am judging this film purely on the film I got. If everyone see an adaptation review of it, hopefully someone will be a patron for the Dom like I am and they will make a lost in adaptation episode on it, but it won’t be me because I have already used up my first request and I won’t get another one until he has done that episode.

The screenplay is written by Jane Goldman a co-writer on Kick Ass and the previously reviewed Kingsman the Secret Service but she has also written screenplays for two of the X Men films, The Woman and The Woman in Black. Now I wouldn’t get too excited on that basis though, even those are both amazing films, some of her screenplays are not quite up to standard, mainly Miss Peregrine, which in all fairness was an ok film, anyone who read my review of that will remember, but she also wrote the screenplay for Stardust, which frankly is her worst screenplay to date, but again, it’s not a terrible film. So, we should be feeling somewhat optimistic that there is such a good writer behind the project, honestly, despite those two little niggles, I will go and see anything she writes. The director is Juan Carlos Medina, he has not directed many films prior to this, only directed a couple of shorts and his last feature film Paint?, which is not a film I have actually seen. The only thing to note from that though is he actually wrote the screenplay with this one, so this is the first time he is working with someone else’s screenplay. I mean apart from the fantastic all star British cast, I also was very excited that this would be a ‘Jack The Ripper’ style story which is a subject that kind of fascinates me, but would also make some very interesting ideas. Let’s see how it turned out.

As per usual there will not be any spoilers in this review. If you have actually seen the film and you want me to talk about the spoilers for this film, then let me know in the comments section and I will force Ren to go into the cinema to see it and we will do a Vlog on it.

The plot of Limehouse Golem revolves around ‘let’s begin at the end’. It kind of does in a sense. The film involves investigator for Scotland Yard, John Kildare. Played by Bill Nighy investigating a series of brutal murders in the Limehouse district of London, committed by a killer simply known as The Golem. His investigation leads him to believe that it is somehow connected with the life of Lizzie Cree, played by Olivia Cooke who has just been arrested and put on trial for the murder of her husband John, played by Sam Reid. John Kildare does his investigation, but it is hard because all he has to go on is the handwriting of the killer and the identity of the killer may hold salvation to Lizzie’s freedom and life.

The best way to look at The Limehouse Golem is to think of it as a Jack the Ripper style story without using Jack the Ripper and mixing it in with a real life famous figure of the age, in this case Dan Leno who is played by Douglas Booth. In that sense it is very similar to a film like Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, which actually was another reason I was looking forward to going into it because Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter is actually a guilty pleasure of mine, but as I mentioned in previous reviews, the biggest problem of the film was that it took itself a little too seriously and didn’t have enough fun with it’s premise. The Limehouse Golem goes in completely the opposite direction, it doesn’t at all intend in any way to be a fun film, despite the fact it is mixing in not only Dan Leno, but other real life figures of the Victorian age including Carl Marx for example. In case you are unaware, Dan Leno was a famous comic of the Victorian era and was basically one of the first highly popular drag artists in a sense. The best way to look at it is say, think of him of a mix of Victorian Paul O’Grady and Noel Fielding, which is definitely the angle they are going for with this film portraying the man. It’s not like many of these films that attempt to add a historical figure into the mix, where he pushed to the background. Leno is very much pushed very much to the foreground especially for large portions of the film, which is actually rather baffling considering his name has been taken out.

Now, I actually felt, rather fortunate that the title had been changed from the novel considering that Dan Leno is not the protagonist, at least in the film’s case. However, the film has been heavily marketed as a murder mystery around Bill Nighy’s character John Kildare, however, I don’t think he is the main character and I think people going in with that expectation might be a bit disappointed. It’s actually more of a character piece for Lizzie as we go back through her life, seeing her slowly work her way through the ranks to become one of London’s great entertainers. I am glad I have put a focus on that because those are the best parts of the film. It’s a very interesting look into the placement of women in the time period, expectations, people’s sense of place in the world, it actually kind of interesting. The problem is, they are a bit too interesting, and as a result, in early portions of the film they actually kind of take away from the early portion of the murder mystery since it seems rather obvious who the murderer is. In fact, the early portions of finding Golem’s identity lead to us being tossed several red herrings. Now, granted, there have been several scenes featuring several characters as the killer and I believe these scenes have been put in place so that when this film comes out on DVD and the scenes are pushed all over YouTube it will mean that people who haven’t seen the film will get the wrong idea over who the killer is if they pick a scene at random. The problem is, when we see the film as a full whole, none of these people seem very convincing as killers since, well, there is no real motive for these kills, even under serial killer logic.

Ripperologists expecting this to be a clone for Clone Jack the Ripper style killer will be rather disappointed as well because this is not a mimmickry for Jack the Ripper, for example, the major reasons being that the Golem kills both men and women and Jack the Ripper only killed women, though let’s just say there are some macabre mutilations in this film that I am really going to struggle to get out of my head. Put it this way, this film has an R rating for a reason.

The other factor of Lizzie’s life being such a focus of the film is that she really becomes the main character despite the fact that the film’s advertising suggested that Bill Nighy’s character is the lead and people who have taken a skimmed look at the book’s title will believe that Douglas Booth’s part as Dan Leno is the main lead of the film. As a result I think people will come in rather upset with the final product in a sense.

The Golem mystery fortunately pick up towards the second half of the film and it becomes more evident in the sense of several elements being added including some quite well executed red herrings, and even add a ticking clock element, which I won’t dare spoil. However, there is not much investigation in this one, it’s just literally, Kildare approaches a person, have them write something, it’s obvious they are not the Golem, he leaves and we never see that character again! It’s a bit, lather, rinse repeat, it’s basically the entire thing and when we finally get the reveal of the Golem mystery, it actually was quite well done, they add an interesting idea to it, although it’s not amazingly executed and more to the point, I saw it coming, this is not a twist that shocked me. Now granted, I see a lot of films, so I am used to narrative structures, especially in stories like this, but the reveal simply didn’t work since I could tell what was a red herring and by the end it feels disappointing.

The side characters are pretty good, I actually kind of enjoyed most of them for the most part, especially the people in Dan Leno’s company. So, what is the problem. Well, there are a few plot points that don’t really go anywhere, mainly around Kildare’s character, he doesn’t get much development and we don’t learn that much about him, for example, there is a sub-plot about him being suspected of being gay, but it doesn’t go anywhere, they literally bring it up for one scene and it is never mentioned again! It might as well have been taken out of the film for all the good it did! It also assumes that you are much more familiar with Dan Leno than I suspect the average audience member would be considering that there is not a lot of explanation about his life and work in this film, although early portions of the film do show a lot of his performance style. A slight development in those areas would have really pushed the film over the edge for me.

As for the cast, it’s a brilliant all-star cast. Olivia Cooke delivers a brilliant performance as well as Douglas Booth who is amazingly theatrical in his performance. Bill Nighy is giving one of his better performances in recent memory since he is finally given a leading role for him to sink his teeth into, though early portions of the film don’t do him that much justice as he seems a man unclear of direction, though that may have been what Bill Nighy was going for considering what we know of the character at that point. Sam Reid does well in his role and I did once again like actors Daniel Mays and Eddie Marsden who give terrific performances once again and I will say, once again, are highly underrated actors.

As for the design and cinematography, well, it’s just brilliant. Seriously, the entire presentation of the film is just fantastic. They do a brilliant job depicting Victorian London which does well for the gothic nature of the story. The film’s score is also fantastic as well as the cinematography. The costume design is also brilliant as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if this film receives a few Oscar Nominations on a technical category in next year’s ceremony. The major problem with The Limehouse Golem’s presentation is that well, frankly I think they use tinted lenses way too much. I know what they are going for when they do it but I felt it took away more from a lot of those scenes. That being said though, I liked the homages to early cinema that it gave off.

The Limehouse Golem is a film that if it had ironed out a few of its edges could have been a fantastic film. I am not going to say this is a bad film, far from it, I kind of enjoyed myself watching it for the most part and I would easily recommend it. Especially for the brilliant performances of Olivia Cooke and Douglas Booth. The problem is that the solution to the mystery was pretty obvious to me, although I do believe that many people won’t get the twist and it will be a decent surprise and shock for them, so that more of a personal issue on my own volition that it is an actual criticism I have against the film. This is worth at least one watch, though I don’t think the film warrants repeat viewings.

No mini reviews this week as I couldn’t get to a cinema once again due to the fact that I was doing extra work at Axia to aid our administration department.

Join me next time, which, unfortunately will be a few week from now because I am going on holiday again.

Come back in a few weeks where I will be reviewing the latest adaptation of a Stephen King novel going to screen “It”.

Thanks a lot for reading my review. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it and man this is another film that you just wish was slightly better!

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“BATMAN AND HARLEY QUINN”

So how do I think the whole thing stacked up overall?

Only one mini review this week

Thanks a lot for reading my review. I hoped you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it and I am going to go back and watch Batman the animated series now.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“NAPPING PRINCESS”

Napping Princess was the latest Anime to receive a cinematic release, thanks to all the Anime. They seem to be trying to get the UK cinemas to broadcast tons of Anime films so they have been licensing. This, however was a film I would not have been aware of had I not been checking on Facebook constantly because this film was really not being advertised. Napping Princes is a good statement on how quickly Anime is getting over here, considering that a film like this would normally take ages to get over here. Take, for example, When Marnie was There, which two years before it reached UK cinemas.

Napping Princess did come out in Japan for general audiences on 18 March, with screenings both on the 16 and 18 August for the Sub and Dub respectively. For the record I saw the film in its subtitle version and I know that America will be getting the film on the 8 September. Napping Princess is another one of these films that seems to hope for the success of the previously reviewed Your Name, which is still one of the highest grossing films in Japanese history. The film is actually directed by a director that I generally enjoy, it’s written and directed by Kenji Kamiyama, who has been a writer and director on several projects. He was largely the director for all of Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complexes storyline, which I absolutely love and he did the entirety of the Eden of the East TV series and both of its movies, which while having an unsatisfied inclusion, was at least brilliant for the most part. Napping Princess, however, is his first original project that he has to build up from a movie from the start. With his other movie’s he was building on TV series that he was previously working on. He is completely starting from the ground up, and, believe me, we are going to be talking about that as the review goes on, but I went in with high expectations for this film, let’s see if my expectations were rewarded.

Describing the plot of Napping Princess is rather hard because it’s not exactly the easiest plot to describe. I am going to do my best, however. The best way I would describe this is that there is a dual plot going on. One of the stories revolves around Morikawa Kokone (played by Mitsuki Takahata), a girl that falls asleep a lot and is planning on what she is doing her last Summer before she graduates. The other story revolves around the Princes Isshin and her quest to save her kingdom by getting back a magic tablet that makes robotics come to life. (It’s Anime remember, when did these plots ever not sound mad as hell). It’s all turned on its head however, when Morikawa’s father Momotaro (played by Yosuke Eguchi) is arrested on the pretence of a sense of the representatives of a major automotive company with the aims of getting back a tablet that contains some sensitive information. Now Morikawa must get back the tablet to the rightful owners in order to set everything right, however, the plots may be connected in more ways than we thought.

Napping Princess’s plot can be best summed up as ‘good look piecing this together’. This storyline clearly does not fit the timescale necessary. That’s not to say there’s a pacing issue. It’s actually paced rather well, coming in at a total of one hour and fifteen minutes. There is a real issue, however, there’s not really enough explained. That’s not to say it’s Quest for Camelot level bad, we’re not talking ‘I have absolutely no idea what is going on’ for the most part, we will get back to that later. It feels at thebeginning like it is going to be a plot similar to Saving Mr Banks, where we see the creation of a story plus the flashbacks to what inspired the story, in this case I assume we were seeing the story that was being created in the main character’s dream, followed by the real world scenario that showed her inspiration for the dream. I actually thought that was a very clever idea. The problem is, it abandons that idea quite soon after. The whole ideas is that the worlds might be connected, but they don’t explain how or why they are connected or even if they are connected and it isn’t just all in her head. It’s not explained thoroughly, but at least it’s open to interpretation. The film tries to wheel these dual plots together but it doesn’t really work and in a sense I feel this would have more suited Kenji Kamiyama’s style of setting a TV series first that would then lead into a movie, I could so see this becoming a series. Granted it wouldn’t have had the animation budget to do half of what it wanted to do but it could have succeeded. The plot is rather thinly veiled as a result. The most intriguing stuff happens in the real world since the dream world simply doesn’t have enough time to flesh out a coherent story, despite the fact that it’s where the most action happens. But as I mentioned, the plot doesn’t really flow very well, whereas the plot in the real world flows quite well and it was also the more intriguing, despite the fact that Kamiyama decides that he is going to recycle a lot of the ideas that he used in Eden of East. In fact that plot line is very similar to this one in a lot of ways.

That’s the real downside to this film. It tries way too hard to say that these two ideas are connected and it doesn’t work entirely. We needed a bit more of an idea about what was going on and how it related to everything. I get a lot of the ideas where they were going with this and it’s interesting, but it just needed a little bit more ironing out, maybe one of two more rewrites. If you like the dream world, there are two Anime shorts made to give you more of it. Despite what happens in the dream world being very creative and innovative, it kind of upsetting that we get all this brilliant beautiful looking action, which then grinds to a halt. Further suggesting my idea, that this should have been a TV series and then a movie to finalise the story. At least we get a complete story, I can say that much. I did enjoy it overall.

The worst part of this film, however, it the final act! The final act is all over the place and all the afore mentioned problems are exacerbated to an absurd degree, there is so much going on and a lot of it is meant to relate in how the worlds have been connected, but I cannot figure out for the life of me what is going on, I have no idea how it relates to anything. I was scratching my head, constantly going “what the hell is happening here”, this film has got to have on the most confusing climaxes I have ever seen, not to mention it had kind of lost my seriousness by this point, and it goes almost completely downhill, including one infamous moment with the villain that was so hilarious, I could not believe we were meant to take it seriously.

The main villain is also the weakest character. He is a quite convincing villain and he might have been a bit more intimidating had we been able to take him more seriously, however, there is one moment early on that was so out of their field that it sent the entire audience that was watching into hysterics, it was impossible to take the villain seriously from that point and it only got worse from there, which is a shame because the rest of the characters are actually pretty good.

I liked the main characters Kokone and Isshin respectively and Peach is one of the best eccentric dad characters I have seen in Anime in a long time. We also get Kokone’s cousin Morio who is a decent supporting character and I would even dare say, one of the characters, who I won’t go into too much detail about for fear of spoilers, is a good way of tying the plot up altogether. As a result, it’s very difficult to recommend this film. You are only going to have a chance of understanding it if you are rather adept with Anime and the concept of dual worlds, something I have noticed Japanese fiction likes to do on a regular basis. But even then, you are going to have a bit of a hard time completely establishing the entirety of the facts. Maybe if this film was given more time to develop or maybe if it had ironed out the bolts and went into a bit of an explanation into a couple of things it would have been slightly better, but as it stands it’s a rather confusing film. Ok.

As for the cast, well I saw the film in its original Japanese cast so I can’t comment on the dub which I believe funamation has done, with some excellent casting choices including Bina Palencia and Doug Erholtz. I might even watch this movie again in the dub and give my thoughts on it at the time, but for now I am going to comment on the sub-cast. The sub-cast are actually a very good cast, particularly the solid performances of Mitsuki Takahata and Ysuke Eguchi who are the best performances in the film by far and the cast in general is a really dam good one. If you went to see it in the dub, please let me know what your thoughts are.

As for the animation. It’s the strongest part of the film. The animation is stunningly good and while it’s aiming to be on a level with Your Name, but it doesn’t quite reach those levels. That creates a problem in itself because it feels like it’s stretching itself too far as a result. Mind you any Anime film is not going to look as good compared to Your Name now. I think even when Studio Ghibli get back in the game they are going to have trouble matching up to that film.

Well, that’s another one for me done. Remember leave a comment if you have any thoughts on this one and you can do your own reviews if you wish to, just go to our ‘how to submit’ section, we are always happy to get some new stuff in here.

Thanks a lot for reading my review. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it and if you can figure out the climax then get down to climate change research facility because you are clearly going to figure out how to sort this mess out!!!

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS”

Look, I am going to level with you, this is one of the most unremarkable films based on the trailer. I didn’t go into this film hoping for much as I don’t know anything about it and the trailer didn’t suggest I should know anything about it. It’s another comic film, although unlike many of the other comic films I have reviewed for the site, this film is based on a French comic that I haven’t read yet, written by Pierre Christin Jean-Claude Mezieres. I was planning on reading the comic before I went to see the film, however,I didn’t really have the time since I was going to a music festival and trying to buy the hard covers that have just been released, capitalising on the film’s success are expensive. The complete collection is done in three hard back volumes and if you want to get them and actually have a physical book to read, you are going to spend £75.00 on Amazon alone, each volume is £25.00!! I’m not spending £75.00 for a comic from the sixties that, if it wasn’t for this film, would likely have been forgotten. If you want to get your Valerian fix, before seeing the film, my advice would be to go to comiXology. You can buy digital copies of the comic, and the volumes will range in price. You would only save £5.00 to £8.00 on the first volume, but you are going to be saving over £10.00 on the next two volumes, and believe me, when you are paying £75.00 for three hard back books, that is saving you a ton of money for the exact same content.

Luc Besson, when he created the Fifth Element did say that Valerian was a big influence on his work and since he is a big enough name now, he has the ability to do a straight up adaptation of Valerian. As I haven’t read the comics, I will be judging this film on its own merits. Now, I have talked in the past about Luc Besson and I have not been that kind to him, but I still stand by my opinions that in recent memory he really is a barely competent writer who seems to make very similar films over and over again and most of his best ideas are gone, and my theory is not being helped by the fact that this is an adaptation of a graphic novel that he already took inspiration from one of his previous films. But as much as I rag on the guy, he does have some talent: I still like District 9 and that was a film that got him nominated for several Oscars. The fifth element is a cyber film that still kind of holds up and as much as I don’t like the sequels, I will pop in the original of Taken anytime. I don’t go into a film hoping that someone I don’t like makes another bad film, I love to be surprised. So the question is, without my knowledge of the comic, did Luc Besson make a film that would be able to satisfy me?

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is set, I believe in the 2500’s, or something like that, honestly I kind of lost track of time. Basically, a space station outside of Earth has received tons of alien races that have helped expand on it, the problem is, the International Space Station is now heading into the Earth’s atmosphere. Considering how big it’s got and with all the technology that has been added to it, to such an extent, they now decide to leave Earth and explore the outer reaches in the name of diplomacy and it will be known as Alpha and the City of a Thousand Planets. Cut to 400 years later and after a mission, Major Valerian (played by Dane DeHaan) heads to Alpha with the mission to see out a diplomatic process in regards to an artefact that was picked up on said mission, which turns out to be the last of its life form, a small creature that can create pearls. However, a humanoid race attacks the senate and kidnaps Commander Arun Fillitt, (played by Clive Owen). Valerian is troubled by the fact that he has been receiving psychic visions from this humanoid race and the destruction of their planet and he vows to investigate to find out what is going on and discover what the true meaning behind his visions are.

Valerian is really not a complicated plot, it’s just Valerian and his girlfriend, Sergeant Laureline, who is played by Cara Delevingne who you may remember playing Margot in Paper Towns and the Enchantress in the previously reviewed Suicide Squad. They are basically going from one place to another in an attempt to solve what is going on. I suspect this has been rather a loyal adaptation of the comic, however, I think in this instance, that is kind of a help and a hindrance. Now, I am speculating here, but the reason I suspect this is a loyal adaptation is there are a lot of detours in the plot. Finding the humanoids and the missing Commander is just one point in this film, but it is often detracted. There is one point where Valerian goes missing when he is in pursuit of the humanoids so Laureline has to figure out where he is and that results in her getting some information from these aliens who are basically rip-offs of the worms from Men in Black, or are the worms from Men in Black rip-offs from them, this is all a bit confusing and I really should have read the comic. This then results in them going to get a Jellyfish off the back of these creatures that live in the waters around there, because if you put head on them you can psychically see where someone is, but you have to take them off your head after a minute or they start to eat your memories. That’s just one sub-plot, one sub-plot that distracts from the main plot that takes place very soon towards the end of the fast act and it’s not the last of its kind. There’s a few of these. These all work fine in comics, because comics tend to be very long range series that have slow builds but with good pay offs. The problem is the pay-offs don’t really pay out so well in this film!

So, the sub-plots will often come in, interrupt the main plot for about twenty minutes and nothing is really accomplished and we go back to whatever the hell was going on in the first place! The most notable sub-plot is when Valerian is trying to get back a kidnapped Laureline from a group of aliens and needs to look like the aliens ought to break into a ceremony, which reminded me very heavily of the wedding sub-plot from Jupiter Ascending. The reason it’s the most notable, however, isn’t because it has something interesting to say, but its where it’s biggest extended cameos come from: mainly Ethan Hawke playing a pimp and Rhianna playing a shape shifter alien stripper. Yes, you heard me right. Believe me, that’s still not the weirdest thing in this film. All I will say though, is, don’t get used to them, they are extended cameos at best, which considering Rhianna’s acting ability, is saying a lot and she tries to get around it by playing a bad actress. You are not fooling anyone! I will say in her defence though, Rhianna’s dance number, while it is kind of a big lipped alligator moment, in, it comes out of nowhere, interrupts the plot for no reason and no one really mentions it much after it’s done, if ever, is at least one of the better parts of the film as it shows a lot of the amazing technical work and effects that went into the film and it’s scene has some brilliant editing.

This is the biggest problem with Valerian, however, the main plot is the one that is the most interesting and I use the word “interesting” with a pinch of salt, but I will get into my reasons for saying that later, and it’s half interrupted most of the time. You can get away with this in a comic because it builds time for the writer to really think out the plot. However, a film, has a much stronger flowing narrative. I get a sense that Luc Besson really likes the comic and didn’t want to change much. I have said that, however, on a presumptuous basis, having not been aware of the source material. I know a lot of people go into something thinking they are not making any changes and just doing the exact same story is the best way to do an adaptation, but I firmly disagree with that and I sometimes feel changes are necessary and can even improve on a story as long as they make sense and are executed well. What I am say is, I don’t like something just because it’s incredibly loyal, in fact sometimes over loyalty is actually a hindrance and I suspect in this case it has been a hindrance because the film has a real flow problem.

That being said, however, Valerian is quite an enjoyable movie. Maybe it’s because the film I saw on the same day of it soured me and I was able to cut that from the break, but you know what, it’s not that bad a film. Ok, it’s nothing great, it borrows from an endless number of sci-fi films and sci-fi fiction in general including a lot of the Star Wars films, Guardians of the Galaxy and to a certain extent, the video game Mass Effect, I am serious, this film really looks a lot like a Mass Effect game. Even some of the alien designs are freakishly similar and the androids that the Commander programmes at the beginning of the film look suspiciously like the Geth’s from Mass Effect. I am seriously now wondering if Valerian was a big inspiration for Bio Ware when they were creating the Mass Effect games.

Now the only visibly disloyal thing I could see from a brief glimpse of the comics are really superficial things. For example, while Dane DeHaan does look like his comic counter part, Laureline is supposed to be a redhead, I am guessing that Cara Delevingne didn’t want to dye her hair. Ok, so here’s the thing, it’s kind of an enjoyable film, for the most part, it has some good moments, I quite liked a lot of the action sequences and I liked the fact that Dane DeHaan is showing off a different side to himself, and while I think he is a great actor, he was getting into a lot of the samey roles.

Here’s the thing though, this plot is not subtle in the least. The film does have a big mystery around the visions, the humanoid aliens and the nature of what is going on in Atlas right now, but the mystery is so predictable! To such an extent, I was thinking it couldn’t be this simple and this easy, there had to be another edge to it that would take me by surprise. Nothing did! It was the exact plot and the exact same villain reveal that I was expecting and they give you no option to think that the main villain is a good guy, they practically spell it out from the start. I have deliberately not talked about the characters for that various reason, because doing so would mean I would have to spoil the entire plot. There’s not a lot of subtlety to it. Let’s just say, it’s a lot of messages we have heard before and heard since. I tell you what, if you want me to talk a lot about my big problem with the plot twists and the reveals, leave me a comment in the section below and I may do a spoiler Vlog for my thoughts on the film. However, it is still rather enjoyable. It’s still a rather fun sci-fi film, which I think a lot of Sci-fi films have forgotten to do in the hopes that they can be epic. But you know what, I wish the plot was a little less clichéd. I know this film was set in the 60’s and this film is based on an old comic and this comic was pre Star Wars and a lot of those clichés were only just being developed at the time, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s rather predictable. I think given the film’s message, if the comic is very similar, it was rather progressive for the time.

That’s Valerian’s biggest problem. The source material is out dated. I’m not saying it’s impossible to get something out of this, hell I would probably go and see a sequel , but we have seen a lot of Sci-fi like this, there is nothing very unique about it. I know I have gone on record several times to say that uniqueness doesn’t make it automatically good and being similar to something else automatically makes it bad, but if you are out to find something you haven’t watched before, you’re not getting it here. You are getting it decently done, but you are not getting anything new.

I have already been talking about the performances throughout this review, but I will just reiterate, I like Dane DeHaan in this role and Cara Delevingne, while not showing a lot of range at least I think she is better here than she has been in her previous roles. They are the only ones to really talk about, everyone else is pretty much superficial. There are some decent performances in the bunch but most people aren’t on screen very long. Ethan Hawke is alright, yucking it up as a pimp throughout the entire film and I got more of an effort from Rhianna in this role than her previous roles in Home and especially Battleship. Most of the actors who have to do motion capture at least suit it pretty well. The only one who seems to literally hone his performance in is Herby Hancock, playing a defence minister.

Ok, let’s talk about design effects. It’s an interesting looking world, I will give you that, but nothing we haven’t really seen before. The designs are pretty good, I liked a lot of the alien designs in this film. The costume department also deserves a lot of merit as well, these are some fantastic costumes. I also really enjoyed the soundtrack for the most part, the soundtrack is pretty good, minus a few duds in the mix! The biggest thing for me though is how much my ignorance of the source material only means I would constantly be saying “oh that’s clearly that from that” you already heard me doing it so many times throughout this review. That’s the one thing I disliked about Valerian the most, I just felt like I was watching a lot of greatest hits. What I most liked though is the fact that at least it was having a good time whilst doing it. The effects are very good and the action scenes complement them beautifully. Including one that is done in a brilliant “one take shot”, that would have required a lot of green screen effects and is well done. The problem is that the sequence is based on a former showing of how the Atlas worked. It takes several sides of the city and divides them into certain segments and they make these segments feel big, the problem is, we run through most of them in this entire sequence and that leads to leaving the City of a Thousand Planets feeling very small. Not something you really want when your movie is called The City of a Thousand Plantes.

I’ve been rambling a bit now!!. Let’s just summarise this. In summary, all I can say is, did you like the Fifth Element? If you said yes, you are probably going to like this one. I think there is something for Sci-fi nerds too. There is something here even if you haven’t read the comic, just don’t go in expecting a game changer here. The plot is pretty decent, if a bit clichéd and all over the place at times. The performances aren’t anything amazing apart from Dane DeHaan going really against character. However, I can certainly think of worse films to watch. It’s kind of fun, kind of quirky, it had some very well shot action scenes, and that rather surprised me considering that the last few Luc Besson action films have had terrible looking action scenes. That’s all I have really got on the film, it’s very much a middle of the road film for me, but you know what, I had a pretty good time watching it and I must be honest, it was better than I was expecting.

I HATED THIS MOVIE!!!

Thanks a lot for reading my review. I hoped you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it and I am going to say this only once, The Emoji Movie cannot even be enjoyed ironically, do not spend your money going to see it, do not even pirate it, because it will further strengthen the resolve the studios have and will justify them going after critics on YouTube because they will feel some sense of justification and even then, no one should see this contest. It’s not funny, it’s just awful. Can you believe there was a bidding war to make this film, some people actually paid millions of dollars to get the right to make this piece of crap, or should I say this piece of Patrick Stewart!!!!!

Calvin – Nerd Consultant