“KUNG FU PANDA 3”

I love the Kung Fu Panda movies so much. Dreamworks has never really made that many animated productions that stand up to their contemporaries with the exception of the ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ movies and these films. The first movie was excellent, the second movie even better, in fact Kung Fu Panda 2 is probably in my top 25 favourite movies ever, it’s my favourite martial arts movie and one of the prime examples I give on how to make a good sequel. In fact it’s one of the few times where the sequel is better than the original film. The films aren’t perfect, I grant you that, but I really don’t care, I love these films. The music is excellent, the animation is top notch, the voice actors are great in their roles, the stories are very funny but also heartfelt. I think every parent that has been dragged along to see these films think they are in for a rough time but come out really appreciative of the movie they have just seen. Now I gushed about Kung Fu Panda 2 to all my friends but I am almost surprised this movie even got made considering the last film wasn’t as much of a success that it could have been and I thought the sequel was potentially gone. Now this wasn’t down to the films quality or the fact that it didn’t do too well or that the critics savaged it before the film was even released, far from it the critics were actually rather kind to it, it was because in America it came out on the same weekend as The Hangover Part 2 and it’s one of the major reasons I absolutely despise that movie. Yes, Kung Fu Panda 2 shows how to expand a story and do something different with your characters while still keeping with the originals feel. Hangover Part 2 was an example of, let’s just copy and paste the original film and just set it in a different location, oh and just change a few of the features around so apparently it’s a different movie that way!! It would have been a real shame if this movie never got made because of that especially considering that the ending implied there was going to be a third movie.

I raised my expectations for Kung Fu Panda 3 initially because I loved the first 2 films so much and I thought there was no way they could make a massive miss out of this franchise, but I actually rather tempered my expectations down because I thought there was a possibility that this one could just be ok and I thought if I just think it’s going to be ok that way I won’t be too disappointed. In preparation for this review, not only did I watch both Kung Fu Panda films again, I also watched a lot of the short animated specials including Secret of the Furious Five, Secret of the Masters and the most recently released Secret of the Scrolls, if you like Anime I would seriously recommend these because unlike the films which use 3D computer animation, these ones use the lovingly hand drawn 2D animation similar to what is used in the flashback sequence in the early portions of the films and I highly recommend them. They really shed some interesting light on the origins stories of all the various characters. It wasn’t just that that raised my expectations though, I have had a ton of disappointing and mediocre films to deal with over the last few weeks, with the exception of Deadpool, and I was just pleading for one film to come out that would just make me happy. So, despite its late release, it was originally meant to come out at Christmas and was moved because it didn’t want to compete with Star Wars, I went to the special previews of the film on Mothers Day weekend to see if one of my favourite animation franchises could continue its good run. By the way, spoilers for the ending of Kung Fu Panda 2 coming up.

The plot of Kung Fu Panda 3 is that Po (played by Jack Black) is ascending to the next level of his training, going from a student to being the master, however he is not doing too well at it, at the same time, his biological father Li (played by Bryan Cranston) returns to reconnect with his son after receiving his vision at the end of the second movie. The two start to bond but vicious Kai (played by J K Simmons) has escaped from the spirit world and vows to take the Chi of every martial arts master in China and only a Chi Master can stop him which is an art famously taught by the Panda’s. In order to learn this Po returns with his father to a secret Panda village in the mountains to reconnect with what it means to be a Panda, but can he master this technique before Kai makes it there himself. The screenplay is once again written by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger who wrote the previous film plus in recent memory have written the third Alvin and the Chipmunks movie and last years Spongebob Straight Out of Water movie. Director Jennifer Yuh is back in charge, though this time she is co-directing with Alessandro Carloni who makes his feature film directorial debut so this is virtually the same creative team behind Kung Fu Panda 2, so it’s a shame to say that I think this is the weakest of the 3 films. That’s not to say that this is a bad film, far from it. Kung Fu Panda 3 is actually really good, it just seems like everything is a little less this time. Kung Fu Panda 2 felt like a perfect progression of the plot this one feels like it stays on the level. I will stress, it’s not bad it is genuinely good especially when compared with Alvin & The Chipmunks the Road Chip which was the first family film I saw after this and was pure garbage. In fact it looks better than many animated films that I have been seeing trailers for lately, it’s certainly better than what I expect the upcoming Angry Birds movie is going to be like. There are couple of minor continuity gaffs from the previous film, for example, it’s reported early on that Li doesn’t know martial arts, which kind of contradicts the flashback that we saw in Kung Fu Panda 2 when he was defending his village from Lord Shen and his pack of wolves. Ok as I grant you, that is a minor gaffe, but there are a couple more points I need to make. The first point being that I think the film feels kind of underwhelming, the plot’s good, it actually delivers some of the decent heartfelt moments that the last 2 movies achieved. the film is once again a really good mix of action and comedy, including many of the scenes including the Pandas and while there are a ton of laughs in the film, a couple of them feel cheaper than they did in the previous films though most of the joke absolutely hit bullseye. I also think the film is a lot more heavily reliant of running gags than the previous ones which does make me suspect that the marketing department or someone else in the studio might have interfered with the production of the film, though I don’t think this is too obvious as there haven’t been too many product placements for this film aside from the adverts advertising Sky Broadband. All that being said most of of the running gags are at least funny

What do I like about this film? Po’s relationships with his fathers, they are both done very well, mainly because Po’s adoptive father, Mr Ping, played by James Hong comes along and he has to deal with being an outsider in the Panda village whereas Po feels more like he is getting in touch with his heritage. The film does have a decent conflict around Po not knowing who he is or what he is supposed to be but it does feel like a slight re-tread of the lesson he learnt in Kung Fu Panda 2, the idea of ‘you must first conquer yourself before you conquer others’, but Kung Fu Panda 2 felt more personal. This one doesn’t quite do that. I’m making it sound like I didn’t enjoy this movie, but I genuinely did the themes of identity and family still felt like they are well written. For example, the villain does feel like a genuine threat, now granted Kai is not nearly as good as Tai Lung and Lord Shen from the previous 2 movies, but I think that’s down to the fact that his back story is not as interesting or as fleshed out as those villains. We do find out that he worked with Master Oogway in the past and that they were very close, almost like brothers, but his motivation is really kind of down to that he wants power for powers sake! They never really elaborate more on his motivation other than that. What does he want the power for, is there an invading force threatening his home, does he fear that he will let Oogway down again if he doesn’t get the power, what? Kai also has an excellent power which not only can absorb the Chi of the Masters he can create Jade replicas (which the film affectionately refers to as Jade Zombies or Jombies) of any of the Masters he has taken Chi from so it gives us a wide variety of fine styles to work with and the action scenes can vary in lots of creative ways. If there is one thing this film does well it’s the journey to the final resolution. Po’s solution to defeat Kai is very well thought out and feels like a natural progression of his character and that he has taken a lot of the martial arts philosophy to heart. Po’s progression and the progression of all the characters is once again what this series does best.

Anyone who has seen the movie will know what I am on about. I also think this film has some of the best spontaneous comedy of the trilogy, there are some excellent laughs in here and the majority of them don’t feel cheap. I went to a late night screening of this so there was only one family with kids and the cinema was mostly filled with adults and this film got lots of laugh, and that means that the comedy is genuinely well written and doesn’t pander to a young demographic at the expense of their parents or treat children like they are morons.

If there is one thing to talk about, it’s the fight scenes. The fight scenes once again are fantastic, producing some of the best animated martial arts I have seen in a while and I’m really glad they kept up this standard. The film also has an excellent climax, which rather sadly provides the idea that this is the finale to the franchise. There is no hook for a sequel like there was in the 2nd movie, but I would say that the actual ending also feels different, it doesn’t have the sombre and humble ending that the first one had or the awe inspiring heartfelt emotional end that the 2nd film had and it also reeks of studio interference, though it could also be that the creators wanted to celebrate what the movies had done up to this point. I also wasn’t as big a fan of the credit sequence, considering that the credits of the last 2 movies were beautifully animated and this one feels rather lazy. Instead of giving us lovingly crafted 2D animation it simply recycles clips from the film.

Kung Fu Panda 3’s plot is still very well character driven. I do love these characters, in fact I would even go so far as to say that Po might be Jack Black’s best character to date, because he feels like a defined character rather than just an extension of Jack Black’s real life personality. Though there is an element of that in Po. This film does feel phenomenally short as well and I think thats down to the fact that the film doesn’t have that many plot turns and twist like the 2nd film had, because there’s not a long amount of difference in the running time between films. In short, the plot’s really good, it’s well told and well executed, and makes the film worth a watch, it just doesn’t reach the great levels that the first 2 films did, but that’s hardly a major criticism because I actually think it’s very good and I think kids and their parents will enjoy it. The most annoying part of this film is that is has a liar revealed sub plot which I’m going to join Doug Walker in not really being a fan of, but luckily it’s very short, to the point and it’s over and done with very quickly instead of being dragged out like I have seen in many kids films, especially the abysmal Sharks Tail.

As per usual Kung Fu Panda 3 has an all star cast, while many of the guest cast members from Kung Fun Panda 3 haven’t returned like Michelle Yeoh and Jean Claude Van Damme. , many of the regulars are here. Jack Black is once again excellent as Po, Angelina Jolie is probably at some of her best playing Tigress, comedic actors David Cross and Seth Rogen do very well as Crane and Mantis, who even get a couple of scenes to feed off each other which delivers some really good comedy. Jackie Chan gets enough lines as Monkey this time to make his scene relevant, seriously it’s only since the 2nd film that there has really been a point for Jackie Chan to be playing this character he barely got any lines in the first film. Dustin Hoffman doesn’t get much to do playing Master Shifu, but I think that’s for the best considering Shifu’s story was pretty much finishing in the first film so he’s more meant to be guidance for Po which Dustin Hoffman does very well, I almost think he was born to play martial arts master in a film considering how well he has been playing Shifu across this franchise, and of course as per usual he gets some very funny lines in the film, especially at the end. J K Simmons is one of the new cast members being a villain actor this time, and once again we’ve got a great villain in the role. Now J K Simmons is very used to voice acting roles considering that he was in all 4 seasons of Legend of Korra and he brings his A game again proving he is a very good method actor. I don’t think he has quite the same presence as Ian McShane or Gary Oldham who played the villains in the previous 2 films but I think it’s more down to the material he is given. Lucy Lui as Viper is the returning cast member who is probably given the least amount of lines, she barely feels like she has much of a presence in this film, which is a shame because I think she is a very good actress and these roles really suit her. James Hong does very well reprising his role as Mr Ping having the largest role he has had in any of the films to date and while his role does feel slightly over expanded he does have a decent pay off, James Hong once again plays the character brilliantly. Bryan Cranston is the biggest addition to the film’s cast and he gives a really good performance. The only criticism I have about him is that I believe you can feel the celebrity voice in the recording booth more so than the other actors but I still felt he was playing a character rather than himself .The other character to talk about is Mei Mei who in this film is played by Kate Hudson who gets a rather small part as the Panda who specialises in rhythm dancing. She gets a decent part, though her running gag is not quite as funny but she does a decent job with the part and I think a lot of people will have trouble guessing that it is her playing the role. I actually thought it was Rebel Wilson for a while. In short we once again have an all star cast doing a brilliant job though once again, a couple of cast members do feel under done, though I think that’s down to the writing rather than anything else.

Lets move on to the technical category now. My goodness, the animation is still excellent. This is some of the most beautiful 3D computer animation out there that brings to life the Chinese landscapes and has amazing colours and textures. The characters are very expressive and brilliantly designed and they all have designs to go with their personality. The animation also suits the fight scenes very well, which are all excellent. Seriously, this is one of the animated films that Disney should be taking notes from. Whichever studio is doing the Angry Birds movie, this is also a film you should take ideas from, considering, judging from the trailers, your characters look butt ugly! Can you tell Angry Birds was one of the trailers I saw before this movie? I am reviewing it for the website after it comes out in May and yes I am prepared to eat my words if it turns out to be a good movie, I am just not holding my breath. I also have to discuss my thought on the score, which once again is fantastic. Hans Zimmer once again returns to compose the music score and he does a brilliant job with his traditional orchestra as well as blending Chinese instruments into the mix, it suits the environment perfectly and I actually think this is another one of his great ones. If there is one thing to criticise about the soundtrack I wasn’t as big a fan of this films rendition of Kung Fu Fighting that plays during the end credits, I don’t think it’s as good a CeeLo Green’s cover that played at the end of the first film.

I saw the film in 3D and I actually recommend seeing the film in that format. I reckon you could watch the film in 2D and still have a good time, however, the 3D is actually very well integrated, the objects and landscapes appear in the foreground and background very well, there are enough decent 3D effects without having things flying at the screen and at no point when I was watching this film did I not suddenly forget that I was watching the film in 3D which is a rarity these days. Now granted I don’t think it’s as good as Kung Fu Panda 2’s 3D but I still think it proves once again that animation tends to do better in the 3D format than their live action counterparts. If the timing is better for you I would recommend paying extra to get the 3D glasses to see the film.

Kung Fu Panda 3 is a good film, I genuinely enjoyed it and it was a good movie going experience. It had good characters, a decent story and some really great animation fight scenes, plus there was some really good 3D in it. It just doesn’t quite live up to it’s 2 predecessors and while the humour is pretty good it does feel like it is pandering more than usual, though that’s not to say there were some really good laughs in the film and in reality this is simply the weakest of a really good trilogy. It’s well worth a watch especially if you have kids, and judging from my screening the adults will also get something out of it. I would say, if you enjoy martial arts films, see all three and don’t be put of by all three of these films horrible advertising campaigns which don’t show off what the quality of the films are at all. It’s probably worth picking up all the supplementary spin off material as well, including all of the secrets trilogy and the holiday special.

Is Kung Fu Panda 3 as good as it’s previous two movies, not quite, but by no means is it a disappointment.

“So what are your thought on Kung Fu Panda 3? Did you agree with me or were your opinions different? Please leave a comment, I appreciate all opinions.”

What film did you see a trailer for that completely puts you off going to see the film? For me, at the moment, it’s Angry Birds.

Well we are getting closer and closer to the biggest release of the year, but I wanted a nice stop gap before I review the upcoming Batman V Superman, so come back on 25 March where I will be reviewing an anime movie “Fusé: Memoirs of a Hunter Girl”.

Thanks for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and finally another good movie out this year that isn’t Deadpool.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“HAIL, CAESAR!”

Hail Caesar is a very interesting film on several reasons for myself so I was genuinely intrigued to see the film. It’s the latest film written and directed by the legendary Coen brothers Joel and Ethan who, by the time of the UK’s release will be coming off their loss at the Oscars for best original screenplay Spotlight. Now granted, I really enjoyed their last script for Bridge of Spies, but I didn’t think it had as much of the stamp that the Coen brothers put on their films like The Big Lebowski or Fargo or even some of the movies that I have really loved them in like their remake of True Grit and of course No Country For Old Men which won them 4 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director. This film’s release does mean that it can not be nominated for any Oscars this year so I also went in with the opinion that it was either a bad timing decision or someone at the studio looked at it and said ‘well it’s good, but it’s never going to win any Oscars’. So I wasn’t going in expecting an amazing movie but with the Oscar’s shunning so many really good films these days I’m really not using the Oscar nominations as a judge of amazing quality. If you go to the cinema as much as I do this film’s trailer was in-escapable. Granted, I did think the trailer gave away a little too much of the film prior to seeing it, however, it was intriguing enough to pique curiosity. I actually made an event of it by going down to Picture House the weekend before it officially came out they were showing special screenings on 28 February which I took advantage of. This was useful because it meant I wasn’t rushing back after Axia’s latest conference to see the film. With everything in place, the question is, have the Cohen brothers written another brilliant piece like No Country For Old Men, True Grit, Fargo and The Big Lebowski?

Set in the 1950’s, Capital Picture’s head, Eddie Mannix (played by Josh Brolin) is helping to produce the new production ‘Hail Caesar’ which will have one of the biggest stars in America, Baird Whitlock (played by George Clooney), however, on set, Baird is kidnapped by a group called ‘The Future’ and held to ransom for $100,000.00. Eddie must get Whitlock back in order to finish what is their most expensive production to date, however, there may be more to The Future’s motivation. Spoiler alert, there isn’t!!

Hail Caesar is a rather difficult film to review because, like most of the Coen brothers films, it feels rather unique, to an extent. The film feels almost primarily like it’s meant to be a homage to 1950’s cinema, and in that instance, it’s great, absolutely fantastic. The film pays homage to everything from big period piece epics like the 10 Commandments or more directly Ben Hur (which is intresting timing considering the remake is due out in the summer), to Busby Berkeley musicals, to John Wayne style westerns and there is even a bit of a homage to Gene Kelly in a musical number that stars Channing Tatum who completely steals the show with that one scene. If this film came out last year I would say that is really should deserve a Best Production Design Oscar Nomination, everything about the homage to the 1950’s feels perfect and the period piece feels like it has accuracy to it, the problem is with everything else. This film isn’t bad per se, it’s actually got a lot of positives to it. The acting, which I will go into later is one of them and that’s not a surprise with the Coen’s writing, directing and producing as well as this all star cast. The problem is the writing feels very under developed. I only described one of the plots going on in this film in the plot summary, there are actually more like 5 or 6 going on individually and they all feel so under developed. They are almost set up in one scene and then solved about 20 minutes later in another scene, in fact I think a couple of them don’t even get a resolution. The individual scenes are actually rather entertaining especially a scene between Ralph Fiennes and Alden Ehrenreich which is almost a direct homage to the famous acting etiquette scene from Singing In The Rain and George Clooney’s scenes with The Future are actually rather cool, but they are very brief. Some of the characters barely show up on screen at all. Jonah Hill’s character, for example isn’t in the movie outside the scene we saw him in from the trailer. Scarlett Johansson gets a sub plot about being a famous actress who is trying to cover up that she has had a child out of wedlock from the gossip columns and asking the studio to help out, but what’s interesting is that she only appears in 2 scenes. In fact there are large portions of her sub plot that she is not even involved in. There’s a twist quite early on and another one later down the line, but the 2nd twist has very little impact since the character that was involved is barely on screen so we have no reason to really care. The plots really feel like they go nowhere and even the main plot feels rather under done. The kidnapping is treated more as a mild inconvenience than a big earth shattering event like the trailer made it out to be. There is also a weird sub plot around Eddie meeting some kind of a dealer in a restaurant and he was trying to bribe him into support or something like that, it was so weak and un-interesting that I actually forgot what the sub plot was about on the way home. Now while these plots don’t actually go anywhere the individual scenes are rather entertaining especially the scenes that are paying homage to the 1950’s films, for example Channing Tatum gets a musical number part way through the film, there’s also a full scene of a classic western and even a couple of scenes that seem like some of the comedies that Glen Campbell used to be in. One of the problems with the scenes is that they can seem to go on a bit too long and can outstay their welcome, however this only really apparent in the scene where Ralph Fiennes as Director is shooting a drama, though his scenes with Aiden Ehrenreich are hilarious and to die for. There is also a sub plot around the supposed scandal that two sisters, both played by Tilda Swinton are trying to uncover but even that amounts to little. While the individual parts of the film are very well done because they feel rather under developed, it feels like there is a lack of investment for the audience and they don’t amount to a satisfying whole. The Coen’s can do less than traditional structure to their film and make it entertaining, the prime example being The Big Lebowski which is kind of a complex film about very many things with very little connecting them, but that felt much better because everything seemed to be under one plot, this feels like many plots that the Coen’s were throwing around because they wanted to do several types of ideas and homages and they needed to create several sub plots to warrant them, however, they could have cut a good couple of them and the film would have been better for it.

If there is one good thing to say about Hail Caesar it’s that the characters are very entertaining, particularly Josh Brolin’s Eddie Mannix, George Clooney’s Baird Whitlock and Aiden Ehrenreich’s Hobie Doyle and I would even give a good shout out to Laurence Laurentz played by Ralph Fiennes whose brief time on screen is a joy to watch. I think the first three though is because they got the most screen time, so we knew a lot more about them and were given more time. It really feels like everyone apart from Josh Brolin came to do this film between films. It was like Scarlett Johansson was given a day off from doing The Jungle Book or whatever Marvel film she is going to be in next, or that Ralph Fiennes took a day off from whatever he was filming or George Clooney did this in between takes in Tomorrowland, and everything just feels like a waste. Everyone of these plots could have been interesting, especially the main one. If they had taken the main one and just developed it a bit more we might have had a decent running plot, but as it stands it just doesn’t feel complete and rather inconsequential.

As for the actors, the film has been sold as an all star cast, but really, they are not given much to do. The best performances in the film are arguably Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Aiden Ehrenreich and Ralph Fiennes. Tilda Swinton is as good as usual especially having to play duel roles and sometimes in the same scene, but the problem is that whilst Tilda Swinton is a very talented actress, she is given bad direction by the Coen’s because there is no difference between the sisters she plays so it is difficult to tell the difference between the characters. Channing Tatum doesn’t really get much to do, but his musical number is excellent and it is a real credit to the direction and the choreography which were both sublime, however, outside that, he feels rather under used. Scarlett Johansson is as good as ever and is proving that she is probably rather an under rated actress, however, I’m pretty sure that several of her scenes were cut for time so she feels under used as well. I also rather enjoyed Frances McDormand but I don’t remember him leaving much of a presence and Jonah Hill is a fantastic actor but he really leaves absolutely no presence in this film whatsoever. The film is really sold as being an all star cast but really you are not getting much out of them. Josh Brolin, as I said is fantastic in his role, George Clooney is a much better actor than many people give him credit for, and I know George Clooney in a movie directed by the Coen’s, who would have thought that! Aiden Ehrenreich really feels like a western star from the 1950’s who has been pulled through time just to be in this movie, but even their performances can’t save the fact that this cast delivers good performances but feels rather wasted. I haven’t even mentioned half of the other named actors that are in The Future, including Max Baker or any of the other actors, one of which I swear was one of the writers in Spotlight, that’s probably because their writing motivation was so weak and under developed that it probably affects their performances, oh and by the way don’t look up their names on IMDB because it completely gives away the motivation of The Future in this film. Also apparently Christopher Lambert and Clancy Brown are in this movie but they’re both glorified cameos

As for production design, however, the film is fantastic. The film feels like the 1950’s, the shots are well done, the camera pans rather like a 1950’s film, the filters work very well, the effects are decent and the costume design is fantastic. From a production standpoint the film is excellent. The soundtrack also suits the time period perfectly and in those terms it’s almost a perfect time capsule of cinema in that period. The set designs are also fantastic and it’s a real credit to people behind the scenes, they all have done a fantastic job, it’s just too bad that the film is not built on visuals and production design alone.

The real problem with Hail Caesar is down to its running time. The film feels really short, clocking in at 1hr and 46 minutes and I think a lot of scenes were cut for time, which is a shame because I think if the film had been 20 minutes longer a couple of these sub plots could have been more developed. Hail Caesar is a rather well made movie but has rather an under developed script which is what really holds it back. The performances are all good even though most of the cast don’t get much to do and honestly it feels too short and it feels like it could have easily gone on longer. The film does have an excellent production design and is a perfect tribute to 1950’s cinema but I felt it could have given us more. The Coen brothers can make movies that have less structure and more just exist to be movies like The Big Lebowski, but I kind of preferred their more structured works like No Country For Old Men and True Grit where they are being kept on a leash because of their source material, when they are left on their own like they are with this movie, I think they can often go a bit too far, however on this occasion, I don’t think they go far enough and it reeks of them trying to bite off more than they could chew.

It’s not totally bad, this will be a very interesting film to watch on NetFlix on a movie night with your mates and you won’t come out hating it, a couple of moments really made me laugh. The film can be very entertaining at times which is a credit, it just doesn’t measure up to a perfect whole. Wait for it to come out on DVD and get it on a rental.

Did you go and see Hail Caesar and what are your thoughts on it? Did you agree with me? Please leave a comment, I welcome all opinions.

“What do you think is George Clooney’s best performance?”

Well my last three reviews haven’t been exactly positive, but maybe my next one will be more positive. It’s one of my most anticipated movies of 2016 and a sequel to one of my favourite animated films ever, come back on 18 March where I will be reviewing the sequel to the Dreamwork’s animated film “Kung Fu Panda 3”.

Thanks for reading my review I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

“Have you been to see Deadpool yet, if not why not???”

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“BATMAN: BAD BLOOD”

It’s another year so it’s another round of DC animated movies, however, this year is slightly different, unlike the previous 2 years, DC has 2 live action movies out this year at the same time, which will be part of their DC cinematic universe and they will be coming out around similar times to those various releases. For example, this film will be receiving its official release in the UK stores and through digital shops on 21 March 2016, only a few days before the release of Batman V Superman. I’m able to review it because I happened to import a copy from Poland, not out of any sort of spite towards the company or because I was impatient, DC simply wasn’t giving the information and I honestly didn’t believe the date that was being given on Amazon was correct because they weren’t providing any artwork and I didn’t see any official logos or anything to suggest this was officially coming from Warner Bros. So since iTunes weren’t honouring my digital release, despite the fact that it was promised that this film was going to be released early digitally before its physical release, which turned out to only apply to customers living in the USA, I went with a European import. Batman Bad Blood did receive its release across various nations of Europe and I decided to take advantage of it to make sure I could get a review out, assuming that because it was available on I Tunes UK so it would eventually receive a UK release and my review wouldn’t be complete waste of time. It has, sadly meant, however, that I couldn’t review either of the films I wanted to review this week, Grimsby or Gods of Egypt (which since intiallialy writing this review has been delayed with no known release date for the UK in sight at this time), though I will make sure that by the time this review is out I will have already placed my brief thoughts on both of those films on my Twitter account. So, before anyone says I don’t review enough comedies for this site in regards to Grimsby I am planning to review Whisky Tango Foxtrot in April in the slot that was potentially going to be getting this review had I not received my copy in time. Now we actually talking about the film, this film is set to be the 3rd part of a trilogy and an extra part of DC’s new animated universe where 2 films a year in the DC animated line up actually take place within the same continuity, this one following on from Son of Batman and the previously reviewed Batman Vs Robin and to a lesser extent Justice League War and the previously reviewed Justice League Throne of Atlantis. Now if you want my thoughts on both of those check out my reviews of the last DC animated films and my opinion that these films are beginning to go into decline whereas we usually would get 2-3 excellent movies a years, we are now getting 1 excellent movie. The previous 2 years examples being Batman: Assault on Arkham and the previously reviewed Justice League: Gods and Monsters. The trailers weren’t looking too bad plus they were suggesting that this one was going to introduce Batwing and Batwoman whose new 52 series I read the entirety of and really liked them both, mostly, I kind of stopped being really bothered by Batwing as soon as they changed to main characters half way through the series, but with this film coming out it meant that we were finally going to get a film with the extended Bat Family and that could lead to potential animated versions of each of the crossover of Batman events that had happened in the new 52. But with all that being said, did this film live up to its hype and has it improved on a lot of the points I have made about the previous films.

I should point out at this point, and this is a full warning, while I won’t be spoiling the plot of this film I will be spoiling the endings of Justice League Throne of Atlantis and Batman Vs Robin and for comic fans I will be spoiling parts of Final Crisis and possibly some of the various characters in the new 52 series. You Have Been Warned!!

The plot of Batman Bad Blood is that Bruce Wayne aka Batman (played by Jason O’Mara) is caught one night in an explosion caused by a raid from new villain The Heretic (played by Travis Willingham) leaving only one witness, Katherine Kane aka Batwoman (played by Yvonne Strahovski) and he is presumed dead. After news of his death is reported the Bat Family come from far and wide to protect Gotham. Damian Wayne aka Robin (played by Stuart Allan) returns from his contemplation temple in the Himalayas which he had left to join after the events of Batman Vs Robin and Nightwing (played by Sean Maher) returns from Bludhaven to take up the mantle as the new Batman, but is Bruce Wayne really dead and what is the Heretic planning with his cabal of villains. Now as usual these movies are short, this one coming in at 1 hour 5 minutes, so I can’t talk too much about plot details for fear of spoilers, but I will try my best. This, once again is directed by Jay Oliva and written by comic writer J.M DeMatteis and it shares a lot of the same strengths and weaknesses that their previous efforts had entailed, but surprisingly I think this one might be the better one of the trilogy, but these are my immediate thoughts on the film so I am not sure after a cooling off period that these opinions are going to be set in stone. This is the first time that one of these films in the current DC Animated Universe that has not been based on an established comic story line, instead trying to be an amalgam of the various new 52 series that arose post Flashpoint, most notably some of Batwing’s series a lot of Batwoman series, but most notably Batman Incorporated and to some extent we get a bit of pre Flashpoint influence with Grant Morrison’s run of Batman and Robin where Batman was Dick Grayson and Robin was Damian Wayne after Bruce Wayne’s supposed death during the DC event Final Crisis and there is a definite influence of Grant Morrison’s writing on the film as a whole. It’s just a shame, however, that the film never quite fully delivers the perfect adaptation that you would like. It’s a weird scenario, watching this film is like how Richard Hammond described Hovercrafts, it’s brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, disaster! There is a lot of merit to the film, people who aren’t really fans of Damian Wayne will be happy to know that he doesn’t get as much focus in this film as he did in Batman Vs Robin and Son of Batman, however, he is not entirely absent.

The film decides to focus on the four member of the Bat family most notably Robin, Damian Wayne, Nightwing who for most of the film is actually taking up the mantle of Batman, Katherine Kane, aka Batwoman and Batwing, who for the purposes of this film is Luke Fox, (played by Caius Charles).

Luke Fox unfortunately gets the least amount of the focus in the film, he is really bought in just to add an extra member of the Bat family for the climax, there is a bit of a plot around his relationship with his father Lucius Fox (played by Ernie Hudson) but he just isn’t given enough time for his plot to play out. I didn’t really enjoy the new 52 series when he took over from David Zavimbe and that was simply because his setting and character was just a lot more interesting than Luke Fox. They try to give him a new origin where he is an Afghanistan war veteran but it just doesn’t feel like he fully pulled it off, granted, he is not terrible, but he is hardly a character I want to follow that much. Hopefully we will get more use out of him as the films go on.

The other new character who gets their debut in animation is Batwoman. Now Batwoman is a really cool character and she is a character in her own right, she is definitely not a clone of Batgirl or just Batman with breasts! She has her own identity. I would highly recommend picking up her new 52 series as well as the mini series that she was in prior to the events of Flashpoint, however, I would side with a bit of caution as the stories get very dark. I am kind of excited to see her in the films and for the most part they get her right. I also like the fact that they did not shy away from the fact that she is one of the few openly gay Superheroes, however, they really go that far with it, for example they don’t show her in bed with another woman or even show her kissing another woman, though they do show her going on dates with Renee Montoya (played by Vanessa Marshall) who fans of the crossover event 52 will remember being her love interest in that storyline (as well as taking over the superhero identity of The Question) and for the most part this is done well. Her fight scenes look really good and she comes across as a very strong independent woman who doesn’t necessarily need the Bat family but could be enriched by aligning herself with them. But, oh dear, what happened with giving this character a gun, seriously, I have not idea what DeMatteis was thinking writing this is in, I have read the entirety of 52, her mini series and her new 52 series and never once does she use a gun!! I suppose this was developed to give her a contrast to Batman and the reason why Batman doesn’t fully trust her, but this is completely against the characters roots, what happened here!

Damian may get less of a focus but he has a good character arc throughout most of the film and it does have a nice pay off with its conclusion, it does feel like we are treading water with the comic story line which it is similar to, but I think this gets Damian much closer to his comic identity and establishes him more as the character we know.

The final one to talk about really is Nightwing, aka Dick Grayson who really does merge into the Batman role pretty damn well. I actually like a lot of the scenes with him as Batman because they reminded me a lot of the series that were written for him by Grant Morrison and I really liked the chemistry between him and Damian early on. Plus, his early scenes gave us a hint to the upcoming Justice League Vs Teen Titan’s movie, with him making a phone call to Starfire. It should also be noted that he does make some appearances in his Nightwing costume, which I won’t give away because of course this film only lasts 1 hr 5 minutes, so if I talk too much about it I am going to give away plot details. Trust me, if you think no one else can be Batman other than Bruce Wayne, this film may change your mind and if it does change your mind I would highly recommend going out and buying all of Batman and Robin by Grant Morrison and of course, stick with it for the 4th volume where he left the book to write Superman again. While each of these Bat family members do get a lot of focus, it’s also where the film has a real problem. There’s so much to get out there that the short space of time means were never get to know them all fully. Any one of these characters could have had a movie to themselves and could have been really good. It does feel a bit like DC Animated has tried to rush out the characters as fast as possible so that other story lines that have been done recently involving the Bat family can be done. For example, the Death of the Family or the recent Endgame. I would like one of those comics to be adapted because we haven’t seen the Joker in animated form for a while.

The biggest problem, however, is with the villains. The villains are damm good for the most part and they actually have a very interesting plan, which I won’t give away. The Heretic, like Batwoman, has been given a slight change, although it’s not to the same extent to the amount of change given to Batwoman’s origin in this. Anyone who has read the recent Batman Incorporated series will know exactly who The Heretic is and what his identity is so his reveal won’t be a shock, nor will the quote on quote plot twist in the middle be but people who haven’t read it might be in for a genuine surprise and the plot twist does change up the dynamic of the film, but it does come at the expense of The Heretic. The Heretic was built up big time in the advertising campaign for this film, but he is completely useless by the middle portion and is taken over by a new main villain. His cabal of other villains are made up of mostly b and c list Batman villains, most of which you will only recognise because you have played the Batman Arkham games, most notably Electrocutioner, Firefly and Killer Moth. The only one that I think people will recognise on sight is the Mad Hatter who is probably the best thing about this film as his character is got down really well, even though he is given a scene later on where he gets to turn into Odd Job for some weird reason! But all of this is un-done by the fact that The Heretic, the main villain of the film is completely un-done and I was really looking forward to getting a kick out of seeing what they would do with him. They even set up a decent character arc potential for him, but the second it’s done, he is no longer significant, again I am not going to give anything away because I really want people to check out this movie, but this is a massive let down. I don’t really care that much about some of the redesigned costumes for these characters. Most people keep their costumes the same as they appear in the comics, but The Heretic got the biggest change with his design in the comic resembling an Arabic Soldier, it’s been changed to much more of a Batman Bane hybrid for the film. This is probably a wise decision in the wake of instances like the Paris attacks, which is incredibly sensitive right now, though I do know this film was in production way before that so I know that did not play a part in that decision.

The film’s plot does move in an easy pace and I would say I could easily see reading this as an event in the Batman comics, but it doesn’t quite find a focus and stick with it, which is its major problem. I also felt that there were way too many character deaths in this film, which really weakens the potential for future films when you have less charaters to work with. If you are going to buy this film, beware, this is not really a kids film. Granted it doesn’t reach the same levels of depravity as say Deadpool, but it’s still quite mature at times, getting a PG13 rating in the states. It’s one of those films that I am not entirely comfortable recommending. I think Batman fans might have a problem with this one and I don’t think it’s going to satisfy everyone, which is definitely an opinion I got from reading the reviews on Amazon online. I also think, because of the short running time, there isn’t enough time for character development. Personally though, I think I enjoyed this one slightly more than the last two Batman movies released in the DC Animated Universe, simply because I think it told a better story and had better character development than both of those, but it doesn’t quite run away with the films I would have hoped.

If there is one thing that the film did great, the fight scenes are brilliant. These are some of the best fight scenes that DC animators have produced in a while, and while all these films are of a high standard, this one definitely keeps it up.

As for the actors, well, Jason O’Mara once again is a decent choice to play Batman and could potentially be an excellent Batman, but once again, because the focus in this film is not really on Batman per se, he doesn’t gain enough time to show his ability in this role. I would say, however, don’t write him off on that basis, but seriously DC give this man a role where he is largely the focus. Sean Maher finally gets the role he deserves where he can actually have signifcance on the plot and delivers an excellent Nightwing and a really good Batman. Stuart Allan, once again, is perfectly cast as Damian Wayne and I am looking forward to the fact that he is set to reprise the character at least one more time in the up coming Justice League Vs Teen Titans, seriously if you are reading a comic that has Damian Wayne in it, you are probably going to hear Stuart Allan’s voice in your head. Ernie Hudson is probably the biggest star in this and he does actually make a really good Lucius Fox to such an extent that I think he would be a good choice to play the character in the upcoming DC Cinematic Universe. There is some other decent casting as well. Bruce Thomas is still pretty good as Commissioner Gordon, but he is only given a couple of lines, so he is basically a cameo in this film. Travis Willingham, the current voice of Knuckles The Echidna in Sonic The Hedgehog does a really good job as The Heretic, it’s a shame the script has no idea what to do with his, so as a result he is barely in the film. Yvonne Strahovski is excellent as Batwoman, seriously, make a solo Batwoman movie and give this woman the lead, she is excellent. Gaius Charles does a decent job as Luke Fox, aka Batwing, but again the script has no idea what to do with him. The other weird aspect of this film, is the fact that I think there must have been a budget issue because despite the fact that we have actors like Vanessa Marshall as Renee Montoya and Geoff Pierson as Colonel Jacob Kane who both do pretty well in their respective roles, a couple of actors had to play multiple roles. For example, Robert Atkin Downes plays not only The Mad Hatter, but also Electrocutioner, Jason Spisak had to play The Calculator, Kuttler and Killer Moth as well as providing additional voice as a news reporter, and weirdly Steve Blum is in there as both Firefly and Black Mask. Now as Black Mast he is very well cast in that role even though we are basically hearing Steve Blum in the role, which anyone who watches a lot of Anime will know what he sounds like and he doesn’t really do anything different to his voice, in fact he kind of sounds like he is recycling his current voice as Wolverine in the various Marvel animated series, but it’s made even worse by the fact that these films are meant to have a shared Universe and Steve Blum is already playing Lex Luthor, which is what I was alluding to in my Justice League Throne of Atlantis review and the thing is, he’s not doing that different a voice to the one he was when he was briefly Lex Luthor. If the plans from that post credit seem to go through it’s going to seem really weird, I was half expecting Black Mask to take off the mask and reveal he was Lex Luthor all along! The only other actors to talk about are James Garrett who still does a very good job playing Alfred Pennyworth, although I don’t think he’s as good as many of the other voice actors, such as the actor who plays him in the Arkham series and of course John DiMaggio gets in there as both Blockbuster and Tusk, who feels really wasted because he barely gets any lines. Overall it’s a decent cast, but everyone is use to different degrees, hence the different degree in performances.

As for the animation, well it’s the same as usual, I can’t really comment much more different that before. It’s the same animation that was used in Justice League Throne of Atlantis and Batman vs Robin, which I have already reviewed and is once again based on Jim Lee’s art style to give a sense of continuity between film, which on that hand is pretty good. It does give a sense of continuity, but one of the things I really enjoyed about these films was noticing the different animation styles that would go into each film based on what artist worked on that specific comic. Maybe it’s just my nostalgia acting up, but I definitely thought there was something to help each one of these films seem like a separate entity. I also think that I should point out that many of the character designs have been slightly shifted. For example, Batwing gets a rather different sort of suit than he had in the comics and I have already mentioned about The Heretic. Most stay intact, however, the closest to the comic counterpart being Batwoman that looks like it was note for note. The animation is still pretty impressive and makes the fight scenes look fluid and alive and I really don’t have any complaints about it overall. None of the characters look weird or out of place and on a technical level the film looks great, it will look especially good on Blu Ray where they will allow that animation to pop out. While we are on the subject of the fight scenes, once again I have to mention that they are excellent and brutal. Seriously this is what the live action films in the DC Cinematic Universe are going to have to replicate if they want to stand up against the Marvel Cinematic Universe which is already producing excellent fight scenes.

Batman Bad Blood may have a stupid title but it is actually quite a good film, for the most part, it does however, make a few drastically bad moves which stifle me from fully enjoying this movie. The animation is still really good, the fight scenes are good, I like the fact that the film finds a pretty good focus and sticks with it even though it means we can’t get a huge amount of character development throughout the entire film and it builds to a pretty good climax. The villains eventually get good and their plan works out, but it does feel like it’s at the expense of some of the main villain, The Heretic. It does seem surprising that a film called Batman Bad Blood doesn’t really have that much focus on Batman. I think it’s worth a watch especially if you in some way enjoyed Son of Batman and Batman Vs Robin. The cast also deserve a note of praise because they are all very well cast and I am looking forward to them reprising their roles in future films.

It comes out on Blu Ray in the UK on 21st March and will also be available to purchase digitally on iTunes then. I would say it’s worth a watch if you enjoy the DC Animated Movies. It’s good, but it’s not perfect. I think It stands firmly in the middle, but I would say I preferred it to both the recent Justice League movies and I think to Son of Batman and Batman Vs Robin.

The next film DC animated will be producing is Justice League Vs Titans and the DVD I own had a preview of that film which I think will be available on the UK release and it looks really good. That will be getting a review on the site in the future.

“So what were your thoughts on Batman Bad Blood, the 3rd in the trilogy. Did you agree with me or did you have a different opinion?”

Please leave a comment, I welcome all opinions. Hopefully I will get your comments when it is released in the UK.

What do you think is the best DC Animated film at this point in time? My personal favourite would be Batman Under the Red Hood, but I am welcome to be challenged by that.

My next review will be at the cinema and on 11 March I will be reviewing the latest Cohen Brother’s movie ‘Hail Ceaser’

Thanks for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“THE FINEST HOURS”

Ok this may not be the film I wanted to review this week, but when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I chose this film over last week’s other major release ‘Tripple 9’ because I believed that this one would receive much more of a push than Triple 9 had received with the fact that this was being produced by Disney Studios, however, it appears to have had the opposite effect and Triple 9 appears to have received the majority of the advertising, which is a film I do not intend to see because it just looked rather dull and I decided if I was going to see an extra film this week, I would go and see ‘How To Be Single’.

The Finest Hours is directed by Craig Gillespie whose previous credits include Fright Night and another Disney film, Million Dollar Arm, which I won’t claim to have seen, but apparently it’s a pretty good film, or half way decent, the feedback I have got about it varies and I suspect a lot of the positive comments about this film are down to the film being written by Spotlight director, Tom McArthy. This film on the other hand is written by the triple team of Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson who previously worked together to write the Mark Wahlberg film, ‘The Fighter’, again, I haven’t seen The Fighter so I can’t give my thoughts on that film, but, again, comments vary. The Finest Hours did receive its release in the US just under a month ago, which again, raised my suspicions considering that this is now officially a January release, and I was put off by its choice of actors which were rather iffy, for example, I do enjoy Eric Banner and to some degree Casey Affleck is ok, but I am not a big fan of Chris Pine and Holliday Grainger, not that they haven’t made good films in the past, However, I put everything to one side and I went down to my Cinema to see if this was a good adaptation of Casey Sherman and Michael J Tougias’s book.

The Finest Hours plot is based on a true story. Set in Massachusetts in 1952 a tanker gets caught in a storm and gets split in half. The crew of one half led by Ray Sybert (plased by Casey Afleck) has to band together to keep the ship from sinking and keep as many crew members alive as possible, meanwhile, a coastguard team, led by Bernie Webber (played by Chris Pine) brave the storm in order to rescue as many crew as possible, but with one of the worst storms in Michigan’s history, will they be able to get to the ship alive and all come back in one piece. If It sounds like I’m being vague with the plot, it’s only because I am, there really isn’t much actually going on in this film, I think I would even go so far as to say, at all! The film runs at 2 hours, but it feels a hell of a lot shorter than that because very little actually happens and what mainly suffers is the characters. A good tragedy or survival film relies on us getting to know the characters, liking them, and as a result wanting them to pull through. A film like Titanic, for example, gave us enough time with each of the characters, so by the time the sinking happened we felt for these people because we had got to know them and what they were about and as a result the tragedy felt more personal to us, which considering a lot of what of our attitudes towards the Titanic itself, was a really important idea. Here, we don’t get enough of that. The characters are rather thinly veiled and we really know next to nothing about them before all the action kicks off. The directors want us to feel for these people, but I barely knew anything about any of them and that didn’t even change during the course of the action. I barely know anything at all about these people by the end of this film. So it just felt like I was watching a movie for the sake of watching a movie! As a result, it just feels boring for at least the first hour and a half! It’s a real get from a to b plot with very little in the middle, there are some sub plots surrounding Bernie’s fiancé Miriam, played by Holliday Grainger dealing with the fact that this is the first time since their engagement that Bernie has gone out in a storm, but it never really amounts to anything and it feel tacked on and outside of that, most of the women in this film get very little to do. Now I am not crying sexism since this film was based on a true story and to a larger extent, a biography of the event, so the screenwriters were limited, but I never felt any of the emotion I should have felt from these scenes, so as a result her parts feel superfluous and almost un-needed, which is not something I should be saying for this type of plot. I also think this film does not have that much originality in terms of how it looks. This film really owes a lot to The Perfect Storm and Titanic and even goes so far as to mimic a lot of the scenes from those films, the former more than the latter, which is a really bad idea considering that that film was much better and drawing comparisons doesn’t help. The Perfect Storm had great effects but they were bult up by the fact that again we had grown to find the characters enduring so as a result we were hoping the true story wasn’t true and we would get a Hollywood ending and yes I know there’s issues with The Perfect Storm but I actually like that movie. This film just doesn’t have that, so as a result it feels like we are watching an effects sequence. There are also the supporting roles which feel like they do there job, but feel like they don’t contribute much at all, mind you, these are supporting roles so don’t seem as much of a negative in my opinion. The fellow coastguards for example, barely have any plot, there is also a sub plot around the brother in law of a man that Bernie went out to save but failed and was blaming Bernie, if you think that sub plot would go anywhere, don’t it’s resolved very quickly and without much progression. Don’t get me wrong, The Finest Hours is not a terrible plot but it is so bland and forgettable that I really feel I can’t go into too much detail about it because it really isn’t that well developed and it’s a shame because this is truly an extraordinary story when you look into it and the credits emphasise that very well, by the way, seriously, stay around for the credits, there are several scenes of the film’s production coupled with actual photographs of the situation taken by the press and it shows the excellent level of detail that the film makers took to preserving the aesthetics of the true story.

In the hands of a better director I think this could have been an absolutely amazing film. the problem is that neither the screenwriters nor the director are up to the task and this is fairly evident in how the film has turned out. It feels very ‘paint by numbers’, we know for example, that there is going to be at least one big speech, and at least one moment where a character dies to get some cheap emotion out of the audience, and trust me, when those moments happen you will see them coming a minute or two before they happen! You know that moment of the film where you see a character and they speak a line of dialogue or do a certain action and you think ‘you are so dead’, there are at least a couple of moments in this film that are like that!

The Finest Hours though, is not wholly negative. It does have some good moments, especially in the last ten or twenty minutes, but at the point it actually finds its identity and emotion, it’s too little, too late and as a result you don’t feel anything for these characters or the scenario they were in and I almost at times forgot I was watching a film based on a true story, which is a massive error for this kind of film. The best way I can describe the plot of this film is that it’s like that Indie band where you liked a couple of songs by them, it does certain parts competently but it’s not really anything special and you will probably forget it as soon as you hear it. That’s this film’s plot in a nutshell.

As for the cast, they’re not much better. There are some decent performances but they’re marred by poor direction. Chris Pine is an actor that I tend to find is very bland or arrogant in most of his roles, and he leans more towards the bland in this film. I have enjoyed him playing Captain Kirk in the last two Star Trek movies and I am glad he is returning to reprise the role for a 3rd time, but I’m just not really a fan of his, especially after I saw This Means War and Princess Diaries 2, both films after the fact made me hate the actor with a passion. This film does not do him justice, and he doesn’t really show any emotion in his part until the last 10-20 minutes of the film. Casey Afleck for example could have been an excellent lead, but the script really doesn’t give him enough of a personality to pull off this role. The same goes for Eric Bana who feels completely wasted in this film as the head of the coastguards, I’m certain there is an actual title for that, but I forgot what it was. I will say admittedly he does actually do a decent american accent and he was rather unrecognisable in the part and I didn’t actually realise it was him playing it until I got home and looked up the cast list on IMDB. John Ortiz is another good actor who feel very wasted in this film and especially Graham McTavish who fans of the Hobbit films will recognise as Dwalin, who at least gets a lot to do, unlike many of the cast members on the freighter, but anytime you think you are going to get something out of him, it cuts away. Ben Foster is another example of an actor who feels incredibly wasted in his part, but he’s not largely in the film so you don’t need to worry too much about that. Holliday Grainger is another actor, who I have not really been a fan of, but she did win back a lot with me with her role as one of the step sisters in last years Cinderella, however her role is really thankless in this film and her role feels almost non existent at times, largely due to the fact that there are large chunks where she doesn’t appear for a good half hour, it also doesn’t help that I thought her performance reeked of poor direction, but again I will say she does a very good american accent and while I am on the subject, I will praise Chris Pine for the fact that he does a very good Massachusetts accent as well which shows at least some versatility in the actor that I didn’t think he had, so credit where credit is due. Honestly this cast could be excellent if they were given the right writers and directors, but in this film they really aren’t doing a brilliant job.

Aesthetically, on the other hand, this film is at times really good. It has some excellent shots and the harshness of the storm, despite the fact that they seem to be ripping off shot for shot from The Perfect Storm, to such an extent that I thought you could play certain scenes back to back, but at least they are done well, although I will admit that some of the time you can really feel the effects being done, like you can almost see the green screen in the background, you can almost see the stage hand pressing the button to make a gang plank move or a flame thrower to suddenly activate from some of the engines and it can rather take you out of the scene. I will say, however, the film does have good effects and the costume design is very well done to add some authenticity to the time period that it is meant to be set in. The score is also excellent. I actually think that the score really matched the scenarios of the film and I was actually noticing it doing a better job most of the time than I was noticing the actors in this film.

I saw the film in 2D, I know the film was converted into a 3D and I did initially intend to see the film in 3D, but the closest cinema to me only had the 3D showing very late at night and it didn’t match my schedule, apart from that though I really didn’t feel a need for this film to be in 3D. There were a coupe of moments that felt they would benefit from the 3D version, but that was largely down to the fact that there were things flying at the screen or that certain shots would have given an extra sense of height that 3D added depth brings to a film, but those moments were few and far between so I don’t think the 3D conversion would have made too much of a difference, so I wouldn’t rush out to get some 3D glasses to watch the film, however I haven’t actually seen it in 3D so I’m not going to comment on that.

The Finest Hours is not a terrible film, but it’s a very forgettable film. I don’t expect this film to turn up on my ‘worst films of 2016 list’ but I’m not going to be recommending it to anyone, even if you are the sort of person who waits for a film to come out on DVD because this will just sit on your shelf after you have watched it once, you won’t want to get it out again! It was rather boring in its first half and while the last 20 minutes did have some good moments, it didn’t make up for the bland film that was playing before it. The cast feels very wasted and the film reeks of a poor script and poor direction. It really is a film that I expect to forget a week after seeing it! The effects are rather decent and the cinematography is pretty good even if it does feel like it is ripping off The Perfect Storm and Titanic one too many times, but the fact is, if you don’t get to know the characters, you don’t feel too much for them when the situation gets tense. This film is based on a true story and it could have been amazing, but as it stands, it’s a rental at best. I would almost say pick this one up for morbid curiosity because it’s a not really a so bad it’s a good film and that’s really the only scenario where I would recommend that.

“What were your thoughts on The Finest Hours? Was it worth it or did it just bomb?”

Please leave something in the comments section if you enjoyed this review and feel free to check out my Twitter account to see my thoughts on films I’m hosting, plus there’s still time to vote on my straw poll for what should be the 2nd review of April, I’ll leave a link here for you so you can cast your vote

STRAWPOLL

After reviewing Deadpool last week, this feels like a bit of a come down, but fortunately my DVD from Europe did arrive, so next week I will be reviewing the first of DC’s Animated Movies of the Year “Batman Bad Blood” and as I am writing this review I am already half way through making my review of that one, so that one will be on time for 4 March. So come back to the site for that one.

Thanks for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and please, if your haven’t already seen it, go and see Deadpool because there is not much else out right now.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“DEADPOOL”

Now I may be the nerd consultant around here, but I don’t read everything that Marvel brings out so you will forgive me if some of my knowledge of Deadpool isn’t the best in the world, but I do have a basic knowledge of the characters and I do enjoy the character, I just don’t tend to read his series for some reason, though I have been reading a few Deadpool comics in preparation for the film, plus I am getting somewhat up to date with the character because he is appearing in Uncanny Avengers at this point in time. That being said though, I was really excited that a Deadpool movie was on the cards, and I was even quite happy with Ryan Reynolds being cast in the role despite the fact that there is a running gag that ‘if Ryan Reynolds is in a movie based on a comic it will suck’ as proved by such brilliant cinematic bombs such as X-Men Origins Wolverine, RIPD, Blade Trinity and who can forget Green Lantern.

Now Ryan Reynolds has been very passionate about this project and has wanted to get it in to the works ever since X-Men Origins Wolverine where he played the same character and the film completely screwed it up. Yes, here’s an idea, take one of the biggest characters known for mouthing off and spouting one liners and make him mute!! He has also been putting a lot of his own money behind the film as well as his own time and merit, but despite that the film had failed to be picked up for years and years, it took some of the footage leaking on line to actually get the studio to green light the film. This is despite the fact that we are living in an age where comic movies are some of the biggest blockbuster draws of any year.

The film is directed by Tim Miller, no relation to the famous comic writer Frank Miller, who is making his feature directorial debut having only previously written and directed short films. The screenplay itself has been written by the team behind the movie Zombie Land and that film was actually alright, I wouldn’t go nuts over it because I think you could do better Zombie based comedies, like Shaun of the Dead, but still. This film has gained a lot of controversy in the States by the fact that this is the first R rated Superhero Movie, which I believe has been reduced to a 15 in the UK thanks to the relaxed British Censorship. With all that being said, would the merc with the mouth that loves chimichangas be finally getting a decent adaptation on a cinema screen? I went down to my local cinema screen to find out.

Wade Wilson (played by Ryan Reynolds) is dying of terminal cancer. In order to have any chance of survival and to get back to his girlfriend Vanessa (played by Morena Baccarin) he seeks out help from a mysterious organisation that can not only cure him of his cancer, but turn him into a Superhero, led by the villainous Ajax (played by Ed Skrein). There is just one problem, they’re aiming to turn him into a super slave and they will destroy most of his body in order to do so. He inexplicably gains the ability to be un-vulnerable to harm and breaks out, vowing revenge on Ajax and seeking him out in order to change him back. If your have read Deadpool comics, you know what to expect here, lots of fourth wall humour, lots of over the top violence and a hell of a lot of one liners and gore! This film only really stood a chance being R rated and that is probably one of the film’s biggest strengths, it’s R rated so it’s allowed to go all out and tell a proper Deadpool story. Deadpool is not as familiar in the popular consciousness as say Spiderman or Batman so I am glad that this film went into his origin and it does it very well. The film starts out with Ryan already in costume before it flashes backwards and forwards into its origin story and what is going on at the present moment. Luckily it doesn’t do this too often like in a film like Batman Begins or even worse Man of Steel so the coherence of the plot is still intact. We know who we are following and we are allowed to follow it well. The other strength to this film is it is a really good Deadpool story. This film nails it almost to a T and that is down to the fantastic writing as well as the fact that Ryan Reynolds seems to have really put his heart into this film. There are a couple of really interesting ideas around here but this mainly is a straight up translation of the comics. It almost feels like one of those fan films you see online like Batman City of Scars, or Street Fighter Assassins Fist, except this one managed to get a Hollywood budget. But even then, this film still seems to have some budget issues which even the film makes a couple of jokes about on occasions. I don’t want to go into too much details about the jokes because I think this is one of those films you really have to experience, but trust me when I say, they don’t put all the best jokes in the trailer, and the other factor is that this is really fun.

I don’t read many Deadpool comics but I’m starting to think I am missing out a bit because this film was a great deal of fun. That is especially down to the fact that it is very funny and after sitting in a cinema and watching a film like ‘Dirty Grandpa’ which had such awful humour and yet people still laughed at it, and to have a cinema laughing at what were genuinely funny jokes was really heart warming for me. It gave me some evidence that mankind isn’t completely doomed!! This is very R rated humour, so expect the jokes to be rather vulgar. The difference between this and a lot of R rated comedies that don’t get it right is that the jokes are genuinely well written and the characters are rather endearing, so the jokes feel better delivered. It’s not for everyone, the humour gets rather dark on occasions and while I do believe it could have almost universal appeal, this is not the Superhero film to take your kids to. This is a very adult Superhero movie.

One of its biggest strengths is that it is not set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While I wouldn’t object to Deadpool being introduced to the MCU, my biggest problem with Deadpool as a character is the fact that he is in the Marvel Universe and he does rather stick out. I know there are a few characters in the Marvel Universe who don’t quite match the mould and feel rather out of place in it, like for example, The Punisher, but Deadpool’s powers, especially his ability to break the 4th Wall seems to almost clash with everything that is going on. That’s not to say that this film seems to shy away from the Universe as a whole, the film makes it very clear that it is tied in with the X Men characters and that Deadpool comes from that stable of books, though we only see 2 X Men in the actual film, Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, seriously that is her name, played by Stefan Kapicic and Brianna Hildebrand respectively, but don’t expect to see any more X Men in this film, again which led to one of the best jokes in the entire movie.

Despite the fact that this films feels like a one man show for Ryan Reynolds, some of the other characters do get some funny lines in, especially T J Miller who is now 2 for 2 with good comic movies between this and Big Hero 6 and unlike that movie he is a lot more enjoyable this time around, playing Weasel. As usual for Deadpool stories, the villain basically acts to be a straight man for Deadpool and Ajax is an excellent straight man, although I wouldn’t go as far as to say he is an excellent villain. We never really find out what he is up to throughout the entire film, he never fully gets to develop any sort of villain plan or plot and eventually it just boils down to him wanting to defeat Deadpool, he feels rather wasted potential and seems almost like he is an evil for evils sake villain, which granted we haven’t seen in a while, but it doesn’t feel very modern or progressive. The other example is love interest, Vanessa who has shown that she can stand up for herself and be an excellent character in her own right at the beginning of the film, but then disappears entirely during the middle act and barely shows up in the final act and even then she seems to just exist to be the love interest. She feels like a wasted character and I thought they might be going down the route of making her Domino at one point, however, like many of the other Deadpool exclusive characters, Domino isn’t in the movie. However, I do suspect they may be saving her and the rest of the cast for a sequel. The problem is though, I just wish they had done more with the character and I also would say the same for Negasonic Teenage Warhead, who really doesn’t get that much to do at all or even many lines, despite the fact she is at least a decently written character. Granted, I have no idea about her despite the fact that I read a lot of the X Men comics and judging by the profile of the character on IMBD I suspect she may have been invented for the film. Colossus on the other hand seems slightly out of character, but again, change is not necessarily a bad thing in an adaptation and he works as an interesting counter to Deadpool’s attitude.

The film knows how to keep your attention very well and has a very good coherent plot, mainly around Deadpool tracking Ajax and his henchmen and eliminating the group for revenge, but it is played very fast and very loose. In fact the film feels very short by the end of it. It does come in at just over 1 hour and 40 minutes, but I couldn’t help but feel that this film was missing a few scenes, and there appears to be some lines that turn up in the trailer that didn’t make it into the final cut which makes me suspect that there are a few scenes missing from the film, and while I would recommend seeing this film in the cinema because it’s really funny, I would also recommend getting it on DVD as I suspect it will be coming with an extended cut. If that does come out with one I may comment on it. Now I complain a lot that a lot of films are way too long and add a lot of unnecessary scenes that just exist to pad out the running time, but I did feel that this film could have gone on a bit longer. People could make the argument that the film is paced very well and the scenes that are left in do a decent job. I also think that jokes where Deadpool breaks the 4th Wall might be a bit annoying to some people, I personally found it really funny, but I can definitely see where it could grind some people the wrong way and I would also give a word or warning, the humour is really dark and vulgar at times, but I actually kind of like it because it is at least well written, and I have already explained what the difference is between films like The Hangover, Dirty Grandpa and Entourage compared to films like this. The humour also does demand that your are familiar with Superhero movies, particularly the X Men and The Avengers movies and I suspect there are a few people who don’t watch too many Superhero movies will feel slightly alienated. In short, the plot is actually pretty damn good, it does its job very well, there are a couple of hiccups but it does tell a very funny and unique story well. It’s a bit short, but I was very entertained by it and while it’s not the greatest writing in the world, it still does a good job and brings these characters to life and actually makes you feel like a film made by genuine fans that just wanted to bring their vision of the character to life.

The actors. Finally Ryan Reynolds is in a comic movie that doesn’t suck and he is given the leading role that he very much deserves because he clearly has wanted to be in a good Superhero movie for a while. He is perfect in the role and it’s another amazing mould of character and actor, on a par with Robert Downey Jr as Tony Start and Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow. Ed Skrein gets another chance to shine in this film and while he does reprise a lot of his acting skills from The Transporter Refuelled, this time he is given much better writing and direction so he works a lot better. One of the break out actors should be Karan Soni who does an excellent job as taxi driver Dopinder who serves to drive Deadpool to his jobs at the beginning and end of the film and gets a really funny sub plot. I liked Stefan Kopicic as Colossus and despite the fact she isn’t given much to do Brianna Hildebrand is pretty good. I would say that T J Miller was actually rather decent in this role and despite the fact that she is kind of reduced in her role at the end of the film Morena Baccarin does a damn good job playing Vanessa. I also liked Gina Carano as Angel Dust who makes an excellent henchman to Ajax. Did I forget to mention that Greg LaScalle is excellent as the physical performer of Colossus, also Deadpool’s blind roommate played by Leslie Uggams who does a good job playing the cocaine addicted surrogate mother of Deadpool, and of course, it’s a Marvel movie that doesn’t suck so Stan Lee makes a cameo in the film and it’s one of his best cameos to date, not quite on the level of his cameo in Amazing Spiderman, Captain America The Winter Solder or Avengers Age of Ultron, but still very good. All are well picked out cast who do their jobs very well.

If there is one department in this film that really needs to be really praised, it’s the effects department. They did a fantastic job on the make up and the visual effects of the film. The film seems like a good mix of CGI and practical effects and the fight scenes have some amazing choreography that really suits Deadpool’s style and actions. I’m not too keen on a lot of Superhero re-designs, and granted it does appear to have gone down a bit in recent memory, but you do occasionally feel it. The Deadpool movie, however, has absolutely no changes to the costume. The costume is exactly the same as it is in the comic and it is fantastic. It never looks at any time like Ryan is confined by the costume and the fact he has to wear it along with the heavy make up to show the effects of the treatment he has received is a real commendment to him as well. The CGI almost seems rather seamless, although I do admit Colossus does look very computer generated.

I would also like to point out that the film does not flinch on its gore front, it goes all out with it and some of the practical effects were also excellent and I would say there are a few points in the film that will make you wince, not in a good way. I also think that people will get a kick out of the films eclectic sound track, especially the older viewers of the film that will be impressed by a lot of the 70s and 80s heavy soundtrack, although I don’t think this will have the same nostalgia trip as The Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack did. Is there a major negative to Deadpool? The only one I haven’t really mentioned is the fact that Deadpool’s main power is that he is un-vulnerable and this means we never feel like Deadpool is in any sort of peril. It’s not will he win, it’s he will win! Because there is nothing these guys can do to kill him, he’s basically an even tougher version of Wolverine, but even Wolverine isn’t immortal, again, another thing the film actually does make a joke about. However, that does not hold back this film too much because I really liked it.

Deadpool is a truly great comic film, it sets a very high standard for all the up coming comic Superhero movies coming out this year. It’s very funny, very well acted, very well written and the action scenes and the practical effects are pretty damn good. It’s a bit short on it’s plot, but it doesn’t outstay it’s welcome and while this film won’t convert anyone to Deadpool who wasn’t there in the first place it’s a treat for any fans that have waited to see this film made, with all the vulgarity, swearing and 4th Wall being well and truly broken. Finally Ryan Reynolds gets the good comic movie that he deserves. There is a couple of issues with it, but there weren’t enough to sink the movie for me and I would really recommend seeing it at the cinema because there is a lot to marvel about it. It’s not the greatest Superhero ever made, but it’s a damn good one and a very funny one at that which kept me laughing from start to finish and if this is an omen for the year to come, bring on Batman V Superman, and Captain America Civil War already.

Go and see this one in the cinema, but I would also recommend if you are one of the people that wait for it to come out on DVD you might well be within your right because I suspect there will be an extended cut, but I would say, don’t take my word for that and go and see it at the cinema anyway because I can’t guarantee that. A sequel is already in talks which feels rather premature considering that this film hasn’t been a success and I suspect it’s probably going to be beaten in the box office this month in the UK by Dad’s Army, but I would definitely welcome a sequel to expand upon this film, but it’s still good in it’s own right.

“So what are your thoughts on Deadpool. Did you agree with me?”

Please leave a comment, I welcome all opinions. Remember you can follow me on Twitter to get my thoughts on films I am seeing outside of the reviews for the Axia Film Society. Well this was going to be the point where I would mention that my next review would be Batman Bad Blood, however, I haven’t been able to procure a copy of it on DVD in time for this week and iTunes are still telling me that while I technically have a pre-order, they are not giving me a release date for their version of the film. While I am certain that the film is coming out in the UK, I do have an import copy coming in so hopefully I will get round to reviewing that in a couple of weeks. But that is not a guarantee, I might skip this one and move on to Justice League Vs Teen Titans, or review both of them together as one review like I did with “Attack on Titan”. I’m not making any guarantees yet, but since I haven’t got anything to review I am just going to go ahead and review the latest live action film from Disney ‘The Finest Hours’ and that review will be on the website on 26th Febuary.

Thanks for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

With the Oscars coming up in the next couple of days I deiced that the film society should pass comment on where the awards should go.

Now a few ground rules: it must be something that actually received a nomination rather than the way Mark Kermode does his Kermode awards which aim to highlight films that didn’t receive a nomination (for example if Kingsman The Secret service didn’t get a best picture nomination I can’t pick it). It must be a movie I actually saw so no speculative picking which has basically resulted in me rushing around most of the last few months watching anything that even got a whiff of a potential Oscar nomination, also no ties – I don’t care if the Oscars get to occasionally do it I must actually pick a movie no matter how hard, and finally I won’t be giving a pick for Best Foreign Language Film, not out of any sort of Racism or because I can’t be bothered to watch a film with subtitles, I simply didn’t really have the ability to see most of the nominations because these movies tend to see Limited release in very few cinemas, and apart from anime I only saw 1 foreign language movie in 2015, plus the likely winner Hungarian film “Son Of Saul” doesn’t see a release date in the UK until after the Oscars, so I didn’t believe that could make a for judgment on this category. I also won’t be doing Best Documentary for the same reason.

I’ll be doing each category from the top up finishing on Best Picture obviously and please remember just because I didn’t pick something doesn’t mean I hated it or that your liking of it is in some way invalid, it’s just my opinion. Oh and should mention these are what I want to get the Oscar not what I’m predicting will get the oscar.

Best Sound Editing

A category that’s difficult to pick on with pure memory however with this one there really was one choice when I looked back on all 5 nominations

And my pick is…

Mad Max: Fury Road. It was a tough call between Mad Max and Star wars. While I love the iconic sounds of Star Wars it’s the sound editing in Mad Max that brings the engines and the action of the cars in that movie to life and makes the world feel living and breathing

Best Sound Mixing

Once again it’s a difficult category but if I gave it for sound editing to Max Max then by extension I should do the same here

And my pick is…

Mad Max: Fury Road. I’ve explained my reasoning behind this one so let’s move on

Best Makeup & Hairstyling

Not exactly what I’m looking for when I watch a film but when it came to giving us a uniquie look to the characters all the films nominated did a good job however I chose what I thought really aided the movie in the best way

And my pick is…

The Revenant. While I did want to give it to the 100 Year Old Man That Fell Out Of A Window And Disappeared for it’s remaking of historical figures and the ageing make up of lead Robert Gustafson it’s The Revenant’s make up that really accentuates the harshness of the environment and wins it for me

Best Visual Effects

In year of film where all the big budget blockbusters tried to outdo each over as to who could be the best sequel or reboot it felt like this award was never better fought after. All 5 had some absolutely amazing effects and in the end It came down to did I enjoy Ex Machina’s one or 2 amazing effects or did I think that Mad Max had simply more great effects

And my pick is…

Mad Max: Fury Road. I chose Mad Max cause while Ex Machina may have some of the best CGI in recent memory, Mad Max Restored my faith in action directors relying on Practical effects over CGI and those cars must have been taken some amount of effort to make

Best Original Song

This is the one that will take up the most time at the ceremony itself with all 5 nominations receiving live performances at the ceremony and last year this was one of the closest categories. This one anyone can make up their mind simply through a youtube search and I would encourage anyone to look up all these songs to make there own opinion. While none of these songs are in my taste I was objective in making my choice

And my pick is…

Writing On The Wall by Sam Smith (from Spectre). While all the nominations were well written and performed songs (with the exception of Earned it by The Weekend from Fifty Shades Of Grey which just plain sucked and I could kick the knob of the volume bar to not have to listen to it) Sam Smith’s Bond theme stands out for its sheer bombast and for the fact it perfectly compliments the movie it’s been composed for. I will say I was close to choosing Manta Ray by J. Ralph & Anthony from the film Racing Extinction which I would also give a recommendation

Best Original Score

Now this is one of my favorite categories because I believe a great soundtrack and movie theme will mean the movie will stick with you and in the year when John Williams went head to head with Ennio Morecone it was a very strong catergory though 1 soundtrack stood out in my mind when I looked at all the nominations

And my pick is…

Star Wars: The Force Awakens. John Beats Ennio on this ocassion and while I praised the hell out of Ennio Morecone’s score in my Hateful Eight review I could listen to John Williams Star Wars music all day long and gain a ton of nostalgia and hope for the future with this iconic Sci-Fi franchise

Best Costume Design

Costume design is a big deal because good ones can become iconic and leave a lasting impression that will stick in people’s minds. Of the 5 options I immediately eliminated 3 options, Carol, The Danish Girl and The Revenant not for belief that any of them were poor in this department but the other 2 were just simply better in my opinion it was very close but I made a call

And my pick is…

Mad Max: Fury Road. I was REALLY close to giving this to Cinderella but at the end of the day the Mad Max: Fury Road costumes will stick in my mind a lot more and for a longer time. They are just so good and creative and it’s a real credit to the team behind the film. One of the highlights of MCM London 2015 was seeing a group of people in cosplay as characters from the film and I suspect I’ll see more this year and in years to come.

Best Production Design

The Production design Oscar tends to concern either amazing period accuracy or original designs and concepts making it to the big screen. This year had a good mix of both and the choice came down to which production design left the biggest impact.

And my pick is…

Mad Max: Fury Road. All 5 of the nominees had excellent production design but the outright winner for me had to be the amazing work done on Fury Road, which brought insane life to its desert setting

Best Cinematography

I go on about cinematography towards the end of each of my reviews and since I did formally review 2 of the nominated movies so if you want a bit of detail on my thoughts read my reviews of Mad Max: Fury Road and The Hateful Eight. Despite my praising of the cinematography in both of those films it won’t go to either of them and Sicario didn’t really amaze me with its cinematography. Carol had some great cinematography that harkend back to films of the 50’s but at the end of the day there was one winner

And my pick is…

The Revenant. While I may have some legitimate complaints with The Revenant the Cinematography is certainly not one of them. I saw the film in IMAX and it astounded me as to how good it was. Really the shots are the star of the film. Granted I think this means that it will lose something upon its home release on DVD and Blu Ray but credit where it’s due Emmanuel Lubezki did a fantastic job.

Best Animated Feature

With the exception of best film this the category I pay the most attention to since I’m a huge lover of animation and once again I’m not entirely happy with the nominations only because 3 of the films aren’t out in the UK in time for the Oscars (Anomalisa, Boy and The World and When Marnie Was There) and it’s a shame because I love the look of all of those films especially Studio Ghibli’s When Marnie Was there which in reality is the film I’ll be rooting for but I have to be fair and choose between the 2 films I did see

And my pick is…

Inside Out. Inside Out was really the only choice I had since even at the time I thought people went a bit overly nuts for Shaun The Sheep and my personal belief is that’s only nominated because the academy belives a stop motion film has to get a nomination and this year I think it will be clear that Shaun is the weakest. Inside Out is a very well made, fun and imaginative film that firmly deserves it’s place in this catergory and probably should have got some consideration for best picture

Best Original Screenplay

There is an interesting category considering that a large complaint against Hollywood and the Movie industry as a whole is that there are very few original ideas now. Technically the term original is kind of stretched considering that 3 of the nominations (Bridge of Spies, Spotlight and Straight Outta Compton) are based on true stories and qualify because there was no biography that the screenplay was specifically based on. I therefore based my pick on what was what I thought was the best written story and which would I want to go back to the most

And my pick is…

Straight Outta Compton. It came down to Inside Out and this and while Inside Out is very well written and I would be very happy if it got the Oscar, but I would still pick Straight Outta Compton for being one of the best Rock Biopics in recent memory that really gets to the heart of what made this music and inspired many people. It’s out on DVD now so pick it up and check out my reviews afterwards.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Adapting a source material is a difficult task because you can either play it safe and adapt it very faithfully and risk it not translating well to film or going off in your own direction till it’s unrecognisable. All 5 nominations were based on bestselling books which probably got even more sales upon the films being released so there must have been some expectation held about them. Most of these were strong but I had a couple of complaints about the writing when it came to Carol and Brooklyn the latter of which I explain in detail in my review so they were immediately eliminated. Personally my biggest disappointment was that Aaron Sorkin didn’t get a nomination in this category and I believe I would have given it to him if he was nominated but in the absence of that I made the call on my favorite.

And my pick is…

Room. Emma Donoghue adapts her own novel into a screenplay expertly and creates a brilliantly emotional and visual story that is simply overwhelmingly well written. I did enjoy the Big Short’s writing and up until I saw this film I was really going to give this to Drew Goddard who’s had an excellent 2015 with the Netfilx Daredevil series and his nomination for The Martian which I really enjoyed, however it is Room that takes the prize for me

Best Supporting Actress

This one was not an outright call and I considered all 5 actresses as much as I enjoyed Jenifer Jason Leigh in the Hateful Eight she is brought down by the fact that she doesn’t get much to do in the film and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t affect her performance. Roney Mara arguably gave the best performance in Carol but her part isn’t incredibly well written so I eliminated her as well. Kate Winslet was on the top of my list for the longest time but there was one performance that came in at the last minute that was better

And my pick is…

Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl). If there was one Actress that really impressed me it was Alicia Vikander who gave an incredibly emotional performance in The Danish Girl playing the conflicted wife of a man wanting transgender surgery. She really gives off what is possibly the best performance of her career seriously one to watch

Best Supporting Actor

Ok this was a category that threw up a couple of surprises most notably Tom Hardy receiving a nomination for his role in the Revenant. His nomination was even more of a surprise when I saw the film. Don’t get me wrong he’s good and is probably one of my favourite actors working today but I did eliminate him especially considering I had seen Stallone’s performance in Creed the previous day.

And my pick is…

Sylvester Stallone (Creed). Just when you though that Stallone couldn’t add any more dimensions to Rocky he finds more ways to do it. This really is another career defining performance from Stallone and well worth an Oscar

Best Actress

This has been one of the strongest years for this category giving nominations for 5 great actress’s with worthy nominations. I eliminated Kate Blanchet, Saoirse Ronan and Jenifer Laurence since while all of them gave great performances they were in aid of films that I thought were either ok or slightly overrated which marred their performances. So it came down to Brie Larson and Charlotte Rampling who both did what I thought were their best performances to date but I had to pick a winner for myself and this was

And my pick is…

Brie Larson (Room). It came down to the wire but Brie Larson managed to give a whole gamut of emotions and did it brilliantly. I normally don’t pick the bookies favourite in the major categories at the Oscars however this year I am completely on their side because I wasn’t to aware of Brie Larson before but after this performance I really want to see what she does next.

Best Actor

While the Oscars tend to pick only 2 or 3 genuinely good performances but I would say this year while I felt there were at least 3 performances missing from the list (Johnny Depp in Black Mass, Jacob Trembly in Room and Will Smith in Concussion) these were actually really great performances. The critics heralded Leonardo Di Caprio as the obvious choice however while I thought he gave a truly good performance I thought there were 2 that were slightly better. Up until 2016 I was gunning for Michael Fassbender to win this however I completely changed my mind after new years day.

And my pick is…

Eddie Redmayne (The Danish Girl). All the nominations were great but Eddie Redmayne embodies everything that makes an amazing performance. The delivery of the dialogue and the pure physicality brought the character to life and made the movie for me. Seriously check this one out.

Best Dirctor

I’m once again kind of disappointed that the legendary Steven Spielberg isn’t up for this award as well as Ryan Coogler for their brilliant work on Bridge of Spies and Creed respectfully. Despite that however this was the one were I had actually kind of made my pick before seeing the nominations because I was really hoping for George Miller to get a nomination for his work on Mad Max: Fury Road over any other director. When the Oscar Nominations were announced I was very happy to see that come to fruition and I didn’t think that any of the other nominations came quite up to the standard he set with that movie despite the fact Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Adam McKay were excellent in their direction. Then Lenny Abrahamson came along and with his film Room he showed what a consistently good director he is between this film and his previous work Frank. I genuinely considered both directors and what they brought to each film and made my decision.

And my pick is…

George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road). I was rooting for George Miller from the start so I figured that he really was the obvious choice. His direction allowed Mad Max: Fury Road to be an action masterpiece. Lenny Abrahamson is a really amazing director but this year for me it’s all George, and why he wasn’t up for the same category at the BAFTA’s is baffling to me

Best Picture

This is it, the big one. Like 2015 there were 8 films to choose from. Personally I thought Inside Out and Steve Jobs were missing from this list but aside from that this was a very strong year and I ended up reviewing a few of the nominees but I went over all 8 of the nominees with a fine tooth comb. The Big Short was a very funny and also rather anger inducing (in a good way) film about outsiders predicting the Financial Crisis of 2008 and making a profit of it by betting against the banks which was very well written and acted especially by Steve Carrel its only weakness being that it’s two styles don’t completely mesh all the time though it does for the most part. Bridge of Spies was a very good drama based on a true story by the Cohen Brothers set during the cold war that kept me gripped from start to finish and is another great team up between director Steven Spielberg and Actor Tom Hanks as well as showing off Mark Rylance. There’s some legitimate complaints for the film mainly its slightly one sided nature but the Americans don’t come out looking incredibly well by the end. Brooklyn had an impressive start but teetered off in the middle to a disappointing end but had some excellent performances from Saoirse Ronan and Julie Walters. Mad Max: Fury Road is arguably the best action film of the last 5 years giving us some of the most fantastic scenes of 2015 backed up by some amazing practical effects backed up with CG backgrounds, amazing production design and some amazing performances from Charlize Theron and Thomas Holt plus director George Millar is on form giving us a film that is kind of light on story but still gives us a memorable tale that is my new favorite in the hopefully ongoing series. The Martian is Ridley Scott’s best film in years and was really gripping story about survival and allowed Matt Damon to give a great performance plus the film really made you feel like you were on Mars and while its effects weren’t as authentic as Gravity they were still really good. The Revenant is the second film in a row from Director Alejandro González Iñárritu to be nominated for best picture after Birdman (which won) and had some outstanding cinematography, action scenes production designs and performances but it was rather lacking in its story and could have been slightly better plus I think it will have limited lifespan on TV screens. Room was a truly beautiful movie about a mother and son going through and recovering from horrific circumstances from the director of Frank that manages to expertly tell its story that will leave a lasting impact, as well as great cinematography and fantastic performances from Brie Larson and Jacob Trembly. If there is a negative it’s that the film is based on a novel and some moments feel very much like it belongs more in a novel than the film because it doesn’t quite translate to the screen but that’s a nitpick. Spotlight was a very good journalism drama about cover ups in the catholic church surrounding child rape allegations and does a good job but it does have a couple of pacing issues. This was the toughest call of all and when I looked at all 8 nominations I narrowed it down to 2 that knocked my socks off and took a real long look at both weighing up every great moment in both films and had to make the call on which one I thought was better.

And my pick is…

Mad Max: Fury Road. It was so close between this and Room and I almost came close to tossing a coin over it. Both were fantastic films that blew me over and I absolutely love them and I felt bad not choosing either one of them but if I had to pick one that I would have to watch over and over again it would be Max. it really was an amazing film which I have already gave 6 of my picks to and I don’t think a film like this will get nominated for a long time so I’m going to savour it.

So there are my picks for the Oscars in 2016. It’s certainly been a controversial build up with the boycott and argument over a lack of diversity. While I do agree it is an issue that deserves to be talked about I think there’s a lot bigger problems in terms of race relations in America and Worldwide than who’s got an Oscar Nomination and I also think the Academy had a really hard task picking nominations in what was a VERY crowded market though maybe Will Smith should have got a nomination (can’t really comment haven’t seen Concussion) and I also think Charlotte Ramplings comments while they could have had a genuine point were misjudged and extremely misguided. I also think there has been one of the strongest years for the nominations giving me no easy choices in who I’m supporting. If you want my extended thoughts on the nominations you check my reviews on 10 of the nominations

Brooklyn
Creed
The Hateful Eight
Inside Out
Mad Max: Fury Road
Spectre
Spotlight
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Steve Jobs
Straight Outta Compton

I’ll check back on my Twitter account and in the comments to how many of many picks came to be after the ceremony

Also leave in the comment section your picks for the Oscars.

For list of the oscar nominations check the link here

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“SPOTLIGHT”

Spotlight was, for as long as I can remember the big Oscar buzz film. As soon as people saw it they were saying that this was the only definite Best Picture Nomination and we would naturally assume that we wouldn’t be getting to see it until early January and the Oscar people were completely right, however their prediction that it would just be handed the Best Picture Award there and then may have been a bit presumptuous considering The Revenant seems to now be the bookies favourite to win the Oscar. Right now I am not going to be giving my opinion on which should win the Oscar or what I predict will happen because I am doing a separate Oscar pics list where I give my opinion on which of the nominees I want to win each separate category, which I will be bringing out soon, unless I’ve managed to be really active since my return from the States and managed to see Trumbo really quickly, in which case it’s probably already on the site and you can go there.

The film itself looks pretty good. We have an excellent all star cast. It’s based on recent history that’s still rather controversial and people have a lot of interesting opinions about and the film is even directed by Tom McCarthy who has earned himself an Oscar nomination. He is a very good actor after his appearances in Law and Order that I have seen and while he has been a pretty good director his last film prior to this was the awfully received ‘The Cobbler’, which he also, unfortunately, co-wrote, so whilst understandably he did manage to take the advice to work with some acclaimed directors, he did also manage to end up in a rubbish film. While the film has received many Oscar nominations and rightfully so, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor and Actress and Best Original Screenplay it does cover a very sensitive topic of history and peoples personal beliefs. I will say I am not intending at any point in this review to attack any ones personal beliefs and will be purely expressing my opinion on the film itself. With all that being said these are purely my opinions on the film, so readers discretion is advised.

Spotlight tells the true story of a unit of the Boston Globe newspaper that the film is named after, after uncovering the massive amounts of cover up by the Catholic Arch Diocese in priests raping children that would eventually lead to the Catholic Church being rocked to the core. The team consisting of Mike Rezendes (played by Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (played by Rachel McAdams), Matt Carroll (played by Brian d’Arcy James) and led by Walter ‘Robby’ Robinson (played by Michael Keaton). That’s really all you need to know about the plot of this film. There’s not really much extra to it. The major focus of the film is on the characters getting some documents that a prosecutor has got his hands on that are not a matter of public record and the film builds up pretty well what these documents are and what they will supposedly prove. The problem with the film’s plot is that there are a few pacing issues, especially at the beginning. This is rather fixed in the second half of the film which is much better that the first half, but it stand to mention that that is a major weakness in the film’s early portion. It doesn’t, however, affect the overall enjoyment of the film too much, but don’t expect to be hugely invested until after the hour point. The first part of it is a lot of bureaucracy. Also the first half doesn’t get round the emotional turmoil that this Catholic cover-up was causing. We don’t really get a sense of it until later on in the film when events reach 2001 and the story is potentially going to be buried again after the events of 9/11. The film wisely chooses not to attack peoples personal beliefs, but attack the Catholic Church as an organisation that would allow priests that had raped children to be moved to other parishes and not charged with crimes and the sheer prolific nature of it. It also wisely chose that it is not allowing personal beliefs with Rachel McAdams character whose grandmother is a largely devout Catholic and her turmoil over printing the story on the strength of essentially destroying her grandmother’s faith. So to clarify it, if you are in any way worried that the film is anti-Catholic or anti-Christianity, don’t be, it is anti-child rape and against the organisations that would allow this to be done and not see the light of day nor any criminal charges and all in the name of people’s genuinely held sacrosanct beliefs. The film does give some very alarming statistics especially toward the end credits when the scope of the Spotlight investigation is revealed which I won’t mention to avoid spoilers, as I believe it’s something you have to experience for yourself, but believe me, it’s anger inducing by the end credits, but this is one of the few moments of the film when it is anger inducing because I do think that in order to appease the Academy, Tom McCarthy has slightly down played the subject matter. That isn’t to say he avoids the subject altogether or pushes it to one side in order to tell his own story. It’s there, but I think he could have gone one step further with it. The majority of time is spent with the reporters, and that is good because the film has the right focus, however I think they could have used more time to do something around the victims, we get very little time around them. I think the film could have been easily inter-cut with a victim character and what they were going through at the time of the investigation. I don’t think he would have had to compromise the true story aspect in order to do that. Also, I don’t know how accurate this is in terms of the true story, but I also don’t think that really matters because I think people get so caught up in how close a film based on a true story is to life, they often forget that these films are meant to entertain us and not meant to be documentaries. Mind you it’s good to call it out on occasion especially when you get a film like ‘Patch Adams’ which exploits the subject matter in order to tell its own story, however, from the brief research I can gather, the film is pretty close to how the actual events unfolded.

I would say that I don’t think this film is for everyone. I think one of the stronger points it makes is the fact that it doesn’t actually show us many of the accused priests, most of what we get is reduced down to names on a piece of paper and I think that is largely a wise move as it is rather similar to the whole idea of not revealing who killed Bruce Wayne’s parents in a Batman movie, in that instance the idea is that crime is faceless and this film gives the idea that these priests are representing a faceless ogre who is attacking peoples freedom, liberties and childhoods. There was a real danger that this film could have moments that looked like it was begging for an Oscar, a couple of them do if I am honest, a speech given by Mark Ruffalo in the middle of the film which turns up in the film’s trailer is probably one of the most obvious ones, though it does have other good points to it which I will go into later in the acting section of this review. With everything said and done, I don’t think this film feels too much like it was aiming for an Oscar, especially when you compare it with films like ‘Seven Pounds’. Overall when you weigh up all the strengths and weaknesses of this plot, I found myself really invested in it, but not until the second half which meant I couldn’t completely say I enjoyed the film’s plot overall. It’s a damn good plot, don’t get me wrong, but considering that this film was being propped up as being the film de jour which would definitely gain an Oscar nomination for Best Picture I can think of at least 4 films that are up for that category that I much prefer over this one, probably even 5 if I pushed it. But again, that’s not to say I disliked Spotlight, I preferred it to The Revenant and the previously reviewed Brooklyn but I’m not sure I enjoyed it more than any of the other nominations. The majority of the better nominations are what I would call 9 out of 10 movies, this one is really an 8 if I am honest and I don’t normally like to score films because whenever you do you tend to rope yourself into a corner when it comes time to do your best and worst of the year list. It’s an engaging plot but it takes a while to get there and at the end of the day I’m not certain it’s for everyone as I think a lot of people will have a lot of trouble getting around all the bureaucracy of the film.

As for the performances, well two of the actors are nominated for Oscars so obviously there are some half decent performances in the film. Mark Ruffalo who is up for best supporting actor is probably the best performance in the film. If he is second to anyone it would be Michael Keaton who also delivers a brilliant performance, but obviously that is to be expected from Mr Keaton at this stage, the man didn’t become an acting legend for nothing. Mark Ruffalo may be delivering an excellent performance, but again, because he isn’t having any make up or anything like in Foxcatcher; I am still having trouble getting around him being in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s a bit like one of those things, I think a lot of people struggle to see Benedict Cumberbatch as anyone other than Sherlock Holmes now and I think it’s the same with Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner aka The Hulk. While a couple of his moments do feel like they are deliberately aimed at him getting an Oscar nomination, they are at least well delivered and don’t feel like some of Will Smith’s more pandering efforts to the Academy. Rachel McAdams gives another brilliant performance, but I don’t think it’s her best, but at the same time I still thought there were a couple of other performances that she could easily have been nominated for over her recent filmography, especially her role in Southpaw. That’s not to say she does a bad job and when she is given a lot of screen time she is damn good and really becomes the emotional core of the film. Brian d’Arcy James is the member of the Spotlight team that is given the least to do but when he is used it’s to good effect. His sub-plot about one of the priest living near his house is only briefly touched upon, which is a shame because I think they could have done a bit with that, but I guess they had a true story to stick to, but it does get a satisfying pay off at the end of the film. Stanley Tucci is in this film and I didn’t realise until I started making notes for this review when I was checking the IMDB page. He is virtually un-recognisable in this movie. I know Stanley Tucci is really someone to throw himself into roles and disappear into them rather similar to Sacha Baron Cohen, but damn he does a decent job in this film and is probably one of the best actors. John Slattery is given a decent role but we never get much out of him except for sparse moments but when he is on screen he reminds me a lot of Jeff Daniels performance in Steve Jobs, don’t know why, it’s just something that came into my head. Liev Schreiber finally gets a decent film to be in and boy is it weird having to review two Liev Schreiber films in a row, luckily, unlike the 5th Wave, he’s actually got decent direction this time and while out of all the main cast he is given the least to do he does deliver his lines very well and gives a rather stoic edge to him, although I do believe the trailers and advertisements for the film have over advertised his participation in the film. The rest of the cast are basically cameos or small supporting roles and you don’t really get much with them. I will say, and I am sorry to insult the man, but the actor who played the gay victim was probably one of the best performance in the film for the minority of time in this. If he ends up reading this review I am so sorry for not remembering the name of your character so I had trouble looking it up on IMDB, email us with your name and we will send you a free Axia Film Society hat. Also, by the way, in case a load of people start looking it up on IMDB and type in the name themselves, I will require a photo as well of you to prove it!. Now that I have walked us into a law suit, lets move on the cinematography and the general technical aspects of the film.

Spotlight is shot at times to be very much like a documentary, not too dissimilar to the recent Netflix documentary ‘Making a Murderer’. This is especially evident in the narration Mark Ruffalo is given as part of a conversation over the phone during a cab ride and several moments like that, but those moments are rather sparse in between and the rest of the time the film is shot like a traditional drama, it does create a bit of a whiplash, but not to the extent that it is over powering. The film is actually shot very well, the cinematography does a decent job and overall it just feels like a very well made movie. It’s not been amazing however and that is probably the reason why it didn’t receive any Oscar nominations in a lot of the technical categories. The film’s score is also worth mentioning, it’s very well put together, not just the track we heard in the trailer although those moments are few and far between. The film does get down well how cold Boston can be in the wintertime and some of the snow storm shots look particularly cold.

Is there any major negative to Spotlight? A couple that I have mentioned already, but if I had to mention one, I did think that the 9/11 sub-plot was rather unnecessary. Other than that, I thought Spotlight was a really good film. It takes a very difficult subject matter and handles it very well. I think it could have gone one step further with it, but by the end it does feel like a very good movie. To borrow a quote from Kyle Kallgren from Brows Held High, “the bravery showing the film is not the reporters breaking the story, but it’s the holding on of the story until they have all the facts straight so that they can really make a difference” and I don’t think I could sum it up better myself, hence my borrowing that quote. Its very well acted and its a decently written film. It has a couple of issues, particularly with it’s early pacing and it does feel a bit too much like it’s deliberately aiming for an Oscar, but it’s a lot better than many other films that fit that category. It’s a really good drama, however I wouldn’t recommend rushing to the cinema to see this one, you might want to wait for this one to come out on DVD. It’s just good, that’s what I would say. I’m not sure I would give it the Oscar for best picture, which I don’t suspect it will win, the bookies are predicting The Revenant at this point and they are probably right, but I wouldn’t mind if this one stole it on the day.

So what were your thoughts on Spotlight? Did my review get it right or have I missed a trick here. Please see the comments section below. I was thinking of asking what you want to see get Best Picture at the Oscars in a couple of weeks, but seeing as I am doing an Oscars pick list or have done, again, at the time of writing this review I’m not sure at what point I am going to be seeing Trumbo, so I will probably be asking people’s thoughts on their Oscar picks then, however I do have to ask a question, so, since we are coming up to the Oscars:

“What film do you think really didn’t deserve an Oscar nomination?”

Do a bit of research on the internet, I think you will be surprised at a couple of films that got Oscar nominations.

Well, that’s me back, after a short break. I think I am done with the Oscar fair and say good luck to all the nominees on the night, though I think you all know what I am rooting for!

Next week I am going to be reviewing what I love. Come back on 19 February where I will be reviewing the first of 7 comic superhero movies coming out this year on the big screen. That’s right, it’s my review of “Deadpool”.

Thanks for reading my review; I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“THE 5TH WAVE”

As I said in my previous reviews January is typically the dumping ground for Movies where studios will release a film that they have absolutely no confidence in, in the hopes that it will make some money back with the lack of competition. This year we haven’t seen as many of those movies, mainly because Studios are still worried about competition with Star Wars and in fact, many of the films that came out in January in America have been pushed to a February/March release on these shores. The 5th Wave, however is one of the few examples of a film that has come out in January both over here and in the USA, so I felt it was worth a review. Plus I couldn’t just review everything that was getting Oscar nominations this month and it would be facetious and unfair to my fellow film critics who without question have to sit throughout a lot of the rubbish that comes out in the early portions of the year.

The 5th Wave is a film directed by J Blakeson whose only previous credit of a feature film was the averagely received ‘The Disappearance of Alice Creed’ a film I won’t claim to have seen or pass judgement on, though I will mention that that film came out in 2009, which means that Blakeson hasn’t helmed directing a feature film in 7 years, however, unlike The Disappearance of Alice Creed, this time he hasn’t written this film. This film is written by a team of writers and it is adapted from the first book in a series of young adult novels that the film is named after. I will say I am not probably the target audience for these sorts of films and even Hunger Games, which is arguably the best of the film series based on young adult novels, wasn’t entirely to my taste as I mentioned in my review of Mocking Jay Part 2. But as always, I go into these films with an open mind, granted I wasn’t entirely convinced by the 5th Wave as its trailer didn’t do much for me either. Its poster reminded me of another film which is getting a new edition into its series later this year, but I will get back to that later. With all that said and done, will The 5th Wave be a success or will it sink like its January release date suggests it will.

Humanity is being invaded by Aliens and they have attacked in 4 waves. The 1st was to cut all power and running water. The 2nd, create massive earthquakes that cause Tsunamis. The 3rd release a deadly virus and the 4th Wave infiltrate humanity and the Earth’s military led by Colonel Vosch (played by Liev Schreiber) prepares a counter attack using child soldiers, meanwhile high school student Cassie Sullivan (played by Chloe Grace Moretz) is determined to find and rescue her brother, Sam (played by Zackary Arthur) after they have been separated, but problems soon arise as the child soldiers prepare for what is to become, the Alien’s 5th Wave. When I saw the trailer for this film I was expecting this to be a low rent ‘Independence Day’ knock off and to some extent it is that, but I was not prepared for just how bad this film was going to be. As I mentioned before, the film is based on what is currently a trilogy of graphic novels and I have no idea if the books are planning to continue, or if the 3rd book is the conclusion, which I won’t claim to have read, so I will be judging the film on its own merits. However, I do have to believe that this must be a looser adaptation of the work because this film seems to have borrowed from virtually everything with very little of its own identity! The first 20 minutes look like they were stolen directly from Roland Emmerich films especially Independence Day, 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow and of course the nature of the Aliens known as ‘The Others’. Seriously have you ever heard of a more generic name for a group of villains than ‘The Others’, that’s how little imagination they are using as this point. Their tactics seem very reminiscent of John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’ and ‘Invasion of The Body Snatchers’, not to mention, the whole child soldiers angle seems like it was lifted wholesale from ‘The Hunger Games’ and that’s not to mention there are several scenes that look like they were lifted directly from ‘The Walking Dead’ and ’28 Days Later’. As a result, you can watch this film and play a drinking game, and take a shot every time the film is blatantly ripping off another film, I wouldn’t recommend it though, because you will probably be dead halfway through the film!!

The film is very typical of film adaptations of young adult novels, a lot of very pretty young people so baby faced that the cast of Skins would worry that they were legal, being put in life and death situations against a tyranny brought on by oppressive adults, can anyone say Hunger Games again! This formula isn’t entirely impossible to make something out of. The Hunger Games, despite the fact that it was clearly ripping off ‘Battle Royale” at least had some of it’s own flair which gave it some of it’s own identity. This one does not! The screenplay is very poorly written. The only time it becomes slightly entertaining is when it is forced to focus on groups of the younger cast members because that’s when the dialogue seems natural and entertaining, but we are very rarely left on them for long periods of time, or on anyone. The film seems to dart about between the characters with not much happening. I know the film is bogged down by the fact that it’s meant to be the first in a series of films, so it does mean that the film is entirely set up for hopeful sequels, so as a result we are left to deal with several questions going unanswered by the end of the film, again this would not be an issue if the film was entertaining, which it isn’t!! In fact I’d even go so far as to say the film is rather underwhelming. It acts like it has a lot to say, but it doesn’t really have much to say about anything, so it really should have gone for being a dumb action film, but that wouldn’t work either because there are several long periods where there is no action happening at all. The middle portion of the film is so dry and dull you will be begging for something to happen and it never does! The pacing is dreadful, and I suspect several sequences from the book are missing because the film only comes in at 102 minutes, rather than the expected 120. That probably means that the film has to rush to get as many plot elements out as possible. I suspect a lot of character development that was necessary has been left on the cutting room floor. Not to mention that half the plot twists are so obvious that anyone with half a brain cell can see them coming, so there’s absolutely no surprise to it and you wonder why the characters don’t see it sooner. There are several plot twists later on in the film that when we eventually find out the nature of what the actual 5th Wave is, it all ends up raising more questions than it does answers and not in a good way that makes us want to desperately see the sequel, just in a way that makes us wonder how the writers thought they could get away with it. If there is a sequel, hopefully it will answer some of these questions, though I suspect that these are the kind of questions that sequels will try to pave over and make you forget.

The film also tries to do several romance angles, which don’t work and even try to set up a love triangle at the last portion of the film to expand on a sequel that is completely unnecessary and again feels like the writers were being influenced by ‘Hunger Games’. The plot is so uninteresting that it never hits any sort of emotional core. It just sort of goes on and on and most of the characters seem to have been written with the idea of mimicking characters from other more successful franchises, because a marketing department believes that copying and pasting them will make their film automatically more interesting. It really doesn’t. Not to mention that for most of the film the dialogue is terrible, not to absurd levels, it just further reinforces the dullness of what we are watching and I think a re-write would have drastically helped the film.

The film is obviously hooked for a sequel, a sequel however feels more desperate than usual, it almost seems like the film makers believe they can get away with writing a film like this because they think they are automatically get that sequel, I hate to break it to you, but if this film tanks or is poorly received by the critics you are not getting a sequel!!

As for the actors, they are not much better. Liev Schreiber is once again put in a bad film, but he is clearly mugging his way through and seems to that sort of smirk of ‘I know it’s bad, but it’s work’. Poor Chloe Grace Moretz, she finally gets the leading role that she rightfully deserves, and she is barely able to do anything, she is largely absent from much of the action in the middle portion of the film, so basically the entire middle portion of the film is left for her to gawp over Alex Roe, who also delivers probably one of the blandest performances I have seen in a while. When Chloe is allowed to act she does a decent job but her performance reeks of poor direction and for a talented actress like Chloe, that is not good enough. I’m getting a sense that she is getting bad advise because she seems to dart back and forth between good to bad films and I know she has great performances in her. Her performances in the Kick Ass movies and her fantastic role in the english dub of The Tales of Princess Kaguya are both marvels to behold. Maika Monroe is easily the best performance in the film but that is because her character is probably the least two dimensional and whilst she is a bit of a stereotype she at least plays it rather well, even if she is almost unrecognisable in the film, though even she feels like she is poorly directed, and again she had two excellent performances in ‘The Guest’ and her fantastic leading role in ‘It Follows”, which made my ten best films of 2015 list. Fans of Jurassic World will be glad to see Nick Robinson get a big part after his performance in that film, and while he does have a lot of the problems of having bad direction that all the actors seem to have, he at least makes an attempt to carry the film and I have to admire him for that. If anything, the biggest victims are the adult actors who really are given the worst lines and the worst parts, to such an extent, you will really, really wonder what were these guys doing taking the roles and why it takes the characters so long to get the plot twist!

As for the visuals of the film. They are not much better. This film is very CGI heavy which would not be such a bad thing if the CGI was well integrated. It’s really not! This is some of the most obvious CGI I have seen in a film in a long time! This is especially evident in the Earthquake and Tsunami effects, which look particularly bad. The design of the ships look like they were lifted wholesale from ‘Independence Day’ and I think that fact will be made more apparent when the ‘Independence Day’ sequel comes out in the Summer. The cinematography is also terrible. The reason this film is not shot in 3D is that the films action sequences are shot in environments that are so dark that the 3D would be impossible to see, not that it would make these action sequences better because they are so dark you can barely see what is going on, it’s impossible to make out anything. So, even someone like me, who watches a lot of action films, could hardly tell you how they flow. This film also has some of the most abysmal CGI during some of the fight scenes, it makes the film look like a video game for crying out loud, except that would be an insult to video games which seem to have better effects. In fact this whole thing would have been a lot better as a video game because at least the weakness in the story would have been made up for the fact that you would have the interactive nature of the game play.

THE 5TH WAVE IS A MESS, PURE AND SIMPLE! It has very few original ideas. It seems to constantly rip off other movies in the hopes of becoming the next ‘Hunger Games’, ‘Maze Runner’ or ‘Divergant’, however I think it will be joining the myriad of young adult novel series that fail to get sequels like ‘Tomorrow When The War Began’, “The Gold Compass’ or ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians’ and yes I am aware that Percy Jackson got a 2nd movie, but really, that franchise is dead now. The acting isn’t too bad, but it’s clear the actors have been poorly directed. The effects are rubbish and the story is so boring, over cliched and raises way more questions than answers that no one can care about. It doesn’t inspire you to see a sequel, it just inspires you to see better movies and TV series, instead of watching this one. The only saving grace was kind of Maika Monroe and Nick Robinson’s performances, but even that is not enough to save this movie. It was boring and a poor watch, I really have no desire to see where this possible franchise is going and I suspect this will tank at the Box Office.

So what are your thoughts on The 5th Wave if you have seen it? Please leave a comment. Did you agree with me or not? I would love to hear your opinions.

Here’s a good question for you –

“Is Hunger Games the best young adult novel adaptation?”

Remember you can leave your own content or reviews on the website by visiting our how to submit guest content section.

There is no film society review next week, due to the fact that I have my annual holiday to America. So my next review will be 12 February. I did see a movie before I went out there so I will be giving my thoughts on it just ahead of it’s day at the Oscars and BAFTA’s. My next review is going to be the big Oscar draw “Spotlight”.

Thanks for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed reading more than I enjoyed writing it because this film was awful!! See you when I get back from America.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“CREED”

I love the Rocky movies, I really do. I’m not even a big fan of sports movies but I love these films. Rocky I probably in my top 25 movies ever. Rocky II very good film, excellent. Rocky III things are getting a bit goofy but still all good. Rocky IV okay the film is not that well written and they have way too many goofy females but it is still an enjoyable watch. Rocky V yeah no one likes that one, not even Sylvester Stallone likes that one. Rocky Balboa was a fantastic return to form and breathed new life into it. However, when I heard there was going to be a seventh film that would have Rocky as a supporting player I was slightly apprehensive about it because I wasn’t certain it could recapture what the previous films had given us and then the reviews came in from America and the reviews were actually pretty damn good and was pretty difficult to ignore with it gaining large amounts of rave from the critics prior to its UK release so I can’t exactly ignore that before going into this review.

The film itself has been written and directed by Ryan Coogler whose previous film Fruitvale Station was excellent and is the Director of the upcoming Marvel film Black Panther and early interviews with the man suggested he had some very interesting ideas for this film but with the movies seven films in at this point is there any chance that Creed could attract anyone new or is this one purely for the Rocky fan base.

Creed takes place some time after the events of Rocky Balboa. Adonis Creed (played by Michael B Jordan) leaves his home in Los Angeles to pursue his goal of becoming a professional boxer and moves to Philadelphia. He tries to make something of himself and convinces his father’s former rival Rocky Balboa (played by Sylvester Stallone) to train him. Whilst he was initially reluctant to train him he eventually sees potential in him and trains him up for several fights including a chance at the Light Heavyweight championship held by Ricky Conlan (played by Tony Bellew) but at the same time Rocky must battle his own demons and has his own fight on his hands. While many of the Rocky films have had their goofy moments this one definitely does not. To excuse the pun it pulls no punches. This has probably been the most down to earth Rocky films since the first two. You could make an argument that Rocky Balboa was very down to earth and you would have a good argument but there was still a couple of goofy moments in it like the speech Rocky gives to get his license back, for example, could have easily come out of any of the Rocky films. However, this is not a Rocky film per se. Rocky is a supporting player and the focus is mostly on Adonis. That is not to say that Rocky is playing second fiddle to this character, far from it. As the film goes on it makes it apparent that both of them seem to motivate each other and that neither one can achieve their goals without the other and their relationship whilst at times it does seem to mimic Rocky and Mickey’s relationship in the first few films, this time it also in some ways really mimics Rocky and Apollo’s relationship in the third and fourth movies and Adonis almost becomes a surrogate son for Rocky since his actual son didn’t want to fight.

The film does put all these elements in and does this excellently. It would have been easy to just make a cheap boxing drama but writer and director Ryan Coogler actually puts real effort into it and Stallone once again has really backed this project by acting as a producer for the film. Coogler said in an interview on the Daily Show that he felt the film was very personal to him and his father who was a fan of the Rocky films and that Rocky and Adonis were meant to be substitutes for the two of them and you really get a sense of it.

I can really feel like Ryan has been working to make this film for his entire life and he should be very proud of it because it is a hell of an achievement. But it is not just about boxing, there is also the fact that Adonis really ends up discovering a bit of himself in Philadelphia. He has his relationship with Rocky but he also has a love interest in Bianca, played by Tessa Thompson, which is also well written and it helps that the actors have very good chemistry. Whilst their relationship does feel believable it also benefits from the fact that it doesn’t completely mimic Rocky and Adrian’s relationship in all the other films which would basically sum up to “I don’t want you to fight”, “I know”, “Are you going to turn up for the final fight?” – “don’t I always” – yeah that got old by movie three. The only relationship that isn’t really explored is Adonis’s relationship with his surrogate mother and Apollo Creed’s wife, played by Phylicia Rashad, which whilst not completely ignored feels like it’s rushed a bit too quickly.

The majority of the characters felt really fleshed out and everything felt like it had a very personal touch done to it which is more than can be said for a lot of sports films and where it does fall into a few of the sports film clichés it is a bit more forgivable because Rocky kind of invented a lot of those sports film clichés.

The other factor to talk about is the “villain” of the film. The Rocky films have always had what would be described in video games as their final boss and a lot have been very memorable. We had Apollo Creed in the first two films, in the third film it was Clubber Lang played by Mr T and of course in the fourth film we had the Frankenstein monster of a boxer, Ivan Drago played by Dolph Lungdren. Though while Apollo was quite a believable villain, Clubber Lang and Ivan Drago were clearly the points where this franchise became a little more unbelievable. Okay Clubber Lang was at least competently written and made a good villain and it wasn’t too bad, for the love of god what was up with Ivan Drago. His introduction really was the point where you thought that the Rocky films started going into satire and that includes Paulie’s birthday present in the fourth film of a sentient robot. Ricky kind of falls into this category. He has a few believable moments like Clubber Lang but he also feels very real and his character does come across as being very cocky so you do want to see Adonis beat the hell out of him just to wipe the smug smirk off his face. He is fairly better than the final confrontation in Rocky Balboa, granted that film had no real villain by the end of it and it was just a straight boxing match. Granted it was much closer to real life but as a result the final confrontation isn’t as memorable. He is kind of somewhere in the middle. He is not quite as good as Apollo Creed but he is not off the scale goofy like Ivan Drago. Actually that is the other factor in this film’s plot that really is a weakness but it is not really a weakness for the film itself. The fact is it does make Rocky III and Rocky IV look more outlandish, particularly Rocky IV and it doesn’t help the fact that Rocky IV is very well referenced in this film as you would expect considering that was the film in which Apollo died. In fact the scene during the final fight where the boxers do the traditional touching of the gloves before the ring bell goes is really similar to the fight scenes in Rocky IV. But that being said the only other weakness I have to this film is the fact that I think they went a bit overboard on the product placement for Everton Football Club. I think this was kind of Tony Bellew’s doing and yes I am glad he was cast because I think actually getting an actual boxer to play this part added extra authenticity to the film but seriously there is a tonne of Everton Football Clubs in this, the shirts are worn everywhere, the final event is sponsored by them and the final fight is held in Everton’s football ground. Granted, it is framed in the story that Ricky is a massive Everton fan and this would probably be his final fight before he goes into prison but still it does feel a bit weird and cheap.

Where this film really succeeds, however, is in the drama of Rocky having to deal with his treatment for his illness. But that is not giving anything away this has been brought up in all the trailers. Rocky early on says he doesn’t want to fight anything because everything he has got is gone and he might as well go with it but it is Adonis that tells him he won’t fight unless he fights with him and that is where the drama really comes from. Many illness dramas can hit very hard but this one hits particularly hard because this is a character that for many of us have been following most of our lives and here he turns out just as merciful and fallible as the rest of us. It really hits home.

If you know your Rocky films you can probably guess kind of how this film is going to end and I did enjoy the ending because it left things open for future films to be made and I would be glad to see more of them because I really enjoyed the plot of this film, it is very well written.

Last year I went to see Southpaw which was another very good boxing film starring Jake Gyllenhall and I said after seeing it that Creed had a tough challenge to live up to that film but I think this film has surpassed Southpaw.

As for the cast they are all excellent but it is merely down to the cast who really make these well written parts come alive, particularly the main casts, Michael B Jordan, Sylvester Stallone and Tessa Thompson. I am really happy for Michael B Jordan because this role really suits him and he plays a blinder. Plus all the potential that we saw of him in Chronicle has finally come to fruition and it is great because everything since that film has been really downhill especially his previous film Fantastic Four and finally he has got the role that he deserves.

Tessa Thompson is proving once again why she is fast becoming one of my favourite actresses working today. She gave one of my performances of the year in 2015 when I saw her in Dear White People which I put on my Top Ten Films of 2015 list and she delivers another excellent performance here. This is an actress you really need to be looking out for right now, she is fantastic.

Sylvester Stallone once again has really put himself into this role and it has really paid off because this time this has earnt him a BAFTA and OSCAR nomination for best supporting actor and after seeing the film it is rightly deserved he is fantastic in this film, possibly giving the best performance of his career. I won’t go into too much detail about how his performance is amazing you really have to see it for yourself and experience it for yourself and I wouldn’t want to give too much away for people who haven’t seen the film.

Sylvester Stallone is the only returning cast member of this film since pretty much every other character has died at this point, even Paulie has died in between films which further adds to the sense of loss the film makes you feel. Although Mary Anne Creed is back she is not played by the actress who played the role in previous films. This time she is played by Philicia Rashad, though mostly at the beginning and the end. Honestly if you have seen the trailers you have seen most of her dialogue. She plays the role very well but she is just not in the film long enough, she is basically a glorified cameo.

Ritchie Coster is in this film and does a decent job and I did enjoy Andre Ward who Adonis fights early on around the middle point of the film. I was also surprised how much I enjoyed Tony Bellew in his role. Despite the fact he is not an actor he is a professional boxer his acting actually does bring something to the role and can physically pull off the actual fights. The rest of the cast is slightly so so. I did enjoy Graham McTavish in his brief role and once again he is another actor who goes rather unnoticed in these sorts of films so I am glad they gave him more time and stuff to do in this film.

Creed has some excellent presentation. Everything to do with the sporting scene is designed to make the scene feel like a Pay Per View event and the build ups are also done excellently. The cinematography is great, especially the latter montages of training. The action scenes themselves are actually really excellent, not just the two major boxing matches that take place in the film but everything that is done you feel the physicality of the performances. These actors really threw themselves into these roles and must have trained for months and it is well worth it because we can see it fully realized on screen.

One of the things Southpaw did so well was to make us feel right in the boxing match and feel every punch but Creed not only does this as well it almost surpasses it. The first couple of boxing matches are almost shot with very clever editing and it was amazing, it looks like it was almost done in one take. Granted the last fight is a twelve round match and that means obviously we have to have a few cuts to speed up things but it doesn’t make the fight feel any less brutal.

The only thing I’m not really happy with the film’s presentation is the soundtrack which has gone a lot more hip hop oriented. Now granted we do get a bit of Gonna Fly Now which it wouldn’t be a Rocky film without but I do get that it does mean this is a new start for these films so it does need a new sort of soundtrack. It is just not really for my taste but I do agree it suits the film rather well.

Creed is an excellent movie. I really had a good time watching it. The tag line is the Rocky Legacy lives and that really feels accurate because this film feels like a passing of the torch from Sylvester Stallone to Michael B Jordan who can continue to make more of these movies. Many of you might say it is a clone and that Michael B Jordan, Tessa Thompson and Sylvester Stallone are basically filling the roles of Rocky, Adrian and Mickey in the first films but to me it feels like a completely different dynamic whilst retaining enough of the semblance of the original dynamic to make it recognizable. The fight scenes are excellent, it is brilliantly shot, the drama feels poignant, personal and well written and all the actors and performances are great, especially Sylvester Stallone’s. If you loved the previous Rocky films you have got to go and see this one. If you are on the fence about it I would suggest going to see it anyway. This might be the film to make you go back and see the previous Rocky movies. I would try to see this whilst it is still in cinemas, don’t wait for it to come out on DVD and if you are planning on waiting for it to come out on DVD wait a little bit longer than usual and maybe even get it into a bundle with all the other Rocky films – just skip Rocky V that movie is still terrible.

“So what were your thoughts on Creed?”

Leave something in the Comments section and also in the comments section, if you like, leave me some of your favourite Rocky memories because with this franchise there are a lot of great moments.

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Well that is another Awards contender out of the way. I am going to take a little break from the OSCAR contenders for my next review but by the time this review has been published I will have seen films like the Revenant and Room and I was meant to see the Big Shore, but next week I thought I would actually see a film that has actually been a 2016 release rather than a film that was released in the USA in 2015 and has only reached our shores now. So next week I review the Sci-Fi film based on the best selling novel “The Fifth Wave”.

Thank you for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“THE HATEFUL EIGHT”

The Hateful Eight is the eighth film appropriately from Director Quentin Tarantino who had me going into this film with very high expectations not only because of the great critical reception this film had over in the US, but also the fact that I really enjoyed his last two films Inglorious Bastards and the brilliant Django Unchained, which I would even consider to be his best film to date. The Hateful Eight also marks the first of three movies I am reviewing this month that are US holdovers. See, January is a bit of a bad time for a film critic because it tends to be the time when studios release any old dredge that was clearly never going to succeed any other time of the year, in the hope they will make back some of their money from the lack of competition. However, this year doesn’t seem like there are too many of these films, don’t get me wrong there are a few and you can tell, but with Star Wars still doing so well at the box office most studios have probably moved most of these releases to February. But, luckily if you live in the UK it also means the big Oscar and BAFTA nominated films that the US got in November and December tend to make their way over here and The Hateful Eight is no exception, and the other 2 US holdovers I’ll be looking at also are set for some serious Oscar and BAFTA buzz, one of which has already received a nomination for Best Film at the BAFTA’s. However, the morning I went to see this film, the film had received several BAFTA nominations for the technical categories but it didn’t receive many BAFTA nominations in any of the other categories, which is rather surprising as I believed that Quentin Tarantino would at least get a best director nomination or at least receive more than it did, but I suppose I can’t be too surprised considering the BAFTA’s is really more about British films than films in general, so obviously films like The Danish Girl and Brooklyn were going to receive more nominations. With that being said though, let’s get right down to business because I have been stalling this long enough.

The plot of The Hateful Eight is that in the middle of the Wyoming winter, bounty hunter John Ruth, (played by Kurt Russell) has successfully captured fugitive Daisy Domergue, (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh) and is taking her to the town of Red Rock to hang. Along the way he comes across Major Marquis Warren (played by Samuel L Jackson) another bounty hunter and a new Sheriff of Red Rock Chriss Mannix (played by Walton Goggins) and during their trip they take shelter overnight in a cabin in order to avoid a blizzard which houses 4 other people. Hangman Oswaldo Mobray (played by Tim Roth), Joe Gage (played by Michael Madsen), General Sandy Smithers (played by Bruce Dern) and the man minding the joint Bob (played by Damian Bichir). However, it soon transpires that one or maybe more of these men are in cahoots with Daisy and they are going to need to hold out in this tense situation until the blizzard dies down, but that might be difficult, when you don’t know who to trust.

Once again Quentin Tarantino does a decent job in writing and directing his films, however, I would agree that his style has a certain edge to it that may put off a large group of people, needless to say, if you weren’t a fan of his style before, this is not the film that is going to change your mind. The film has been heavily marketed as being like a western and to a large extent it is. The film even opens rather like one of those films you see on a Bank Holiday weekend on TCM (Turner Classic Movies), sort of a dark version of a John Wayne film, though it is actually more about the Civil War than it is a western. The film is set post American Civil War and there are definitely a lot of themes around the scars being left on America following that conflict. It’s not over-done however, which is a plus because it would have interfered with most of the main themes of the film, which are expertly written. Tarantino creates an amazing suspenseful piece of work. It almost feels like it unfolds like a novel, which is largely helped by the fact that the film is divided into 6 chapters and the early portions of the film, are largely devoted to character development and for each character to have certain moments. You can almost imagine yourself reading this in a book. This pacing may not be to everyones taste and I can imagine a large group of people getting bored in the first 3rd of the movie, but it’s very necessary, because early on this film suggests that no one is to be trusted, especially considering that the most we ever actually see any characters back story it’s only ever told to us. Now while the film may have a rule of show don’t tell, this actually works to the films favour, since we never actually see any back stories, so everything that could be told to us might be potentially false, even Kurt Russell and Samuel L Jackson purported to be the main characters, may be unreliable. Granted this isn’t like John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’ which was a master work of suspense, but it is a damm good job because we become even less trustworthy of most of the characters when we start to learn more and more about them, or at least we think we know more and more about them. Honestly, it’s really best that I don’t go into too much detail because this really is a film that you should experience for yourself.

The Hateful Eight is up for Best Original Screenplay at the BAFTA’s and despite the fact that it’s up against very strong competition from ‘Bridge of Spies’, ‘Ex Machina’, the previously reviewed ‘Inside Out’ and ‘Spotlight’ about which I can’t comment on because it hasn’t been released at the time of this reviews publication, but I am pretty sure it’s going to be good, I would seriously consider it a strong contender. At the minute I am really struggling to decide which one i think deserves the award, but I think I am coming down to it being a close call between ‘The Hateful Eight’ and ‘Inside Out’. The screenplay is that good. Tarantino does let his style overtake him at times but it’s never to the detriment to the film’s plot and believe me, expect a lot of Tarantino’s usual tropes to be here, including a lot of blood, a lot of very, VERY graphic violence and the ’N’ word to be thrown around more times than a beach ball at a music festival, which the first time it was uttered really shocked an elderly couple that were sitting in front of me but really what were you expecting from a Tarantiono film. Tarantino, however, does make one slight flaw throughout the film. During the end of the 2nd third there is a plot twist revealed which is a good plot twist and actually warrants repeat viewings but it is slightly ruined by one of the names in the opening credits. Anyone who has seen the film will understand what I mean about that, but needless to say it’s a slight disappointment, and by the time the twist is revealed and fully sorted and flushed out it doesn’t actually really change much of what is going on, but it does set up a very, very good climax which I won’t dare spoil! Also, I know it’s a minor nit pick, but for a film that is called ‘The Hateful Eight’ there are actually nine people in the cabin, what, the Coach Driver doesn’t count!! I know he wasn’t on the poster, but seriously, it is a bit of an issue when the film can’t count!!

The film is just under 3 hours long. You can see the film in 167 minutes without an intermission, or 187 minutes with an intermission. I’d recommend seeing it without because I believe an intermission would interrupt the flow of the plot. I normally aim to see films in the middle of the day so I can get back mid afternoon so I have time to do other things in the day and get ready for my Friday night out, but this time I didn’t get back until early evening. While I don’t mind films being 3 hours, I’m not really a fan of them unless they are warranted. For example ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ could have cut at least half an hour out, but when you get a film like this, or ‘Gone Girl’ which really warrants the 3 hours, it’s worth it. There is nothing really that could be cut from this film, though I do believe you could chop this into 3 parts and put it on the BBC and you wouldn’t be getting any less of a story.

Your enjoyment of The Hateful Eight story will really come down to your opinion on Tarantino’s tropes. If you can handle it, you’ve got an excellent movie here, if you don’t then I completely understand and I can’t go into too much detail with the plot because it’s a film that really needs to avoid spoilers for maximum enjoyment.

As for the cast. They are all excellent. Samuel L Jackson once again is on perfect form. Yes, I know, Samuel L Jackson in a Quentin Tarantino movie, next thing you know, you will be telling me Johnny Depp is going to be in a Tim Burton movie. I swear, these two do work excellently together and once again Jackson hits it out of the park with this movie and proves that he can do some good gun slinging technique throughout most of the film. Kurt Russell is on tremendous form, giving one of his best performances in years and Jennifer Jason Leigh gives an excellent performance, despite the fact she is cast well against type. It’s just a shame the film doesn’t give her much to do and she doesn’t even really become plot relevant until the 2nd third. In fact the early portion of the film sets her up as more of a plot device and a literal punch line than anything else. Michael Madsen is once again pretty good, but again these two usually work well together, so there’s no surprise there. Walter Goggins also does an excellent job as a racist Sheriff who used to be a Confederate Soldier and I really enjoyed watching his performance even if the film can’t make up its mind what to do with him a lot of the time, and he doesn’t really get too much time to shine in the middle portion of the film, really being reserved mostly for the beginning and end. Tim Roth is good, but he is basically an English stereotype throughout most of the film and I think you could potentially substitute him with any other posh English actor, however he does bring a certain level of charm to the performance that makes it his own. Bruce Dern once again is fantastic in the film, but he is not getting too many lines, but he does at least do his job and it does seem like a shame that he isn’t in the film that long, though the film makers do come up with several ways to get the most out of him. Really there is not much more to say about the film’s cast. They are very decent veteran actors who do a very good job. I will say, however, that I do believe the rest of the cast are under utilised, and while they do give decent performances they are not in the film long enough for me to give them much of a judgement and it really is about these 8 guys. I probably should mention the Coach Driver O.B. Jackson, played by James Parks but he didn’t get that much front in this film so I am going to skip him and say he did a decent performance, other than that, not much else to talk about.

If I am moving into the technical categories, however, The Hateful Eight is actually really excellent. The film may have been shot to look like an old Western, but it actually feels very modern in a lot of senses and that’s largely down to the excellent set design and cinematography. The visual effects are also excellent, this environment feels cold as hell, to such an extent you probably need to wear a coat in the cinema to watch it! It does seem rather upsetting that the film didn’t receive as many nominations at the BAFTA’s in the technical categories as it could have, but I must be honest, if we are going on about costume design, Kurt Russell’s moustache does seem slightly ‘fakey’ and I did think at one moment it was hanging off him! I know the film was shot to be in 70mm, but that wasn’t available at the cinema I was at so I had to watch it in its normal format, though judging from what I saw I reckon that version will be very decent to see and if you can get to a cinema offering that, I would recommend that format just for the novelty value.

If there is one other thing to talk about, it’s the film’s score. The film’s music score has been done by Ennio Morricone whose previous credits include his fantastic work on ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ and John Carpenters ‘Thing’, once again he gives an excellent minimalist sound track that I absolutely loved, especially the main theme, which has received a BAFTA nomination. It’s got some strong competition from ‘Bridge of Spies’, ‘The Revenance’ ‘Sicario’ and ‘Star Wars’, however, I think it may end up winning this one, though personally I would still prefer the award to go to Star Wars since John Williams’s music is fantastic again.

The action scenes are also excellent. I say action scenes, it’s usually just a few people shooting at each other, but it’s at least done in a nice bloody gory style that Tarantino is known for and the effects are so good you will be wincing when you are watching. You will also hate yourself by the end for laughing at the comicness of each of these scenes.

What else is there to say about The Hateful Eight. It’s a really good movie. I would highly recommend it but I would say I would only recommend it if you have liked previous Quentin Tarantino movies. Ideally it stands up with its classics like ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and ‘Pulp Fiction’, ‘Inglorious Bastards’ and ‘Django Unchained’ although I think I would recommend those films over this one for various reasons, and I still say Django is my favourite of Tarantino films, but this is a very good film with an excellent suspenseful screenplay that really works, excellent cinematography and a really good cast delivering great performances. It won’t be to everyones taste and I am certainly aware that there will be a lot of people that will outright skip this movie, but I would say it’s really worth a watch. If you are unsure of it I would understand waiting for it to come out on DVD, but I think there are a lot of good reasons to see this one in a cinema while it’s still in that environment and I suspect with the Oscar nominations that happened yesterday from this review’s publication it will be sticking around there for a while. The film is slightly un-done by its plot twist and it’s overly long ending but that’s really a minor nit pick. I will say, it’s worth checking out.

“Did you see The Hateful Eight? What were your thoughts on it? Did you agree with me?”

We would love to hear your comments, and remember we are still accepting user content, so if you want to make something for this website, go to our ‘how to submit content’ section. I would love to know your thoughts on your favourite Quentin Tarantino film. You now have eight to choose from.

I am going to be continuing with the potential awards contenders next week so come back on 22 January where I will be reviewing the latest in the Rocky Franchise “Creed”.

Thanks for reading my first review of 2016, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

TOP 10 BEST FILMS OF 2015

As much as there were some really bad films in 2015, this year also gave us some truly great films and it really made me glad that I went to the cinema more than ever this year to see them because I saw a lot of great films. However this meant that I had to cut off several films from this list that I have really enjoyed that in any other year would have made it, such as Big Hero 6, X+Y, Me, Earl and The Dying Girl and since I was limiting my honourable mentions to five films I also had to leave off a couple of films that I also really enjoyed. A few films also surprised me, like, Danny Collins and even the funniest film that I saw this year Ted 2 didn’t make the list as well as the awards contenders, or what I believe will be award contenders. Once again same rules as the worst films of 2015 apply, it had to be a film released to its general paying audience in the UK in 2015 in the cinemas or on DVD, so long as the film did not receive any sort of DVD or cinema release in previous years. This is basically so I can include Direct to DVD releases over here as well as many of the anime films that I like to review. I did not see everything so there are a lot of films that received really good write ups such as Lilly Tomlins, Grandma, Idris Eldba vehicle Second Coming and I also took a complete break over the Christmas period so I didn’t see any of the films released between Star Wars and new years day, which includes, Snoopy and Charlie Brown, In the Heart of the Sea and Daddy’s home, oh and this time picking the top ten list was the hardest decision I have had to make, to such an extent that I couldn’t even limit my honourable mentions down to 5, so I had to give it 8 because I didn’t feel comfortable eliminating any one of these films.

So, let’s begin with the honourable mentions, once again these are in alphabetical order so this isn’t mistaken for a top 18 list.

Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Yes this film wasn’t perfect, I am fully aware of that, and it was very much affected by too many studio mandates, but I really enjoyed this film and I still think I laughed at this film more than pretty much any other comedy that came out this year. The reason it doesn’t make the list, however, is it spends way too much time bigging up the rest of the Marvel movies that are going to be coming out and it didn’t tell as much of its own story. Plus it’s pretty much the film’s broken Joss Weedon and there was a better Superhero movie out this year.

Black Mass.

A fresh and brutal gangster movie, based on the true life story of fugitive James Whitey Bulger, that really should earn Johnny Depp a best actor nomination at the Oscars. This one is a really brutal film that really gets down to the truth behind the gangster lifestyle and everyone looks dirty by the end of the film with its brilliant all star cast. It doesn’t make the list, however, because it really can be quite overbearing and leaves a bit of bad taste in your mouth but in a good way.

Inside Out.

Pixar is back on beautiful form with this unbelievably good animated film. It just happens to not be in my favourite animated films of the year as 2 films outdid it, which is the only reason it didn’t make the list and I didn’t fully appreciate it until I saw it again on a re-watch. This is still an excellent animated film and you should track it down if you haven’t seen it yet. I hope it get’s some Oscar nominations next week.

Justice League Gods and Monsters.

This was the best of the DC Animated movies to come out this year but it also didn’t quite make the list either though it was great to see Bruce Timm back at his best.

Lady In The Van.

Alan Bennett’s biopic based on an old woman that came to live in his driveway for 15 years. It’s a beautifully charming film that barely missed out on making the list and the only reason is because Star Wars came out and I had to have it in the top ten. This is still a fantastic film, however, so check it out.

The Martian.

Ridley Scott comes back with his first excellent film in years. This film makes the list just because, since 2010’s Robin Hood, it seems like everything’s been downhill for the director and it’s just great to see him make another great film again. It didn’t quite make the list though because there just happened to be a few more films I preferred than this one, but that’s not to overlook it because on a lot of levels it was fantastic.

The Walk.

This is the final film that didn’t quite make my list. It’s the story of a man who walked the high wire across the twin towers which has some amazing effects and some of the best 3D that I have seen all year. It doesn’t quite make the list however, because I do admit there are a couple of faults with it that I couldn’t quite overlook, but this was still thoroughly enjoyable.

Now the actual list and believe me with the amount of good films that I saw this year in order to make the list they had to be fantastic.

No 10. It Follows

Probably the most controversial pick for my list. It Follows is not only my favourite horror film of the year it is probably my favourite horror film of the last 5-10 years, but I know this one divided audiences, including me and my friend Simon who I went to see it with. We argued about it all the way home, he didn’t really like it because it didn’t scare him, though he did concede to me that it is really well written. Which it definitely is. Feeling like a John Carpenter film that got lost in the shuffle in the 80’s and has suddenly been resurfaced, the film deals with a young woman being stalked by a sexually transmitted curse that takes several forms of seemingly random people which plays excellently on the old horror trope of ‘have sex in a horror film and die’, but does it in a clever and creepy way that will have you on the edge of your seat and looking at the entire screen throughout the film, and yes, my earlier statement does mean I did like this more than The Babadook and that was an excellent horror film in itself.

No 9. Straight Outta Compton

This biopic based on the life and career of Rap Group NWA really was one of the hi lights of the year for me. Taking a story that is really well known and making it seem this engaging is really an excellent feat and while I have heard a lot of criticism about what’s been left out of the movie, what it leaves in the movie is still done excellently and I still don’t think the band come out looking great by the end of it, but it is because of those omissions that it doesn’t quite make it higher up the list, though I seriously recommend the movie if you are at all interested and I would suggest you check this out even if you, like me, aren’t really a fan of Rap music.

No 8. Steve Jobs

A film that probably, unfortunately has missed out on the awards this week and next week, with the exception of Michael Fassbender’s performance, but really, not rightly so. Danny Boyle’s latest film really delivers the goods again, giving us a fantastic film that’s very different to your average biopic, where every scene seems to count and it delivers some excellent drama, cinematography and a beautiful plot that really will get you interested in the life and career of one of the biggest innovators of the 21st Century. That’s largely due to the performances of Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslett, Jeff Daniels and even Seth Rogan. I loved this film and I will be disappointed if it doesn’t receive a best picture nomination.

No 7. Ant-Man

Who’d have thought you could combine a superhero movie with a heist movie? Probably one of the big surprises of the year, I was expecting it to be an average filler movie to take us into Captain America Civil War, but if this is what Marvel consider filler, then all their movies will be excellent. The film’s biggest strength is it largely exists in itself with very few ties to the overall Marvel Universe continuity at this point and also delivers some excellent characters including Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang and of course Michael Douglas’s Hank Pym, Evangeline Lilly’s Hope van Dyne and even Michael Pena’s Luis, who has also had a fantastic year, appearing in The Martian, which has really made me take note of the actor. There is no major weakness in this film and it really had a lot of the fun that Age of Ultron had, but because it wasn’t concerned about building up other films, just made it slightly the better Superhero movie this year and I absolutely loved it. I highly recommend it.

No 6. Mad Max Fury Road

Yes, I know, I should be crucified for not having this in the top 3, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t love this film, I fully agree. This will be one of the best action films of the decade, if not the best. Between this and Star Wars it’s been an excellent year for female driven action films, with this film’s strong feminism message as well as excellent practical effects for the action scenes, amazing high thrills action, choreographed beautifully by director George Millar who really should get a best director nomination at the Oscars and some of the best backgrounds that I have seen in any scenes this year which was made even more surprising when I found out that most of the backgrounds were CGI and whoever made those cars deserves an Oscar themselves because they are fantastic. Tom Hardy may be a bit under done in this film, but he at least does a good job playing Max, but of course the real hi lights are Charlize Theron’s Furiosa and Nicholas Hoult’s Nux who are both excellent characters, plus how great was it to see a really great villain in Immortan Jub. Yes this film is absolutely insane and over the top, but it’s Mad Max and I will agree this film is absolute genius. The only reason it isn’t higher up on the list is there were just five films that I couldn’t ignore.

No 5. Dear White People

Director Justin Simien gives us his first feature film and he does a fantastic job giving us an amazingly interesting film about four black college students living through their own internal confusions about race, sexuality and identity. The amazing thing is the film doesn’t take sides and doesn’t offer any easy answers. It tackles several ideas and issues, such as the main characters feelings of isolation from the fact that she comes from a mixed race family, a character desperate to be famous for means of attention and worth, someone trying to fit in but feel they have to deny their race in order to do so and a gay student feeling like they aren’t part of any group as a result. It’s really worth checking this one out because it barely played in any cinemas when it came out in July, it wasn’t advertised and didn’t even get a review on Mark kermode’s programme. The film could have been very easy ‘these are the good guys, these are the bad guys’ but makes it much more intelligent and worth a re watch. It’s available on DVD now. Please check it out, this film deserves to be much better known than it is. You will not see a better film that questions the idea of when ‘the freedom of speech versus the freedom to not be offended’ becomes one or the other.

No 4. The Tale of The Princes Kaguya

I feel awful not putting a Studio Ghibli movie in the top 3, because it really is my favourite series of films and I still think they are all beautiful works of art, but I can’t deny that this is my feelings on the film and this is where it belongs. I think this is down to the fact that I didn’t think this had as good an ending as previous Studio Ghibli films, but that doesn’t deny the fact that Isao Takahata’s swan song is probably his best film to date, it’s a beautiful piece of work with some stunning hand drawn animation that’s both well detailed and incredibly abstract at times. It tells this amazing story that can be traced back to the 10th Century. I have since seen the film in its original Japanese and once again you gain some extra authenticity from watching it in that language, but the English dub starring Chloe Grace Moretz and James Caan is also absolutely fantastic. This is really a brilliant film and I would urge anyone to check it out. I am really looking forward to Studio Ghibli bringing out their final film When Marnie Was There over here next year .

No 3. Kingsman The Secret Service

Holy hell this came out of nowhere to be one of the best films of the year. Bought to us by the same people that gave us the Kick Ass films. Kingsman The Secret Service takes what was a rather mediocre and mean spirited comic and makes one of the most interesting adrenaline rushed films of the year with an amazing sense of humour and a truly loveable cast. Taron Egerton has really become my new favourite actor of the year having given not only an excellent leading role in this film but also his amazing supporting roles in Legend and Testament of Youth and he really should be an actor worth checking out now especially with his role playing Eddie The Eagle later in the year. Does it have any deep meaning or incredibly insightful ideas, no, but that’s not the point, it’s just a lovely tongue in cheek parody of the classic Bond Films, which you seriously should not overlook and I preferred this in so many ways to Spectre, plus who would have thought that Colin Firth could do an amazing action role. Plus you have the amazing villain role from Samuel L Jackson. Check out my review if you want more information. But, seriously if you haven’t got this film in your collection go out and buy it now, who would have thought you would get a film as good as this in January.

No 2. Star Wars The Force Awakens

Yes, yes, I know, this film has barely been out and we haven’t really had time to digest it, but I really loved this movie. It was exactly the back to basics shake up that the Star Wars franchise needed after all the baggage we got from the prequels and the expanded universe plot lines that came out of those films. Feeling like a brilliant bonanza reunion by almost the entirety of the original series cast and characters whilst giving us amazing new cast menbers to like, this film was one of the most enjoyable cinema experiences I had all year. It was pretty much the only film that was hyped up big time and managed to live up to it this year and it makes me upset that J J Abrams will not be sticking around to do episodes 8 and 9. By the end of this film I just wanted to keep going, I said, ‘bring on episode 8’! However I will freely admit, the only reason this isn’t No1 is because there were some flaws that I couldn’t ignore, but those flaws seemed like they were necessary to tell its story so I can’t hold it back on that basis. It was my most recent review so it won’t be too hard to check it out to see my full thoughts on the film. Believe me, this is one you should definitely check out. Star Wars is probably still in the cinemas now and will be for some time.

No 1. Song Of The Sea

Yes, I seldom have loved a film as much as this one this year. It is totally my film of the year. Star Wars came close, but I can’t think of a flaw with Song of the Sea. It’s just an unbelievably good movie. Director Tom Moore who previously bought us ‘Secret of the Kells’ gives us what is really the film that will define him as being the Miyazaki of Ireland. The film uses beautiful animation to tell a heartfelt story about Selkies and the myths and legends of Ireland as well as giving amazing backdrops, story and a cast that can boost it up brilliantly. I was completely in awe when I was watching this film on a cinema screen. It’s just come out on DVD and Blu Ray, so please pick it up, this deserves to be one of the well known films of the year. Not only of the best animated films, but my best film of the year and believe me, considering how many great animated films that I didn’t even mention that came out this year, that is saying a lot. I love this movie so much.

So what are your thoughts on my Top Ten List?

What were your top films of 2015? If you disagree with my list, that’s fine, more power to you. Your opinion is as valuable as mine. If yours didn’t make it on my list, don’t be upset, I probably just didn’t like it as much as you. This was the hardest year for me to pick my Top Ten. Considering I want to expand the amount of films I see next year, I think I will have as difficult a year in 2016 to pick my Top Ten.

These lists next year will be coming out a week later because of Assassins Creed’s very late release and I want to get a review of it done, but I will make sure I have this out by at least mid January.

Now it’s time to move on. Next week The Oscar Nominations are going to be out and I have decided for January I am going to skip as much of the dreaded pieces of rubbish that studios release this time of year to check out some potential heavyweights that are coming out and I am going to start with Quenton Tarantino’s latest film The Hateful Eight which I will be releasing a review of on 15 January.

Thanks for reading this Top Ten List, I hope I have given you some films to go out and buy in the New Year sales or when they come out on DVD. I would also like to hear of some film recommendations from yourselves.

Thanks for reading, it’s always appreciated.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

TOP TEN WORST FILMS OF 2015

2015 has been a hell of a year for me. I really took this job seriously and I wanted to make sure I had the thoughts on the year as a whole. This year has been one of the most interesting years in cinema. It was a year of a ton of hype but usually very mediocre delivery and while I fear that this may be a thing that we will be seeing a lot of in 2016 this was at least a year of decent titles and not many of my film experiences this year were bone crunchingly bad. This year I had more of a basis to make a judgement on this list. I may have only reviewed a total of 46 movies but I saw an actual total of 118, that’s more new releases that I have ever seen in my life and that’s not counting the 3 extra films I saw at Film Festivals which won’t count for this list. Those would be 3 of the films I saw at MGM Loves Anime, mainly Miss Houkasi, Love Life The School Idol Project Movie and Empire of Corpses. I already have Miss Houkasi to review for next year upon its DVD and Blu Ray release and I do plan on reviewing Empire of Corpses, however that film had only just been released in Japan at the time I had seen it, so it’s not entirely certain we are going to be seeing it in 2016. If you wondering about the eligibility for the list, this is how it works: It has to have been a film that received its initial release in the UK and to a paying audience. This means that if it was a film that was released this year but didn’t reach the UK to a general paying audience, it won’t count. This also means that many of the awards contenders that we will be seeing released in January and February on these shores, like the Revenant Creed and Spotlight will not be eligible for either list and will have to wait their turn to 2016. This does mean, however, I can include a lot of the hold overs from the USA, Japan and other territory so most of the Anime titles I saw will count and also meant that I can include films like John Wick and Big Hero 6. This really didn’t play much of a factor in my worst films list. Despite the fact that I did push myself to not just seek out movies I liked this year, I also didn’t seek out the awful movies I had heard about. So forgive me if I haven’t got an extensive list of films this year, I didn’t have time to see films that I had heard awful things about, like The Human Centipede Part 3 or some of the really awful comedies I had heard about, like, Unfinished Business, Will Farrell’s Get Hard or Entourage the Movie for which I wasn’t a fan of the TV series. I did go and see many films that I wasn’t the target audience for and it did play a factor in my decision making in this list, because I saw so many this year I had to really limit the Top Ten to the absolute films that were an infuriating experience to have in the cinema or on DVD because I am including Direct to DVD releases in this list so long as the film did not receive a cinematic release outside of a Film Festival in 2014 or earlier.

Last year I did way too many honourable and dishonourable mentions so this year I decided to limit this to five that were just off making the list, So to make sure people don’t confuse this with a top 15 list I am going to list these in alphabetical order and I won’t go into too much detail. I have not reviewed all of these for the site, so if you want more details you can check out the ones I did review on the site.

These are the five films that just got the dishonourable mention:

Jupiter Ascending.

Without going into too much detail the Wachowskis gave us their first original screenplay since the Matrix and this film was a massive disaster, trying to be an epic without even remotely establishing its world with some horrifically bad dialogue and performances. This film will make you wish that Eddie Redmayne could have his Oscar taken back off him. The special effects sucked and it seemed to constantly try and rip off every Sci Fi film ever made. Please, no more sequels. The only reason Jupiter Ascending doesn’t make the list is that I believe it can be viewed for being accidentally entertainingly bad.

The Lobster.

The first english speaking film from Greek Director Yorgos Lanthimos and it tells, because whilst this film didn’t make the list because it did have some decent performances in it, it doesn’t change the fact that this is one of the most pretentious pieces of twaddle that had everyone laughing in the cinema despite the fact that it was meant to be taken 100 percent seriously, the premise is the actors couple off or face being turned into animals, yes, seriously, and they have to speak some horrifically awful dialogue. I just wanted out of the cinema!

Pixels.

Adam Sandler once again tricked us into going to see another one of his crass comedies by pretending it was a homage to classic video games. Just No! There are more details in my review as to why I hated this, but it just (and I really do mean just) didn’t make the list because there is one comedy that I saw this year which was worse.

San Andreas.

Yes, someone courageous sat down and watched every Roland Nemerick film and copied it note for note. One of the most predictable and wholly dull films culminating in a scene at height of stupidity where a small dinghy manages to go up a tsunami. The only thing that stops this making the list is The Rocks performance, that is it.

Taken 3.

This one doesn’t quite make the list because there happens to be ten films that were worse than it. That is the only reason. Between this and The Transporter Refueled, these horrible action films have proven that Luc Besson is a barely competent writer who happened to just get lucky with having the right idea at the right time with the first Taken film. This one is particularly awful and I am glad the franchise is over, see my review for more details! It was the very first film I reviewed this year.

And in the words of Mathew Buck AKA Film Brain “Now for the actual list and brace yourself for the bile!”

No 10. Pan

Yes, I only reviewed this a couple of months ago, but it still makes my ten worst list. This droll un-funny mess of a film attempted to be a dark re boot of Peter Pan, but it ends up failing in every department, because it doesn’t get the character at all and just tries to be its own thing, but its own thing is a boring waste of time than no one can properly get invested in. I have to agree with Brad Jones’s thoughts on his film, there must have been a serious amount of cocaine when they were making this film because it had some crazy moments that make absolutely no sense, including an horrifically awful scene which involves the characters singing Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ when this is set in WW2 and in a fantasy world. Just no, seriously avoid this one, there was only one other family film that came out this year that was worse, and believe me we will get to that. If you want more details about this film, check out my previous review, but I recommend you skip this awful movie.

No 9. Hit Man Agent 47

Once again the cinema could not escape the curse of the terrible adaptation of a video game franchise, brought to us from the writer behind The Good Day to Die Hard and X Men Origins Wolverine, so you knew it was in good hands. This film is the most pointless attempt at a re boot ever, especially when you realise that the writer also wrote the previos Hitman movie which sucked so what chance did this have. The film has way too few action scenes, a droll plot that doesn’t resemble the games very well at all and some of the worst shot scenes I have seen in an action film in a long time. They try to pull tricks that you can’t get away with now, especially with Mad Max out this year, showing what you can do with an action film, not to mention the fact that the performances were all terrible. The film tries to get a sequel, but I’m hoping this fails because this was awful and frankly the entire project feels pointless in the end.

No 8. Seventh Son

This one was obviously going to be awful. The film is shot back in 2012 where it has been sat on a shelf, it was originally meant to come out in January 2014, when in March 2015 it made its way over here and this was clearly down to the fact that the studio realised that this film was a droll, unoriginal mess of a film with some of the worst acting I have seen all year, and special effects that looked like they were TV standard, and a dull boring plot from what I can gather that doesn’t even remotely resemble the book it’s based on. How you get terrible performances out of great actors Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore and Alicia Vikander is unbelievable. It was clearly released now purely to capitalise on the success of Game Of Thrones. Once again it’s another film that tried its best to do a sequel but with such utter terrible reviews and terrible box office success, I don’t think it will recover from this. The film is just no fun at all and feels incredibly unoriginal, please, just skip it.

No 7. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension

The franchise, thankfully comes to an end with this awful film that I would believe is the biggest rip off of 2015. This film doesn’t evenly remotely try to do a job of entertaining its audience. I sat in a theatre with a few other people watching this film and everyone felt like they were there under contract, that they had seen all the other movies and just needed to see this one just for that reason. The franchise limps to the finish line with a terrible plot, with stupid characters, further stupidity with the found footage genre and a mother load of jump scares. Plus for a franchise that revolutionised the industry by not showing what was there, this one shows way too much. Not to mention its plot and conclusion renders Paranormal Activities 4 and 5 entirely pointless. Oh, and I saw the film in 3D, or what it called 3D, the film is flat for most of the actual production. You could literally take your glasses off and put them back on because only about 20 minutes of the 1 hour 20 minute movie had any actual 3D and by that I mean the film was entirely flat and in focus, I thought I had gone to the wrong screening! Look up other peoples reviews for this because there are a million other plot holes, It’s a seriously awful film, if this really is the final Paranormal Activity movie, then goodbye, good riddance, you’ve outstayed your welcome by 3 years.

No 6. Strange Magic

Not only the worst animated film of the year, possibly the worst animated film of the last 5 years. Most of you probably didn’t even know the film existed, that because it was released very quietly in January in the USA before receiving an even quieter release in the UK in August where it barely had any screenings and the only screenings I really saw for it were the picture house chain of cinemas that were running as part of their kids club. I feel very sorry for every parent who was dragged along to see this film. It’s an incredibly un-original plot with some animation that is clearly ripped off from Dreamwork’s Epic and with its ham fisted attempt to do its version of a Mid Summer Nights Dream with some god awful performances, a terrible plot that sends out terrible messages to kids and the un-believable fact that it’s a Jukebox musical which was not pointed out in any of the advertising for the film. Oh, and if you are wondering, they are all pop songs that you wouldn’t want to hear sung by the original artists let alone these god awful covers that sound like they were done by the same people who did Glee, which interrupt the seed of whatever drama or comedy that might have come from the plot. While your average Disney movie may have 6 to 7 songs in it’s running time, this film has 13! 13 songs that often have more emphasis put on them than the actual story and have no point being there. The only reason it isn’t higher on the list is because it’s all songs by artists that I don’t really like and I didn’t like the original songs so I don’t mind them getting murdered, but whatever they did to Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds is inexcusable and unforgivable, screw you George Lucas, thank god you stayed away from Star Wars.

No 5. Sharknado 3 :Oh Hell No

Yes that really is the title. I said last year that I didn’t put Sharknado 2 on my worst of list in 2014 because that was giving them what they wanted. Well this year, I’m sorry I really have to do it. Sharnado 3 was a complete failure of a film It still hasn’t quite gotten the idea that bad movies entertain us by accident and not by design, but this one almost seems to have forgotten that point playing the film almost wholly seriously. This film has sharks in space and they breathe normally, that is just one of the many stupid points that the film makes which will further damage the Sharks image in the media when we really need to be saving these things when they could be gone from our Oceans within the next Century. The cast is made up of really bizarre cameos. Ok David Hasselhoff is a given now, he has a self depreciation that really works and I suppose I get that you have Pro Wrestler Chris Jericho in here, but what the hell is Frankie Muniz doing here and Penn and Teller have a cameo as well, what the hell are they doing in the film, these guys are genuinely talented. Also for some weird reason there is a non-speaking cameo by Jedward, oh and don’t get your hopes up, they don’t get eaten. Though I’m certain someone will have made a video on You Tube where they do. Bottom line, this one was really dumb and I am getting bored with the creators making a ton of money with little effort and stupid ideas that feel like they were done by getting a guy on cocaine and a guy on weed getting together in a room and showing them a marathon of Shark movies.

No 4. The Wedding Ringer

The absolute worst comedy of the year. Kevin Hart is becoming another American comedian who seems to be making films that put me off just by his presence alone. This year he had two of these films out. Get Hard which looked so unbelievably racist that I didn’t even want to see it altogether and The Wedding Ringer which I was originally going to review but I pulled if off the schedule after Kaguya got a release date and I am eternally grateful because when I finally saw it on Sky Movies it was one of the most desperate and ill conceived comedies I have seen in a long time. I’m certain other comedies that came out last year were worse, but I didn’t see them, I saw this. The opening jokes sees Josh Gadd sitting on a glass table and falling through it, that’s how desperate the comedy is, not to mention the rest of the comedy is crass and offensive in a way that I still don’t understand why people find it funny and it’s premise of a guy trying to hire a best man because he doesn’t have friends to impress his soon to be wife is unbelievably stupid. Not to mention most of the film is incredibly mean spirited in its jokes and it’s at Josh Gadd’s expense, but dam this guy also seems to want to be in every bad comedy this year. Bottom line, this one is really bad.

No3. Unfriended

Yes, Yes, anyone who saw my old review knew this one was coming. What I described at the time as one of the worst films I had reviewed for the site, it’s technically no longer the case, but I would still say that I hated this movie. It’s cyber bullying message has been completely lost on this terribly shot, terribly acted film with characters that no one could possibly like and an ending so awful and against the tone that had been set up for the film, it ruined what little was left. This film is just terrible in virtually every way. Check out my review for more details, but I am not joking when I say that this is the film that has completely put me off SKYPE forever and not for the reason the film wants me to.

No 2. Fantastic Four

What is surely the biggest flop of 2015 and completely killed the franchise before it even started. Fantastic 4 is clearly a rush job designed so 20th Century Fox can keep the licence before it automatically reverted back to Marvel, which means because of this film we are probably not going to be seeing any of the Fantastic 4 or any of the cast of characters in the cinematic universe, but that’s the least of the problems for this film. If you want to know why I really despise this film, check out my review, but this was one of the most boring action films I saw all year, completely missing the point of the comic it is based on, to such an extent that the Fantastic 4 never appear on screen together until the climax of the film and have virtually no chemistry with one another. The action scenes are terribly shot, everyone is horribly miscast and the film is a waste of talented director Josh Trank who has clearly been crippled by studio interference in the hopes of spanning this out into a franchise that can cross over with the X Men films. Just no, hopefully next year 20th Century Fox’s attempts to have crossovers with the X Men film will go better with its Gambit solo film, but if this is anything to go by, we really shouldn’t be too excited about. This is not only the worst comic film of the year it’s probably the worst comic films since Batman and Robin, you couldn’t get away with this in the 90’s, what chance do you have with it now!!

No 1. The Gallows

The absolute worst film I saw this year. The reason this is top of the list is for two reasons. 1, this felt like torture to watch in the cinema and 2, you could make an argument for any of the films in this list that they have some sort of reason to exist, there is no reason for The Gallows to exist, other than the fact that paranormal activity make money so we want to make money with very little effort. That’s the only reason I can think for this to be found footage. The film’s premise doesn’t even give a good reason for them to be filming themselves it is literally stupidly having the characters incriminating themselves with hard evidence. As Brad Jones said, it’s everything wrong with slasher films and everything wrong with found footage films in one, not to mention this film had terrible horror set pieces and unbelievably bad characters that you want to see die the second they come on screen and some really uninventive uses of the POV camera gimmick which the film cheats a couple of times. The ending had one of the worst twist endings of any film I have seen in a long time, because not only was it bad and out of nowhere, it also contradicted a lot of what we had been led to believe up to this point. Really though, that’s the least of this films problems and plot holes that it never bothers to explain. The only reason you will know what the characters names are is that they constantly scream them over and over again, this film was just awful. This was the worst cinema going experience I had all year.

So that’s my top ten worst films of the year.

Move on to the next page where I will be bringing the mood back up a bit with my top ten best films of the year, and believe me, those are my big recommendations.

The question now is:

“What were your worst films of 2015”?

Please let me know if you agree with my opinion. Thanks a lot for reading.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS”

Yes, anyone who knows me knows that I love the Star Wars films, the original trilogy was something I grew up on and were some of the first films I went to the Cinema to see, this was back in the 90’s when they were re-released in the Cinema, I can’t remember the reason why, I suspect it was something to do with the Special Editions. After Revenge of the Sith, we all thought that was it, the films were over! Then we found out that Lucas films had sold the rights to Star Wars films to Disney and most people, myself included, thought that this was the final nail in the coffin considering that Disney were planning a sequel trilogy that would include episodes 7, 8 and 9. I was fairly against this from the first because I genuinely believe that Star Wars had a perfect ending. Whatever you think of Return of The Jedi and believe me there are plenty of things to complain about it was at least a very good conclusion and what it did well, it did well. Our hopes were at least built up when we found out that George Lucas was staying far away from these films and is really not contributing anything to it, which considering what he did to the prequel, that is probably a good deal. But, how do you expand Star Wars any more than it already has, this is one of the most expansive Sci-Fi Universes in fiction and of course when all the trailers and concepts were announced there was all sorts of debates as to which parts of the expansive universe were or were not in continuity any more, which have since been answered by a series of Marvel comics which have come out, which I should point out, even Shattered Empire which is a prequel comic to The Force Awakens is not necessary reading to enjoy the film. With all the stalling, how does The Force Awakens hold up? By the way, I know this review is out 2 weeks after the films release, but I will be keeping this review spoiler proof as I know a lot of people have been holding back, waiting for a time when there is less of a market and also for cheaper ticket prices.

The plot of The Force Awakens takes place 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi. Luke Skywalker (played by Mark Hamill) has vanished without a trace, leaving a map to his location hidden inside a droid. Princess Leia (played by Carrie Fisher) sends out her best pilot, Poe Dameron (played by Oscar Isaac) to find it and deliver it back to her. However, the droid, after an attack from The First Order, led by Sith Lord Kylo Ren (played by Adam Driver) causes the droid to fall into the hands of a defected stormtrooper Finn, (played by John Boyega) and scavenger Rey (played by Daisy Ridley), who now have to get the droid and the map to the resistance before The First Order can take it. I really can’t go into too much detail with the plot other than that. This really is a film you need to experience for yourself, but I am going to come out and say the plot is fantastic. It continues the Star Wars mythos almost perfectly, however I won’t say it’s a perfect narrative, but it is damn well close. The film almost feels like it’s the old guard passing on the torch to the new guard and it’s a very good new guard. Finn and Rey who are the new main characters in the series are a joy to watch and they complement each other perfectly. There was a really big build up to how much the old cast were going the play in this film and it varies to a certain degree. There isn’t much from Princess Leia in this film, C-3P0 is basically on the sidelines but does at least contribute something, R2D2 is virtually absent, though his replacement BB8 is a decent substitute and has some enjoying features to him that look like they were a joy to animate by the special effects department. Also, anyone hoping that Luke Skywalker was going to make a big impact on this film are probably going to be disappointed. Without giving too much away, he really is not in the film as much as the fans would like, but the build up to his appearance is expertly done. He is more treated like a myth and legend, mainly as symbolism for how Star Wars fans see the franchise, to such an extent that many people in the cast believe Luke to be simply a myth and a legend, more likely down to The First Order’s propaganda. I also really enjoyed Poe Dameron. When I first saw him I though he was going to be a weak Hans Solo rip off, but he actually has his own character identity and has something to contribute to the plot, the only downside to him is he is rather absent throughout most of the middle act. The only major old guard cast member that plays a large role in the film is Hans Solo who is there for most of the entirety of the film and he is still characterised perfectly and he gets some of the best moments of the film, again without giving too much away because this was one of those films where the trailer was perfect in how much it showed you, leaving more for you to discover as it went along. The villains are excellent in this film, they don’t feel as powerful as The Empire, but they do feel threatening enough and I think that is down to the excellent designs and casting choices. We’ve got the new dark side Jedi, Kylo Ren who has one of the best bad ass designs and an excellent back story, which unfortunately is kind of slightly undone when he takes off the mask, anyone who has seen the film will understand what I mean, though I do think it shows the fact that unlike Darth Vadar, he is completely human, which he wasn’t. Basically Kylo Ren is a Darth Vadar fan boy for reasons that are touched upon in the film but I think will become more apparent in episodes 8 and 9. You also have the new villain Supreme Leader Snoke, who is obviously taking the place of The Emperor who is brilliantly played by Andy Serkis in another excellent motion capture role for him and taking Peter Cushing’s place is Domhnall Gleeson’s General Hux. As it turns out Domhnall Gleeson can play a villain, yes, who would have thought that, and a very good one at that!. Really the joy from this film comes from nods to previous Star War films and it’s main cast,, mainly Rey, Finn and Poe Dameron. You love following their journey and the chemistry between them is excellent and the plot feels like it escalates and keeps your attention throughout the film, it’s one hell of an engaging plot. It only has a couple of twists and turns, but they are at least decently well done and feel like good pay offs, even if a couple of them are slightly predictable towards the end.

It’s not entirely perfect, however. The plot does feel like it’s recycling a lot from A New Hope which is done at least decently well, but it’s amazing how much you can compare the 2 films, to such an extent, that at times it almost feels like a complete re-make of A New Hope. The climax also feels like it has been lifted wholesale from A New Hope. This isn’t a major negative however, because Director J J Abrams who co-wrote the film with Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt have managed to make this feel fresh and more like a homage to the original films and that’s one of the reasons I really loved it. It’s basically Star Wars which took influence from so many other works of fiction is now almost taking influence from itself and admitting its own great fiction and at the same time it also suggests that this is just to get fans on board and to take this new trilogy simply and easily. The problem with the prequels was they tried to do too complicated a plot too quickly and it became exhausting and not fun. This film is very, very fun to watch and that’s down to its very good action and its decent humour and its great storyline. The other factor in my criticisms of the plot is the fact that A New Hope and The Phantom Menace both left room open to sequels but they felt more like they were self contained stories to get the ball rolling on the trilogies. This one doesn’t feel as self contained. The ending feels very much like a set up for episode 8, but it’s a very good set up and unlike many other films this year that felt like they were trying to set up a sequel, this film gets its own story done and dusted. I will also say that I think the film doesn’t do enough world building and the context of everything that’s going on is slightly minimalistic but I think that’s slightly necessary to get out its own story rather than being bogged down with boring dialogue like The Phantom Menace

That’s how much I liked this film, even the most major negatives I can turn into a positive. There are a couple of things that I had a slight problem with, but in order to go into that I would have to go into spoiler territory and I am not going to do that here, but let’s just say, I am not just going all ‘fan boy’ on this and trying to not look for faults, that’s how we ended up liking The Phantom Menace when it first come out, and all of us that liked it when it first came out are feeling really stupid right now! I’m certain people will pick plot holes out of this as time goes on, especially after episodes 8 and 9 come out (which by the way I can’t wait for), but I think for now, this is probably up there with A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. While the film may start out as suggesting that it’s both Rey and Finn’s story, by the end Rey is pretty much the main character and I am really looking forward to see where her journey is going to take her in the upcoming films because she is an excellent lead in these. She is well able to take care of herself but her past means that she is not entirely self assured of herself and has a weakness and things to learn. It’s just one really, really engaging plot and I am really looking forward to the sequels which will be coming out in the next couple of years. My only nit pick with the plot would be that I do think Finn’s turn from random stormtrooper to rebel, it could have had a bit more time to explain his change, but it may have taken up time from something else in the plot that I really enjoyed which could have meant it would have possibly have been more of a negative so I could have been saying the opposite, but you never know, hindsight is always 20/20.

Acting wise, what can you say! This is an excellent cast, I loved Harrison Ford coming back as Hans Solo who feels like he never left the character in the first place. Carrie Fisher may not be completely given room to play her as much as I would have liked, but when she is given room she does a decent job and thank goodness she dropped her faux British accent and stuck to her normal accent!! Mark Hamill does a decent job back in his role even though he isn’t in the film that much and I did enjoy Anthony Daniels coming back to play C-3P0 and I would say Peter Mayhew is good as Chewbacca. As for the new cast, well they somehow manage to steal the show. They are all excellent in their roles. I really like Adam Driver as Kylo Ren who I think really stands up there with the really good villains of the Star Wars world. Oscar Isaac really gives one of the best roles of his career and 2015 has been absolutely fantastic for him between this, A Most Violent Year and his excellent role in Ex Machina. I did enjoy the other villain actors especially Andy Serkis and Domhnall Gleeson who both bring excellent performances to their roles, but the stand out performance for me is Daisy Ridley who I was very surprised to find out was described as ‘very wooden’ by a couple of reviewers that I have seen which is weird because I actually think that she delivers an excellent performance in this film with a real gannet of emotions. I could go into the cast in much more detail although most other roles are really cameos. I liked Simon Pegg in his small role even though he is buried under tons of make-up. Max Von Sydow is really only in it for a while, so he is basically a glorified cameo. It’s great seeing Tim Rose back as Admiral Ackbar, you know the guy we only remember for saying ‘it’s a trap’. But I think it really speaks for itself, the cast is almost really great universally.

Now one of the most surprising things about this film is there was excellent use of practical effects in this film. Sure the film is not completely devoid of CGI, but it knows when to use it and how to use it and it does it to decent effect. The space battles are excellent and gripping. I love most of the climax which had some excellent scenes and the gun fights are also brilliant. There are some good light sabre duels as well, even though I don’t think that J J Abrams has quite directed them as well as I would have liked, I am just saying I was expecting these to be slightly better than they were, however, that doesn’t change the fact that they were as good and intense as a light sabre fight is supposed to be and the choreography is at least done well. This is definitely one of those films that feels like one of those films that puts a lot of its effort into its action set pieces and it really pays off and all of them will be a treat fror Star Wars fan boys and girls. I saw the film in 3D and take my advice; there really is no reason to see it in that format. The 3D is barely noticeable throughout most of the film except for a couple of select scenes and most of the time it’s when the camera is very static like establishing shots and it doesn’t help the fact that a lot of the action is in semi-lit environments which doesn’t suit 3D well because of the darkening effect the glasses have. Only see the 3D if it’s the only performance that hasn’t sold out, you can do fine with this film in 2D. The make-up department also does an excellent job in creating the Star Wars environment and I love the fact that they didn’t try to do a weird blend of the prequels and the original trilogies technology. The technology in this feels and looks like it’s from the original trilogy but with just a slight update, which is definitely to the films benefit, it makes us feel even more like this is connected to the original trilogy more than the prequels, but it also again feels fresh and new and it’s really a definite plus to the arts department.

What can you say about John William’s score, his music is absolutely fantastic and it’s the reason why most of us love the Star Wars music and will want to hear any symphony orchestra play it and once again these themes are done well and they are fantastic. Anyone who loves music in films loves the Star Wars music and this one will probably make them fall in love with it all over again.

I loved Star Wars The Force Awakens. The kindest thing George Lucas could have done was stay well away from the franchise and let other people take over his creation and it’s very much to the films benefit. It’s great, fresh new and sets up the future trilogy brilliantly. I loved the action scenes, the acting was great with the cast delivering excellent performances. The plot is unbelievably engaging and a treat to Star Wars fans and I loved the new leads Rey and Finn and the film pretty much belongs to them. If there’s one thing I can say, however, it’s that it’s not for newcomers. You really should at last see the original trilogy prior to seeing this film if nothing else because I think anything less than that you will probably find yourself alienated from the story.

Several films in 2015 were hyped to hell and they were given so much hype that they couldn’t live up to the lofty expectations. Star Wars The Force Awakens is the rare film this year that lived up to it’s expectations, although I’m not sure it exceeded expectations, but it’s a very good film and it really feel like Star Wars is completely revitalised. This is a complete must for Sci Fi fans.

So what were your thoughts on Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Did you agree with me and love it or have a different opinion. I welcome all comments and can’t wait to hear them. My question for this week is:

“What is your favourite Star Wars Moment?”

If you want to submit your own reviews or content please visit our guest content section labelled ‘how to submit’ and you can have your own reviews, animations poetry or whatever you like on our site, we would even like to see some short stories on there.

Well that’s all the 2015 reviews now. Come back on 8 January 2016 when I will be publishing my Top Ten Best and Top Ten Worst Films of 2015 and I will be announcing my first review for 2016.

Thanks for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it,

THIS FILM WAS AWESOME.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN”

Yes, it’s re-boot of a famous gothic character again. I had this one on the review schedule earlier in the year, but I put it down there because I believed it’s part of the monster universe that was being started last year with Dracula Untold which I have already reviewed for the site, but later I realised the film was actually produced by 20th Century Fox and the films were completely un-connected, which made me think that this film had potential, considering Dracula Untold wasn’t that good. I had trouble pinning this one down!! This film has been on and off the review schedule for The Axia Film Society throughout most of 2015 because 20th Century Fox could never put down a release date to this film and stick to it. Seriously it’s been kicked around the release schedules more times than a football in Wayne Rooney’s garden!! It was originally meant to come out at the end of August before it was moved to an early October release so they could capitalise on the same slot that Dracula Untold had last year, then it was moved to November, then back to late October, then November again, then back to early October then late October, then late November before changing it one more time to a December release!! This has clearly been designed to sell to people who don’t want to go and see Star Wars and are looking for any other alternative whatsoever. The question now is, “Is this a decent alternative to the only recently released Star Wars”?

The plot of Victor Frankenstein is that a young Victor Frankenstein (played by James McAvoy) comes across the “hunchback” Igor (played by Daniel Radcliffe) who he releases from a circus after discovering that he is a talented Physician. He takes him back to his Lab and cures his “hunchback” under the condition that he aids him with his experiment to create life from death. However, not only will he have to deal with the experiment going wrong, he has to deal with corrupt financiers and constant suspicion from the deeply religious Inspector Turpin, (played by Andrew Scott) who is out for Victor Frankenstein.

This film takes a rather interesting slant on the Frankenstein story, where this one is told from Igor’s perspective rather than Victor’s and he is the main character. But there lies the first problem with the film. For a film that is heavily marketed as we are seeing the origins and the progressions of Victor Frankenstein from a good person to a Psychotic killer who will do anything for his research, it can never achieve that if we are not seeing it from Victor’s perspective. It’s really Igor’s movie and we don’t get much character progression with him. Most of his character progression is done relatively early and that means in the middle it’s left twiddling its thumbs trying to get something to happen out of nothing. There are plenty of good ideas brought up and there are some cool scenes and some well thought out plot points, but there is nothing really tying them together, it never really forms a cool piece as a whole. It also doesn’t help the fact that virtually every character outside of Igor and Victor Frankenstein are woefully dull. We have the snooty financier Finnegan who is obviously corrupt, played by Freddie Fox, we have the obvious love interest, Lorelei played by Jessica Brown Findlay and of course we have the Inspector played by Andrew Scott who would have been rather interesting in his debates with Victor if they had been on screen longer together, but we have seen plenty of on screen creation versus science debates and there is nothing really new bought to the table on this one. That is true for everything there is nothing really new that’s been bought to this version of Frankenstein. Early scenes indicate that this is going to be a Victorian Steampunk action romp rather similar to the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes films, which is especially indicated in an early chase scene with Victor and Igor escaping the circus, which is accompanied by tons of unnecessary slow downs, but there is not enough action in the film for it to really be that either. It’s really reserved for the beginning and the end of the film and it’s not very good and it’s painfully obvious that this film has been directed by someone who has directed several episodes of Sherlock since most of the scenes try to do that fast frenetic genius talk that is in that series. The thing about the film that is really weird though is the fact that it looks once again like this is another example of a film where test screening and re-editing have completely destroyed the film and just tried to turn it into as much of a product as possible. The best example of this is a scene later on in the film were Andrew Scott’s character is wearing an eye patch and in the next scene it’s completely missing with absoloutly no explanation. There are also several scenes that haven’t made the final cut of the film and I suspect judging by some of the scenes and dialogue that turn up in the trailer there’s possibly even an alternative ending. I just don’t get it. This screenplay for this film was written by Max Landis who is the Son of the legendary John Landis and his previous credit was writing the film Chronicle, which unfortunately means like Josh Trank, his next film following that has been a flop. It’s really annoying. When I saw the end of The Chronicle I was very excited to see what both of these guys were going to do next, but it appears that both of them have had serious studio interference affecting their work. I actually think that for their next project, they should team up again. Mind you, there are some things that really don’t help the film. The dialogue isn’t great, in fact the first line of the film is “you have heard this story before” which is told through narration by Igor, which doesn’t help in making us realise that there isn’t really much different here to any other version of Frankenstein plus there’s a really weird out of place Homage to Young Frankenstein that just feels painfully forced. It really feels like another example of a universal monster being bitten by the Twilight bug, not helped by the fact that Daniel Radcliffe and James McAvoy are playing younger versions of the characters.

The film tried to deliver some build up and some genuine intrigue and mystery as the film goes on, but it’s just not there. Nothing ever quite clicks and the characters really don’t progress much, they are virtually the same as they are at the end of the film, there’s just no progression to them, which means the marketing is largely a lie. The trailers never show what the monster looks like and the film largely keeps him hidden for most of the climax of the film, however when we finally do see him the design is rather decent. It’s very similar to the iconic monster that Boris Karloff played but it does look slightly more new and up to date even if it did kind of look to me like it was a mix between WWE’s Brock Lesner and The Tyson from the resident evil games. The build up is at least appropriately decent but the pay off doesn’t really fit. Several of the characters are so one dimensional that they are not even given ceremonial send-offs and the ending is atrociously bad, trying to hook people in for a sequel that clearly will never happen. The story is purely a mess, pure and simple, it doesn’t really have much and if I haven’t forgotten it by the time this publication is out then it will be a major surprise for me as this just did not work.

The cast rather surprised me because they are entirely British despite the fact that this film did not receive an early British release, clearly another indicator that this film sat on the shelf and was constantly re-edited. Poor Daniel Radcliffe, everything since Harry Potter finished has been rather iffy at best and he gave a really good performance earlier this year in the BBC3 drama The Game Changers, but this film is clearly under using his talent to play a really bland character who I just can’t get behind and it’s just not there. The actor is capable of much better than this. James McAvoy plays at least a decent Victor Frankenstein and he tries to deliver some changingly dramatic performances surrounding his back story, but the script fails him constantly and for an actor that I do kind of enjoy he really seems to be slumming it in this role. Likewise Jessica Brown Findlay is just playing the love interest in this film and it’s just not fair on her because whilst she is not delivering a great performance she has got a badly written part so she never stood a chance before she even started. Freddie Fox plays a pretty poorly written villain but does it to at least a decent standard which is good because I have enjoyed the young actor in a couple of his previous roles, but the surprising bad performance for me is Andrew Scott who delivers a howlingly bad performance and it’s surprising considering again that Paul McGuigan directed this and he has directed several episodes of Sherlock which Moriarty appeared in. It does feel kind of weird having Andrew Scott play an Inspector in this film considering we are used to seeing him as Moriarty, but you could have got around that with good direction, but it is clear that Paul McGuigan doesn’t quite know how to direct him in this role. Also his devout christian angle was really hammed up to an absurd degree and made me not be able to take the character seriously at all. The only memorable performance in this film is the cameo from Charles Dance who once again, is on top form as Victor Frankenstein’s father, but again, he is only in it for one scene and despite the fact that it’s really good, it’s also really short. At least they didn’t plug the film based on him being in it as they did with Dracula Untold. The cast are really good but their parts are badly written and they aren’t given time to do their job to the best of their degrees and that’s not when the director seems to try and make them as hammy as possible. Oh, and Spencer Wilding is trying his best to be the new monster but it’s very clear that his movement is being heavily restricted by the heavy amount of make up he is wearing.

The effects in general are actually decent. The monster’s design is pretty good and I liked some of the early experiments that Victor had set up and the period piece costumes are actually pretty decent as well as the set designs, but none of them really sell gothic horror, its more sells steam punk adventure, hence my comparison to the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes films. The computer effects are actually not bad and they do blend into the seams relatively well, they are not amazing, but I have seen a hell of a lot worse. It’s very strange that this film early on tries to sell itself as an action film when it clearly isn’t, at least those scenes are done pretty well, even though there is some very, very, unnecessary slow motion early on including one point which was just slow motion to show a character jumping with no peril. But the film simply isn’t an action film so there isn’t much to talk about. The scenes are at least decently done. The film builds up some early ideas about showing skeletal structures and organs during movement but they are done so infrequently that you almost forget that they are there, which is a shame because it’s one of the few things that make this distinctively stand out amongst other Frankenstein films. The film’s gem however, is the set design, it’s very decent, even though it definitely felt like a lot of the scenes were struggling with a budget and had to re-use sets.

The biggest negative I really had with this films is that it’s a 12A in the UK and a PG13 in America and as a result the film can’t go all out it’s trying to appease to a younger audience that simply doesn’t exist for this film. There is literally no reason for it to have this rating, the film can’t go all out, there is not enough time to show gore in any horrific designs and any time you get even close to that there’s a cut away. If this was part of their re-editing this was a serious mis-step because it means that the film feels tonally awful and the film can’t go all out with it’s back stories which try to add more to the characters, but it’s clear that a lot of that has been edited out as well. For example, Finegan explains in the trailer what he wants Frankensteins technology for but he never does it in the actual film itself and Frankenstein’s back story is barely touched upon in a few lines of dialogue and a couple of scenes so as a result you are left with a film that feels half done.

Victor Frankenstein is not one of the worst films of 2015 but it’s hardly good at the same time. It’s a very forgettable film, it doesn’t really have much to offer, the actors are very decent but they are so bland in this film and it’s a real shame that it’s a blight on the careers of Director Paul McGuigan and Writer Mat Landis who are both very talented people, hopefully their next project together will be better. There is very little praise to really give to the film, but at least it’s a decently shot film and it never feels awful, it just feels boring and dull and you know that everyone involved can do better. It’s a mess pure and simple and it’s probably down to studio interference and constant re-editing, which once again destroyed what was clearly a promising film, and it’s a shame for James McAvoy and Daniel Ratcliffe who are actors that I really enjoy and have been given a film that is clearly not up to their talents. I would skip this one altogether if I were you.

What are your thoughts on Victor Frankenstein? Did you agree with me or do you have a totally different opinion, if you have I would love to hear your comments.

Since It’s Christmas I am going to ask this question:

“What is your favourite Christmas Movie”?

That’s the last review for 2015 seeing as we are going to be on a Christmas break. I will be back on 1 January 2016 with a review from a Galaxy Far Far Away and of course that will be followed by my best and worst films of 2015.

On behalf of Axia I would like to wish you all
a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my review as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“ATTACK ON TITAN PART 1 AND PART 2”

Yes, for one day only last week there was a screening in select cinemas of the first 2 live action Attack on Titan movies and that is the Christmas gift that every Anime fan was waiting for. Attack on Titan is a mega phenomenon in the world of Japanese Anime and I am no exception to this. I have watched all the episodes of the Anime, I have collected all 16 volumes of The Manga, have the next volume of the special DVD extra pre-ordered, I have a cosplay outfit and I whilst I might have had misgivings of doing a live action attack on time film I have been looking forward to finally getting to see this film. I’d always planned to review this film upon its DVD release but I only discovered a couple of weeks before it came out that this film was getting its release and I quickly snatched up my ticket. I even stayed overnight in Manchester in order to see it, that’s the power of what a good franchise can do.

Attack on Titan has often been compared to other Western Franchises, being called Japan’s answer to The Walking Dead, or Game of Thrones and I would agree, mainly down to the epic story lines, the amazing on going plot and the sheer level of violence. Seriously, if you plan to get into this, don’t get attached to any of the characters, there’s a good chance they are not going to stick around for long. My thoughts on the franchise are that I would consider comparing it to Lost, considering that at this point in time The Manga, we are 16 volumes in at the time of publication, there are a lot of plot points brought up that are yet to be resolved and it’s kind of frustrating, hopefully, however, this is not another case of Lost where the story is being made up as they go along. That’s another reason why I was apprehensive about Attack on Titan live action film, it’s not done yet, The Manga’s not finished and we only have one 25 episode season going, we’re still not even close to having Season 2 come out, but I am open to the idea, especially with the team behind this film.

Both films are Directed by Shinji Higuchi, whose previous credits include the series Nadia: Secret of the Blue Water and one of the writers is Yusuke Watanabe, who worked on the screenplay for Dragon Ball Z: Battle of the Gods. Incidentally there are a couple of disclaimers to go through before I start the review. I am probably going to end up using a lot of terms and names that will be understandable to Attack on Titan fans, which I won’t go in to too much detail with to avoid spoilers for anyone that wants to check out Titan at some point, but I am also going under the assumption that a lot of people reading this review will know a lot about the various plot points that have happened in other versions. But I won’t be spoiling the plot of the film altogether or the series. Also whilst I am going to be reviewing these as two separate movies, I am only going to be reviewing them in one review, so expect me to jump back and forth and compare them to one another. How does the first attempt to bring a live action version of Attack on Titan hold up?

The plot of the film basically starts out like The Manga. A hundred years ago, creatures called Titans suddenly appeared and devoured most of the human race. In order to defend themselves, the last of humanity barricaded themselves behind a series of walls to keep the Titans out, this however, has led humanity into a false sense of security. At this point the Titans break through and start destroying humanity all over again and leave them to the brink of extinction. After his home town is destroyed and his friends and family are devoured, Eren (played by Haruma Miura) vows to destroy all the Titans along with his good friend Armin (played by Kanata Hongo) and Mikasa (played by Kiko Mizuhara). As their mission to repair the outer wall goes ahead it appears there may be more to the Titans than they first thought and Eren may hold the hope of humanity in his hands.

Part 1 is really a simple film, it follows most of the first half of The Manga, though telling a few stories out of order and taking bits and pieces from various chapters. Anyone expecting a literal adaptation of The Manga or the Anime may be slightly disappointed and the set up was just not as good in this version. For example, Eren’s parents, a vital part of his character motivation in the Manga and Anime, are nowhere to be found until part 2 and we are still never led to know what is going on, also several characters throughout both films are missing, most notably Levi is nowhere to be found, which seems a horrible decision considering he is probably the second most popular character in the entire franchise! There is also no Ami, which means in part 2 there is no battle against the Female Titan which has now been substituted for the Armoured Titan. Levi’s absence is not too evident in part 1 because he has been replaced by Captain Shikishima, (played by Hiroki Masegawa),who is basically in part 1 Levi, which made me wonder why they just couldn’t call him Levi when it is so obvious they are making him that character, but trust me, with the direction this character goes in part 2 you’ll be glad this guy wasn’t called Levi. What both films do brilliantly is give a sense of desperation to this world, which is what Attack on Titan is known for. The Titans feel legitimately huge and scary which is a great effect that the Anime gave us which has carried over very well to live action. The films also don’t shy away from doing some revolting amount of gore, which again, suits this world very well.

There are only a few major differences. For one thing the technology in the live action film is significantly more advanced than either the Anime or The Manga and there is also a few character changes here and there. For example, Eren starts his career in the military after he believes Mikasa is killed at the beginning of the movie, trust me, at no point do you actually believe they have killed of Mikasa at the beginning, you will never get any one buying into that! Oh yes, I completely believe they are going to kill off Mikasa, one of the most bad ass and one of the most popular female characters in Anime, early on who everyone was excited to see in this film, it isn’t as if I haven’t looked on IMDB and seen she is in the second film! While we are on the subject of her, she really did not get her character down for the most part. There are times where they make her seem like her Manga and Anime counterpart, but there are also times where she if completely off. It’s not the actress’s fault, it’s just some poor writing. Mikasa is probably one of my favourite characters ever and I just didn’t feel satisfied with her in this one. That’s the same with all the characters, they all come to moments where they are nearly there, but they just don’t quite reach the mark. The only one who really stood out for me as being like a perfect representation of her character was Hange, played by Satomi Ishihara. She is really my favourite part of this entire Movie, her off the wall comic relief is absolutely brilliant and we don’t see enough of the ingenuity which made the character great, but that’s a minor nit pick, because she still gets her time to shine. Part 1 also has some severe pacing issues that part 2 fixes. I actually had a conversation with someone outside the cinema who asked if part 2 was shorter than part 1 and I replied, No, I think it just felt shorter, because part 2 is a straight up action movie, which for the most part is actually better because at this point there is no way they can pull off the multiple plot line epic that the Anime pulled off because they simply don’t have time to establish this world and its characters. Several things that were given plenty of time to establish in the first 5 or 6 episodes are almost completely skimmed over, so as a result the plot really suffers. If this was aiming to be an Epic, which it really isn’t and that’s a slight benefit to the film because it means we can take it on its own merits. As a pure action film it does pretty well, especially part 2 where everything is quick and heavy with fight scenes and cool set pieces. Part 2 also makes the wise decision to almost abandon half The Manga and go off on its own merits. Admittedly it’s rather annoying that it feels a lot more simplistic than its counter parts and if offers more of a finality in its ending than I was expecting, but I definitely felt better at the ending of part 2 than I did by the end of part 1. Simply put, the film just doesn’t have time to tell the story and it doesn’t know what to cut and what to leave in or how to really adapt this because The Manga isn’t finished. This was also problem for The Harry Potter films when they were first coming out because those films were being produced before the book series was finished, so the early films didn’t know what was going to be important then or important later. This one, instead of falling into the trap, cuts out way too much to do its own thing and while that does mean I’m not as annoyed with the changes, it also means, I don’t really think it’s a worthy adaptation. On its own it does a pretty decent job, but I don’t feel the love for this one like I did with the Anime or for The Manga. It doesn’t have the addictive nature that those stories have. Seriously, if I didn’t have work to do I think I might have gotten through the first season of Attack on Titan in 2 days! The ending of Season 1 was so good that I actually said I could not wait 2-3 years to see the next season, I am going to have to read The Manga and I went out and brought every single volume of The Manga, this one just doesn’t get me in that pumped up spirit. I think it’s just down to the fact that I didn’t develop much of a connection with the characters, now granted I have heard that there have been a lot of complaints that Attack on Titan has too many characters and we are not allowed enough time to develop them, but I also remember most of the cast of Attack on Titan’s Anime. This one, I don’t really remember much about them and I didn’t really feel much when any of them were killed off because they just feel like they are more of an archetype of certain team members that we have seen in many different kinds of movies and it’s not a spoiler that some of the characters are going to die, it’s an Attack on Titan movie! Of course some of them are going to die! It’s par for the course! This film also skips ahead to certain plot devices in The Manga that haven’t turned up in Season 1 of the Anime and it makes me slightly worried that this might be the direction that The Manga and the Anime are going in and while it may not be a completely bad thing, I did enjoy the fact that these films did take me on a bit of a loop and I had to keep guessing where they were going in relation to what I knew of Attack on Titan. There is a moment in part 2 which made me look around at everyone in the cinema, thinking, “are you all seeing this, I’m not on drugs right now, this is actually happening”. Trust me, if you see part 2 you’ll know what I mean!

Overall my thoughts on part 1’s plot were that whilst it was a decently made adaptation of what we knew of the series, it’s not too great and I wouldn’t really put it up there, especially with the pacing issues. Part 2 on the other hand was a much more brisk, well made film but it still felt rather alien from Attack on Titan, not so much that it was un-recognisable so as a result was a slightly more enjoyable movie in terms of the plot.

With the plot out of the way, let’s talk about the cast. The cast is one of the things that interested me most about the film. I know it’s a Japanese production but it does feel slightly weird that this is an entirely Japanese cast based on a series where there is only one Japanese character, which is reflected in the names. Attack on Titan’s plot almost certainly takes place in central Europe, considering that none of the characters know what the ocean looks like because they have lived inland and they also all have either French, German or Dutch names, such as Eren, Armin, Jean and Marco, who also isn’t in this film! However, I don’t believe someone’s race affects their ability to play a character so I completely went into this cast with an open mind and for the most part they do a decent job. My favorite casting is Satomi Ishihara as Hange, who completely gets the character down. I also kind of liked Haruma Miura as Eren. But a couple of the cast feel mis-cast. Kanata Hongo, for example feels slightly mis-cast as Armin and Takahiro Miura feels mis-cast as Jean, but they do at least play their parts relatively well. Jun Kunimura as Kubai gets to play a menacing character but he almost does it to an absurd degree, so he’s not believable and the same can be said of Hiroki Hasegawa as Shikishima who in part 1 basically is doing a Levi impression and in part 2, well I don’t really know what he is doing, but he is at least half decent, he is probably the best actor in part 2, apart from the actress playing Hange, she is still excellent. Seriously this is one of the best comic relief performances I have seen all year. However, the one I want to go on to the most was Kiko Mizuhara as Mikasa, ok this actress can pull off the role of Mikasa, but she is not written well enough to do it, at moments when the writing is good and the direction is there, she is in complete embodiment of the character and I absolutely adored her performance at times, but at times it was completely off. I also don’t think there is enough of a decent chemistry between her, Erin and Armin, but I think that is more of a writing problem than it is an acting problem because the actors are not given enough direction or time on screen to make you feel all that love and affection that they had in the Anime. These guys are almost bonded together and what made the Anime great was the chemistry between those 3 and the bond they shared. This one is not great at that. The rest of the cast are just decent, they all deliver their lines pretty well and they are all giving their best shot even if they are not given enough to expand their roles, in fact some of them really only have to act like they are dying when they get eaten by Titans.

Now, lets move on to the special effects. The biggest question is, were the effects any good? For the most part yes, the Tiitan’s are actually a really cool effect, as I said earlier they feel menacing, gigantic and a genuine threat and they also don’t look like fake CGI which I was worried they were going to. Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t brilliant and at times the effect can fail, but for the most part they are decent. I also really liked the replication of the designs for some of the more famous Titans of the show, including the one named after one of the characters for which I will not give the name away for spoilers for anyone who wants to see Attack on Titan, The Armoured Titan and The Collossus Titan were all brought into live action pretty well. There was no Female Titan however, and I really wished they had gone with her because I would have liked to see what that design would have looked like. This film also doesn’t shy away from showing blood a lot which is all done relatively decent, but it occasionally relies on CGI blood and it’s a lot more fake than the practical effects in this film. By the way, the practical effects are really good in this film. I also liked the design of the outfits, I was really worried when I saw the screenshots of this film that they would look like a lot of people cosplaying as the army from Attack On Titan, but they actually look really good and have enough wear and tear in them in order to make you feel like these guys had been in a battlefield.

Now, lets get to the action scenes, because the action scenes are one of the best parts of the Anime. In short the action is pretty good at times, it’s not great if I am honest, but at times it can really hit it out of the park and really replicate the Anime, which I didn’t think was possible, but at times it really falls flat and looks ridiculous. But some of these action scenes can come off as really horrific or really cool and have the fast pace and flashy moves of the anime. It’s just they are just a bit hit and miss. When they hit, they knock it right out of the park and will have you on the edge of your seat, none of them quite reach the same level the Anime does and seriously, if I haven’t praised it enough, Go Out And Watch The Anime, or read The Manga, they are both awesome. I also think the design of the towns look a lot more post apocalyptic than they do in the Anime but I think the Anime has the edge for the sheer scale and the better looking design.

A lot of live action Attack on Titan movies are movies than can best be described as ok, some moments hit it out of the park, others don’t even get up to bat. Luckily the former out ways the latter for the most part so I can describe these films as ok. Both films have 60% on Rotten Tomatoes at the minute and I think that’s about accurate. The cast does a decent job, the writing ranges from good to bad and the effects are pretty good and the fight scenes do a decent job, especially the Titan fight scenes. There are plenty of issues with it and I would recommend reading The Manga or the Anime instead of this, but if you are a fan of Attack on Titan I would recommend getting these after you have read or seen all of that because I think it’s worth if for pure curiosity sakes. Most of the people in the cinema with me came out with the same response “that was better than we thought it was going to be” and that’s probably accurate. These films could have been much worse and translating Attack on Titan to live action must have been a hell of a task for the studio to do. But it wasn’t impossible and they proved it by doing a half decent movie. But a movie isn’t automatically good just because it wasn’t as bad as you thought it was going to be, it just means it wasn’t bad and that’s the best way I can sum up this film. It’s just not bad, but it’s not that good either. I think part 2 is better than part 1 because it knows what it wants to be and firmly sticks with it and has a more defined plot. Also, don’t try and see these movies in one go when this comes out on DVD because watching these two together is about 3 hours and it’s exhausting to keep it all in. Trust me the months break between the two when they were released in Japan is well worth it.

Normally I would ask for your thoughts on Attack on Titan Part 1 and 2 in this section but I am really doubtful that most people reading this will have seen both last week. If you did, great, leave a comment, I would definitely value any opinions, if not I will happily wait for the DVD to come out for your opinions on it.

“what are your thoughts on Attack on Titan Anime and The Manga?”

I’ve praised the hell out of them, but I freely admit there are some issues with both of them so I will welcome any comments, either positive or negative.

I have one more review before Christmas and this one I am finally pinning down, next week I will be reviewing the new Daniel Radcliffe movie “Victor Frankenstein”, I will be publishing it the day after the Star Wars release on December 18 so half of you will be going to see that film.

Don’t worry, just because I said this is the last review before Christmas doesn’t mean I have forgotten Star Wars, that film is getting reviewed on 1 January 2016. Sorry I can’t get it out sooner, but I want a Christmas break and my boss has banned me from working over Christmas.

Thanks for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant