“THE GOOD DINOSAUR”

The Good Dinosaur, by accident is the second hit Disney Pixar film to be released in the UK in 2015, having received severe delays upon it’s planned release last year mainly down to some technical hiccups and even the films origional director and several cast members leaving. It also marks the Director Peter Sohn’s first feature length Directing job. Having previously directed the short Partly Cloudy. He has mostly only worked as an actor for Pixar providing the voices of Neil in Ratatouille, Squishy in Monsters University and even has a part in this film for himself and considering how wide this is released this is a major opportunity for the up and coming Director. The Good Dinosaur has clearly become his baby, which whilst he didn’t directly write the screenplay, it is based on a story that he came up with along with 4 other people. The Good Dinosaur is one I was very excited about, this was being called the big Pixar comeback up until Inside Out came out and pretty much stole all it’s thunder. Now if you want my opinion on “Inside Out”, I reviewed it earlier this year for the site, so check it out. Though that was based on my initial thoughts on the film and the fact that I think my opinion might have been slightly clouded considering I had seen Song Of The Sea a few weeks earlier and was comparing it way too much to that. When I re-watched the film whilst I was on holiday, I actually found myself liking it even more and now I have come to conclusion that I absolutely love the film. I think it’s one of the great animated films of this year along with Song Of The Sea and The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya. With all that being said, with such high competition from really great animated films that have come out this year like those I have just mentioned, as well as the middling crowd of The Minions and Hotel Transylvannia 2, to the really awful George Lucas movie, Strange Magic, where does The Good Dinosaur stand in the mix?

The Good Dinosaur’s plot imagines a world in which the meteor that killed off the Dinosaurs slightly missed and as a result the world that would evolve out of that event not happening. We cut to millions of years later with young brachiosaur and son of the father Arlo (played by Raymond Ochoa) who is very afraid of almost the entire world. He tries to do his chores right and impress his father Poppa, played by Jeffrey Wright but doesn’t manage to match up to his tasks. Then one day he is separated off from the rest of his family by a massive storm, where he meets a young feral boy called Spot (played by Jack Bright), but he must get home and reunite with his family and to do it he must conquer his fears. This is not as original as Inside Out, this film does borrow from a lot of other sources like The Lion King, Homeward Bound, some of the Ice Age movies and there’s even a couple of scenes that look like they were lifted wholesale from the movie Grave Of The Fireflies. But I think the film this will most be compared to is Don Bluth’s The Land Before Time particularly considering that the main character is once again a young brachiosaur. However, unlike The Land Before Time, the dinosaurs don’t actually give themselves specific names and there is no massive species divide between the dinosaurs in this film, which, depending on your thoughts, can be a positive or a negative. I will let you take your pick with that one! Whereas Land Before Time was about a bunch of friends coming together in order to get back to their families, this one is just about one of them and his relationship with a small human child who is basically like a dog, considering that humans haven’t had the dominance to evolve yet to incredibly high intelligence, but the characters still get a gamut of emotive expressions and Jack Bright brings some really distinctive sound effects. You definitely feel what Spot is feeling without any lines of dialogue and many of the best scenes in this movie don’t contain any dialogue. There are some beautifully shot scenes in the middle of the film where Spot and Arlo communicate about their families and there is hardly any dialogue whatsoever and it proved the one rule of cinema ‘show, don’t tell’ and it works so well as a result of that. There is so much more emotion in that scene than would have been the case if there had been tons of dialogue there and I don’t think there are enough films aimed at a younger audience that are really being made today. This film really knows when to be quiet and it’s all the better for it.

The marketing of this film leads you to believe there are a lot of funny moments in this film, but there’s not too many of them, this is a pretty straight film, but when it does decide to become funny it can get some really good laughs, especially the funny moments with the character of Forrest Woodbush who is voiced by director Peter Sohn in his short cameo, but it’s incredibly funny. A lot of parents will be saying this is a pretty run of the mill family film, but it’s a very well made run of the mill family film and that’s what Pixar does best however it does allow a couple of moments that surprised me were allowed in a family film, they can take simple ideas and make them seem gigantic and that’s the case here again for the most part. Pixar would have been really on top form with this film if it hadn’t come out before Inside Out. With the exception of Inside Out, it’s probably their most emotional plot in years and it has moments that can really tug at your heart strings and what a great state for animation it is, that the film is this good, yet I’m not certain I can put it in my top 3 animated films for this year because it’s really not origonal and hasn’t quiet sucked me into the plot as much as the Song of The Sea or Kaguya! I think the film really sells itself with its characters, who all feel very natural and have some amazing chemistry amongst each other but it has a few narrative issues. The film for example diverts part way through to have amazing scenes like a cattle drive being led by T Rex but they kinda clash with what we were going for up to that point, This is one of those films that both sells its plot and its characters and the film is an almost perfect merging of the two, it doesn’t quite hit it on every level, but when you see many off the scenes that rely on visuals alone you know you are in for a good movie.

It does, however, have some negatives. The film makes it obvious that Dinosaurs have learned how to do activities like agriculture and herding, but there’s a lot of things that have been built that you would definitely need opposable thumbs to construct, but I don’t think the film ever properly explains how these have been made. I think the other factor that lets this film down is its villains, but that’s not too much of a problem because, let’s face it, Pixar’s villains outside of Toy Story movies have never been that great, and this one is not really that much different. While the latters ones feel particularly tacked on and unnecessary, they are a group of Pterodactyls, that have formed a cult, led by their leader Thunderclap who worship thunderstorms for some reason which is never quite fully explained, and I actually thought it was a bold move of Pixar to depict the dangers of cults in a family film, but I’m not sure it is fully realised and it’s kind of a waste of Steve Zahn’s talent, he plays the role very well but it’s an underwritten role. But with all those negatives, what really won me over with this film is it felt like the writers have known what Pixar films are good at, they treat the audience with intelligence, they are not going to pander to the audience in order to sell to kids and they are not going to do what films like Hotel Transylvania 2 did which is, leave out quiet moments because they are worried they will lose the attention span of the kids watching. I agree with a comment made by ‘Film Brain’ during one of his reviews that he believes that children are only as intelligent as we want them to be and when you make films for them like this you will probably see a generation of children who will want good quality programming and films that won’t just appeal to the lowest common denominator and will actually give us a warm hearts and plots that will last us forever. While The Good Dinosaur may not be that original and you can probably draw a lot of comparisons with a lot of other films I would argue that its plot fulfils this criteria very well and by the end of the film you feel a sense of accomplishment for its main character.

One of the dangers in doing a film like this is, if you get a lot of celebrity voices, the parents are often playing a game of ‘guess the celebrity voice’ which is something that has plagued films like the Shrek series and Ice Age movies. However, this film doesn’t have that problem, mainly because there are only a few well known voice actors in this and the only one that was really obvious was Sam Elliott in the role of the lead T Rex rancher Butch who once again does an excellent performance, but come on, it’s Sam Elliott, he’s memorable in terrible films, as Ghost Rider proved. In the lead we have Rayond Ochoa as the voice of Arlo and he delivers a fantastic performance, I really hope this film will give a boost to his career because I would like to see him do more. Jack Bright does an excellent job playing Spot, despite the fact he basically hasn’t got a single line of dialogue, but his job at making the sound effects for him are still excellent. I enjoyed A J Buckley and Anna Paquin as the other two T Rex’s Nash and Ramsey. Marcus Scribner and Maleah Nipay-Padilla were alright as Buck and Libby, but they weren’t really in the film long enough for me to get a feel for their performances. I seriously liked Jeffrey Wright in the role of Arlo’s father Poppa who, once again, unfortunately is not in the film long enough, the reason for which I will not give away, but I definitely welcomed him once again, giving an excellent performance. I also really enjoyed Frances McDormand’s performance as Arlo’s mother, Momma. The villains weren’t great, but they at least were acted well by Steve Zahn, Mandy Freund and Steven Clay Hunter, but these roles didn’t require amazing performances, so the cast feel even more under utilised, oh, and there’s even more tacked on villains during the T Rex scenes played by David Boat, Carrie Paff, Calum Grant and John Ratzenberger, who feel unnecessary, but at least they drive the plot along a lot more as a bunch of scavenger dinosaurs.

If there’s one thing The Good Dinosaur is amazing at, it’s the animation. This animation is gorgeous. This is some of the best animated 3D backgrounds I have ever seen in a film and the scenes with the fireflies really cement that. The only problem I had with the animation was that the dinosaurs and the other creatures seem very cartoony. It’s almost as if they have come out of an Ice Age sequel and they can clash with the almost photo realistic design of the backgrounds. This is a bit of distraction but at least both are animated pretty well and that’s really a minor nit pick. The animation also excellently conveys all the gannet of emotions the characters feel and that’s especially difficult considering that dinosaurs are not known for having expressive faces. There aren’t really any animation hiccups and I think if the film was being delayed for anything to do with the animation, the extra year paid off, because this film looks gorgeous. The water texture feels right, the snow feels accurate, the grass even feels like you could reach out and touch it, this is the kind of animation environment you want to escape into and it’s some excellent 3D animation. I saw the film in 3D and while occasionally it will go back and forth over whether it’s worth it or not. The film has some good 3D set pieces but without actively making it so that things have to fly at the camera but there are occasionally some serial events that make you forget the 3D is there altogether and a large family could end up paying a lot of money for 3D glasses that they may not get the full use out of. Granted it’s better that Inside Out’s 3D, but only by a short margin. I would say only see the 3D version if it suits your time frame better for when you can get the kids out of the house, otherwise it’s not essential to see this film in the 3D and you will be fine with the 2D version. I don’t reckon the animation will be in any way compromised without the extra dimension, but if you have to see the 3D version you should seriously check this out, I had a really good time watching this.

The Good Dinosaur is a good family film with a couple minor issues, and while I don’t feel it quite beats it’s predecessor Inside Out, it’s still a good movie and I would really recommend taking your family to see it this Christmas if they haven’t got Star Wars tickets. It feels like one of those films played at Christmas to give you a warm good hearted feel and that’s down to it’s good plot, great characters and it’s gorgeous animation even if the designs do feel like they slightly clash. It’s not the most original film in the world, but it’s well made, well directed and it’s clearly made with a lot of heart and soul and is designed to entertain both the kids and the adults watching. Keep an eye out for this film because I reckon it will stick around for a while. While the 3D is good and it had some good moments, though it’s hardly essential. The only major negative I had with this film was that it’s villains felt a bit tacked on and unnecessary.

So what were your thoughts on The Good Dinosaur? Did they match mine or have you got a different opinion on this film. I welcome any comments. My question for this week is:

“Did you like The Land Before Time and/or any of it’s sequels?”

Well that’s my last review of an animated movie in 2015. In 2016 I have got a lot of animated films to review and not just Anime, but for now the first animated film I’m certain I will be reviewing is probably going to be ‘Kung Fu Panda 3” which I am really looking forward to, but I would have to say that my DVD recommendations at the minute for animated films have been Song Of The Sea, The Tale of The Princess Kaguya, Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur.

Next week I am reviewing a live action adaptation of a Japanese Anime. Next week I review both Attack on Titan Part 1 and Part 2, and don’t worry I am going to do both films in one article since they are being played together. Also don’t bother trying to see this film prior to the review because by the time this reviews been published the film has had it’s one day only screening, hopefully if you wanted to see it you got our facebook message and did get to a cinema in time.

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

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“THE HUNGER GAMES:
MOCKINGJAY PART 2”

It’s finally here, the conclusion of the Hunger Games Trilogy which has been pointlessly stretched out to 4 films in order to squeeze out every last little penny from the fan base before the franchise dies out. I hope your week last week was good because my week was really long and rushed, because I had to catch up with all three of the previous movies, because up to that point, I had only seen the first film, which I found to be a bit too mediocre, so as a result, I didn’t bother with the rest of the films. Also I was kind of annoyed with The Hunger Games because it had meant that every studio now was going out to find their next teen and young adult novel in order to turn them into franchises to compete with the Hunger Games, most noticeably with the recent franchises The Maze Runner and Divergent Series, both of which also have received annual releases and both films didn’t inspire me with confidence so I have not seen past the first films with either one of them, especially with the bafflingly bad ending with Maze Runner.

My opinion on the Hunger Games films is as follows: the first one was rather mediocre and really didn’t get into it and I wasn’t too impressed by the ending and I know it has been said a hundred times, it is so obvious how very similar it is to Battle Royale. The second film, I was fully admitting to being a good film and was a vast improvement, up until the last portion of the film when it decided to hit the reset/repeat button and simply have the film be a complete clone of the first one! Mockingjay Part 1 felt like a bit of a slug fest with not a lot happening in it, but I didn’t fell like much could have been cut from the movie and I felt it left a decent cliff hanger to lead people to go on to Part 2. By the way, I am assuming that anyone reading this has seen all the previous Hunger Games movies and is well aware of all the plot elements so I am not going to avoid spoilers for all the previous films but I won’t be spoiling this specific film’s plot.

Mockinjay Part 2 takes place directly following part one, which is not surprising considering it’s meant to be one book! Peeta (played by Josh Hutcherson) is still being brainwashed by President Snow (played by Donald Sutherland) in order to kill Katniss Everdeen (played by Jennifer Lawrence) and the force of the rebellion, led by President Alma Coin (played by Julianne Moore) are preparing their forces for a final assault on the capital. Meanwhile Katniss is organising her own unit on a special mission to infiltrate the capital on foot in order to take out Snow herself and with all this coming together, will Katniss be able overthrow the Government with the minimal amount of bloodshed of her friends and family. If you have seen the first 3 films you are probably really excited about this film and I think fans of the franchise won’t be disappointed. If like me, you were rather indifferent to the Hunger Games, however, by the ending you will be thinking ‘thanks goodness these movies are over’ because Mockingjay Part 2 suffers from one of the similar problems I had with the second film ‘Catching Fire’.

I kind of enjoyed this film for the first part because, unlike the other films, this one had a nice brisk pace that constantly escalated and the actions felt like they had consequences, also it felt like half of what had been built up from the previous film was starting to pay off, mainly because Mockingjay Part 1 was completely set up, there was very little action and this one made up for it tenfold. Very similar to how ‘Catching Fire’ managed to create the darker tone that I was hoping the first film would give, however, much like Catching Fire, it doesn’t entirely pay off. While the film does keep up the dark tone thanks to the Director Francis Lawrence, not much of this film is fully realised. This is down to the fact that this film hits the brakes towards the end of the film, I’m guessing towards the last 20 minutes because I’m having trouble timing these things because Odeon are now insisting your phone is switched off and will no longer tolerate you having them on silent. However, this film feels really long and this is felt specifically at the ending of the film. The brakes are hit so the film can reveal a plot twist at the end, which on some levels severely contradicts what we have been told to believe up to this point in the series, and not necessarily in a good way and as a result, the ending feels very unsatisfying especially due to a character death that was incredibly out of nowhere and incredibly infuriating for several reasons. The journey to get there was pretty good for the most part but is bafflingly long and complicated and an ending that contradicted so much of what we had been taught to believe has just completely turned me off the film entirely, I was so annoyed that this is how the franchise is ending. I believe fans will be fully satisfied by this film, but I’m not! This really didn’t work for me as a whole. That being said, however, I can’t totally disregard this film completely. This franchise has wisely cast aside it’s early themes and commentary of society’s obsession with reality television and society’s stereotyping of youth culture and largely focuses on fascism and warfare and who is benefiting from it. Though this isn’t quit explored as much as I liked however I feel this tone while not exactly original is at least admirable considering it’s aimed at a younger audience. I enjoyed the characters and the action. This one definitely got down the majority of its characters better, even if a couple of them fall into the trap from these not really existing to be characters but more as plot devices which was painfully obvious when characters bring out various lines and say they are going to do things in this film, you know, ‘oh man, you are so dead’, trust me you are going to see half these characters deaths coming a mile away and it’s where the genius of the Hunger Games really comes in, It’s marketing! These films are based on young adult novels that are mostly aimed at anyone from the age of 13 – 20 and that’s pretty good, because everyone else will more likely will have seen these cliches and plot elements used elsewhere and used a lot better, especially if you have seen a lot of Anime. These films feel very much like they were inspired by Anime, I don’t know if it’s just me, but I have seen plenty that I could refer back to and it’s not a comparison that I have seen mentioned, seriously, write in the comments is you have an opinion on this, I genuinely would like to know, is it just me?

Katniss is still a decent protagonist and I did enjoy a lot of Peeta’s story arc in this film, but it also felt like a lot of the roles that were expanded very well in Catching Fire and Mockingjay Part 1 that I wanted to be expanded, have been decreased in this film, especially the character of Haymitch, who is my favourite of the series, who almost feels like a misnomer in this film and I am also a bit annoyed that Ceaser has been rather under used in this film especially as he is played by Stanley Tucci and was one of the most entertain parts of the earlier films and Beetee is rather under used as well, pretty much only turning up at the beginning and the end of the film. I appreciate the fact that they are trying to increase Gale’s relevance in these films with Mockingjay, but I am seriously not a fan of this. Not offence to Liam Hemsworth, who is doing his best to work with this, but this character is bland and is poorly written, he is the worst part of the Hunger Games Trilogy because he just exists to add an unnecessary love triangle with Katniss and Peeta, to which there is no question as to where Katniss is going to end up with in these films. It’s been painfully obvious since the first one, he barely had any screen time in Hunger Games or Catching Fire and by the time they actually start giving him something to do in Mockingjay, it’s too little, too late. In fact he exits the film with no ceremony whatsoever, he was useless in the plot of the previous films, he’s pretty much useless here and he exits just as bad. Goodbye, good riddance, didn’t care for you in the other three, not caring now that you’re gone. Seriously you could cut Gale out of the entire franchise and I don’t even think you’d have to change much. The villains definitely feel like their presence is there more, they don’t quite reach the levels of Catching Fire or the first part of Mockingjay, but it felt like they started to get the upper hand and feel like a genuine threat though I fear Donald Sutherland’s President Snow feels rather under utilised and again the inclusion with his character feels rather unsatisfying and especially with Julianne Moore’s character President Coin who also doesn’t get a satisfying pay off. Also with what these films were building up to it really doesn’t feel like the conclusion was what we were expecting the other films to build up to, now granted that is probably a good thing on a lot of levels because it will give the fans a bit of a double take, but I’m not entirely happy with it, I know these film’s scripts are limited in their options by their source material which I won’t claim to have read.

There is, however, another real issue I have with the film, while it’s not really that satisfying, it does at least do a lot rather decently and I would say I enjoyed the world building and the world design, but with that being said, this film finally brings the fight to the capital and we barely see any of it. The fact that the fight was bought to the capital was built up big time in the trailers and it feels like it is barely there, which is a shame because the other films actually manage to make the world and the various sectors and its capital feel like a character in itself, this has kind of been thrown to one side for this film, its just really wasn’t my thing, I really tried to like The Hunger Games, I genuinely did, I was dismissive when I first realised I had to go back over the franchise again, especially considering I didn’t really enjoy the first film all that much, and I did try my best and I will admit that on a re run I do find these films to be ok, but this was not the conclusion I was hoping for. I would say by the end of Mockingjay Part 1 that I didn’t think that anything could have been cut from the film, but I can definitely think of a few things that could have been cut from this one. Probably enough to make Mockingjay one film. What could have been cut especially with a large amount of the characters having the same innane conversations over and over again and the really overly long and complicated planning scenes that could have easily been chopped down to a couple of quick lines of dialogue. It’s overly long, over complicated and half of it is unnecessary, I swear there were about 4 or 5 moments that you easily could have done the closing credits on.

Acting talent wise, there is a ton of great stuff in it. Granted this film was meant to act as the final performance of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, but the late actor only filmed a couple of lines for the film and it’s very clear there were meant to be some parts for him towards the end of it. There are some reactionary shots, but the final lines that I suspect his character probably delivered in the book, are conveyed in a letter to Katniss and I think the film had to get around a lot of this because of his death, with a lot of re-writes. Jennifer Lawrence definitely works well as Katniss Everdeen and she is going up in my estimation as an actress, especially after her amazing performance in American Hustle and I suspect she will be going to the Oscars again next year with Joy and if we needed the Hunger Games Films to get her more exposed, I am glad they exist on that basis. Joss Hutcherson, while he may not have been great in the first film, has definitely grown into his role and is getting better by the day and plays an excellent brainwashed victim and mentally wounded soldier. Liam Hemsworth, I know you are trying mate, but really the script fails you on so many levels and there is only so much an actor can do when he is given poor writing and poor direction. Woody Harrelson, don’t ever change man, you are great in these films and it’s no different here, even if you are completely under used. Julianne Moore, who was introduced in the last Mockingjay film, is barely used in this film, the time she is on screen she is really good, it does feel really like a missed opportunity for a now Oscar winning actress. Most of the supporting cast are pretty good, I especially liked all the cast members that played Katniss’s friends and squad and I think Willow Shields is getting into her role as Primrose. Stanley Tucci and Jeffrey Wright also don’t get much to do but again are decent when they are on screen. Donald Sutherland continues to make a really good villain, even though I don’t think he is as good as he has been in the previous films. I was especially impressed by Elden Henson’s performance as Pollux, especially considering he doesn’t have a single line of dialogue, playing an actor who has had his tongue cut out and has to communicate by sign language. Overall, a decent cast, but I feel a lot of the very talented cast are rather under utilised.

Presentation wise. I will give a lot of credit to these films. Considering these four films that have to be shot very quickly in order to get them out annually, these films have turned out very well and can match up with some of the big blockbusters and the action scenes are very good, especially some of the fight scenes with the muts in the sewer and some of the battle scenes in the capital, plus they make some of these feel really dark, both in tone and lighting, some of these scenes are shot in almost complete pitch black, which really doesn’t help the film on a couple of levels, mainly because it makes some of the brilliant choreography hard to see. I saw the 3D version, and take my advise, there really isn’t any need to see it in 3D. Granted I haven’t seen the other films in their 3D version so I can’t compare this to them, however, the film just looks flat and the post conversion doesn’t feel well integrated although at times there are some moments when the film shines. It also doesn’t help that half of this film was shot in dark environments which means the 3D effect is even much less noticeable and the darkening effect of the glasses makes the scene even harder to see. Only see the 3D version if it’s the only version showing in your area, otherwise stick to 2D. The action scenes of the first films were few and far between, this film has a lot more and are well orchestrated and well acted. The cinematography also really pays off, I love the designs of this world and the various vehicles and the sectors. I definitely enjoyed the world of Pan M, but there’s a few things about it that don’t quite make sense, but they are just nit picks. This film also really doesn’t have much of the shaky cam that really made watching the first film almost unbearable during fast paced moments which is a definite plus in my book.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 should really only be approached by fans, and even then I think they might be un-satisfied by the conclusion like I was. This film builds up very well but it doesn’t fully realise where it means to be and it just wasn’t that great. I’m not a big fan of The Hunger Games Franchise but I don’t hate it at the same time, these films are all just ok at the end of the day and I am kind of glad I am done with them. If you enjoyed the previous films you probably will enjoy this one, but I am not making any guarantees on that. The action is good and I will say the build up to most of the acting is well done, but other than that I can’t give much praise to this one, especially the pointless nature of the 3D which feels like just another way to squeeze more money out of its fans. Overall, not really my thing, you could probably wait for this one to come out on DVD although I suspect you will be waiting a while, as this one will probably do very well at the Box Office.

So what are your thoughts on The Hunger Games? Does your opinion match mine or do you have a completely different view? Did I get it completely wrong and didn’t understand it and should I have read the books? Please leave your comments, I would love to hear your opinion.

My question for this week is:

“Is the Book always better than the film?”

I don’t just mean in this instance, is the book always better? I’ve always heard the phrase thrown around, but I have never been one to completely subscribe to it, I definitely would be interested in some opinions on that one.

Time to move on. Hunger Games are over and we are now moving into December, so let’s get a family film in that hopefully I can recommend or tell you to avoid over the Christmas period. Next week on 4 December I am going to be reviewing Disney Pixar’s ‘The Good Dinosaur’.

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

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“STEVE JOBS”

If there was ever a film I really wanted to see this year, this one was definitely in that list. I love the idea of this film, not just because it’s a film to tell the life of one of the great innovators of the 20th Century, but the fact this film is being directed by Danny Boyle and written by Aaron Sorkin whose previous credits include ‘The Social Network’ and ‘A Few Good Men’, so with that dream team you are definitely going to have a winner. This isn’t the first film to attempt to do Steve Job’s life, there was a film two years ago, simply titled Jobs, which didn’t do well, mainly because of the film’s horrible mis casting of Ashton Kuchner in the title role. There is also the fact that people who wanted to learn more about Steve Jobs could also have seen the documentary ‘The Man In The Machine’. This film has also had a ton of Oscar buzz prior to its release and many of the people reading this review might have gone to see the film’s early screening across national cinemas as part of the London Film Festival in October. I didn’t. Mainly because I was busy at the time with seeing ‘Pan’ and ‘Hotel Transylvania 2’. If you go back and read my review of that film you will know how much I enjoyed spending my time doing that! (now that’s sarcastic).

So how does ‘Steve Jobs’ pan out. This is usually the part where I do a plot synopsis, but that’s a bit hard to do in this case because Steve Jobs is a very untraditionally structured movie. The film mainly takes place over three time periods, which Steve Jobs (played by Michael Fassbender) launching Macintosh in 1984, launching Next in 1988 and then returning to Apple in 1998 to launch the I Mac. The film also has the job of exploring his relationships with Joanna Hoffman (played by Kate Winslet) and Steve Wozniak (played by Seth Rogen), CEO of Apple John Sculley, (played by Jeff Daniels) as well as his daughter Lisa (who is played by 3 actresses, Mackenzie Moss, Ripley Sobo and Perla Haney-Jardine.) who he initially denies paternity of.

Danny Boyle, once again, sets out to make another film that is completely different to all of his previous films and he succeeds in that fact again. I can’t think of any other Danny Boyle film that is structured like this one or shot like this one. I’m not certain if this film will stand up to a lot of his classics like ‘Trainspotting’ and ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, but I definitely think that fans of his work should consider the possibility, because this film had one excellent plot. The film, as I mentioned, has a very untraditional structure, there is a lot missing out in the middle and it doesn’t really present a plot per se, it’s more just a series of conversations in a sense and preparing events that will launch products that people predict will either change the world or will flat out fail, usually a bit of both as well.

Now I love Apple products in fact I use a lot of them in my daily life, I have an I Phone and and I Pad, both of which I use to make my reviews and I do a lot of the editing of the reviews on my Macbook, in fact the only thing I have in my house that is made by Microsoft is my X Box. I think people’s love affair with Apple products is very present here and even staunch pc people will probably get something out of this film.

The risk of doing this sort of film though is it can potentially be a bore, a drag, or pretentious, luckily Steve Jobs doesn’t fall in to any of those factors. It’s one of the most engaging films I have seen in a long time and demands a lot from its audience. You don’t have to be an Apple nerd and know about half the products they have produced over the years or their general history to really enjoy this film. I’ve gone on about these sorts of films making you want to go out and explore the story behind the film and I do think this film will do that to people. The film’s screenplay itself that Aaron Sorkin adapted is based on a biography by Walker Isaacson and I think the film is rather balanced in its approach. It doesn’t glorify Steve Jobs to an absurd degree but it also doesn’t make him out to be an ‘arsehole’ at the same time, though certain portions of the film definitely make up their mind that he is an ‘arsehole’!. Especially the early portion, he more redeems himself in the final act of the film. Which probably was true to life itself. The film is also an excellent character piece. All these characters are very well directed and the motivation is very open and out there. You don’t need to stop and analyse everything in order to know what is going on, which I think is such a problem with movies that are clearly aiming to get an Oscar. In fact the film actually on a lot of levels felt very similarly structured to the film ’Birdman’ which won the Oscar for best picture this year. However, this film, I will say is vastly superior because it uses that sort of structure and idea and takes it to a much more pleasing degree and doesn’t stand behind pretention and making you want to analyse everything. You know, those sort of films when the Director is constantly waving his hands saying ‘ask me what it means’. I grant you, this plot won’t be for everyone, I’m fairly certain some will come out and say they are not happy with the film because it wasn’t true to what they knew of the story, but I think a lot of of people that make that complaint often forget that these are meant to be entertaining, they are not meant to be a complete documentary, so they are allowed to embellish at times. In fact ‘Philomena’, another film based on a true story actually used the levels of embellishment that it had in the film in its marketing campaign, and look how well that turned out! I’ve not actually read the book that this film is based on so I can’t pass apart from my reading of a brief synopsis, and by brief synopsis I mean I looked it up on Wikepedia, it does seem like it’s had its fair share of people saying it’s a true account and people saying it’s rather fabricated, but that’s true with almost anything like this, so yes, take your pick on that one.

The one thing the film does excellently though, is it gets to the philosophy of Steve Jobs and what he wanted for each of his products. He saw them all as ‘works of art’ and to such an extent there’s a running gag that whenever Steve Wozniak says ‘a computer isn’t a painting’ he replies ‘f… you’. I’m not sure if that is a direct quote, but I’m pretty sure much of the script is based on some direct quotes. There is one that I spotted that I knew about in the latter portion of the film where a reporter played by John Ortiz asks Steve if the Apple Logo is based on the fact that Alan Turing killed himself by eating a poisoned apple and his response is from his direct quote “it isn’t true, but wouldn’t it be great if it was”. The relationship between the various characters is also excellent, such as Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs relationship in terms of building the original Apple 2 computers together and him constantly fighting to get Jobs to recognise and give a shout out to the Apple 2 team despite his not wanting to promote old products and move on, as well as his relationship with head of Marketing Joanne, What particularly sells it is his relationship with his daughter which definitely gave the most character progression over any portion of the film. He starts out in the film in complete denial of her existence but this changes slowly down the line, these are the best portions of the film and despite the fact that most of these scenes are dedicated to the conferences and the launches of the products, there is lot limiting what you can do with this sort of story structure, there are also a lot of flash backs to fill in the gaps, so it never feels like we are missing anything in the story structure. It also helps that these cast members have excellent chemistry together, particularly Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet and as a result this really sells the film Everyone in this film feels like a genuine human being with both positive and negative parts to themselves and it’s mainly down to the fact that the script is very good and they are directed brilliantly.

This film also doesn’t feel too long despite the fact that this film goes on for two hours the pacing is excellent so as a result you never feel like the film is dragging its heels, everything feels relevant. In fact almost every line of dialogue feels relevant by the end of the film and that’s rare in this day and age with many films going through either the instant gratification card or holding too much back. Nothing feels pointless and everything seems to have a need. The film does largely rely on its transitions to be done through stock footage, but it’s actually quite good stock footage even at one point showing a scene from the Simpsons that mocked Apple’s failed early attempts at doing tablets. I’d say one thing I could best describe this film as is ‘it’s a very good character piece’ this is one of those films where an actor can really get into the role and sink his/her teeth into it and I think that’s one of the strengths that Danny Boyle’s direction has brought to the movie. I think this film in the hands of a lesser director would have turned out a lot worse and you can really feel his influence on the film. It’s one of the many reasons why I would consider Danny Boyle one of my 10 favourite directors.

However, this plot would have been nothing without the amazing acting talent in this film. The acting is astounding, no one is giving a bad performance. Michael Fassbender, who really at this point should have an Oscar, gives off another excellent performance on top of his performances earlier this year, in films like ‘Macbeth’, but this one is definitely the hi light. This one must get him an Oscar nomination off the back of it. I would also like to see some other Oscar nominations down the line for these other actors, but if I can go back to Fassbender again for a second, he delivers a performance, which I would say is even better than his performance in ‘Twelve Years a Slave’, granted I think he should have received an Oscar for his performance in ’Frank’, but that beside the point. Fassbender is really becoming one of my favourite actors along with Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy and Joseph Gorden Levitt and this is one of those performances that really makes me remember why. Granted, Danny Boyle never makes him the spitting image of Steve Jobs up until the third act when they start dressing him similarly, but he really embodies the spirit of the man, and that’s what I think really sells it. Kate Winslet also delivers a phenomenal performance as Joanne Hoffman, again, whilst she doesn’t look like the woman featured she does at least embody her personality very well, and she has a decent attempt at a Polish accent, even though at times it is a bit off and I would really like to see Kate Winslet up as Best Supporting Actress in the upcoming Oscars. Likewise I really enjoyed Seth Rogen who I never normally enjoy outside of his Kung Fu Panda performances, however he does a decent performance here. This not another case of a comedic actor trying another over ambitious turn at doing straight drama and I really think he does a good job playing Wozniak. Likewise Jeff Daniels, also delivers. The trailers for this film make out that he is playing a really unpleasant person, but he actually manages to play the role with a lot of different archetypes and he does them all well. Excellent performances are also given by all three of the actresses playing Steve Jobs daughter, Lisa Brennan at various ages and what is amazing is that all three of them feel like the exact same person, there is never a sense that one of these actresses is playing a different character, and for this sort of a film, that is one really great achievement. So definite kudos for all three of them. I also loved Katherine Waterston as her mother Christina, even though she is entirely absent for the third act and I especially thought that praise should be given to Michael Stuhlbarg for his role as chief designer, Andy Hertzfeld, who is also part of the best running gag through the movie where people keep saying Andy is here to see you and he has to keep asking ‘which one’, because two of the main guys at Apple have the same first name. I couldn’t find a bad performance so I tried to find a shaky performance, but I can’t seem to think of one, everyone is very well directed and any film that can make me like a Seth Rogen performance is doing a brilliant job.

Now on to cinematography. This is where the film is also excelling. I’ve talked a lot this year about period pieces having to fight for authenticity, and this film gets it’s authenticity just in the fact that each time period is shot and edited differently. 1984 looks like it’s shot from a film in 1984. 1988 looks like a film shot in that period. 1998 is where that comparison falls down, however, because that just feels like a film shot from anything in mid 2000 to the present day. However, this doesn’t change the fact that this film is excellently shot, I loved the film’s editing and I loved the timing of cuts and the way every scene was shot. This film must have been really cheap to make in terms of location shooting, because the majority of the film is shot in auditoriums and venues designed to hold conferences, so basically you could shoot half of the film in blank sound stages and no one would realise. I’m fairly certain that this film could fall below it’s expectations at the Box Office, but still make back a lot of its money. That doesn’t mean that this film feels cheap though, it’s just the locations blend well to the budget, but the film never shows or even suggests it has a budget constraint. The film also shoots the technology very well and while the writing makes you understand the technology relatively well, the film also takes us through the technology through its clever editing showing each of the processes of these presentations very well. To a lot of people, the cinematography would seem very mundane, but I actually feel that is one of the best shot films of the year because of how subtlety is does things very well. You feel the excitement and the weight of each of these events that the film has built up and the auditoriums feel big with a real atmosphere. Plus the stock footage adds to the authenticity of each time period during those transitions between the various timings, Plus we get tons of references to people like Alan Turing and Bob Dylan who were both big influences on Steve Jobs, as well as some footage of the famous 1984 advert to launch the Macintosh which, simultaneously was largely responsible for why that product failed abysmally in sales.

Steve Jobs is an excellent movie, I absolutely adored it. If this film doesn’t receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, then it’s been a sorry year for The Academy. It’s brilliantly shot, it’s an excellent character piece with some amazing performances from its entire cast, especially Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Jeff Daniels, Seth Rogen as well as Katherine Waterston Perla Haney-Jardine and Ripley Sobo. The first act is really good, the second act keeps it going with excellent pace, but the third act is where everything comes together and you realise what an excellent movie this is. It’s not a very traditionally structured movie and that might turn a few people off and some people may find a few things to complain about, like the historical accuracy, however, whether you go in to this film blind or not, I think you come out enjoying the movie. This is the excellent character driven movie that I have wanted to see for a long time, but has been largely absent in 2015. I do think you should try and see this one in the Cinema before it comes out on DVD. However, if you don’t want to see it right now and fancy a bit of a discount on it, you might be better off waiting until late Jan/Feb/March when the film, if it does get an Oscar nomination, will be likely re-released at a cheaper rate to coincide with the Oscars. But don’t hold me to that, because I don’t know that for certain!!

So, what were your thoughts on ‘Steve Jobs”? Is it the good character piece that I have build it up to be or did you have a different opinion to me? Would love to hear your comments, or you can message me at Twitter under the hashtag Axia Film Society. This week’s question is:

“Which is your favourite of Danny Boyle’s Movies?”

Now it’s time to announce the next film for the Axia Film Society, next week I will be reviewing the conclusion to the hunger games franchise “Mocking Jay Part 2”.

Thanks for reading my review, hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it and seeing as you made it this far, here is the song I was listening to on my way to the Cinema, ENJOY.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“BROOKLYN”

This is one I have had on my review schedule for quite a while, mainly because this film has had serious Oscar buzz since the middle of year. Granted it’s probably because at that point the critics hadn’t really seem many other films to really compare it to that will likely gain Oscar nominations, but it still managed to maintain it up to the point of writing this review and a lot of the prediction sites I use are often fairly accurate, with a couple of exceptions that often surprise people. If there was one reason to really go and see this film, it’s Nick Hornby, who has turned from novelist to screenwriter. You may recognise his novels that have been adapted, such as High Fidelity and About a Boy which he also wrote the screenplay for. In terms of his screenplay writing however, you may not have seen too many of them although if you went to the cinema earlier this year you probably saw Reece Witherspoon’s ‘Wild’ which he wrote. This is another adaptation of Colm Toibyn’s Novel, though I haven’t actually read the novel in this case before seeing the film, so I don’t know how faithful an adaptation this is, so I am going to be judging the film on its own merits on that basis. If you have read the book and have now seen the film, please let me know how faithful it is. I would like to know if it is close to the original book and I definitely wouldn’t mind seeing the comparison between the two mediums. I should also say at this point that if you have a slight interest in seeing this film I would suggest you see the film before reading this review as while I don’t explicitly spoil the films plot I do slightly imply a few things.

Brooklyn tells the story of Eilis (played by Saoirse Ronan) who leaves her family in Ireland to travel to New York and start a new life for herself. Whilst out there she falls in love with Tony (played by Emory Cohen) and they form a very strong relationship which fuels her surge and gets her life in order, however, just as all is coming together she gets some troubling news from her home town and must travel temporarily back to Ireland. However, whilst there, she is charmed by Jim Farrell (played by Domhnall Gleeson) and she now must make the difficult decision of whether she wants to live in Ireland or in New York. Wow, that is probably the easiest plot synopsis I have had to do all year. This is a very basic story that is hardly that original, it’s mainly a romance story mixed with a immigrant coming to America story. Both of which we have seen done several times and there’s not too much separating it apart from those sort of stories. You can definitely tie this back to a few other films that it’s like. However, I do think Brooklyn has some identity to it, mainly in it’s cast of characters, more specifically the Brooklyn cast of characters. I enjoyed most of the characters, but I felt the ones set in the Brooklyn portion of the film were slightly superior to the ones set in the Irish portion of the film and I think it’s because that’s the point of the film that kind of lost me.

Brooklyn has a very strong first half. It starts out well and keeps up the good pace and it does a very successful job of making Ireland and New York look like two separate worlds rather than two separate countries and I will go into further detail about that when I talk about the film’s cinematography which demonstrates this brilliantly. The film definitely gives a sense that Eillis feels like an Irish girl that is completely out of her depth and she associates herself more with Ireland than she does with New York. However, we see her progression slowly but surely as she comes round to the New York way of life, mainly thanks to the friends and loved ones she makes in New York and the first half of this film feels really charming as a result and I was really in to it. True, I have seen this story done quite a few times, however it doesn’t change the fact that this portion of the film is very well written and directed. Then the second half happened! Now the second half of this film is where most of my problems came with this film and it’s the one thing that stops me from saying this is a great movie, I can only say it’s a relatively good movie. The second half deals with Eillis’s return back home for a month, after the dreadful turn of events in the middle portion of the film, so she must return back to Ireland and whilst there, attend a friend’s wedding. The trailers act like she is going to have another romance with the character of Jim Farrell and it’s going to be a hard choice between staying in Ireland or whether to go back to Brooklyn with Tony, who she has fallen in love with whilst out there. However, the film never feels like it’s a hard choice. It more feels like the people in Ireland are trying to force her to stay there almost against her will. It never feels much like there is a choice in the matter especially considering that Tony and Eillis get married before she leaves to go back to Ireland which felt like a massive mistake because, one, it makes the impossible decision to stay in Ireland a complete misnomer and if she had decided she would have come across as a callous bitch. This could have worked if the second romance of the film was done as well as the first one. Tony and Eillis’s relationship is built up over time, we get a sense of why she is attracted to him and the connection that she feels with him, despite the fact that they are from very different cultures. They meet in an Irish bar and he is actually Italian, which as you guess, basically means that Tony is a New York/Italian stereotype. However, he is at least done relatively well and it’s never too distracting. But, the second romance doesn’t even feel like a romance. No offence to Domhnall Gleeson who is an excellent actor and is another of those named actors who I will go and see any film that he is in, but the writing really fails him. Jim is a really bland character, there is not really much to him, if anything he feels more like a plot device than an actual character to actively increase the amount of things we can do in the Irish portion of the film, there’s just not too much to him. We never find out too much about him. There is no real connection between the two, everything just feels forced in this portion. If anything I think you could have possibly eliminated him and it wouldn’t have made too much of a difference. You could have had it that Eillis feels the need to stay in Ireland to be with her family, is she makes that choice it would have at least made sense. There is nothing to suggest that this romance would have worked, but it really suffers in the final portions of the film. I won’t give away the ending, but she does make a decision and it does feel like the right decision by the end of the Movie, but there also feels by the end that there really should’t be much of a question in the matter.

What really make this film good though is the strength of its main character Eillis. The strong cast made up of mostly Irish and British actors really does sell the film, but Eillis is a very likeable protagonist and I think a lot of us would see a lot of ourselves in her. She really sells the ‘fish out of water’ angle and I really enjoyed following her story. It would have been easy to make her a whiney, narcissus, saying ‘why always, me, why do I have to chose, don’t make me choose’ which I have seen so many times in these sort of films, by the way writers “stop it immediately, it’s really annoying’. But this film makes her a strong likeable protagonist who only becomes independent by the end of the film having to work her way towards it. The Brooklyn cast are also made up of very likeable characters. I have never been to New York, but it’s another film that makes me think that I probably should go there at some point because they really make it look cool and the period piece feels very accurate, there aren’t a lot of people talking in modern slang, these do feel like characters from the 50’s. I do suspect a lot was actually cut from the novel because as with any adaptation from a novel to a film has to make some changes, in fact there is a guy on Channel Awesome called The Dom who does a show called ‘lost in adaptation’ who points out all the consistencies and changes in book to film adaptations, which is a series that I would highly recommend and I am probably going to request him to do a video on this so I know exactly where my criticisms are justified or not in terms of this film being an adaptation. However, It doesn’t change the fact that the story just left me feeling cold by the end and it was such a shame as the first half was very strong. I think I’m probably not the target audience for this film, for this kind of story, but I have been going out of my way to really see films that I am not the target audience for this year, and all those stories were more endearing to me than this one was. That’s not to say it was bad, I kind of liked this film overall, but I think, with a few more tweaks, this could have been a ‘near brilliant plot’. I know its second half needed to go to Ireland, there had to be this choice of whether she stayed in Ireland or went back to New York, but it never felt like there was too much of a conflict in the end, plus the Irish characters feel very callous and self absorbed as if they want to force her to stay there. I felt like shouting at the screen “shut up, let her make her own decisions”.

As for the cast, this film is an excellent cast. Saoirse Ronan probably gives the best performance of her career and probably will gain an Oscar nomination on the back of this, I would not object to her gaining that Oscar nomination, though I would safely say that my front runner at the minute for Best Actress is Carrie Mulligan in Suffragette. The Brooklyn cast members are pretty good, especially actresses like Eve Macklin, Norah-Jane Noone and especially Jim Broadbent who delivers an excellent performance even though he isn’t given that much to do, but by far my favourite performance in the film was Julie Walters in an absolute scene steeling performance as the lodger Mrs Kehoe. Fans of Sky 1’s Arrow, will be happy to see Emily Bett Rickards who plays Felicity in this film, seriously, it took me a while to spot her, I had to do a bit of a double take, she does well in the role of Patty, but again she is kind of just a supporting player in this one and when you realize it’s her you also realize her Irish Accent isn’t great though I suspect her character has been in New York longer and picked up an accent. Emory Cohen does an excellent job in his role and works well with the Italian/American cast members who make up his family. The problem is with the Irish cast, which is kind of surprising considering this is an Irish Film Board production. None of them are doing bad jobs, especially actresses like Maeve McGrath and Emma Lowe, but they are just not given good writing, which is a shame because they do deliver some interesting roles. The worst of these was Brid Brennan who is a decent actress I have seen in previous works, but is failed most by the writing, she only turns up a couple of times in the film and her scenes serve very little purpose, she is not really a character she is more of a plot device and the shame of it all is Domhnall Gleeson who is the biggest victim of the poor writing, despite the fact that he is playing his role very well, it’s a shame, he can’t do anything with this bland character. Once again, if you end up reading this Domhnall, this is nothing against you, I really like you as an actor.

If there is one thing to praise Brooklyn with, it’s the Soundtrack. As you would expect, there are a lot of Irish songs on this and the soundtrack feels very, very Irish. It actually kind of reminded me initially of the soundtrack of ‘Song of The Sea’, however, that film had a lot better soundtrack I would safely say and I think that is going to please the fans of animation. That’s not to say the soundtrack is weak. There are some very strong pieces in there and the score is also very well done. The cinematography is also excellent. The cinematography style does have some very slight but noticeable changes when scenes are shot both in Ireland and New York and the cinematography is so excellent it gives off the impression that these two locations feel like very different worlds. Ireland is made to feel wholesome, but backwards, whereas New York is meant to feel for the time modern, but very anonymous with a subtle charm to it, and the film does manage to get its period piece down very well, there is a sense of authenticity and it does feel like the story does take place in the 1950’s. If there is one thing to be said about the cinematography, I felt Ireland does feel like it was shot way too dark and I think they could have got some sunshine and bright colours in there. I have been to Ireland, it’s a very nice country when the weather is good and they have some very beautiful locations, I think they should have done more with it. I think “Song of The Sea” and “The Secret of Kells” both got down the beauty of Ireland with its animation style, but that’s probably a very unfair comparison.

Brooklyn is a very interesting film, I nearly said it was a great film, up until it’s second half which is where the film lost me. I know a lot of people are going to love this movie and will be really happy if it gets a best picture nomination at the Oscars, but I am not going to be one of them. Honestly, by the end of the film I was kind of annoyed that this is probably going to get a nomination where ‘Straight Out of Compton’ isn’t. That being said, this film does have some excellent performances, especially the standouts like Saoirse Ronan, Jim Broadbent, Julie Walters and Emory Cohen, and the cinematography is excellent, but I just would have liked the second half to have been a bit better. If just left me feeling cold at the end. That’s not to say I wouldn’t recommend this film, especially to older audiences and I think this film will gain a bit of a following, but I would wait for this one to come out on DVD.

So what were your thoughts on Brooklyn? Did you go and see it and where your thoughts the same as mine? Please leave something in the comments section or send it to my Twitter account under the hashtag Axia Film Society.

Song of the Sea is coming out soon on DVD and Blu Ray and I would really recommend picking it up when it is available because I think it is an awesome movie and really should be Ireland’s new calling for Irish Cinema and when you do and finish watching it you can check out my review again and leave a comment.

Which brings me on to my question today, bit of a harder one, but I thought I would go with it anyway:

“What is your favourite Irish Film”?

I will include any film that has been written or directed by someone from Ireland.

Now it’s time to move one. On November 20 I am reviewing another film that is likely to receive some Oscar nominations for best picture, the bio-pic of “Steve Jobs”.

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

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“SPECTRE”

Spectre is the fourth James Bond film to feature Daniel Craig in the lead role and also marks the return of Skyfall’s Director Sam Mendes to the franchise, so as you can imagine, I was hooked. Skyfall is probably one of my favourite Bond films and my thoughts were that the team of Daniel Craig and Sam Mendes would hit it out of the park again. The critical reaction at the point of this reviews publication is not entirely certain at this point, mainly because as of the day of publication this film has only just been released in the States. That doesn’t change the fact that this film was hyped up to be probably one of the five biggest releases of the year and for Bond fans, it’s another great excuse to go to the Cinema. So, after all that, how did Spectre hold up to the close scrutiny.

Spectre takes place shortly after the events of Skyfall. After a botched mission in Mexico City, James Bond (played once again by Daniel Craig) is grounded by M (played by Ralph Fiennes). However Bond’s mission leaks the information of a secret organisation called Spectre led by the villainous Oberhauser (played by Christoph Waltz) and their networks run everywhere with the plan of underhanded global control. Now Bond is in the position where he has to put an end to Spectre, which may have further links to his past. Ok, before we get too far into the plot, I think we should discuss the theme song of the film, because that’s the first thing after the first action sequence that we see in any of these films. This time it’s Sam Smith not doing a song named after the title of the film, where this one is called ‘Writing on the Wall’. Now granted, it’s not a bad song especially considering I am not a fan of Sam Smith, but the song does fit the film it’s based on, plus the opening sequence is a rather decent job, even if it does kind of spoil a few things that we are going to see in the upcoming film. That being said, however, I think it’s a half decent song, but after Skyfall by Adele, it just doesn’t quite match up and I don’t believe this will get an Oscar nomination like that one did. In fact that’s really an allegory for the entire film! After Skyfall, this one doesn’t quite measure up. Don’t get me wrong, Spectre is not a bad movie by any means, it’s a good film in terms of plot and what it does well, it does really well.

What the film does well is its overt commentary on global surveillance, mainly in light of several other revelations from cases like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange and it essentially asks the question of how much we are willing to let the National Security Services survey our private lives versus what is done with the information and how much of our personal freedoms we are willing to give up for it. The film never quite fully manages to hit it on every level as say Captain America The Winter Soldier did, with its commentary on drone warfare, but the film makes a valiant attempt and does a fairly decent job with it. This mainly comes about because the 00 programme is potentially being cancelled and the new head of Joint Security Services ‘C’ (played by Andrew Scott) is hoping to have a new global surveillance network put in place with 8 other Countries. The plot also feels very personal to James on a lot of levels, which is what all of Daniel Craig’s Bond films have had in common. This one doesn’t quite measure up in that department, but it still does feel like it’s James’s movie, whereas I thought in a lot of the previous Bond films it just felt like James was going along for the ride and was just doing half of what he did because it was his job! The other part of this plot that I liked was the fact that a lot of the characters that weren’t given as much to do in Skyfall, but showed a lot of promise, like Ralph Fiennes M, Ben Whishaw’s Q and Naomie Harris’s Moneypenny, all are given substantial roles and contribute well to the plot and the promise that was left at the end of Skyfall is very well kept here. I am definitely endeared by these characters, I am hoping that all these Actors will reprise their roles in future Bond films because they are building on these characters very well.

Now I am moving on to my other points, I don’t think the villains are as great in this one. I say villains because I think some of them really hit it out of the park, mainly Dave Bautisa’s silent assassin Hinx who frankly feels like a video game boss fright brought to life and is one of the most relentless characters to face Bond in a long time. This is one cool second in command who can really stand with a lot of the Bond villains of the past. The other villains don’t really feel as good. One of the plot twists is very easy to figure out around the mid way point of the film, but the latter one doesn’t really work, mainly because there wasn’t much to suggest this and some of the identities of the villains in this film may make Bond fans do a bit of a double take and also feels like it’s a concession to older Bond fans. Don’t get me wrong, the villain’s aren’t too bad and their plot is actually quite good for the most part, but yet again, after following Skyfall, it feels like a step down. What’s more, the plot does also bring up a lot of the aspects of more recent Bond films that we felt were finished at this point, there are tons of references to all 3 of the previous Daniel Craig Bond films, even some that we thought were over and done with by the end of Quantum of Solace. Skyfall’s ending suggested that the Bond films were going off in a new direction that looked really promising and by the end of that film I was looking forward to what the future had for franchise, but it feels quite like they don’t want to let go of what these previous films did. Now the previous films were very good, for the most part, though I felt Quantum of Solace was a bit of a let down and a bit of a weak overall film, but that is beside the point. There is just no real reason to continue half of these plots, we can step out of it and go into new territory! That being said, there is significantly less story this time than there was in Skyfall, and I think fans of that film, like I was, may come out of this film slightly disappointed. Pure action fans, however, will get what they need. This film has a plot that drives it very well from one sequence to another, though it does take time to slow down and let the plot build. It had a very similar feel to the previous Casino Royale, mainly in its plotting and the fact that we don’t quite get where the film is going, however, unlike that film, this one doesn’t quite know what it wants to be entirely. It really feels like Sam Mendes has taken time to work on this film’s plot but it also feels like there have been some concessions made from the studio and for this film to seem like a finale in case Daniel Craig doesn’t want to come back and play Bond for the next film. The worst part about this film is one that has been plaguing the Daniel Craig Bond films in particular, ‘The Sheer Blatant Product Placement’, especially for Sony Phones and several Rolex Watches. Aston Martin and Land Rover, both get scenes that look like car adverts and I am pretty sure HP Laptops are everywhere! Now granted, it’s not as bad as Man Of Steel where they were blatant adverts, but this is still something I would like to see less blatantly done.

If there is one thing this film does right, it’s Lea Seydoux’s Madeleine Swann, who is arguably the best Bond Girl in the last 4 films. The Bond Girls in the previous 3 films were good, but they weren’t great. This one is brilliant. I absolutely loved her. Frankly I would like to see her turn up in the next couple of Bond films, and the ending does give us hope that she might turn up in future Bond Films. The ending, however, does feel like it’s finally a finale to all the plot lines that have been dragging over from the previous 3 Movies and it sets up the idea that there could, potentially be future sequels, hopefully with Daniel Craig coming back to play the role. I did say I enjoyed this film’s plot and I would say it works with all the other Bond films, I just didn’t enjoy it as much because I loved Skyfall so much and this was the direct follow up to it. I also think too much of this film has been ruined by its trailer as well which is kind of to be expected.

As for the actors they are all delivering excellent performances. Daniel Craig is once again fantastic as James Bond. He is still my absolute favourite actor to play the role and if this is to be his final time playing the character it’s a shame, but he is going out on a good performance. Lea Seydoux as Madeleine Swann, I absolutely loved her, she is excellent in this role and her performance here has really made me take note of the actress and maybe going to see future films here in, on her name alone. I especially liked Ralph Fiennes in the role as M, he had a tough act to fill with Judi Dench leaving in the last film, but he more than makes up for it and is really coming into his own as M. Hopefully we will get to see more of him in future films playing the character. The same goes for Ben Whishaw’s Q. Q didn’t have as much to do in the first film and as a result I don’t think he was allowed to shine enough. This film gives him more to do and we are really seeing Ben Whishaw put his own take on the character and is a really good choice since the last time we saw Q in any Bond film he was being played by John Cleese who did a pretty good job with the character. Naomi Harris’s Moneypenny, well she is not given as much to do as we might have liked, she probably has as much in her role as she did in Skyfall, she still does an excellent job with her and I am hoping, like Ben Whishaw and Ralph Fiennes, she will be back in the role for the next film, and hopefully given more material. Other actors who do excellent jobs are Rory Kinnear as Tanner and especially Andrew Scott playing C, who while he does risk playing a role similar to his Moriarty in Sherlock does another fantastic job, though his character really doesn’t know the meaning of the word subtlety, though mind you subtlety in a James Bond film! What’s that! In fact that’s another point with these James Bond films, James Bond is not subtle at all the guy has never heard of the term ‘keep a low profile’ my goodness, some of his decisions in this film are dumb. What’s more I really thought Christoph Waltz was going to make an excellent Bond villain. He’s another actor who will get me to see another film just by his name being on it and as much as I enjoyed him in this role, I really think he is kind of under utilised and I think Christoph Waltz is doing his best with the little material he is given to work with. But the standouts for me in the villain department is Dave Bautista as Hinx. I think I was too bad to him when I reviewed Guardians of the Galaxy I didn’t give him the credit he deserved, especially considering on a re watch I absolutely loved his performance as Drax in that film, and he is another one who really hit it out of the park with his silent killer in this film. Dave Bautista is really showing up other actors from wrestling with his fantastic performances and I’m really hoping he can make a decent career out of this, though the only role I know he has definitely got in the future is playing Drax again in Guardians of the Galaxy 2. I will say the rest of the cast do a pretty decent job too, though most of their roles are essentially cameos, especially Jesper Christensen in the role of Mr White, again. So I would actually say this is one of the better casts. I think the only fault in the cast is some of them aren’t given enough material to work with, but Sam Mendes has done an excellent job casting this film and directing the cast to the best of his ability, and he definitely seems to be working very well with these actors. Despite my misgivings I wouldn’t mind seeing him return to direct another Bond film on that basis.

A Bond film is only as good as its action scenes, and once again this film lives up to the absolute high standards that the other films have left. The hand to hand combat is well directed. The car chase in Rome is excellent. The scenes in Mexico City are brilliantly action packed and incredibly well shot, especially early scenes to make the whole opening sequence look like it was done in one take, with a few cheeky cuts that you will probably be able to spot more on a rewatch. The gun fights are pretty good and film is overall well shot for its action scenes. The only down side is the over reliance on CGI. Now granted the Bond films have always had a bit of a problem with this since CGI has become common usage, but with films like Kingsman and Mad Max Fury Road showing how good a job you can do with practical effects, and practical action sequences, this one does kind of feel like it’s trying too hard by instigating too much CGI, but luckily the CGI is integrated very well. This film also has another issue, that I think it was meant to be in 3D. I know there were a lot of shots that look like they were tailor made for 3D movies, especially in the beginning, but it looks like they may have shot the film to be in 3D then chickened out at the last minute. Now as someone who is a bit half and half on 3D I’m not sure whether I’m actually happy or upset that this film might have chickened out on it being 3D, but as it stands, this film looks pretty good. The shots are excellent, especially the on location shots like the scenes in Mexico City and Rome in particular, and I would say this films cinematography shines brilliantly and that’s thanks to the terrific editing, even though it does occasionally cut too much during the action scenes and as a result it can make some of the scenes hard to follow. It shows how good Sam Mendes is doing as an action Director.

Is there a major negative to Spectre? Not really a major negative, I just think the plot wasn’t quite as good as Skyfall and made a few too many retrospective continuity changes to what we have established so far in the Bond films which doesn’t bother me on too many levels. Spectre is a pretty good film, it’s just not a great film and fails to live up to its predecessor Skyfall in a couple of ways, mainly in plotting and its villain department. However it delivers some excellent action and while the plot might not be great it’s still pretty decent. I also think the acting in this film is excellent and we have had one of the best Bond Girls in a long time. Everything you would expect from a Bond film is pretty much here and Bond fans will eat this one up with all the others, just don’t expect for this one to be on the top of your list in your next Bond marathon. When I reviewed Kingsman ealier this year I said I was worried I wouldn’t be able to take Spectre seriously but that really is not the case though I did prefer Kingsman overall I would recommend actually going to see this one in the Cinema, This will take a while to come on DVD and I don’t think you should wait that long. But don’t go in with really lofty expectations like I did, because it won’t quite match up to them and that’s a mistake because it’s actually a pretty good film when you really look at it.

So what are your thoughts on James Bond’s latest film? Does it match up with mine or are your thoughts contradicting to mine? Please leave a comment in the comments section, or if you are on Twitter send your Twitter comments to me under the hashtag Axia Film Society, or you can answer this weeks question, which is:

“What is your favourite James Bond Film, and which is your favourite James Bond Theme”?

While I can’t say off the top of my head what my favourite James Bond film is, it’s probably a close call between, Goldfinger, Thunderball and Skyfall, I will say that my favourite theme is “Golden Eye” by Tina Turner. So I am really looking forward to seeing what yours are.

Now it’s time to move on. The Awards season has just started up and I am kicking it off by reviewing a film which has had serious Oscar buzz for most of the year already, the latest adaptation of Nick Hornby’s novel “Brooklyn”.

Thanks for reading this review and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you haven’t heard Sam Smiths Bond Theme and you want to comment on what my thoughts are on it, I will leave a link to it below.

Thanks very much.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“CRIMSON PEAK”

Crimson Peak is the latest film from Mexican director Guillermo del Toro whose previous credits include Pans Labyrinth, The Devil’s Backbone and the Hell Boy Movies and this film was meant to mark his return to Horror. The film received quite a lot of advertising, mainly suggesting this was meant to be the main Halloween Movie to see this year and I wouldn’t be surprised if several people end up going to see this film this weekend as part of a special Halloween treat. Del Toro, though while he is a great director, also spawned a lot of copycats which have usually been very inferior and have also been quite blatant in how much the director wanted to be Guillermo del Toro, most inevitably in films like 2011’s Intruders. Me personally, I was kind of excited to see him back in the Directors chair because this is the first Horror film he has directed in a while, having recently directed Pacific Rim which I personally kind of enjoyed. That and the trailers were edging this up to be a good ghost story, though I was talking with someone at the last post diagnostic support group meeting and they informed me that they had heard the film had been grossly mis-advertised from the trailer, so I was having some doubt going into the film. Well, I went in and saw how it held up and I realised afterwards that this was going to be a hard film to review.

The plot of Crimson Peak focuses on aspiring writer Edith Cushing (played by Mia Wasikowska) who after the death of her father Carter Cushing (played by Jim Beaver) marries Sir Tomas Sharpe (played by Tom Hiddleston) and moves with him to Cumberland in England to live with him and his sister, Lucille (played by Jessica Chastain). However upon arrival Lucille starts seeing ghosts and realises that the house is haunted and there is a deadly secret to the estate. This is why the film is going to be hard to review, the plot section will probably be quite short for this one, because I really don’t want to spoil the plot for anyone who hasn’t seen the film and it’s very difficult to talk about this film without giving away too much. Nevertheless I do have to talk about the plot and the one thing I will say about it is Crimson Peak is trying to be several things, a gothic horror, a gothic romance and a mystery thriller among other things, and while it doesn’t fail at any one of these, it doesn’t actually succeed at any of them either. What I mean to say is the film is semi competent at each of the elements.

The film starts off with a young Edith being visited by the ghost of her mother shortly after her passing telling her “beware of Crimson Peak”, though unfortunately most of the plot around that thing is never fully realised. For example how does Edith’s mother’s ghost know what’s going to happen there’s no explanation given. The rest of the ghost story is done pretty decently but it doesn’t entirely work, and one of the criticisms around the film is absolutely right, the ghosts really don’t serve much significance by the end of the movie and again this is a real struggle because if I go into any further detail, it will ruin the plot of the film and there is a decent plot. This isn’t really from the romance segment of the film which I think is actually the weakest portion of the film, mainly for the fact that Mia Wasikowska and Tom Hiddleston don’t have amazing chemistry, but just enough to get us through the film and maybe because it is the most poorly written part of the film. This really, at the end of the day is mostly a mystery thriller and even then, that portion of the film isn’t fully realised, mainly because I personally figured out where this was going really early on! The film borrows a lot of elements in how its mystery is solved, in fact part of the solution you can trace back to a Scooby Doo cartoon, and I’m not even joking anyone who has seen Scooby Doo on Zombie Island will figure out part of the plot from this! While none of the elements of the film are bad and the plot is not bad per say because none of the elements are fully realised the film never feels like a satisfying whole, it’s just a lot of very good ideas which don’t quite make it. That being said, I was hooked with this plot and wanted to see where it was going even though I did actually technically guess where it was going. The film tries to misdirect you but doesn’t work out half of the time, although I was caught out by one of the misdirections. There are a couple of plot holes that I noticed and I think in a re-watch I might notice a couple more, particularly considering that very early on in the film Edith’s father Carter is killed and no one ever questions either of the Sharpe siblings despite the fact that they have the most to gain out of his death.

The film’s horror elements want to build tension but it never fully succeeds, in fact I was expecting this film to have much more psychological horror, but it’s really more jump scares and the fact that they have a special effects budget in order to scare you. It feels really disheartening that Guillermo del Toro, a guy who does horror very well has kind of fallen into the trap of doing these. I keep telling people, jump scares aren’t scary, they’re startling, they are cheap, lazy and they don’t make for good horror films. I really want directors to cut this out sooner rather than later!

If there is one thing the plot does well, it’s the characters. The characters are fully realised, fully developed and do a decent job, in fact that and the actors who have been chosen to play these parts are probably what holds the film up because otherwise the film’s plot is on quite rickety foundations. This easily could have fallen in to, what credits refer to as ‘an idiot plot’ where the plot only exists because the main characters make absolutely stupid decisions. This one does not fall in to that trap for the most part, however, it does have its stupid moments every so often. You do wonder how no one questions Edith’s sudden marriage and her moving from America to England just like that. You also have to question why the Sharpes’ still stay in their Hall considering it’s crumbling to pieces. The film does provide a solution to that one, however, I wouldn’t exactly go around calling it a solution considering it doesn’t fully explain what’s going on, though to be fair, there is a solution to that one.

Guillermo del Toro clearly took a lot of influences when he made this film because there are a lot of references to classic horror films. The fact that Edith’s surname is Cushing is more than likely a reference to well know horror actor Peter Cushing and there are references to things like Frankenstein as well as some other early Victorian ghost stories as well as some ghost hunting terms, like what I believe is called Eidetic Photographs, basically it’s that one where someone sees something that is smudged on the camera and they believe it’s a ghost! You see all those documentaries on Living TV like Most Haunted that purport this rubbish!! I also got a sense that Guillermo del Toro based a lot of his ideas and the design of the house on Robert Wise’s ‘The Haunting”, the 1963 version, not the awful remake in 1999, particularly in the scene where Edith is trying to have a ghost hold her hand to state its presence.

If you are at all curious, my advise is to go into the film blind because it will mean that the plot twist can unfold slowly but surely to you. I really hope I haven’t spoilt the plot with anything that I have said in that segment.

As for the cast, that is where this film is really excellent. These guys deliver excellent performances and I think the performances do make up for a lot of the holes and the rickety foundations that the plot is based on. Mia Wasikowska makes and excellent lead as Edith and plays an interesting strong minded woman and probably one of the better female leads I have seen this year. Tom Hiddleston’s casting definitely made sense because I think they want to give similar effects to what Martin Scorcesse did on Shutter Island where to keep up our suspicions with different characters he cast every other actor as an actor well know for playing villains. But with Tom Hiddleston being given that role thanks to, in a large point him playing Loki in the Marvel Movies it would have helped the situation if they had been more ambiguous about his motives, which doesn’t help the fact that the film spells it out early on, again I won’t go into too many details to avoid spoilers. However, he does play his part relatively well and I can’t go into detail about him as it will spoil the plot and it’s really, really annoying because I want to talk about what a good job he did. Charlie Hunnam does a decent performance as the Doctor who is a friend of Edith and starts investigating the situation after Edith leaves America for England, but I feel he is rather under-utilised up until the climax of the film. The same can be said for Jim Beaver who people will recognise as Lawson in Breaking Bad and Witney Elsworth in Deadwood, however, he is not given much to do despite the fact that he does give a decent performance in service of his character. The biggest weakness is the fact that they really are the only supporting players in the film. The rest of the cast don’t really leave much of an impression on the film because they are sort of there and then they are gone. The biggest stand out performance though is Jessica Chastain as Lucille, she is creepy in this film and she completely makes the film, stealing every scene from everyone else. From all the films I have seen this year so far I really think she should be up for Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars next year. She is absolutely fantastic, and honestly, I couldn’t believe it was her, because she is really playing herself against type.

If there is one thing this film does excellently, it is its cinematography and design. This is one of the best looking films I have seen in 2015 outside of an animated production. It’s absolutely fantastic and I really hope it gets a lot of nominations at the Oscars in 2016 for the technical categories. The house has an amazing gothic design and there are tons of beautiful colours throughout the house. I get a sense that this is the sort of house that Guillermo del Toro has wanted to design throughout his entire career. What’s more the ghosts have amazing designs as well, they are appropriately creepy, are very cool special effects and even though they are CGI they do blend into the background very well. These designs are so good they wouldn’t look out of place in a Silent Hill game. The film’s sound mixing and music score are also excellent and the score particularly, fits the film perfectly. This is what makes the film, and another one of the reasons that I can’t say this is a bad film. If there is one thing I don’t like about the presentation, however, it’s the over reliance of the colour red in everything. There’s red paint, red wine, the Sharpes’ make their money through mining red clay, there’s red liquid all over the house. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that this is a symbol for blood, even when it’s not actually blood. Now granted it’s not as bad as in the film version of ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ where it was obnoxious, pretentious, over used and didn’t actually add anything to the film, the red is appropriately foreboding, but after a while you say ‘cut it out, we get it, some people are going to die, if some people haven’t died already’!

Crimson Peak is a very decently made movie. it’s hard to discuss it without giving away tons of the plot twist and I will say I was gripped, even though I don’t think the film fully realises what it wants to be. I can recommend it as a good gothic story though I would give a word of caution that just after you have seen it you realise that it wasn’t that good even though you are gripped whilst watching it. The thing that really keeps this thing going is the great cinematography, the design, special effects and the cast, particularly Jessica Chastain who, as I mentioned earlier, I rally want to see nominated for an Oscar next year for this role and I hope the film gets some other nominations for the technical categories. I can recommend it, though I would say, wait for this one to come out on DVD and if you are not completely sure about it, rent it first before you buy it.

Guillermo del Toro has done a decent movie, but it’s definitely not up their with his classics like Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Back Bone.

So what are your thoughts on Crimson Peak guys? Are your thoughts similar to mine or do you have a difference of opinion? Lets get a debate going in the comments section. Please leave something in the comments. This week my question is:

“Which film do you prefer, Pans Labyrinth or The Devil’s Back Bone and why”?

I look forward to hearing some answers on that one.

Well October is nearly over so lets move into November, but before I start on award season I am going to be reviewing the latest film from Mr Bond, James Bond. On 6 November I will publish my review of “Spectre”.

Thanks for reading my review and I hope you had a good Halloween if you are reading this after Halloween. If you are reading it before stick on a good horror movie, Nostalgia Critic gave 11 recommendations last year that I can easily recommend. Track one of them down, I will leave a link to the video below.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“PAN”

Because everything needs a prequel or a re-boot now, why not do it with Peter Pan? In all honesty I was actually kind of looking forward to this film this year because we haven’t had a live action Peter Pan film for quite a while and putting this film out there would mean that TV channels will re-run Hook again and that is one of my favourite Robin Williams’ performances. I was prepared to see this film when it was supposed to come out in the Summer then at the last minute it got pushed back to an October release, likely because Warner Bros were fearing competition from films like Jurassic World, Inside Out and Ant Man which were due out at the same time and be able to take advantage of a similar market. I know that sounds cynical, but I have heard of studios delaying films for even more stupid reasons and it felt very much like a similar parallel to last years Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which I reviewed for the site which was also a Summer blockbuster that changed it’s release date to half term in October in order to avoid competition and I think everyone who has read my review of this film last year know my thoughts on that waste of time!!

Nevertheless I had my tickets and I chose to see it upon it’s actual release. This film did receive several preview screenings in select Cinema’s but I wasn’t able to attend them for reasons of reviewing Dragon Ball Z and The Walk as well as catching up with films that came out while I was away on holiday, which meant unlike I usually do for these reviews, I heard some critical feedback from this film because it was almost impossible to avoid and the critics were savaging this one. However, I did go into this film with a completely open mind and I have been disagreeing with the critics at certain points of the year. Unfortunately, this is not going to be the case this time, I am definitely agreeing with the critics, but stay with me, I will state my case!

The story of this prequel is that 12 year old orphan Peter (played by Levi Miller) is captured along with several other orphans and taken to Neverland by pirate Blackbeard (played by Hugh Jackman) in order to mine out fairy dust after Blackbeard’s campaign destroyed all the fairies. He, however charters an escape with Hook (played by Garrett Hedlund) and challenges him to meet up with the natives who are charging a rebellion against Blackbeard led by Tiger Lily (played by Rooney Mara). It’s up to Peter to prove that he is the chosen one in their legend and to once again become the champion of the fairy kingdom, which may not necessarily be as gone as we first thought. As you can tell from that plot synopsis Pan is really not original in any way, shape or form, but that wouldn’t be too bad because it is based on a prior source material which I won’t claim to have read anything of, but this really fails! There are two things that are very clear from watching Pan, 1, it’s meant to be a franchise starter and 2, the writers are clearly trying to turn Peter Pan into an epic, which it really isn’t. Peter Pan is really meant to be a fun, swashbuckling adventure and it doesn’t ever really feel like that. I drew a lot of parallels to this with Tim Burton’s version of Alice in Wonderland because they feel very similar in a sense of both films take a relatively simple and easy to tell source material and over complicate it to absurd degrees! Who’s watching Peter Pan thinking we need stories or warring tribes, the chosen one’s prophecies and an all out war for the fate of Neverland, it just doesn’t fit at all. In fact nothing in this fits at all.

The film starts out absurdly with Peter dealing with an evil Nun called Mother Barnabas played by Kathy Burke who is so ridiculous you would swear she is just basically an evil version of Brendan O’Carroll’s Mrs Brown. She is absolutely ridiculous, this is the sort of thing you wouldn’t be able to get away with in the 90’s because it would have been considered a cliche then. It’s 2015, not to mention it doesn’t really help the fact that this film takes place during World War 2, a setting that was already used in the Disney sequel Return to Neverland and was used a lot more effectively then. It kind of screws up your hopes of a sequel which would be more faithful to the original book if the prequel is already taking place before the time period that the book takes place in. (again, I’m making assumptions there, I haven’t actually read the book, but from what I can gather the book takes place before World War 2). You can usually tell when a film sinks and it’s normally at the middle point of the film, I knew this film was doomed from the middle of the first act, when all the people in Blackbeard’s mine, a part that has been shown in the trailer constantly, all started singing Nirvanah’s, Smells Like Teen Spirit, why? The song is completely out of place, feels really weirdly put in there and we are never given a reason for it, with the villains forcing people to sing this, you completely take any threatening nature that they possibly have out of it and later they do the Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop during an execution scene, WHY? Both of these songs are about disenfranchised youth of their individual periods, but this isn’t even of the period that the film takes place in, these songs won’t be written for decades. Was this for the parents who are bought along to watch this because they are all going to be like me and putting their palms on their heads as soon they hear this!! Now the villains not being threatening would have been fine, if they could have been fopish and comedic like the Disney version and to a certain extent Hook, but they don’t even manage that. They try to be both threatening and comedic but they don’t manage to achieve either, they just hit some weird middle ground that just doesn’t really work. In fact Blackbeard being the villain is really absurd because he acts just like an additional Captain Hook, you could have literally just called him Captain Hook and it would have made no difference. He acts and behaves just exactly the same, in fact he behaves more like Captain Hook than the actual Captain Hook! These characters are all completely different to what they would be in any other adaptation. The only ones that come out even remotely close to their original characters are Smiegel played by Adeel Akhtar and Tiger Lily, but while she is mostly as we would expect the character to be, the script does fail her on quite a few occasions and I think this is down to the fact that three of the four roles that are heavily promoted are horrible miscasts, but I will get on to that later. Hugh Jackman’s Blackbeard is a really weird design, for some reason this year Hugh Jackman feels the need to castoff his typecasting and play villains like he did in the previously released Chappie which came out all the way back in March of this year and like that one he really doesn’t make a good villain. I really don’t know who is giving Hugh Jackman the advice to play villains, but he is not very good at it. Go back to being Wolverine, we all liked you then. When your best moment of 2015 is your short audio cameo in Me Earl and the Dying Girl you know you haven’t had a good year!! The design of the character is just ridiculous, they make him wear this really fake looking wig that constantly gets knocked off and he also has a terrible moustache and beard that also look really fake, they are meant to be real in the context of the story! What’s more blatant is he’s not fleshed out at all, we are never given much of a clue about why he wants to exterminate the fairies or take their powers, or whatever he wants to do, I don’t know, they don’t even explain that! They give some hints that it’s for him to rejuvenate himself, but they never really go into much detail about it. Hook is also really not in character and his inclusion as an ally to Peter in the film really doesn’t work and it’s a major trait of what I like to call the prequel traps. These are things that prequels use when they think they are being clever when actually they are just messing us around until they actually get to the point where we are at the first film. We know that Hook and Peter are going to become enemies and if he doesn’t betray him by the end of the first film he is going to do it in the upcoming sequel so it just feels really pointless. Mind you we don’t see anything of what we would expect of Hook in this incarnation and I think Garrett Hedlund even realises it, he doesn’t even get anything really fun to do this time, he is just sort of there. Then there’s Peter himself. This is a Peter that has clearly been bitten by the modern troubled hero virus. This has got to be the first Peter Pan film where he hardly smiles, granted he is looking for his mother throughout Neverland so there is more of a personal reason for Peter to be involved with this film, but there is nothing of the fun loving nature that the character can bring. Not even addressing the whole ‘you never have to grow up in Neverland. It is never addressed and I am not joking, there is not one reference to it in the film!! You would have felt one of the most important parts of the original story would have made it into the film, but NO, it is never addressed! And there is virtually no character development at all throughout. What’s more Neverland is not fleshed out enough either, which would have been fine in a traditional Peter Pan story, but they are aiming for this to be an Epic and you can’t have things be this vague in an Epic! Who wrote this prophecy, why are the warring tribes. The explanations they give are at best are vague and at worst non existent and is especially confusing considering there are people of various ages all wondering around Neverland, again this wouldn’t have been an issue in a traditional Peter Pan story, but this one is aiming to be quote on quote ‘a bigger story’! What astounds me though about Pan is that for a film with so many set pieces and cool locations and believe me there are some amazing designs in this film, it all felt so boring. The film feels very lazily written. It just feels like they are laying down the groundwork for a traditional family adventure film without anything to separate it apart. It doesn’t even feel like it related much to the Peter Pan mythos. There are only a few things that occasionally will turn up to remind you this is supposed to be a Peter Pan story. If someone told me that this was a film that wasn’t going to be commissioned until the end of Peter Pan licence, it wouldn’t surprise me. It’s just really really dull and there was nothing really keeping me invested. There were several moments that were meant to be heavily emotional, but I was so bored with these characters, I felt nothing for them. I really wanted to because there is actually some decent talent working on this film, particularly the fact that the film is directed by Joe Wright who previously directed The Atonement adaptation and this film again feels very similar to his adaptation of Anna Karenina in a sense of it looks really good but there are a lot of issues with the substance when you get below the amazing designs. However this film is much worse than his Anna Karenina adaptation and I think the most baffling thing about it is, the fact that I get a sense that this feels more like Warner Bros trying to capitalise on a new franchise, but I suspect that this one won’t do too well at the Box Office and probably won’t warrant any sequels.

As for the Actors, they’re not great. Hugh Jackman really doesn’t find his villain in this film and he really isn’t that great at it, but I won’t go into too much detail. Garrett Hedlund is horribly miscast in a bland role that does absolutely nothing for him and he looks unbelievably bored throughout most of this film. I did enjoy Adeel Akhtar as Sam Smiegel even though his constant side changing throughout the film did get rather annoying and Rooney Mara drove in a decent performance as Tiger Lily even if she is slightly miscast (and not just in the fact that it’s white actress in the part). Most of the supporting cast are actually fairly decent, even though they are barely given enough to do, but again I think most of these problems are script issues. I have already given my thoughts on Kathy Burke, but nowhere is that more apparent than with Levi Miller as Peter Pan. Let me make one thing clear, Levi Miller does not give too bad a performance, I actually think he would make a very good Peter Pan in a faithful adaptation. In the last ten minutes when this film finally gets its identity that’s something remotely close to Peter Pan and actually does something decent, he is really good in the role. He is just completely failed by this script, and he is a pretty decent young actor. I really felt for him because I think he deserved a better movie and his performance is the only reason I would consider seeing a sequel if this film ever got one, because I want to see him do a traditional Peter Pan.

Now lets talk about the film aesthetically. I am going to mention this straight away. I saw the film in 2D, the 3D performance at the cinema in my area were way too out of my schedule so I couldn’t see them, and I will say this right now, I think this film is probably going to play better in 3D than 2D. Many of the effects are clearly designed for the 3D showings and are very much at the expense of the 2D screenings, which means I think this film is not going to have a strong life on DVD. I have always said 3D is very good but don’t have it be at the expense of people who haven’t got the ability to see it in that format. As much as I would recommend the 3D version is probably better, I’m still not sure after reading this review I would be willing to pay close to £40.00 for a whole family to gain 4 x 3D glasses and tickets for a sub-par movie, so frankly as much as I think some of the film’s effects are at the hinderance of the 2D version, I would still say don’t bother spending too much money on this film’s 3D version, especially considering that the 3D glasses help towards the film’s Box Office taking and frankly I don’t want this film to succeed at the Box Office. What’s more the CGI really varies. It goes from some absolutely brilliant CGI that brings to life some incredible design choices to some really awful ones. Especially the Neverbirds! They look like they would be rejected from a Play Station 2 game, that’s how bad rendered they were and the design choice also was awful. In fact let’s get into some of the designs. Neverland looks really good in this version. There are some cool ideas like ships bouncing between massive bubbles in the sky, the mine while completely out of place in the Neverland story at least looks desolate and foreboding and I did like the village in the Fairy Kingdoms. In fact the designs are so good they really deserved a much better movie for them. It doesn’t change the fact, however, that this film looks like it was almost entirely shot in front of a green screen and I think people are beginning to get tired of that. What’s more, there are a lot of things that aren’t put to brilliant use and that’s mainly at fault in the action scenes. The action scenes again vary from the pretty good like some of the fights between Tiger Lily and Blackbeard to some of the ones that are not that well shot! Ok the Trampoline flight was completely ridiculous but this is especially evident in an earlier fight between a Spitfire and a Flying Pirate Ship which as awesome as that should be, it’s so poorly shot and cut that it is very difficult to tell what is going on. This also throws up a massive issue because the ground forces completely acknowledge now that this is actually happening, which means there is virtually no chance that Neverland is just made up of children’s dreams like other incarnations have suggested. I think the biggest problem though is the fact that these action scenes are not done to the best degree, in fact Peter doesn’t really contribute to many of them. Granted it would have been very difficult to train Levi Miller to do actual combat with Hugh Jackman and it had the propensity to go horribly wrong, but I still think there are ways that could have gotten around it and it takes away from the swashbuckling adventure that this is supposed to be, but isn’t. Who doesn’t remember some of the comedic fight scenes from the Disney version, or Hook. Man, I am trying to find some positives here, but the only thing I am getting at is that the film has some cool designs and I kind of like this version of Neverland, too bad the rest of the film is just not there!

Pan isn’t the worst film I have seen this year, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s not very good at all. The characters don’t feel recognisable or endearing. The plot is really too over complicated for what it is supposed to be and never really feels like a Peter Pan film until the last 10 or 15 minutes and it’s plagued by some horrible miscasts! It really feels like a giant missed opportunity because I think this generation is ready for a good Peter Pan story, but this really doesn’t work and will likely sink the character for quite some time. Warner Bros are clearly intending for this to be a franchise starter, but this is such a lazily put together family film that I don’t think it will endure any sequels, this really felt like a get them in, get them out movie and the only thing it had going for it was the fact that the film had a well designed version of Neverland. That is it! The rest of the film is a drag and it feels incredibly boring to sit through and that’s saying a lot considering this film has a fight scene between a Spitfire and a Flying Pirate ship. How do you make that boring?? Oh, and whoever suggested putting Nirvana and The Ramones into this movie in the way they did, really needs to rethink their line of work!

This really does feel like the sort of film that would come out in January rather than half term if you do have kids and they can’t wait till December for The Good Dinosaur or March for Kung Fu Panda 3, take them to Hotel Transylvania 2. while it’s a downgrade from the first it was at least more entertaining than this ever was

So what are your thoughts on Pan, have you been to see it and did you agree with me? Remember to leave a comment if you have an opinion on this film and remember, go back into some of our archives. Our archives have all the films I have reviewed for the site. Maybe you have bought something on DVD that I have reviewed earlier this year when it came out in the cinema.

I’m not going to leave a question this week; instead I am going to simply ask what your thoughts on Hook were. I prefer that movie miles more and it is one of my favourite Robin Williams’ performances. I would really like to hear other peoples thoughts on that film as well, even if they don’t match up with my own.

Right, next Friday we will be one day away from Halloween, so it needs to be a good horror movie or a ghost story, so on October 30 I will be reviewing Guillermo del Toro’s “Crimson Peak”.

Thanks for reading this review, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed making it, despite the fact I had to sit through an awful movie to do so.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“THE WALK”

The Walk is the latest film from the Director Robert Zemeckis whose previous credits include Castaway, Forrest Gump and the Back to The Future Trilogy, so with a resume like that, you know you are in for what is potentially a very good time. The Walk was actually one of the films that I was really looking forward to this year especially around the beginning of the summer when we first started seeing trailers for the film, even though they didn’t actually show much of what was to be expected. The trailer was so effective that when I went to see Ant Man with Dr Buchan who has a bit of a fear of heights, she actually couldn’t watch the trailer in 3D and had to look away, oh and she has made me promise that I am not allowed to play the film anywhere near her when it comes out on DVD! On the day of this review’s publication the film will already have been out for over two weeks and that means that a little late to the bat, however I was determined to review this film, especially with the fact that this has now gone much more wider with its IMAX 3D screenings, its first week having it reduced to a few select cinemas, which is rather baffling to me because upon this film’s release there didn’t appear to be that much competition around for the IMAX screens apart from Everest which already was nearly a month old and that’s about the time the IMAX screenings stop and they start with something else.

So, how does the final product hold up?

The film takes place in 1974 and tells the true story of Philippe Petit (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who travels to New York with several accomplices in order to fulfil his dream, walking a tight-rope between the then incomplete Twin Towers which would be the highest high rise walk in recorded human history. He takes several accomplices from France and America in order to pull it off, however, with the fact that this act is, well, highly illegal, they had to plan carefully and fight tooth and nail to pull it off. The film is based on an entirely true story, in fact the screenplay written by Robert Zemeckis along with Christopher Browne (making his screenwriting feature debut having previously only directed shorts) is based on the book ’To Reach The Clouds’ by Philippe himself. The film does have a sense of authenticity especially considering half the film is narrated by Joseph Govdon-Levitt playing Philippe which did feel very similar to some of the famous lines from Forrest Gump. Robert Zemeckis’s films are known for having memorable characters like Marty McFly and Doc Brown in Back to the Future as well as Chuck Nolan from Castaway and I think Phillipe stands in that league. The film really gets down what a mad daredevil Philippe is, but despite the fact that you would never dare attempt half of this stuff in real life, unless you had a death wish, you completely understand his point and are almost driven to join him in it. For the record ‘Do Not Actually Try This In Reality’, because in reality you would probably die. Now we have the legal mumbo jumbo out of the way, now on to the review.

Philippe has a line where he says ‘why would you risk death’ and he says, ‘I don’t see it as death, I see it as living!’ That one line pretty much sums up the film completely. The only negative I would say in the narrative department is the fact that the film never truly achieves an authenticity of the time period it is based on, apart from some the equipment used, particularly the walkie talkie’s used in a couple of the scenes setting up the actual tight-rope walk. Thats the only real negative I can say for the film, it’s actually a rather fantastic narrative that really drags you along and pulls you with it. Robert Zemeckis has directed this as being basically a ‘heist movie’, although, instead of an actual theft going on at the end of the movie this builds to the major performance or the titular Walk which is built up big time. In fact with the various characters and accomplices being introduced in the way they are and the various roles they play, it almost feels a bit like Oceans 11 at times. Each one of them definitely brings something to the role, however a few of them feel a bit under utilised. The only one who gets a major amount to do is Jeff (played by Cesar Domboy) who has a fear of heights and has to overcome this throughout the film, which means you do have to ask fully, ‘why would you hire a guy with a fear of heights’ to do the highest tight-rope walk ever!! The rest of the cast are slightly under utilised but not completely forgotten and you get a sense of dedication that goes into each of the roles. I think if some people are expecting Ben Kingsley to have a large part in this film they are going to be sadly disappointed, whilst he is very good and supports a genuinely authentic accent, which is to be expected from Ben Kingsley, he is not in the film for large periods of time, playing Papa Rudy who’s Philipe’s mentor in the high wire walking. The film also escalates and builds to that event and it does this almost expertly. There are some nice, funny charming moments such as Philippe’s early performances and learning his trade, to making his anarchist friends in France and following the twin towers construction, building on his dream to hand his high wire. The build up to the walk has some nice interesting moments and if the film had only focussed on the walk itself it would have probably sunk the movie because by that point you would have been so bored it would have been brilliant just to finally get to the walk. This film, thankfully, avoids that track and points out that there were other aspects that made this an incredible true story. This is definitely a movie that you will feel charmed about while watching it and you also get a few funny moments in there, not that two other people who were in the cinema with me actually laughed at much!! The only thing I would have said against it, was that the film feels rather quick paced, but then again I think that potentially it’s to the film’s benefit, because it doesn’t overstay its welcome and could have easily padded out the running time unnecessarily which probably would have sunk the film and you would want to say ‘please get to the walk already’!!

The film comes in at 123 minutes and I think that’s a perfect amount of time, any longer and it would have risked sinking the movie. The walk itself is the hilight of the movie it is one of the most tense things I have seen in a cinema, period. You will seriously get vertigo watching this movie, mainly down to the film’s fantastic effects, which I will go into later. I know the film is based on history, so obviously they had to have the tight-rope walk act the way it did, but you will be almost screaming at the screen for him to just get to the other side and get back on safe ground as he takes the biggest risk of his life and the walk is a massive pay off, especially considering Robert films it from several camera angles which adds to the full effect and that coupled with the film’s excellent editing really sells it. It’s not the only moment in the film to try and give you vertigo, but I will go into that later. In short, I absolutely love the plot of this movie and I think that’s down to the fact that these were excellent, excellent characters based on some pretty extraordinary people and I really enjoyed being in their company, in a manner of speaking. Not to the same extent of Pride, but still.

The film bills itself as being a portrayal of an incredible true story and it doesn’t disappoint in that manner and while I think the pacing may get a few people and I’m not sure its going to be for everyone, I think this plot line will go down well with most people, especially the people who enjoy heist movies like Ocean’s 11 and even the previously reviewed Ant Man which this has a very similar feel to this.

If I am to discuss the actors I really would like to talk about Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Last year in my first review which was Sin City 2, (please don’t read that as I hadn’t found my style yet and I was still working out the kinks) I said that Joseph Gordon-Levitt had become one of my favourite actors and I was rather disappointed to find out that this was to be his only performance this year, having not known that ‘The Night Before’ was coming out in December, which I probably won’t watch. I would have to say that if he took time out to concentrate on this film, then I am really glad that he did because he really knocks another one right out of the park. He seems to be excellent in almost every role that he has. I loved his roles in Lincoln, Looper, The Dark Knight Rises and especially in The Wind Rises and Dom John, he really takes his roles to another level and I really think the man deserves an Oscar at some point to validate what a talent he is. I’m really looking forward to him playing Edward Snowden next year. I hope Philippe enjoyed this portrayal because in my opinion he does an excellent job especially considering he’ also serving as our narrator, telling his story from the top of the Statue of Liberty, as you do! His French accent does sound slightly stereo typical, but he does the french dialogue expertly and if you couldn’t tell who he was you would have sworn it was a French actor playing the role. This really is a French film in a sense because most of the cast are French and playing French roles. There’s the previously mentioned Cesar Domboy who also brings out an excellent performance, as well as Canadian actress Charlotte Le Bon who does an excellent role as Philippe’s girlfriend Annie, even though I do feel she is slightly under utilised. That’s the real down side to the cast, they do feel slightly just there, they are all fantastic in their roles, but this is really the Joseph Gordon-Levitt show, Steve Valentine playing the cameo as the inside man of Barry Greenhouse notwithstanding. I’ve already mentioned what my thoughts of Ben Kingsley were so I won’t go over that again but needless to say, the cast really pull their weight and it’s definitely an interesting ensemble piece. That’s what I would be saying if Joseph Gordon-Levitt wasn’t getting most of the screen time, but he is really worth it as the main character and he gives an excellent performance.

The effects are what really sell this Movie. I am going to get this right out there immediately, I did see this film in IMAX 3D. The 3D was really heavily advertised and we were being told this was the 3D experience of the year and I can guarantee right now “This is the 3D experience of the Year”. This is one of the few films that I have seen where the 3D actually enhances the film, and if you can see this film in that format, I would urge you, go and see it in 3D. The film, right from the start knows that it is a 3D Movie and it is shot in the correct fashion, and while the film does resort to a few gimmicky things flying at the camera shots it’s more used to give off subtle effects, such as objects being in the foreground and background adding an extra dimension to several of Philippes acts as a street performer in Paris and most importantly it adds an extra dimension of height which really adds to the effects. This is a film which will really give you vertigo because the effects really make you feel the height. I haven’t been this scared of heights in a film since Patema Inverted. All the 3D would have been for nothing if the film wasn’t expertly shot, which it is. The film is superbly shot and edited making the 3D work very well, in fact the first portion of the film feels like a slight homage to early cinema and especially early French cinema. Rather similar to Martin Scorcese’s Hugo in a sense. As for the walk itself, it is one of the tensest moments in the cinema, you really feel like this man is on top of New York and they do an excellent service to the Towers themselves. The film, rather tastefully doesn’t actually mention 9/11 apart from one subtle reference at the end of the movie, which I think is actually a good idea, because what the film does brilliantly is that is shows that the towers meant something and they shouldn’t just be associated with the one event and it wasn’t just associated with 9/11 and I think it’s good to remind people that there was more to them than that and maybe that we should look at them and say, yes it was a tragedy but there was a man who tempted fate just to put on a show for people. As for the walk itself, I have never had a better sense of height than in this film, you really will just be saying “Please, please get to the end of it, I can’t stand it any more, this is mental” and when he does this walk, you feel like you are on top of New York with him. I don’t want to give away too much more about it because I think it’s best experienced, but believe me when I say that this has some of the best cinematography in anything that I have seen this year.

The Walk definitely comes highly recommended by me, I absolutely loved this film and I think it’s definitely up there with some of Robert Zemeckis’s best work. It had an excellent performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt, some absolutely brilliant effects and is one of the few films that is actually improved by 3D. This film is not all style over substance and anyone worried about that should lose their worries immediately, they are purely there to effectively tell an incredible true story. You could read the biography this film is based on before going to see this or the good documentary Man On The Wire, but like most true stories, I would actually recommend that you go into it almost blind and then find out the facts after the film. This is one I am definitely not going to forget for a while and neither will you if you go and see it.

What are your thoughts on The Walk? Did they match mine? Please leave your comments and if you want, please answer this week question, which is:

“Which one of these Robert Zemeckis’s films is your favourite? Back to the Future, Forrest Gump or Castaway?”

I think I can predict the answer to this one, but I will be interest to see what people pick.

Now we are back in full swing, let’s move on. On 23 October I will be reviewing the film which so obviously was meant to be a summer blockbuster, but then got pushed back to half term to avoid competition, next week it’s Peter Pan Origin Story “Pan”

Thanks for reading this review, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“DRAGON BALL Z: RESURRECTION F”

I love Dragon Ball Z. It was one of my favourite shows when I was growing up and I watched this show religiously when I came back from school. It had some brilliant fight scenes and excellent plots, I’m not going to act like it was perfect but it was just what I needed and it was one of the first shows where I really cared about the characters and how things were going to turn out. It was one of my large introductions into Anime! The franchise unfortunately went into a bit of a dread for a while, not helped by the fact of the awful western live action film Dragon Ball Evolution directed by James Wong which practically killed the franchise! However in 2014 the franchise was brought back with Dragon Ball Z Battle of Gods acting as a marvellous anniversary movie and the first time that the original Manga creator Akira Toriyama had returned to the franchise. I even mentioned it briefly as an honourable mention in my Top Ten Films of 2014, not quite making the list due to the fact that it was such a crowded year for good films, but it nearly made it! I was really looking forward to this film which was built as an event for all Dragon Ball fans and the perfect follow up for Battle of the Gods. So how did Resurrection F stand up when I finally got round to seeing it and by the way there may be spoilers for Dragon Ball fans although I will not be spoiling the plot of the actual film I am reviewing.

The plot of the film is fairly simple. Frieza’s lacky Sorbet (played by Jeremy Schwartz) has travelled to Earth and used the Dragon Balls to summon Shenron (played by Christopher Sabat) in order to use the wish to revive Frieza (played by Chris Ayres). Now Frieza goes into space and trains up after being revived, with one goal in mind, to exact revenge on the Saiyan’s, responsible for his death and blow up the earth for good measure and Goku and Vegeta (played by Sean Schemmel and Christopher Sabat respectively) must reach new levels of power in order to defeat him. Yes, this is a film with surprisingly little plot, it’s a direct follow up to Battle of Gods and I think anyone who hasn’t seen that movie may be slightly lost, if not completely lost, especially considering that those films kind of changed what was and what wasn’t continuity anymore, completely eliminating the sequel series, Dragon Ball GT, but while it’s a slight detriment to the film, I do think it is in some way accessible but it also coasts on the fact that you have watched most of Dragon Ball Z particularly the seasons labelled The Frieza Saga and The Beginning of the Android Saga, the former of which when Frieza was the main villain. This film, unlike its predecessor, does not give much of a back story to it and just naturally assumes you are a Dragon Ball Z fan, though frankly, this late in the game I don’t know who else is going to be seeing the film so I would hardly call that much of a detriment. I must say, I did enjoy the plot. Frieza is my favourite villain from Dragon Ball Z so I was super hyped to hear that he was going to be the villain again in this film and he was prominently featured in the advertising campaign so we were going to get a kick out of seeing him back in this film and while I’m glad he is back, he’s not entirely there. The script definitely gets down his ego and his complete need for revenge, but they don’t get down the real genocidal maniac, which was brought down by his own ego as it was in the series. I just felt he was slightly lacking, despite the fact that he has a new transformation. In fact let’s get in to the new transformations because they have also been heavily bigged up in the promotion of this film. Akira Toryama has created not only a Golden Frieza as an extra power up for the villain but he has also created new transformations for both Goku and Vegeta. Goku in the last film was able to get up to achieve his new power up the Super Saiyan God, but now they have managed to upgrade themselves to Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan and the power up looks really cool, even though, as Frieza points out, it’s basically a Super Saiyan with blue hair and the major plot problem is the fact that we don’t see their transformation into this or what led them to this transformation. The other big transformations were major character moments for people to watch, everyone remembers when Goku first went Super Saiyan and I still remember the sacrifice and torment Vegeta went through when he reached the same level, yet these transformations are just sort of, they are there, they just somehow achieved it in the downtime between films!! Now granted the opening film does show that after the events of Battle of the Gods, Goku and Vegeta went to train in martial arts with Whis in order to improve their skills and it’s naturally assumed that they reached their level during that time, but it would have been nice to have seen a scene of it. This is another point where my criticism makes me seem like I am more harsh with this film because in truth I really enjoyed this film.

The characters are there even if the cast size has been shrunk and a lot of the better fighters are not called in to deal with what is frankly ‘A Massive Crisis’!! However, the good argument would be that unlike Battle of Gods which managed to get all the cast in, this one, by shrinking the cast, allows them to actually do more on screen rather than just be there for the sake of being there which was one problem that Battle of the Gods did kind of have. But I would have appreciated some of the stronger fighters getting involved in this like Buu or Gotenks . That being said, Akira Toriyama knows how to write their characters and he really does this expertly. The characterisation is down completely and his writing is what really makes this film’s plot work well. The film bounces great action with some excellent humour, which let’s face it, Dragon Ball Z has always been well known for. The film just doesn’t have that many excellent character moments, which Battle of Gods did have. There are some good character moments here and there, but I would still argue that it just doesn’t quite measure up. The film banks on our nostalgia for the series, which is admirable, but we have already had that with Battle of Gods, it needs to move on and do something else. Battle of Gods introduced us to some new characters and kind of shook up what we knew about Dragon Ball up until that point. Resurrection F doesn’t really do that and it just kind of feels like a stand in to keep the fans busy while Dragon Ball Super is being made. That being said, it’s still a very good stand in. The fight scenes are still good which is what we want from a Dragon Ball movie and I would hardly say I wasn’t entertained by this movie, this is one of the most entertaining experiences for an Anime fan this year and it really sells its premise very well. The characters that are there are done very well and are given time to shine. The only exception to the rule is Gohan, yikes, I really hope this is not an indicator to what the writers have planned for him in Dragon Ball Super! The guy who once was one of the strongest fighters on earth has now really been dragged down half a level and it’s really perplexing as it almost seems to me that the first few seasons of Dragon Ball eventually leading up to the Cell Saga were built on the idea that Gohan was going to take over from Goku as the guardian of the Earth and the writers, ever since, the end of the Buu Saga have really forgotten that and it has really demoted the character and it’s a shame as he really was one of my favourite characters in the whole series. The only other character complaints I had are that the Frieza force aren’t really interesting like the Ginyu Force or Zarbon in the Frieza Saga. There is one guy who has a good fight with Piccalo but he really doesn’t do much at all. The characters that are done the best and given the most to do are Goku and Vegeta, especially Goku,but then again, this is a Dragon Ball movie, so what were you expecting. Their characters are done perfectly. They are both very different, yet very similar at the same time, they both push each other to each be their best and I can’t complain about anything involving them in the film, they are both very good. The only other negative I can really bring up about this film, is the film’s ending, without giving anything away, it’s rather a bit of an anti-climax, nothing is really gained by the end of the film. Battle of Gods had a very interesting ending which did an interesting thing to Goku’s character. Resurrection F doesn’t really have this and I think that is where it is lacking the most. It really hits the same notes as Battle of the Gods and as a result is it very enjoyable and entertaining for Anime Fans on that basis, but without that it just doesn’t work. The films when played together do work perfectly well, in fact I actually watched Battle of Gods right before I caught the train to go and see this movie, so the first film was incredibly fresh in my mind and those two would make an excellent double feature, which is good because, when the film does come out on DVD in Feb 2015 it will be offered as a double disc edition with Battle of the Gods and if you haven’t got that first film I would actually recommend buying both. Those are its only major flaws, as a positive, this is really what most Dragon Ball fans would want and it does deliver on a lot of fronts, I really am being too harsh and that’s because Battle of Gods was so good, it was probably the best film to come out of this franchise and believe me there are a lot of films in this franchise!! This film really was entertaining. I saw it in a largely packed cinema and everyone one was clearly having a good time, we all quietly jumped for joy when the best fight scenes happened and we all laughed at the funny moments. I think a film is successful if it just manages to entertain you on a basic level.

The acting segment of this review will be short because really there is not really much to discuss on that front. It’s most of the cast from Dragon Ball Z Kai, returned to reprise their roles in this film, so if you enjoyed them in that season, you likely will enjoy them here. Hi-lights of the film as expected are Sean Schemmel playing Goku, who once again is almost the perfect voice for the character and Christopher Sabat, who has to play 3 roles as Vegeta, Piccolo and Shenron and he is perfect in almost all of them, even if it’s getting to a stage where it’s kind of interesting to see his voices overlap between the characters. I also enjoyed Jason Douglas as Beerus who along with Whis, played by Ian Sinclair are now becoming some of my favourite characters and I think the actors are really delivering their roles perfectly. No one is really delivering a bad performance; the only exception to the rule for me is Christopher Sabat playing Frieza. Now granted Chris is a very good choice to play the character and he plays it well, it’s just that I don’t think he has quite the same effect that Linda Young and Pauline Newstone brought to the role and I really think those actresses brought the role to life and really made him my favourite villain from the franchise. That is more of a personal preference, Chris still gets down the ego maniac and I think it’s more down to the fact that Frieza isn’t given much to do, since he hasn’t got much of a goal in line unlike the Freiza saga when he was trying to get the dragon balls in order to make himself immortal, so he’s not allowed to be the genocidal maniac he was in the season when he was the main villain. It’s all I really have to say about the cast. They all do an excellent job. Oh and it’s great to see Kyle Herbert back as Gohan who is once again an excellent choice to play the character. I don’t have a negative thing to say about any of them. They all do very well and the cast is very large, so listing them all would just take too much time, trust me, if you liked them before, you will like them again and whichever issues you had with the cast beforehand in the previous season will still be there now.

Now the animation on the other hand! That’s where things get a bit tricky! This film has some of the best animation that Dragon Ball franchise has had in a long time, following on from Battle of Gods, however, it’s also inter-cut with a lot more 3D and computer animation. This I feel is largely due to the fact the film was intended for a 3D version in Japan which hasn’t made it’s way over to the USA or UK and it’s very noticeable where those moments were meant to be. I would have just liked it if those moments were just slightly more toned down although I do believe the 3D would have worked well because of it. None of it is just ugly, it’s just doesn’t mesh as well with the beautiful hand drawn animation which has been lovingly crafted for this and looks amazing. The characters get very few re-designs although I did enjoy Golden Frieza and the Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan designs of both Goku and Vegeta, both of which are given an expression of power The only design I wasn’t happy with was Gohan’s tracksuit, for the love of god, get him in his martial arts outfit!! I know his character gets time to do some bad ass things, but it’s kind of toned down when he is in a tracksuit and wearing glasses! The animation also doesn’t repeat itself a lot which was a common complaint about the series and that really aids the fight scenes, which are choreographed fantastically. Granted though, it’s based on the nostalgia of the old Goku versus Frieza fight from the show, which this doesn’t really live up to, but that was a series which had time to build up the tension and slowly escalate as the fight went on, waiting for you to see where it would go, in fact the fight in total lasted about 4 hours. That being said the fight between goku and Frieza is a real highlight of the movie You could see this and this film’s predecessor and you still would have time to see an hour of the fight scene. None of the fights looked terrible they are all brilliant which is exactly what you want from a Dragon Ball film, and believe me, it works very well. Speaking of things that work well I really liked the soundtrack while it doesn’t contain Flow’s version of Cha La Head Cha La but the songs are still really good particularly F by Japense Metal band Maximum The Hormone which I really wanna see nominated for best original song at the 2016 Oscars.

Dragon Ball Z Resurrection F is a really good time for Anime fans. I would really recommend it, though I would only recommend it to Dragon Ball fans at this point because you really need to have the back story to know what is going on, particularly to fans who saw the previous film Battle of Gods, which I must be honest, I do think is a superior film out of the two as it had a better plot and was a more fitting tribute to everything that is great about Dragon Ball. The only thing holding this one back is that it had slightly less plot and a bit of an anti-climax and less character moments which I think is down to the less experienced director, but that’s not to say it’s bad. It’s really entertaining and that’s down to it’s excellent animation, fight scenes and great dialogue, and if that’s all you need from a Dragon Ball film then I would really recommend this one to you. I reckon you won’t need to have seen this movie to see the up-coming Dragon Ball Super when that eventually gets an English dub. The film’s out on DVD and Blu Ray in Feb 2015 so it’s worth picking it up then, especially if you didn’t go to the Cinema to see this because you insisted on seeing the Japanese version. It’s not a perfect film, but it is a good film and my opinion probably sounds a lot more harsh than it really was. Honestly is was just great to see a Dragon Ball Film in a cinema that wasn’t Dragon Ball Evolution!

So what were your thoughts on Dragon Ball Z Resurrection F. How much did my opinion differ with yours. Please leave a comment, or answer my question for this week which is:

“What is your favourite moment from the entire Dragon Ball franchise?”

Now that I am fully back, it’s time to move on to my next film review. Come back on 16 when I will be reviewing what has been labelled the 3D event of the year Robert Zemeckis’s “The Walk”

Thanks for reading my reviews and I am sorry there has been a long gap!! I will try not to have such a long gap in the future!!

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“THE VISIT”

This is the latest film to be directed by M Night Shyamalan, and to be honest with you I’m surprised this man has a career, let alone a new movie coming out. Shyamalan has made tons of rubbish in the past, a lot of people like Signs, but personally I never really got into it, The Village was awful and Lady In The Water was really arrogant, those were bad but it was the three films which he made between 2009 and 2010 which really sealed his fate. Not only did he make The Happening which was probably one of the dumbest and most idiotic horror films I have ever seen, he also produced Devil, which took a brilliant concept and ruined it by adding several supernatural elements that weren’t necessary and a plot twist which made absolutely no sense, and if that wasn’t enough, he took one of my favourite cartoons with Avatar and adapted it into the god awful Last Airbender movie, which on every level cemented Shyamalan’s name being a joke!!! He later returned in 2013 to direct After Earth, which was terrible, but I can’t fully blame him as it was very clear that this was a Will Smith vanity project for his son and that he was clearly just a hired gun.

I went into this film thinking that this was never going to succeed, especially as the trailers really didn’t win me over. I would also argue that this is one film to really skip, but I decided this was probably the film I wanted to review because this was the first time that Shyamalan had complete creative control since The Last Airbender, considering in this film he has both written the screenplay and directed the film.

The plot of this film is that two kids, Becca and Tyler (played by Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould) go to visit their grandparents (played by Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie) for the first time, after their mother (played by Kathryn Hahn) had a falling out with them several years ago after leaving them to marry their father who has subsequently divorced her. The kids go to their remote house in the middle of Pensylvania. They start to have a good time, however, their grandparents warn them they are not to leave their room after 9.30, but after they start breaking that rule they notice that there is something terribly wrong with their grandparents. It was kind of good to see Shyamalan return to horror, this is definitely where his bread and butter lies and it makes sense that he will be better at this than directing action films, which is where his last two movies lay. But Shyamalan is also tackling un-chartered territory with this film, because this film is a found footage movie, which is a very difficult thing to do. I am going to get away from the plot briefly to discuss this since the found footage aspect of this film is where I think this film fails the most. Now granted the plot does give a decent reason for the characters to be recording everything with their cameras, however Shyamalan clearly doesn’t understand the found footage concept fully and as a result he ends up cheating it several times making you wonder why this film wasn’t just shot as a straight horror film, I don’t think it would have been any the worse for it. By cheating, I don’t mean that he gets several camera angles he couldn’t possibly get or that he creates several edits that couldn’t possibly be edited together, the film’s ending makes it very clear on that point. It’s not like The Gallows where it’s meant to be police evidence, the kids are making a documentary for their mother. The downside is the sound. Because this is a found footage there are several lines of dialogue that they couldn’t possibly pick up that get picked up and there are pictures on the screens like the skype conversations that they have with their mother couldn’t look and sound as good as they do. Shyamalan also gets several shots that clearly haven’t been recorded on either of the kids cameras! How are they getting this footage and editing it into the documentary? That being said, however, of the four found footage movies I have seen this year, the others being The Gallows, Project Almanac and the previously reviewed Unfriended, this one at least knows what it wants to be and has some decent characters and acknowledges it’s a movie. The characters really work in this film for the most part, to the sense of, they are not dumb characters like most horror films tend to bring out, they are at least smart and somewhat competent. The downside is that they do tend to fall into a lot of the Shyamalan traits of having hokey dialogue and more quirks replacing actual character, luckily Shyamalan has managed to tone it down a lot for this. He still has characters talk into the camera way too often, but at least the found footage gimmick allows there to be some excuse for that. There is, however a major disadvantage from its outset that most of its first 15-20 minutes are largely exposition as in the characters never stop expositing about the plot. Fortunately Shyamalan has learnt his lesson from the Last Airbender and this is not the entirety of the characters dialogue and we do get some character out. The grandparents have to be appropriately creepy and Shyamalan nearly gets this right on a lot of his ideas of what to do with the found footage gimmick. The downside is, he doesn’t get it right all the time, and this is a horror film that will have you laughing a lot more than you will be scared! My cinema screening was almost full and we laughed a lot more than we ever got frightened. Most of the scares are jump scares which I have said time and time again, jump scares aren’t scary they are just startling! This one, however, actually does build up tension and atmosphere and some of the night scenes are fairly decent. A couple of these scenes start when they hide the camera downstairs to get some of the footage of their grandmother at night which are really creepy, I am not getting that image of her in front of the camera out of my head! When she discovers the camera, the tension builds as to whether she will just outright kill the grandkids. The film will keep you also very invested. I was invested to see where this plot was going, and really I knew it was in aid of a plot that wasn’t really working but it does build up enough questions which for the most part do receive some answers, However this is not entirely successful, how do I put this? This film does follow up a lot of Shyamalan’s traits that don’t really work and there are quite a few plot conveniences that tend to happen that do undermine the film, but for the most part it does build very well. Honestly it reminded me of a Goosebumps story a lot of the time

The plot, just doesn’t work as a whole, it nearly hits it on several moments and builds up intrigue, but the rest of the film just feels like a massive chore and we just want to get to the major plot points, and to be honest I really found the character of Tyler to be potentially annoying at times. Its major fault is really its dialogue. Shyamalan has never been a great dialogue writer and it’s not improved here. I really get a sense, especially in the first 20 minutes that he has never had a conversation with another human being, granted this has been a common criticism with most of his films but I would like to have thought that he would have improved by now. But for all this film’s faults, the dialogue being probably the worst aspect of the film, where this film truly succeeds is in its climax. My goodness this film has an excellent climax that builds tension perfectly and has some of the film’s scariest moments. As usual, Shyamalan has a plot twist here, lets face it, it’s a running joke that Shyamalan’s films have a plot twist in them and this film is no exception. However, unlike his previous films where the plot twist is idiotic and has actually undermined the film up to that point, this one actually rewards its viewers and rewards repeat viewings. The plot twist actually makes sense, not entirely, there are still a lot of questions that remain unanswered by the end of it, but I’m certain there are a lot of plot holes that a repeat viewing will get right, but for what it’s worth, it really does work. Which is a lot more than I can say for most of the previous plot twists especially the twists in films like The Village and Signs and especially The Happening! The grandparents are appropriately creepy but they also turn on enough charm to make you wonder how much is true in the kids heads, especially considering that the grandfather does offer some very reasonable and rational explanations to the audience.

The film’s trailer is kind of a lie on a lot of levels, it doesn’t really make that much sense what I mean by that, unless I spoil the plot, which I am aiming not to do because I do think this film does have something going for it, in fact it almost makes it past the finishing line. This plot almost fails on too many levels for it to really work completely for me. I’d like to believe this is Shyamalan being turned down by the producers of Insidious, but I am going to give him credit where it’s due because I think he has learn from a lot of his mistakes which the credits have been pointing out. Credit where credit is due, I didn’t come out of this film hating its plot like I was expecting to.

Now for the actors. There is not a lot to really talk about here considering that most of the time we are stuck with 4 people. The actors do a pretty decent job. Olivia DeJonge who is arguably the lead actress in this film does a decent job in her portrayal and sells both the fake documentary and the scenes where she is just holding the camera whilst acting normally with her brother. Honestly, I really think she does a pretty decent job and I wouldn’t mind seeing her go on to other films on the back of this. Ed Oxenbould is ok as Tyler, but I would hardly rate him that high, he suffers the most from Shyamalan’s direction in this film and I think on a couple of levels his character deserves a bit of a re-write. He plays a character with a germophobia but it’s only brought up a the beginning and plays a part in the middle portion of the film and at one point during the climax, but it just feels like a missed opportunity on a lot of levels. Plus whoever told this kid to rap I will personally track him down and subject you to my alarm clock at three in the morning as payback for having to listen to that!! His attempts at rapping are easily the worst part of the entire film and it doesn’t help that he is encouraged to do it over and over again. Peter McRobbie who many will remember from playing a judge in Law and Order as well as his roles in Lincoln and Brokeback Mountain will be happy to know he is similarly really good here. Considering how much Law and Order I watch I was worried that I would struggle to separate him out from the character, however, he hits his part fine and actually plays it very well selling the creepy nature. But if we are talking about creepy, Deanna Dunagan plays her role fantastically. Out of all the creepy characters in Shyamalan films she is by far the best in a long time and I think Shyamalan really hit his stride in his direction of her. I am never going to trust anyone over the age of 70 again after her performance, especially her scares when she is up close to the camera. I was watching it going please get this woman away from me!! the other characters are mainly playing throw away roles, for example Kathryn Hahn who appears to be doing a Lauren Dearn impression throughout most of the performance is rarely in the film except for interviews for the documentary being made and for various Skype chats whilst she is on holiday, these scenes are fairly decent enough but she doesn’t leave much of an impression. The same can be said for other people who do a decent job in this film, but they are barely on camera for that long. The only one who really leaves much of an impression is Celia Keenan-Bolger who plays a throw away role as a woman who comes to visit the grandparents who apparently helped her through her rehab, oh and as usual M Night Shyamalan does have a brief cameo in the movie, which is getting a bit annoying at this point, you are not Alfred Hitchcock!!

I think the cinematography and presentation section is going to be short in this review because I really got down most of my thoughts on the found footage gimmick in the early portions of the film and as I mentioned before, it doesn’t fully work and I think this film could have worked had it been a normal film, however Shyamalan does get the writing correct and he doesn’t do a terrible job with the found footage gimmick. In fact, the last portion of the film is where the found footage gimmick really pays off. The most major issue I have with most found footage films, is that they don’t tend to have an ending, this film does have an ending, unlike most films it doesn’t just stop and I am going to give Shyamalan credit for that. But flee the credits, for obvious reason, don’t stick around for the credits, anyone who has seen the movie will know what I mean!! (Not going to mention what it is to avoid spoiling the movie for those who haven’t seen it) The film does do excellent cinematography for the most part and I would argue that this is probably one of the best found footage films of a long time for its cinematography, however, this comes at a price, which as a result it has had to cheat with the found footage gimmick in order to get that, so it’s a double edged sword which has managed to stab Shyamalan in the back unfortunately. Also this film not only has the Universal logo, it also has the title card and opening credits so Shyamalan is not trying to suggest to shoot this as if this is for real, he’s clear from the start that this is just a movie and that also takes away from the found footage effect because it means we can’t separate out the fiction from the realistic camera footage.

I will never forgive M Night Shyamalan for The Last Airbender but I have to give credit where credit is due, The Visit is not an awful movie. I went in planning to hate it and I actually came out saying that this is at least a decent movie and I will stand by that. It doesn’t work as a whole, it fails too much on the found footage gimmick, the characters dialogue is terrible, the performances are pretty good, if a bit of a mixed bag and this film will elicit way more laughs than it will scares and I won’t say Shyamalan is back on form, but for all it’s worth this is probably on the whole Shyamalan’s best movie since Unbreakable and that’s mainly down to its plot twist that really supports the movie that came before it.

I wouldn’t recommend seeing this one in cinema, I’m not sure it’s really worth it and this is probably a rental as soon as it comes out on DVD, but for what it’s worth I would at least say it’s a half decent movie and it’s worth checking out on some level, mainly for the performance of Deanna Dunagan.

So what were your thoughts on The Visit? Was it M Night Shyamalan making his comeback or is he still completely off the rails. Let me know in the comments section or if you want to submit your own content to the site, such as poems, reviews of films you like/dislike, or book reviews, we will accommodate it. We are even looking for some Art Work, visit our how to submit section and I am sure we will get it sorted as soon as possible on our site.

Now I was going to ask my question for this week which was going to be

“What do you think is the worst M Night Shyamalan Movie?”

However I’m going to put that question to one side for now as I am about to go on my long holiday.

Unfortunately that does mean that there won’t be a review on the site until 9 October but I do feel I need some down time. However I still want to keep tabs on what is going on and I won’t have internet access for long periods of time and I need your help to figure out what to see on my return. So my question for this week is:

“What film that came out between 17 September and 1 October should I see?”

You can leave your answers in our comments section or if you have Twitter Tweet me at @atkinson_calvin with the Hash tag axiafilmsociety. You can pick, good or bad, I will promise to see the film which gets the most suggestions. There are a couple which should be discarded though and they are ‘Everest’ which I saw last Saturday at a special preview screening at Liverpool 1 and also please discard Dragon Ball Z Resurrection F because that is the first review when I get back. Please also discard ‘Legend’ as I have seen that. So any others will be welcome suggestions.

As I mentioned before the next review will be 9 October and is “Dragon Ball Z Resurrection F”. if you plan to see my review you will have to look it up on Manga UK’s website it’s only playing in select cinemas on 30th September and 2nd October mainly the Empire and Showcase cinema chains. Sorry I am away for so long but I will be back in full force until Christmas.

I thank everyone who reads my reviews and for supporting me. I hope you get as much enjoyment out of my reviews as I do.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON”

Now I’m not really a rap fan I’m much more of a heavy metal person, in fact I saw this film the day after I came back from a heavy metal music festival in Germany. My current taste in rap is purely ‘epic rap battles of history’, but I do have a soft spot for the late 80’s rap, I just think there is a sense of authenticity there that I think has been sorely missed from that genre and this film, directed by F Gary Gray was going to document one of the most influential music groups to come out of that period NWA. Everyone who knows me will know that this is not really the film for me, but I was won over by this film’s trailer and definitely wanted to review it, in fact the only reason this film review is rather belated from its initial release is purely because it was pushed back on its release at the last minute, I was meant to be reviewing it in the week I reviewed Pixels. Nevertheless I’m here to see the final product which I believe could potentially have some Oscar buzz.

Straight Outta Compton’s plot documents the true life story of Ice Cube (played by O’Shea Jackson Jr), Dr. Dre (played by Corey Hawkins) and Easy-E (played by Jason Mitchell) who use rap music to escape from their home town of Compton by forming Rampage Records with DJ Yella (played by Neil Brown Jr) and MC Ren (played by Aldis Hodge). However, their career is not smooth sailing as they are constantly being threatened by the police, federal government, gang members and are constantly dealing with the dodgy dealings of the record company and their manager Jerry Heller (played by Paul Giamatti). I really don’t want to give away much more of the plot than this as this is really a film that you should just go in and experience and like a good bio pic you can enjoy this film without knowing too much about the rappers. There has been some controversy with the film white washing several parts of the bands history and yes, if you know anything about this band’s history you will be aware of a few things being white washed from this film. That being said, however, much like Captain Phillips and Saving Mr Banks, what has been left out does not equate to this film being bad or not entertaining, far from it! It also doesn’t mean that the band haven’t aired some of their dirty laundry, the band members don’t come out looking great by the end of this movie, but I’m not surprised some things have been left out, considering several of the band members are credited producers of this film.

This film has a 2 hours 30 minute running time which may seem daunting to most people, but unlike many films that last 2 hours 30 minutes, particularly the films that tend to be contenders for best picture at the Oscars something I’d like to see the Oscars move away from, Straight Outta Compton knows how to use its time effectively. The first 30 minutes of the film are really dedicated to giving you a sense of the environment of the rappers involved to give us an idea of the influence of their sound, including gang violence, copious amounts of drug culture and the horrific amount of abuse performed by the systemic amount of racism in the LAPD (to which there have been protests from the LAPD in regard to their depiction). The film doesn’t stick there too long and later moves in to the band’s success especially with the success of their debut album which the film is named after. It does show how excess can get to people and seriously affect them, particularly in the latter portion of the film, but despite the trailers, the film does not largely focus on the excess except for the middle portions of the film, it more shows that the group are being very serious about their music, again, not surprising considering several of the band members are credited producers. It also doesn’t help that the group are surrounded by people that aren’t that good for them. Paul Giamatti’s Jerry Heller starts out seeming like he is out for the group but then you slowly begin to question what his motives are as the film goes on, I don’t actually know how close this is to how it played out in reality, but I’m taking it for what it’s worth. Dr Dre doesn’t help himself out by surrounding himself with dubious gangster Suge Knight played by R Marcos Taylor who starts out with his dubious bodyguard business but then later breaks off with Dr Dre to form Deathrow records and not to mention the record owner label who screws Ice Cube out of his money. It definitely shows an ugly side to the music industry both on the excess level and behind the scenes of how the companies themselves work. This probably would have been more surprising in the 80’s when there was less known about this, but now it’s a fairly well known fact that most record companies are basically run by ‘blood sucking vampires’! This film could have made a major mistake of focusing on purely one of the rappers and leaving the others to one side, which the trailers suggested it was going to do for Ice Cube, however Dr Dre and Eazy-E both get a ton of time devoted to them and the film balances the three of them perfectly, thus making the film a really strong ensemble piece. The film expertly knows when to focus on which rapper and how long to do it, we are never left with one person too long or too little.

The film also used its time brilliantly to show tons of messages, for example, it also suggests the idea it’s not always necessary to believe the press hype around the music, again, the people are shown to pre judge NWA despite the fact they are not aware of their surroundings and this is reflected on when Ice Cube says at a press conference when someone questions whether his lyrics are glorified gang culture, he replies that ‘their art is a reflection of their surroundings’. This is particularly reflected when the band is harassed outside their own recording studio by the Police and after the fact, record the song ‘F@£$ the police’. Yes, if there is anyone who comes out looking really bad in this, it’s the American Cops, which given the current climate on gun control in America at the time of this review going out, is not brilliant timing. There is also a brilliant line later on in the film where Ice Cube says ‘speak a little truth and people lose their minds’, which also perfectly reflects one of the messages of the film. The film also suggests the idea that people aren’t defined by the area they come from. Yes, they do indulge themselves in lots of rubbish, but, Dr Dre, later when he gets fed up of everything says ‘we could have done this s@£$ in Compton, we’re not there anymore’ suggesting that these guys didn’t want to stay stuck in that mind set. I would also suggest to people that are dismissing this film before they see it, which ironically is a large portion of the film’s message, this film is surprisingly emotional when it needs to be, especially around some characters dying and you really are upset when this group can’t work out their differences. Again, this won’t be too much of a surprise to anyone who is familiar with NWA’s history. As a whole it had a really, really brilliant ending and you come out feeling for these people who you have seen put their heart and soul completely into their music only to have it tainted. As I said, I don’t want to give away too much of this film because I think it’s best to just go in and experience it, but as the plot goes, I didn’t expect it to go into the regions that it did, as it doesn’t just document NWA’s career, but also documents the solo careers and various record labels founded by the individual members of the band. I would genuinely advise people not to look into NWA’s history before seeing this film, especially considering the film perfectly conveys that when this band were at their height they were considered the most dangerous group in America. Granted there has always been a band or a singer labelled as the most dangerous things to our youth since insert topical band from 10 years ago But it really conveys it well, particularly when they have the scene of the live show in Detroit where the band was famously arrested for going against the orders of the Detroit City Police and performed the song ‘F@£$ the police’. The plot does have a few issues, it tends to meander along at times and the film also tends to repeat itself quite a bit and I would be lying if I didn’t find the film slightly misogynistic towards its female cast (though I feel this was done to keep accordance with the true life story), but overall I really enjoyed this plot and I was able to really overlook those flaws completely. Almost completely!

Now I mentioned this film is an ensemble piece and it has an excellent cast to it. O’Shea Jackson Jr aka Ice Cube’s son is playing his dad in the film and he is excellent at it, he is the absolute spit of his dad and the make-up effects to visibly age/de-age him throughout the film were excellent. Likewise Corey Hawkins and Jason Mitchell are also spitting images of Dr Dre and Eazy-E. All three turn in absolutely fantastic performances, I wouldn’t be surprised if they received Oscar or BAFTA nominations next year. Although I think, rather like Foxcatcher, it will be very difficult to tell which one of them should be nominated for the lead actor role and which two should receive the supporting actor nomination. They also have particularly heavy material to work with and if anyone was going to doubt them before the film, they will be very much mistaken. These guys are absolutely fantastic in their roles and they are very believable, particularly in the live shows and the recording sessions. You really feel that you are actually watching a documentary about NWA rather than a movie. That’s not to say that the rest of the cast aren’t good. There are some particularly great supporting roles. I absolutely love the performance of R Marcos Taylor playing the gangster who helps form Deathrow records with Dr Dre, he delivers an excellent sinister performance. Paul Giarnatti manages to play several roles, like a music manager would and he plays them all brilliantly, plus the make-up effects on him are excellent, but I will go more into that later, but again they managed to age him perfectly to make him look like the real Jerry Heller. The film also has excellent cameos from actors playing various other actors, like 2Pac Shakur and Snoop Dogg. Other great supporting roles involved are Elena Goode who played an absolute blinder in this role and Neil Brown Jr and Aldis Hodge as both DJ Yelland MC Ren. What’s great about the actors playing the rappers is that they can perform the music very well and have an authenticity to it, you don’t feel like you are watching a tribute band that are trying too hard, you feel like you are watching a group that has actually written those songs and believes in them. It’s that authenticity that really lends the film its biggest strength. I’m certain someone could find a performance that they would classify as being bad if they really looked into this film, but I wasn’t seeing it. This was an excellent cast and I really really enjoyed being with them every step of the way.

With this movie, Straight Outta Compton, the biggest thing to ask about the presentation was, ‘did they get the songs down well?’ I’m glad to say, Yes they did. I’m not sure if these are re-recording by the actors or if they are re-mastered versions of the songs, but they really work well and the actors pull off the scenes of the music performances really excellently, this is particularly shown well in the recording studio sessions which are made to look like music video’s or the live sessions which really do feel like a live show is going on, again particularly in the scenes for the live concert in Detroit. There are tons of songs by the original artists featured in each of these including ‘Boyz in the Hood’ and as I mentioned ‘F@£$ the Police’. Surprisingly the one song which doesn’t get as much of a mention that I thought it would, is the song the film’s named after, in fact you only get brief glimpses of it during the recording of the debut album and during the end credits. By the way, don’t leave the end credits too soon, like many people did at my screening, there’s actually some really good stock footage of the bands history that is played with the song, so it’s really worth staying around until the song is done, then you can leave with everyone else. The songs are still well produced and I would say on technical levels, whether you like rap music or not, that’s a factor you can’t deny. I mentioned about the make-up effects and the use of stock footage previously in this review, which are both very good and this mainly serves to deliver what most period pieces strive for but often fail to achieve, authenticity!! You really feel like this is the late 80’s early 90’s and that’s down to more than just the stock footage. There’s a real feel of authenticity, especially with references to situations like the terrible events of the Rodney King beating and the subsequent LA riots, both of which Ice Cube was very vocal about. This feels like a film that a lot of time, love and care was put into to make sure it would give a sense of nostalgia to people who were around then and it really pays off. As I mentioned the actors were really made to look like the rappers they were meant to represent. Also the cinematography is excellent in this film. This film, at times feels like it’s a massive music video and on a lot of levels it is an excellently well shot movie. The film looks like it was directed brilliantly. F Gary Gray really should could potentially be up for best director at the next Oscars for this film.

I’m certain there are some negatives to Straight Outta Compton, but I am really struggling to find them, it’s a really very good movie. The story makes for a fantastic ensemble piece. Even if like me, you are not really into rap music, you will go along with these people. I would urge anyone who enjoys listening to music in any sort of capacity to go along and see the film. Its cast is brilliant and its production values are excellent and really add to the authenticity of the film and its time period. I wouldn’t call this a perfect film, but I saw this on the same day that I saw Hitman Agent 47 and to come out of a film that poorly and lazily made, to come out and see this, I would call a massive breath of fresh air. I really would urge anyone even remotely curious to go and check this film out. Although it’s way too soon to comment on it, I wouldn’t actually mind seeing this film nominated for best film at the Oscars in 2016. This really has been one of the hi-lights of the films that I have seen this year and I think people will be very surprised by how emotional the plot really is and how much they get out of this true story.

So, what are your thoughts on Straight Outta Compton?? Did you, like me, really enjoy this or were there some negatives that I missed. Leave your thought on it below. Seeing as this was a film about rap music my question for this week is:

“What are your favourite epic rap battles of history?”

If you haven’t seen it, it’s an excellent music series on You Tube run by Nice Peter and Epic Lloyd where they take two significant people from history and fiction and have them compete in rap battles, I would really recommend people checking it out. My personal favourites are Steve Jobbs vs Bill Gates, The Rennaisence Painters vs The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Skrillex vs Mozart and Superman vs Goku but I will be really interested to see which ones you really enjoyed. There have also particularly the more recent ones, like Shakazulu vs Julius Cesear and Stan lee vs Jim Henson.

Well if you were disappointed that my last two reviews haven’t been ranting and raving about how much I dislike a film, then you are in luck as next week I am reviewing an M Night Shyamalan movie. I am about to go on holiday so the next review is coming out on Wednesday 16 Sep. I wanted to make sure that it got out before I leave to go on my holiday. Also word of warning there are going to be two questions next time, one in particular I would like some help on.

Next week I review “The Visit”

Word of warning, keep an eye on my Twitter feed, if things go a bit wrong, touch wood, I may be late in getting my review out. But my team are all brilliant and we haven’t missed a deadline yet, so I am incredibly doubtful that will happen.

Thanks for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed watching this movie.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant

“JUSTICE LEAGUE: GODS AND MONSTERS”

It’s officially here and it’s unbelievable. By the time this review has been published it has been exactly one year since I started the Axia Film Society and posted my first review, and in that time and including this film I have reviewed a total of 40 Movies. This is one big achievement for me as I was concerned we wouldn’t get past the first year, or even make it past Christmas 2014 and it would be another case of, ‘well, it’s a nice thought, we have tried it and it didn’t work out’! On the contrary, it’s taken a life of its own, people are doing their own reviews, posting their own content to our web site and from what I have heard, people are enjoying reading these reviews. It feels like it was well worth sitting through every bad film that I had to review and was worth every piece of stress that I felt in trying to make sure a film gets out in time. It also amazes me, again, one year on that I still haven’t failed to get a film out on time! But enough of my self congratulations, because it wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for Gail and Carly who ensure that these reviews get out on time as well as Dr Buchan who very graciously takes time out of her day to help with spelling and grammar checking, which I am not the best at!! Also I have to thank our I.T. guy Dream who gets these reviews up for me on the site and couldn’t do it without any of them.

I also can’t think of a better film to review for the one year anniversary. I started this whole thing by reviewing two comic related movies, so what could be better than reviewing another one and the promise that I made last year, to review all of the DC Animated movies that came out this year and believe me, this is the one I was most looking forward to. Mainly because of the team behind it. We have Bruce Timm developing the story and Alan Burnett writing the screenplay, the team behind Batman the animated series, one of my favourite cartoons and probably the animated series that defined my generation, are coming back together to work on a brand new alternative DC Universe that it will have complete control over. This is the kind of thing that should get people excited, and with good reason. These guys know the characters of DC Universe and know how the get the most out of them, but how will they do when they have to develop their own world and still make it recognisable to DC fans?

The plot of Justice League Gods and Monsters takes place in an alternate DC Universe often referred to in comic fan circles as Else Worlds, with brand new versions of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. The Justice League, made up of Hernan Guerra aka Superman (played by Benjamin Bratt), Kirk Langstrom aka Batman (played by Michael C Hall) and Bekka of New Genesis aka Wonder Woman (played by Tamara Taylor) are coming under fire in the press for their drastic and sometimes fatal methods of dealing with criminals. This all comes to a head when a group of metal men start murdering eminent scientists behind a project called ‘Fair Play’ and use methods similar to the Justice League in order to frame them and of course because the DC Universe is run by complete idiots, the President Waller (played by Penny Johnson Jerald) orders Steve Trevor (played by Tahmoh Penikett) to take them down. But Batman’s investigation leads him to a cover up that may involve Lex Luthor (played by Jason Isaacs) and may be something closer to home. Now before we get too deep into the plot it does help to mention that Bruce Timm really has been trying to expand this Universe even prior to releasing this film. He released three short films on machinima.com to give us an idea of what these versions of the characters are going to be like and I will try and leave copies of the short animations at the bottom of the review, if not links to them. There is also a collection of comics that vary in the amount you need to collect. If you want the hard copies of each, you are going to need to purchase 3 issues of the Justice League comics, but if you want to purchase them digitally, like I did, you are going to need to purchase 9 issues of the comic, it’s very strange! Similarly the comics that deal with Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman’s back stories and origins in this universe are released as one shots if you buy them in hard copy, but if you are going to buy them on the digital service you are gonna need to purchase 3 comics! Luckily to purchase them digitally they are dirt cheap so price is not an issue. I would actually recommend getting the comics because it does give you a bit of extra back story that the film doesn’t have time to really get out, and it does help expand these characters in a lot of ways. I would particularly recommend it for Superman who really gets the least amount of explanation of his character and his back story in the film overall, however, purchasing the comics is not essential to understand the film. There is no major plot points in the comics that the film harkens back to. The comics simply give a bit of extra meat to the characters back story and show the Justice League’s first mission and how they formed in this Universe.

The plot of the film is actually pretty good. This is by far the best plot of the last 3 DC Animated movies, especially in terms of character and story development, which both are very good in this version. I might be a bit annoyed that DC comics are constantly trying to re-invent their characters rather than just tell great stories with them, but when it comes to an Else World situation, I really admire the levels you can take the normal ideas of a character and really twist them about. There has been some pretty good ones in the past, particular comics like Superman Red Sun by Kick-Ass and Kingsman creator Mark Millar that Imagines a scenario of Superman’s ship crashing in the Soviet Union and Superman being raised Russian and Batman and Dracula Red Rain which imagines Batman becoming a vampire and fighting Dracula which was good enough to spawn 2 sequels, both of which I would really recommend reading. But this is one of the most drastic of all and I really have admired the level of re-invention that Bruce Timm and Alan Burnett give to these characters. Bruce Timm said in an interview that he was inspired by the reinventions of golden age comic characters in the silver age such as Green Lantern going from being Alan Scott to Hal Jordan or The Flash going from being Jay Garrick to Barry Allen and wondered how he would do that to the DC trinity of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman who remained unchanged at that time. A lot of people may have looked at the trailers for this film and thought these would be complete betrayals. But they are not. They have simply taken the basic ideas and really twisted them round, thus giving us a much more morally ambiguous Justice League. This Justice League has absolutely no problems killing the criminals and while usually against this in Superhero fiction, as I believe that if the Superheroes’ are killing the criminals it doesn’t make them any better than the criminals. In this case I think it does actually aid the film as it gives an added level of debate to the characters ethical nature, especially considering Justice League are actually doing some good and the world is much safer as a result of their actions. But Bruce and Alan were quick to show that their actions aren’t without consequence. The film kind of goes through an idea of how much security you are willing to give up in order to feel safe. I feel if they had taken it just one step further it might have made something interesting, but I also feel if they had taken it any further if would have taken away from some of the character development, and believe me there is some pretty decent character developments in this one. I’m not going to say great, because a couple of the characters don’t really develop too much by the end of the film But this story at least feels a lot more personal than say ‘Justice League Throne of Atlantis’ or ‘Batman vs Robin’ both of which I reviewed earlier this year.

This film does have a very large cast but luckily none of them are left to waste. Everyone kind of gets at least some time to really show off their shots and it feels like a complete story by the end as a result. The only character that I feel is slightly under-used, ironically is Superman who really gets a very interesting back story in the prequel comic but doesn’t really gain that much in this film, especially considering that in this Universe Superman crashed in Mexico and was raised as a migrant, thus taking the allegory of Superman being the intergalactic immigrant to a whole new level and I would have liked to have seen it being played out even further. We hardly see anything of his earth parents in this film and we virtually don’t see anything of his sister, despite the fact that she was a large part of his character development in the comic. When his is on screen though, he is really good, if anything he is probably the most menacing of the three you are never quite sure if he is going to flip his switch and turn completely against humanity. He has an excellent line later on in the film where people ask him whether he wants to save the world or rule it and goes on to say “after today it’s going to be hard to tell the difference”, it’s very simple, yet lines like that completely get his character down perfectly and assures us that we are looking at a completely different version of Superman. Lois Lane is given a larger role in this film and to be honest she had a lot more respect and is given a lot more to do than DC has been doing in recent memory and is played excellently by Paget Brewster. The new Wonder Woman is given an excellent back story involving the war between new genesis and apocalypse and it gets a decent pay off by the end of the movie. There is very little mentioned about her time on Earth when she first appeared in the 60’s, but that’s what you should really be reading the comic for! This one at least explains what she was doing before the comic takes place and I found her character to be potentially interesting even if she isn’t really given much to do outside of her back story. Her new powers are pretty cool as well, especially the teleportation use of the boom tube which become a bit of a plot point later on in the film. You get a sense of while there is a strength there, there is also a vulnerability to her, which is seen perfectly in a scene where she is sparring with Steve Trevor. While the film does do a very good balancing act this is mainly a Batman story and this new version of Batman, Kirk Langstrom who you may remember as being the villain Manbat in the regular DC continuity and he does get a very interesting back story, the most development overall and it largely revolves around his character development especially in the conclusion of the film. In this Universe Batman is a Vampire who, affected by his experimental treatment when he was younger in order to save his life from a terminal illness and the film really plays as a piece of redemption for this Universe’s Batman and despite the fact that this Batman is completely lethal there is at least something of the Bruce Wayne version of the character still in this adaptation, mainly the good detective skills which lead him to solve the mystery and figure out who the villain is and I loved his relationship with his friends Will Magnus and wife Tina (played by C. Thomas Howell and Grey Griffen) who really helped keep the emotional crutch of Batman in this story. Speaking of which, the villain is a pretty decent plot twist that most people won’t see coming but there are at least some clues left which will warrant repeat viewings and the villain’s plan, while a bit rushed does at least deliver a very thrilling climax. Despite the fact that this film has a short running time I would say that this one feels very personal on a lot of levels. There are some genuinely heartbreaking moments in this film for a couple of the side characters which I will not spoil for people who haven’t seen this. It feels more like DC really cared about these characters and telling a good story with bringing this film out, which is something I feel has been really lacking from their animation studio in recent memory, which with their previous films feels more like they were designed to sell the new 52 and their more recent comics rather than tell the stories of their more iconic classic stories. That’s not to say the film’s plot is perfect, the short running time does mean a lot of the comic characters back stories do feel kind of rushed and the climax also feels very rushed. This Universe feels like it never quite takes on a life of its own and I think it would have been helped by a few more subtle moments, that’s not to say it doesn’t have a few and references to characters like Ray Palmer and Victor Fries really pay off in that sense, like a good Else World should. I also think anyone coming into this film expecting a traditional Justice League Movie will be sorely disappointed. This is especially the case, not just because the characters want to use lethal force in this film, but I wasn’t kidding when I said these are quite different versions of these characters and I reckon some fans might have an issue with them sharing the same Superhero names as Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne and Diana of Themyscira .

This is also not an animated film for young children. This film has a 15 certificate for a reason and it can get really violent in parts. Not as bad as last years Batman Assault on Arkham, but still. This has now become to be standard in DC animated films. If you liked previous DC Animated movies this is one for your collection. Sam Liu in the directors chair along with Bruce Timm and Alan Burnett have really developed an excellent story here with lots of very interesting nuances, cool characters and an excellent plot, which has all been sorely missed from DC Animated films in recent memory. It’s not perfect by any means and I am not sure it’s going to hold its own against some of the DC Animated films of the past as much. I still would rather put on films like Batman Under The Red Hood, Superman Vs The Elite, Superman/Batman Public Enemies, Wonder Woman or Green Lantern First Flight, but with all that being said I would definitely put this in the ranks of the really good films. I would also love to see this Universe expanded upon in some form, especially considering we haven’t had this Universe’s version of characters like The Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman and many other DC characters which I think would benefit from it going further. There is no sequel planned at this point, but I would welcome one if not a comic series to expand upon it because I really think there is a story to tell here. Anyone with a passing curiosity for the plot based on the trailer that appeared on my website all the way back to 21 August, I would argue, check it out on that basis. You really don’t need to be a comic fan for this one because they start the story from scratch.

The performances in this film were really good. I really think the DC Animated films are severely under-rated for how good the actors are, especially considering that most of the time actors are hired who are not exactly well versed in voice acting. Benjamin Bratt probably delivers one of the best performances I have seen him do in a long while. He does an especially sinister turn with his version of Superman, he really can sell the role, even though I still can’t really believe it’s him, considering I’m most aware of him playing the role of detective Ray Curtis in Law and Order and anyone who is aware of that, plus his time playing comedies will probably have to do a double take to realise it’s him, and I think a poorly cast actor could have potentially destroyed this hispanic Superman before he’d even started. He does, however, give off the impression that this Superman may have the best intentions in the world and might still keep you guessing what his true morality is. Michael C Hall takes on the role of Kirk Langstrom aka Batman in this Universe, who many will recognise as playing Dexter and believe me if your liked him in that series you will love him in this, he is absolutely brilliant at playing Batman in this film and I wouldn’t be surprised if he could come back to play a Batman based on the regular DC continuity version of the characte. He could possibly sell me on being a good Bruce Wayne. Tamara Taylor, whose previous credits include playing the teacher in Serenity, yet another firefly actor appearing in a DC Animation Movie, does an excellent job dealing with this new Wonder Woman. She doesn’t actually sound that different to previous actors who have played the role, especially Susan Eisenberg. Again I believe she could definitely play a Wonder Woman in the regular DC Universe and would be good in the role and I really admire the effort she put into this. Another cast member that stood out for me was Paget Brewster playing the role of Lois Lane and I really admire her for doing Lois Lane well considering how badly the character has been treated in recent memory. Other performances that I really enjoyed was Kirk Langstrom’s friends Will Magnus and Tina played by C Thomas Howell and Grey Griffin who deliver excellent performances for their relatively small roles. Penny Johnson Jerald may be good as President Waller despite the fact that she isn’t given enough to do, and I really think she does a decent job but I wouldn’t put her up there as one of the great actresses to play the role. Thankfully she does the role a lot better than Cynthia Addai-Robinson in Arrow. The rest of the cast do excellent jobs and it would take a long time to point all of them out. For me the stand out performance in this film is Jason Isaacs as Lex Luthor, not surprising given the guys excellent range in voice acting as well as giving some absolutely amazing performances including playing Lucius Mallfoy in Harry Potter films and for anyone who is a fan of Avatar The Last Airbender playing General Zhao and his Lex Luthor is absolutely excellent. He still has the ego maniacal nature of the main character,but you feel like this one is more in on the right. If anything they kind of play a role that Superman and him are a lot more alike in this Universe than they are in the regular DC Universe and Jason Isaacs and Benjamin Bratt pull this off really well. Overall as usual with a DC Movie it has an excellent cast and they really are what makes the film and if DC want to pull this off with Cinematic Universe, they are going to have to remember this when casting their major and minor roles.

Now the design, animation and action sequences. I am going to start off with the designs of the characters considering this is a new DC Universe, and to be honest, I really do like the designs. Batman is the one who is kept the closest but they do slightly re-design things to give him his Vampiric nature in this Universe. Wonder Woman may look different but I still see hints of her old costume in some of the designs, plus a few hints of some of her costume changes throughout the years seem to have played a part in this. The most drastic design choice is Superman, who has been given a sort of a long Matrix coat and a blue military style outfit with and S on the belt rather than the chest. I kind of like this redesign, with the character bordering between a hero and a dictator. Most of the other characters stay in tack with the exception of Lois Lane having a shorter hair cut and Lex Luthor now resembling this Universe’s version of Stephen Hawking, which is a design choice I kind of like. Now as for the action sequences themselves, as usual for a DC animated film, they are excellent. Because this is animation rather than live action you can take a lot of risks with these action scenes without having to risk actors health in the name of a good scene. It all flows brilliantly, the martial arts look excellent and the scenes work well off the new powers. Batman keeps most of his gadgets intact but he has also got his vampire speed, flight and of course the ability to drain the victims of their blood, which is only used a couple of times in the film. I think if it had been over used any more it would have taken away from the heroic and conflicted nature of the character. Wonder Woman similarly has a sword like she does in the regular continuity with no lasso of truth, instead this time she has a mother box in her sword, (don’t ask, if you are not aware of the DC Universe, it’s a very long story, talk to a comic fan, he would be happy to spend an hour or so explaining it,) but basically Wonder Woman can teleport in this Universe and despite the fact in the short animation they had Boom tubes for her to use this, I don’t feel they used it enough in this film, even though it does become a plot point later on down the line. The fight scenes do go perfectly well, especially considering the metal men that go after the Justice League, have perfect copies of Superman whose powers stay completely intact, Batman and Wonder Woman’s power set and as a result they can match them blow for blow and fell like a genuine threat for this new Justice League and they really sell that fact, especially in the later scenes when they can actually combine their powers to be a real match for them. The action scenes also really benefit from the excellent direction and it knows how to change between camera. There are a lot of live action films who could pay attention to this and take note from it, I even think Marvel are starting to take some note of it with Cinematic Universe movies because I thought a couple of shots in this film really resemble a lot of what we have been seeing in recent memory. It’s not perfect, however, because there is actually surprisingly little of them but I think this was a necessary sacrifice to get enough of the plot out there and I am glad that was in place because when they are on screen, they do not disappoint. The scenes also help visually convey how much more lethal these versions of these characters are in just subtle actions, for example the way Superman uses his heat vision is a lot more brutal than what the regular Superman would have done. the animation is also top notch and reflects some of Bruce Timm’s excellent animation style and I was getting serious flashbacks to the Justice League animated series. I can’t obviously go into too much detail about a lot of this film as it only runs for 76 minutes and to go on too much would spoil the film completely and I really don’t want to spoil as I would like to urge people to go out and buy this movie as I really enjoyed it.

Justice League Gods and Monsters isn’t for everyone and I feel a few people may be turned off by it and it is not one for your children, but if you are a DC fan I would actually argue that this is a really cool re-invention of some of these characters and Bruce Timm and Alan Burnett are really on form, working well with Director Sam Liu. I enjoyed the central performances, particularly Benjamin Bratt, Michael C Hall and Jason Isaacs and it has absolutely terrific action sequences and a plot which was short and probably not as developed as I would have liked, at least feels decent and complete and has a lovely personal nature to it which I think has really been missing from DC Animated films. Unfortunately if you only have access to a DVD player, you are going to have to buy this digitally, it’s only available in the UK on Blu Ray but it is available for digital download on I Tunes. If you are willing to give this new Universe a chance, please by all means, give this film a watch. I would also recommend checking out the comics and the animated shorts which I am going to leave at the bottom of the page.

What were your thoughts on Justice League Gods and Monsters? Does this new Universe have hope or is it down on arrival? I would love to hear everyones thoughts on this film and also your answers to my question this week, which is:

“Which of the 2016 DC Animated Movies are you most looking forward to?”

Yes, DC is going to be continuing the DC Animated Movies, despite the fact my prediction was that Gods and Monsters may be the final one from the studio, fortunately it isn’t and we have got a lot to look forward to next year. Batman Bad Blood will continue the Batman stable of films, where Batman Versus Robin left off. Justice League Vs Titans looks like it will continue in that field, and we are finally getting an animated version of Batman The Killing Joke and apparently Mark Hamill is willing to return to play the Joker again. Give us your thoughts because I am not certain I can review all 3 of next years DC animated films so I would love to know which one to give priority to.

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Please return on 11th September where I will be posting my review of the biopic of Rap group N.W.A “Straight Outta Compton”

Thanks for following me for the last year and here’s to another successful year to come.

Calvin – Nerd Consultant