Monday 26 May 2014

Oculus

The first teaser poster for Oculus, whilst a nifty little exercise in Photoshop wizardry, doesn't exactly sell what Oculus is all about. The same goes for the second poster too. The final theatrical version shows pretty much nothing at all, save for two rather unhappy looking kids about to run away from a dirty mirror. At least said dirty mirror gets some action in the Italian one-sheet, and is the most accurate in explaining what exactly the film is about - but it ends up looking like every other spook story feature of the last ten years rolled into one, with a yawn factor of ten. A flick that looks on poster-grade paper like the studios have panicked in their vain attempts to market a turkey, another addition to the 'long-haired woman who needs a bath' canon of unnecessary click-bait horrors. Far be it then for me to recommend Oculus to you, but that's exactly what I'm going to do. Starting... now.

Whilst the film doesn't really bring anything remarkable to the table, what it does have going for it is a nice line in low-budget psychological horror that trumps the CGI visual effects market any day of the week. The plot is told partly in the present day and partly in flashback, expertly flitting between the two without pause for breath. Focusing on two siblings, Tim (Brenton Thwaites) and Kaylie (Karen Gillan), the shared childhood trauma of seeing their mother murdered by their father has haunted them both for eleven years - however, in true buddy-cop style, one of them is the gung-ho hothead out for vengeance, the other a voice of reason (fresh out of a mental hospital, no less). In a likeable twist it's Kaylie who's the strong-willed one of the two (continuing a nice trend for hardy women in horror films - see last year's You're Next for further evidence), hell-bent on proving that it's the antique mirror their family acquired that drove their father to kill. Having 'borrowed' the mirror after tracking it down at auction, Kaylie brings it back to the house of their youth along with an elaborate iMac-fuelled camera setup, temperature monitors and a 40lb weighted yacht anchor set to destroy the mirror, though not before she's captured the proof she wants on video tape. Unsurprisingly, Tim's convinced she's distorted the facts to fit her own story in a way that should really have seen her put under medical supervision, not him.

Of course things play out and it turns out that Kaylie was right all along, but the film takes us to the halfway mark before even hinting that this could all be supernatural, as opposed to the overblown fantasies of a somewhat disturbed child. In a simple use of the classic 'let's film events in case something weird happens' setup, the siblings re-enter the mirror'd room after a heated exchange of words, only to see their tech completely rearranged without them having touched a thing. Rewinding the tapes, it shows both of them mid-argument doing all the rearranging themselves, and the dawning realisation that the mirror may just have something to do with it. It's a simple scene yet it proves that the best moments in horror films rarely come from blood and guts strewn across the camera lens; it's carefully-controlled rug-pulling that can unnerve an audience way better than any severed arm or winged demon.

There's plenty of other cinematic touchstones that the film makes knowing reference to, The Shining being the obvious example (Rory Cochrane's unravelling father is a chilling presence for much of his screen time). The mother of the two children (Katee Sackhoff) also bears more than a passing resemblance to Belén Rueda, making you wonder how influenced writer-director Mike Flanagan has been by the brace of Spanish horrors that have graced our screens of late: The Orphanage, Julia's Eyes (both starring Rueda), Sleep Tight, Mama (okay that one's Spanish-Canadian, but still). You can bet your bottom dollar this if this film was in Spanish with English subtitles, it'd be getting its fair share of art house praise. As it stands, it's American with an ex-Doctor Who actress in it, and will likely NOT be the next big film at your local independent. But don't let that put you off - Oculus may not rewrite the genre rulebook, but it's got enough deft tricks up its dirty reflective sleeve to warrant your attention.

Sunday 25 May 2014

X-Men: Days of Future Past

There was a Morgana Robinson sketch/impersonation show on Channel 4 a while back, 'VIP'. Anyone remember it? It was hit and miss, but one section featured (an impersonation of) Natalie Cassidy from Eastenders, starring in her own reality TV show. The title? Natalie Cassidy is Doing This Now. One week she's doing the washing, the next week she's taking the bins out - all done with a happy-go-lucky 'my career is over' smile, for the camera crew to film for our viewing pleasure. And in a sad way, her lot in life is akin to many of the characters in Bryan Singer's much-trumpeted return to the X franchise he gave birth to. Oh look, there's Storm... and she's doing this now. Hey everyone, it's Magneto... and he's doing this now. Characters we've seen half a dozen times before, doing the same things they've always done, except bigger. And seriouser. And more mutantier. And it doesn't exactly make for thrilling viewing.

Okay, let me make it clear before anyone leaps to the defense of what many are calling the best film of the franchise so far - X-Men: Days of Future Past is by no means a bad film. It's just far from a great one, in my humble view at least. It left me with similar feelings I had towards it's predecessor, X-Men: First Class - a load of peeps on screen doing fun, clever things with their mutant powers for just over two hours... and, that's it. I was neither bored nor thrilled with First Class, a film that neither gets anything wrong nor adds anything particularly new to the series (except for maybe Michael Fassbender's triumvirate of accents, which he's thankfully narrowed down to just one for DOFP). Hence why I feel that DOFP, with it's honourable ambition to try and tie all the previous films together whilst not getting too bogged down with previous goings-on, overreaches in a way that the series maybe can't help but do at this stage in the game. Let me explain...

It's the future, and things have gone somewhat to pot. The world is a fusion of the worst parts of The Matrix and Tron: Legacy, all craggy rocks and bad neon strip-lighting. Mutants have been overthrown by The Sentinels, a bunch of super robots invented by a 70s Peter Dinklage (funny how no-one knew anything about them in any of the other films), and it falls to Wolverine to get sent back in time by Kitty Pryde - wait, sent back in time by a girl who's superpower is walking through walls? - to change history and stop them taking control in the first place. This crazy time travel scheme is thought up by none other than Professor Charles Xavier, who - hang on, didn't he die at the end of the third film, and throw his consciousness into someone else entirely? - you know what, I'm fine with iffy logic, but DOFP truly takes the piss.

It shouldn't fall to mere plot holes to ruin a film, but the X-Men franchise has become a disparate entity already, with two dodgy Wolverine spin-offs and the much-maligned third film sparking the ire of many a fanboy (I really don't see the problem with it if you ask me, my jaw dropped when Prof. X exploded and Jean Grey's death brought me to tears). You can see why so much began to rest on DOFP getting things back on track; and in many ways it does, basically giving you 'what you want' from an X-Men film, whilst also bringing something new to the table - in this case, time travel. But when so many plot points rest on internal logic it makes the mistakes stick out like a sore thumb. It doesn't ruin proceedings so much as leave you with a nagging feeling that too many things have been left unanswered because hey, there simply IS no answer. You're not really meant to question why future-Xavier is alive, just WATCH HIM SAY THE F-WORD!! Magneto's 100 feet under the Pentagon with no metal nearby to use his powers on, but plonk him in the middle of a giant football stadium and WATCH HIM RAISE THAT CONCRETE DUDE!!1 #MutantsRock #Lol (I know a football stadium contains metal, but so does the f*cking Pentagon)

I guess I better list a few things I DID like about the film. Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) is great, her character about as far-removed from both the 'good' and 'bad' camp as can be, which makes for some interesting decisions on the part of both the young Prof. X and Magneto as to how they deal with her actions. There's a superb slo-mo scene involving Quicksilver (Evan Peters) taking down a throng of security guards, in what's easily the most fun 'mutant power' sequence in any X-Men film to date. And the Zapruder-aping handheld cine footage that eats into proceedings towards the film's climax is used perfectly sparingly, giving the viewer a first-person perspective of mutant chaos unfolding around them whilst cheekily (and a little unsettlingly) alluding to the fact that mutants were implicated in the JFK assassination. But whilst these elements are great, what the film does lack is a sense of epic scope - and when you're playing with a huge cast list, time travel AND giant killer robots, you'd think that 'epic' would fly off the screen. But when you've seen Magneto lift an 18-wheeler, a submarine and the Golden Gate bridge, where do you go next? Having an entire football stadium dropped on the White House lawn SHOULD be epic, but the sense of 'been there, seen that' is overwhelming.

What I'm most concerned about is the fact that the Marvel Cinematic Universe now seems to resemble Forbidden Planet's comic book aisles; rows and rows of X-Men, Spider-Men and Other-Men graphic novels, all with the same spine artwork, hundreds of the f*ckers stretching endlessly into the geek ether. Plenty of fun to be had within every one of them I expect, but in my formative years I couldn't help but lean towards the likes of Alan Moore and his one-off masterpieces: Watchmen. V for Vendetta. From Hell. An unfair comparison you might say, but they all occupied the same shelf space. When you know Marvel once cranked out Hulk, Ang Lee's unique and excitingly divisive one-shot with a tone all of its own, it makes DOFP seem a trifling generic distraction. And with so many characters now vying for screen space, I can't help wonder if the X-Men mythos is a distraction better suited to the small screen, spread over a season or five. But hey, go see it, you won't be bored... maybe you'll love it. But I just don't know if I care enough to get that excited about the next installment of The X-Men are Doing This Now.

Friday 23 May 2014

The Lego Movie

I struggle with comedies. Much as I love a good one, there's always a hint of reticence when I'm about to press play on a film like The Hangover or The Heat, expecting a flurry of poor American sitcom-style gags that don't translate well across the pond or just stuff I won't find funny, period (I was pleasantly surprised by both those films, you'll be glad to hear). Add into the mix the fact that The Lego Movie is a kid's film too and you can imagine my contorted face, watching through the gaps in my fingers, awaiting a million-miles-an-hour sugar rush of a film with cheap gags and too many characters screaming instead of being funny. Well, The Lego Movie IS a million-miles-an-hour sugar rush of a film, with cheap gags aplenty. But cheap gags that work like cheap gags ought to. Oh, and to have characters screaming who ARE funny too? Maybe Pixar need to take a look at what's on offer here and see where they're going wrong, because The Lego Movie ticks all those boxes and more.

Whilst the plot is even more ridiculous than Godzilla which I reviewed last week, it revels in its own silliness to such a degree that it's hard not to be bowled over by it's ramshackle charm, even if it can take a few minutes to adjust to the pace (it would be a gross understatement to say this things whizz by at lightning speed). President Business (Will Ferrell) is the all-seeing overlord of the Lego world, controlling everyone's actions and wanting 'everything to be perfect', to the extent that he wants to use the Kragle (a lovely abbreviation of a used Krazy Glue tube) to freeze the city into his own vision of perfection. A stock villain with a crazy plan then, but he's not counting on 'The Special' (Chris Pratt) foiling his plans, a lone hero not too dissimilar to Neo from The Matrix, only with far less going on in his head (compared to Keanu Reeves, that's saying something) and an 'odd piece' attached to his back that could be the key to his prophesied heroics. With me so far? Throw in Liam Neeson as a literally two-faced Irish cop, Elizabeth Banks as sidekick/love interest Wyldstyle, Will Arnett as a none-more-macho Batman and Morgan Freeman as the Gandalf-aping master builder Vitruvius (a nice nod to the famed Roman architect), along with almost every Lego world/character/building you can think of, and you've a recipe for total visual and aural chaos that somehow - in a sublime gelling of script, voice acting and photo-real CGI - works.

It's not a perfect film - there really is zero let-up in pace, which could be tiring if you're not prepared for it - but it's been a while since a) Pixar offered up anything to scale the grand emotional heights of Wall-E and Toy Story 3, and b) a kid's film took aim at both their target demographic AND an adult audience in the way that The Simpsons perfected years back, without losing the attention of either. Warner Brothers seem to have unintentionally capitalised on a lack of truly great Pixar features by using left-field talent to drive what could have been yet another stock studio animated film - it may well have gone straight to DVD in the hands of lesser folk. It's a testament to the scope and vision of directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller (21 Jump Street) that they throw everything but the kitchen sink at the screen and almost all of it sticks - I nearly cried towards the end, such is the deft touch they have when it comes to both computer-generated and human emotion. Oh, and I dare you to not be singing 'Everything is Awesome' when you're done watching it.

So, next time I watch a comedy, I shall attempt to go in with less trepidation and more of an open mind - but if it dares to disappoint me, I'm buying a Lars von Trier boxset. That said, I do wonder what a Lego version of Dogville or Dancer in the Dark might look like... the latter IS a musical, it could work! That'd teach kids to think that Lego is just for them. President Business would be proud.

Friday 16 May 2014

Godzilla

(I very nearly - in a moment of pure nerd pedantry - added '2014' to the title of this review, just in case anyone was under the impression I was reviewing the 1954 version. Or God forbid the Emmerich travesty from 1998. Suffice to say, we can all move on now we know it's the one currently doing the 3D rounds that I'm yakking about. Thanks for your patience thus far.)

It's nice when Hollywood takes risks with its director choices, no matter what the outcome. For every shonky Alien vs. Predator: Requiem - directed by untested music video alumni The Brothers Strause - there's a Cloverfield (Matt Reeves' superb debut) or a District 9, another first-time feature masterfully helmed by FX whizzkid Neill Blomkamp. Both modest films in terms of budget ($40 and $30 million respectfully), but still a fair few quid to throw at 'the new guy' no matter what business you're in. The same goes for Nuneaton-born Gareth Edwards, who's slow-burn sci-fi creature feature Monsters carved him out as another potential force to be reckoned with on the ever-changing Hot New Director roster.

Which is why it was nice to see him handed the keys to a franchise that's been doing the rounds for sixty years now, roundly causing a geek commotion when teaser artwork for his take on Godzilla was unveiled a couple of Comic-Con's ago. But with great budget comes great responsibility, and it's fair to say that $200 million is a fair increase on what the Strausii and Blomkamp's of this world had to play with. And while it's unfair to suggest it's got the better of him, you can't help but feel that this hulking behemoth of a blockbuster is lacking something - and it's hard to say exactly what.

Despite its hefty price tag, this iteration of Godzilla is desperate to stay as tonally distant from the 1998 version as humanly possible. Suffice to say, it takes its cues from the original clutch of films rather than trying to reimagine anything Hollywood did. To that end, it ought to have been called Godzilla vs. Muto. Nay, make that TWO Muto's (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism), with all three of them hell-bent on wreaking radiation-fuelled havoc on the East coast. As it turns out, those atomic bomb tests in the 40s and 50s were actually attempts to kill Godzilla (as illustrated in a beautifully twitchy and redacted opening credits montage). The big fella is an ancient relic of the earth, driven underground to feed off radiation from the earth's core when the sun's rays calmed down and the planet got a bit too nippy for his liking.

Okay, reading over that last sentence it's clear that this film is a bit daft to say the least - and that's where it kind of, sort of, maybe starts to fall apart. It's a giant jigsaw puzzle of a film that struggles to fit together as one cohesive whole. Whilst the cast do a largely fine job of wringing emotion from an often stodgy script, it's hard to care too much about Aaron Taylor Johnson's Brody, an army grunt with a sensitive side who suffers the loss of both his mother and his father within the first forty minutes (we do jump-cut fifteen years, but that's by the by). His lithe wife barely registers on the do-I-give-a-shit Richter scale, despite the fine performance from Elizabeth Olsen. And poor Ken Watanabe is left as the sole Japanese voice of serious reason, the scientist desperate to suggest to everyone that we don't try and kill any of this nuclear devilry, oh no. We just "let them fight". He's clearly the only character to have seen the original Toho offerings; he knows Godzilla is the real hero, despite his lumbering ability to kill thousands of innocent civilians without even so much as saying sorry.

All of this is both the film's problem and it's potential upshot - you care more about the monsters than you do the human cast. Intentional? Maybe so. But you only have to look at some of the films Godzilla doffs its cap to to see that you CAN have human drama as well as all-out monster carnage (Edwards need only look to his own Monsters, a film that cost 1/400th of this IMAX-clambering beast). As well as the obvious nods to King Kong and Jurassic Park there's shades of Spielberg's War of the Worlds, a film that ratcheted tension out of similar rote scenarios in a way that Godzilla could only dream of; hints of Independence Day, a film that has aged horrendously but is entirely self-aware of its own ridiculousness (Godzilla notches another epic fail on that count). Yet, despite all this, you can't help but admire its dogged determination to actually bring a sense of credibility to the arena its playing in. Sometimes big failures can be beautiful, and by golly, does Godzilla have some big, beautiful moments.

The teaser trailer money shot, a glut of stock military types performing a HALO jump (High Altitude, Low Opening - it pays to Google sometimes) with red smoke streaming from their ankles, is truly a sight to behold; you'd think it would diminish having been available to view almost in full for several months, but on the big screen with music that echoes the monolith discovery sequence from 2001, it's pure grandstanding drama. In fact Alexandre Desplat's score is key to many of the moments that left me grinning like a kid at Christmas. There's a moment when Godzilla almost looks down at you, the hapless cinemagoer, his deafening footsteps muffled beneath a lone dischordant piano - it's the boldest audio cue you'll hear in a blockbuster this year, and a testament to the studio that it didn't get cut during test screenings. (it's also pretty good when the big guy breathes blue fire and his backplates light up like the mother of all Christmas trees. Yep, I liked that a lot.)

As you can see, it's almost a struggle to write a review for this film when my views are so goddamned conflicted on it all. With so much to like about it (especially towards the end), I can't not recommend seeing it on the biggest screen you can find. But I'd also make sure you go in with your expectations lowered when it comes to anything BUT the monsters (including Heisenberg himself). Maybe it's not the weight of the budget, but the weight of ol' Chewit-lover himself that cripples proceedings - trying to make something oh-so serious out of a giant radioactive dinosaur just doesn't add up. And is the 'King of all Monsters' really a city's saviour when he's likely killed half the inhabitants in a climactic battle to the death? Well, they do have the decency to qualify that proposition with a question mark. I would say no, but I guess only a sequel will say so. Throw in a few people to genuinely root for, and we might finally have the Godzilla we deserve.