Hello Everyone :-)
I love my family dearly. I am unbelievably lucky to
have been born into a fun, caring home that loves me in spite of my many
bizarre foibles. Sometimes though, they let me down.
One such example was a couple of weeks ago when I
suggested we go to the pictures as a family to see the new Pixar film ‘Brave’.
The response I got was, “Can we go and see Expendables 2 instead?” It’s that
old thing; I wasn’t ‘angry, just disappointed’ in them.
In the Expendables 2 we re-join Barney ‘The Boss’
Ross (Sylvester Stallone) with his team of misfits; Lee Christmas (Jason
Statham), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Hale Caesar (Terry
Crews), Toll Road (Randy Couture) and new recruit Billy the Kid (Liam
Hemsworth) as they are hired to do daring overseas missions. After rescuing a
Chinese Businessman and Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger) from a gang in Nepal,
Ross is given an assignment from Church (Bruce Willis) to retrieve something
from an airplane that has crashed in Albania. Church insists that the group
take Maggie (Yu Nan) a Chinese computer genius when they go and make sure
whatever is on the plane doesn’t fall into the hands of Jean Vilain
(Jean-Claude Van Damme).
What can you say about ‘Expendables 2’? Seriously…
what can you say?! The thing is totally review-proof.
One reason it’s hard to say anything about
‘Expendables 2’ is because it clearly doesn’t give a flying fuck. It KNOWS that
the plot is irrelevant, it KNOWS that the characters have got the most
ridiculous names ever (Jean Vilian… he’s the bad guy and his surname is VILIAN
FFS!) and it KNOWS it’s as shallow as a puddle. It knows all this, yet carries
on regardless and I’m not sure that there isn’t some kind of demented genius in
that.
One serious bad point: distinct lack of Jet Li. This
makes me sad because I love Jet Li and his bizarre double act with Dolph
Lundgren amused me greatly in the first film.
The movie knows its ace cards though and plays them
very well indeed. Despite his Chinese comedy partner going AWOL Lundgren is great.
His shambling, alcohol abused Gunner is brilliant and probably my favourite
thing in the whole film.
Jason Statham irrefutably gets the best fight
scenes, all of which he carries out so well it’s practically balletic (albeit ballet
with automatic weapons). One downside of all the big shooting, fast stabbing
action however, is some appalling CGI blood splatter. It’s so bad it’s shameful.
It’s a marked improvement on the uninspiring bad
guy of the first film. Insane moniker aside, Van Damme does ‘bat-shit crazy,
knife wielding villain’ quite well. It’s also nice to see someone that matches
our ragtag band of heroes from a ‘legend status’ point of view. I don’t know
about you but I don’t think Eric Roberts cut it in the first film. The final
showdown between Vilain and Ross also serves as a reminder that, at one point,
they were two of the biggest action stars around. Van Damme is a welcome
addition.
I really don’t know what to say about the jokes.
The comedy seems to fall into two brackets; cringe-worthy puns and references
to films in which the biggest three actors have previously appeared. I didn’t
laugh at the cheesy lines or any of the references (on the contrary, some of
them actually made me wince) what I did laugh at was the madness of it all.
Prime example being the fact that, despite being referred to as ‘the Lone
Ranger’, the theme tune to ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ plays every time
Chuck Norris is on screen. Also, as I’m sure you’ve all heard by now, there is
a reference to the now infamous ‘Chuck Norris Facts’. It’s bizarre, hysterical
and I’m pretty sure I heard the distant sound of the internet imploding as I
sat watching it.
Part knowing parody, part unintentional hilarity
and 100% excessive madness, I really don’t know what anyone can say about
‘Expendables 2’. It wears its two-dimensional storyline like a badge of honour
and for that I kind of want to commend it. I laughed, I groaned, I cringed but
at least it got a response out of me unlike so many other action films of
recent years that have bored me to tears. It has no delusions of grandeur and for
an hour and 45 minutes I was entertained, although maybe not entirely in the
way the film makers intended.
Now let’s have some…
Reasons to be Cheerful :-)
1. Billy Crystal has been talking about ‘Monster’s University’! I’m so excited! I went to see ‘Brave’ the other day and it made me
fall in love with Pixar all over again.
2. Steven Moffat has released the keywords for series three of Sherlock! Last year we had ‘Woman, Hound and Fall’, this year’s
words are ‘Bow, Wedding and Rat’. Harder to decipher than last time but that’s
not going to stop me trying! The game is afoot!
That’s all for today!
Goodbye till next time :-)
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Hello Everyone :-)
No stupid pre-amble today. I love ‘Batman Begins’
and ‘The Dark Knight’ so let’s have a look at ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ (TDKR
from not on).
This blog contains SPOILERS about ‘The Dark Knight’
so if you want to read it, watch that first and come back to me.
Eight years after Batman took the blame for Harvey
Dent's insane killing spree and Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) facilitated
the cover-up, Gotham City has become an all-round safer place due to the ‘Dent
Act’ which helps incarcerate members of organised crime syndicates. During
those eight years Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) retired the Dark Knight and has
been living a life of isolation, mourning the loss of his childhood love Rachel
Dawes. His world is upturned by the arrival of Bane (Tom Hardy), a terrorist of
gargantuan proportions (literally and metaphorically) and cat burglar Selina
Kyle (Anne Hathaway), both of whom mean the Batman is forced back on to the
streets of Gotham to save its people.
It’s hard to overestimate just how anticipated this
film has been. I wouldn’t be able to choose between this and ‘The Avengers’ for
the ‘most hyped film of the year’ award.
What strikes you, when you first think about TDKR,
is how little Batman is actually in it. About three fight scenes and a chase
round Gotham; that’s your lot from the Caped Crusader. The focus is unashamedly
set on Brice Wayne and works well as a result. Wayne has to grapple with the
his own physical inabilities of which there are many; having come into this
actively avoiding any news or spoilers I was shocked by how infirm he is at the
start of the film.
There’s also a desperately sad plot strand that
hones in on, not just the physical sacrifices Wayne has had to make, but the
personal ones as well. As always it’s Alfred that verbalises this perfectly
when he says,
“I never wanted you to come back to Gotham. I
always knew there was nothing here for you, except pain and tragedy. And I
wanted something more for you than that. ”
It is utterly heartbreaking.
TDKR fits
like a straight brick in the Tetris game of this Trilogy. It feels like a
perfect fusion of ‘Batman Begins’ and ‘The Dark Knight’ but definitely has
its own identity. Imbuing a film with those seemingly opposite ideas (being simultaneously
new and familiar) and making it work is nothing short of extraordinary and when
you consider that Nolan never intended for this to be a trilogy it makes it all
the more remarkable. Nolan is a wonderful film-maker and if we get one of his intellectual,
emotive, spectacle-toting films once every two or three years I’ll be a happy
lady. Christopher Nolan I doff my
proverbial cap to you.
The cast are an embarrassment of riches. Each actor
brings their ‘A’ game and genuinely, 100%, there is not a bad turn in the
bunch. That is a rare and wonderful thing.
As I’ve mentioned, Alfred is the beating human
heart of the film, nay, the entire trilogy. Michael Caine is wonderful; when he
cries, you cry. Simple As.
Gary Oldman is superb as Commissioner Gordon. He
really nails that inner turmoil, living with the guilt of the Harvey Dent cover
up. I mean what more can I say? It’s Gary Oldman!
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is really shaping up to be
something special isn’t he??? Who’d have thunk it all those years ago watching
‘3rd Rock from the Sun’! In TDKR he plays John Blake, a selfless
Policeman who empathises with Bruce Wayne and draws a parallel with his
troubled beginnings. His plot strand takes as long to play out as Wayne’s and I
found it really enjoyable.
Christian Bale has more emotional meat to chew as
this film revolves around Bruce Wayne coming to terms with the life he has
chosen. I really liked his performance but then I’ve really liked all his performances over the trilogy.
Catwoman has been done to death (the mortal blow
was with Halle Berry’s shudder inducing ‘Catwoman’ spin off) but the always
excellent Anne Hathaway breathes new life into her. Never actually referred to
as ‘Catwoman’, Selina Kyle is a cat burglar with a moral compass that, more
often than not, doesn’t point north. Hathaway looks incredible, to my mind
she’s the physical female ideal which, as well as making her look like sex on
legs, is key to the character. She’s lean, strong and curvy; whether jumping
out of windows or seducing senators she uses it all to her advantage. Hathaway
completely immerses herself in the role and impressed me greatly.
I did a little bit of research into the comic book
sources of the various Bat-plots a few years ago and since then I have
maintained that the interpretation of Bane in ‘Batman and Robin’ is one of the
biggest disservices ever done to a character, ever. The character of Bane is
fantastic and he would be the ultimate superhero if he didn’t have such
sociopathic tendencies. Tom Hardy clearly ‘gets’ this. As we can all see he’s
got the size down pat, what he also nails is the intellect of Bane. He is not
only a physical but a psychological threat to our hero and for a large part of
this film you genuinely think ‘Batman might not win this time’; having that level
of jeopardy is a huge deal.
It’s a long film but it never feels like it. I mean
it’s LONG, 15 minutes short of three hours. The action sequences have you on
edge; the opening aeroplane scene gave me that feeling in my stomach when you
go upside down on a rollercoaster and you briefly feel weightless before being
jolted back to earth. The whole thing just feels so epic. I fail to see how
anyone (provided they’ve seen the previous two films) couldn’t get swept up in
the scope and scale of it all. I cheered, I cried, I gasped, I gripped the edge
of my seat in fear… what more could you ask for???
Concept
artist Tully Summers said of Nolan’s work “One of the things that makes his
Batman movies so compelling is their tone of plausibility” and, for me, that is
the key. There is the
physical reality and practicality of the gadgets and gismos such as ‘The Bat’ (Nolan’s
love of in camera effects is well documented), but there’s also the shades of
moral grey-ness that exist in Gotham’s inhabitants and gives them such realism. None of the characters are
wholly good or bad, they all have motivations and beliefs that make them seem
so much more than words on a script. On paper the idea of a realistic Superhero
film sounds rubbish but in practice it is that authentic gritty overtone and tangibility
that make this series so amazing.
Honestly I could sit here all day and waffle about
the merits of this film.
In a market that is full of never ending reboots
and sequels it feels strange that something is actually ending but fuck me, if
you’re going out, do it like this. There is the possibility we could return to
some of these characters in the future but only a fool would try and step into
Nolan’s gargantuan shoes.
I’m buying the inevitable Box set and making a
space next to my Toy Story Trilogy (and everything that implies) because this
is damn near as good as it gets.
TDKR made me the happiest girl in the world but if
you need to turn that frown upside down here are some…
Reasons to be cheerful
1. This is just one of those stories where you say
“aren’t humans bloody brilliant sometimes?!” Against the odds a one handed pianist has graduated from the Royal College of Music. Stuff like that just
makes me smile :-)
2. Any of you that follow me on Twitter will have
seen that over the past couple of weeks I’ve been borderline obsessed with the
Olympics. I’m in the midst of writing a post-Olympics thingy (because I’m sure
you haven’t read enough of those in the past fortnight) but for now here’s a
video of some of Britain’s wonderful Olympians miming along to ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’.
Just when I thought I couldn’t love Sir Chris any more…
3. The Paralympics starts on the 29th
August and the adverts for it are brilliant. Personally, I can’t wait to ‘Meet the Superhumans’ :-)
4. Finally… DOCTOR WHO PICTURES!!!! I can’t wait. I’ve
been watching series 5 and 6 box sets on a loop just to get a Who fix… I’m like
a Sci-Fi crackhead…
While you’re here, I’d just like to say… FUCK THE X
FACTOR. I watched the first episode on Saturday and it made me hate the world. I
don’t want to hate the world; I bloody love the world, so I’m not watching it
any more. I’ve had enough. I shall not mention it on Twitter, I won’t write
about it on here, none of my energy will be wasted on that circus that
masquerades as ‘reality television’.
After that little outburst, that’s all I’ve got for
today.
Goodbye till next time :-)
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Hello Everyone :-)
In the immortal words of ‘Cabaret’
“money makes the world go around” and it is the supposed‘root of all evil’ that
is the main reason ‘The Amazing Spider-man’ exists.
You’re probably wondering ‘what's the
point of rebooting a franchise whose first film came out only 10 short years
ago?’. The answer boils down to money; not wanting to pay it out but also
wanting to make lots of it.
Sony, who own the rights to Spider-man,
want to make lots of money from new Spider-man films but they don’t want to pay
Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire an increased amount for sequels to the original
trilogy. They also don’t want to lose money by giving the character rights back
to Marvel (which they'd be contractually forced to do if they didn't make
enough Spider-Man movies over a certain time period) and so some executive types got together and decreed that a reboot was on the cards.
Let’s see how this finance driven
venture translates to the silver screen.
‘The Amazing Spider-man’ is the story
of Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) who lives with his Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen)
and Aunt May (Sally Field) after the death of his parents in a plane crash.
Peter attends Midtown Science High School where he’s a quiet, photography
loving, science Geek with a crush on the clever, beautiful Gwen Stacey (Emma
Stone). After discovering that his Father had connections at Oscorp and
desperate to find out more about his work, Peter sneaks into their headquarters
and enters a lab where a "biocable" is being created from genetically
modified spiders, one of which bites him giving him spider-like superpowers.
I can’t talk about this film without
talking about ‘Spider-man’. I just can’t. 10 years is not enough time to forget
that film and watch this one without drawing comparisons. That might seem
unfair on ‘The Amazing Spider-man’ but actually, I think it compares quite favourably.
For starters I like how this film
totally focuses on Peter Parker's High School life. It takes it’s time
establishing the character and with the proposed trilogy of films it’ll be nice
to watch Parker grow up across them. The film’s focus on Gwen and Peter’s High School romance
plays to the Twilight teen-girl market but there’s nothing wrong with that,
it’s an audience that has been abandoned by the mainstream save for silly films
about sparkly Vampire boys so they deserve something new to watch.
Another thing this film has over its
2002 counterpart is the cast. The cast in ‘The Amazing Spider-man’ is far
superior with one exception (which we’ll get to later).
I much prefer Sally Field as Aunt May,
she still worries about Peter but there’s a lot more personality and humour to
her character than we’ve seen previously. Martin Sheen is the ideal male
relative; you want him as your Dad/Uncle/Grandad; after watching this I can’t
imagine a better Uncle Ben. Together they portray a couple who live in blissful
domesticity.
I adore Andrew Garfield and infinitely
prefer him to Tobey Maguire in both the roles of Spider-man and Peter Parker.
He’s playing much younger than he is and nails it with a healthy dose of
teenage angst. For me Maguire’s performance in‘Spider-man’ is too earnest and
he plays Peter Parker as too much of a goofy, goody two shoes. Garfieldplays
Peter as an outsider and I prefer that approach. He’s still super clever and a
bit of a geek (I squealed when I saw Peter Parker had the same Richard Feynman
desktop background as me!) but there’s also isolation to him. Admittedly it was
slightly over-egged but generally I liked the moodier angle on the character.
Garfield also differentiates between
Spider-man and Peter Parker which Maguire never really did. He transforms when
he puts on the red mask, from quiet and isolated to a wise-cracking,
smart-aleck that annoys the hell out of his opponents. For me this was much
truer to the original source material and put a lot more emphasis on the power
of anonymity and how it helps Parker create his alter ego.
The best top-trump card ‘The Amazing
Spider-man has is Emma Stone as Gwen Stacey. Her performance absolutely
wipes the floor with Kirsten Dunst’s Mary-Jane Watson. She doesn’t
get masses of screen time (a failing on the film’s part) but Gwen is clever,
cute, fun, sexy, vulnerable and has a brilliant wit. Ryan Gosling said that
Stone “is everything, all the time” and in this she really is. Be you man,
woman, gay, straight or bi, if you see this, walk out and you’re not in love
with her there is something wrong with you. Stone and Garfield (who are a real
life couple) bounce off each other and their on-screen chemistry is a major
factor in why I enjoyed this film as much as I did.
One cast member that made me cringe
big-style was Rhys Ifans as Dr Curt Connors/The Lizard. It’s not his fault,
Rhys Ifans does his best but the character isn’t fleshed out very well and his
motivations fall apart when you question them even slightly. It’s such a
disappointment because at the beginning you have sympathy with him but his
decent into full on cackling baddie just doesn’t hold up; I don’t get the jump
from wanting to re-grow your arm to wanting to destroy the world. And the CGI…
Oh the CGI! It’s awful, I was sat there and I thought I could draw a better
Lizard using Microsoft Paint... THAT SHOULDN’T HAPPEN IN A SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER
MOVIE! I read a review that says “he looks like a Goomba from the Super Mario
Brothers movie” and yes, that is exactly
what he looks like.
However, the main problem with ‘The
Amazing Spider-man’ isn’t really one of cast or bad CGI, its main problem is
2002’s ‘Spider-man’. The trouble is that whilst I prefer this version,
‘Spider-man’ did some good things that ‘The Amazing Spider-man’ hasn’t matched
up to.
‘The Amazing Spider-man’ treads the
same origin story and in places feels like it’s trying to be different for the
sake of it. A perfect example is the immortal line from the 2002 film “with
great power comes great responsibility”. It’s a great line. The version of that
line in this film is “If you can do good things for other people, you have a
moral responsibility to do it.” EURGH! WHAT?!?! It just sounds like the writers
have said “We need someone thing to rival ‘with great power comes great responsibility’…
I know! Let’s get out the Thesaurus and rehash that line without using any of
the original words! Genius”. No. Not genius.
It’s hard not to sit there and think
what might have been. I think if you got the two films to run at each other really
fast and when they collided they merged together you’d have the perfect
Spider-man film. Take the cast, characters, high school story line and a pinch
of Peter’s moodiness from ‘The Amazing Spider-man and mix it with the fantastic
baddies and colourful comic book aesthetic of the Raimi movies and you’d be
onto a winner.
It's a good film, I really enjoyed it, it's just a shame that whilst we all
dream of an imaginary, perfect Spider-man film we must accept the reality of
two imperfect ones.
Finally, Marc Webb… the director of
‘The Amazing Spider-man’ has the surname WEBB… If you know of any other actors
or directors with movie appropriate names leave them in the comments, they’ll
amuse me no end!
So, after all that web-slinging action
let’s have some…
Reason to be Cheerful :-)
1. Its ‘Doctor Who’’s 50th Anniversary
next year and to celebrate all-round beacon of talent and loveliness Mark
Gatiss (GATE and then HISS but without the H, say it with me… GATE-ISS) is
writing a drama to look at how the show came to be. I imagine it’ll be along the
same lines as the brilliant ‘Holy Flying Circus’, the Monty Python drama that
aired on BBC4 but with Gatiss’s brilliant writing. I for one can’t wait to go
on an ‘Adventure in Time and Space’ :-)
2. More ‘Who’ news! We’ve got a trailerfor the 7th series! It looks A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! DINOSAURS…ON A
SPACESHIP!!!!!
3. The Great and Powerful Joss Whedon
has been confirmed to direct Avengers 2! Everyone that loved ‘The
Avengers/Avengers Assemble’ breathes a sigh of relief! I’m so happy about this
I can’t begin to tell you. Judging by the new characters
(cough…ROCKETRACCOON…cough) it’s going to be an interesting sell but for me
Whedon is the man for the job :-)
There you go. Doctor Who and The
Avengers. What more do you need to bring a smile to your face?!?!
Goodbye till next time :-)
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