Review Category: Movie

To give some perspective, this isn’t a continuation of the narrative started in the first two G.I. Joe films. The clue is in the original subtitle. This is both a reboot and a prequel of sorts, but more of a reboot. Snake Eyes is the enigmatic member of the worldwide peace-keeping force codenamed G.I. Joe. He dresses like a futuristic ninja and is their martial arts specialist. But who is he really?  How did he get so dangerous? Snake Eyes seeks to answer these questions.

From the outset, it becomes clear that this isn’t your normal G.I. Joe film, where the evil COBRA organisation launches another plot for world domination only to be defeated by the Joes and their toy product placement arsenal. The high level of incredible gadgetry, weapons and vehicles aren’t as front and centre as normal. Strange as it may seem, for a film based on a long-running series of toys by Hasbro, this is a little less explosively action-packed and frantic than usual. In fact, compared to its two predecessors, it’s actually quite understated and grounded. Rather than a two-hour extended toy commercial with cardboard characters lurching from one improbable chase to the next, we have a martial arts epic, with themes of divided loyalties, betrayal, and redemption.  This is a refreshing change of direction for this franchise.

As a child, Snake Eyes saw his father executed and swears to devote his life seeking vengeance. As an adult played by Henry Golding, he becomes a dominant fighter on the underground circuit before being recruited by the Yakuza then moves on to join a Ninja Clan. Here, he receives his formal training and three tests – one of which involves entering a nest of sacred giant Anacondas. Although the action is fast and frantic, particularly the fight scenes of which there are plenty, Henry Golding doesn’t have the screen presence to carry the longer dialogue scenes. But then again, he is playing the part of, basically, an Action Man doll. And if his delivery seems a bit tedious, the audience can be assured that we’re never far away from the next action sequence, so it all balances out.

All in all, it’s a more involving film than we’d expect, given its pedigree – despite its subplot involving a deadly ray emitting jewel. It’s not deep, it’s not going to change your life or your philosophy. It’s a big, loud summer tentpole movie designed solely to while away a rainy couple of hours. The cinematic equivalent of a Big Mac and Fries. And who doesn’t enjoy one of those once in a while?

SNAKE EYES is in UK cinemas now

The second half of DC and WB’s animated Long Halloween adaptation is here and, with it, all the villains. The structure of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s Batman epic puts the best bad guys at the back, with the story devolving into madness as the costumed crazies take over. With the birth of Two-Face, and colourful monsters such as the Joker and Scarecrow running riot, the Falcones and Maronis of the world are increasingly out of their depth. As is Batman himself.

Part Two of this adaptation opens with Bruce Wayne (Jensen Ackles) under the thrall of Poison Ivy (Katee Sackhoff), duped into signing over his assets to Gotham’s gangster overlords. With Ivy, Scarecrow, and the Mad Hatter all vying for Batman’s attention, it’ll be a wonder if there’s any time left to stop the Holiday Killer before he (?) strikes again. Harvey Dent (Josh Duhamel), meanwhile, struggles with his own psychosis as his war on organized crime begins to take its toll.

As with the first half of the story, there’s a lot of ground to cover. The characters benefit greatly from the breathing room a two-parter grants them. Harvey’s fall from grace still feels slightly rushed, but not nearly as much as it did in, say, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. Anyone who has seen Nolan’s trilogy or The Animated Series will find themselves in familiar territory here, but The Long Halloween does it with just enough style and panache to make the return journey feel worthwhile.

If Part One felt like Dent’s story, then Part Two finally lets us get to know Jensen Ackles’s Batman. While his growly, dull Batman voice is nothing special, Ackles does a good Bruce Wayne, tapping into a wounded vulnerability which brings some much-needed depth to the character. Like the rest of the cast, he’s outclassed by Duhamel, but at least gets some great Scarecrow-influenced nightmare sequences to try and redress the balance. A shout out, too, to the Mad Hatter (John DiMaggio), here re-imagined with a hilarious cockney accent.

But for all its villains, The Long Halloween is perhaps too over-stuffed for its own good. The compelling murder mystery becomes diluted by constant cameos, too many heroes and a Two-Face origins story. There’s not enough time for Bruce and Selina’s romance, the collapse of Harvey and Gilda’s marriage, nor the intricacies of Holiday’s crimes. There’s certainly not enough of Sofia Falcone (Laila Berzins), stealing the show, just as she did in the books.

This is a valiant attempt at bringing one of the most iconic Batman books to life; showcasing the best of Batman’s rogues gallery, juggling multiple storylines. For the most part, it succeeds in its efforts. This tricksy, sprawling adaptation is a treat; The Long Halloween done justice.

Out now on Digital Download, DVD, and Blu-ray

 

Teaming up box office leviathan Dwayne Johnson with the increasingly-likeable Emily Blunt and popular British comedian/actor Jack Whitehall in an action movie based on a Disney theme park ride sounds like a licence to print money – as well as potentially kickstarting a new long-running movie franchise. But we live in strange cinematic times where not only is it increasingly difficult to second-guess what titles are going to click with a broad audience, we also have to contend with the ongoing vagaries of the damage done to the industry by the ongoing effects of a worldwide pandemic. Moviegoers and pundits alike continue to hope that an irresistible slate of unmissable top drawer broad appeal movies will lure a timid audience back to the movie theatre and properly reinvigorate a box office that’s still somewhat sluggish and moribund. But the studios’ cautious ‘same date’ theatrical and digital release template continues to do the proper moviegoing experience no favours… and sadly, films like Jungle Cruise (available in cinemas as well as Disney+’s Premium Access service) aren’t really doing their bit either.

There’s really nothing much wrong with Jungle Cruise; it’s an entirely watchable, serviceable old-school adventure movie set in the Amazon, packed with slick stunts, glib dialogue, decent chemistry between the two leads, and a shedload of slightly distracting CGI. But, sadly, nothing we haven’t seen dozens of times before in the likes of the Indiana Jones series, the rebooted Jumanji (also starring Johnson, of course), The Mummy, Romancing the Stone and titles that really are too numerous to mention. There’s nothing wrong with creating a movie that invokes old favourites and in many ways, Jungle Cruise is largely a refreshingly competent return to the more simplistic days of action cinema (with one or two inevitable concessions to perceived contemporary audience requirements) but to really work this is a film that needed at least a dash of something new. A tiny sliver of original thinking to differentiate itself from the sea of good-natured action movies that have preceded it.

It’s 1916 and Dr Lily Houghton (Blunt) and her willowy brother Macgregor (Whitehall) determine to voyage up the treacherous Amazon to find the mythical Tears of the Moon, a tree the petals of which have the capacity to cure illness and heal injuries. They enlist the help of wise-cracking riverboat skipper Frank Wolff (Johnson) and set off on a… well, jungle cruise… that will pit them against ferocious cannibals, a determined German rival (played with extraordinary relish by Jesse Plemons), perilous rapids and, eventually, a group of petrified supernatural 16th-century conquistadors. It’s all good-natured, romping fun; full of fights, escapes, and assorted feats of derring-do but the whole film is suffused with a sense of déjà vu – we’ve really seen all this before too many times – and whilst it’s a ride we’re happy to go along with for the first hour or so, the spirits inevitably start to sink into the Amazon murk when we realise that this is really all there is and that there’s nothing new coming around the next bend in the river to distinguish the film from the likes of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, for example. Jungle Cruise is the classic example of a film that’s just going through its motions, content to offer up nothing more and nothing less than its title suggests as and, as they say, what it says on the tin.

Jungle Cruise is harmless fun, kept afloat by the watchability factor of its three leads and a relentless, lively pace that means it’s never boring and never a chore. But it’s also not even remotely exceptional and it’s likely that you’ll start to forget it even as you’re watching it and you’re most likely to be reaching for your Indiana Jones boxset the moment it’s over to remind yourself of the days when adventure stories like this had some real pizzazz and a proper sense of awe.

Jungle Cruise is in cinemas now and available on Premium Access via Disney+

England, the 1980s: Film censor and professional prude Enid (Niamh Algar) is hard at work trashing the latest horror releases, snipping to bits anything she deems too much for the ignoramus viewing public to handle. When a particularly vile piece of video exploitation falls into her lap, she is consumed by it to the point of obsession. In Don’t Go into the Church, she finds what she believes is key to unlocking her own childhood trauma.

Prano Bailey-Bond’s psychological thriller has much to offer film historians and scholars of Britain’s well-documented Video Nasty era. This was a bleak time to be a fan of horror, and Bailey-Bond hones in on the era’s murk and grime, creating a world just as moody and atmospheric as the fictional ones Enid spends her time chopping up. Smoky screening rooms, dingy offices, and sleazy, condescending men (Michael Smiley and Nicholas Burns, very well cast) are the order of the day, navigated by an increasingly troubled Enid. Like 2012’s Berberian Sound Studio, it’s a movie about horror movies, shot and edited like a horror movie from that era.

As Enid, Algar delivers a powerful performance; tightly wound and controlled as the movie opens, later to fall apart and unspool in a plausible, very video nasty-specific manner. Sure, the so-called nasties were horrible, but it’s ultimately Enid’s own baggage that makes Don’t Go into the Church dangerous. Just as the puritanical hang-ups of Mary Whitehouse, The Sun and The Mail made the original video nasties so objectionable in the first place.

As is so often the case, it falls apart a little by the time the finale comes about – the taut, gripping story giving way to less disturbing schlock and gore – but its point is well-made. Mary Whitehouse most certainly would not approve.

CENSOR is released in the UK on August 20th