Review Category: Movie

Review: The Lone Ranger / Cert: 12A / Director: Gore Verbinski / Screenplay: Justin Haythe, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio / Starring: Armie Hammer, Johnny Depp, William Fichtner, Helena Bonham Carter, Tom Wilkinson, Ruth Wilson / Release Date: August 9th

Today’s Generation Xbox probably won’t recall The Lone Ranger, a once-popular radio and television character. They might have heard the rally cry ‘Hi-Yo, Silver! Away!’ or know the name ‘Tonto’, but that’s all a wild stab in the cultural dark.

The film begins with a shot of an under-construction Golden Gate Bridge. Panning slowly to a fairground, an aged Tonto (Depp) stands dead still, like one of those statues outside dime stores and gas stations across the US. The expansion of America had a very heavy cost – mass genocide and the deliberate stifling of Native American culture.

Verbinski and his writers have playfully put Tonto in charge of the yarn and this tact mushes together the John Ford maxim about printing the legend instead of the facts. The subversive aspects of The Lone Ranger place it firmly alongside the likes of Arthur Penn’s revisionist Little Big Man. In both films, by total design, General Custer turns up as an idiotic figure.

Tonto is the heart and weirdy beardy soul of the movie and through his words and the camera’s eye we witness the often banal cruelty and rampant viciousness of the Old West. The Lone Ranger is a dark picture, a charge that Verbinski in interviews appears to deny. Whilst it is not exactly explicit, violence is not ignored or casually tossed aside.

Armie Hammer’s ‘hero’ – as told by Tonto – is another off-kilter portrayal. He arrives as a handsome, clean-shaven civilised man from Back East. He covets his brother’s wife and becomes a tireless avenger, transformed by his need for retribution. Again, Verbinski takes a traditional white-hatted hero and makes him less heroic than would seem on the surface of things. The central pairing is no celebration of heroism, more a gonzo iteration of the buddy cop formula.

Much has been made of the 149-minutes running time, but the movie zips along and closely echoes old serial formats with an episodic narrative that has plenty of cliffhangers. An incredible finale, set aboard a hurtling train, is nothing short of breath-taking and Hans Zimmer’s reworking of the William Tell Overture lends it a galloping pace.

Although nowhere near as crackpot as Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo, Verbinski packs his movie with plenty of oddities. Just like his last western – the animated feature Rango – the director’s quirky eye lends The Lone Ranger a humorous tone of possibly acquired taste. It’s a world where horses hide in trees, a brothel keeper packs a pistol in her tattooed ivory leg and the villain is a hare-lipped cannibal.

Expected Rating: 5 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Review: Elysium / Cert: 15 / Director: Neill Blomkamp / Screenplay: Neill Blomkamp / Starring: Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley / Release Date: August 23rd

In 2009 District 9 catapulted South African filmmaker Neill Blomkamp into the Hollywood arena with his innovative and original approach to big budget sci-fi. The setting of the slums of Johannesburg, the politics and personal passion, the original and gritty design and the discovery of Sharlto Copley made this one of the best sci-fi films of the last decade. Elysium shifts gears and location but has much of the same political fury behind it. Matt Damon is in the lead and Copley is cast in a smaller role this time as a sadistic South African enforcer named Krueger. This is a dark and urgent summer blockbuster that delivers strong ideas and imaginative effects with a bubbling undercurrent of US and global political issues.

The architecture of Elysium alone makes it special – it’s set in a world where the class and wealth division is so large they are living on different planets. Matt Damon is Max De Costa, a factory worker and ex-con who’s being hustled by a system designed to make him fail. His daily routine consists of a demeaning stop and search for no other reason than his appearance, a trip to the parole office which plays out like a visit to the job centre with a robot in place of a worker repeating government guidelines and statistics… it’s all very familiar and dehumanising. Resistance appears to be futile and disobedience is rewarded with prison time. But it only takes one to shake up the status quo. A work place accident gives De Costa a life-threatening illness to which the only cure available is on that far off land of Elysium. He turns to the underground, those working around the system, to help him get there and they ask for his help to hack the system in return.

Jodie Foster is the harsh enforcer on Elysium, Secretary Rhodes, drilling out orders like a robot and entirely evil. Speaking of robots, there are some particularly nasty man-made droids too who carry out her orders. Spaceships hurtling over the diseased and polluted vista of Earth, Damon decked out in an extraordinary exo-suit drilled into his skin and the simply spectacular looking Elysium are all expertly crafted. The special effects team have achieved something very special and unique. Add to that the brilliant Copley, who delivers another completely inspiring and scene stealing performance as the man tasked with catching De Costa and you can’t help but get caught up in this adrenalin-pumping race to save humanity.

This is highly entertaining sci-fi designed to make you think about distribution of wealth, overpopulation, a questionable healthcare system and the state of world we live in. Though it may not feel as fresh as District 9, it shows that Blomkamp is unafraid to tackle issues of race, class and immigration policy marking him as the kind of intelligent filmmaker to admire and get passionate about – he’s rebooting the system. Viva la revolución!

Expected Rating: 9 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Review: Bring Me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman / Cert: 18 / Director: Ernesto Díaz Espinoza / Screenplay: Ernesto Díaz Espinoza / Starring: Fernanda Urrejola, Matías Oviedo, Jorge Alis / Release Date: 27th September

Along with found footage, grindhouse imitation films are starting to wear out their welcome. Now that he has been there and done that with the martial arts and superhero genres, director Ernesto Díaz Espinoza has turned to Chilean grindhouse homage. This may have its roots in early 80s exploitation, but the style is very much reminiscent of the video game Grand Theft Auto.
 
A hapless gaming-addicted DJ, who lives with his mother and works at a club owned by a mobster, overhears his boss Che Sausage (yep…) planning to kill an assassin known only as ‘the Machine Gun Woman’. Due to his eavesdropping, he is pressed into going on a one-man mission to bring Sausage the woman’s head. On his journeys, he encounters an underworld of elite assassins and finds that killing this beautiful woman may prove difficult. This is all presented with on-screen text informing the audience of how much the bounty on each criminal is worth, as well as giving us indications of when each mission begins and ends and whether it’s a success or a failure, just like a sandbox crime game.

Although it commits the usual sin for this kind of thing, where it starts all scratchy and damaged and remarkably becomes pristine digital footage after five minutes, it’s clear that Espinoza loves this stuff. Bring me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman is like a weird mash up of Desperado and something like Gamer. There is the odd bout of nasty violence (a whipping death is especially wince-inducing) and an attempted rape, but mainly this is all about a leather-clad beauty holding a gun and a wet dreaming wimp becoming a man – and it’s just as silly as it sounds. The camera work echoing Grand Theft Auto is really spot-on, even down to the angle it views the cars you would drive as a player of the game. Again, it’s clear that there’s major affection for this behind the scenes.

It may be amusing for the subject of a short film, but at some point you start to wish BMTHOTMGW would gather weight and momentum. It almost feels like a test for a longer and more ambitious film that Espinoza wants to make. Everything is so lightweight despite the violence that you never really feel your pulse quicken the way it should. Even a last act kidnapping fails to grip which is a shame because there is a lot of love and invention that never coalesces into a satisfying whole. This is no doubt a film best enjoyed when stumbled upon after the pub one night a few years down the road.

Expected Rating: 6 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Review: The Wolverine / Cert: 12A / Director: James Mangold / Screenplay: Christopher McQuarrie, Mark Bomback, Scott Frank / Starring: Hugh Jackman, Rila Fukushima, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Famke Janssen / Release Date: July 25th

Wolverine goes Japanese and the story goes to pot in this sprawling and overlong blockbuster, which attempts to reveal the man behind the Brillo Pad sideboards but actually ends up exposing the shortcomings in James Mangold’s helmsmanship. Thank Buddha for the kickass redhead!

We meet Wolverine deep in a hole near Nagasaki in 1945 as chaos erupts around him. A soldier named Yashida attempts to release Wolverine from his prison and ends up being saved from the atomic explosion by him. Fast forward to the present day and we meet the lonesome Logan (Jackman) living a solitary life in the woods, only going to town to pick up supplies and drown his sorrows. His anger at the world around him and the curse of his immortality doesn’t allow him to engage with other people. That is, until a young lady named Yukio (Fukushima) turns up to request he accompany her to Japan to visit Yashida on his death bed.

The first thirty minutes of The Wolverine set up the story extremely well, weaving in characters, explosive setpieces and well-choreographed fight sequences. Wolverine gets time to show off his skills and go berserk but is robbed of his healing powers for a lot of the film and chooses to hibernate, learn about himself and fall in love with Yashida’s granddaughter Mariko. Leading on from X-Men: The Last Stand, Jean Grey (Janssen) is dead and appears as a ghost who haunts and guides Logan on his path to self-discovery. His grief at Grey’s death is explored well through his nightmares.

There’s lots of fun to be had with a train-top fight, allowing Wolverine to show off those adamantium claws, and snow-set Ninja battles, but the final sequence feels messy. Viper (Khodchenkova) only appears briefly, and both her powers (the ability to suppress another mutant’s powers) and her backstory are sadly undercooked. This disappointing villain is thankfully outshone by the most excellent Yukio , an ally to Logan. Her bright red hair and super samurai skills are quite something to behold, and her appearance in a small town bar is one of the best scenes in the film. Hugh Jackman is once again perfect in the role of Wolverine, ably shifting between troubled introspection and astonishing physical prowess.

There’s much to like, but unfortunately The Wolverine feels unbalanced and far too lengthy, with the middle section especially dragging. When the mid-credits sting (stay in your seat) is the real highlight of a film there’s something amiss.

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10

Actual Rating:

 

Review: Jug Face / Cert: TBC / Director: Chad Crawford Kinkle / Screenplay: Chad Crawford Kinkle / Starring: Sean Bridgers, Lauren Ashley Carter, Larry Fessenden, Sean Young, Daniel Manche / Release Date: Out Now VOD (US only), UK TBC (Grimmfest première October)

This intriguing feature début from writer/director Kinkle has an assured style, and a deep mythology which will keep one thinking long after the credits roll.

An isolated backwoods community is in jeopardy when young Ada (Carter) discovers Dawai (a brilliantly understated Bridgers), a local potter who has fashioned a jug bearing her face. This means she is next to be sacrificed to ‘the Pit’: a hole in the ground worshipped, feared and revered as if it were a God. She hides the jug, but things get worse as she finds out she will be ‘joined’ to a local boy and that she is pregnant – the father being her brother, Jessaby (Manche), something frowned upon even in this hick society. As the Pit has not been satisfied by the chosen sacrifice, it begins taking various locals, who in turn become spirits roaming the forest as ‘the shunned’.

Right from the simple but evocative animation which accompanies the opening credits, we become immersed in the film’s mythology and ideology. The community has a language of its own, part hick-speak, part Olde English, and seems from another time; though this is very much a contemporary tale. Both Carter and Bridgers played key roles in executive producer Lucky McKee’s The Woman, and in a way Jug Face shares a similar feel; something off-kilter, infused with warped family values and overbearing parental influence. The matriarch here, played gloriously by Young, is certainly no shrinking violet, vigorously inspecting Ada for both evidence of intercourse and menstruation (“she is dripping”). It is worth noting this is not a mere satire on religion, but it does raise questions about blindly following a belief, regardless of consequence – Ada’s resistance to her sacrifice coming, not from a lack of faith, but rather a wish to live. We are in no doubt that the Pit is a real entity, but wisely Kinkle keeps whatever is in there out of sight, as when special effects do come in to play (as with the shunned) they betray the film’s low budget. It is a pensive film that works well; eerily atmospheric, impressively acted, and with an effective score, a film which is as organic as the forest. Don’t miss it.

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Review: The World’s End / Cert: 15 / Director: Edgar Wright / Screenplay: Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright / Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Rosamund Pike / Release Date: July 19th

The last in the very loose trilogy known as the Blood and Ice Cream/Three Flavours Cornetto is finally here and while Shaun of the Dead was horror and Hot Fuzz was action, the third film, The World’s End, is definitely back in Starburst territory with a clever riff on the body snatchers story.

Simon Pegg plays Gary King, a man who never got over his idealised teenage years and one night’s pub crawl in particular. Now facing the wrong end of 40, Gary decides to get the gang back together from that night to complete the pub crawl in their hometown of Newhaven and end the night at the titular pub, The World’s End. Along the way secrets are revealed, old grudges remembered and old flames reignited, plus… there’s something weird going on with the residents of Newhaven.

Interestingly Pegg and Nick Frost both play against type here. Pegg is the irresponsible one and Frost is the tightly wound one. Pegg is amazing in this role; he is the embodiment of a man whose purpose is to be the life and soul of the party, and is a very real character. He and Frost get the meaty scenes and their relationship is the most complex. We think it’s fair to say the other friends (Martin Freeman, Paddy Considine and Eddie Marsan) get a bit lost with the usual Edgar Wright fast-paced dialogue delivery and their relationships don’t seem to sing in the same way, although each is given their own laugh out loud moment.

There is something of a satirical slant to The World’s End which becomes more obvious as the film goes on. The first clue is when the gang walk into one of their old haunts to find it has become a stale corporatized shell of what they used to know and the second is the way that the new residents tend to come apart when fought. The third can be left for you to discover but sadly this thread is never really explored as much as you would like and feels like a missed opportunity. This is small matter though, because The World’s End is hugely funny and thrilling with a surprising number of lengthy fight scenes and well-staged setpieces.

The World’s End will be a definite crowd-pleaser this summer and although it may never reach the heights of the previous films, it’s definitely an entertaining capper to one of the more inventive trilogies of our times.

Expected Rating: 9 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Review: The Conjuring / Cert: 15 / Director: James Wan / Screenplay: Chad Hayes, Carey W. Hayes / Starring: Patrick Wilson, Vera Famiga, Ron Livingston, Lilli Taylor / Release Date: August 2nd

If there’s a movie that must be seen this year, it’s The Conjuring. James Wan, writer/director of the original  Saw, a movie that went on to spawn a successful, worldwide franchise, and 2010’s highly acclaimed Insidious, has struck lightening once again with this haunted house/demonic possession horror film.

Hard-working Roger Perron (Livingston), his wife, Carolyn (Taylor), and their five daughters move into what seems to be a nice, rural home, only to accidentally discover a hidden cellar unleashing an inhuman, malevolent spirit that wreaks havoc on them. All the clocks stop at 3:07 AM, creaking doors and closets open and close for no apparent reason, one of the daughters displays bizarre sleepwalking behaviour, there are unnerving moments of being touched or followed by an unseen force and unexplained bruises on Carolyn’s body. Enlisting the aid of demonologist/parapsychologist couple, Ed and Lorraine Warren (brilliantly played by Wilson and Farmiga) and their team, they discover that the three main staples of demonic forces are at work; infestation, oppression and possession are real in this house and it becomes a race against time to banish the evil force before it destroys the entire family, including the Warrens.

Casting in this film is perfect. Each actor plays their part with solid believability, echoing the tone of The Exorcist and Robert Wise’s The Haunting. The viewer is completely absorbed in a story peppered with genuine, unexpected, bump in the night scares that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Composer Joseph Bishara’s moody score complements the evil tone, giving a delicious, unnerving flavour of horror, while Julie Berghoff’s production design creates an innocent Norman Rockwell/Americana look that shifts intensely dark. All in all, bravo, Mr Wan.

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Review: The Frozen Ground / Cert: 15 / Director: Scott Walker / Screenplay: Scott Walker / Starring: Vanessa Hudgens, Nicolas Cage, John Cusack / Release Date: July 19^th

Serial killer Robert Hansen was caught in 1983 when one of his intended victims fled his capture and went to the police. This incident lead to the linking of Hansen to several bodies discovered in the Alaskan wilderness. In the end he was convicted of 4 murders but is suspected to have killed around 21. This true story is the background to The Frozen Ground.

Things start loud and chaotic in a small Alaskan town as Cindy Paulson (Hudgens) is discovered battered and chained and understandably hysterical. We are introduced to Detective Jack Halcombe (Cage) who has been finding bodies in the wilderness and suspects that Cindy’s story of having escaped from Robert Hansen (Cusack) is going to lead to a conviction of the prime suspect. Halcombe however has a hard time convincing Cindy to testify, and persuading the local law enforcement that Hansen is their man.

Nothing about the execution or subject matter of The Frozen Ground is going to revolutionise the serial killer horror subgenre, but it is done well with a couple of really good performances. John Cusack in particular is outstanding and post The Paperboy seems to be coming into a second wind of his career playing scumbags. His Hansen is all controlled family man on the outside and then twitchy, angry menace in private with his victims. Vanessa Hudgens is also fast becoming a promising young actress; taking roles that will break her out of the Disney princess ghetto seems to be really working for her, and she uses her attractiveness as an asset without becoming a self-parody. Nicolas Cage is himself as usual but he isn’t relying on any of the tics or speech patterns that make up his acting range. Once the film calms down and the scene is set and the focus becomes getting evidence for a conviction rather than hunting down the criminal, Cage comes into his own with his interaction with Hudgens’ character, although he is saddled with some of the films more clichéd scenes.

Writer and director Scott Walker does a solid job here and really evokes an atmosphere of menace and seediness with the 1983 version of Alaska he presents. The mood recalls many of the Nordic noirs that have become so popular in recent times as well as Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia. The film is loaded with solid support from actors like Radha Mitchell, Dean Norris, 50 Cent (seriously) and Brad William Henke.

Due to the lack of fireworks and the film being fairly low key, it’s likely to get lost this summer amongst the flashier fare. The Frozen Ground is however a solid thriller and a fascinating real life story well worth your time.

Expected Rating: 5 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett, the duo who brought us the emotionally intelligent and tense feature A Horrible Way to Die and also contributed to recent horror anthologies The ABCs of Death and V/H/S, team up again to deliver a gloriously gory and highly entertaining home invasion horror whose wit is as sharp as an arrow (you’ll see where we’re going with that in a moment…).

A family gathers in their holiday home, a mansion in the woods, to celebrate their parents’ 35th wedding anniversary. Paul and Aubrey Davison have spawned a clan of spoilt, greedy brats with no real regard for one another. Crispian, Drake, Felix and Aimee are highly competitive and shallow beings who vie against one another. Their partners are a mixed bag; Erin is a kind companion to Crispian, Zee alongside Felix seethes with disdain at the whole family, whilst Aimee’s beau is an underground documentary filmmaker who Drake and his partner Kelly taunt with their droll dinner conversation.

As played by a cast dotted with luminaries of the mumblecore and indie horror crowd, this unlikeable, filthy rich bunch are vividly sketched in before the killings commence. Then an arrow from an unknown assailant crashes through the grand dining room window bringing the feast to an end and striking the first victim straight through the head. This dramatic start to the terror points towards Robin Hood style tactics and motives behind the attack, though this band of merry men are cloaked in animal masks. The family members are taken down one by one but a fierce final girl, the Australian Erin, who just happens to have been raised on a survivalist compound, stands up and defends herself to the very end refusing to be a pawn in this sick power game.

Sharni Vinson gives it her all in her performance as Erin, as she outfoxes and overcomes her attackers, and you’re sure to be cheering her on in her endeavour. Joe Swanberg delivers a master class in vile smugness as the entitled Drake – every word out of his mouth is gold thanks to Barrett’s sharp-witted script. Much fun is had with all the performances. Alongside the chopping, garrotting and blood-splattering, the humour and detail ensures this film demands your attention; think Arrested Development crossed with The Strangers. Eloquent camera-work and deft execution leads to an energetic rampage through moral turpitude as tables keep turning and bodies keep falling in this unapologetically fun horror film.

Review: The Numbers Station / Cert: 15 / Director: Kasper Barfoed / Screenplay: F. Scott Frazier / Starring: John Cusack, Malin Ackerman, Liam Cunningham / Release Date: July 1st

The Numbers Station is a taut, fast-paced espionage thriller in the vein of Danger Man and Three Days of the Condor.  

John Cusack plays Emerson, a burnt-out American operative reassigned to a remote numbers station called Blackleg Miner in Suffolk that decodes and sends out encrypted messages to field agents. Here he meets Katherine (Ackerman), a civilian cryptographer along with her group of deciphering and encoding specialists where Emerson slowly becomes involved with her. 

Arriving together for their three-day shift, Emerson and Katherine discover that their co-workers have vanished and the base has been compromised. It’s here they slowly unravel a plot by a group of violent men that have their own agenda of reprogramming the codes and sending out their own communications against innocent people. 

John Cusack is perfect in the role of Emerson, an older, more serious version of his character in Grosse Pointe Blank (originally, Ethan Hawke was attached as the lead, but bowed out). Malin Ackerman is terrific as Katherine – smart, yet vulnerable. The scenes with her and Cusack play out nicely. Frazier’s script is well thought out and suspenseful, keeping you guessing at every turn, and Danish director Kasper Barfoed keeps a steady pace. The Numbers Station was filmed at the old Rendlesham US army base, the site of one of the most memorable UFO encounters of the ’80s, and this ominous, foreboding setting adds much to the movie’s flavour.

Expected Rating: 5 out of 10

Actual Rating: