Reviews | three rows back

Review – The Lego Movie

Posted on June 15, 2014 by Three Rows Back

As chaotic as it is clever and comedic, this gloriously absurd tale about the “highly sophisticated interlocking brick system” should be required watching for Michael Bay to see how movies about toys should be made.

As cunningly catchy as the signature awesome tune that plays throughout, The Lego Movie is that rarest of Hollywood gifts – a genuine and delightful surprise

It doesn’t happen very often, but every once in a while a film comes along that goes some way to make amends for the many wasted hours long-suffering cinemagoers spend sat in popcorn-encrusted multiplexes being force-fed creatively bankrupt Tinseltown trash.

For all intents and purposes The Lego Movie shouldn’t be that film. What should (read: normally) have happened is that it burst into cinemas and made a pot of cash before anyone realised it was rubbish. However, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller chose instead to take the road travelled most recently by Disney’s Frozen of making a well-written, funny and charming movie that appeals to young and old alike and attracts repeat viewings.

Simple, ordinary Emmet (Chris Pratt) is about to have his world rocked in The Lego Movie

Lord and Miller’s previous animated flick, 2009’s Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, was weirdly anarchic in itself, but the crazy juice is in full flow here.

We all have something that makes us something, but construction worker Emmet Brickowski (voiced by Chris Pratt) is the definition of ordinary. That is until he inadvertently stumbles across The Piece of Resistance which, according to the prophecy set down by wonky wizard Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman), makes him The Special; the person capable of stopping the evil Lord Business (Will Ferrell) from using a superweapon called the Kragle to freeze the world and preserve perfect order.

Wonky wizard Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) faces evil Lord Business (Will Ferrell) in The Lego Movie

Emmet suddenly finds himself in a strange new world and is helped on his quest by the feisty Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), her boyfriend Batman (Will Arnett) and an army of Master Builders, recognisable from the world of comic books, movies and real life. However, they must all contend with Business and his relentless right clawed man Bad Cop (Liam Neeson).

The chaos of The Lego Movie is, aptly enough, exactly why the film works. As the makers of Minecraft would no doubt agree, the beauty of Lego is that it can be anything its builder wants it to be; whether that be an elaborately designed world (Bricksburg), a free-for-all (as depicted in the movie by the visually bonkers Cloud Cuckoo Land), a pirate ship, or simply two blocks randomly stuck together (the height of my Lego creativity as a youngster).

Batman (Will Arnett) prepares to “wing it” with Emmet (Chris Pratt) in The Lego Movie

Taking Toy Story and The Matrix as building blocks, Lord and Miller’s knowing and subversive script weaves in everything from the unhealthy ties between politics and big business to cultural dumbing down (the TV show Where’s My Pants?), overpriced coffee, good old-fashioned satire and plenty of jokes.

By way of example, there’s the throwaway parody of Batman via the lyrics of a self-penned song he plays through the Batmobile’s new subwoofers: “Darkness… No parents… More darkness… Get it?… The opposite of light… Super rich… Kinda makes it better.”

The Lego Movie gang

To achieve this level of chaos without the film imploding in on itself takes some doing, while the animation itself is ingeniously rendered. Even water is fashioned from Lego blocks and somehow fits in with everything else that’s happening on screen.

The film also deftly underscores the cross-generational appeal of Lego and the different outlook that kids have (build whatever, deconstruct and start again) and adults (build something elaborate, stick it together with glue, remove the fun out of it) have when it comes to the little blocks.

As cunningly catchy as the signature awesome tune that plays throughout, The Lego Movie is that rarest of Hollywood gifts – a genuine and delightful surprise.

Review – Fruitvale Station

Posted on June 10, 2014 by Three Rows Back

There’s something remarkably matter-of-fact about Ryan Coogler’s portrait of the hours leading up to the tragic and needless shooting of Oscar Grant III.

An undeniably powerful and harrowing lament of a life taken far too early it may be, but Fruitvale Station fails to break free of its heavy-handed shackles

The drama that unfolds over the course of Fruitvale Station‘s 85 minutes could so easily have been amplified for propagandistic effect, so it’s to the credit of both the writer-director and a mature and measured Michael B. Jordan in the lead role that this is avoided.

However, a heavy-handed script, manipulative visual touches and a televisual style cut the film short of being a truly outstanding debut feature from Coogler.

Oscar (Michael B. Jordan) hangs out with his daughter Tatiana (Ariana Neal) in Fruitvale Station

Fruitvale Station follows the final day of Grant, a young guy from California who spends New Year’s Eve in 2008 trying to make a fresh start.

As well as attempting to work things through with his girlfriend Sophina (Melonie Diaz) for the sake of their daughter Tatiana (Ariana Neal), Oscar is treading a more straight and narrow path with the law and hoping to get his job back while preparing for his mother Wanda’s (Octavia Spencer) birthday.

Oscar’s loving mother Wanda (Octavia Spencer) in Fruitvale Station

However, in a cruel irony, an act of kindness earlier in the film inadvertently creates a chain of events that lead to Oscar’s death at the eponymous Fruitvale Station when he’s shot in the back by a BART police officer; an act filmed by several passengers on their mobile phones.

The film’s elliptical structure opens with chilling footage taken by one of the passengers before rewinding back to the start of the day and following Oscar until his tragic shooting. The harrowing events at the station are undeniably shocking and are powerfully reenacted by Coogler with the help of Kevin Durand and Chad Michael Murray as the police officers whose actions led to his death (the officer who shot Oscar argued in court that he mistakenly used his firearm, believing it to be his Taser weapon).

Sophina (Melonie Diaz) faces an awkward moment with boyfriend Oscar (Michael B. Jordan) in Fruitvale Station

There’s a sadness to the scenes leading up to this moment as we know Oscar is going to be denied the fruits of his labours. However, Coogler lets himself down by forcing the issue too much.

The death of a dog right in front of Oscar is a little too on the money and isn’t helped by the director pulling the shot back to show a train leaving a station as a prophetic sign of what’s to come.

Officer Caruso (Kevin Durand) imposes himself on Oscar (Michael B. Jordan) and his friends in Fruitvale Station

Later in the film, Oscar suggests to Sophina that they should stay in, but she insists on going out to enjoy New Year’s Eve. Likewise, his daughter implores Oscar not to go out because she can hear “gunshots” (actually firecrackers), but he promises her there’s nothing to worry about.

This lack of subtly extends to some of the visual choices made by the director. A slo-mo scene of Oscar running after Tatiana feels manipulative and the cheesy score laid on top merely reinforces this. A further life decision that sees Oscar driving to the coast and staring out to sea is beautifully filmed, but serves no other purpose than to hammer home a point we’ve already ascertained.

Michael B. Jordan plays Oscar Grant III in Fruitvale Station

In spite of this, the performances are universally compelling, with Spencer on devastating form as Oscar’s mother, whose hopes of a better life for her son following a stint in jail are cruelly snatched away. Diaz is also excellent as the headstrong Sophina, while Neal is a natural who’s required to do as much heavy lifting as many of her older co-stars.

However, this is Jordan’s film and he gives a magnetic turn as Oscar. Jordan is careful not to paint his character as a saint, rather’s he’s a good man who’s smart enough to understand the path he needs to take is different to the one he’s found himself down.

An undeniably powerful and harrowing lament of a life taken far too early it may be, but Fruitvale Station fails to break free of its heavy-handed shackles.

Review – Edge Of Tomorrow

Posted on June 7, 2014 by Three Rows Back

Movies and video games have never made the easiest of bedfellows, so it’s ironic a film based on a book should inadvertently capture what makes great games tick.

As fun a ride as you’re likely to have all summer, Edge Of Tomorrow is a film you’ll want to watch it all over again

Although Edge Of Tomorrow inevitably attracts comparisons to Groundhog Day in its time loop structure, Major William Cage’s (Tom Cruise) seemingly endless replays and slow, obsessive battle to defeat the bad guys brings to mind the likes of Halo and other highly intensive action games.

In fact it wouldn’t have looked out of place for the words ‘Game Over’ to appear each time Cage dies before respawning at the same point, while its tagline ‘Live. Die. Repeat.’ will be familiar to millions of gamers trying to progress through their latest game.

Major William Cage’s (Tom Cruise) day is about to turn very bad in Edge Of Tomorrow

Setting aside his odd personal beliefs, you have to hand it to Cruise for having managed to remain at the top of the tree for more than 30 years. He’s also done it on his own terms and has often been prepared to use that winning smile he became famous for early in his career to subversive effect.

Here, the smile is used to sell the allied war effort against an invading alien race known as Mimics who have conquered most of Europe. In spite of his senior rank, PR guru Cage has seen no combat, choosing instead to fight the war in front of the TV cameras as the face of the United Defence Forces (UDF).

Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) and Special Forces soldier Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) consider their next move in Edge Of Tomorrow

So when UDF commander General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson) informs the cowardly Cage that he’s being embedded on the frontlines for Operation Downfall, the UDF’s all-or-nothing invasion of France (it can’t be a coincidence the film has been released in the US on the 70th anniversary of D-Day), Cage unsuccessfully attempts to worm his way out of it.

Deployed in the first wave, Cage is killed within a few minutes, only to suddenly awaken back at the barracks, where the invasion begins all over again. With the help of super soldier and UDF poster girl Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), who appears to be the only one who understands what is happening to Cage, they set about trying to defeat the enemy, one death and one time loop at a time.

Super soldier Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) does the business in Edge Of Tomorrow

Director Doug Liman is now best regarded as an action director, although he made a name for himself with the indie classic Swingers (1996). His form in the genre has been patchy; on the plus side he gave us The Bourne Identity (2002), but this was followed by the smug Mr And Mrs Smith (2005) and the tedious Jumper (2008).

The scales have been balanced with this rousing romp (based on the novel All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka) that zips along at a dizzying pace and doesn’t get lost in its time-space continuum. Cruise plays a genuinely slimy and unlikable character who is forced to become a better man by the fortitude and bravery shown by Vrataski.

Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) finds himself on the frontline in Edge Of Tomorrow

Blunt, who must have a thing for time travel movies after staring in Rian Johnson’s Looper (2012), is a breath of fresh air. It’s a role that demands a strong performance and Blunt delivers it with consummate ease; she’s more than Cruise’s equal on screen and flexes both her acting and physical chops.

The film’s kinetic editing style effectively emphasises the sheer number of times Cage must undergo the same events in order to progress that little bit further each time and the psychological impact it must have is etched on Cruise’s increasingly tortured face.

Sci-fi movies steal from each other all the time and Liman is happy to maintain this tradition. The exoskeleton used in the film is lifted from Aliens and last year’s Elysium, while the influence of militaristic sci-fi flicks such as Starship Troopers is palpable.

As fun a ride as you’re likely to have all summer, Edge Of Tomorrow is a film you’ll want to watch it all over again.

Review – X-Men: Days Of Future Past

Posted on June 1, 2014 by Three Rows Back

Marvel’s most well-worn franchise is back to the future and back to its best in this exhilarating time travelling romp that resolutely refuses to take itself too seriously.

Setting aside the slightly needless set piece involving Magneto raising the Robert F Kennedy Memorial Stadium and chucking it over the White House like a giant donut, X-Men: Days Of Future Past is a genuine contender for blockbuster of the year

It’s been 14 years since X-Men arrived like a juggernaut into cinemas and ushered in a new paradigm in Hollywood that shows no signs of abating.

The franchise’s high water mark X2 (2003) still remains one of the most fully realised comic book movies. The same, however, could not be said of its sequel The Last Stand (2006) and the two standalone films featuring the evergreen Wolverine – all of which validated the law of diminishing returns.

1970s era Professor Xavier (James McAvoy) re-enters cerebro with Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) in X-Men: Days of Future Past

As seems to happen with most money-spinning comic book series these days, the clocks were turned back and the reboot switch was flipped with X-Men: First Class (2011), an effective superhero flick that used recent history (the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis) to posit an alternative reality in which mutants played a significant part.

The golden thread that linked First Class and X-Men 1.0 was Hugh Jackman’s pithy cameo as Wolverine and the character inevitably plays a crucial role in bridging the two time periods for Days Of Future Past.

Military scientist and businessman Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) in X-Men: Days of Future Past

The other golden thread is director Bryan Singer, who has come home after a patchy recent run that included Superman Returns (2006), Valkyrie (2008) and Jack The Giant Slayer (2013) and in the process delivered the best film in the franchise since his last turn in the big chair with X2.

Wolverine is zapped back in time to 1973 by Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) to avert a future wherein seemingly invincible man-made robots called Sentinels are within a hair’s breadth of wiping out mutant kind. The situation is so grim that friends-turned-enemies Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen) have joined forces to make a last stand (not that one) against the metallic beasts.

Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) sets her sights in X-Men: Days of Future Past

Meanwhile, back in ’73, Wolverine must convince a younger, more disillusioned Xavier (James McAvoy) to break Magneto (Michael Fassbender) out of the Pentagon in order for him to help them stop the shape-shifting Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from killing military scientist Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), whose murder convinces President Nixon’s government to implement Trask’s Sentinel programme.

Using time travel to change an event in the past in order to alter the future invariably brings to mind the likes of The Terminator and Days Of Future Past doesn’t try particularly hard in hiding its obvious debt to that film as the Sentinels turn the planet into a mass graveyard in its dystopian opening reel.

1970s era Magneto (Michael Fassbender) tries to stop traffic in X-Men: Days of Future Past

The film also owes a debt to Star Trek, specifically First Contact and The Voyage Home in its ambition to strike a tone between serious and light-hearted. It’s a tough balance to strike, but one the film carries off with aplomb.

The scenes involving a young Peter Maximoff, aka Quicksilver, are great fun and Evan Peters has a blast in the part of the mutant who’s faster than a speeding bullet. The slo-mo Pentagon kitchen sequence involving a gleeful Quicksilver concocting an elaborate way of getting past the gun-toting guards is an ingenious fusion of special effects, balletic choreography and music (Jim Croce’s Time In A Bottle) that pays off to highly satisfying effect.

A future Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) in X-Men: Days of Future Past

Singer just about manages to avoid things slipping into Village People ridiculousness, although Simon Kinberg’s script slips into over-exposition and needless anachronisms, to the extent you half expect Jackman to break the fourth wall and ask ‘are you keeping up?’.

A strength of the film, aside from John Ottman’s nicely judged score, is its ability to juggle a sizeable cast. With the exception of Halle Berry’s increasingly redundant Storm and Anna Paquin’s much-discussed reduction in screen time, pretty much everyone gets their moment to shine, in particular Nicholas Hoult, who continues the good work he put in during First Class as Hank McCoy, aka Beast.

Future Magneto (Ian McKellen) and Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) in X-Men: Days of Future Past

Jackman, Stewart and McKellen slip into their respective roles as they would an old pair of shoes, while Lawrence gives Mystique a very human dimension and McAvoy expands greatly on what he did in First Class.

The biggest plaudits must go to the excellent Dinklage, who offers up a different sort of villain from the ones we’re used to seeing. Even the very worst of humanity think they’re doing the right thing and Trask is no different. Singer wisely cast Dinklage, whose diminutive size suggests a harmless industrialist, but whose character exbibits ambitions that are world-changing indeed.

Setting aside the slightly needless set piece involving Magneto raising the Robert F Kennedy Memorial Stadium and chucking it over the White House like a giant donut, X-Men: Days Of Future Past is a genuine contender for blockbuster of the year.

Review – Godzilla

Posted on May 24, 2014 by Three Rows Back

The King of the Monsters may have rediscovered his rrrrroar after Roland Emmerich’s 1998 disaster (pun intended), but Gareth Edwards’ creature feature follow-up to his micro-budget debut doesn’t quite reach the giddy heights you’d hope it would.

Godzilla is almost a first-rate blockbuster, it just doesn’t have the magic formula of great action and great characters to make it truly rrrroar-some

Trailers often fail to quicken the pulse, but the promos for Gojira’s latest big screen outing were a masterclass in wringing every last of drop of anticipation from an audience rubbing their hands at what the director of Monsters would bring to the table.

There are enough moments here to remind you of why Edwards is such an exciting talent. However, for a film that (correctly) chooses to spend so much of its time exploring the human story, it’s a shame too many of the characters fail to leap off the screen.

Nuclear physicist Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) and son Ford (Aaron-Taylor Johnson) go in search of the truth in Godzilla

Godzilla‘s cracking opening credits sequence doffs its cap to Ishirō Honda’s 1954 Japanese original and runs with that film’s nuclear-inflected theme. Rather than a nuclear test, the hydrogen bomb dropped on Bikini Atoll by the US military was, we learn, aimed at destroying the gigantic ocean-dwelling Gojira.

All is quiet until 1999 when a Japanese nuclear power plant succumbs to what’s labelled a ‘natural disaster’, although plant supervisor Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) is having none of it and believes something else is going on. Cut to 15 years later and Joe’s search for the truth lands him in hot water, forcing his estranged bomb disposal expert son Ford (Aaron-Taylor Johnson) to leave his wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen) and son behind in San Francisco to fly to Japan to bring him back to the US. Joe’s convinced the government is hiding something, although not even he can quite believe what it eventually turns out to be and soon enough all hell is breaking loose.

Scientists Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) and Vivienne Graham (Sally Hawkins) investigate in Godzilla

That Edwards’ Godzilla stomps all over Emmerich’s effort is pretty much a given (Ed Wood could have made a better film in all honesty). However, a cast full of stellar names are often reduced to delivering one-note performances that serve the story without adding any substance.

The strained father-son relationship between the Brody bunch is worthy of screen time and a driver of the film’s opening half, but Cranston and Taylor-Johnson never truly sell it to us.

The US military HALO jumps into the carnage in Godzilla

Ken Watanabe spends almost the entire film as scientist Serizawa looking like he needs to go to the toilet, while the incredibly versatile Sally Hawkins never deviates from appearing ashen-faced as Seizawa’s colleague Graham. In fact, all the female roles are underwritten; with Juliette Binoche in a blink and you’ll miss it turn as Joe’s wife Sandra, while Olsen gets very little to do as Elle.

That being said, it’s admirable in this day and age for a blockbuster to even give a second’s thought to developing relationships and a narrative ahead of budget-sapping CGI. It’s an approach that worked well for Edwards in Monsters (although, with next-to-no funding it’s always easier to film talking heads rather than space creatures) and, with a little more finesse, will undoubtedly serve him well going forward.

A terrified Elle (Elizabeth Olson) and son hope for the safe return of husband Ford (Aaron-Taylor Johnson) in Godzilla

Where Edwards really hits it out of the park is in the action scenes involving Godzilla and the massive unidentified terrestrial organisms (MUTOs) that are thrown into the mix. These aren’t just faceless CGI monsters; each of these creatures (Godzilla especially) are emotive forces of nature, whether it be the extended glance shared by ‘zilla and Ford or the moment of tenderness shared by the MUTOs amid the destruction. If this is indeed going to become a franchise (as looks likely) then it’s only right that you feel something for the King of the Monsters.

ROOOOAAARRR!!

Other dramatic moments, including the Fukushima-inflected destruction of the Japanese nuclear power plant are deftly handled, while the film’s real highlight remains the awesome HALO jump sequence (a candidate for scene of the year), wherein Ford and a crack team of soldiers free-fall into a devastated San Francisco to the eerie strains of György Ligeti’s Requiem (a piece of music used to equally unnerving effect in 2001: A Space Odyssey).

Edwards’ love for Spielberg’s Jaws is evident throughout, from the name Brody, to the long delay in showing the monster in all its titanic glory and the boat which Ford clambers onto in the film’s final act. Let’s hope the sequels fare better than the follow-ups to that franchise.

Godzilla is almost a first-rate blockbuster, it just doesn’t have the magic formula of great action and great characters to make it truly rrrroar-some.

Here’s that awesome trailer…

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