Category: Released in 2016

My apologies for being so late again with this review. I saw this movie last year for goodness sake!

Passengers is a sci-fi film starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence as two passengers on a flight into deep space. Their sleeping pods malfunction and they are forced to stay awake 90 years before their destination.

The trailer for this film looked relatively interesting. A cool little thriller premise and a couple of good actors made this look like some good fluff entertainment.

What you get here, however, is something a little meatier than outward appearances suggest. Perhaps it’s something to do with the colour palette of this film being so similar to the washed out dullness of Jurassic World, but I didn’t quite expect the level of dark character work we see in Passengers.

Rather than a thriller of two people up against some corporate conspiracy starring that guy from Guardians of the Galaxy, we get alterations between a survival movie, a psychological horror and a cute drama.

Our leads handle these levels rather well, Pratt showing dramatic chops and other new parts of him which I’ve not seen from him in anything else and Lawrence being the typical mix of charm and charisma you’d expect. Their connection is also believable for the most part.

Michael Sheen plays the lead pair’s only companion in the form of an android bartender. He is delightful. Funny robots are a dime-a-dozen these days, but this portrayal of wide-eyed innocence at the entire situation and pseudo-barman-wisdom is so endearing, I have to admire his execution. The fact that they didn’t give him some evil HAL programming makes me appreciate this film’s lack of cynicism a bit more.

Is this a great sci-fi flick then? No. Some elements like the action are kind of standard and there are of course some major leaps in logic, we aren’t going for The Martian levels of realism. However, the ending made me annoyed in more than one way.

They could’ve gone the whole way with some of the darkness in this film’s ending, while still leaving the audience happy. Also there’s a bizarre wordless cameo which made me scratch my head in the last 30 seconds. I don’t like that kind of thing in a film which doesn’t in any other way try to pull you out of the film.

Despite that stuff, I do highly recommend this, my 54th reviewed film of 2016. Roll on ’17.

Recommended Scenario: If you want a relatively original sci-fi movie which takes some chances you’d otherwise not expect.

Last time I reviewed a Clint Eastwood directed flick it ended up 10th place in my round up of the worst movies of 2015. Did he do any better here with yet another true story film?

Sully: Miracle on the Hudson tells the incredible true story of Captain Sullenburger who piloted a near doomed airliner onto the Hudson River, saving the lives of all the passengers on-board.

This story would best be told as a short film. First Act, show us the start of the day. Sully (Sullenburger, played by everybody’s favourite every-man Tom Hanks) comes in the airport as do the passengers. They get on the plane. Second Act, the plane’s engines are hit by birds and the plane stops. Sully works the situation out. Third Act, the landing. Passengers are rescued. The end.

We have that in this 90 minute feature, but thanks to the nature of the story, we relive it in bits and pieces throughout the run-time again and again. This is inter-cut with the investigation into the incident by some suits and Sully having night and daymares about what might have happened.

I genuinely think that Clint Eastwood watched the Late Night talk shows on which Sully and Chris Kyle (the inspiration for American Sniper) and thought “Those stories are interesting, let’s make them into movies” without fully comprehending that that’s not all you need.

This movie’s intentions are sweet, but the execution is sour.

I see the logic in every decision when it came to telling this tale. It’s not like SUicide Squad where there was a vapid space where a filmmaker should have been. I can see where they came from, having the story be about the aftermath rather than the event itself. Even the cutting back to the incident works in theory, Sully is reliving the experience in his mind.

The problem is that the conflict in “did he do the right thing in ditching the plane in the river” feels extremely void of interest. Sully never struggles with anything other than the “evil” investigators who have “evil” computers on their side. Eastwood vs The Modern World again would be find if they actually had means of evil.

This film is so like American Sniper. Both centre on a modern American Hero who is “misunderstood” (by pretty much nobody according to the films), both have fictitious and exaggerated internal conflicts to try to make the tension actually BE and both have stay-at-home wife characters that fulfil their roles as you’d expect.

I felt no tension in this entire film. None at all. Not because I knew the outcome, but because I was told it again and again by the film and was forced to feel sorry for a man who was praised for the actions we see.

The technicals are good here. The crash itself is well executed, the special effects and direction are fine. The music, by Eastwood himself is also good, though it does come in at odd moments.

The moments where they talk technical plane speak or act like human beings are my favourite points. Those feel real. The final line is quite nice too.

A movie based on true events is supposed to make you interested in the events and admire true heroic deeds. This film unfortunately made me less interested.

Recommended Scenario: If you’re really interested in the Hudson Landing as I know many are.

It’s too soon, I don’t feel Star Warsy enough! Last year I was so hyped, this year I forget how special it is to watch one of these movies.

Rogue One is the first anthology Star Wars film. While in canon with the other movies, this is not a direct sequel following the same characters. It takes place in the days leading up to Episode IV and follows a team of Rebels who are tasked with stealing the Death Star Plans.

I was very cautious going into this one. I loved Episode VII last year, but out of almost principle, I’m wary of introducing Marvel-style continuity to the main body of a franchise and would rather leave it lying in the apocrypha of the nerd sphere. Though, I suppose, if you don’t explore, you don’t get anywhere.

Right, the stuff that worked. The acting is pretty good all around. I know that doesn’t sound like much of a triumph, but if we are honest, in every Star Wars film except 7, even the good ones, there’s at least one bad performance.

The actors work well with their characters. They all have memorable qualities and while I can’t remember their names, they are a joy to be around.

Speaking of joy, the tone of this film is utterly perfect for where it lies in the Saga. Episode III, while very flawed, did have some of the darkest and most moving parts of the series. This was appropriate as the Empire was taking over and Vadar was appearing. This film’s tone is not really dark, but I wouldn’t call it light either. It’s like a Thriller, there’s a lot of urgency and it’s a great transitional tone for part IV where things get fun and a little goofy.

That urgency drives the pace which is super fun. There was not a point in this movie (which I saw at midnight_ where I was bored. Yet in that time we get some decent time with the characters between the superbly directed action and genuinely jaw-dropping effects (seriously one effect I daren’t spoil here blew my mind).

Despite my praise of the pacing however, therein lies one of my few genuine complaints. There are some scenes and moments in this film that could have been excised and the film would have been better for it. Like I said, these didn’t make me check my watch, but they did leave plot-threads dangling, show me some poor CGI, introduce elements too early for me to get the maximum effect of their reveal or just have a character over=explain their actions.

My other main criticism, if I’m being really nit-picky, lies in the form of a droid in the rebel team. I like this droid a lot. He’s fun to be around and he’s a real British with unlike the scaredy-cat that is C-3P0. Unfortunately, there are just a couple of instances where his humour was not welcome in my opinion. That’s me really looking for flaws.

Regardless of that, this movie straight-up rocks. Hell, I might do my own Phantom Edit to sort out those tiny removable chinks.

So is it better than The Force Awakens? Well, I need a little time, but the fact that I need that time is a good sign.

Recommended Scenario: If you’re a Star Wars fan. Apparently there are some of you who aren’t.

Disney takes us to a non-time-specific area of the Pacific where there’s not a generic Pocahontas villain in sight.

Moana tells the story of an Island Chief’s daughter, named Moana, who is destined to bring back a particular trouble-making demi-god called Maui who has stolen an important artifact which is causing some evil magic stuff.

The more I think about this film, the more cookie-cutter Disney it becomes. The main character is basically a Princess (big shock) who wants more from life and has parents who don’t want her to leave their safe space and yet adventure and all that beckons her. Even her big song is “How Far I’ll Go”. They didn’t even try to hide the fact that they’re ripping off Frozen.

Some of the generic stuff is pointed out in funny ways by Maui, who is played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. His comedy for the most part works really well with the rest of it and I do smile a lot when he’s on-screen, though one joke about tweeting did make me put my head in my hands.

The comedy is where this film shines, mostly. I don’t like the word butt being used in films that are supposed to be timeless like Disney fantasy affairs, but that kind of modern talk is not there often.

It’s pretty clear that this film had a checklist of progressive moves it had to do. Beside the Bechtel Test, Moana doesn’t fall in love, she’s strong, she’s smart, she’s everything Sleeping Beauty was not. I’m personally glad they didn’t ever become preachy or have this stuff get in the way of the story, but I’m just waiting for the first gay Disney film.

The threat in this movie is some magic darkness caused by something that Maui did hundreds of years prior, but for some reason only comes to hurt the main characters as the movie begins. I can forgive this sort of thing, Disney logic I suppose.

Speaking of Disney, I’m not still not so fond of the idea that Disney is basically done with 2D Animation. If it were up to me, Pixar would handle the 3D stuff and Disney main would handle 2D. I suppose it rakes in the big bucks and it is extremely well done animation.

The landscapes, the water, the music. This feels like a pretty standard Disney film, but you can’t really go wrong with a standard like that.

Recommended Scenario: If you’re in the mood for a good little adventure with great visuals and music.

My complicated relationship with Harry Potter was supposed to end in 2011. Hollywood always has to make things awkward!

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is based on an original screenplay by JK Rowling. Taking place in 1920s New York, we follow every red mane as its own wizard who carries many fantastical creatures in his luggage.

I say that my relationship with Harry Potter is complicated with good reason. When I was a kid, I was always under the impression that Tolkienites like myself were irreconcilably at war with Rowling Turds, as I call Harry Potter fans. I also could not get past the fact that The Lord of the Rings is just better than Harry Potter in every single way.

However, there are certain elements I do respect. I like the central friendships. I like Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort. I like the magic stuff and parts three and four despite the latter’s ludicrous tournament of death premise. I like the way the story was relatively well paced over the course of eight films if you excuse five through seven. And of course, I respect JK Rowling for getting children into reading, although she pretty much did invent young adult genre and its total dominance of all pop culture.

Fantastic Beasts is better than Harry Potter in almost every way.

We don’t get a cast of inexperienced child actors in the centre, for one. Despite Daniel Radcliffe and the rest getting gradually better over time, the first few HP movies were pretty hard for me to sit through when we got bizarre OTT delivery from some of them. Part of that I blame on Chris Columbus’s lack of patience. There’s a reason Stanley Kubrick did so many takes of Danny in The Shining.

We finally have a wizard movie in the Potter verse not centred around Harry learning in school. That premise was cool to begin with but got old quite quickly.

Furthermore, this feels like a movie. I genuinely think HP should have been a TV series. A show about three friends learning about magic and going on adventures with the constant threat of Voldemort. I would have watched. In fact, they did. Look up U.B.O.S, a cartoon pretty much with that premise.

This movie was written like a movie. The threat of the intact this is therefore the start. The action begins straightaway. Immediately films, the village was almost an afterthought for the majority of runtime. This worked, like many of the things that worked, only part of the time. Like I said, school eventually got boring.

One thing I get major credit for this film is the creativity and the magical creatures. These critters are majestic, funny, awesome, cute and mixtures of each and the magic made me want to be a kid again.

The main character is Eddie Redmayne who delivers once again winning performance putting across some adorable Britishness. The protagonist is however a muggle wannabe baker played by Dan Fogler. He is even more adorable and funny and the finest thing about this picture.

The central theme of the movie seems to be about being proud in yourself. This is a theme I find particularly touching when it comes to its allegorical relationship with sexuality. This is something I give Rowling major props for including a movie for children.

One complaint I have is in the performance of Katherine Waterston. She’s someone I’ve always quite liked, but here, playing our wizard inspector of swords, she always appears to be on the edge of tears which kind of gets annoying after a while, not helped by some of the decisions being inexplicable, though that is a script issue.

My other and more serious concern with this film is it editing. The pace is perfectly fine as I’ve said, but certain moments are lengthened to an uncomfortable degree for supposedly comedic or emotional effect. This is made worse by certain sections of dialogue being not quite right or references being made to something of which I suppose is going to be in one of the upcoming sequels. If these moments were practically done in slow motion I wouldn’t have noticed the emotional car crash.

Speaking of slow motion I do hope that this is not another Batman V Superman type movie, where I think it’s pretty good upon first viewing despite some flaws, only for me to come back and see these cracks as enormous chasms.

From now I can say this. The HP books got so many kids into reading and writing. HP movies got many kids into films and filmmaking. Having just come out of a bookshop where this film’s script featured prominently in hardback form, perhaps JK Rowling will get children into screenwriting. This film may not be perfect but that is a very nice thought.

Recommended Scenario: If you want to see more from JK’s magical world.

P.S. How are wizards an oppressed people in Harry Potter land? Sure, if they weren’t in hiding they would be prejudiced against, but they’re wizards! We can use magic to control and maybe even make the world better! There. Now you know how I felt the first time somebody mentioned Eagles in The Lord of the Rings!

Time to see whether a cat can melt this cynical critic’s heart.

A Streetcat Named Bob tells the true story of junkie James Bowen, whose life on the street is turned upside down when a cat pounces into his life.

This film belongs on TV, surely. A heartfelt story about a cat and his human? That’s grounds for filmmaking autopilot if I ever saw it.

From the first frame, I knew that some passion was behind the camera. We don’t get any generic stock aerial footage of the film’s setting, London. We get a gentle pan on a street to see James, alone, busking for his life.

I’m the first to admit that I’m not the pillar of empathy, but a movie like this is important for its frank depiction of what it is to be homeless in the modern world. We don’t get any political messages. There is no effort Tories or down with the war on drugs because we are faced with the ultimate truth of those causes. If you’re in that position of destitution, you not concerned with who did this to you, but how you will make it tomorrow.

Bob is in the movie. The actual Bob, the one the real James Bowen talks about in his book. For a debut feature, is a fine feline actor and the POV technology used to invoke his perspective as well handled.

This is a family film since it is easiest to market cute cat picture to such demographic. Thus parts of the movie are obviously toned down, particularly when it comes to the drug abuse. I didn’t mind that however. This is Greyfriar’s Bobby with heroin, not Trainspotting with kittens.

I have to admit that my heartstrings were indeed pulled by this little cat-based feels movie.

Recommended Scenario: I’m repeating myself a tad but this is a modern day Greyfriar’s Bobby. If that sounds like your thing, this is your movie.

Amy Adams again? Perhaps she’s tried to make up for throwing the Kryptonite spear into that water in Batman v Superman, only to need to save it moments later. Yes, I’m still angry about that.

Arrival is Denis Villeneuve’s new venture into sci-fi. In it, Amy Adams are Louise, a language expert brought into the interpreter on the first contact man has with an alien visitor.

First Contact is something of the ultimate diplomatic puzzle. How literally on earth do we ask fundamental questions to a species that is so removed from human understanding?

The magnitude of this problem is made evident in every moment of this film. The first moment we see spatial and full, my heart stopped. Not since watching the alien trailer had a had such an existential moment when thinking about aliens.

They don’t cheat us either when we learn the characters’ methods for learning the aliens’ language. Great sci-fi takes difficult concepts and puts them down to our level, to the point we feel smart. There is some fantastic writing here.

The ultimate thesis of the film is that the connective tissue of civilisation is language. It goes further by saying that the language we speak does, in fact, change the way we think. While first glance this very idea could be interpreted to divide us, the film mixed clearance intentions. Our differences make us ultimately stronger, though the implications of such difference can still be scary.

What genuinely surprised me was the film’s intimate portrayal Amy Adams character. The story and the story of first contact, are connected in a way you wouldn’t be able to guess. It’s quite masterful work.

My only problems with Arrival are unfortunate ones that could have been avoided easily.

Voice-over is used sporadically in a way that distracts the audience from the reality. This could have been avoided if they had at least showed who the character was talking to.

Jeremy Renner is a talented man with an impressive resume. Here is his usual have silly have smart self, the first part doesn’t quite work at times. Too many lines are not funny enough for the pauses for audience laughter to be anything but painful.

Other than that, this is a solid and intellectually stimulating sci-fi movie.

Recommended Scenario: if you want a more consistently thought-provoking if less visually mind blowing version of Interstellar.

My first review starring Amy Adams of the week. For some reason, I don’t think it’s going to be my last.

Nocturnal Animals is a drama written for the screen and directed by Tom Ford, which like I said stars Amy Adams as Susan, a New York socialite and artist who is unhappy with her life as she decides to read the latest work of her ex-husband Edward, played by Jake Gyllenhaal.

That, “in the real world of the story”, is the plot synopsis. Amy Adams reads a book and reacts to it. Yet through an extremely well put together cinema narrative, we see this intercut with the story of the book itself along with flashbacks of Adams’ character’s shared past with the author.

It’s evidence of one of the most miraculous properties of cinema. Separately, these stories range from boring to pretty good, but somehow through their merging, Ford creates a fascinating movie.

This all works because we see the world through the eyes of Susan. We read the book and we almost hear her thoughts as we the words interact with her. That is something I find rarely works in a story. When they have a character read the “fictional” side of a story, they often have to shoehorn reality into it to cram in drama. Or, if you’re David Lynch we make neither the dream nor the waking world distinguishable.

A conversation we hear early in the “real” narrative at one of Susan’s parties stuck with me throughout. One of her friends tells her that it’s alright to feel sad despite all of the good things in her life, since “it’s all relative”. Of course the film is all about the relative nature of emotion. The story within the story is considerably darker and more harrowing, but the emotions felt by Susan are as real as if she was there, because we as an audience go there. Amy Adams, by the way, nails this performance.

Speaking of that inner story, Jake Gyllenhaal is very much the star in his character’s own novel. As Tony, his family is completely torn apart as a group of red-necks kidnap his wife and daughter and he must try to enact justice.

We are constantly reminded that this story is not real, like the dream in The Wizard of Oz or the entire plot of Our Town. We don’t care though. Because of Jake’s once again terrific work as the regular Joe who got into the wrong situation and a beautiful turn from Michael Shannon, we connect to these characters as much as we connect to the real ones.

If you think about No Country for Old Men, you’ll probably think of the chase throughout the story between Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin. It’s an extremely well done chase and keeps us thrilled throughout. But what elevates it to something more is the almost disconnected story of Tommy Lee Jones as the Sheriff. It is through the juxtaposition of elements, that we get something greater than the sum of already brilliant parts.

Here, through a similar act of juxtaposition, we get a great film out of three parts carefully connected.

Recommended Scenario: If you want a wonderful drama that rips into the mind of its central character like so many pieces of paper.

Fun fact, did you know that Good Will Hunting was originally going to be a film about a genius who the FBI is after. Another fun fact, I can’t get through a review without being late and referencing Good Will Hunting!

The Accountant is a thriller starring Good Will Hunting co-writer Ben Affleck as a man with autism who plays an accountant for some very dangerous people. Good thing he is also… a badass!

Using autism in this movie could have gone SO wrong. A movie in which a condition like that is seen as a positive has the potential to be life-affirmingly awesome or very awkward. What’s cool here is that Affleck’s character isn’t a Superman BECAUSE of his autism, but because of special circumstances involving his military upbringing, coupled with his intense drive for things to make sense, a symptom of his high-functioning autism.

The way the condition is written here is kind of sweet and charming. While some might find the jokes that come from his awkwardness in social situations, it actually served to alleviate the tension of certain scenes like good comic moments should.

On top of that, Ben Affleck has proven once again that not only can he direct and write, but he can also act subtly and with grace. He makes it totally believable for there to be a guy who does all this cool stuff while also being autistic.

He also has Anna Kendrick as an accountant who ends up having to tag along with him. She, like almost every other damsel in a thriller, is completely forgotten in the third act till the final five minutes, but hey, ho!

What lets the film down is the story. Any scene that doesn’t have Affleck in it just feels boring. Whole subplots and back stories seem entirely stupid.

If they were going for a theme of “everybody has a past”, okay, but they added a scene explaining that one of the Treasury agents after Affleck was an offender when she was young, and yet it’s barely brought up again. That’s just bad writing.

There is some stuff that kind of works story-wise. JK Simmons plays the main government guy after Affleck, and he still delivers a knock-out performance.

Unfortunately, the twists in the main mystery are either predictable or so stupid and contrived that you’d half expect them to appear in a soap opera.

This film is fascinating in context. It’s like a mixture of all the generic stupid run away from baddies and hit them thrillers from the past 20 years with all of the stupidity of the whole thing and the disappointment of the third act kept, but somehow managing to cram in genuinely interesting and likeable main characters and comedy.

I’ll give this film a pass. It’s not a great movie, it’s not even all that good, but it does get some stuff right.

Recommended Scenario: If you’d like a dumb thriller with some lovely little touches to put it just above some of the rest.

While Phase One of Marvel’s MCU is still for some reason something I haven’t watched (I’ve been working my way through my “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die” book, so you’ll forgive me). However, thanks to the internet being pretty much a spoiler-filled Pandora’s Box, I give myself licence to watch one of the latest ones.

Doctor Strange stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange, a Brain Surgeon whose career is brought to a screeching halt when he crashes his car and loses the use of his hands. He goes to India, and there learns the mystic arts and discovers his ability to kick major butt.

Marvel’s track record has been pretty solid so far, or at least since they started making their own movies. The only complaint thus far has been the relative sameness of some of their stuff.

O in this we see a slight deviation from the tried and true “Sci-Fi” of most of their roster and decided to go to science-fantasy.

They try to pull this off by having the characters explain it all through vague conversations about dimensions.

The fact is, however, as they say in the film, “it doesn’t have to make sense”. What matters is how well it makes sense cinematically and boy does it work.

When a character moves their hands for an incantation in a certain way, the spell feels like its something that came out of that action. Everything follows the rules of the film. That’s good sci-fantasy filmmaking.

In fact, I’d say you could probably make a course on good fantasy filmmaking through this film. Everything this movie does is a reason why it’s better than The Matrix, another film with a similar plot dynamic.

Are the characters likeable? Does the humour land? Does it make sense? Are the stakes noticeable? Is there some damn humanity? All yes for Dr Strange. For The Matrix, not so much.

An ideas film like The Matrix is only as good as its ideas and the story it uses to convey them, otherwise, nothing gets done. Sorry, just got distracted. I genuinely don’t like The Matrix.

Another thing Dr Strange nails is the conflict. The brilliant Mads Mikkelsen is the main baddy (technically the main henchman of the main baddy, but doing most of the evil).

For once a supervillain’s plan isn’t “Kill a bunch of people to save the planet”, an idea I’ve heard so many times in films that the next time I hear it in a theatre, they’ll have to put a straight-jacket on me to stop me from hurting someone. Mads’ character’s plan actually makes sense and when he explains it, for once you believe he has a point. Plus Mikkelsen makes every film better or his presence.

The way ol’ Cumberbatch tries to fight him is also excellently done. He uses his wits alongside his brawn so we always know where we are in the battles unlike in some films I can name where the order is fight, fight, fight.

Benedict is in full Sherlock mode here, although he’s somehow more vulnerable in this and is a lot less rude. He does an American accent which threw me for a bit, but over time I got used to it.

With all that analytical stuff, how did the whole experience work with me?

Well. Really, really well. Doctor Strange is probably the most visually spectacular CGI-Based blockbuster I’ve seen since District 9. Some of the stuff here is so cool that I can barely describe it. And unlike Miss Peregrine, it’s not a surface cool. Maybe that’s the biggest lesson for this year in movies.

It’s taken them decades to get a Dr Strange film made. They finally did it, and it’s brilliantly cool. So very cool.

Recommended Scenario: If you’d like a big-screen, action version of Doctor Who.