Kill Command

            

we're into familiar territory here with washed out colours and futuristic marines lacking in depth of personality (there's the leader, the nice one, the creepy one, and the one that gets scared and tries to run away). Some time in the near future a squad is sent out on a training exercise with a mysterious cyborg woman who's along to evaluate their performance and fuck around with their guns, or something. The problem here is that while we start off following her, her motivations for the majority of the film are foggy, and none of the secondary characters are really interesting enough to take over and become primary protagonists. It almost feels like we needed another character to be new to both the soldiering side and the tech person side of this world, for the viewer to really connect with. We have our colonial marines and we have our Bishop, but we don't have a Ripley. The one soldier that I did find half-way likeable actually dies before the first hour is over.

             

              
They get flown out to a remote training facility, but find that all the machines there have turned on their creators. Not particularly original, but it provides a limited mystery to drive the plot and keeps the action flowing. The design of the machines is pretty cool and feel like a natural evolution from where they are now (though honestly most of the robots seem about 20 years in the future while crazy cyborg lady is more like 100). The effects are fine too, and some of the battles are enjoyable and create tension. Their limitations aren't layed out to us at all though, the viewer doesn't fully understand the amount of control the leader robot has over the others for a good while, and it isn't until the final battle that we're told (in one of several chunks of awkward exposition from cyborg woman) that if they kill the leader robot the others all die too, or turn off, or something. The EMP comes out of nowhere too, and what about all those other leader bots in stasis? don't they all share information? So why not just wake up more than two others?

         
Not a total waste of time, but little more than a visually pleasing thoughtless sci-fi action romp. The kind of film I struggle to watch while doing anything else, but not the kind of film I'll likely remember in 6 months.

          

Kill Command: 36.3

Independence Day: Resurgence

                     

Looks like getting invaded by aliens was the best thing that ever happened to Humanity. After they get rid of the aliens in the first one world peace is achieved as everyone works together to cannibalise alien tech to defend their planet against future attacks. It's basically 'Star Trek' future, but then more aliens come to fuck it all up again. 

            

                   

I actually liked this one more than the original. It was more fun - but not intentionally so. While the original was bad, this one edged into being so bad it's good occasionally. The feeling wasn't consistent though, and about 80% of the movie was only so that that it was... bad. 

The characterisation was still extremely basic and bland, and just like in the original there was too much jumping around between disperse characters for my liking (I like this more in novels or TV shows that have more time to tell their story, but in a movie it really just results in under-developed characters that we don't care about). Most of the original cast stuck around for this one, but Will Smith , and I'm not complaining, but that and the focus instead on a group of young pilots meant that there was no real main character to focus on. 

I liked some of the funny moments though, and some of them were even intentional! The Whitehouse narrowly escaping destruction was cute, and the scene of Judd Hirsh driving his little boat along with massive tidal waves and explosions going on around him was hilariously bad. Another such moment was that 'Red Tails' level scene where the guy in the plane recognises his stripper-come-doctor mother on the top of a hospital building amid the total destruction of the whole city in time to see her fall to her death. 

Brent Spiner is back, and I really enjoyed him. “We're gonna get you to sick bay” was a highlight, and his character was fun throughout.

                   

                     

In the end though, there was too much happening in not enough time. I liked a lot of the elements, or I at least liked the idea of them, but everything was under-explored. This stretched out would have made a fun, silly, TV series.

                  

Independence Day: Resurgence: 36.4

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

             

Do you remember STAR WARS? So does Disney! 

             

“Lets just get this over with, shall we?” 

               

Holy fan service Batman, this sure did have a lot of things from 'Star Wars' in it. I don't know why “you'll be dead” guy or R2 and C3PO were even in this, those bits were weird and a little embarrassing. 

So after a pretty strong start with 'The Force Awakens', Disney started safe with their stand alones, keeping 'Rogue One' full of references to the original series, and bringing back loads of characters us losers will recognise. So much so that 'Rogue One' ended up feeling like a prequel (didn't they make a cartoon series about this, or something?). The problem with prequels is: did this story ever really need to be told? Well, no. I mean it's art, which (arguably by definition) is unnecessary, but as with the case for any story it's the way that it's told that matters.

         

         

There are two clear routes that this film could have taken, as far as I'm concerned. This could have been a fun spy/heist movie (Like 'Oceans 11' or... 'Mission Impossible' - hey I said “fun”, not “smart”) where a rag-tag group of rebels infiltrate the Death Star, maybe impersonate an officer or something, have to crawl around in ventilation shafts and dupe someone into helping them in some overcomplicated way. In this world wise cracking robots and silly references and cameos would feel at home. I wouldn't take the film seriously, but I'd enjoy it a hell of a lot more. 

The other route would have been a darker brooding war drama with real, relatable characters that you build an emotional connection with. It could be set from a very limited perspective, we don't see any of the big players, just the horror and tyranny of the Empire at work. You could even have a sort of 'All Quiet on the Western Front' moment where one of our protagonists find out that there are real people under those storm trooper masks, and that they're just as scared and confused as the rebels. Or they could do a 'Full Metal Jacket' and start us off in a makeshift rebel (or Imperial) boot camp, where we follow a group of green cadets through training and into the field. Or do both and make the movie three hours long. Hell, I don't know.

            

             

But Mickey Mouse is a greedy bugger. He tried to have his Vader-cake and eat it too, and now he's obese and vomiting it up onto children. The characters lacked any depth and so of course I didn't care (or even notice, a few times) when they died. The cameos and references to the original series were so frequent and transparent that it quickly felt lazy. At the same time, the amount of violence and death (of EVERY main character) means that this'll be a difficult film for little kids to enjoy, because little kids are pussies. 

So the target audience seems to be 30-35 year old fat guys with beards, who orgasm when they see ATATs. That's fine, I have nothing against them, and it's certainly a great 'Star Wars' fan movie.

                    

                 

Disney played it too safe with 'Rogue One'. What we should be seeing at this point is some real innovation, something of a completely different style and tone to the rest of the series. 'Star War' has never been the most serious thing, so I think at this point I'd be making gory 80s style horror films set in the same universe, or artsy stuff. I don't know, just something to shake the universe up and establish these supposedly stand alone films as being properly separate. 

I didn't hate the film, it just didn't live up to expectations. If it wasn't a 'Star Wars' movie it would just be a strangely structured forgettable sci-fi. I didn't feel anything for the characters, but the action was all fine. The dog fighting at the end was particularly exciting and well shot (this director has a great sense of scale that I've noticed in things like his 'Godzilla'). What everyone talked about was the cartoon Tarkin - I didn't actually hate him. It wasn't perfect, but it was fairly impressive and they kept him mostly in the dark. It was a very Lucas-esque move, testing new effects tech in his movies, for better or worse. The Leia shot at the end was on the nose though. Too obviously fake, it pulled me out of the film and muddied the ending.

               

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story: 67.1

Red Tails

                    

Many elements of 'Star Wars' were in homage to older world war two dog fighting films. Lucas obviously has a thing for this style, as now that he can do whatever he wants he's decided to fund and direct his own throw-back dog fighting movie about the Tuskegee airmen. 

This wasn't a weird move in itself - it's a neat story idea - but the way he talked about it was embarrassing. You know he said that no big studios would fund the film because it had an all black cast? And that it was somehow the first of its kind? His whole spin on what is nothing more than a sub par dog fight movie was awkward and I think bordered on offensive in its miss-selling this film as being somehow culturally significant.

                  

                      

Firstly, the plot is overly simplistic and the dialogue is laughable. Seriously, it's like a child wrote it. There is also a heavy use of effects and a lot of it feels very fake and green screeny (George is very much still in a prequel style rut). It's very heavy handed all round. The religious elements, the racism, the friendships. All the sides are painted with such a broad brush too - almost all the white people are terrible racists, and all the Germans are evil and take pleasure in killing. 

It's intentionally campy, but the mix of styles doesn't work well. There are lots of shots of people dying horribly or being set on fire or whatever, and it's weird to see them cheering and laughing after killing so many people. 

And there are several major plot holes. They keep showing footage of areal battles that was just from an earlier scene of the movie with an old timey filter over it. Where were the cameras meant to be? Did all the fighters have dashboard cams or something? And are we meant to believe that that guy saw a woman on a roof from his plane in enough detail to decide that he was in love and recognise her later and that she actually saw and recognised him?! Through the glass of the plane cockpit? The whole romance sub plot is stupid. There's no chemistry or even much dialogue between the two, yet each time we cut back to a scene together their relationship has apparently progressed in leaps and bounds - suddenly they're together, now he's proposing, now they're getting married.

The whole film just feels like it's for children. The plot is so simple and all the characters are so black and white, if you'll pardon the pun. Oh, and the weird motivational speeches don't feel earned and fall totally flat. It plays more as a sly comedy than a serious war drama.

                  

Red Tails: 25.8

Edge of Tomorrow

                      

An interesting and not completely unsuccessful take on 'Groundhog Day' style time travel storytelling. 'Edge of Tomorrow' feels kind of like how a movie based on a game should feel (but never has). This is nothing fantastic, but it is very watchable, and it's a perfect role for Tom Cruise.
             

              

Much like Bruce Willis, he's at his best when his character is confused and out of his depth, and this coupled with the fun way he interacts with Emily Blunt's character makes for a decent amount of watchability.

In this one he wakes up at the start of each day every time he dies, and the reasons for this are explained in some detail. I guess this works fine, but it turns it into more of a caveat than the unexplainable happening that inspired a kind of self-realisation in 'Groundhog Day'. There's still the obligatory romantic element, and it's fine as they go (they have some chemistry, and her character is fleshed out to some extent), but it'd nothing particularly interesting.

The design of the aliens is vague to the point of feeling basic, but they're not the main focus of the film anyway. I'm also not sure why everyone had to be wearing near-future style power armour the entire time - it didn't really further the plot in any way, apart from highlighting how inexperienced a soldier Tom's character was in the beginning.

                

Edge of Tomorrow: 54.0

Special Correspondents

                        

'Special Correspondents' feels like the bad cut of a good movie. A good movie that they did extensive re-shoots for. You know what this makes me think (also what 'Derek' makes me think)? Stephen Merchant is a really good writer.

This is a mildly amusing farce, but all of the characters are so incredibly one dimensional that that's what was taking up most of my attention (not that this resulted in me missing any plot). The story also progresses obviously, then runs out of steam and ends half ridiculously and half unsatisfactorily.

                     

                    

What's worse is that there's a fair amount of potential here to make a point about American “news” or war or something, but it ultimately comes to nothing. The satirical bite of this film or more of a gummy slobber, as the whole famous wife thing (a character I couldn't bring myself to dislike, because that would be like disliking a nail for it's pointy personality) gets a glance, and the fictitious war is mildly made fun of before it (and the rest of Ecuador) end up just being openly mocked.

Oh yeah and there are two main hispanic characters that help hide the two guys, and their personality trait is that they're stupid. Yup.

              

Oh! And I nearly forgot: Ricky Gervais randomly kills a bunch of people out of nowhere near the end. He shoots one of them in the privates. HAHAHAHAHA.

                     

Special Correspondents: 24.6

Ender's Game

                    

I'm not sure if I'm just in a funny mood, but this movie felt like such utter garbage that I struggled to sit through. I actually took breaks, no kidding.

It's just so great at making you not care about the characters. It's pretty impressive. There aren't even that many battle scenes (the ones that are in it are just a big game with clouds of cartoons and lasers) and the conclusion is super lame.

I get that it's written for kids, or teens, or tweens, or whatever, so fine. Apparently it doesn't deviate far from the source material (a shallow young adult pseudo sci-fi novel), which must have been similarly lame and dreary.

So it's the future, and everything is drones, and kids control them because kids are good at games or something. They're fighting Geonosians who we never see or connect with at all until right at the end, so we don't really care about anything here. Also, Earth isn't in danger or anything. Nah, we're just being dicks like usual. It's sort of like 'Starship Troopers' but without any characters or a cohesive moral lesson.

              

               

It ends with the main kid saving a queen egg and then flying off by himself to rear it, or something. Oh yeah, this is after committing mistaken genocide on the bugs. It's wrapped up weirdly fast, after such a slow build-up. Far far far too much time is spent watching this kid get into fights and gradually win respect from his oft-changing peers. Far too little information is given about the state of the wider world. The actual sci-fi elements go from seemingly fine to 'Star Wars' level un-sciency. The effects are pretty great, but they are used so much that everything feels plastic. Harrison Ford seems to be practising for the 7^th 'Star Wars' film, but not practising very hard. The rest of the cast is fine, but I had to spend sooooooo much time looking at children. Gross. To quote Louis CK: “I'm, like, the polar opposite of a paedophile."

                        

Ender's Game: 29.8

Spectral

                  

A sort of 'Black Hawk Down'/'The Hurt Locker' type deal, but with ghosts. Eh.

               

We're in eastern Europe, and shit has hit the fan. Then rebel factions of shit built their own fans and... well, it's a mess. The US is involved of course (they're probably the one blocking the toilet), and have set up a big base from which they go on day trips. Oh yeah, and they're all wearing special goggles which lets them see ghosts.

               

                    

It's alright I guess. The acting is fine, though the characters aren't particularly interesting. There's a lot of shooting and junk. The mystery surrounding the whole ghosts thing isn't unravelled for a long while though, and when it is it feels rather rushed (how many times do we need to say Bose–Einstein condensate before the viewers stop listening and assume this is smart?)

The effects were good though, and the action sequences were fairly actiony. Not only that, though, but the effects worked in tandem with the live action elements well, and together creates a nice atmosphere (namely bleak and Hungarian looking).

It didn't fully keep my attention or feel particularly original, but it wasn't a total bust. It looked good (some of the shots were very enjoyable, especially that one of the soldiers storming a building - shot from above to show the ballet of their organised, silent movements) and it wasn't boring, exactly, so that's kind of a win?

                       

Spectral: 38.0

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

                    

I'm slightly stunned, to be honest. I had heard it was bad, and so hadn't bothered watching it in any hurry (waiting until 8 years after it's release) but still... I can't believe THIS is cannon, while so much cool stuff isn't.

And that's coming from someone who consistently rates anything 'Star Wars' quite a bit higher than it sometimes deserves, for the nostalgia and because I just love it all so much. But this didn't even feel like it was part of the same universe. Seriously, it's like comparing a cave painting to pointilism, or John De Hart to William Shakespear.

                 

              

The characters are so flat - this horrible animation style (honestly only slightly better than the kind of shit I was producing after a year in college) doesn't help, as it gives them 0 range for expressions - but the dialogue is also just so stilted. Admittedly that was a problem with much of the prequels, but it's even worse here. The plot is way too thin to be a movie length TV episode, let alone be shown in theaters. The battle scenes were busy, but lacked punch, and a lot of it felt off. The weight of characters and objects, for instance, or muscle movement. Someone running would just come to an abrupt hault, someone lashing out with a lightsaber would move it to its destination, then stop without any slow-down. These are basic principles on animation here, people!

It's like George Lucas hates us or something. I genuinely don't understand how anyone thought this was a good idea, how people watched the finished product and were like "yep, that'll do". Seriously, don't bother watching this. Even if you're trying to introduce a child or an idiot to the franchise, don't let them start with this. Just watch the movies in the order they were made and leave it at that, alright? Maybe watch the christmas special for shits and giggles.

              

Star Wars: The Clone Wars: 12.5

Age of Heroes

          

A fairly run of the mill World War II action flick about the formation of the 30 Commando unit and seizing Nazi radar tech from occupied Norway. Sean Bean has done better work, but this is one of the better movies I've seen Danny Dyer do. That's not saying a huge amount though, and don't get me wrong - this movie is seriously lacking in several ways.

              

                   

The acting is just about acceptable. At some points I'm still very aware that I'm watching actors act, and while the emotional scenes are sometimes done well enough to make enjoyable viewing, but most of the time I failed to be completely drawn into the movie.

The plot was alright, and at times I could tell that the book this movie was based on was written by Ian Flemming. Unfortunately the film could have done with a bigger budget, and some of the more actiony sequences felt a bit thin. Watchable overall though, and with a cast of "oh yeah, that guy" faces.

            

Age of Heroes: 34.0

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

     

So here it is: the best 'Star Wars' film ever made. I can think of no particular fault with this movie - even the original had a few teething problems, 'Return of the Jedi' had the Ewoks and the slightly silly (though totally cool looking) second Death Star, the prequels certainly had their share of fuck ups, and I'm not convinced that the most recent series is totally flawless.

    

    

With 'Empire' though, I can honestly only think of one fault, and it's only a fault for some: that dreamlike sequence in Yoda's digs where Luke beheads Darth Vader? It's a little heavy handed, and spoiled the tone of the rest of the scene. It's not really that big of a deal, though, and I can't think of any other part of 'Empire' that I didn't love.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, the rest of the movie was mess-your-pants enjoyable. We open with a marvelous Hoth portion, which starts slow but builds into a full-on ground battle. Then we get Dagobah and everyone's favourite Muppet, while Han and crew hang out with the second and third coolest guys in the galaxy (Lando and Boba) on cloud city. To top it all of we conclude with Han being turned into a mint condition 'Star Wars' collectible and Luke loosing both his hand and his status as (and this is possibly the most pertinent use of red ink ever) not Darth Vader's son. Crushingly, the movie ends on a cliff hanger, with all our heroes split up and the rebels on the brink of defeat. I think this is the first time that I was ever so enjoyably bummed out by a movie (or any fiction), and I've been trying to recreate that kick ever since.

      

    

I mean what a brave ending, eh? Isn't George Lucas a genius? I mean, Ford didn't know if he wanted to be in the next one so that's kinda why he turned into a big Kit Kat for a massive slug, and George did spend much of the remainder of his time at 'Star Wars's's' helm pissing off his fans, but still.
     

Oh no look - robot camels.

And the rest of the plot was very well organised too. Key is the Hoth bit, where we get to see all three of our heroes doing their thing together so that we can come away from the cinema thinking "aw that was nice, I missed those guys". After that though the plot becomes inspiringly unconventional, and I'm reminded of the allegory of George and his heroic battle against Hollywood, as well as the Vietcong and their heroic resistance of American invasion, which nobody over there seems to have noticed. Ah well, I doubt members of the Empire were comparing their own war with one that was happening in Vietnam in a galaxy far far away either, even if 'Full Metal Jacket' was a movie there, directed by Gorgo Lintface in his heroic struggle against the unimaginative Coruscant film industry.The initial battle of Hoth is one of my favourite movie ground engagements of all time, and the image of the ATATs clomping along over the snow with Snow Speeders zooming about between them and crashing and shit was extremely compelling. The design of everything is perfect without being so distracting that it pulls focus from the natural beauty of the surroundings, and the choreography is handled excellently, pausing on little moments of intense action for just long enough to peak excitement, before moving on to something else.
The images of it all is burnt so heavily into my mind that I can't really imagine not being able to picture Vader striding menacingly through the ruined Rebel base, or the tied up ATAT collapsing onto its face and then exploding. I expect that it's mostly because of my age and impressionability at the time of first viewing, but nothing made since these films has ever struck me in the same way.
     
And then we leave Hoth, and suddely we go from a WW2 style action movie to the Karate Kid, as Yoda teaches some schmuck the ways of the force while R2 is eaten by a thing because Florida can be dangerous. But not to worry, if that bores you we've also got the Falcon flying around in an asteroid belt and narrowly escaping a massive space slug.
Side note - the coldness with which Vader orders his men through the belt, despite the massive damage to his ships and the loss of life involved, is one of his most little remembered and yet brilliant examples of his evillllll.
And then we're introduced to Cloud City, which wildly contrasts yet again with any local we've seen before. Originally intended to be where Han goes to find his uncle - cringe - we instead meet the awesome Lando, who if you can't tell yet is one of my favourite characters. The whole deception/betrayal theme here and the way it plays out and is presented to the audience is fantastic, and feels somewhat Shakespearean in style occasionally. It all ends tragically as Luke arrives and has his first in-person confrontation with Darth Daddy, but at least we get the consolation of nearly everyone escaping and hiding out with the battered rebels, ready to commit to a daring rescue, another light-sabre duel, and hopefully not any giant teddy bears or anything like that, in the next film.
     

   
And wasn't each of those scenes great? As Han is lowered in, and Leia tells him she loves him, and Chewie bellows an upset howl. And then Luke arrives late - what? That never happens! Fantastic! And it all goes to shit. His contorted face as he is behanded and the raw emotion with which he delivers his lines from there on out is intense. None of it is particularly gory, but is all the more horrifying for it.
The feeling you are left with is one of... not sadness exactly, but weariness. We're feeling a little bit of what the Rebels must be feeling, and we've just got to see what happens next now.
    

Star Wars Epsisode V: The Empire Strikes Back:  94.9

Good Morning, Vietnam

   

"GOOOoooooooooooOOOOOOOOD MORNING VIETNAAAM!!!"

      

Damn that was funny. I regret not having seen this earlier, as I'm a big fan (much of the time) of Robin Williams and had this recommended to me years ago. Possibly my favourite Williams movie, and that's saying quite a lot. He plays a fast talking comedian DJ who's been dumped in Vietnam just as that war that there are tons of movies about is starting to heat up. It's a true underdog story - both 'Good Morning, Vietnam' and the Vietnam-American war.

He's got that classic insecurity thing going on that seems to afflict anyone trying to be funny (erm) and so rattles off jokes to just about anyone that he comes into contact with. This gets him in trouble repeatedly, but also makes him a lot of friends. As the movie chugs along he begins to mature as he sees the seriousness of everyone dying around him and whatnot, and by the end he's contemplatively silent for minutes at a time, without loosing his good nature.

    

   

So it's a movie about growing up, really. When a bomb goes off right at his local pub its a bit of a slap in the face from reality, and then the images of the dead and dying combine with those of the news type writers writing up the event, showing that what they're putting out is really happening to real people. This is where he starts going against orders for a reason. Where before, he was just making mildly offensive jokes (though comedy isn't comedy if there are any lines that can't be crossed, as far as I'm concerned. Otherwise it would almost be like it was taking itself seriously - imagine. Oh and comedy awards are ridiculous too, for the same reason) and doing impressions, now he's reporting on news that's now allowed. And making jokes.

The following scene was excellent, and as Adrian (Williams) is cut off the room falls into silence save the crazed tapping of the type writers as the camera slowly pans out through the glass wall into the com room. Speaking of 'com', wasn't Lt. Hauk great? With his abbreviations and his crap comedy and all.

  

"Excuse me, sir. Seeing as how the V.P. is such a V.I.P., shouldn't we keep the P.C. on the Q.T.? 'Cause if it leaks to the V.C. he could end up M.I.A., and then we'd all be put out in K.P."

    

He helps the film feel light and upbeat, even while dealing with serious issues. A viewer could watch 'Good Morning, Vietnam' and come out of it thinking it was anything between a dumb comedy akin to 'Police Academy', or a more serious story with some comedy flavouring sprinkled over it. In fact, the rest of the cast were all fantastic, and they all added such strong characters to a movie already underlined by the big heavy base of Robin Williams that I'd have expected it to be over-hammed. It's a bit like a mac and cheese pie (yes, we have those here - come to Scotland! If you were wondering why England is so flat and so crowded, it's because all the fat Scottish people can't help but roll down the "mountains" here into England. Soon there either won't be anyone left here, or Scotland will be flattened until it becomes as boring as our closest neighbor). Really heavy on the starch, but somehow still tasty. You don't feel guilty after watching this movie though - unless you're American, but I doubt that, and you're taught a neat lesson about growing through failure and thinking of others along the way.

Without a doubt some of the best bits are his monologues on air. He just talks to himself for minutes at a time, doing different voices and junk, and it's hilarious. They're dispersed throughout the movie, and have me grinning every time:

    

"Hey, uh, hi. Can you help me?' 'What's your name?' 'My name's Roosevelt E. Roosevelt.' 'Roosevelt, what town are you stationed in?' 'I'm stationed in Poontang.' 'Well, thank you, Roosevelt. What's the weather like out there?' 'It's hot. Damn hot! Real hot! Hottest things is my shorts. I could cook things in it. A little crotch pot cooking.' 'Well, can you tell me what it feels like?' 'Fool, it's hot! I told you again! Were you born on the sun? It's damn hot! I saw - It's so damn hot, I saw little guys, their orange robes burst into flames. It's that hot! Do you know what I'm talking about?' 'What do you think it's going to be like tonight?' 'It's gonna be HOT and WET! That's nice if you're with a LADY, but it ain't no good if you're in the JUNGLE.' 'Thank you, Roosevelt." 

  

    

I also loved the scene where he was entertaining a few truck loads of soldiers who were stuck in the road. nothing sad was said - it was all jokes - but we can see the hurt is his eyes as he waves goodbye to the soldiers. he knows that soon many could be dead. Then 'what a wonderful world' plays as bombs fall and civilians are executed in a beautiful montage, and I say "aw man" and sit upside-down for a while to take my mind off it. The romantic elements fell a little flat for me - partly because of her somewhat wooden acting - but I liked the unhappy conclusion. I also liked the conclusion of her brother and him. I think the brother story line could have stood alone, as they were both aspects of the same lesson for Adrian, but the romance doesn't take anything from the movie, rather it fails to bring a whole lot.

    

"The Mississippi River broke through a protective dike today. What is a protective dike? Is it a large woman that says "Don't go near there! But Betty- Don't go near there! Don't go down by the river!"... No, we can't say "dyke" on the air, we can't even say "lesbian" anymore, it's "women in comfortable shoes. Thank You."

   

This is a great one though, and I'd definitely recommend it. It generally feels a whole lot lighter than I've let on here, as some of the more serious stuff stays under the surface for much of the movie. Ebert did an excellent review of it, which I'd also read if I were you (says what I'm trying to better, and doesn't go off on ranty tangents. Speaking of ranty tangents, if I were to go off on a ranty tangent about shanty town it would be a ranty shanty tangent).

     

(Doing Cronkite) "I just want to begin by saying to Roosevelt E. Roosevelt, what it is, what it shall be, what it was. The weather out there today is hot and shitty with continued hot and shitty in the afternoon. Tomorrow a chance of continued crappy with a pissy weather front coming down from the north. Basically, it's hotter than a snake's ass in a wagon rut."

     

Basically, bad things happen to you repeatedly but you learn from them. Kind of like if you hit a child it won't start fires or something. That's nice, right? We're all growing as people, growing on a framework of emotional scars (that sounded good, might use that for proper writing). I'm honestly not trying to be a downer here, it's a sort of nice/reassuring message really, and it's definitely something to feel good about. As Jez from 'Peep Show' is wont to say; "it's all basically fine".

     

Good Morning, Vietnam: 81.2

Iron Sky

    

Kind of funny in that sort of way that 'Mega Python vs Gatoroid' was. I do usually enjoy a satirical comedy, but when you're going for a target as, uh, large as the Americans, it doesn't quite work when you're using such simple methods (so this blog doesn't quite work, then). It's heavy handed, is what I'm saying, and heavy-handedness is less excusable when you're critiquing a victim so easy to make fun of. Not just heavy handed to a fault, but heavy handed to the point of ridiculousness.

It nearly comes full circle, and is so bad that it's good. Too often, though, it's just so bad that it's terrible, and I'm left amazed that anyone can find these emotionally bland caricatures watchable. The movie is filled with spoofs that are somehow simultaneously eye rollingly obvious and terribly portrayed.

    

    

Oh yeah - and Nazis, who the movie flaunts excitedly for the duration. There are plenty of over the top iffy effects (though still better than what I can do, annoyingly) and wobbly plot points, though the whole premise of Nazis living on the dark side of the moon is intentionally laughable anyway. Some clunky parallels are drawn, some crazy shit happens, a black guy who's apparently from the 80s plays an exceedingly cringe worthy lead roll (oh yeah, and how much more OK is whiting up than blacking up? Or is it whiting down, then?), and then it ends kind of like how 'Dr. Strangelove' ended. Actually, this movie follows essentially the same plot that 'Dr. Strangelove' did. It even makes all the same points - just here they are all made with little to no tact, and where most of the laughs derive from how bad the acting and plot is.

It's a, wait for it, Finnish-Australian-German film. I guess I can see the European in the style, but I'm not sure where the Australians fit into it - maybe they bring the semi-racist stereotypes to the board?

I'm being harsh here, because it's not just one of those so bad it's funny movies. It tries to cleverly more, and fails. What we're left with is something really bad, that's trying to make a point, doing it badly, and then becoming less funny because of how hard it's trying. Not bad for a little studio with a somewhat modest budget, but unless you're really into this sub-genre of horrible comedies I'd give it a miss.

Oh I nearly forgot: some of that steam-punky Nazi stuff looked cool, though god knows what those space-zeppelins were filled with.

   

Iron Sky: 8.7

Alexsandra

  

She reminds me of Tony's mum from 'The Sopranos'. She's visiting her grandson who is in the Russian army, during the Second Chechen War. She complains a lot, she pushes the soldiers around, and they all act mildly afraid of this frail old woman. That's basically the whole thing.

   

   

The movie is very slow and thoughtful, with scenes dragging on for a long time. Even the dialogue is slow, the actors seeming to take a long time to think over what they are going to say. Alexandra acts as a force for change in the army camp and outwith, she doesn't physically affect anyone, and on the outside nothing changes throughout the whole movie (which may be surprising - there is no action at all, despite it being set in a military base during an occupation), but she gets people to think in new ways. Everywhere she goes soldiers stare at her, and are very careful around her. She reminds them all of the outside world, and the lives in it that these young men are missing out on. She is a relic of that world, and so is treated by all of them with wonder, care, and a certain amount of fear.

Either I was more tired than I thought, or there are some very subtle distortions in this film. The shot is still, yet bends very slightly as a character walks across the screen. Warping just a little, like a mirage. It's extremely smart, and I was captivated.

There is little else I can find to say about this movie. It was very specific in it's theme, and extremely slow. It will bore many, and you really have to be in the right mood to appreciate it, but it's beautiful and chilling in it's way.

  

Alexandra: 71.4

Tropic Thunder

  
The rat pack of dumb American comedies is back, and they're all having a lot of fun. Which means this is a delight to watch. Some of these movies work better than others (I didn't love 'Zoolander'), but more often than not they deliver both piles of laughs and an engaging story.

Ben stiller seems to have put this whole thing together, and the majority of the film features him, Robert Downey Jr, Jack Black, Brandon T. Jackson, and Jay Baruchel tramping around the jungles of Vietnam and maybe Cambodia later on. They're all playing actors who are playing soldiers who are fighting in the Vietnam war, and this play within a play aspect creates a fair amount of comedy all on it's own. An added difficulty is that many of the actors have serious problems with self esteem, and knowing who they are. As Lazarus says at one point "I'm a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude". That's actually the truth outside of the movie that we're watching, but it's difficult to notice at the time.
  

  

It's a funny movie all the way through, though the first half is better (as usual), as in the second the plot is burdened with having to support the usual Hollywood "everyone lives happily ever after" conclusion. Many of the scenes are based around a single joke, with a little character and plot development thrown in. I like that in a movie like this, as we don't really have to worry too much. I particularly liked the bit where a bat randomly steals Jeff's heroin and eats it, and he totally freaks out until it drops out of the air and he shouts "aha! You've OD'd! Now you're dead!" as he jumps on the bat and starts eating it alive.

All the characters are pretty great. The fake veteran, the English director, the explosives "expert", the cable obsessed agent, and the producer. Tom Cruise is particularly funny as Les Grossman. You often can't tell it's him, as he's wearing a bald cap and has a huge amount of hair on his arms. The final scene during the credits of him dancing is hilarious.

With a great cast, funny characters, a dumb but engaging plot, and piles of inside jokes, 'Tropic Thunder' makes for very enjoyable viewing.
  

   

Tropic Thunder: 64.0

Robin Hood

 

When I first saw this a few years after it came out, I remember thinking how real and gritty it looked. What a fool I must have been, or perhaps it's just a recent viewing of 'Kingdom of Heaven' that has caused this movie to pale in comparison. That's not to say it is bad, it's pretty good, but it's not as good as 'Kingdom of Heaven', which Ridley Scott directed five years before.
   

  

Perhaps my dislike of it simply stems from my personal dislike of Europe during the dark ages, but I don't think it was all that it could have been anyway. It basically acts as a set up for a traditional 'Robin Hood' series that never was. By the end of the film we have reached the stage that we usually are at at the beginning of every 'Robin Hood' story. This is kind of cool, but the story line with the invading French and everything was so ridiculously major that anything else would look boringly mundane in comparison.

It starts in France, where Robin is tagging along with the soon to be dead Lionheart. It takes a while to get anywhere recognisably Robin Hoody, and the plot gets a little silly. The acting is fine, though, and the script is alright. Some of the scenes seem a little contrived though, and did we really need the pseudo-chosen one aspect with Robin's revolutionary father?

I like the little snippets of Sheriff. As the French barge in and start destroying everything he rushes out of his house to protest, before balking and saying "I'm French - on my mother's side". Also, it was funny that when they initially take Nottingham the French soldiers go straight for the wine casks in the church.

 

Robin Hood: 42.9

Kingdom of Heaven

  
Epic, in a word. That's the main thing about this movie - it's epic. That doesn't mean it was brilliant, but it was certainly good at being big.

I like that it didn't choose sides. It didn't try to show either all the Christians or all the Muslims as being evil, just different individuals being dicks sometimes (cough mostly Christians cough). Orlando Bloom plays a blacksmith who escapes his ruined life with the barbarians of Europe and sails to the holy land. Soon he's a knight, and has his own little army.
There is no real conclusionary battle, and while the ending is happy, I suppose, it's not any more perfect than could be expected of real life.

Which I like. Usually something this epic will have some kind of classic build up and conclusion, and while this does, in a way, it's subverted in that the protagonist realises that the war for Jerusalem between these two religions that are pretty much indistinguishable is pointless. It's a nice place, but if someone else wants it that badly let them have it. The Christians have Europe anyway, and they've ruined it. In the end he discards his religion and heads home with his girl, no matter his knighthood and her queenlyness. Right at the end he sees a bush, but it's not burning. It's beginning to flower as is his new life, which no god is part of anymore. he looks up at his new wife and the shot is just like his dead one looking up at him at the start of the movie. Some guys on horses trot by, and ask who he is. He tells them that he's a blacksmith. The man says he's the king of England. He nods, and repeats that he's a blacksmith, then turns and heads back inside.
If only the Lionheart was played by Sean Connery, ala 'Robing Hood: Prince of Thieves'. That would have been hilarious.
The battle scenes were epic, and brought 'Rome: Total War' to mind. The intricacies of people's plotting and the motivations of each little faction were well orchestrated, though the actual speech element of the script was sometimes clunky. The acting was fair, and there were several familiar faces. I especially liked the masked leper king of Jerusalem, he was alright.
 

Kingdom of Heaven: 45.8

Black Hawk Down

   

Starting with the old "based on true events" tag, we continue to shots of starving and dead people while the subtitles give us some very brief background.

 

  

There's not a huge amount to say about this one, really. The story is alright, the visuals do their job, but nothing stands out hugely from the run of the mill early naughties war movie set meal. The plot is predictable and the acting is mostly bland.There are many recognisable faces, but none of them manage to stand out on acting skill alone. The characters fall into stereotypes too easily, and I don't really care about what happens to them. After about fifty minutes of character introduction and scene setting I still don't care, and just want to see some action. It doesn't help that we see solely through the eyes of the Americans. It would have been nice to see the points of view of Mohamed or some of his men. Even the Somalian guy who's working for the Americans as a pointer gets very few lines, and is basically just made fun of by command.

Effects and acting wise the film can easily keep your attention, once the action starts, and you can tell that a fair amount of money has been thrown at it. It feels like the kind of crap that happens during a game of battlefield, from which I found myself recognising helicopters and weapons. They get the confusion of close warfare across well, and seem intent on getting across the "we're not allowed to shoot at them until they shoot at us" rule, which the movie portrays as a dumb one (which kinda leaves a sour taste in my mouth, but whatever). There are several nice little details, like when a hot shell casing falls down a soldier's shirt, and he curses and he fumbles to retrieve it, and the guy being deafened by the other guy's gun being shot right near his ear.

I like the look of some of the native cars. Very 'Mad Max'.

The music is full of drums and chugs along with the action nicely. It is a little eye rolling at times, with the cliche African music playing over shots of Somali soldiers. I think to balance it they should have played some Bruce Springsteen over the shots of the American helicopters, or something. The dreamlike sequence towards the end as they run through the dust with the laughing children is excellent, as are many of the night shots, with the close green lighting.

Not a bad war movie, but not a very good Ridley Scott movie.

 

Black Hawk Down: 41.0

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

"The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together. "
  

 

There is too much for me to say about this movie. I could write pages, perhaps a short book, but I'll limit myself to but a longer than average review. This series is why I like science fiction. Why I like fantasy (because it is fantasy). This series is why I grew to love the great tragedies and dramatic ironies of Shakespeare and the ancient Greeks. This is what started me thinking about works of fiction that followed many independent, often clashing, characters. This series taught me that not every ending has to be happy and that, really, I would always prefer broken villains to perfect heroes. I know that it is not all these things to everyone, and that it is far from being as original as I am making it out to be, but it was to me. Small Clyde hadn't seen much of the things that larger Clyde has, so more was new to him.

In a somewhat unstable world, with oft-changing homes, parents splitting up and moving about, a nonsensical (to my mind then - and now) school (christian), and the general confusion of early adolescence, 'Star Wars' provided an ever expanding and stable universe that one could get one's head around, and that grew to feel safe. It wasn't just another story with a beginning and an end. It was far older than me, but it continued to grow as I did, so for my whole life it has evoked strong feelings of both nostalgia and interest.

'Star Wars' is an ever expanding universe. It is far from perfect, but the various tentacles of it's theme have been my introductions to many forms of art. The first FPS I ever played was 'Star Wars: Battlefront', some of the first 'Lego' sets I played with were 'Star Wars' themed. Since then I've played a wide variety of 'Star Wars' games, and have created several 3D models of vehicles from the movies for fun.
I apologise in advance for the length this one looks to be growing to (this is meant to just be the introduction) and for the amount of sentimentality that is going into this. The film itself, when I view it as impartially as possible, is not the best film in the world. I've done my best to take this into consideration, but for me there is an unavoidable element of maudlinness when it comes to this franchise. The series as a whole would get a 100 from me, but each movie individually will score lower than that.
 

 
This movie, and the franchise as a whole, really hits the nail on the head when it comes to appealing to smallish people, and - importantly - sticking in those smallish people's heads until they become larger. It achieves this in a number of ways.
Firstly, the effects were spectacular for the time, and still pretty great now (suspiciously great if you're watching a special edition without getting what it is). The effects were easily the biggest leap forward since '2001', and really help to convince dubious cinema goes that this sci-fi is (kinda) serious. Before this almost all sci-fi movies were heavy on the chrome, knobbly foreheads, lazer pistols and green women. 'Star Wars' changed all that forever. Lucas does an excellent job in creating really memorable, timeless scenes. At the same time, there is a serious tension throughout, undercut by a raunchy western flavor, and, perhaps, somewhat self deprecating humour. This is the same feeling as in 'Flash Gordon', only in smaller doses, and backed up by a serious plot line and beefy special effects.
It doesn't try to describe the human condition, and while it's central characters are thoughtfully created and equipped with fair reasons to be doing whatever it is they are doing, the series rarely delves into their humanity (humanity being used for any self-aware beings, here). That's not what the target audience wants, though. In a few years they'll enjoy deeper more thoughtful stuff, but right now a characters background is just that - background. It's all effectively the pieces that make up the larger puzzle of the character, and because the character is so cool (no one in particular, this applies to most main characters) it's a delight to see him/her interact with other great characters. It would feel bland and pointlessly flashy if none of the characters had any depth, and a big robot guy was fighting an old ninja guy just because, so that's what their backstories provide, without going over the top and making everything about feelings.
That isn't to say that there is no human element, exactly. It has to be searched for a little, but comes primarily in the neat little package that is Han Solo. The morally grey smuggler provides both comic relief and romance, and while Luke was always too goody for me, Han is cool. I love the image below, it sums up both Han and Leia's characters and their relationship.
 

 
Han is the most human character here, and is one of the few main ones that isn't eventually personally effected by the force (unless Vader chokes him at some point that I forget - oh wait, he pulled his blaster out of his hand on Cloud City, right? What I meant was that he's not a force sensitive, anyway). He doesn't even believe in it, to begin with.
And then there's Darth Vader, often summed up as "that big robot guy" or "the emotionless baddy" by those who aren't fans of the franchise. It's so depressing watching Vader being openly mocked by imperial officers, as it really seems he is one of the last of his kind, and being one of the primary causes of the massacre of Order 66 must hurt. At this point the vast majority of force-sensitives have been culled by Imperial forces, and since the Clone Wars (when the Jedi really last made an impression on the general populace (General Populace) of the Core Systems) the very idea of the force has fallen into obscurity. Many treat it (and it's apparent users) with contempt, and many more (represented here by Han) do not believe it has ever existed. Vader is a very nicely constructed character, lashing out violently and spending human life pointlessly because of his own feelings of worthlessness. He is powerful and useless at the same time, trapped inside a clunky life support suit (if my head looked that flaky I'd be dying to scratch the crap out of it).
Many scoff at Vader as a villain because he is such a blank slate, but one of the best things about the prequels is they really help fill in the void behind that slate, and once that happens every gesture is magnified, every expression of emotion more pronounced. He was once the most promising up and coming Jedi in the galaxy, but has since been horribly disfigured. The rate of this disfigurement follows that of his descent into the dark side, until by the time of the events of this film he is famously "more machine than man". He is both immensely powerful and tragically weak. Later we see how much of a disappointment he is to the Emperor, as he is cast aside so easily when the prospect of Luke is presented. Vader no longer has anyone, he is exceedingly tragic. Until he discovers that his children still live he really has no drive at all.
 

 
The design of every set is brilliantly imagined, and each location ranges wildly in style. From the desert planet Tatooine to the immaculate interiors of the Death Star to the shabby sofas in the Millennium Falcon. This movie is pre-'Blade Runner', yet it does the rusty future punk thing well (especially in several interiors on Tatooine).
Sci-fi up until now had all been very black and white. The future was always either gleaming and chrome or a post-apocalyptic nightmare. George was one of the pioneers of the used future look, where while, sure, it's all space ships and light speed, there are signs of realistic wear and tear on things. The extent to which this is true also goes some way towards giving an impression of how powerful and well off the empire is (with it's sleek interiors and massive weapons) compared with the poor moisture farmers living in the back of beyond out on Tatooine (who live in what look like mud igloos, though even out here they have a range of second-hand looking tech at their disposal, and I bet even their WiFi is better than mine).
 

 

"Look, Sir! Droids!"

There is a lot more I could talk about, but I'll try to wrap this up now. This is not my favourite movie of all time, but it is my favorite series, and if you haven't seen it before I hope my little reviews of them will encourage you to give them a try.

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope: 91.8

Avatar

  

Set on Pandora, which appears to be a moon orbiting a large gas giant. I'm not sure of what significance the name is, other than possibly that the alien moon promises to be a major headache (Major Headache) for the corporation trying to mine it. They are looking for the unimaginatively named "Unobtainium" which happens to be stored in large deposits under the home of a native tribe of intelligent aliens. The human tech is nicely put together, though it is effectively the flying machines from 'Halo' and the mechs from 'The Matrix Revolutions'.

I suppose this planet has a smaller mass, as most of its ground life is heavily inspired by that of the deep sea.

  

  

I've heard a lot about how great the world building here is, and how amazing the animals are. while they're far from boring, I've seen far more imaginative alien ecosystems - you know, ones that are alien, as in bearing as little resemblance as possible to us. its cool that everything has an extra two limbs though, the monkeys have four arms, that the Brontotheres are big, the anemones are huge and grow in the rainforest, and everything is bio-luminescent.

- Oh. OK, there are floating mountains. Definitely lighter gravity then.

The aliens are very Native American. Even the bit at the end where they travel (around exactly how much of the world?) collective different tribes. I could have done with some other cultures for them to be based around, or even a completely invented one. Their language sounded natural though, was it invented in entirety, like Klingon or Elvish? well done writers, if so. It is also a little unclear how much the natives understand the ins and outs of the avatar hybrid bodies. They seem to get the general idea, but where does the guy get time to any rest? Unless avataring counts as RAM sleep, or something.

  

   

I think it could have done with some ambiguity as to who to root for, but the humans are portrayed as all-out bad. There was even ominous "nah nah nahhhh" music playing as the marines disembark from the heli-things. I loved scar face though, he gets a few really cheesy lines in this movie. I liked the image of him absentmindedly patting out the fire on his shoulder as he gets into a mech.

Some of the dialogue is a little off, but the acting is good for the most part.

Overall a nicely imagined world with some excellent effects. The plot is unoriginal and the ending felt like a cheat, but the characters were all good and the acting was mostly great. The best aspect of this movie were the effects - which from me isn't a put down, but in all other aspects it was a little over hyped. Moral wise it feels sort of anti-American, but done in an extremely American way, so the result feels odd.

Oh yeah, and if I was company guy at the end there, there's an obvious resolution here - nuke the surface from orbit and then problem solved, no?

Avatar: 65.0