More a parody than the barebones horror its trailer suggests, You're Next has been marketed pretty poorly. The trailer was heavy on seriousness - lumping together extreme slow motion with menacing animal masks - and would have you believe that the movie would be a no-nonsense home invasion thriller. In a sense, You're Next is the complete opposite of that - it's all about the nonsense, bearing more than a slight resemblance to the original Scream.
Read MoreAin't Them Bodies Saints is a class act - a romanticised tale of love and loyalty that grounds itself in its fair share of gritty realism - but any discussion would be remiss without mentioning its distinct lack of emotional resonance.
Read MoreFollowing a military coup in 1965, the Sumatran government undertook a horrific communist purge, slaughtering scores of men, women and children. The government utilised gangsters, constantly referred to as ‘free men’, to carry out the killings in whichever way they saw fit.
Read MoreThough lacking in almost all respects, Jack Reacher isn’t as terrible as you might think.
Most detrimental to the film is director Christopher McQuarrie and his detached sense of style. Fun suffers in the name of seriousness at almost every turn and his palette is cleansed of the kinds of idiosyncrasies that may have given the story the spark it needed. When dealing with a homicidal sniper, the serious approach would generally be justified. But the ‘whodunit’ narrative is devoid of any real interest or stakes as its twists are often predictable and when they’re not, they’re hollow. Couple this with the film’s air of over-production (credit to Tom Cruise) and the wooden performances from its leads (credit to Tom Cruise) and you’ve got technically solid, yet lifeless drama. Most frustrating of all is the fact that this dynamic is applied to source material so chock full of pulpy action clichés that it belongs to a class of action film we haven’t seen since the 90’s.
Read MoreIt's always a pissing contest when it comes to blockbusters. With hundreds of millions of dollars behind them, directors and writers must feel obliged to go 'bigger' to earn their keep. In the last year or so, the industry standard of 'bigger' seems to refer to the level of destruction you can bring to a city. Whether it be with gigantic robots or with superheroes who just don't give a shit - the box-office is overflowing with city-dwellers in constant fear for their lives. But as Man of Steel has shown, going big needs a human scale. Guillermo del Toro is one of the only directors of late to actually imbue his on-screen spectacle with a legitimate scale. Despite Pacific Rim's gleein shattering glass and crumbling buildings, it's somehow avoided the recent furore over blockbusters exploiting 9/11 imagery as a shortcut to scale. Writers from around the web have chastised Man of Steel for this sort of callous referential behaviour and its seeming inability to remove itself from the well-worn images of fleeing citizens covered in debris.
Read MoreI hope that's how a lot of people approach this film. Not because they enjoyed the first film - if anyone really did - but because they'd been so ravenously enthralled by Gareth Huw Evans' previous film, The Raid: Redemption, that they now seek out anything he does with great relish. The Raid is one of the greatest action films of the last few decades. It's largely undeniable. Ever since stumbling upon it during a marathon IMDb trawl, I've told everyone I know to watch it. Granted, I'm a glutton for martial-arts films, but I sat down and watched it with them and no matter their predisposition, the film always elicited a series of cringes and gasps. The obsession I have with this film is not due to its display of astounding physicality or its shocking violence, but due to Huw Evans' complete mastery of handling action. Though the film is a blistering 90 minutes of frenzied silat, it ties together a cohesive narrative into a palpable climax; brought to psyche-shattering life by engaging characterisations and an unflinching adherence to structure. The film felt fresh even though it was as simple a premise as you could ask for: a SWAT team have to fight their way through a slum-apartment block to reach a brutal crime lord.
That's it.
Read MoreThis article was originally published in FilmInk magazine
A complete manifesto of the most influential band you’ve never heard of, Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me is as much the story of the titular band as it is of the Memphis rock scene in the 70’s. Director Drew DeNicola has created a documentary that’s in turns flippant and poignant, from a compilation of interviews with everyone who played a part in the turbulent careers of front men Alex Chilton and Chris Bell. The band faced more than its fair share of hardships with their unreliable record labels and bouts of drug abuse and religious fervour.
Read MoreAs fanboys/girls around the world have experienced repeatedly since 1983, a loving relationship with George Lucas is a heartbreaking experience. The Star Wars magnate had instigated, in spite of his most loyal fans, a tumultuous and violent affair with money and, like a beautiful lover with self-esteem issues, alienated those genuinely interested in him.
Read MoreWhile last year's Oscars buzz centred around films that celebrated fictional cinema, such as The Artist, Hugo or Midnight in Paris; this years fare is firmly steeped in the dramatic recreation of history. Lincoln and Django Unchained in its focus on slavery in 19th century America; Zero Dark Thirty on a post-9/11 climate and Argo, on the ploy to rescue Americans taken hostage in 1980's Iran. Where a considerable amount of scrutiny comes is in these films' adhesion to historical accuracy. The CIA and the Academy itself have slammed Zero Dark Thirty for its insistence on the outcomes of 'enhanced interrogation techniques', or 'torture', to the layman. Whether that's an indication of its legitimacy is unclear. The problematic element here is that these films constitute Americans being truthful about their past, which is in direct conflict with Hollywood's tendency towards propaganda as entertainment, rather than factual recreation. Zero Dark Thirty has avoided this in its deadpan delivery of its events, its resistance to playing up the dramatic and distancing itself from Hollywood.
Read MoreLess an exploration of cultism and more of the animalism in human nature, Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master tackles such unanswerable questions beautifully, but incompletely. Joaquin Phoenix plays Freddie Quell, the instinctual, basest war veteran who meets Philip Seymour Hoffman's Lancaster Dodd, spiritual leader of The Cause and all-round egotistical maniac.
Read MoreWarm Bodies, the necrophilia-inciting love romp, suffers horribly from overdosing on the 'Twilight treatment'. It bulges with a hip soundtrack and an infuriating inability to leave anything to ambiguity. It's nice to imagine Jonathan Levine's satirical rom-zom-com was at one stage provocative, or aimed at an audience older than 15. After a Summit Entertainment marketing attack, however, the remains are simply scraps of a well-made film that wash over you imperceptibly. The complexity of the film starts at 'twisted adaptation of Romeo and Juliet', and ends with, 'but really, what if Romeo was a zombie?'. The film is littered with references to the overused Shakespearian love-conundrum, including its very own balcony scene as well as naming the main characters 'R' and 'Julie'. And therein lies Warm Bodies' mortal flaw: it batters you about the ears with uninteresting sentimentality and teen-angst humour, lacking any semblance of the subtle approach.
Read MoreI'm sorry sci-fi nerds - and I use the term lovingly - this is another fascinating fictional world marred by its big-budget aim on audiences other than yourselves. Based on the graphic novel of the same name and creator, Oblivion is a plausibly constructed sci-fi world, even if it lacks the intrigue it was aiming for. Jack Harper (Cruise) and his companion, Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), have been commissioned by the human race to defend energy generators from Scavengers: an alien race that have lost the war for Earth, but remain in covert pockets across the globe. Supposedly, Earth was rendered inhospitable for humans and the surviving population has taken refuge on a monumental space station. There are issues with the premise and the world Joseph Kosinski has crafted here. The film's dreary progression fuels your skepticism, instead of placating it. The final reveal does settle most logical qualms and leaves a comfortable amount of ambiguity, even if you've completely checked out halfway through.
Read MoreDavid O Russell’s signature dissonant conversations have never been more suitable. A patchwork of complete human dysfunction gilded with a sweet sentimentality, Silver Linings Playbook is sharp. Most of the main characters have one mental disorder or another and all clash with each other in stream of consciousness rants or deliberate faux pas. Russell skilfully avoids any caricatures by rationalising erratic behaviour: Bradley Cooper's character, Pat Solatano, largely reacts the way he does because he's a man with a broken-heart, having stumbled upon his wife cheating on him in the shower; Jennifer Lawrence's character, Tiffany, lashes out at the world through sexual promiscuity because her husband died tragically. The supporting characters too are the catalysts for, under the circumstances, rational behaviour as they are constantly manipulating the fallibility of Pat's personality. It becomes an invaluable device as Russell quickly shifts the focus away from the draining detailing of abnormal psychological behaviour to the importance of love, luck and faith.
Read MoreJurassic Park has hit cinemas again, bringing with it an eerie sense of déjà vu for 90’s kids around the country. Breaking box-office records in 1993, Jurassic Park is currently sitting snugly in fourth place in this week’s takings, beating out the likes of the puzzlingly popular Oz: The Great and Powerful. It’s evident Steven Spielberg still holds the throne in the kingdom of Hollywood, with his trident of Oscars and impressive beard, beating back younger competitors like the perpetually irritating Michael Bay. The film’s original audiences are now adults with dangerous levels of movie-cynicism in their blood, who scoff at the thought of a fourth Transformers film or another Die Hard.
Read MoreThe final shot lingers on Jessica Chastain's face as she sits alone in a military aircraft. The pilot asks her, "Where do you want to go?" She starts to cry, her face listless. She doesn't know. And either do we, suggests Kathryn Bigelow. With our elusive public enemy number one murdered, after more than a decade of hunting, what gives our tortured and violent post-9/11 lives meaning now? Interestingly, Bigelow and her Hurt Locker writer, Mark Boal, have used Zero Dark Thirty not only as the exploration of the hunt for bin Laden, but also to pose a potent question about life after his defeat. It has been crafted as a vehicle to perfectly encapsulate the post-9/11 psyche, but the extent to which it succeeds is questionable.
Read MoreThere's no particular reason why this film should be good. In retrospect, it isn't. It's a mash-up of teeny angst coming of age, Glee themed cringeworthiness and run-of-the-mill college humour. But should a film be judged in retrospect? If it had succeeded in suspending your disbelief for its duration, should that not make it an enjoyable, and therefore, good film? I suppose it comes down to perspective, but if you're the kind of movie-goer who had cried openly at the swelling of strings in the Dark Knight soundtrack, or have had weak knees and your mouth agape as you stumbled out of The Raid: Redemption, then it's fairly safe to say you treat films as experience.
Read MorePremium Rush is little more than overtly stylised pulp with an unabashed cartoon sensibility; and it's fun. Well, that's all it is, really. Young, sweating, sexually-charged hotties racing around NYC on their brakeless bikes as they outrun a crooked cop harbouring a debt to the Chinese mob; it actually plays out convincingly and nails the almost anarchistic bike messenger mentality. However, the film's distinct lack of substance does catch up with it about halfway through, and this degradation is only exacerbated by uncharacteristically hit-and-miss performances from the two leads: Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michael Shannon.
Read MoreDirector David Ayer's bad-ass cop dramas have somehow found an even grittier edge in the found-footage style of End of Watch, in which his penchant for masculine bravado strikes a more honest tone in the relationship between officers Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena).
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