Gone Girl Review

When a particular director enters a high status among your favourite filmmakers each of their films comes with a level of expectation, Fincher is in my top 3 favourite filmmakers, Se7en is one of my top 10 films of all time, and Gone Girl happens to be one of my favourite films of the year. Based on the book by Gillian Flynn Gone Girl is all about perspectives, relationships and the ridiculousness of the modern popular media. The film needs 2 strong lead performances and it has them in Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, Affleck perfectly embodies that smug punchable character but always manages to make him seem somehow likeable, a task made somewhat easier by the performance of Pike as the abhorrent Amy , she may not be overly convincing in the earlier parts of the films but after the midpoint she excels. Gone Girl is funny as well, pitch black in its humour but you wouldn’t expect anything less from Fincher, and its brought to life by an excellent supporting cast, Tyler Perry as the patron saint of wife killers Tanner Bolt, and Carrie Coon as Nicks twin Margo particularly impress. If there’s a flaw with this film it’s the same flaw that exists in the book,  given the nature of the film the ending should ramp up rather than powering down as it does, that is however a small criticism of what is an excellent night out at the cinema.  (Low 5 Stars)

Dawn of the planet of the apes Review

Michael Bay kept describing T4 as “epic” and T4 was many things but epic wasn’t one of them,  just because you blow up more stuff and do it on a bigger scale doesn’t make a film epic, epic requires emotion, there can’t be spectacle if you don’t care about the characters involved, this is where DOTPOTA succeeds. The film is beautiful to look at, the rainy greys of San Francisco paint a really dark future. The CGI is the greatest I’ve seen, I had to remind myself I wasn’t looking at actual apes. The motion capture has come on so much that it really enables the actors who play the apes to completely become their characters, and the performances are some of the best I’ve seen, Andy Serkis’ Caeser and Toby Kebbel as Koba are two spellbinding performances. This is easily the most intelligent blockbuster you’ll see all summer, but when the spectacle comes it doesn’t skimp in the slightest and its thrilling stuff. Where it loses marks however is the human characters, the performances are all a marked improvement on ROTPOTA, but the characters themselves seem a little short changed in comparison to the apes, for the most part I found them quite dull, but it would take a bigger disaster than that to ruin this film. (Low 5 Stars)

Interstellar Review

Christopher Nolan is now in his post blockbuster franchise phase, his next move was going to really test his metal, he could have gone for a small film to find his feet again, or you could do what only Nolan would do, and head off to outer space. Based on the theoretical work of physicist Kip Thorne, Interstellar has been around for a long time and was formerly a Spielberg property. It's a film that REALLY wears it's science on its sleeve, and given that it's based on the work of one of the earth smartest men it really holds up, it's problem is however that it's occasionally too smart for its own good, it doesn't need to simplify it but there are moments when intelligent physics jargon is just dumped on your head for you to try and make sense of. It also seems to suffer from a lack expression, the space scenes are infrequently beautiful but spoiled by the persistence of using shots from the hull of the ships, and the planets themselves though impressive also seem muted in style, lots of dark greys and then lighter shades of grey. Its surprising then that given all the films intelligence the moments when its at its best are when it shows it has a heart. The father daughter relationship is at the heart of this film, and you really feel the strain that the brilliant McConaughey goes through to leave his family, one sequence where he catches up on 23 years’ worth of messages from home is truly heart-breaking. Hans Zimmer also provides a score that could be his best with Nolan to date. The final 20 minutes does seem to slip into full on Kubrick existential sci-fi where things don’t fully resolve in a satisfactory manner, and it may need a larger sense of humour, but the exceptional thing about Nolan’s latest work is its ambition. It’s a film that definitely doesn’t succeed everywhere, but it reached for the moon, and it just might well have caught a star. (Low 5 Stars)

Under the skin Review

The greatest strength of cinema has, and will always be, ambiguity. A flaw that films suffer from is the desperate need to tell us everything, they fail to realise that quite often the audience can create just as much as the filmmakers can, Under the skin is a film that every viewer will have a completely different reaction to and completely different theories on. It almost an impossible film to try and relay to someone and its less about plot and more about ideas and fascinating visuals. Scarlet Johansson is brilliant in the lead role, she’s almost effortless in this obscure mercurial performance, the film is set in Scotland and Johansson manages to be both completely natural as well as standing out. I think the film Is a social comment on seductive women and demonically sexual men, Johansson uses sex to lure these men to their deaths, yet as the film progresses the idea of her own sexual being seems almost as alien as she is. The final scene is phenomenal, and there hasn’t been a film that has created images this traumatising and haunting in years. It’s not an easy film to like, but it’s incredibly easy to admire.   (Low 5 Stars)

Pride Review

      There’s something special about a proper British film, the likes of Brassed Off, The Full Monty and Billy Elliot, they have an effect on British cinema goers which makes us feel proud, the American’s might have the biggest movie industry in the world, but they can’t make a film like Pride. This film genuinely made me proud to be British, there’s something immensely heart-warming about seeing two completely different communities coming together in order to fight against a bigger evil, the evil in this case being Thatcher’s conservative Britain. So much of this is fantastic that amongst all the brilliant culture clash jokes and gay/welsh laughs, it’s hard to believe that most of it is entirely true, It’s a real talent by both writer and director that they manage to balance the tickling your funny bone and pulling on your heartstrings so well, the emotional touchstones being the miners club breaking out in a song of unity, and the amazing image of seeing hundreds of miners walking side by side in the gay pride parade supporting the gays who supported them. The performances are uniformly brilliant, a real great mix of the well-established actors such as Staunton, West, Considine and Nighy, and then the brilliant young actors such as Scott, McKay, Gilgun and Fox. The one criticism I’d have of the film is I did feel at some points that it had sanded down the sharper edges of the politics, though the film has emotional moments I wanted more of the reality that the miners suffered through, same with the gays it only really touches on the aids crisis towards the end. However with one of the best soundtracks of the year there will be few better nights out at the cinema. (High 4 Stars)

Guardians of the Galaxy Review

GOTG was meant to be a risk for Marvel, making a big budget film about heroes that nobody’s really heard about. The trailer promised an offbeat, funny sci-fi film to mix up the pre-existing tone of the Marvel universe, and for the most part it succeeds. The film follows an outlaw, a talking raccon, a giant semi-talking tree, a green lady assassin and a blue alien maniac who form a team to stop the destruction of the galaxy. But that’s all by the by, because this film is really all about the fun and sparkiness the characters have together, and each character is brilliant. Chris Pratt is brilliant as cocksure Peter Quill. Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel bring so much charm to their CGI characters, a moment where a drunk Rocket tells everyone to stop insulting him is actually really touching. Zoe Saldana is effortlessly sexy as Gamora, but the stand out surprise is the performance of Dave Bautista as Drax, for a former wrestler he delivers his lines brilliantly and he was the one I was consistently laughing at. This film succeeds most in that you don’t have to be a comic book fan to like it because they’re not superheroes, its closer in tone to the original star wars films. Its drawbacks are sadly what reign this film in from brilliance though, it yet again falls into the same climax as every other marvel film, and there is still no sense of threat when marvel are still yet to kill a character. Its also not quite as funny as it promised, but along with the best soundtrack for years this is a high watermark for Marvel, I just hope they start taking more risks. (High 4 Stars)

Her Review

Spike Jonze can best be described as a curious individual with a very curious back catalogue that includes the weirdly brilliant Being John Malkovich and his not so much for children kids film Where the wild things are, so naturally his next film Her would see him follow the story of a man in love with his computer. Set in the not too distant future, the film follows Theodore Twombly (very Spike Jonze character name), an endearing character who forms a relationship with his computer operating system Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson). The films interesting premise is more than just a whimsical idea and it really has legs, it raises really interesting questions and like Theodore I almost completely forget that Samantha isn’t a person, because in the world of the Her she sort of is. It is brilliantly acted, great supporting roles but Joaquin Phoenix manages to make Theodore a likeable character despite his many faults. The films greatest strength is its visualisation of LA in the future, everything is subtle yet very effective, the technology isn’t anything that we don’t have now, but its everywhere and with a retro feel. Its problems lie in the tone, when its in the exciting stages of Theodore and Samantha’s relationship forming its brilliant, when it gets to the latter stages it teeters on boredom, but perhaps that’s the intended effect in order to represent the relationship. (Low 4 Stars)