Film Review - Gangster Squad (2013)

Gangster Squad stars Josh Brolin as Sgt. John O'Mara of the LAPD in 1949 Los Angeles, a city ruled by Gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) who wants to build an Empire with which to rule, but the police chief (Nick Nolte) wants O'Mara to take it down outside of the law but if you open the ball on these people you have to go all the way for they won't give up the fight until one of them is dead.

Gangster Squad is actually much better than I thought it would be and that is mainly due to Brolin, he gives a good performance in the film and you can see he is trying to do something with his character, in fact I was reminded of Dick Tracy in terms of the character described in the original comic strips in that he was a square jawed tough guy rather than the soft jaw character Warren Beatty played in his film of the comic.

But sadly the film is nowhere near as good as he is as the film around him is rather boring and also boringly shot as like Michael Mann's 2009 film Public Enemies, you have this strange situation where you have a very classical period of time that's shot with hi tech digital cameras that give off that digital look at times, I couldn't help but think that this should have been shot on film but given the current demonization of the use of film to shoot features at the moment, it's a shame that couldn't happen.

Another big problem with the film is that it gets very dull as it goes on, lacking the pop fizz fun of Dick Tracy which not only had a great period setting and exciting action but also had a great performance by Al Pacino.

Here Penn just mumbles his way through the film and frankly I don't think he gave a damn doing it, no doubt it was a chance to make a quick buck so he took it but the biggest waste of all is Emma Stone, a wonderful actress who is given a thankless role of looking good in the red sequin dress as you might have seen in the previews for the film and being slapped around by the male cast members, what a terrible waste.

So hey, Gangster Squad holds up because of that central cast but the film around them is ugly looking, dull to watch, has a weak villain and wastes its only actress, rent the Untouchables and Dick Tracy instead as those are much better films of this sort, 2 out of 5.

Star Trek Into Darkness: Spoiler Review

Okay, if you haven't seen Star Trek Into Darkness, please do not under any circumstances read this particular review of the film as it will be full of big spoilers.

Alright, so in my non-spoiler review of the film I said two things: The first being that while the first two thirds of the film were very good, the last third was not for reasons I couldn't go into then and as a result, the film boldly went where it had already gone before.

The second was also whether Benedict Cumberbatch would be playing the iconic Trek villain Khan and that director JJ Abrams and co were keeping that under wraps until the film's release, something that I did not mention in my review was that this was the one big fear I had going into this movie and as a result, it kept me from being more excited for it than I was.

Well, sadly Benedict did indeed play Khan in the film and that John Harrison the name his character has is merely a false name, needless to say when I heard him say "My Name is Khan" in the movie, my head and my heart both sank as it was seeing my worst fear about the film being confirmed right in front of me.

As a result of that, I kept asking myself when I came out of the movie "Why did Benedict have to play Khan, I mean Ricardo Montalban did a brilliant job with the role and if you're going to hire someone like Cumberbatch, give him his own character"

The other feeling I had coming out of the film was "Every Single Star Trek villain since Khan has been weak with the exception being Christopher Plummer's Chang in Star Trek VI and so to rectify that they've retread Khan again"

And not only retread Khan as a character but a large chunk of the third act also retreads great sequences from the Wrath of Khan which is probably the only Star Trek film to really transcend the genre to become a great Sci-Fi film in its own right.

I mean you have:

- The replay of the ship's warp drive being out of action with a big disaster about to happen, in Khan it was the Genesis device being detonated, in this film its the Enterprise about to crash down to Earth and so Kirk has to do what Spock did in that film and realign the warp core and risk his life to do it.

- The replay of the death scene which in Wrath of Khan is beautifully handled and very touching (the film's director Nicholas Meyer has stated that when they were filming it the crew and cinematographer were crying) whereas in this film it comes across as very heavy handed and has none of the heart and gravitas of the Spock version mainly because this time Kirk lives.

- You also have Zachary Quinto saying "KHHHAAAAANNNNNN" which in this movie just made me cringe whereas in the Wrath of Khan it's a great moment and well delivered by Bill Shatner.

- And lastly you have the near pointless addition of Carol Marcus played here by Alice Eve who isn't too bad but just made me think of Patsy Kensit in Lethal Weapon 2 in that the film is less interesting when she's on screen and frankly, she only seems there to stick her chest out and spill the beans, what a waste of a great character from a Sci-Fi classic.

Now in my non spoiler review I didn't go a lot into why I gave it a 1.5 out of 5 as it was hard to say why that was the case due to spoiler reasons, hopefully this review will rectify that somewhat and will give readers a feeling of why I felt that rating was justified in a much better way than I was able to put in my initial review of the film.

Film Review - Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Star Trek Into Darkness is the second Star Trek film to be directed by JJ Abrams and again stars Chris Pine as Captain Kirk of the Enterprise, this time facing an attack from one of his own, John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) who has fled to the home of an old enemy but Kirk will find a lot more when it comes to this mysterious fugitive.

It would be fair to say that I went into this film with some fairly keen expectations, the previews for the film made it look exciting and Cumberbatch was a good addition despite my big fear about the film regarding if he would be playing the iconic Khan and that Abrams was keeping it under wraps until the film's release, with that did this beam up the goods?

Well, it does up to a point, quite simply the first two thirds of this film are amazing, Abrams's direction is excellent building on his experience on Super 8 two years ago, his editing is much more fluid, the action is terrific and really grabs you by the throat, the cast are much more comfortable in their roles and I really liked seeing Peter Weller again in a film.

But sadly (and it is very sad to say this) the film loses its way in the third act big time by returning to some tried and true tropes that helped to befell the Trek series in the past, it was such a sad shame to see this happen as I was really loving this film up to that point.

I also thought Cumberbatch was something of a disappointment in that section of the film despite doing good work up to that point, it's a sad shame that with all the resources that exist now where anything our heart desires we can put up on the big screen and instead we get this tired rerun for the climax but then again the film was partially written by Damon Lindelof who also wrote last year's Prometheus and like that film he probably did this because "It will be Cool" well it wasn't and it ruins what was a very fun sci-fi adventure.

So all in all, Star Trek Into Darkness tries to boldly go where no man has gone before but instead boldly goes where us audiences have gone before and that is a sad shame, seek out The Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country instead of seeing this film, especially as this gave me a very bad feeling about Abrams's handling of that other big Sci-Fi series in a few years time, 1.5 out of 5.