The Current War stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison, the man who helped invent the light bulb and is now in a race against George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) to now take that technology and apply it to general electricity generation, a race that could turn very bitter.
The Current War is a movie that got caught up in the Weinstein mess of 2017 and has now finally made its way to cinemas at the height of a global pandemic that has got everything going shut and everyone behind closed doors and the movie itself isn’t awful by any means but its also nothing special either.
Don’t get me wrong it’s always good to see Mr Cumberbatch and Mr Shannon go at it and they are very good in the film Cumberbatch in particular is always a pleasure to watch in a movie though his scenes with Tom Holland felt a bit strange given they are Spider-Man and Dr Strange in the Marvel movies respectively, Katherine Waterston is also pretty good here as Westinghouse’s wife and Nicholas Hoult is good as well as Nikola Telsa.
But for a movie that should be compelling to watch with 2 great talents anchoring it, the movie never feels like it gets to breathe and let it play out, so much goes by so quickly with lots of quick cuts and cutting to various years that it all feels like it goes by in a rush when you would prefer the film to take its time and let its audience get invested in the story and the production design and the performances which are pretty good but again everything goes by so quickly it feels like a film that was edited to bits before release and given the turmoil this movie went through I wouldn’t be surprised.
And that was the Current War and its fine perfectly fine but the film feels too fast and too heavily edited to let its story breathe, 2 out of 5.
Saturday, March 21, 2020
Film Review - The Invisible Man (2020)
The Invisible Man is written and directed by Leigh Whannell who made Upgrade 2 years ago and concerns Cecelia (Elisabeth Moss) who is trapped in an abusive relationship in a house that more resembles a bayside prison with a man named Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) who later commits suicide leaving her 5 million dollarydoos but when strange events start happening Cecelia starts to suspect that her ex might have found a way to stalk her from beyond the grave.
The Invisible Man is a movie I have very mixed feelings about, on the one hand Mr Whannell has clearly learnt a thing or 2 from his partner in crime Mr James Wan on how to craft a movie as this looks gorgeous on a big cinema screen with its use of the 2.35:1 aspect ratio and the wide open spaces that are used throughout the film and the sense of dread it helps to create in the sense that anywhere isn’t safe and that death is coming around any corner at any moment.
The film also has some nice horror and action moments to it as well as some good performances particularly by Storm Reid from A Wrinkle in Time and Aldis Hodge and Harriet Dyer, all 3 of these people deliver good work as does Michael Dorman as the lawyer overseeing Adrian’s estate.
But the bad is sadly in the scripting area, the horrors of domestic abuse especially those aimed at women I feel are just too much with us in real life to treat in this kind of genre horror fare (it doesn’t help that the number 1 news story in Australia the week this movie opened was about a domestic violence murder) and those scenes just didn’t do much for me save for make me uncomfortable and not in a good way.
It also doesn’t help that we don’t really see the life Cecelia had with Adrian that she frequently talks about where she was controlled to within every inch of her life something that 1991’s Sleeping with the Enemy with Julia Roberts and Patrick Bergin at least showed us before the events of that film in the main played out.
And lastly as much as I think Ms Elisabeth Moss is talented and I do think she is very talented she’s giving a performance that just feels too familiar to me by now, she did it in the Handmaids Tale, she did it in the Kitchen last year and she does it again this year, the lone woman who ends up being abused or with someone abusive who takes to drastic measures to get their freedom back and after a while It starts to get a bit repetitive even though Ms Moss is very good in this movie.
And so that was the Invisible Man and for all its craftsmanship its script lets it down, 2 and a half out of 5.
The Invisible Man is a movie I have very mixed feelings about, on the one hand Mr Whannell has clearly learnt a thing or 2 from his partner in crime Mr James Wan on how to craft a movie as this looks gorgeous on a big cinema screen with its use of the 2.35:1 aspect ratio and the wide open spaces that are used throughout the film and the sense of dread it helps to create in the sense that anywhere isn’t safe and that death is coming around any corner at any moment.
The film also has some nice horror and action moments to it as well as some good performances particularly by Storm Reid from A Wrinkle in Time and Aldis Hodge and Harriet Dyer, all 3 of these people deliver good work as does Michael Dorman as the lawyer overseeing Adrian’s estate.
But the bad is sadly in the scripting area, the horrors of domestic abuse especially those aimed at women I feel are just too much with us in real life to treat in this kind of genre horror fare (it doesn’t help that the number 1 news story in Australia the week this movie opened was about a domestic violence murder) and those scenes just didn’t do much for me save for make me uncomfortable and not in a good way.
It also doesn’t help that we don’t really see the life Cecelia had with Adrian that she frequently talks about where she was controlled to within every inch of her life something that 1991’s Sleeping with the Enemy with Julia Roberts and Patrick Bergin at least showed us before the events of that film in the main played out.
And lastly as much as I think Ms Elisabeth Moss is talented and I do think she is very talented she’s giving a performance that just feels too familiar to me by now, she did it in the Handmaids Tale, she did it in the Kitchen last year and she does it again this year, the lone woman who ends up being abused or with someone abusive who takes to drastic measures to get their freedom back and after a while It starts to get a bit repetitive even though Ms Moss is very good in this movie.
And so that was the Invisible Man and for all its craftsmanship its script lets it down, 2 and a half out of 5.
Film Review - Onward (2020)
Onward is the new Pixar film that takes place in a land where Magic once ruled but has now made way to progress and two brothers (Chris Pratt and Tom Holland) who learn of a spell to bring their dead father back to life for one day but when the spell goes wrong they have to go an quest to fix the spell.
Onward is a nice return to form for Pixar in that this isn’t a sequel but a new original story and it was one that I had a lot of fun with as the world of this movie was a great one to inhabit in for a couple of hours, the way that the ancient world and the modern world nicely blend together and I wanted to see more of it, the history, the road stops, the maps it’s a very cool world to see.
As for the overall storytelling it was pretty good albeit a little predictable in terms of the relationship between the brothers which Mr Pratt and Mr Holland sell very well in their voice work though my favourite role would have to be Ms Octavia Spencer as the Manticore who is having a great time as a former legendary warrior who adjusted to the normal workaday world.
And so that was Onward and it is the most fun I’ve had with a Pixar film for a good while probably not since Inside Out in 2015 and hopefully the excellent looking Soul will deliver the goods as well, 3 and a half out of 5.
Onward is a nice return to form for Pixar in that this isn’t a sequel but a new original story and it was one that I had a lot of fun with as the world of this movie was a great one to inhabit in for a couple of hours, the way that the ancient world and the modern world nicely blend together and I wanted to see more of it, the history, the road stops, the maps it’s a very cool world to see.
As for the overall storytelling it was pretty good albeit a little predictable in terms of the relationship between the brothers which Mr Pratt and Mr Holland sell very well in their voice work though my favourite role would have to be Ms Octavia Spencer as the Manticore who is having a great time as a former legendary warrior who adjusted to the normal workaday world.
And so that was Onward and it is the most fun I’ve had with a Pixar film for a good while probably not since Inside Out in 2015 and hopefully the excellent looking Soul will deliver the goods as well, 3 and a half out of 5.
Monday, February 24, 2020
Film Review - Midway (2020)
Midway is directed by Roland Emmerich who made Independence Day and concerns the Battle of Midway during World War 2 in 1942 where the Japanese after attacking Pearl Harbour drag the United States into the War and might have the American forces on the run in the Pacific but the Americans will not go quietly into the night.
They will not vanish without a fight,
Their going to live on,
Their going to survive,
For today they launch their own counterattack.
I’m sorry I couldn’t resist that nod to the great speech scene from Independence Day which is a big favorite of mine and as a result of that film has made me a near complete total sucker for Mr Boombastic aka Mr Emmerich so I went into this hoping I would have some boom boom fun on the bun.
And again it’s a perfectly fine movie that certainly delivers on the spectacle front with nice lovely battle scenes of planes flying and fighting in the sky trying to sink those battleships and I enjoyed those scenes more than I enjoyed the films main storyline.
And look the overall storytelling isn’t bad but its very predictable in terms of the Americans are losing, their planes are getting shot out of the sky, the Japanese are planning something big and commanding officers stand around giving big speeches (though they can’t match President Thomas Whitmore’s speech where he inspired all of mankind to fight for their right to live, to exist) with one literally reminding me of Alec Baldwin in Pearl Harbor.
As for the cast their all perfectly fine, Aaron Eckhart, Ed Skrein, Woody Harrelson, Patrick Wilson, Dennis Quaid, Nick Jonas and Luke Evans all play their parts well enough though they really end up hitting the very familiar beats that these films can sometimes ask them to hit.
And so that was Midway and look its perfectly fine and it does the job and brings the boombastic well enough even if it isn’t very fantastic, 2 out of 5.
They will not vanish without a fight,
Their going to live on,
Their going to survive,
For today they launch their own counterattack.
I’m sorry I couldn’t resist that nod to the great speech scene from Independence Day which is a big favorite of mine and as a result of that film has made me a near complete total sucker for Mr Boombastic aka Mr Emmerich so I went into this hoping I would have some boom boom fun on the bun.
And again it’s a perfectly fine movie that certainly delivers on the spectacle front with nice lovely battle scenes of planes flying and fighting in the sky trying to sink those battleships and I enjoyed those scenes more than I enjoyed the films main storyline.
And look the overall storytelling isn’t bad but its very predictable in terms of the Americans are losing, their planes are getting shot out of the sky, the Japanese are planning something big and commanding officers stand around giving big speeches (though they can’t match President Thomas Whitmore’s speech where he inspired all of mankind to fight for their right to live, to exist) with one literally reminding me of Alec Baldwin in Pearl Harbor.
As for the cast their all perfectly fine, Aaron Eckhart, Ed Skrein, Woody Harrelson, Patrick Wilson, Dennis Quaid, Nick Jonas and Luke Evans all play their parts well enough though they really end up hitting the very familiar beats that these films can sometimes ask them to hit.
And so that was Midway and look its perfectly fine and it does the job and brings the boombastic well enough even if it isn’t very fantastic, 2 out of 5.
Film Review - Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
Sonic is based off of the long running SEGA video game series and sees Sonic (Ben Schwartz) come to Earth from his homeworld to keep safe from those who want his super speed abilities but when he accidentally causes a blackout in his adopted home of Green Hills the eccentric Dr Robotnik (Jim Carrey) is sent to find him and Sonic and a local Sherriff (James Marsden) must team up to stop him.
Sonic is surprisingly quite good fun and I had a good time watching this in the cinema and first up is Mr Marsden, he is pretty good here and watching him here made me think of how dirty he was done by as Scott Summers/Cyclops in the original X-Men movies (Bryan Singer’s X-Men 3 was said to put him front and centre according to writer Mike Doughtery before that got scrapped and they all made Superman Returns instead) and it made me think that he would have made a great Cyclops if they had let him be one but I guess its up to Marvel Studios to do that work now.
Secondly Mr Schwartz is very fun in his voicework as Sonic and while he channels Evan Peters as Quicksilver also from the X-Men franchise and there are some very Quicksilver inspired scenes with Sonic in this movie but he always keeps the character fun to watch and the much discussed redesign of the character adds immensely to the characters appeal on film.
But there is one man who steals this movie and runs away with it and that is Mr Jim Carrey, his Dr Robotnik is so much fun to watch and I had a big smile on my face and a laugh in my voice in virtually every scene he’s in and if like me you grew up remembering the Mask or Dumb and Dumber or Ace Ventura or Liar Liar this is as good as those comedy performances he gave us back in the day, there was a moment that made me go “Somebody Stop MEeeee” and a moment that mad me go “I CANT LIIEEE” and a lot of times where I thought of his work as the Riddler in Batman Forever and to see him have fun in a comedic role again was just a pure delight to watch and it really elevates the movie for me.
Also for longtime Sonic fans there are plenty of references and easter eggs to find.
And so that was Sonic the Hedgehog which is surprisingly good fun that is elevated by Jim Carrey’s very welcome return to a big comedy role and I hope for the sequel he’ll get to channel some of that Cable Guy energy in a future sequel which has to keep this same team attached to it, 3 and a half out of 5.
Sonic is surprisingly quite good fun and I had a good time watching this in the cinema and first up is Mr Marsden, he is pretty good here and watching him here made me think of how dirty he was done by as Scott Summers/Cyclops in the original X-Men movies (Bryan Singer’s X-Men 3 was said to put him front and centre according to writer Mike Doughtery before that got scrapped and they all made Superman Returns instead) and it made me think that he would have made a great Cyclops if they had let him be one but I guess its up to Marvel Studios to do that work now.
Secondly Mr Schwartz is very fun in his voicework as Sonic and while he channels Evan Peters as Quicksilver also from the X-Men franchise and there are some very Quicksilver inspired scenes with Sonic in this movie but he always keeps the character fun to watch and the much discussed redesign of the character adds immensely to the characters appeal on film.
But there is one man who steals this movie and runs away with it and that is Mr Jim Carrey, his Dr Robotnik is so much fun to watch and I had a big smile on my face and a laugh in my voice in virtually every scene he’s in and if like me you grew up remembering the Mask or Dumb and Dumber or Ace Ventura or Liar Liar this is as good as those comedy performances he gave us back in the day, there was a moment that made me go “Somebody Stop MEeeee” and a moment that mad me go “I CANT LIIEEE” and a lot of times where I thought of his work as the Riddler in Batman Forever and to see him have fun in a comedic role again was just a pure delight to watch and it really elevates the movie for me.
Also for longtime Sonic fans there are plenty of references and easter eggs to find.
And so that was Sonic the Hedgehog which is surprisingly good fun that is elevated by Jim Carrey’s very welcome return to a big comedy role and I hope for the sequel he’ll get to channel some of that Cable Guy energy in a future sequel which has to keep this same team attached to it, 3 and a half out of 5.
Film Review - Call of the Wild (2020)
Call of the Wild is directed by Chris Sanders who worked on such Disney animated movies as Beauty and the Beast and the Lion King and is now stepping into live action for the first time with this movie based off of an old novel, the story here concerns Buck a giant Dog who is fully realised with CG effects in the film who is taken from his home and transported to the Alaskan wilderness where after losing his mail route sled meets an old man (Harrison Ford) who takes a warmth to him and they go off on an adventure together.
Call of the Wild is a perfectly fine family film that had the families in my session enjoying themselves and it probably would’ve done well in the School Holidays but for me I thought it was okay if nothing special, Mr Ford is his usual grizzled self where he talks like he does for a long time now with a grizzly voice and it works here I feel.
Mr Omar Sy is also very good in the film and has a bigger role than I thought he would while Dan Stevens was a little over the top as the main bad guy but again was perfectly fine.
As for Buck the CGI Dog, I have to say it did not bother me anywhere near as much as I thought it would after hearing so much about it and it giving me a weird vibe in the previews for the film, there are times for sure where there are closeups of his face and it has a more human look to it (which didn’t surprise me given Sanders animation background) but what did bother me was some of the scenes with the wolves with 2 in particular making me think straight up of the Lion King.
And also the more I thought about this CG dog the more I thought that Brain from Inspector Gadget is now properly possible to realise on film and Chris Sanders would make a good Inspector Gadget film given his experiences with Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and this movie and given how animated and expressive Brain gets in the series, going down this CG route will work perfectly for him though Mad Cat can easily be done with a real animal given it only sits on a desk.
And so that was Call of the Wild and its fine, perfectly fine though I wouldn’t be in a rush to see it, 2 out of 5.
Call of the Wild is a perfectly fine family film that had the families in my session enjoying themselves and it probably would’ve done well in the School Holidays but for me I thought it was okay if nothing special, Mr Ford is his usual grizzled self where he talks like he does for a long time now with a grizzly voice and it works here I feel.
Mr Omar Sy is also very good in the film and has a bigger role than I thought he would while Dan Stevens was a little over the top as the main bad guy but again was perfectly fine.
As for Buck the CGI Dog, I have to say it did not bother me anywhere near as much as I thought it would after hearing so much about it and it giving me a weird vibe in the previews for the film, there are times for sure where there are closeups of his face and it has a more human look to it (which didn’t surprise me given Sanders animation background) but what did bother me was some of the scenes with the wolves with 2 in particular making me think straight up of the Lion King.
And also the more I thought about this CG dog the more I thought that Brain from Inspector Gadget is now properly possible to realise on film and Chris Sanders would make a good Inspector Gadget film given his experiences with Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and this movie and given how animated and expressive Brain gets in the series, going down this CG route will work perfectly for him though Mad Cat can easily be done with a real animal given it only sits on a desk.
And so that was Call of the Wild and its fine, perfectly fine though I wouldn’t be in a rush to see it, 2 out of 5.
Film Review - Richard Jewell (2020)
Richard Jewell is directed by Clint Eastwood (who turns 90 this year by the way) and stars Paul Walter Hauser as Richard Jewell a former office worker who wants to be a police officer and works security in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympics but when a Bomb is found in Centennial Park he jumps into action and is initially credited for averting a far worse outcome but the FBI suspect he may be the bomber after all.
Richard Jewell is a movie that I am of 2 minds on, on the one hand Mr Hauser is truly truly great as Richard Jewell and it’s a real shame that he was not nominated for Best Actor for his work in this movie as he surely deserved the nomination more than DiCaprio did for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and he was great in that film don’t get me wrong but Hauser is better and it’s the kind of performance that really gets to you emotionally and also makes you think about how you would go if you faced a situation like this one, certainly I felt this way and I don’t know if I would have handled it very well at all.
As for the rest of the cast they are perfectly fine, Mr Sam Rockwell does a good job as Richard’s lawyer though like in Iron Man 2 10 years ago he reminded me a whole lot of Michael Biehn, Kathy Bates is good as Richard’s mother who becomes an innocent victim in the maelstrom that comes into her son’s life while Jon Hamm does a good job as the FBI agent who becomes convinced of Richard’s guilt.
But there is a big big red herring in this movie and that is the journalist played by Olivia Wilde (who directed Booksmart last year) and it is one of the worst performances I have ever seen a talent like her give in any movie, from the moment she opened her smegging mouth I just thought to myself:
“What the Fuck, is this a Fucking Joke, No Fucking Journalist Talks like this”
And look maybe this feeling is because I’ve come to know a few journos over the last few years and some of them while almost always delivering great work on their stories I have disagreed with them from time to time but never in any major way but here she acts more and more like a knockoff of Catherine Tremell from Basic Instinct and the more I think about that performance the more it makes my fucking blood boil, UUUURRRRRGGGGHHHHH.
Anywho I’ll stop the review there before I rant more as the film is really saved by Mr Hauser’s performance and fine work from all others, 2 and a half out of 5.
Richard Jewell is a movie that I am of 2 minds on, on the one hand Mr Hauser is truly truly great as Richard Jewell and it’s a real shame that he was not nominated for Best Actor for his work in this movie as he surely deserved the nomination more than DiCaprio did for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and he was great in that film don’t get me wrong but Hauser is better and it’s the kind of performance that really gets to you emotionally and also makes you think about how you would go if you faced a situation like this one, certainly I felt this way and I don’t know if I would have handled it very well at all.
As for the rest of the cast they are perfectly fine, Mr Sam Rockwell does a good job as Richard’s lawyer though like in Iron Man 2 10 years ago he reminded me a whole lot of Michael Biehn, Kathy Bates is good as Richard’s mother who becomes an innocent victim in the maelstrom that comes into her son’s life while Jon Hamm does a good job as the FBI agent who becomes convinced of Richard’s guilt.
But there is a big big red herring in this movie and that is the journalist played by Olivia Wilde (who directed Booksmart last year) and it is one of the worst performances I have ever seen a talent like her give in any movie, from the moment she opened her smegging mouth I just thought to myself:
“What the Fuck, is this a Fucking Joke, No Fucking Journalist Talks like this”
And look maybe this feeling is because I’ve come to know a few journos over the last few years and some of them while almost always delivering great work on their stories I have disagreed with them from time to time but never in any major way but here she acts more and more like a knockoff of Catherine Tremell from Basic Instinct and the more I think about that performance the more it makes my fucking blood boil, UUUURRRRRGGGGHHHHH.
Anywho I’ll stop the review there before I rant more as the film is really saved by Mr Hauser’s performance and fine work from all others, 2 and a half out of 5.
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