Film Review - The Predator (2018)

The Predator is the newest entry in the Predator franchise and this time Shane Black who played Hawkins in the original movie from 1987 writes and directs this new entry where the Predator once again lands on Earth and murders a group of special forces soldiers but one of them a captain (Boyd Holbrook) is interrogated to find out why but a local scientist (Olivia Munn) may know what it is and it is indeed the Predator.

I was keen to see this new Predator movie due to Mr Black being in the directors chair, this is a man who starred in the original Predator film and saw John McTiernan make it close hand, he wrote the original Lethal Weapon from that same year and just recently directed the Nice Guys with Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling.

And just recently I got to revisit the original Predator in its new 4K release and it still works perfectly so this new movie was in for the Hunt.

And it deserved to be killed off in that Hunt as this movie was very, very, very disappointing for me but before I delve into those reasons I want to start off by talking about what I did like and firstly I did think the film had some fun bloody violence that well earns its MA15 rating and I did enjoy finally seeing some blood be spilt during the Predator kills plus I did think Mr Holbrook and Ms Munn did a good job in their roles.

And lastly Henry Jackman’s score really nicely conveys a similar style and feel to Alan Silvestri’s score for the original movie.

But like I said this movie was a big disappointment for me and its time to dig into why as there are 2 key reasons:

- Firstly Black’s script which he co wrote with Fred Dekker is a tonal mess, trying to juggle the seriousness of the Predator hunt with the laughs he tries to get out of the group of soldiers and it really doesn’t work as the humour the guys go for is very cringe worthy and at times you can see that their going for that big cinema audience laugh along and it just falls completely flat.

And because of that I didn’t really care all that much if the Predator came along and killed every single one of them as after a while their banter really got on my nerves and I didn’t really find them very funny at all.

- Secondly this same script overcomplicates what should have been a simple story with multiple storylines that don’t really mesh together, there’s a story about a young boy played by Jacob Tremblay from Room and Wonder and then there’s the side plot with the other soldiers and then there’s the story about the Predators themselves and I just sat there thinking “Just give me a simple story with a Predator and its prey” and instead it felt like the mistakes of the Prometheus series that tried to tie into the Alien franchise were being repeated somewhat here and like Alien and Aliens simpler is better story wise.

And so that was the Predator the kind of movie disappointment that really stings as I was really keen to see it and the promise of Shane Black directing one of these films and it fails in the very areas John McTiernan got right in the original, its time for this hunter to take his quarry and retire as like Alien it has well and truly had its day, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - Crazy Rich Asians (2018)

Crazy Rich Asians is based off of the novel and stars Henry Golding as Nick Young the son of a wealthy real estate owner in Singapore who decides to take his girlfriend Rachel (Constance Wu) home for his friends wedding but that also involves meeting the family and his mother (Michelle Yeoh) which won’t be easy but Nick is sure he’s found the one and is determined to win the family over to her while also acting as Best Man at his friends wedding.

Crazy Rich Asians was okay but very much a traditional rom com, first off Singapore and the surrounding islands look great the city is very bright and colourful at night and the islands during the daytime look very calm and relaxing and it will make you want to go there plus it is such a pleasure to see Michelle Yeoh again in a film as not only does she pull of the contempt look well but has the Martial Arts skills to back it up and Ms Yeoh was indeed a major Martial Arts star in Asia in the past and well I’ve liked her since Tomorrow Never Dies as a kid so there’s that.

Also really good is Ms Akwafina who is far funnier here than she was in Oceans 8 where it felt like she had very little to do apart from some card tricks here she pretty much steals the show and gets the best laughs while Mr Golding and Ms Wu have some nice chemistry together as the young lovers trying to navigate their relationship against the traditions of the East where much like the Big Sick last year the parents grow up in a traditional environment while their children are more exposed to the culture and ideals of the West in their travels and the 2 at times clash with each other.

And so that was Crazy Rich Asians and it’s a fun rom com that I enjoyed watching, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - BlackKklansman (2018)

BlackKklansman is based off a true story and is the newest joint by Spike Lee and takes place in 1972 where a black undercover detective (John David Washington son of Denzel) the first black man to be recruited to the Colorado Springs Police Force decides to investigate the local chapter of the KKK (Klu Klux Klan) and recurits one of his fellow detectives a white man played by Adam Driver to act in his place and it gets very hairy.

BlackKklansman walks a very tight high wire act between being serious and comedic and Spike manages for the most part to walk very well as part of me thought before seeing this movie “This story sounds utterly bizarre” and yet it really happened and it was told very well, John Washington is very much his father’s son as he sounds so much like him and has a lot of his fathers natural charm and charisma, Adam Driver once again shows what a great actor he is as he knocks it out of the park and walks a very fine line of having to be someone else and not give his real identity away while Corey Hawkins does a great speech scene that reminded me of Denzel in Malcolm X.

But in the end and I won’t say too much but you will know it when it happens I found that the very delicate tight rope that had been managed so well came undone and the reason I feel this way is because it feels like its come out of a movie of this story that is a lot more serious in its tone and the way it inserts itself editorially is as a hard cut and I couldn’t help but think that a dissolve would’ve been much better that way you could still enjoy the high wire act and get the impact of that ending whereas here it feels like it comes out of nowhere and for me personally I found myself marking the film down a little bit because of it.

And so that was BlackKklansman a film that Spike Lee pulls off very well for the most part save for the ending and because of that I have very mixed feelings on the film overall, 2 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - The Meg (2018)

The Meg stars Jason Statham as Jonas a former deep sea rescue diver who lives with the guilt of having to let 2 of his friends die on a rescue mission that went wrong but when a deep sea research vessel is trapped 11,000 feet below the surface Jonas is brought back into action to rescue them but what he also finds is Megalodon a giant Shark that has now found its way to surface so the race is on to kill it before it kills hundreds of innocent people.

The Meg was okay, not a bad movie by any stretch but not that great of a one either Mr Statham is pretty good and nicely builds on his work in Spy and the Fate of the Furious, Rainn Wilson and Ruby Rose were a lot of fun as well and the film has some pretty neat shark effects that for once didn’t have me going “Stop showing me the Damn Shark.”

But what this movie lacks is any real bite and by that I mean lots of blood in the ocean floor there’s a little bit of it but not enough for my liking and if your going to make a Shark movie you have to push the boundaries a little bit and not be afraid to let its sink its teeth in and show that for Sharks the Blood is indeed the Life, playing it safe like this really doesn’t cut it anymore.

And so that was the Meg which was okay fun but lacked real bite, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - Book Club (2018)

Book Club stars Mary Steenburgen, Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda and Candice Bergen as 4 women who form a Book Club every month and each of them pick a book for the 4 of them to read and one of them picks Fifty Shades of Grey and it gets all of them stimulated for love, life and sex which for some includes finding love again and getting back into the dating game.

Book Club is good fun and worth a watch with a cinema crowd that for me was laughing quite a bit and I definitely laughed a fair bit as well and a lot of that charm comes down to that wonderful cast of ladies who play off each other really well and have great chemistry as well as delivering some great laughs and I have to say I really liked seeing Ms Bergen on screen again.

The 4 ladies also have some fun male actors to play off of as well with Don Johnson he of Heartbeat the song and Miami Vice fame getting a small role, Wallace Shawn (“Inconceivable”) has a really fun cameo as does Richard Dreyfuss but its Andy Garcia once again showing that he has aged really well and pretty much turned into Terry Benedict from the 2001 Oceans Eleven and like in Mamma Mia 2 gets many of the films best moments and I also liked seeing Alicia Silverstone again it felt like an eternity since I last saw her on screen.

Oh and Craig T. Nelson has a fun gag with Mr. Incredible all the way down in his pants.

And so that was Book Club a fun and light hearted romp that I had fun with, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - The Happytime Murders (2018)

The Happytime Murders is directed by Brian Henson son of Muppets creator Jim Henson and stars Melissa McCarthy as a police detective who once had a Puppet partner who now works as a private eye as an incident saw him disgraced from the service but when the cast of a TV show called The Happytime Gang keep winding up dead the two will have to work together to solve the case.

The Happytime Murders is a complete mess that really doesn’t work on almost any front and first off I start with the tone it is all over the place and on the one hand it goes for that Who Framed Roger Rabbit style of puppets and humans co existing much like how toons and humans co exist in the world of that film then on the other hand there’s lot of sex jokes, sexual scenes and swearing now granted this is an MA15 movie and it has some very inventive gun deaths but they just don’t work.

And that leads me to the second problem the comedy it’s dead D-E-A-D Dead none of the jokes work and none of them come from a consistent tone the sexual jokes just come out of nowhere and instead of generating laughs they just land with a complete thud and in the small audience I saw the movie in there was only one laugh, 1 in the whole time I was watching the movie and for a comedy that is dangerous.

And lastly the central mystery doesn’t work either as it becomes blindingly obvious from the get go who the killer is and as a result you get bored with the mystery and Ms McCarthy does some good physical comedy but her verbal gags just pretty much end up being her shouting a lot of her lines and after a while I just got sick of it.

So yeah the Happytime Murders was awful, nothing in it works and it fails to be fun, track down Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Instead as that is a far superior film, 1 out of 5.

Big Trouble for James Bond

So recently the new Mission: Impossible movie Fallout came out in cinemas and I absolutely loved it, it’s a terrific thrill ride with exciting action, a great villain and a story that is about its central hero Ethan Hunt and the kind of hero he is.

What also came to mind is that not only must I try some of those amazing helicopter stunts on GTA Five (It didn’t quite work out as planned but I’ll keep trying) and also that Fallout and Rogue Nation make a great 2 parter but I also thought of the James Bond franchise.

For you see with these 2 films and the 2 Kingsman films the 007 series finds itself on the back foot of the spy genre and risks looking out dated and out of touch to a modern audience and it used to be said of James Bond that Nobody Does It Better and it makes you feel sad for the rest.

Well I certainly am not sad for the rest for much like in the late 80s the competitors of James Bond seem to have finally caught up thanks to the like of Christopher McQuarrie and Matthew Vaughn and allow me to delve more into those 2 groups of films in more detail.

In both Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and Fallout you have:

- Tom Cruise defying death to do all of those amazing stunts be it hanging off the side of a plane, holding his breath underwater, doing motorcycle chases with no protection and leaping from one building to the next in a foot chase that would make Quicksilver blush.

- Christopher McQuarrie staging some impressive action set pieces while also crafting espionage stories that are exciting to follow, are driven by character and stimulate your imagination.

- A proper reinvention of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in Solomon Lane and a proper reinvention of SPECTRE in the Syndicate/Apostles and like that group they know how his opposite number ticks and is intelligent, resourceful and ruthless in its goals for global chaos and domination.

- And lastly a leading lady in Rebecca Ferguson who could legitimately be a Bond leading lady as she is sexy, beautiful and able to kick ass with the guys.

Now lets swim across the pond to the 2 Kingsman movies:

- Both films have colourful and lavish sets that are eye catching and reminiscent of the sets Sir Ken Adam would design for the Bond films of the 60s and 70s.

- Colin Firth’s Harry/Galahad has properly redefined the gentleman spy with his Manners Maketh Man attitude and sharp suit that fits not only with the period film characters that helped make Firth a successful actor but also brings in a new audience for him that may not have seen his earlier work.

- Villains that like Auric Goldfinger could be petty crooks but see a legitimate grievance in modern society and seek to stamp it out even if it costs millions of lives which as Thanos would say is “A Small Price to Pay for Salvation.”

- And lastly like the Mission Impossible films I talked about above there are some wildly exciting action set pieces that play out like these energetic music clips that would traditionally be the title sequence of a James Bond film.

Now if you were to put those elements together into a handy little list like so:

- The stunt set piece that made you sit up and go WOW!
- The lavish and elaborate sets
- The beautiful women
- The exciting villains
- The espionage plots that threaten the world

And the gentleman spy risking life and limb to win the day and all of those are what you used to go and see a James Bond movie for and increasingly since Casino Royale in 2006 it feels like the Bond series has lost its way a little bit.

And this has happened by the films becoming more and more serious in tone which the Fleming novels and the best of the Bond films balanced well with humour, the navel gazing of “Is Bond still Relevant” which has been going on over and over since Goldeneye in 1995 and the elements of the Bond character that made him so popular such as the overt masculinity to name as one example are coming under increasing scrutiny.

But I still maintain the hope for Bond as one of the great strengths of the film series has been its ability to adapt with the changing times and refit the character to suit them to a certain degree and Danny Boyle is a good director who can bring a real kinetic energy plus Daniel Craig seems keen to end his tenure in the role on a high note hopefully they can deliver the goods and reorient Bond to be back on top and prove once more that Nobody Does it Better despite the comers.