Film Review - Oppenheimer (2023)

Oppenheimer is the new movie by Christopher Nolan and stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer who invented the Atomic Bomb and was later accused of being a Communist.

Oppenheimer was one of my most anticipated of the year mainly due to Christopher Nolan who’s last 2 films Dunkirk and Tenet are not only my favourite films he’s made but also topped my favourites lists of their respective release years but could be build on those and get that 3 peat favourites win or was this bomb to be a dud like Sideshow Bob’s when he went for that retro 50s charm.

Well so far Oppenheimer is my movie of the year but this year is far from over movie wise and Dune Part 2: Long Live the Fighters is still to come but this movie is a terrific one by Nolan and he manages to take a very familiar story especially if you’ve seen the Hunt for Red October and make something gripping and terrifying out of it.

Firstly I have to talk about the use of sound design in this movie the times where the bomb is shown and referenced you feel in your bones and at one point I was literally on the edge of my seat and then wanting to duck and cover under it as I felt this terror envelope me from head to toe and this feeling of absolute dread of “What have we done” rattle in my brain.

And its gripping in the sense that you feel both the personal and global stakes of this race to acquire this deadly weapon and what it could do to those who made it as well as the human race as a whole and Cillian Murphy finally gets to lead a Nolan film and he doesn’t disappoint playing the man as someone who was a radical and a genius and then a haunted soul living with the consequences of his invention as well as the treatment his country gave him as thanks.

Also extremely good is Robert Downey Jr and it is as much his movie as it is Murphy’s and these 2 men and their performances highlight what I feel Nolan does so well with this movie and that is that this is as much about humanity as it is about history (and it does that very well also) and what we can do to ourselves both on a global nuclear scale as well as personally where we can rub someone the wrong way or feel that for whatever reason we don’t like them or are somewhat jealous of what they’ve achieved either in their own life or in service to their country.

If I have one criticism of this movie it’s that it’s a little long at 3 hours and towards the end I was checking my watch on a few occasions and getting the message from my bottom that its sat in this cinema seat long enough.

And so that was Oppenheimer and it’s a terrific film by Christopher Nolan who continues his post Interstellar winning streak and hopefully next time he’ll base his next movie on the Red Dwarf episode White Hole much like Tenet did the Backwards world like the Boys from the Dwarf did, 4 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Barbie (2023)

Barbie is based off of the Mattel toy and is directed by Greta Gerwig and co-written by her and Noah Baumbach and stars Margot Robbie as what she calls Stereotypical Barbie who lives in her dream house, has big parties and is the focus of attention of Ken (Ryan Gosling) but when thoughts of Death come into her mind she is told by Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) to go into the Real World and find the person who plays with her and fix it.

Barbie was a movie I was curious about mainly because I love Gerwig as a director, I loved 2017’s Lady Bird and adored 2019’s Little Women but the previews for this movie were all over the place and I thought to myself This will either be terrific fun and Gerwig has done it again or it would be a near total disaster like Lightyear was last year where I sat there and thought “Who is this For?”

Well it is neither of those sadly but it is still good enough and I enjoyed myself enough to feel positive about this movie for the most part, Robbie is the best she’s been in what feels like a very long time here after 3 very high profile misfires in Birds of Prey (which she also produced as well as this movie), Amsterdam and Babylon the latter 2 of which I felt had interesting elements to them but on the whole weren’t great but here she’s lively, energetic, warm, funny as well as emotional and all of it works very well.

And I actually enjoyed Ryan Gosling for once in a movie and he is someone I have barely liked in movies save for 2016’s The Nice Guys but here like with Laura Dern and Emma Watson in Little Women Gerwig actually directs him like a human being instead of a human equivalent of the Living Statue where in so many roles he just either sat there or stood there and stared into the camera or stared off into space and I got so sick of it even in movies like First Man which I really liked he did it there but here he’s very charismatic and lively and has a lot of great moments as does Simu Liu my favourite Ken plus Michael Cera and America Ferrara who is very good as a Mattel executive with a moody daughter of her own.

But this movie as fun as it is doesn’t quite come together I feel to make it as satisfying in terms of its focus and storytelling that I felt Lady Bird and Little Women had and a lot of this comes down to the ending which I didn’t love now I did love seeing that person again in a movie but their scenes didn’t quite work for me and they felt a little jarring with the “come on Barbie let’s go party” feel the film was going for at times.

And also Will Ferrell as the head of Mattel was okay but really deep down was only doing a riff on his much better Lord/President Business character from the Lego Movie in 2014 as well as not really having an awful lot to do apart from run around comedically and react to the strange goings on around him.

And so that was Barbie and its fun enough that I recommend it but I don’t feel it sticks the landing well but Gerwig has yet to make a bad film and I hope she continues for a long time to come as I’ll be there every time, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning: Part One (2023)

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One is the newest MI film and once again Christopher McQuarrie returns to direct and co-write the script, this time the IMF is up again a mysterious program known as The Entity, an AI program that has become rogue and various groups want to control it as it has the power to control anything it touches but Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team (Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson and Ving Rhames) want to find it so they can destroy it.

Dead Reckoning Part One is my favourite MI film after 2015’s Rogue Nation which is still my favourite of this series and the reason I feel this is the case is that this movie has a much better sense of storytelling than 2018’s entry Fallout did where I felt half of the script was the characters saying “I’m Working On It” or a variation of that theme whereas here this has much more of the danger and intrigue that Rogue Nation had and while this is only Part One this felt satisfying and not too long despite its 163 minute runtime.

Also this movie has some fun action sequences the highlight being the climax on board the Orient Express which is tense and exciting and full of surprises as it plays out, there are also some very good hand to hand fights with knives and fists that are also exciting to watch and McQuarrie has gotten better at directing action since Rogue Nation where he hadn’t quite gotten a handle on that kind of thing yet but hey these things take time to learn.

And lastly the film has 2 excellent newcomers to the cast in Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff and they bring a real breath of fresh air to a series that now risks becoming stale despite its excellent quality film wise (only 2000’s Mission Impossible 2 is a dud here), Atwell is very charming as this thief character Grace and she displays a lightness of touch that is good to watch while Klementieff as a cold assassin makes the most of her limited role and is a big part of the hand to hand fight scenes and why their so memorable.

But I’m now starting to feel that after Part 2 of Dead Reckoning opens next year that it might be time for Christopher McQuarrie to vacate the directors chair for a film or 2 don’t get me wrong his partnership with Cruise which began with Bryan Singer’s 2008 film Valkyrie has been hugely beneficial for both men but he’s done 4 of these films by the time the Dead Reckoning story is fully finished and after seeing what Joseph Kosinski did with Top Gun Maverick last year I’d like to see him get a chance to direct an MI film.

And so that was Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One and it’s a very fun time at the cinema even if the series as a whole could do with some new blood once Part 2 is finished, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is the fifth and supposedly final Indiana Jones film with Harrison Ford as Dr Jones and this time he is in 1969 and is retiring from teaching but one day his goddaughter Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) shows up wanting his help to find the Dial of Archimedes which is said to be very powerful, also wanting it is the scientist Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) who may be related to a famous enemy from Indy’s past.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was a movie I held out hope for despite the absence of Steven Spielberg in the directors chair though given his poor directing in 2008’s Kingdom of the Plastic Prop-sorry-Crystal Skull which felt a whole lot like a man who didn’t want to direct it perhaps James Mangold of Wolverine and Ford V Ferrari fame was a good bet to take the reins but would this deliver or be another false hope like X-Men Dark Phoenix and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

Well it wasn’t a false hope but its also a movie that on the whole is fine, nothing bad or awful but nothing great either, Harrison is perfectly fine as Indy this time around but it feels like the film is trying to hide his age a little too much at times and the de-aging done on him for the films prologue set in 1944 is hit and miss, at times it works but other times it looks like a video game.

As for Phoebe Waller-Bridge she is again perfectly fine and is the normal capable woman that these films have though some of her dialogue did bother me at times while Toby Jones was pretty annoying as her father Baz (he really suffers in comparison to Denholm Elliott in Raiders and the Last Crusade) and Ethann Isidore as Teddy kept making me think of Abu the monkey from Aladdin and he is again perfectly fine but nowhere near as good as Ke Huy Quan as Short Round from Temple of Doom.

But there are 2 things that really drag this movie down for me:

- The first of those is Mads Mikkelsen as Voller, frankly not only is he boring to watch as a villain but his character does so little in terms of the storytelling he more often than not feels like a prop for extended chase scenes be it on a train or in a car or on a boat etc etc and Mikkelsen in Casino Royale showed that he could play a memorable villain when given the opportunity but here he’s boring and doesn’t compare to Belloq or Mola Ram or Walter Donovan.

- And secondly and this is regrettable for me to say but its James Mangold’s direction, so much of it is done in close ups and close shots and steady as she goes editing that it again feels flat and lifeless and I know these comparisons to the first 3 films are unfair but I have to go there as those 3 films were Steven Spielberg is his directorial prime making the kinds of films that very few knew how to do back then (only John Carpenter, Ridley Scott and the late great Richard Donner could compare.)

And the action in those films is exhilarating and thrilling and Spielberg showing us what he could do (in fact George Lucas wanted him to direct Return of the Jedi before a bitter fallout with the DGA over Irvin Kershner’s credit placement on Empire Strikes Back saw that scrapped) whereas here Mangold just goes about it slow and steady and it’s fine but not good enough to compare to Spielberg or even Mangold who is a capable director outside of this film.

And lastly I want to mention this because I did think of it while watching the film and that is to me Indiana Jones is like John Rambo, characters who were born out of a specific time and place (Indy the 30s adventure serials and Rambo the Vietnam War) that when you take them out of their respective time periods and put them forwards in time they don’t quite feel the same and that could work with the right care and approach to the story but with both of these characters it doesn’t and perhaps its now time to leave them both well enough alone.

And so that was Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and its fine but nothing remarkable and I want to forget all about it now that I’ve seen it because its just not worth more than a “it’s fine”, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - No Hard Feelings (2023)

No Hard Feelings is a new comedy that stars Jennifer Lawrence as Maddie who is risking losing her house and loses her car due to not paying property taxes so one day while at her bar job she answers an ad from a wealthy couple (Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti) for someone to “date” their introverted 19 year old son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) before he leaves for college, Maddie accepts the job and Percy is more than meets the eye.

No Hard Feelings is good fun and watching it in a cinema with a crowd reminded me of how much I missed watching a comedy on the big screen with an actual audience as opposed to watching one at home on my TV and this is a fun comedy with plenty of laughs in store.

Also Jennifer Lawrence is in full on movie star mode and she takes to doing a comedy like a hand in a glove, she is effortlessly charming, likeable and funny and it is great to see her anchoring a movie again and she has good chemistry with Feldman as Percy as she tries to bring him out of his shell and that delivers plenty of good laughs in its own right.

And so that was No Hard Feelings and it is a fun romp that is worth watching with a crowd, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023)

Transformers Rise of the Beasts is the follow on from 2018’s Bumblebee and sees the Autobots led by Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) in 1994 where the Terracon Scourge (Peter Dinklage) is after the Transwarp Key that will summon his master Unicron (Colman Domingo) to Earth but Prime will need the help of Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman) and his Maximals to Roll Out and save the world so all are one and free.

Rise of the Beasts isn’t as good a movie as Bumblebee was (having Kelly Fremon Craig rewrite your script uncredited does help) but it is a solid follow up that for the most part I enjoyed watching and firstly the use of 1994 and its hip hop culture was very nice and it didn’t feel too much like window dressing for the most part so we can have our cast dress up in mid 90s fashions and we can play mid 90s hip hop and other songs of that era on the soundtrack.

Also while before heading into the film I felt the addition of the Beast Wars spinoff characters (Beast Wars was a spinoff Transformers series from the 1990s made by the same team that also made the breakout CG cartoon Reboot about life inside a computer) was Paramount pressing the panic button to generate interest in a new Transformers film again they do work fairly well for the most part and hearing Perlman and Cullen play off each other was pretty cool especially in the third act.

And lastly Anthony Ramos from In the Heights is so so so much better than Shia “Nononononononono OPTIMUS!!!!” LaBeouf it isn’t even a contest here he actually plays a character instead of a panicky screaming plot device with a girlfriend and is very appealing as the human lead as is Dominique Flashback as Elena an archaeologist in training who finds a clue to the Transwarp Key and her and Ramos do have good chemistry together.

And so that was Transformers Rise of the Beasts and it along with Bumblebee are easily the only 2 live action Transformers movies that you should bother watching as their well made, have endearing human characters while using the Transformers characters well and giving you good action that doesn’t give you a migraine in return, I hope this group of films gets a third entry and Megatron returns because I want him back to face Prime one last time before either Peter Cullen or Frank Welker pass away, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Elemental (2023)

Elemental is the new Pixar film and concerns Element City where Earth, Water, Fire and Air elements all live together in harmony and here we meet a Fire element called Ember (Leah Lewis) who is poised to take over her father’s store but one day she meets a Water element named Wade (Mamoudou Athie) and well Opposites soon attract.

Elemental is not a great Pixar film but it is a good one and I am surprised by how much I did enjoy it and firstly the concept of Element City is a good one and the film does a good job developing this idea where a Fire element can be partially put out by Water and Water can help an Earth element grow more and Air elements can fly in the air and have their own skyways and when the Water elements cry it is good fun to watch as they almost could create a flood with their tears.

And also the film works very well as a romance story of opposites attracting and each person bringing out the best in the other and culture clashes especially when the parents grew up in the traditional ways and the children grew up in the West and were exposed to those ideas and customs of that culture moreso and those scenes really got to me and because of that the film worked for me more than I thought it would.

And so that was Elemental and it is a good Pixar effort and my favourite of their since Onward in 2020, 3 out of 5.