Film Review - Iron Man 3 (2013)

Iron Man 3 sees Robert Downey Jr. return as Tony Stark and this time Shane Black his director from Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang takes up directing duties, the story here concerns Stark unable to sleep following the events of the Avengers and in the meantime the world being terrorized by an unseen threat called The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) as well as a rival business man (Guy Pearce) who Stark will eventually have to confront.

It is fair to say I went into Iron Man 3 with very uncertain expectations as while I really enjoyed the first Iron Man film I had an intense dislike of the second, it was a complete mess and made me think of Highlander II in terms of being a pathetic follow up to a first film I really loved so as a result there was uncertainty over this third film, did it return the series to Iron form or continue the small signs of rust seen in the last film.

Well the truth of the matter lies somewhere in the middle for I have very mixed feelings in regards to this film, it certainly isn't bad let's be honest but it is also very problematic but before I delve into those I'll start with the positives.

The first positive is the use of the events of the Avengers as a key story point in the film as it shows that Marvel are creating a big cinematic universe for their characters that makes events from the other films have a sense of weight to them whereas in other franchises its mainly ignored, happily that isn't here.

The second positive I have is the use of Tony Stark outside of the suit for much of the film, the early scenes of the first film were a nice use of his intellect and that is again on show here and Downey seems to be enjoying himself most in those scenes.

And finally the last positive is the final battle sequence involving Iron Man and it is a fantastic sequence with a real flow to it as well as a sense of scale and excitement, heck at times I was saying to myself "Concentrate all Fire on that Super Star Destroyer" as it did feel like the Space Battle in Return of the Jedi as it was going on, it's really terrific and well worth the wait.

But sadly for those two key strengths it also has some key weaknesses that are very hard to ignore, at least for me.

The first is sadly, the film's villains, yes I know what you're saying "You always have this problem" and that is true for I fundamentally believe that an action film like this one needs a strong villain in order to have a strong film, something Black is very familiar with given that his two Lethal Weapon films had excellent villains in Mr. Joshua and General McAllister in the first film and Arjen Rudd in the second, that said though this isn't his fault per se as a fault of Marvel who come up short in the villain department when compared with their rivals at DC who have a good resource of villains to fall back on for their superhero characters.

That said though Pearce isn't too bad but his character isn't that much different to Sam Rockwell's in the last film and only a little more interesting as well, a pity as Pearce is a good actor but it left me wanting more.

The second problem I had with the film is that much of the film plays out like Tony Stark as Martin Riggs, no surprise given that Black also created that character in the Lethal Weapon series, it was okay but it was also something that got on my nerves after a while, especially when you see him and Rhodie (Don Cheadle playing the role better than he did in 2) sneaking around a cargo ship port in a scene that is right out of Lethal Weapon 2 and those two definitely having the Riggs/Murtaugh style to them, heck you could easily put those characters into that part of the film and you wouldn't miss a thing.

The last problem I have is that film does run on a little too long for its own good and the middle act could've easily seen a good 10 minutes chopped from its run time to spice up that section of the film which it could've done with.

And so in closing, Iron Man 3 is a marginal improvement on the first one but it still doesn't come close to beating the first film as my favourite of the trilogy which had a nice clean feel to its storytelling that its successors have lacked, it is fair to say that there are some signs of rust on this series starting to grow and while the film is not a disappointment for me, a film divided cannot stand for me, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - Clear and Present Danger (1994)

Clear and Present Danger is the 3rd Jack Ryan film and the 2nd to star Harrison Ford in the role, the story this time concerns the US government wanting to disrupt the drug trade in Colombia and this time Dr. Ryan has to try and sort out the mess in front of him.

Clear and Present Danger pretty much continues the steady downward decline of this series since the success of the Hunt for Red October, seriously it makes Patriot Games look like that film quite easily for two key reasons:

The first is that there is no stakes in this film, Red October concerned the Russians developing a silent drive system with their newest sub and how in the wrong hands could strike the US with very little warning, here it's some boring fight on drugs that's been done so many times before and it has no impact on the story.

And the second is that the film's script is such a convoluted mess you just sit there wondering what on Earth is going on and what its even all about and by the time you get to the big fight and confrontation at the end you just stop caring and sit there waiting for the film to end.

And frankly, this film is not worth recommending and when I was watching it I thought to myself "this makes Patriot Games look good" and I hated that one as well, ugh rent Red October instead of this one or the one that came before and after it, you'll feel happier and get your money's worth, .5 out of 5.

Film Review - Patriot Games (1992)

Patriot Games is the 2nd Jack Ryan film in the series and this time Harrison Ford takes on the role of Dr. Ryan from Alec Baldwin who played the role in "The Hunt for Red October", the story here concerns an IRA attack on the Royal Family which Ryan prevents but kills the brother of Sean Miller (Sean Bean) and now Miller wants revenge.

Patriot Games is for me, a complete failure of an action picture, this feeling driven primarily by my love of Red October plus having read Clancy's original book but there are two big reasons why I think this film fails in the way it does:

The first is that the story strays too far from the original novel, Red October managed to adapt its story very well into film in a way that not only captured the essence of the novel but managed to find its own way to work as a film, here it feels like a rewrite of the story so that it takes place after the events of Red October whereas the novel took place before the events of Red October and as a result, it doesn't work.

The second is the change of actor in the role of Dr. Ryan, Baldwin was a perfect choice for the part and nailed it in Red October, sadly other events saw him bow out and Ford took his place and he doesn't fit the role at all, now Ford has done some terrific action roles before this film and would do one a year later in The Fugitive but he just does not fit this part and whenever he was on screen I was wishing I was watching Baldwin doing the role as the story would have had a lot more impact had he come back to play the part.

What makes this feel worse is that the story to me is the Jack Ryan equivalent of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" in that it's a personal story about your lead character that has a big emotional impact when you've worked hard to establish the character with readers/viewers beforehand and sadly the full impact of the story in the film is diluted by having a new actor in the role instead of the previous one and in both cases it's a sad shame.

Hopefully Paramount doesn't make the same mistake twice in regards to Chris Pine's tenure in the part as I do think he is a good choice for the role (it's the only nice thing I can say about his role in This Means War) and if he is embraced in the part in the same way that Baldwin was in 1990 that Paramount will snap him up for a future film if it does well enough at the box office.

Now I'm sure some of you are thinking "what about if you haven't read the book" well if you haven't then it's a decent Harrison Ford action film with good direction, performances and villain even if it is a little average and somewhat forgettable in the long run.

And so with that out of the way, I can't recommend Patriot Games to fans of Clancy's book but I could somewhat to those wanting a good Harrison Ford action film as it works better if you haven't read the book, if you have then it's a failure on nearly every level, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - Pitch Perfect (2012)

Pitch Perfect stars Anna Kendrick as Becka, a young girl who is entering college on advice from her father who hopes that it will help her live a little before heading to LA to try and become a DJ, she then joins a college group called the Bellas who are determined to make up for their disastrous performance at Lincoln Centre in New York the year before.

Pitch Perfect is a lot of fun and at times Aca-funny, especially Rebel Wilson who delivers some great comic timing though the standout performer for me here is Kendrick, she is simply wonderful in this film in terms of creating a character that for me really felt like a girl you might come across in this big wide world of ours rather than a cliched film character that feels more like the creation of a male Hollywood screenwriter and would most likely be another borderline sexist stereotype that we sadly see far too often.

The film also has a very good soundtrack that has a nice mix of old and new songs in it and the climax is also very well staged though I did have a couple of complaints about the film:

The first is that the film does run a little too long for a comedy, it could've been trimmed by a good 10-15 minutes and the other is that outside of Kendrick and Wilson to a lesser extent the other characters aren't that interesting and do resemble the stereotypes we've seen before and that part of the film did bore me somewhat though when the film was over it didn't bother me that much.

So all in all, Pitch Perfect is an Aca-fun college comedy very much in the style of Bring it On from 2000 and like that film is a fun surprise, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Oblivion (2013)

Oblivion stars Tom Cruise as Jack, a drone repair man in what's left of the Earth following a war that destroyed it but one day he sees a ship crash down to the planet with a very familiar face that has been haunting him in his very dreams.

Oblivion is sadly a film of two halves for me, the first half I thought was kind of interesting with its wide visuals, sparse soundtrack and little dialogue calling the shots and giving you everything that you needed to know.

But sadly the film's second half kills it stone dead by turning into a pastiche of most major Sci-Fi films like 2001, Predator, Mad Max, Star Wars and The Terminator to name as examples and as a result the film lost me in a big way to the point where I just switched off from the whole thing and stopped caring about what happened to Cruise's character.

And as for Cruise himself, he's actually not that bad here but he also didn't really grab me either, he just seemed to sit in the middle throughout the film and playing it safe as he has done many times before and as a result you don't really want to get invested in his character or what might happen to him as the film goes on towards its very dull finish.

And so, Oblivion is not a terrible film by any stretch of the imagination but it is also not that good and frankly plays it too safe, its saddens me that in a world where the biggest film of all time "Avatar" is a Sci-Fi flick and yet this is all we get in the aftermath of its enormous success, the fans of this genre myself included deserve much better than films like this, guess you could chalk this one up as my first disappointment of the year folks, 1.5 out of 5.

Film Review - Rise of the Guardians (2012)

Rise of the Guardians is a Dreamworks animation production and stars the voice of Chris Pine as Jack Frost, a young boy gifted with great ice powers but is not believed in by children, then one day he's summoned to the North Pole where Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin), the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman), the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher) and the Sandman must band together to fight the Boogeyman (Jude Law) and they'll need Jack's help to stop him.

I really enjoyed Rise of the Guardians, I thought that it handled the characters very well, the mythology around them I thought was well done and it had me interested and I also felt that it actually did feel like it was about children in a way that many animated features aren't and that it handled them in a way that wasn't stereotypical or gimmicky or done for cutesiness which is so often the case when it comes to the use of children in animated films.

I also liked the voice actors for the most part, Jackman and Fisher delivered in their roles and part of me had a bit of a film geek out when Baldwin and Pine were sharing a scene together given that Baldwin did Jack Ryan in "The Hunt for Red October" and Pine is to take over the role in Ken Branagh's reboot at the end of the year.

But sadly however there was one weak link and it was big enough to almost do away with all the good work the film has going for it and that was Law, frankly he is completely miscast in the role and every time he was on screen I kept wishing it was Tom Hiddelston in that role as he would have brought some menace and charm to the part that was lacking, it also would've made that character much more interesting to watch whereas with Law it felt like one celebrity voice too many and it almost killed the film for me.

But hey, the Guardians does deliver the goods and it will be a good watch for families, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

The Perks of being a Wallflower is based off a hit teen novel and stars Logan Lerman as Charlie, a young man starting high school who finds it difficult to make friends after a tragic event the year before but one day he befriends two seniors, Patrick (Ezra Miller) and Sam (Emma Watson) who help to brighten his cloudy high school days.

Perks of being a Wallflower would have to be the best teenage movie to come out since the John Hughes era of the 80's before he moved on to doing kids fare with Uncle Buck in 1989 and why put up that comparison well like those films the three leads and the world they live in feels very real and they themselves feel like real people with real emotions, Watson especially is quite good and it's nice to see her doing a more mature role after the HP series and the chemistry her, Miller and Lerman have is simply wonderful, it made me want to see more from those guys together as they make a very appealing trio.

The film also has a very nice soundtrack to it which makes up for the sometimes worthless orchestral score the film has and it was nice to see actors like Kate Walsh and Dylan McDermott in a film for once.

Sadly though the film has some slight problems in the third act and that is mainly does with the old tried and true technique of having a crisis threaten the relationship of the leads and how it all has to be made right and boy did it make me grumble as I was with the film up to that point, happily though it regained its footing and got back to the strengths of the first 2 acts before the end.

So all in all, The Perks of being a Wallflower was a film I enjoyed a lot more than I thought I would despite some storyline stumbles towards the end, it's sad somewhat that there isn't a follow up book after this one as I would've liked to have seen what happened next with these characters but hey if that were to happen then I'd get sick of them after a while so I won't complain, 3 and a half out of 5.

Two of a Kind: Remembering Siskel and Ebert

Some very sad news came my way on Friday morning and that was the death of veteran US film critic Roger Ebert, one half of the Siskel and Ebert film review program he hosted with the late Gene Siskel after a long battle with cancer, he was 70 years old.

I had been aware of Roger's work for a couple of years before fully discovering the Siskel and Ebert program on the show's archive website in 2007-2008, seeing that was like a revelation, it was for me a real sign of how film reviewing was really done, it wasn't done with a sense of pretentiousness, it wasn't done in a way that thumbed its nose at the general movie going public and it wasn't done in a way that made the viewers of their show feel like idiots.

No siree, it was done with passion, wit, honesty and in a plain talking sense that brought in many viewers week after week, both of them also had a great chemistry between them and when they disagreed on a particular film it was like gladiatorial combat, reviews of films like Full Metal Jacket, Rocky IV, Lethal Weapon 3 are some of many examples though they could also really kick a film if they thought it was bad and sing the praises of a good one in unison.

Looking at their show very recently it made me think "I really wish I had a show like this growing up" as I very rarely went to the cinema to see films nor did I get the David and Margaret program which was then on SBS and to have had a show like this one would have been absolute heaven for me and gone a long way to fulfilling my movie going desires at that young age.

Siskel and Ebert were indeed two of a kind and its VERY doubtful that without them and the work they did to make film criticism into a legitimate subject of discussion when it came to talking movies, I doubt it would've become as accepted as it has been today and although attempts were made to replicate that duo after Gene's death in 1999, no one could come close and even our own Margaret and David fine as they are in my view can't hold a candle to these two men.

For the critical difference, it was Siskel and Ebert for me and I can only imagine the bantering that would be going on right now, it would be something very special and it warms my heart somewhat knowing that their partnership is together again and while it is so very sad that they're no longer with us, they're reviews together and the legacy that they've left on so many film reviewers since will always live on.

Film Review - Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)

Jack the Giant Slayer is directed by Bryan Singer and is based off the classic "Jack and the Beanstalk" nursery rhyme, this version has Jack (Nicholas Hoult) as a simple farm boy who works the land but up in the skies lie a race of giants, giants who develop a hunger for the humans below.

Where does one begin with this film, well where to start would simply be that the film is simply a complete and utter bore fest from start to finish, the film opens with a narrated thing about the land of the giants and how they invaded and how the last alliance banded together to fight them off, okay the last part didn't happen but it was something similar and it's from there the rot sets in as you just sit there thinking "Been there, done that."

That feeling also extends to the film's characters, Hoult as Jack is an uncharismatic, uninteresting and deadly dull bore in the role and all he does is mumble his line and grin like a little child and its totally uninteresting, not to mention the fact that the character he plays come across as a cardboard clone of Luke Skywalker from Star Wars but without the boyish charm Mark Hamill brought to the role, Eleanor Tomlinson actually comes across as being the best part of the film and has a nice charming quality to her despite getting virtually nothing to do in her role and playing a cardboard clone of Princess Jasmine from Aladdin.

But the biggest waste of all is that of Ewan McGregor, Ian McShane and Stanley Tucci, all three are good actors and have been good on their own in the past but again all they're given is nothing to do, McGregor the brave knight, McShane the old king and Tucci well he seems to playing a cardboard clone of Jafar from Aladdin, the film's special effects work and battle sequences play more like a 2nd rate video game and the use of "Cloister" for the name of the kingdom just made me very angry and it's an insult to the Cat people who worship him and needless to say, they'd be considering legal action if any of them ever saw this film.

As to whether you should see this movie, well you should not, it's boring, the characters are cardboard clones, the action is dull and the story is routine, I honestly thought Bryan Singer was better this, maybe I was wrong, .5 out of 5.