Film Review - Mortal Engines (2018)

Mortal Engines is written and produced by Peter Jackson along with Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens who also worked together on the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings movies though Christian Rivers is the director here, the story takes place in a dystopian future where cities are now in wheels in order to survive after a 60 minute War destroyed the world and a man named Valentine (Hugo Weaving) is keen to complete a top secret energy project that may hold the key to defending the future.

Mortal Engines has some terrific visual effects and world building, the world presented here for starters is really good the cities on wheel look great and the tracks they leave behind are like mazes for humans to walk through with the giant walls and the soft ground that is left for people to drink to stave off dying of thurst plus the London city has a history museum of sorts will all kinds of artefacts and it all looks great as is the way with Peter Jackson and his team of Wizards at WETA in New Zealand.

What I wish worked as well was the human characters, Weaving does a good job as Valentine but he’s pretty much doing the standard Hugo Weaving routine by this stage, Robert Sheehan and Hera Hilmarsdottir are given very thin characters to work with and Hera really feels like a stand in for Dakota Johnson, Stephen Lang is okay as Shirke while Leila D’Onofrio was pretty good as Katherine, Valentine’s Daughter but all of them and their story in particular did very little for me and after a while I really got bored of them all despite the impressive visuals.

It also isn’t helped that the film zips along to such an extent that it barely takes anytime to put on the brakes and let its audience take in the world of the film or really develop it in any meaningful capacity which was one of the core strengths of this team’s work on Lord of the Rings where we got to see the world of Middle Earth perfectly realised on film and Jackson and Co took their time to develop that world and let us see the landscapes, environment and regions along with developing its characters whereas here we barely get to do that as its in such a rush to tell its story that a lot of that story and character development just gets passed by like a sign on the road.

And so that was my review of Mortal Engines and its okay with some terrific effects but its overall story and characters felt very thin on the ground and given what this team is capable of with their work on Lord of the Rings it’s a little disappointing, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse (2018)

Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse is the newest Spider-Man movie this one however is animated and produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and concerns Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) who like Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider and becomes a new Spider-Man but when the Kingpin (Liev Schriber) instigates a science experiment that goes wrong other Spider-Men show up and now the race is on to stop Kingpin and get them all home.

Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse was okay for me but also felt like a typical Spider-Man story but before I delve into those I want to talk about what I do like and firstly the animation style is very good combining digital animation, a comic strip drawing style, a hip hop style that nicely reflects Miles and his world and even some hand drawn style and it makes for a very trippy experience that at times is hard to keep up with but would be an absolute treat in 3D in fact I nearly went to a 3D session last night but decided not to as it would’ve finished late.

And also the voice cast are pretty good, its nice to see Nicolas Cage give a shit for once and not just phone it in for a paycheck in a B grade film, Spider-Ham is a real delight especially if you’ve seen the Simpsons Movie and Hailee Stenfeld is great fun as Spider-Gwen but sadly Lake Bell is wasted as Amanda Fisk as she barely has any lines and as someone who loved her as Chloe the Cat in Secret Life of Pets I was particularly disappointed.

There are also some very fun cameos which I will not give away.

Sadly the storytelling here just felt like a typical Spider-Man story where a loved one dies, Spider-Man throws some quips with his web, there’s a scientific angle to it all, there’s family matters and I personally have seen this all webbed up in all of the other Spider-Man movies and like those ones it was okay but kind of the same after a while and after seeing the character play around with the Avengers in Infinity War earlier this year and also having great fun with the Playstation 4 game a couple of months back I got a bit bored of it all after a while.

And so that was my thoughts on Spiderman into the Spiderverse and its okay it has some great animation and some cool voice acting but I wasn’t as fond of its story, 2 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Roma (2018)

Roma is the new film by Gravity and Children of Men director Alfonso Cuaron and is also a new Netflix production and takes place in 1970-71 in Mexico and concerns a maid named Cleo (Yalitza Apiricio) as she cares for a family in that city and her own journey within it.

Roma is very well made which isn’t a huge surprise given Mr Curaron’s skill as a craftsman but as much as I enjoyed the film and I did I would also say that I find myself admiring it more than I love it but there are 2 huge positives going for it:

- The first of those is Curaron’s direction and camera work, yes he does a lot of those signature tracking shots that he used to great effect in Children of Men and Gravity but their always worth a watch and they always take your eye on a journey of all kinds of little details that most edits would probably leave out feeling a need to go from one scene to the next, Curaron served also as cinematographer and he does a great job with the black and white photography as well.

- The second is Ms Apiricio’s performance, she is wonderful in this film and she does so much with just her body language alone with the looks she gives, the way she walks around and the expressions on her face that do a lot of the emotional heavy lifting without needing to say much dialogue and the film works best when the focus is purely on her.

And here is where the film faulters for me I’m afraid and yes I have some well one mainly and that is the use of the 2.35:1 aspect ratio and look this is a great looking film but there are a lot of times in this movie for me where the 2.35 ratio kept pulling back from the central intimate nature of this story and when you think back on Children of Men which was shot in 1.85:1 the film worked beautifully allowing the human story to shine element admist the dystopic spectacle that film also created.

And also the use of the 2.35 ratio tended to push Cleo to the background and away from the central focus of the film and for me I wanted her to be that central focus as its where the film works best but most of the time she has her scene and then she’s pushed away to focus on the streets and the people and those scenes are good but I didn’t really get into them as much as it felt like the background coming to the foreground to a certain degree.

And so that was Roma and look the film is good and worth watching but I also wish I had gotten to see it before the hype machine got a hold of it as I feel that as much as I like it it did fall short of that hype to a certain degree still it gets a 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - The Old Man and the Gun (2018)

The Old Man and the Gun is written and directed by David Lowery who also made 2016’s Pete Dragon and stars Robert Redford in his final screen role as Forest Tucker an old man who loves to rob banks even if he is very polite about it but a detective named John Hunt (Casey Affleck) is now on his trail.

The Old Man and the Gun is a nice movie and also a fitting tribute to Redford’s presence on screen and his appeal as an actor as his down to earth charm, his no fuss charisma and his ability to do so much with his mere presence on screen is on full display here and Lowery who also directed him in a small role in Pete’s Dragon doesn’t let his direction get in the way of his performance instead focusing on recreating the 1981 look on film with the heavy grain and long takes and it works really well.

Someone else I enjoyed seeing in this movie in a small role was Danny Glover even though all I could think the entire time he was on screen was “I’m too old for this shit” and as for Casey Affleck I thought he was okay but he had a bad tendency to mumble a lot of his lines most of the time and as a result I never really got fully on board with his performance.

But this is very much Redford’s movie and his presence more than carries it though one scene in particular made me think of Grand Theft Auto 5 the game which I still love playing.

And so that was the Old Man and the Gun and it’s a nice movie that serves as a great tribute to Robert Redford and his career and afterwards it will make you want to watch your favorite Redford films I know I wanted to rewatch Sneakers from 1992 after this one, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Creed 2 (2018)

Creed 2 is not directed by Ryan Coogler this time (He left to make Black Panther) instead Steven Caple Jr takes the reins and this time Adonis Creed (Michael B Jordan) has to fight Viktor Drago (Florian Muntenau) the son of Rocky IV’s Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) who famously killed Apollo Creed in Rocky IV so now the sons will have the same fight their fathers once had 33 years ago.

Creed 2 is an okay Rocky sequel but Coogler’s absence is deeply felt mainly because I felt he was able to do a Rocky sequel in the first Creed film in 2015 while also telling a new story that made it feel fresh and new whereas here and it probably is due to the fact that Stallone is a screenwriter on this new film the old beats of the traditional Rocky sequels are back:

- The new opponent who tears through his competitors
- The loss of the eye of the tiger
- The hero having to deal with family affairs
- The training montage

And then the big fight and well you get the picture and look some of that was in the first Creed film but here it really feels more prevalent and as a result I felt a bit more bored with this sequel and look it isn’t bad but it really makes it feel more like we’ve been here before.

And Tessa Thompson’s character Bianca who was very memorable in the first film as this deaf woman who was still living a very full and productive life is turned into the new Adrian where she worries about her man, gives very concerning looks and sits at the side of the ring worrying about her man and boy does that get old after a while especially when she has a very touching side plot about her baby daughter.

As for the performances both Thompson and Jordan are great together and these 2 are among the best actors of their generation and really do a lot to make their material shine, Stallone is his usual self while it was fun to see Dolph Lundgren again as Ivan Drago and Mr Muntenau looks like a mountain as Viktor even if his dialogue is very minimal at times.

And so that was Creed 2 and its okay but the first Creed was a better film and felt more fresh whereas this feels like a tired Rocky sequel with all the old beats of the punching bag dusted off, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - The Grinch (2018)

The Grinch is based off of the Grinch who Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss and stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of the Grinch who every year sees the people of Whoville do many Christmas celebrations and he gets so sick of it that he decides he’s going to steal their Christmas.

I was very very excited as I am a bit of a Christmas Grinch and the trailers for this movie had me thinking that if this movie could deliver the goods it would be my Christmas movie and well it does deliver and it doesn’t.

Firstly Benedict is great as the Grinch and he is clearly having a lot of fun voicing the role many of the laughs I had from watching the film also centre on him but away from him and his dog Max and his scheme to steal Christmas is where the film fell over for me.

The whole Whoville scene with the over the top Christmas decorations did very little for me after a while and there’s a cute little girl called Cindy Lou who wants to help her overworked mum voiced by Rashida Jones and it feels like a lot of that stuff was added to this movie version to make it a proper feature film as both the original Dr. Seuss book and the 1966 animated adaptation aren’t very long in fact the 1966 film is more of a special running 25-30 minutes and I feel that would’ve been better.

And lastly there is a voiceover narration that really got on my nerves after a while and rarely do I find that that kind of narration rarely ever works as all it does is just tell the audience what’s going on when it would be far better and I think this movie would’ve been much better if we got to discover that information for ourselves that way we can build a connection to the character instead we get this leaden voiceover that makes Dr. Seuss’s writing sound like an alien language.

Now the Grinch isn’t bad and I certainly had fun with it but it was also a bit of a disappointment for me in being merely fine but I think these Dr. Seuss adaptations are Illumination’s weakest point in their studio their own stuff like Secret Life of Pets and Despicable Me are much better, 3 out of 5.

Revisiting Rambo 1 and 2

With the recent release of the first 3 Rambo films in the 4K Ultra HD format (a format I’m a big enthusiast of) I became inspired to revisit the first 2 of these films and both of them have actually held up really well First Blood in particular hasn’t aged a day since its release in 1982 while Rambo: First Blood Part 2 has aged a little bit more since its release in 1985 but is still a very exciting action film.

But as I began to think about these 2 movies more and more I began to feel that they represent the way people began to feel about the War in Vietnam which is where the idea for the original First Blood novel came from as David Morrell had based off of some students he knew that had served in Nam and wanted to know more about their experiences both during their tour and what happened when they came home.

And thinking some more fairly recently I began to feel that both of these films reflect 2 sides of the public conscious about the Vietnam War.

First Blood is a reflection of the sobering reality of that conflict and while it is exciting and action packed and full of great characters its about the War at Home and what happened to these people when they came home in terms of they were shunned, cast out from broader society, distrusted to some extent, living from day to day, moving from place to place and taking what odd jobs they could to try and reintegrate back into society.

And all of these feelings come to the forefront during the films climatic moment where pinned against the wall Rambo explodes at Colonel Trautman and says that Nothing is Over, I did what I had to do to win and back there I was in charge of million dollar equipment, back here I can’t even get a job parking cars.

And it works beautifully helping to give the film a real emotional resonance and it became a big hit in 1982 reflecting the growing view in the public that the Vietnam Vets had been treated very shabbily and the sense of guilt that came with as director Ted Kotcheff states on the making of doco which is on the First Blood Blu-Ray/DVD release.

This leads me nicely to Rambo: First Blood Part 2 released in 1985 at the height of Ronald Reagan’s presidency (he won a crushing re election victory the previous November) it takes on much more of a different tone to the first film emphasising much more of the action spectacle feel and a lighter tone.

And whereas First Blood I feel reflected what I call a sobering reality of the War Rambo 2 reflects a fantastical feel to the conflict a burning hunger within the public to avenge the defeat of the US Forces and right the wrong that was committed especially now with a strong father figure type as President who would’ve been decisive and let our boys do their thing and now as Rambo says in the opening of the film “Do We Get to Win this Time?”

And yet while this movie has that more action heavy feel and less somber tone it still nicely continues the theme of First Blood in terms of why the character goes back to Nam its for the Missing in Action soldiers that were said to still be held prisoner even after the end of the war and the audience seeing the film would have this visceral response through the Rambo character that something good would come of all this.

And indeed the film was a smash hit in 85 coming second only to the Juggernaut success of Back to the Future at the US Box Office and having a lengthy run in Australian cinemas even though critical reaction was mixed (Siskel and Ebert gave it the thumbs up as an exciting action film while Fairfax critics here in Aus did not like the film for its jingoistic undertones)

Though I also find myself wondering if James Cameron’s influence on the screenplay (he wrote a draft of this sequel at the same he was making The Terminator and Aliens before Sly came in and did his own script work) is a big reason why I feel the film is still an exciting action film, Cameron can do amazing action as he would prove with Terminator and Aliens and also Aliens would deal with characters that went through trauma going back to the place that caused it to begin with and have a new character in Hudson start to lose his cool when everything goes bad.

I will also say however that this undertone of Vietnam throughout these 2 films is also why Rambo 3 and 4 weren’t as good for me as that character was born out of that specific conflict and reflected to a certain degree how the viewing audience felt about it that to continue on after the second film which while thinking about how it ends gives some sense of closure to the Rambo character it feels stripped of a certain point of its identity and becomes another action character without any of the subtext of the world that created him.

And that is where I will end this particular column as I wanted to get those points out of my head hopefully you all enjoyed reading it as I did writing it.