Film Review - The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015)

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel continues the tale of the British retirees (Bill Nighy, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith among others) as the Hotel they stay in has become full and Sonny (Dev Patel) is looking to expand to a new outlet but Guy Chambers (Richard Gere) may prove to be one bump on that road.

I was very very excited to see this movie going into it mainly because I really liked the first film and this 2nd one added Gere to the cast which pushed it into "Here take my money" territory so could the film deliver the goods or was it a victim of my own hype to see it?

Well it gives me great pleasure to say that I had a great time here watching this film, a lot of the same creative team from that film return here and their presence is felt as you really feel right at home revisiting these characters in their new life in India, Nighy, Patel, Dench and Smith are particularly good here and there were numerous times where I had a good laugh.

But I have to talk about Gere some more as I was just beaming from ear to ear whenever he was on screen and I also couldn't help but think of the song "Up Where we Belong" from Gere's breakout film An Officer and a Gentleman at times so I hope that the success of this film will let us see him in more films in the future.

Sadly the film does have a flaw to it and its the length, the film does feel 15-20 minutes too long and towards the end of the film I did check my watch on some occasions but despite that I did enjoy myself.

And so the 2nd Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a most valuable second entry with these characters and I had a great time despite the length, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Jupiter Ascending (2015)

Jupiter Ascending is the newest film from Andy and Lana Wachowski and this tells the tale of Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) a lowly house cleaner from a Russian family who is later saved by an alien creature named Caine (Channing Tatum) who also tells her she may hold the key to saving the Earth.

Going into this film I was very optimistic primarily because of my love of Sci-Fi films but also the Wachowski's have rarely impressed me since their 2 Matrix sequels in 2003 were badly handled misfires, could this film right their ship once more or is it another case of hitting the creative iceberg.

Sadly this is another misfire and there are a number of reasons for this but before I delve into those I will talk about what I did like and that is the music score by Michael Giacchino, the Production Design and the Visual Effects all of these make this a good big screen experience.

But as I said this was a misfire for me for these reasons:

- The first reason is that the script here is very muddled and at times I thought I was watching a bad Game of Thrones knockoff with all of its talk of duelling family members and deadly weddings and various other goings on plus there is the whole thing with the industry which didn't really make much sense and I felt had to go as all it did was muddy the storytelling river.

- The second is the casting, Kunis is a real bore to watch as most of the time she's either falling from great heights or screaming at the top of her lungs and I just got sick of her after a while, Tatum shows off his physical prowess but is pretty dull here (hopefully this won't be the case when he becomes Gambit) while Sean Bean does the jaded mentor role and Eddie Redmayne turns everything up to 18 on the OTT scale first by whispering his dialogue THEN SHOUTING SOME OF HIS LINES LIKE THIS!!!! and unlike Joel Edgerton's I AM THE GOD!!! from Exodus last year it isn't even worth a bad laugh.

- And lastly the climax is very cliched with the ticking clock and the exploding place and the race to freedom at the last minute and that as well as a fair chunk of the film just left me bored somewhat and checking my watch.

And so that was Jupiter Ascending sadly a Sci-Fi misfire from a creative team who really need to stop being given blank cheques at this point as they have increasingly failed to deliver and also sadly that with the exception of Neill Blomkamp's upcoming Chappie there may not be much Sci-Fi coming out before we all feel the force again with the new Star Wars film in December, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - Still Alice (2015)

Still Alice is the story of Alice (Julianne Moore) a Linguistics Professor at Columbia University with a Husband (Alec Baldwin) and 3 grown children (Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth and Hunter Parrish) but Alice finds herself diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and her life slowly falling apart.

Still Alice for me was not a bad film but it just really felt like a TV Disease movie of the week, it just had that feel to it and now that I think about it part of me wonders why this is in a cinema as it doesn't really look that cinematic and for me I didn't really feel any strong emotional impact with this story, now I know that Alzheimer's is a horrible disease but here I just didn't really care all that much about it and when it was over I wasn't all that sad.

That being said however Moore is very good here as is Baldwin who I loved seeing again (Paramount made a FATAL FATAL! mistake letting him go as Jack Ryan after the Hunt for Red October) and Stewart was surprisingly effective if a little on the bland side, Bosworth doesn't really get a lot to do apart from drift in and out of the film and Parrish has only a few scenes here or there.

So Still Alice was not a bad film at all thanks to the performances but I didn't feel a lot of emotional impact nor did it feel cinematic, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - Sin City A Dame to Kill For (2014)

The long delayed sequel for 2005's Sin City finally comes to screens and sees a range of stories brought to life, one concerns a Femme Fatale (Eva Green), the other a powerful US Senator (Powers Boothe) which also coincides with a young man good at cards (Joseph Gordon Levitt) and good old Marv (Mickey Rourke) being the glue that holds the town together.

Boy oh boy was this a disaster of a film at almost every level, how so you ask allow me to explain:

- First is the look of the film itself, the whole thing looks like a really cheap computer game with the black and white photography just has the feeling of being added later onto the colour footage of which you see splashes off during the film.

- The Second is that the performances are horrible, Green who is a beautiful woman and a wonderful actress is given nothing to do here save for a horrible American accent and walking around in the nude for most of her screen time, Jessica Alba's night club routine doesn't work this time as it looks desperate, Josh Brolin and Rourke just mumble and gruff their way through the film as does Bruce Willis and Boothe and Levitt are just wasted.

But I have another objection which the way the women are treated in this film, now I am reluctant for the most part to point this out in most films as I normally tend to let it slide if I'm enjoying the film but seeing virtually every single female character dressed in leather as well as half naked with their boobs showing in their outfits was very uncomfortable after a while.

- And lastly Frank Miller's script is terrible with most of the dialogue just sounding ridicolous when paired with the mumbling and grumbling and silly accents that are peppered throughout this film and the cameo with him and co-director Robert Rodriguez just made me cringe in a bad way.

So all in all the film looks cheap, the acting is terrible and the script is ridiculous, I wanted to like this I really did but I just cannot, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - Before I Go to Sleep (2014)

Before I go to Sleep tells the tale of Christine (Nicole Kidman) a woman who has suffered a terrible accident that causes her memory to reset every morning she wakes up next to her husband Ben (Colin Firth) but with the help of Dr Nasch (Mark Strong) there could be much more buried under the surface.

Thinking about this film it was very hard for me to escape the memory of 1991's Shattered which was made by Wolfgang Petersen and starred Tom Berenger, Bob Hoskins, Greta Scacchi and Joanne Walley and did this subject matter a whole lot better but before I delve more into that I will talk about what I did like and that was the principal three actors, all of them (even Kidman) were pretty good I thought especially Firth and Strong though it was hard not to think of Kingsman the Secret Service while watching them here.

But despite that I found this to be a pretty silly thriller as well as a fairly predictable one right down to the other person who promises to fill in the gaps as well as the one moment where everything comes together but all I could think of was "see I knew this would happen, regular as clockwork" and as a result I didn't really care about how the whole thing came together in the end.

So all in all Before I Go to Sleep can stay in Bed and Shattered was a far better film, 1.5 out of 5.

Film Review - Soul Boys of the Western World (2014)

Soul Boys of the Western World is a documentary about the UK rock group Spandau Ballet and like the 2011 documentary Senna it consists entirely of acrhival footage with the band members narrating it as it details their rise and fall and later their reunion.

I thought this doco was GOLD (no pun intended) I really did and a lot of the reason for this is the use of the archive footage as like Senna it does a wonderful job of immersing the viewer in the period of the doco and there is a lot of time that goes through here as the years roll on and there are times where I just fell in love with what I was watching especially the footage of the 80s and the amazing fashions and hair and old TV shows and interview footage which also blends in the Britain of that time as well.

But the film does have a 20 minute slow point before that which I found to not be as interesting but once you get into the 80s setting of the doco the whole thing just opens up and becomes bright and colourful and the songs make you either want to tap your feet to them or start singing aloud (which I did when True and Gold came on.) and for a music doco to do both of those things is the sign of one that has hit its marks.

But what was also interesting to me was the climax and the look of the modern day footage felt like a nice juxtaposition to the archival footage and it for me marked a nice passage of time effect that made all of their success feel like a long time ago and I give director George Hendcken a lot of credit for his work here on the whole as he did a great job.

So all in all Soul Boys of the Western World was a great doco that I very highly recommend to music lovers as well as lovers of the 80s in general, 4 out of 5.

Film Review - 50 Shades of Grey (2015)

Based off of the successful bestselling novel, 50 Shades of Grey tells the story of Anna Steele (Dakota Johnson) who meets the mysterious and charismatic Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) while doing an interview for a student paper but Mr Grey is more than meets the eye.

Part of me was not that keen on seeing this film before deciding to do so primarily because I don't particularly mind those R18+ sex titles especially ones I've seen on the VHS tapes I collect (9 1/2 Weeks, Whore, Boxing Helena, Basic Instinct and Colour of Night to name a few) so as a result of that (please note that I'll like these films if they're well made) I did get turned around to seeing this film, could it deliver though?

Well no it couldn't as this was for me the most uncomfortable cinema experience I've had since seeing Kick Ass 2 in 2013 and by that I mean that I just did not enjoy what I was watching very much at all but before I get into that I will talk about what I did like and that was Johnson who is a very warm and engaging screen presence but at times she appears out of her depth in this role and I hate to say it cause she really does try her best but in the end she is miscast and someone like Jennifer Lawrence and Margot Robbie would've been better suited for this role instead but I highly doubt they would've done it if asked.

As for the film around her well it doesn't work for these reasons:

- The first is Dornan as Mr Grey, quite frankly Dornan is very stiff in this role and some of his scenes just border on ridiculous given the dialogue he's asked to say, I know he was a replacement for Charlie Hunnam who left this role but he just isn't sexy or charismatic much in this role.

But as for his character well for the most part this is the sort of man that women tend to fall in love with (and you hear a couple of people say how hot he is in one scene of the film) and that these handsome and charismatic types who say all the right things and make all the right moves on women and because of those traits they fall madly in love with them only to have it go horribly wrong because of the man cleverly hiding their dark side.

Now I know for sure that this isn't always the case but I couldn't help but think of this when coming out of the film.

- The second is that the sex scenes are boring to watch because of their near complete lack of sexiness, it more resembles torture and seeing Johnson go through this made me feel very uncomfortable after a while and again I know this was the key appeal of this story and the book series its based on but I wish director Sam Johnson who overall does the best job she can with this material had found a way to tone down the discomfort.

And so that was 50 Shades of Grey a film that I just cannot recommend at all to anyone, go and see Kingsman the Secret Service instead, .5 out of 5.