Run All Night Review
The Plot:
Mobster and hit man Jimmy Conlon has one night to figure out where his loyalties lie: with his estranged son, Mike, whose life is in danger, or his longtime best friend, mob boss Shawn Maguire, who wants Mike to pay for the death of his own son.
The Good:
Since the astonishing and unexpected success of Taken, Liam Neeson has successfully transformed himself from a respected dramatic actor to one of the world most popular and bankable action stars. His towering physique and world weary yet likably gruff voice makes the 62 year old actor an implausibly credible killing machine.
Neeson’s innate charisma is almost all the film needs to carry off a fairly straightforward tale of underworld misdeeds and retribution. He even has enough on screen presence to spare that he can carry Joel Kinnaman as his son/obligatory sidekick.
The film is at its best and most watchable whenever Neeson is angry and busy efficiently dispatching bad guys for our viewing pleasure. Luckily the film doesn’t dwell on its family melodramas for too long without at least punctuating things with regular gunfire and action.
Though the film follows a simple and familiar action formula, it remains watchable and maintains a somewhat urgent momentum throughout.
The Bad:
Taken. Taken 2. The Grey. Unknown. Non-Stop. A Walk Among The Tombstones. Taken 3. This is a list of the number of times you’ve watched Liam Neeson ruthlessly kill bad guys in a vaguely justified manner in recent years. Now add Run All Night to that list of mostly diminishing returns. The novelty of watching Neeson reluctantly dispatching bad guys while dispensing gravel voiced action clichés is perhaps starting to wear just a little thin.
Once again Neeson plays a character haunted by past deeds, reluctantly pulled into a violent game of cat and mouse, which inevitably reveals his surprisingly violent skill set. However this time, instead of his usual backstory as a retired cop or government agent, Neeson is playing a former gangster hitman. His bitter self-loathing is a little less fun to watch and makes it slightly harder to see him as a typically heroic figure.
Neeson’s past action exploits have unfortunately become so familiar they’re now decidedly predictable. Run All night once again runs through his well-established formula. Sadly this includes genre clichés such as unlikely coincidences and an unnecessary sidekick. Much like Taken 2, Run All Night makes the mistake of teaming Neeson’s efficient one man army with his own actively unhelpful offspring.
As Conlan’s son Kinnaman contributes little to the film other than belligerently reminding Neeson and audiences that the unapologetic hitman was also a lousy father. Though his son is central to the plot device that pits Neeson’s hitman against his best friend and former mob boss, the screen time devoted to their broken relationship is always less entertaining than watching Neeson at work.
Ed Harris still has stage presence as gangster Shawn McGuire, but sadly he’s a little too old and two dimensional to make a truly menacing villain. Likewise Common plays a rival assassin who’s simply too consistently inept to feel like a real theat.
Overall Run All Night lacks the sense of fun that made Taken a fan favourite and satisfying guilty pleasure. Though it offers audiences plenty of cathartic guilt it takes itself a little too seriously at times. It also attempts to hide a very simple plot behind elaborate flourishes of fancy CGI aided camera moves. An obvious trick that’s never in any danger of succeeding.
The Ugly Truth:
Fans of the fast growing genre of ‘Liam Neeson kills things with guns and his bare hands’ will no doubt be pleased to welcome yet another title into their growing collection. Unfortunately others may begin to share Neeson’s trademark weariness. Run All Night is watchable and delivers some satisfying moments, but exclusively with thanks to Neeson’s action skills.
Unfinished Business Review
The Plot
After being fired from his job Dan Trunkman (Vince Vaughn) teams up with two businessmen, one recently retired (Tom Wilkinson) the other, a young inexperienced man in every sense of the word (Dave Franco). But the trio’s first big deal is put in jeopardy when Dan’s old boss (Sienna Miller) turns up to steal his wealthy client.
The Good
Vince Vaughn still has at least some appeal for fans who prefer their comedy tall and nervously sarcastic. Likewise Dave Franco’s cult following & viral video fans will perhaps be more inclined to enjoy watching him fully indulge his inner moron. The film might also help those looking to entirely disengage their brain for 90 minutes as it never demands any thought from audiences either.
Sadly there’s not much to save Unfinished Business from the mess it ends up being, but the faint glimmers of silver lining behind the thunderous clouds come mainly thanks to Tom Wilkinson.He doesn’t come close to rescuing the film, but he’s more successful at amusing audiences than his overly eager co-stars. Wilkinson’s character at least has the most potential, playing a businessman fighting against reluctant retirement while suffering the woes of a loveless marriage. The mere presence of an actor of his caliber elevates proceedings, even if you suspect he’s only on board to add to his actual retirement fund in lieu of a second visit to the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
The Bad
Unfortunately for Wilkinson, his character and subsequent storyline is largely pushed aside to make way for the headline act of the consistently disappointing Vince Vaughn. We can only hope Unfinished Business proves to be the last time Vaughn tries to squeeze laughs out of characters failing at their jobs. Vaughn’s affable blend of borderline obnoxious charms and underachievement may have worked in hits like Swingers or Dodgeball, but it’s also seen him relegated to a series of unimpressive comedy flops. Sadly this time cinemas are likely to yet again echo with deafening silences as the majority of the jokes fall flat.
Finishing off this terrible trio is Dave Franco, an actor who, like Vaughn, has indeed got good comedies in his back catalogue and knows how to make us laugh (21 Jump Street comes instantly to mind). Unfortunately Franco is brought down by a character so inherently dumb that he comes extremely close to doing precisely what Robert Downey Jr warns against in Tropic Thunder. When a comedy character’s biggest and arguably only comedic moment is the fact that his surname resembles that of a breakfast meal, you know you’ve got problems!
Even the attempt at giving the film a heart and soul with the inclusion of Vaughn’s children who are both dealing with bullying at school, albeit in completely opposite ways, does more harm than good. It simply gives us more reason to hate Vaughn’s character as he constantly feigns a frozen connection on his iPhone. Add shameless product placement to the growing list of movie sins.
We haven’t even mentioned the actresses in the film, but there is a very simple explanation for this. They are another thing recklessly discarded in favour of more underwhelming screen time for the film’s misfiring leads.
The Ugly Truth
Unfinished Business is a messy disappointment which sacrifices far too much real potential to make way for Vince Vaughan and Dave Franco in showboating performances that miss the mark badly. So badly in fact that it’s actually a relief when the business is finally finished. We can only hope Vince Vaughn manages to dramaticaly redeem himself in the second series of the superb True Detective.
Chappie Review
The Plot
In the near future, police droids are patrolling the streets of South Africa, bringing the crime rate down drastically. But when their creator (Dev Patel) steals a decommissioned droid and programmes it to think and feel for itself, trouble begins…
The Good
While Chappie is certainly not quite welcome up to the high standards of Blomkamp’s brilliant debut District 9, it’s certainly a step up from his rather disappointing follow-up, Elysium. Chappie shows that he still has what it takes to explore interesting themes in challenging new sci-fi. As the third piece of an unofficial trilogy of stylish dark science fiction, it’s also proof that the Alien franchise is now definitely back in safe hands with Blomkamp’s planned sequel.
Chappie opens with the same documentary style showcased in District 9, before swiftly moving onto the main action and exploring some great ideas. Though it occasionally loses its footing, the film stumbles along proudly.
Blomkamp’s past success and distinctive style has helped him assemble a talented cast of familiar faces. Dev Patel delivers a great performance as the kind hearted robot inventor determined to educate and protect Chappie, keeping his existence secret from his more sinister colleagues. Hugh Jackman has fun playing against type as a mullet sporting bad guy and sci-fi legend Sigourney Weaver is a welcome addition as his ruthless boss.
It’s an undoubtedly strong supporting cast, but praise must go first and foremost to Sharlto Copley in the titular role. As the voice of heroic robot Chappie, Copley breathes so much life into the character that audiences completely forget they’re watching a carefully crafted CGI creation. It’s a compelling combination of performance and visual effects which equals the widely celebrated achievements of Andy Serkis in the recent Planet of the Apes franchise.
As Chappie comes to life, so does the film. Chappie starts out with an endearingly infantile and navie personality. Slowly learning about the world and himself, just like a human child would. A task made more complex by the dramatic contrast between his creator and his adoptive gangster parents played by members of real life South African rap group Die Antwodd.
The juxtaposition and conflict between these three characters injects some interesting and thought provoking themes into the film amongst its actions sequences. It helps Chappie almost reach the impressively high standards set by Blomkamp’s auspicious debut Dirstrict 9.
The Bad
As mentioned before, Chappie does come a little loose in terms of its style and the message it wants to bring to audiences.
In one corner we have a genuinely interesting plot which raises questions about artificial intelligence that, although not particularly groundbreaking, are still exciting to explore in this near future world of robocop type police droids. In the other, we have a genuinely exciting action movie with some great set pieces and Hugh Jackman playing a villainous cliché who spends most of his time talking to himself in an almost pantomime way.
The film struggles to reconcile these different elements and combine them into a cohesive story. It’s hard to find a middle ground between the film’s somewhat schizophrenic intention to be a both a scientific think piece and a crowd-pleasing action blockbuster. The film’s contradicting ambitions risks leaving it a confused mess.
An even bigger risk is the film’s occasionally lazy plot holes that are a little too silly to be comfortably ignored. You’d expect evil high-tech weapons manufacturers to have a state of the art security system. Yet somehow Dev Patel manages to walk expensive and dangerous materials for his homemade artificial intelligence out the back door without anyone noticing until the third act.
The Ugly Truth
Chappie is an accomplished third effort from one of the most distinctive and innovative directors in the sci-fi genre. It’s mostly a return to the impressive form of Distrcit 9 after the relative disappointment of Elysium. While the film occasionally gets confused as to where it should be tonally, Chappie is still a good bit of fun that’s worth your time. Bring on Blomkamp’s Alien sequel.
The Interview Review
The Plot:
A cocky TV chat show host and his good intentioned producer manage to secure an unlikely interview with the reclusive North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. They are quickly persuaded by the CIA to use this historic opportunity to discreetly assassinate the ‘supreme leader’ for the good of America and the world. But when they arrive in the infamously secretive state things don’t exactly go to plan.
The Good
Randall Park plays North Korea’s infamous leader Kim Jong-Un as a deranged cry baby with daddy issues and a secret penchant for fruity cocktails and Katy Perry. Lurching from soft spoken vulnerability to crazy screaming tyrant it’s a convincingly delusional caricature. Park plays the notorious ‘supreme leader’ almost like a more rotund Mr Chow from the Hangover. In truth it’s not a difficult challenge to mock the reclusive dictator as few people outside of the North Korean military elite have any real concept of who Kim Jong-Un truly is. Park essentially has free licence to make him as maniacal or pathetic as he likes.
Seth Rogen and James Franco have a well-practiced chemistry based on a simple but effective formula of offsetting Franco’s smug charms with Rogen’s oafish likeability. The pair is undeniably well typecast as obnoxious host Dave Skylark and his increasingly disillusioned producer sidekick Aaron Rapaport. They trade innuendos and moronic banter with all their usual enthusiasm. It isn’t sophisticated or subtle but it is at least often amusing.
Overall the film benefits from some snappy action montages, a catchy soundtrack and a few memorable gags. It even manages to coin the term ‘honeydicking’ as an unlikely catchphrase.
The Bad
Without the immeasurable hype created by the Sony hacking scandal and the studios seeming hesitation to subsequently release the film, it’s doubtful interest in a low brow Seth Rogen/James Franco comedy vehicle could ever have been this high. Fans of the duos trademark unapologetic mix of dick jokes and drug addled buffoonery will certainly enjoy this latest offering. However it may not be enough to satisfy those watching the film just to see what all the diplomatic fuss is about.
Comedy and satire have always been powerful weapons against oppression, evil or tyranny. Reducing symbolic figures of hate and fear to the level of common ridicule is a laudable aim. Unfortunately The Interview often fails to deliver the kind of biting political satire optimistic audiences might have hoped for. The comedic potential provided by propaganda fuelled dictatorial regimes is largely squandered in favour of jokes about hiding things in your ass and lazy pop culture references.
Rogen and Franco deliver exactly what you’d expect, but it’s fair to say that the film could just as easily have centred on a fictitious country and dictator. The potentially daring choice to actually make a comedy about North Korea really adds little to the film beyond absurd international controversy and the resulting mostly unnecessary hype. Whatever this film has to say about North Korea, it’s important to remember Matt Stone and Trey Parker said it first with Team America.
The Ugly Truth
The Interview is a satisfying slice of silly slapstick, though it’s very unlikely to win awards or actually change the world. It’s not hard to see why North Korea weren’t amused, but the rest of the world just might be. In truth the film is likely to divide opinions between those who welcome poking fun at Kim Jong-Un and those who feel a little disappointed that this only comes in the form of a ludicrous James Franco comedy. Possibly the funniest thing about The Interview is that it actually somehow managed to start the world’s first major cyber-war.
The Hobbit The Battle of the Five Armies Review
The Plot:
In the third instalment of The Hobbit trilogy, finally completing the epic Tolkien franchise, the battle continues to rage for the riches of the fabled Mountain Kingdom of Erebor. Diminutive Hobbit hero Bilbo Baggins and the forces of good stand against an ancient evil and a deadly array of monstrous foes. As Dwarves, Men, Wizards, Dragons and Elves each play their part in shaping the destiny of middle earth…
The Good:
After literally decades of production, patient Tolkien fans finally have a complete six film saga with the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogies both at last complete. The Battle of The Five Armies is a satisfying final piece of that vast fantasy adventure, delivering the usual mix of CGI wizardry and shamelessly epic storytelling.
Those that found the earlier Hobbit films lacking in pace will be pleased to see the final chapter open with a spectacular action sequence. As the wicked dragon Smaug brings down fiery death and destruction on the poor inhabitants of middle earth. From this literally explosive beginning, the film moves quickly, pulling together now familiar faces from the entire saga to give fantasy fans and blockbuster crowds the precisely promised climactic battle. The near constant fighting in this film equals the technically high standards of the previous films, but offers enough new adversaries and memorable moments to distinguish it beyond simply repeating successful CGI formulas.
The returning cast including firm fan favourites like Sir Ian McKellan’s Gandalf and Orlando Bloom as princely elf warrior Legolas each deliver excellent performances with effortless ease. Sherlock star Martin Freeman remains perfectly typecast as unlikely hero Bilbo Baggins and Evangeline Lilly is suitably enchanting as elf heroine Tauriel. Richard Armitage also has a chance to flex some dramatic muscles between wielding his sword in battle, as Thorin confronts his inner demons.
The Bad:
Those who failed to feel the magic of Peter Jackson previous middle earth epics are perhaps unlikely to suddenly discover it here. Jackson’s impressively crafted battle scenes will not win over those uninspired by whimsical adventures so absolutely detached from real life. Likewise those left numb by the franchises notoriously long running times will likely still find the film’s comparatively trimmed down 144minutes a little daunting. If you lack patience or an appetite for the fantasy genre then this won’t be an easy ride.
In particular those already watching the clock may find that interrupting the action for frequent slow motion reaction shots and expositional dialogue leaves them more frustrated than emotional. Being perhaps overly cynical it’s noticeably convenient just how often characters manage to have friendly chats, bickering arguments or exchange lingering gazes in the midst of war torn battlefields.
Though the film has poignant conclusions to a number of character arcs, it feels obliged to include occasional instances of heavy handed but ineffective humour. Weasley coward Alfrid played by Ryan Gage is guilty of most of this. As with the Lord of the Rings it simply feels like the film would have been a shorter more compelling adventure without these pointless moments of attempted levity.
That being said the film does similarly find time to wade through lengthy melodrama, as clearly heroic characters like Dwarf leader Thorin, battle greed and paranoia long before they ever draw swords with an actual enemy. Though these struggles all play out in the context of a wider saga and expansive journeys for the various characters, the corrupting madness of power is an all too familiar theme for this franchise.
Though the film boasts largely impressive special effects there are occasional moments where less convincing CGI proves distracting. Legolas unbelievably defying the laws of gravity even more than usual is a specific example of this. Without ignoring the amazing digital achievements and artistry behind the film, the sheer scale of the action means it sometimes lacks the tactile credibility of practical effects.
The Ugly Truth:
The Hobbit trilogy has stood on the impressive shoulders of the cinematic Lord of the Rings saga which preceded it, to at least match its technical brilliance. This action packed final chapter will delight devoted Tolkien fans and casual blockbuster crowds equally. The series violent conclusion is propelled with a sense of urgency towards an undeniably satisfactory finale. Jackson gives fans a must see middle earth adventure, possibly for one last time.
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