Fifty Shades of Grey – Richards Reckons Review

Fifty Shades of Grey is a cultural phenomenon. Whether you’ve read the book or not (and whether you can admit that you’ve read it or you’re one of those “oh my FRIEND has read it” people), everybody has heard of it and has at least a general idea what it’s about – girl meets rich man who is into BDSM and other kinky little ventures. It sounds saucy with a dash of “oh blimey” and a pinch of “ooh matron” if you’re that was inclined; a sex and lust fuelled erotic romp that took the world by storm, with women (and indeed some men) proclaiming from the rooftops that they were waiting for “their Mr Grey” because he’s “the perfect man”. So when a film adaptation of this sultry collection of bound tree shavings was announced, the world went mad – some with anticipation, some with dread. But how is the end product?

Just in case you want more of the plot, here it is; the superhero/secret-agent-ish-named Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) is an English Literature student who one day fills in for her sick roommate by going to interview extremely wealthy businessman Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). After their initial meeting, Grey appears at the hardware store where she works (like a stalkery, well dressed vampire), and arranges a photoshoot and then coffee. After he finds her acceptable, he asks her to sign a contract; the deal being that she is essentially his submissive sexual slave to be bound up and have his way with her whenever she pleases, and in return she gets, in his words (well, word), “him”. And a nice room with big windows. But is that enough, and will Ana find a “normal” relationship within Christian’s grasp?

Before I get to anything else, I’ll say this; for a film all about lust, urges and sexual relations of the kinky kind, Fifty Shades of Grey really quite boring.

It’s dull. It starts out with really hamfisted bantering between the two ladened with innuendo that is as subtle as an aeroplane with a banner saying “THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE SEX IN THIS FILM!!!!!”. There’s a similar approach to metaphoric imagery – Ana with a Christian Grey pencil near her lips and mouth (essentially that aeroplane again saying “IT’S A SUBSTITUTE PENIS!!!”); Ana quite literally getting wet in the rain after seeing Christian for the first time (that aeroplane again saying… well, I don’t really need to explain that). It’s all a bit in your face, really, preluding what’s to come. When they do come, the sex scenes are few and far between, and when they’re there they lack impact; they’re actually ironically quite constrained, as if THEY’VE been bound and gagged too. All the action seems to happen in the peripheral vision of the camera, and while it’s cut nicely it’s not exactly… exciting, really. I also find it bizarre that the film so liberally shows female nudity but not male – it’s peenophobic, if you will. That’s usually the case but with a film about such sexual freedom it seems so contradictory and bizarre. So if you’re looking for fun or gratification from those scenes, then you won’t find it.

Secondly, there’s little to no chemistry at all between the two leads. Ana seems to do this weird and annoying thing I’ve rarely come across in real life where if Christian Grey blinks or exhales carbon dioxide towards her she seems to automatically bite her lip and have a small sensual reaction to it akin to a When Harry Met Sally scene; maybe either 1) she’s actually got some sort of hyper-orgasmic allergic reaction to his musk or 2) the writers are trying to use it as some sort of shortcut to electricity between them, which doesn’t work. Dakota Johnson, coincidentally, is the best thing about the film – bringing a lot of vulnerability as well as power to the main role.

She doesn’t have a lot to work with here either, with the dialogue being so unbelievably poor that I sighed at a lot of lines. This is almost definitely due to the original author, EL James, being present on set and vetoing any kind of diversion away from the (legendarily poorly written) source material. There are a couple of lines that get laughs that you can just tell are additions because they add spark. When Jamie Dornan is forced to say things like “I don’t make love. I f*ck… hard”, “laters baby” and “I’m fifty shades of f*cked up” (get it? It’s ALMOST the movie title!) it gets giggles more than swoons because of just how badly worded it is, bordering on parody. It doesn’t help either that Jamie Dornan doesn’t really seem like he’s trying with Christian at all – he has money, sure, and is into BDSM (Grey that is, not Dornan, I don’t know him that well), but he has little to no personality whatsoever as Christian Grey.

Which finally brings me to perhaps my biggest problem with the film; Christian Grey himself. He’s a big part of the film, what with his name being in the ruddy title and all. He’s presented as this loveable dreamboat of a man who has it all; money, looks, a nice body (if that’s what you’re into)… more money. But he lacks a personality – and, more than that, his behaviour is absolutely abhorrent. He’s a possessive stalker who just “turns up” where Ana is (whether it’s her workplace, a nightclub, HER HOME or in ANOTHER STATE) as if he’s apparated there (probably from Knockturn Alley) without her consent and often demands sex from her; he physically fights off any other male who even talks to her; he, through the contract, restrains her from her own free will – not letting her drink or eat or go where she wants without his permission. And all of this is presented as if it’s like a charming quirk and part of the BDSM – which it is NOT, at all. It makes his behaviour seem acceptable rather than what it is; creepy, horrifying and abusive.

In summary (or TLDR as the kids say), while it looks good (props to director Sam Taylor-Johnson for trying her hardest from the source material) and nicely monochromatic and has an admittedly very good soundtrack (Beyonce and Haim’s turns are particularly good), Fifty Shades of Grey is a dull and often creepy piece of work featuring two main characters who have no chemistry and varying levels of quality in their performances (Johnson good, Dornan not so). You get the feeling that this is the best they could have gotten without rewriting the dialogue from the source (which they would have done if it weren’t for EL James), but it’s still not enough to leave the target audience or myself satisfied.

Big Hero 6, Inherent Vice & Trash – Richards Reckons Reviews

An inflatable personal healthcare assistant, a near-permanently stoned private detective and three young Brazilian boys are all in cinemas this week. What a crazy world it is beyond that big silver window.

Let’s start with Big Hero 6.

Big Hero 6 is the latest fruit to blossom from the acquisition of Marvel properties by the big dogs at Disney (they’re not literally dogs. Well, I don’t think so anyway – that said I’ve never seen them and dogs in the same room at the same time…). Based on a Marvel comic book series (but NOT part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe), Big Hero 6 follows a young man from San Fransokyo called Hiro (Ryan Potter), a gifted child prodigy who graduated high school at 13. Since then, he’s been making money illegal bot fighting in the backstreets. His brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) introduces him to his university robotics lab, as well as his friends Wasabi (Damon Wayans Jnr), Fred (TJ Miller), GoGo (Jamie Chung) and Honey Lemon (Genesis Rodriguez). He also introduces him to his invention; a personal healthcare companion designated to helping and healing people named Baymax (Scott Adsit). After Hiro witnesses his microbot inventions being used for evil after he thought he lost them forever, he and Baymax assemble a team together (as well as creating several “upgrades” along the way) to try to get them back.

Big Hero 6 is the latest movie from Disney and the successor to the insanely popular (and in my opinion massively overrated but that’s just me) Frozen, so it has big ol’ chilly boots to fill. And, in my opinion, it’s an absolutely resounding success in doing so. When I saw Big Hero 6 for the second time, I decided to buy a little cup with Baymax on the top of it. When strolling back home afterwards, kids would point at it and identified who it was right away, asking their guardians to get their own bits of merchandise. This is after the movie had been out for LESS THAN A WEEK. Mark my words, Baymax and co. will be everywhere soon, and for good reason.

Firstly, the colourful characters are all wonderful – each of them have their own distinct personality traits that makes them all gel together nicely as well as differ enough to become instantly recognisable. Each member of the Big Hero 6 team is loveable and fun in their own way, from catchphrases (GoGo’s “woman up!” spin on the classic phrase is particularly fantastic) to later powers. But special kudos goes to Hiro and Baymax for being such a great team – and despite the fact that one of them is a robot, they both have real growth and real character arcs.

In fact, in some respects that I obviously cannot go into, the film itself can actually be heartbreaking. Especially towards its climax, where it contains some of the most touching moments I’ve seen for a long time in animation. Any film that can conjure up these emotions in a 23 year old man (even if I am a bit of a softie) deserves emotional plaudits really. But don’t be fooled by that; the script is bubbling over with witty dialogue and jokes, as well as brilliantly timed physical comedy (the sight of Baymax walking in his armour is among the most hilarious in the film itself).

I mean, sure, the plot is contrived within an inch of its life, has twists which are pretty easily foreseeable and it doesn’t seem original – but it’s such a touching, dynamically told version of a super-heroic team up narrative that you just don’t mind that. Tears will be shed in the cinema, both from laughing and crying, but it’s such a fun adventure to go on that it’s well worth your eyes leaking. Directors Don Hall and Chris Williams have done a fantastic job here in crafting such a lovely movie that’s fun and dazzling along the way. A truly enjoyable experience.

Also I really want to visit San Fransokyo. It looks amazing.

Onto Inherent Vice.

Right, where do I start with THIS plot summary. Bear with me here. So, Inherent Vice follows Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), a private detective living in Los Angeles in 1970 who also happens to be a near permanently stoned hippie. One day, he is visited by his rather floaty ex-girlfriend Shasta (Katherine Waterston). She explains that she has a new lover by the name of Mickey Wolfman (Eric Roberts) and how his wife supposedly has a plot to get him abducted and committed to an asylum. He also seems to be hired by a character played by Michael K. Williams to find somebody he was in prison with. And then also by an ex-heroin addict played by Jena Malone to find her husband who she fears is dead (played by Owen Wilson). Oh and also Josh Brolin is in there as his supposed nemesis. And Benicio Del Toro appears as… I’m not even sure. And Reese Witherspoon is a deputy DA who is having an affair with Doc who appears in the film in about two scenes. There’s also some dentists and a gang called the “Golden Fang”.

So, yes, as you can tell from that, the plot of Inherent Vice isn’t really there – it just trundles and wanders through its own chaotic narrative much like Doc wanders through everything. The narrative is like smoke – thick, marijuana-tinged smoke which is disorientating and delirious. All of this sounds like a good description of a thrilling, hallucinogenic cinema ride, but it isn’t.

It’s incredibly annoying and tedious.

From reading reviews by critics that I for the most part normally agree with, I thought I was in the wrong here somehow (well, as far as having your own opinion CAN be wrong). But it’s not just me; audiences all over the country have apparently been walking out of the movie before it’s finished – a phenomena that, especially in the economic climate with cinema prices the way they are, just doesn’t happen very often anymore. Walking out partway through a film is not something that I personally agree with but I can totally see why they did it too – there’s no sense of resolve or continuity to the film whatsoever, and that’s what is so frustrating about it. The characters mumble their dialogue at an irritatingly slow pace, making pointless scenes feel like they drag on even longer. Paul Thomas Anderson feels like he is trying to create a sort of psuedo-comedic, bohemian stoner thriller but it moves at such a slow pace and is so frankly badly told that it sets the audience against it after a while and wears them down, down, deeper and down until they want it to end. Or so it seems, anyway.

There are a couple of good sequences in here, and Joaquin Phoenix plays the role of Doc very well with a very dazed touch with a surprising amount of physical comedy, but overall for me Inherent Vice felt like an aesthetically pretty but far too long, drawn out, and pretentious mess which is far from a joy to watch. There are a range of characters played by a range of different and talented actors but too many of them feel one-note and dropped in purely for the sake of being convoluted. There’s an interesting critic/audience divide here it seems (with some very condescending, “aw-bless-you-don’t-like-it-because-you-don’t-understand-it” reactions from the former to the latter), but on this one I side with the audience.

Now onto Trash.

Trash is the tale written by Richard Curtis of three Brazilian street kids named Raphael, Gardo and Rato (Rickson Tevez, Eduardo Luis and Gabriel Weinstein). They sort through heaps of rubbish every day in order to find anything valuable to help them out. One day, they find a wallet which apparently contains more than they bargained for – setting them on a collision course conspiracy against the corrupt Rio de Janeiro police force and political powers. They’re helped on their quest for the truth by aid workers Father Juliard (Martin Sheen) and Sister Olivia (Rooney Mara – no, this character has NO dragon tattoo). But can they escape the brutal police force and get justice before they get caught?

Trash is mostly in Portuguese, with English only appearing occasionally almost as a courtesy – I’m glad that it is mostly in Portuguese as it adds to the authenticity of the film. It’s one of those films where it’s so well established and so well performed by the young cast that you feel like you’re there with them – director Stephen Daltrey makes an amazing job of transferring you to the action alongside these three young boys, making you root for them even harder. It may be marketed like Slumdog Millionaire but this is a much grittier affair, with a real sense of mortal danger for these kids no matter where they go.

The three central performances are fantastic and really do steal the show away from Rooney Mara and Martin Sheen. The only weakness in the film’s bow is its somewhat strange ending which doesn’t quite tie everything up as well as it could do. However, the ride to get there is dark yet strangely exhilarating, especially in some of its on-foot chase segments from the big bad policemen through favelas and train stations. An exciting and aspirational story of escaping the gutter and taking on oppression and corruption.

Mortdecai – Richards Reckons Review

Charlie Mortdecai (Johnny Depp) is a character that will be studied for a long, long time. His every move, however minimal, will the analysed; from the way he delivers the dialogue, to even the way he breathes and traverses the space around him. Every machination to his existence will be under the microscope. Why, I hear you ask?

Because Charlie Mortdecai is the definition of anti-comedy.

Everything he does is so disastrously unfunny that it’s actually, in a way, fascinating. His character has absolutely no redeeming qualities of any kind and is essentially skin deep; he is nothing but a moustache and a horrendously over-boiled accent that grates on you more than a, er, cheese grater. He’s also so zany and so off the wall that it becomes irritating – a quality that Johnny Depp was remarkably good at fails miserably here, to the point that you wish the hitmen in the opening scene had actually followed through with their threat to save the rest of the movie from ever happening.

Anyway, the rest of it – Mortdecai tells the story of Charlie Mortdecai, an English arts dealer who does a bit of black market naughtiness as and when it suits him. He is married to Joanna (Gwyneth Paltrow), who gags at his moustache and is mostly there for that sole purpose, and as a quasi-love interest. A woman is restoring a painting but gets shot while doing so, and Inspector Martland (Ewan McGregor) wants to know why – he enlists the help of Mortdecai and his manservant Jock Strapp (Paul Bettany) to track the painting down. There’s also some stuff about Russian gangsters that crops up occasionally too. That’s about it, really – the rest of it is just excuses for Mortdecai to turn up somewhere, dick about and then leave again.

It’s very rare that I see a film and not laugh once, but this makes an exception. Through its writing that is trying to hard to pick up an “ooh matron!” vibe, it tries so so hard but the jokes and innuendo (which normally I find quite amusing) just fall to the floor like a sack of unfunny potatoes. It wasn’t just me either – the screen I was in was half full (feeling optimistic, clearly) and I think there would have been more laughs if we were just shown a live feed of a drain for 90 minutes. Johnny Depp is by far the worse offender here, but the others too just aren’t funny at all – which it pains me to say as I actually quite like all the actors in it, ordinarily.

Mortdecai ultimately is a black hole of comedy, joy and entertainment. It sucks it all out of you like a big Dementor’s kiss from the screen and leaves you desperate for it to be over so you can leave and forget any of it ever happened – and I’m sure that everybody involved with the movie feels exactly the same way…

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Pride & The Hundred Foot Journey – Richards Reckons Review(s!)

Double helpings for you once again this time you lucky people – the tasty morsels on the Richards Reckons menu this time around are Pride and The Hundred Foot Journey (however I’m sure you guessed that from the massive title up northward). Much like the Black Eyed Peas, ‘let’s get it started’ with Pride.

The plot of Pride is this; set in the 1980s UK, populated with prejudice and miners strikes, Mark (Ben Schnetzer) notices that miners striking against Margaret Thatcher’s government closing down the mines were facing the same kind of persecution and harassment as the gay and lesbian community of London. Deciding to raise money for the families of the miners who were striking, he forms the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners organisation, along with several friends of his – including the closeted Joe (George MacKay), and flamboyant actor Jonathan (Dominic West). Eventually, they find a place willing to take their money – a small village in Wales, led by town committee members Cliff (Bill Nighy), Dai (Paddy Considine) and Hefina (Imelda Staunton). However, not everybody welcomes them with open arms…

Pride, as you can see from that rather beautifully formed paragraph, is through and through a British film; right from its location and its rather impressive creme-de-la-creme cast (that phrase is French, yes, but the point remains). It’s rather proud of that fact, you can tell – and, conversely, Britain should be proud that this film is British too, because it’s utterly, utterly fantastic.

Part of the reason why this film is quite so good is down to its cast, which is arguably in masterful hands. Just some examples include the unusually meek but charming Paddy Considine; Andrew Scott’s almost-always-looking-like-he’s-on-the-brink-of-tears Gethin; George MacKay’s secretive and sensitive Joe to the Imelda Staunton’s ferociously friendly committee head Hefina. Bill Nighy playing a nervously quiet yet lovely Cliff and Dominic West’s endlessly flamboyant Jonathan are both scene stealers, though in very different ways; Cliff in just a look can express endlessly, whereas Jonathan’s all about huge actions (though he is never grating or too OTT). The younger cast too glimmer, such as Joe Gilgun’s incredibly loyal best friend and relative newcomer Faye Marsay playing the “non-vegan lesbian” (she’s called Steph, that’s not her actual character name, though I’m sure if you search it on IMDB that’ll be a character name in some movie or other). Surprisingly for its huge cast of characters, nobody seems particularly short changed in terms of screen time either (there are perhaps a couple who suffer and who you could momentarily forget are in it), and as a result there isn’t a dull note in terms of performances in Pride.

 

The tone of Pride is also captured very well – it covers the seriousness of some of its topics, such as prejudice, solidarity and rebellion with the seriousness they deserve without it being too overbearing, and at the same time it has a feel good and comedy heart to it that doesn’t cheapen any of these more bleak elements. It’s in equal parts bright and colourful (without coming across as twee or saccharine) while being grey and sober where it needs to. It doesn’t allow one to overcome the other; like a cocktail of hard, bitter vodka and bright Vimto (have you ever had that? I haven’t either but it sounds nice, doesn’t it?).

It’s also very funny indeed. The script sparkles with fun lines, mostly from the older members of the Welsh village inquisitively asking about gay lifestyles, and some fun setpieces – including Dominic West’s masterful dancing to Shame Shame Shame (honestly, I’m gonna watch that over and over again to pick up on some more shapes to add to my dancing repertoire). Among the laughter, though, are parts where you will feel lumps in your throat (and not just unswallowed popcorn, either) – especially with the more touching and tragic character moments and its bittersweet ending, especially when it’s put into context of the real life present. I certainly nearly welled up towards the end of the film, I am not ashamed to admit, and I am a masculine brute of a man.

All in all, Pride deserves to be popular and well loved as a heart-warming, funny yet powerful film about a particularly rocky era of modern day Britain. Don’t you dare miss it.

Now it’s time for The Hundred Foot Journey (don’t worry, you won’t have to physically make said journey).

Here’s the story about said journey; the food-enthusiast Kadam family are led to France via London by Papa (Om Puri) after tragedy strikes in their hometown in India. There, their car breaks down near a small French town, which they believe to be fate – Papa then buys an abandoned building there, which acts as their home and their restaurant Maison Mumbai. However, across the road (100ft away, to be exact – GET IT?) is a Michelin starred restaurant owned by Helen Mirren’s Madame Mallory. The film follows the family as they try to build up their restaurant and settle in France.

The Hundred Foot Journey celebrates food, particularly Indian cuisine; with its spices and vibrant flavours. However, it’s odd that, in contrast to this vibrancy, the film itself is actually quite bland, and it’s hard to place why.

The performances themselves are all perfectly fine. Helen Mirren and Om Puri are the finest performers in the film, despite Mirren’s quite patchy accent. Their developing relationship, however, suffers by growing almost entirely offscreen and only allowing us to see at the end through a bit of dialogue how it has grown. The romance between Hassan (arguably the film’s surprise main character, played by Manish Dayal) and Marguerite (Charlotte le Bon) feels a bit forced and there for the sake of it, but it’s played out by the pair of actors fairly well. All other characters into the film are faded into obscurity a little bit and are mostly one note, like the Kadam kids and an authority figure (the Mayor, maybe?) who always seems to be eating, and has no other features apart from that.

However, some of the dialogue, especially when it comes to food, is bizarre. It’s obviously trying to personify food and make it feel alive to show their passion for food, but it just sounds clunky and weird – at one point, Hassan complains that the vegetables in England have “no soul” to them (which, frankly, I’m glad about as I’d rather not eat bits of soul); Helen Mirren also warns a character against being nervous while making a sauce because the “eggs will sense it and separate”. I appreciate quite what they’re trying to do with dialogue like this, but it just sounds like culinary based lunacy.

There are also interesting elements in the mix here (no pun intended… alright, maybe it was subconsciously intended), such as the rivalry between the two restaurants and the “war” that follows (buying up each other’s ingredients etc – ie things that don’t happen in a real war, thus the quotation marks), but before it has any time to go anywhere else or become funnier, it’s stopped in favour of other more saccharine subplots. There are also elements of fighting prejudice and racism in here too which at one point come to a head, but then are never referenced or brought up again, again in favour of other more saccharine subplots. There’s also Madame Mallory’s past and general bitchiness as a façade (ooh, French friend) to get past but, once again, you guessed it, dropped in favour of other more saccharine subplots. It’s a shame – if these elements were developed it perhaps would have been a more rounded and better film.

The Hundred Foot Journey is beautifully shot (and has a hell of a lot of fireworks), and has some good character moments here and there (all the laughy lines go to Papa), but ultimately it falls short of other “foodie” films such as Chef as well as other dramas, and seems bland in comparison.

The Purge: Anarchy Richards Reckons Review

COS IIIIIIII WANNA BEEEEE ANARCHYYYY

Despite the title, no, the Sex Pistols aren’t in this, nor it is about a radical new diet.

The Purge: Anarchy is the (surprisingly quickly made) sequel to 2013’s The Purge, the horror home invasion thriller starring Ethan Hawke, the modded-up baby doll robot machine from under Sid’s bed in Toy Story, and Rhys Wakefield in one of the most underrated villainy performances ever. The thing that made The Purge stand out from the rest if its “OH MY GOD THERE ARE PEOPLE IN MY HOUSE” flavoured horror counterparts was its concept; every year for 12 hours, from 7pm to 7am on the 21st of March (it’s in my iPhone calendar in case the government get ideas), all crime is legal – including murder, it so gleefully tells us. The first film explores this concept in terms of morality and it’s (very few) pros and cons; as well as the rich of America exploiting the poor for their own gain.

Despite the fact it wasn’t quite well received, I was a fan of the first Purge (the movie, not the, er, concept). It was suitably creepy enough and forced the characters to reflect on their own morality, and played out well in its claustrophobic setting of just one house (even though that house was, let’s face it, bloody huge – honestly, TARDISes are probably jealous of it). It introduced the concept well enough and showed its impact on the small scale; but it left you with an insatiable taste of wanting to know how it affects everywhere else outside of Ethan Hawke’s house.

Well, let it be said, The Purge: Anarchy, certainly escapes the boundaries of the home and takes it to the streets. It, of course, makes sense to start small scale and get bigger; but when you first hear about the concept of The Purge, this is the film you envisage. Citywide chaos and anarchy, with many people “releasing the beast” all over town (not like that) – the perfect picture of this is that a bus that is ablaze just rolls down the road and nobody bats an eyelid. The clever thing about this film and its concept is that you really feel that you are very rarely safe anywhere – I mean sure, if you’re inside surrounded by your nearest and dearest you may well feel safer, but for some that might not necessarily be the case…

It’s also dripping with satire and political commentary about American culture – the media, the rich vs. the poor, bankers and gun worship (The Wire’s Michael K Williams’ character in his anti-Purge campaign video mentions worshipping at the “altar of Smith & Wesson”). In fact, it isn’t so much subtle satire as overwhelmingly obvious – several times it’s said clearly in a way in which you think “you didn’t really have to say that, did you?”. The Los Angeles of TPA may well be populated by creepy mask-wearing, gun-and-machete-toting lunatics, but the most grotesque are the wealthy – buying and rounding up the poor to partake in a video game style team deathmatches for their own amusement. The cheap jumpscares are also in there, but really it’s the people being given a platform for violence that’s the scariest thing…

The (refreshingly mostly female) troupe that we follow throughout the chaos is full of characters who we meet separately at first but all come together Beatles-style. Admittedly, some of them have more substance than others – the mother/daughter relationship between Eva and Cali is a lot stronger than the strange bickering that separating couple Shane and Liz, who actually don’t get a whole lot of back story or character given to them, resulting in them seeing 2D and expendable (and not in a Stallone way). Neither does Frank Grillo’s nameless hero, but he’s a bucketload more interesting, with plenty of enigma surrounding him – why is he helping these people? Why is he out on Purge night?  Why is he so, so good with guns? While you can see what’s coming relatively early on when it comes to his motivations, the mystery surrounding him is sustainable enough to keep your eyes glued to him. On the whole, there are no “oh please die soon” characters that quite often populate horror movies – you want them all to “survive the night”.

The narrative is a strange one; though it feels (rather fittingly) anarchic and has an air of “anything could happen” between setpieces, once it gets to those setpieces it’s actually fairly predictable and easy to see where it’s going next. For example, they arrive at a location and you think “ah, they’re not safe at X because Y and Z are about to happen”, and usually you’re right, though there are curveballs too. On the whole, The Purge: Anarchy is very entertaining and while it falls back on its main concept, it’s such an interesting one to explore that it doesn’t feel like a get-out clause – it feels like an exploration of human morality and capitalism, with lots of trashy violence along the way. Even if you didn’t like the first one, give it a go, as this is a bigger and better unleashed beast.

 

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – Richards Reckons review

The rebooted Planet of the Apes franchise sparks strange reactions in people. It’s similar to Marmite; people either really love it, or it really rubs them up the wrong way (not that there is a right way to rub marmite up you…). “Monkeys!? Talking?!” The naysayers scoff. “No thanks, I like my films realistic, like Inception or Jumanji!”. With cinema being the fantastical escapism it is, genetically modified apes who can say the odd word isn’t really the most outlandish thing out there, so this particular gripe seems a bit odd to me. I mean, look what it’s done to poor Gary Oldman.

The poor man is CRYING.

Anyway, the plot is as follows; after an epidemic of simian flu (think swine flu but a lot, lot worse), the population of the human race has been significantly reduced, especially in San Francisco – there’s a small colony of gun-toting people being led by Gary ‘Sirius Black’ Oldman’s Dreyfus and Jason Clarke’s Malcolm, who are running out of fuel and power quickly (‘Murica!). On the other side of the bridge, over in the forest, Andy Serkis’ Caeser has set up a colony and a family of his own; with old friends Maurice and Koba. When a human accidentally kills an ape, tensions run extremely high between the two sides of evolution, and all out war is ready to break… *dramatic noise*.

They always say the night is the darkest just before the dawn (I’m not sure who the aforementioned “they” are; mainly people trying to reassure their friends that everything’s going to be alright after they’ve dropped their chips or something). In this case, with the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes coming after the Rise of said Planet of said Apes (which doesn’t really make sense to me – surely you rise after your dawn? I do anyway, but that’s another story), that’s not entirely true. While the first certainly had its emotional and dramatic moments, this instalment carries a lot of darkness and tragedy at its core. The plot feels Shakespearean – with betrayals, confrontations and tragedies that pack punch after punch after punch. It keeps a strongly straight face throughout the entire runtime, making the apes even on horseback seem genuinely frightening rather than jarring or bizarre; in fact, some scenes are surprisingly brutal. There is no “this is the good team and this is the bad team” going on here; you root for either side to win this war.

The humans are great characters – especially the portrayal of the tragic figure of Dreyfus by Gary Oldman, whose has one of the most moving scenes with an iPad I have ever seen. But, make no mistake, however – this is Andy Serkis and company’s show through and through (and through). If he isn’t nominated for any awards for his realistic portrayal as genuinely torn and troubled ape, there will be ape-style riots in the streets (even if it is just a one man riot by me wearing a Primark onesie). He adds depth, character and tragedy to what could, in the hands of others, be a cartoonish role; this also applies to those playing Koba, Maurice and Blue Eyes. This is, of course, down to the folks at Weta FX too – the apes are amazingly well rendered and realised, seeming both sympathetic and dangerous simultaneously; and with so many of them populating the screen it’s an absolutely astounding (yay alliteration!) spectacle. It’s an incredibly exciting glimpse into the future of cinema.

Matt Reeves, whose past credits include Cloverfield (another love of mine), does an astounding job of putting the story together, with thrilling and impressive setpieces and camerawork – including a sequence in which Malcolm has to infiltrate an ape-ridden building to take a medkit all in one incredibly tense long tracking shot, and an ape gleefully riding on a tank, again in one shot, while looking at all the carnage around him. When tension is needed, it delivers; when emotion is needed, it delivers; when chaos is needed; it delivers. It’s hard to think of a level at which this film does not deliver, in fact; it’s one of the films of this year, certainly. If you can get past the talking apes, that is…

I would, however, strongly recommend you watch the first film before this one as close as you can before going to see this (because you MUST go and see this). I know that sounds stupid, but Caeser’s journey is even more important to you after you’ve seen where he came from and how he grew up, and you care about him all the more for it. Plus it makes you wish Tom Felton was in this instalment too so he could get beaten the stuffing out of again…

Long live the Planet of the Apes, and long live Caeser.

TLDR; One of the films of the year. Go and see it ASAP.

PS: I really have tried my best to cram a Monkey Tennis reference into this review but it was very hard, so here’s a pic. Aw.

 

 

Top 10 Acts to Check Out at Glastonbury 2014

BBC

Glastonbury Festival of the Contemporary Performing Arts is one of the biggest festivals in the world and attracts an amazing lineup, and this year is no different. With the festival less than two weeks away, and more video coverage than ever from the Beeb, you can get fully immersed in the music and atmosphere whether you’re in the sunny fields of Worthy Farm or in the comfort of your own home, away from the danger of mud and/or sunburn…

But with the lineup being an embarrassment of riches and a huge, varied smorgasbord of musical tidbits from across almost every genre, from metal to country and rock to dubstep and everything in between. But what acts should be priorities? There are plenty of must-see performers populating the lineup. Scientists have not perfected the art of being in two places at once yet and not all of us are lucky enough to be omnipresent, so some tough yet crucial decisions need to be made. Here are 10 bands and artists you should check out at Glastonbury 2014 – whether you’re going or not.

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22 Jump Street – Richards Reckons Review

Sticking to this form I’ve recently developed of kicking reviews off with screenshots of stars in films with great moustaches, here’s the wonderful Nick Offerman and his infamous lip decoration.

Beautiful.

22 Jump Street is the sequel, funnily enough, to 21 Jump Street, the reboot/sequel to the 80s TV series about cops going undercover and infiltrating a high school to bust drug dealers – think Waterloo Road meets The Sweeney, but American and less bad. Jenko (played by Channing “All Over Your” Tatum) and Schmidt (Jonah “The Goldfish Eater” Hill) do a dreadful job of trying to foil a shady dealing at the docks, allowing ne’er-do-well Ghost to escape. Nick Offerman’s ultra-meta Captain and Ice Cube then decide that they need to do exactly the same thing again, except this time with a bigger budget (“double the budget, double the success, right?”) and in college because, and I believe this is verbatim, “yo’ ass look like you about fiddy”.

Phil Lord and Chris Miller, helmers of the beloved Lego Movie and Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, direct this sequel and are fast becoming one of my favourite directorial teams (in fact, I was rooting for them to take over directing Ant-Man in Edgar Wright’s absence, but that’s a different story). They bring a charm and gleeful self-awareness to their work which adds another layer of fun to the film, like a comedy cake. In areas, scenes move incredibly quickly on near cartoonish levels (not surprising given their background in animation), and while 22 Jump Street isn’t as absolutely bursting to the seams with gags and jokes as its younger brother, there are still solid laughs aplenty.

Hill and Tatum’s chemistry is a key ingredient of this cake (this metaphor is making me hungry…). The two characters are a Yin and Yang (the starting image of the film almost spells this out for you) but have a relationship that freely dances over the line between brotherly and homoerotic – a la Hot Fuzz, or any other buddy cop movie ever. And you really feel for their relationship too – even though you know that everything will be fine, you get a real pang of gloom when they are apart and when they fight it’s like watching two of your best buds fighting.

22 Jump Street is at its best when it is making self-aware jibes at itself, the industry and its stars – and there are a lot of these jibes too. I absolutely love a good meta-joke (it’s why Deadpool is one of my favourite characters in anything ever), and there are lots of these in 22JS – including winks at the careers of Channing Tatum (a cheeky poke at one man defending the White House alone) and Ice Cube (there’s a reference to a certain album title that seemingly only I laughed at – perhaps for the first time in my life I was the most “G” person in the room…). Ice Cube is a force-of-nature style highlight too, stealing almost every scene he’s in and chewing the scenery right up (I’ve never understood that phrase, but there is one scene in which he does an awful lot of angry chewing, so I’ll use it).

The action sequences are pretty paint-by-numbers, but it’s not really the action you’re looking for – it’s the gags that are peppered over them. Some may complain that it almost exactly the same as the first one, but they make so many references to the fact that the know it’s exactly the same that it shouldn’t appear accidental – it riffs on this near constantly. If I was to have a problem with it, I would say that we see more of Schmidt than Jenko, and it would be nice for Channing Tatum to have more of a chance to prove how surprisingly capable he is with comedy. Jonah Hill contributed to the script so it is natural he would give himself a lot, but more Channing (the name rather than the verb) would’ve probably made the scales a bit more equal. I don’t think I laughed perhaps as much as I did when seeing 21 Jump Street, but it’s still consistently funny and surprising, with, on the whole, jokes that are more hits than misses. It also has one of the greatest credits sequences I have seen in a long time, which I do not want to spoil as it will puncture and deflate the surprise a tad. But if you want an enjoyable, entertaining enough couple of hours, jump at the chance (sorry) to see 22 Jump Street.

Edge of Tomorrow – Richards Reckons Review

I’M ON THE EDGE. OF TOMORROW. AND I’M HANGIN’ ON A MOMENT WITH YOUUUU.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Given the plot though, those lyrics are surprisingly relevant. 

Much like the previous review of A Million Ways To Die In The West, I’ll start this review off with a picture of a character with a frankly brilliant moustache.

Magnificent work, Bill Paxton.

Edge of Tomorrow is a film that is an absolute smorgasbord of science fiction treats for your delectation and delight (sorry, I’m channeling Willy Wonka for some reason), with a plot involving aliens, time travel and powered exo-skeletons. To go into its specifics would be rather lengthy, but to summarise it into a bitesize chunk; Earth is at war with an alien race nicknamed “Mimics” (it’s never really said why), and Tom Cruise’s PR man is unwillingly sent to the front line after blackmailing the general. Here, he gains the power to reset the day by dying, and then must find out what on earth has happened to him, and how he can use it to win the war (and also hear the words “ON YOUR FEET, MAGGOT!” about 1,054,321 times (I counted*). 

I remember seeing the trailer for this a while ago and simply thinking things such as “meh”, “yeah maybe I’ll give it a watch”, “did I leave the gas on?” (I hadn’t) and “oh damnit I’ve eaten all my popcorn already”. I don’t know what it was about said trailer but something just didn’t excite me, which is strange as I love science fiction, explosions and Emily Blunt. So I went into this remembering the trailer and not having great expectations (the book or the feeling of great expectations). However, that said, the end product is actually very, very good.

Even though it sounds like something that’s been done before (the plot on the surface sounds like Groundhog Day, War of the Worlds and Halo in a big melting pot), there are several aspects about Edge of Tomorrow which feel refreshing and new. As much as I love (some) franchises, sequels and reboots, it’s nice to see a new blockbuster idea once in a while. Another reason why it feels quite so different is that most if not all of it is set in somewhere that isn’t the States – specifically Europe. Obviously this isn’t an absolute innovation, but it’s nice to see a film focus on aliens invading somewhere else on the globe. 

Despite a key factor of the plot being repetition, it doesn’t feel repetitive in the sense that it does not get boring or tedious. In fact, it plays upon its key device with glee, like an old man who has discovered a wireless car key for the first time. We see attempt after attempt of Tom Cruise’s Cage (no relation to Nicholas) trying to alter the day and ultimately failing and dying over and over and over again, as if respawning at a checkpoint in a video game. It’s fun. When dying isn’t a big deal in a film, it allows a kind of playfulness which can seem very dark otherwise – but Edge of Tomorrow takes this concept by the face and runs with it (that’s a phrase, isn’t it?).

 

Cage is an actually interesting protagonist too, who starts as flawed, cowardly and has a smattering of Cruise’s Charisma (™) to give him a personality rather than being a drone-like action hero. The other characters who populate the world too are fun, with some familiar faces in the motley crew J-Squad (NOTE: not a boyband), and Bill Paxton hamming it up as military man Farrell, whose technique at leadership is interesting to say the least (Step 1 – be a dick to everybody. Step 2 – make them eat playing cards). However, the show here is stolen by Emily Blunt’s Rita Vrataski, a.k.a. Full Metal Bitch. She’s a ruthless badarse (yes, badarse, I am an Englishman) who you completely root for and would definitely want leading you into battle. She’s humanised too, but not to the extent that it undermines her – it only makes her character even stronger.

As for the cinematography and action events themselves, they look phenomenal and slick. The battle scenes look like a futuristic D-Day, with not a single centimetre of frame being wasted. When chaos is needed, director Doug Liman delivers in spades, with the battles seeming more and more coherent as we, along with Cage, get used to them. The battle exo-skeletons are a great feature, and the fact that they are physical props and not CGI really does pay off well. The “Mimics” look surprisingly original and fearsome too, though bear passing resemblances to Days of Future Pasts’ Sentinels and Man of Steel’s terraforming octopus arms. Their deliriously fast movement is what makes them quite so scary, and are definitely going to be remembered as a great sci-fi villain.

There are a few plot gripes, as well as a bit of a necessity for the plot to grow more confusing and tangled rather than evolve (there’s one particular gripe I have but can’t say, ruddy spoilers), but generally it’s easy to follow and is a hell of a ride. Go and check out one of the year’s best surprises as soon as possible.

*I didn’t count really