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…

Into The Woods & Foxcatcher – Richards Reckons Reviews

Woods and Foxes (sort of) are all in today’s post. It’s a bit like Centre Parcs really, except with less swimming pools and more wrestling.

Once upon a time, there was a musical made called Into The Woods. There is now a film adaptation of said musical. We’ll kick off with that.

Into The Woods does involve going into the woods it must be said, but it would be a criminal disservice to say that is simply all it is about; it follows the various scenarios of some famous fairytale characters, including Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), Jack of “The Beanstalk” fame (Daniel Huttlestone) and Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford); however, it’s mainly framed by the Baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) trying to conceive a child but are thwarted by a witch’s (Meryl Streep) curse. To lift the curse, the Baker and his wife must collect four tremendously specific items (a cow as white as milk, hair as yellow as corn, a cape as red as blood and a slipper pure as gold) in 3 midnights time. They venture out to do so in the direction of, you guessed it, the woods.

I must admit that I knew literally nothing about this before I saw it. I knew that it was a musical, and that it seemed to be vaguely based on fairytales, but that was about it. Quick note that those that weren’t in the know like me – this ain’t your ordinary fairytale. The first 2/3rds of the film seem to be a quirky visitation through various fairytales, allowing us to crossover all of them through the Baker’s and Baker’s wife’s quest; we see them through to their happy endings at this stage. When we get to that stage, it feels like a natural progression to the end – but then it all changes. Through little things that have happened over the course of the narrative, all hell breaks loose after the natural ending, leading to a bizarre quasi-epilogue tacked onto the end. From my understanding, it’s roughly an Act 1/Act 2 split in the musical between the relatively normal and then weird, but here it’s completely uneven and so doesn’t quite sit as well.

But don’t get me wrong though, I quite liked the weirdness of it. It made it distinct and different; up until it’s fake climax, I regarded the film a fun but unmemorable jamboree through the fairytalehood. But it’s there where Into The Woods comes into its own, with fairytale chaos that involves a mismatch of the characters we’ve just been following. It is, however, even in this little strange epilogue, like a bag of revels (ie a mixed bag) – some things work and some things really don’t. I can’t go into specifics without going into a spoiler safari, but some parts in the final act feel rushed or there for the sake of it; even if it is in the musical, these components don’t feel natural, even if it is in the “weird chapter”.

The performances are mostly good, with a couple of standouts – one of course being the amazing Meryl Streep as the witch, bringing zaniness to the hag act and getting her mouth round some fairly complex bits (never thought I’d write that, especially in relation to Meryl Streep). Anna Kendrick too and Emily Blunt both bring gusto to their relatively one note characters. James Corden gets the job done but doesn’t seem to excel in the leading man role here. Johnny Depp is essentially just Johnny Depp in his 5 minute cameo as the Wolf, in which he sings an unbelievably paedophilic song about Red Riding Hood that makes everybody feel uncomfortable. Aside from the “into the woods, into the woods” song there aren’t really any truly memorable songs or earworms that make you think “FORGET GREETING MY FAMILY, I MUST DOWNLOAD THAT SOUNDTRACK AS SOON AS I GET IN!”.

All in all, Into The Woods is a strange case. I admire its dark and quirky approach to the fairytale but it comes a little too late in the story, and aside from Meryl Streep it lacks any truly memorable characters or songs. Good fun if you like a know your music/fairytales, but that’s about it.

Right, let’s catch some foxes with Foxcatcher.

This is not a light-hearted adventure about catching foxes or indeed Jamie Foxx, but instead it’s a true story that goes like this; Olympic gold-medal winning wrestler Mark Schultz (Channing all over your Tatum) is in a bit of a rut, with his life being relatively directionless post-win. That is until he gets a phonecall from the ever-so-strange John du Pont (Steve Carell), an heir to a chemical fortune who has a keen interest in wrestling and wants to make his compound, named Foxcatcher Farm (THAT’S THE NAME OF THE MOVIE!), the official training ground for the Olympic team. He’s keen on getting Mark and his brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo) on site and onboard. As du Pont and Mark grow closer in their relationship, cracks in his personality start to show, all leading to a horrible crescendo…

First thing to say about Foxcatcher is that the three main central performances are outstanding. It’s no wonder all involved are (or at least ruddy well should be) nominated for awards. The most obviously transformational is Steve Carell, who we’re all used to seeing being a jolly funny chap, turning into this dark and pompous figure of wealth – a quiet, grotesque megalomaniac. It’s genuinely hard to believe that this is Brick Tamland or Michael Scott we are seeing here – and that’s not because of prosthetics. Channing Tatum’s performance too is stunning – embracing the adonis figure that he has (which is unbelievably similar to my own) and using his physicality in contrast with Mark’s incredibly low self esteem and fragility. Ruffalo too brings a soft-spoken approach to the older brother/coach role and is amazing in his tenderness that you really feel like he has earned with Mark.

The landscape and colour scheme of the movie immediately imprints in your mind that something terrible is going to happen, and it’s a sense of foreboding that is there throughout the whole movie; you always feel as though it’s leading to an awful climax. It’s a film that has sport as a framing device but it’s certainly not about sport; it’s about power, masculinity, megalomania and isolation. Because the film is populated with lots of masculine men, not a lot is verbally said about how people are feeling; it’s more with pats, touches and wrestles with one another where everything is brought into the open. This of course means that everything is open to all sorts of interpretation; once you see the scene for yourself about the “wrestle in the gallery”, you can decide for yourself what is going on. But it’s all part of the rich character study that makes this film so strong.

Admittedly, it can be slow and feel like it drags in some scenes – especially when they are in complete silence. There is a score but it’s so intermittent it may as well not be there; the silence adds impact to the various sounds that are made at times (such as hitting cheekbones and squeaking shoes), but on other occasions it makes a scene more mundane and less tense. The story does not give you much of a spelt out reason as to why the event in question happens, but rather leaves it open to your own interpretation; something that will inspire some but infuriate others.

It’s an at times slow film that has its problems but it is a fascinating character study into masculinity and power and maybe a little bit of wrestling, elevated by some transformational performances from its central stars.

Transcendence – Richards Reckons Review

I keep accidentally spelling the title of this film as “TranscenDANCE”, which would perhaps be better. I mean, imagine this little face on top of a dancing robot body.

 

Aw.

Anyway, this is the directorial debut of the rather unfortunately named Wally Pfister, who (beyond having a name which sounds like he’s committing a carnal act upon one of Pixar’s most beloved characters) is known most for his work with Christopher Nolan, mainly on the darkly gorgeous Dark Knight trilogy. It’s no surprise then that Transcendence, the first film where he holds the reigns (not literally; that would be maltreatment of cast and crew) looks beautiful. From the vast, clinical-looking labs and server rooms to close ups of slow-mo raindrops and sunflowers (more on those guys later), Transcendence looks great. It is, however, riddled with problems and inconsistencies, which causes the film to be rendered unable to “transcend” (get it? It’s funny because that’s the title of the film) the label of being a pretty mess. 

One of the problems with Transcendence is its tone of absolute seriousness and existentialism combined with some pretty unrealistic components, so much so that it punctures through the suspension of disbelief like a meteor through a hot air balloon. It’s filled to the brim with some pretty B-Movie and blockbuster-y ideas. Now don’t get me wrong – as you’ve seen from other reviews, this is far from a turn off for me as I love things like zombie movies and superheroes; however, in this instance, it makes the films tone collapse under its own gravitas, as it contains some elements that even the most cartoonish of movies would think twice about. As an illustration of this, here’s a snapshot of my thought process the whole way through;

– “Okay, yep, that’s fine”

– “I’m on board with this, yep”

– “Sounds a bit farfetched but I guess…”

– “Err… Riiiight…”

– “Um, no?”

– “Now wait a cottonpickin’ minute-“

– “DOUBLE U TEE EFF?”

… And then it spirals from there. Admittedly there are thought provoking points about it (such as our dependency on technology in the modern age and Morgan Freeman’s ability to make even the most mundane role interesting), but there are so many little things that just seem odd in its context (hive-mind super-soliders? Nanobots controlling the weather? The people of Brightwood just accepting their town being taken over by Rebecca Hall and her near infinite bank account?) that it makes it all just seem ridiculous. It’s a silly film wrapped up in the guise of a clever one.

The people that populate this film also have inconsistencies about them. If Max Waters (Paul Bettany – ironic that the voice of JARVIS is in a film about artificial intelligence, isn’t it?) is so sceptical and afraid of AI to the point that he spewed an article out about it, why does he support best friends Will and Evelyn Caster’s (both of whom scientists working on artificial intelligence) plans so much? If the anti-technology group RIFT (Revolutionary Independence From Technology) hate technology so much to the point of “blending smartphones” and shooting people, why do they use LAPTOPS AND MOBILE PHONES? Where are the police of Brightwood?! Who on earth named the conference “Evolve The Future” (as if “the future” is a Pokemon)?  The parts are all played perfectly well (with Rebecca Hall being a highlight; Morgan Freeman and Cillian Murphy are wasted a bit here), but the characterisation just seems bland, with the editor instead whacking in those slow-mo sunflower shots sometimes in dialogue’s place.

In all, then, Transcendence is a bit of a shame really. It looks beautiful, certainly, but the probing questions it’s trying to get you to ask about humanity’s relationship with technology and consciousness are replaced with questions about the film’s logic instead (or it did for me, anyway). It’s refreshing having a film that isn’t a sequel or an adaptation, certainly, but I got the feeling that a lot of scenes were cut out, leaving its message a bit incoherent. One of my favourite critics, Mr Mark Kermode, likes it a lot, but for me it like a garbled and silly film wearing the clothes of a sombre and clever one.