Monthly Archives: October 2012

There is an episode of CSI Miami when it’s clear the show had gone completely potty. In the episode there is a fire which traps one of the crime scene investigators underneath a concrete pillar. Two burly men try and lift it, but fail miserably. Then the shows hero Horatio Caine, armed with his shades and flamboyant ginger hair, is able to lift the pillar single-handed and sling it across the room. The fact that he’s in his fifties didn’t seem to matter. Because he’s the hero; the man who can do anything no matter how unrealistic.

Taken 2 has one of those moments. Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) finds himself in a tricky situation when his past comes back to haunt him. He’s in Istanbul and has no idea where he or his daughter is. So he decides to call his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) and hatches a plan. He tells her to throw a grenade in the air so then when he hears the explosion, he can calculate the exact distance between them. Just like that. In his head. It’s an idea that is laughably insane, but it is the kind of the thing you expect from action B movies like this. But B movie actioners at least have the enjoyability factor. Taken 2 is devoid of this. Bryan Mills used to have a particular set of skills; now he’s a cartoon.

While doing some work in Istanbul, Bryan invites his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) and his daughter Kim to join him for a short holiday. While attempting to patch things up with Lenore, Bryan finds the holiday turning into a nightmare when the Albanian family of the man he electrocuted to death in the previous film have tracked him down. Bryan and Lenore are taken, so it is left up to Kim to come to their aid and save them.

It really is a shame that Liam Neeson is being forced to make his way through such a bad story. He is watchable and engaging as always, but there are moments when you get the feeling he’s just thinking about picking up his pay cheque. This is certainly something we didn’t see in the first instalment, when he made his transformation into middle-aged action hero. Neeson himself admitted that he thought it would go straight to DVD, instead of becoming a massive box office hit.

Maggie Grace returns to play Bryan’s daughter Kim, and she has made quite the transformation. She used to be the innocent, virginal victim. Now she’s an innocent, virginal action hero. When Bryan and Lenore are captured, Bryan doesn’t think twice in telling his 19-year-old daughter exactly where he has stashed a handgun and some grenades. With them in hand she’s off leaping across rooftops. It’s difficult to decide what’s harder to believe – that Kim could make such a ridiculous transformation, or that Maggie Grace is still convincing as a 19-year-old even though she is now 28.

A lot of the blame has to be laid at the feet of the director Olivier Megaton. Having directed two other poor action films (Transporter 3 and Columbiana) he continues his bad run, this time with horrifically filmed set pieces. Bryan’s close encounters with Albanian thugs are quite often filmed with a handheld camera, so there is so much shaking it’s impossible to tell who’s pummelling who. If it weren’t for shots of Bryan as the last man standing we wouldn’t know who won these fights. Luc Besson has co-written the script again, but this time it’s like he can’t think of anything cool to show us.

Taken 2 has a 12A certificate, unlike the first film which was a certificate 15 and an 18 when it was released uncut on DVD. There’s no doubt that this sequel has been watered down in order to reach a wider audience, and we will probably see an uncut version of the film on DVD shelves in time for Christmas. But it’s clear from the total lack of creativity that this was purely made for the money.

During the press interviews leading up to the film’s release, Liam Neeson said he doubted there will be a Taken 3. However, Luc Beeson said he wasn’t planning on doing a third film, but because Taken 2 has made a huge amount of money at the box office he is considering it. This says it all right here. Forget creativity or actually giving the audience value for money, just keep churning out the same garbage as long as it makes money. Taken 2 does have a tiny plot thread in the vengeful family that could have proved interesting, but in the end it’s nothing but bile.

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The main issue I have with A Few Best Men is that it tries too hard. What could have been a really funny movie ended up as a shock fest. All of the gags you can see coming a mile off. There’s nothing new.

Xavier Samuel’s next offering from Twilight Eclipse is a total disappointment. He looked stoned all the way through, maybe he had to take something to get through this! His motley band of friends were unlikeable, they just didn’t work. They all had issues.

The overuse of a sheep in pointless gags, which didn’t explain why a sheep was needed in the first place! Bondage, stripping, drugs, mishaps galore, The Queen’s picture being drawn on so she resembled The Joker from Batman… this comedy attempted to use everything, in the end it just came off as a total mismatch of sketches. There was no charm.

There was little chemistry between the bride and groom. It wasn’t a whirlwind romance. You don’t just decide to marry someone. Nothing to really say why they decided to get married within a week. Surely the girlfriend would want to meet his mates and family beforehand?

The bride being a senator’s daughter (Laura Brent) was a lazy step. Also her father would be much more threatening being a senator. He would not want shame or scandal yet the portrayal was weak. As if it was beyond him to stop events. Hello, he’s a senator!!!!

It would have been better if they’d got married in LA and ended up on the news with her father watching on horrified etc.

Even Olivia Newton-John’s appearances can’t save this. It reminded me a lot of watching You’ve Been Framed. The 1st series was very funny, roll on 10 years and you chuckle at some but most you’ve seen before.

It lacked a freshness to keep the genre fresh. The stag night degenerated into debauchery, like being let loose in a shopping mall with no spend limit. It was so cringe worthy. I’ve never seen the like of it.

In soap operas weddings going wrong are nearly a bi-annual event. With TV Serials as well having a wedding infrequently means all the disasters have now been shown. You have to do something new, or at least go about things in a different way. The script for this was like painting by numbers. No individual flair or decisions.

Having a good mix of stars such as Kris Marshall, who was very funny in BBC’s My Family, should have been better. Were they allowed to ab-lib? If not they should’ve been. The writer for this ought be fired from all movie sets!

A poor showing with as much effort into scripting as I put into opening a packet of crisps. 1/10 from me.

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The Sweeney was a fabulous film. The casting of Ray Winstone and Ben Drew (rapper Plan B) as Regan and Carter was superb. Although throughout the film Regan is violent and dishes out some mean punches – somehow you can’t help but like the guy.

Even when he takes some gold from a job to pay his informant. He gets a tip off about a robbery being planned. Somehow he makes it justified. Also supporting the title, you have to act like a criminal to catch one. Regan is also having an affair with his female colleague.

However internal affairs spot some of the gold is missing and attach a member to watch the squad. Unfortunately for Regan the man is the husband of his illicit affair.

Carter adds support by helping his boss out. There are a lot of team changes, denoting that the Flying Squad is a high risk career choice. The guns, bashings and car chases along with the destruction of buildings, caravans and public property just adds to the thrill of the ride.

A massive chase scene across Trafalgar Square left me breathless. I loved it. It was very gripping. The storyline of a criminal who intends to bring Regan down begins with a jewellery shop raid. A woman hostage is brutally shot at the last second.

Regan is determined to stop the gang from carrying out any further raids. Using his resources he discovers a retired criminal Allan is back. Regan put Allan away years ago. They raid his house but this is one sly lawbreaker. Having an alibi though means they must let him go and this is the downhill slide Regan finds himself on.

Will the man find out about Regan’s affair with his wife? Can Regan count on Carter? Carter is up for promotion, so helping Regan would jeopardize any promotion.

Damian Lewis (Homeland) pops up as Regan’s boss Haskins.

I found this to be a great updated version of the 1970s show. Ray Winstone had some great lines such as , “Pull your trousers up, you’re nicked!”

The city scene backdrop and posh office gave great scenic views and added to the city feel. In fact it’s hinted that other departments are jealous of the Flying Squad having such a posh pad.

A worthy effort and I will give this 9/10. I’ll deduct one mark for not using the theme music. Instead they opted for a slow downed version. The Sweeney was anything but slow!

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It’s advised that when you go and see Looper you don’t think about it too much. That’s not to say that Rian Johnson’s third film is rather lightweight, in fact it’s quite the opposite. But as Bruce Willis points out during one scene in a roadside diner, focusing on the time travel aspects of the story isn’t the best way to go. This is rather sound advice; if you do think about time travel it will either drive you crazy or give you a headache.

Jeff Daniels’ Abe makes a similar point when giving advice to the young Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). He tells him not to think too much about time travel because it “fries your brain”. Abe is from the future, so he also advises Joe to go to China and learn Mandarin. Looper is filled to the brim with time paradoxes, the kind of things modern sci-fi movies avoid just in case it makes the audience think too much. Rian Johnson though has never been a director that chose to do things the easy way.

It’s the mid-21st century, and Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a looper; an assassin who kills people when they are sent back in time from the future, when time travel is illegal and only used by the mob. Joe has a relatively easy job (wait for target, BANG!, go for coffee, job done) and gets paid a lot for it. Then a mysterious figure from the future called The Rainmaker starts “closing loops”; sending back a looper’s future self to be killed. The looper gets a huge payoff and told to enjoy the rest of their life.

Hence the arrival of an older version of Joe (Bruce Willis), who has no intention of having his loop closed. He scuppers his younger self’s attempt to kill him, and sets off to find the Rainmaker in order to stop any of the horrifying future events happening. It’s only when Bruce Willis turns up that you realise what a convincing performance Joseph Gordon-Levitt is giving. During a quick montage when we see how the young Joe spends his thirty years of freedom as he turns into old Joe, it becomes all the more believable that the young man will eventually become old and battered.

While old Joe heads off in search of the Rainmaker (who is just a child at this time), he is able to narrow it down to three possible candidates. Young Joe decides to hide out in a farmhouse where one of the said candidates, Cid (Pierce Gagnon) is living with his mother, Sara (Emily Blunt). It shows what a great writer Rian Johnson is when he casts Blunt as something more than a heroine for the main character to swoon over. She has ideas, feelings, and is a well-crafted character that does have a purpose within the story.

This is a quality that Johnson injects into pretty much all of his characters, which would explain why the likes of Bruce Willis are always willing to take a pay cut in order to work with him. As with his two previous films Brick and The Brother’s Bloom, Johnson combines rather crisp dialogue and unique characterisation in order to keep the audience interested. Many other films in the genre would have given up on those things in order to further the plot, but as far as Johnson is concerned they all work together, and complement each other. It may not always make sense, but it is superbly crafted.

It’s strange to think about it, but underneath all the special effects, explosions, and time paradoxes there is a simple truth at the heart of Looper. If you could go back in time and give your younger self some advice, the likelihood is that your younger self wouldn’t want to hear it. And by attempting to do so, you’d probably make things a lot worse. It’s a film about trying to find redemption, and the consequences that can ensue.

While most of the film will be predictable for some, there is one key scene that is rather unexpected. When the older Joe finally comes to terms with what he has to do now he’s travelled back in time, Rian Johnson bravely sticks to his guns and follows through with the story. It’s a big risk, and you have to wonder if someone tapped him on the shoulder at any point to ask if it’s a good idea. Johnson stands by his premise though, and is able to deliver a sci-fi film that isn’t afraid to use its brain and wear its heart on its sleeve. That’s what really makes this a wonderful and enjoyable triumph.

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For a while you would have though the American politics is beyond parody. We see the various gaffs and mishaps coming from a certain Presidential candidate, and then see that the race to win the 2012 election could still be a photo finish. It’s hard not to crack a smile of incredulity. And yet The Campaign proves that you can mock US politics by going in a different direction.

Instead of focusing on satire, The Campaign heads more in the direction of farcical and crude humour. The political orientation of the two candidates doesn’t really matter, only that they are both completely incompetent. The film instead decides to make satire out of the large amount of money that is put into the system, the simple message being that if you have the backing of someone with huge piles of cash you can win any election you want. Political attack ads are also held up as being rather petty, overblown, and full of lies. They usually are, but as you’ll see these candidates won’t shy away from accusing each other of being terrorists.

Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) is the Congressman for the small constituency of Hammond. Looking to serve a fifth straight term, it looks like he will stand unopposed, until a gaff involving an answering machine sends his approval ratings through the floor. The mega-rich Motch brothers (Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow) see that Brady could be in trouble, and so decide to find another candidate to be their puppet. And so they select Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis), a local man who runs a tourism company.

The incumbent congressman Cam Brady is a Democrat, but you wouldn’t think that when you see him. He looks like Bush, and has the brains of Chaney. The only sign that he’s a Democrat is that he has the hair of John Kerry. It’s clear that Will Ferrell has based Cam Brady on the selection of Republican blowhards that march around Washington, and let’s be frank he has plenty to choose from. He will do anything to win, including making a sex tape for a campaign commercial. He has a wife (Katherine LaNasa) who only sticks around because Cam is under consideration to be the next Vice President.

Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis) is the Republican candidate challenging Brady. We only know he’s a Republican because he states that he is when he announces his candidacy, and his silent rage when his son confesses he took the Lord’s name in vain (along with many other offensives). Huggins is essentially the village idiot, walking around with his two dogs, saying hello to people on the street who shout back that they have no idea who he is. It is basically Zach Galifianakis doing what he does best.

To make sure that Huggins’ campaign goes smoothly, the Motch brothers send campaign manager Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott) to help. McDermott steals every scene he is in as the slimy and venomous campaigner. Never will you see someone make eating cereal so hilariously sinister. The Motch brothers themselves (Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow) are exactly what you expect from rich backers, and that’s pure evil.  They have a quality that’s vaguely reminiscent of Sir Humphrey in Yes, Minister; they are charming, vindictive, and seem to have control over everything. It’s almost certain that they are based on the real life Koch brothers (look them up – pure evil).

The Campaign has plenty of laughs, and it is well paced so then the election race doesn’t become too mundane. Instead off an underdog trying to break down an insurmountable lead, the polls show a roller coaster ride. The only thing that lets this film down is the ending, which many will see coming, and many will wish it’s not going to happen. The central message of the conclusion is that no matter what honesty and integrity prevail in politics. This is not funny, in fact it’s rather sad, considering that it is hardly ever the case.

It’s the chemistry between Ferrell and Galifianakis that really makes this film tick. Also serving as producers, they will have been able to shape the script into something that suits them perfectly. The supporting characters provide just the right amount of humorous relief from the pair, especially from Dylan McDermott who is superb. If it wasn’t for the lazy conclusion it would have been one of the best comedies of the year. The most sobering thought however is that even though it is totally ludicrous, it wouldn’t be surprising if this story came true.

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