The Wolverine Review - OR - Rageboy

Plot

At the crux of WWII, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) finds himself a POW in Nagasaki, Japan and saves his morally conflicted officer from being leveled along with the city. Back in the present day, crushed following the events of X-Men: Last Stand, he has exiled himself in the wilds of Canada. However, when he’s tracked down by the man he saved all those years ago – the billionaire tech giant Yashida (Hal Yamanouchi) – and whisked off to Japan to say goodbye, he finds himself embroiled in a family warfare that will push him harder than he’s ever been pushed before.

Imagine that this a sequel to Les Misérables and laugh.

Review

The current dynasty of Marvel comic book movies owes a healthy debt to the X-Menfilms of the Noughties. Along with Spiderman, it was the mutant crew that first led the foray onto our cinema screens and if it wasn’t for their success who knows where those Avengers fellas might be. It’s a shame then that since the phenomenal X2 (2003), the series hit a damning low (outside of First Class) capitulated by the capricious, rancid, cheesy mess of X-Men Origins.

But now Hugh Jackman is back, donning the metal claws and meaty chops of Wolverine for the sixth time, in James Mangold’s The Wolverine.

And rest assured: it’s better than Origins. But then so is being sodomised in the ear-hole.

Jackman’s Wolverine has never gotten the treatment he deserves so it’s a relief to say that The Wolverine goes someway to rectifying this issue. While it may feel several shades different to an X-Menfilm (the mutant presence is oddly…muted), the Logan of Wolverine is the all snarling, all scowling, ultra-aggressive, woefully messed-up anti-hero that comic book and movie fans alike have been clamouring for.

She's a baddie incase you couldn't guess. Face tearing...s'weird.

On occasion at least. The rest of the time he’s a mopey, self-pitying, grating presence, wallowing in his own stern faced misery extrapolated upon by the numerous pace-breaking and almost entirely disingenuous flash-sideways (?) to the ambiguously extant Jean Grey (Famke Jansson). Yeah, we get it, Wolverine can’t die. And yeah, we get it, that’s got to kinda suck when you see everyone that you know and care about die around you. It’s an interesting moral conflict with enough meat on its bones to drive a film…but it’s flogged like the deadest cow, almost comical in its lack of subtlety.

Fortunately then the action is furious and frenetic, rapidly changing pace, setting, target…everything. While the CGI may stink to high-heaven – the $100 million budget apparently invested entirely in white vests – Wolverine is littered with stand-out action set-pieces including a brutal duel on top of a speeding bullet train that’s as exciting as it is inadvertently hilarious. Ninjas and Yakuza goons come and go, swing and shoot, cry and die with wanton bloodless abandon as Logan murders his way from North to South. His motives may be questionable (note: entirely vague), something to do with…something about honour and…something, but at least the journey is exciting and loud enough to keep things interesting.

It ultimately all feels more than a little pointless however. Yeah, ol’ Logan learns a few lessons while marauding throughout rural Japan, but the entire production feels far more akin to a tangential sub-plot than a central narrative.

'Let's dance,' says the tango master.

‘Directionless’ is a surprisingly apt description for a film that, ostensibly at least, quite simply moves from North to South. Several characters seem to forget quite where their loyalties lie or even what their point is – Harada (Will Yun Lee) especially: an epic ninja warrior who just…wait, who does he work for again? Dialogue is oftentimes hammy and the plot twists itself in knots with mounting intrigues that ultimately make little sense when all added together for a climax that’s as disappointing as it is bizzarely predictable.

Wolverine lives and dies on the strength of its action scenes and rare witty exchanges, so for the 30/40-minute stretch in the middle where literally nothing happens outside of a contrived romantic entanglement, it becomes an intensely labourious watch. While Wolverine’s treatment of Japanese culture is paper-thin bordering on insensitive at times – Logan’s experience is like a checklist of foolish gaijin mess-ups, the gaijin fool – at least the country and its cinematographic framing is quality, a frequently beautiful distraction during the production’s less ragey moments.

Talking about ragey moments – and nuclear opening not withstanding – it’s a pleasant relief to see a summer blockbuster that doesn’t treat cities and the general essence of humanity with the same care that a child invests in its Legos. This particular film is about Wolverine and sticks very closely behind his shoulder throughout. Battles are intense and focused, particularly following Logan’s much-touted ‘weakening’, and you’ll never feel closer to Hugh Jackman’s scowly face. Literally.

And just a heads-up: there is a scene after the credits. And depending on your attachment to the mutant crew, it could be the most exciting scene of the film.

On set of Take That's next music video.

Verdict

The Wolverine seems like it was never quite finished; a film that needed an extra lick of paint each step of the way to production. As it stands, it’s not quite a superhero film, not quite an X-Men film and not quite a thoroughbred action film: the bastard child of a summer choking on the intensity of grandiose action. Overall, a thoroughly decent, vein-popping watch for series’ fans and summer burnouts alike.

3/5

Hurdy gurr:

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Pacific Rim - OR - Smashing Orgasm

Plot

In the not too distant future (where all of the best things happen) a trans-dimensional rift opens in the floor of the Pacific Ocean because of reasons, unleashing an apocalyptic herd of enormous monstrous alien beasties called Kaijus with one thing on their mind: the destruction of humankind. To fight back, scientists around the world create nuclear powered skyscraper-sized Exoskeleton mech-suits called Jaegers. Let battle commence.

In the future, everything will be shiny. 

Review

The beautiful thing about monster movies is that, when they’re done right, they can tap into that inner ten year-old everyone carries within them (for men at least), when nothing was cooler than smashing your toys together and arguing over who’d win in a fight. Guillermo del Toro’s latest film – Pacific Rim– is this idea with a $180 million budget behind it, coupled with a cheeky dash of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots by way of Godzillaand writer Travis Beacham’s seaside musings.

And that’s pretty much all you’ll ever need to know.

The term ‘B-Movie’ normally refers to a very specific genus of film: niche genre, self-deprecating, normally a bit icky and often ‘so bad its good.’ Outside of the latter, Pacific Rim is your prototypical B-Movie, albeit one on a majestically ridiculous scale.

Pacific Rim is to subtlety what broccoli is to a T-Rex: useless and probably separated by millions of years of evolution. The Jaeger’s have such gloriously OTT, cine-fantastic names – Crimson Typhoon, Sister Eureka – that you could swear they’re the amalgamated mechanical offspring of every 80s action hero, complete with weirdly tiny heads; cities are destroyed for filler; dialogue is delivered with constipated intensity; stuff and colours and noises and stuff and explosions and stuff just happens, always and forever from beginning to aquatic-come-trans-dimensional end.

That is Pacific Rim. And it’s absolutely glorious.

And aerobics will be INTENSE. And shiny.

The ‘science’ behind how it all works is suitably pointless and baffling – something about technology called The Drift and duo (or trio) pilots that are ‘drift compatible’; there’s lots of talk about brains and neuro-whatsits so you know it’s important – characters deliver lines of imperiously ponderous dialogue with remarkable, fantastic conviction (Idris Elba’s magically named Stacker Pentecost is a wizard at this) and the action is quite possibly bigger than anything before it.

Crumbling cityscapes have become a bit blasé this summer and while Pacific Rimtakes it all up a notch (as it does with pretty much everything else, both literally and figuratively) the brain-melting action sequences can become a bit exhausting, not to mention indistinguishable. The lines between victory and defeat are blurred to say the least. It suffers from that Transformers-esque problem wherein there is so much happening – so many explosions, collisions, fluorescent goops, trains, planes and automobiles – that it can be hard to both understand or care about what’s currently assaulting your eyeballs.

Like most films of this scale and gravitas, Pacific Rim is so wholly focused on going big that it forgets about anything smaller than a skyscraper, losing all focus on character based issues and ignoring any human tragedy in the wake of the most recent crumbling cityscape. Characters are a few degrees less than one-dimensional for the most part, with Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) – co-pilot on the USA’s rejuvenated Jaeger Gipsy Danger – offering the only legitimately engaging human story amongst the cavalcade of pubescent beasty doodles and Power Ranger Megazords. The ostensible main character, Charlie Hunnam’s growly Jaeger veteran Raleigh Becket, does a decent enough job of helming the film but is about as interesting as white on paper, his ‘rivalry’ with Chuck Hansen (Robert Kazinsky, of previous Eastendersfilm bewilderingly enough,) the Australian captain of Striker Eureka, is comedy gold in its short-lived one-upmanship.

And sea levels will shrink. And shine.

But then again, that’s exactly the point. Pacific Rim is Guillermo del Toro reminding us how much fun smashing your toys against one another once was (or is) and in that it undoubtedly excels. Just when things seem like they cant get any bigger, one of the demonic trans-dimensional hellbeasts sprouts wings to become Batman’s worst nightmare and apparent scourge of the moon. You can’t help but wonder whether, if given free reign to just keep on making the film, del Toro would’ve happily given Earth and Mars arms and claws and set them to fight in some epic toothy brawl.

Visuals are naturally important in a film where everything that isn’t computer-generated can be found on Ron Perlman’s forehead (here playing black market Kaiju giblets dealer Hannibal Chau) and in this respect Pacific Rim similarly excels. The CGI and all that techy wizardry is commendable, but it’s the film’s art direction and aesthetic coherence that takes home the plaudits. There’s far too much on show to fully explore here (shockingly) but with each Jaeger and Kaiju retaining a unique design while still working as a collective entity – drawing inspiration from various war-machines and animals respectively – and the production design offering a flawless interpretation of a near-future world, Pacific Rim frequently threatens near total immersion. Until, y’know, it all gets destroyed.

Bottom line, this is a film where colossal robot’ dad-run through cities wielding ships as swords. You’ll either know if that’ll work for you or not.

Oh, and kudos on GLaDOS.

Captured, the brooding intensity of a (shiny) adolescent goliath.

Verdict

Pacific Rim sets out to do one thing and to do it well: entertain. As an entity it’s utterly daft, but it’s gloriously, explosively, nostalgically, engagingly daft. The perfect summer film.

4/5

The shiney shines:

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Now You See Me Review - OR - See Me You Now

Plot

J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) and Henley Reeves (Isla Fischer) are four talented magicians united by a mysterious benefactor. One year later they pose as the Four Horsemen sponsored by insurance magnate Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine) and apparently rob a bank in Paris via a teleported audience assistant. Naturally, this draws the law authorities’ attention and FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) along with Interpol Agent Alma Drey (Melanie Laurent) seek assistance from ex-magician Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) to crack the case.

Standing in height order of how much screen time they have.

Review

Magicians are cool. At least the good ones are. And if there’s one thing films can do better than anything else it’s make things look good. So, it seems, magicians and the cinema are a match made in heaven, but where are all the films? There’s The Prestige and…well…yeah exactly. Thankfully then, Louis Letterier – of previous Clash of the Titans fame, bewilderingly enough – has taken up the mantle with Now You See Me, a magician crime caper with plenty of promise and a $100 million domestic State-side gross behind it.

Magic is fun not because it’s ‘magical,’ but because it offers us something to suss out under the maxim of that immortal question: ‘how did they do that??’ For the most part, Now You See Me plays off this conceit brilliantly, ratcheting up the stakes with flashy chicanery and set pieces. Melanie Laurent’s smiling enigma Alma Drey says as much and there’s a commendable respect for magicians and their history throughout, even if some of the backstory sounds like a 14 year old’s fervent fiction.

'Why? 'Coz I'm God, bitch.'

The eclectic cast works well together, creating the sort of energy and dynamism expected in a bunch of showmen, their banter-y dialogue helping to ground a film that could quite easily have ballooned into ‘ridiculous’ territory. It’s just a shame that NYSM seems entirely intent on going there anyway; despite all of the Oceans 11-esque cool boasted in the first half, it starts to melt as soon as the film realises it needs to start tying up a few of its loose-ends rather than letting them fray any further.

An enterprise in which it almost exclusively fails.

With an excellent premise, flashy fun set-up and strong (central) cast, NYSM has more than enough going for it to warrant success; as indeed it has, bagging itself the coveted title ‘surprise hit of the summer.’ However, on the flipside, it does itself far too much damage with paper-thin characters and lazy, wearisome twists to prevent the sort of clean getaway the Four Horseman can apparently pluck from thin air. Because magic.

'I can't eat dis.'

The first act, up to the big bank bashing in Vegas, is paced well and zips merrily along with the energy of the enigmatic foursome. From there though, when the bank robbing takes central stage and Mr. Misery McIneptinthebut (Mark Ruffalo’s Dylan Rhodes) starts running around like a headless chicken, NYSM debases into a featureless, smug galumphing journey to a conclusion that’s as disappointing as it is bloated and pointless. It was always going to end with the big twist, it had to, but it finds itself in a Lost situation where the options were either inadequate in its obviousness, or perplexing in its meaninglessness. Remarkably, it managed to stumble into both.

Mark was sick of chasing magicians and just wanted to be a rock star instead.

Maybe this isn’t giving NYSM enough credit however. It’s a film about magic after-all, slight-of-hand and illusion. So maybe the reason why the trailers looked so inviting and the concept seemed so intriguing was to run it’s audience through its own magic trick whereby it makes your money disappear. Letterier’s camera-work is flashy enough to fit the part, but it ultimately can’t hide the superficialities of a contrived revenge plot masquerading as something ‘bigger.’

But let’s at least thank the filmy gods for Woody Harrelson. Each of the central quartet are commendable in their own way – it’s remarkable how well Jesse Eisenberg can play a smug, arrogant turd-sandwich – but it’s Harrelson who steals all the acting plaudits. Just because Woody Harrelson is Woody Harrelson and therefore faultlessly wonderful.

She's an escapologist y'see. Or the victim of cult ritual.

Verdict

A card trick: looks good, entertains in the moment but ultimately forgettable.

3/5

Flashy flashy, handsy handsy:

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This is the End Review - OR - Jesus Highs

Plot

Jay Baruchel (of How to Train Your Dragon fame) is flying into L.A. to meet up with his old buddy Seth Rogan where they drink a lot of drink, do a lot of drugs, and play a lot of games. Afterwards however, at a party at James Franco’s house, the apocalypse is unleashed. Fiery pits, shrapnel and beasts from the netherworld lay waste to the party’s extravagant guest list, leaving just Jay, Seth, James, Jonah Hill and Craig Robinson holed up and fighting for survival.

There hasn't been a more entertaining group of dishevelled men since the 7 dwarves.

Review

Hollywood actors – particularly comedians – are no strangers to the idea of self-parody. It’s a common quirk among the bigger names of those fabled hills (note: Tom Cruise and Tropic Thunder) usually intended to demonstrate a sense of fun or grounded reality and, though a respectable activity, can be a challenging one to balance. Underplay it and the audience will have no idea what’s going on, leaving the film disjointed and nonsensical. Overplay it and the sense of smug self-satisfaction is somewhat multiplied, either in a frustratingly hipster-y admonishment of mainstream social expectations or with a similarly grating sense that deep down you believe you’re still something special.

This Is the End nails self-parody, both of the individual and of the industry at large. Eventually anyway…they’re actors after all, do you expect them to know how to usea hammer?

Nobody’s ever going to praise This Is the End’s intelligence. Or it’s subtlety, its artistic or thematic merits or it’s technical proficiency. If they did they’d be on par with the parodied selves portrayed on the screen in terms of rational competency. No. The Endis stupid. Really stupid. Stupid in the best, most entertaining way.

Despite being slightly overlong with a few dud scenes, The End quite easily ranks as the year’s best comedy. The humour is gross-out for the most part – farts, drugs, booze, sex etc. - with faux-reality banter dancing around the edges but it works brilliantly.

It's hard to make jokes about Emma Watson because Emma Watson. Instead, let's admire how she pulls off  the 'apocalyptic' look.

The cast are (mostly) superb and seem to have a genuinely fun time. It’s during their chatty times that the film is by far at its strongest, zipping with enthusiastic energy from scene to scene, set-piece to set-piece. Surprisingly, The End also manages itself well during more action-heavy scenes; despite the dodgy CGI, they can be legitimately tense and give show-stealer Craig Robinson a chance to shine.

While certain characters (if that’s the right word for The End) don’t work – Danny McBride is unlikeable and irritating (very much like real-life then) and is responsible for pretty much every weak scene in the film; Jay Baruchel is overly whiny and grating, certainly not main-character material – the comedy ensemble cast is ultimately one of the strongest in recent years.

A film like this as good as lives or dies on the strength of its cameos. Thankfully then, this is another field in which The End excels. There are more cameos than can be counted – the majority of which are killed off in the film’s strongest, hugely entertaining, opening act – and they are utilised superbly. From the whore-mongering Michael Cera, to Rihanna’s bewildering demise, to the greatest gimp unveiling this side of Pulp Fiction.

*Insert 'massive dump' joke here*

One thing that may not be expected with The End, both in terms of its presence and the sheer commitment to the ideal, is the religious element. Hollywood has no shortage of ideas when it comes to ending life as we know it and The End’s flavour of choice is Christian rapture. Yes, The End, for all of its lewd humour and cock jokes, is an illustration of God Almighty’s final and greatest wrath.

Thankfully – and impressively – the aesthetic doesn’t skew the film in a detrimental way and in fact works in the development of ridiculous stupidity; the sheer ineptitude of the actors - who are so glossy and capable in their ‘real’ films - as they face powers way beyond their comprehension (and pretty much anything else; paper-cuts are an absolute bitch) is comedic genius and a cathartic joy to behold, epitomised by the iconic red-riding-hood scream of the 6 foot+ Craig Robinson.

Ultimately, The End was almost certainly cooked up at a party the likes of which it depicts – born of the amalgamated, pot-addled ideas of a bunch of friends with too many ‘substances’ and not enough time under the maxim of ‘dude, what would you do if the world ended, like, right now?’ – and it shows. It’s utterly, gloriously, masterly moronic, typifying the college gross-out humour so popular since the 90s. Either you’ll know if that’s for you or if it’s not and either way, it’s worth a gander just to see a bunch of mates blatantly having a fantastic time.

Here's Rihanna struggling to play Rihanna, so it's just like real life.

Verdict

This Is the End will not be to everyone’s tastes but if hearty harmless laughs are what you’re after, you can’t do any better right now.

4/5

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