Godzilla (2014) Movie Review

The Golden Gate bridge rarely last long in monster movies...

I think it is only fair to be upfront with you, dear reader, and tell you that I have been looking forward to seeing this movie ever since they first leaked details of its existence all the way back in 2010. I got even more excited in 2011 when it was announced that Gareth Edwards, who had previously brought us Monsters, would be the director; after all, in his interview he stated that "our biggest concern is making sure we get it right for the fans because we know their concerns. It must be brilliant in every category because I'm a fan as well".

By the time the first teaser trailers hit I was desperately hoping for a Godzilla movie that would scrub away the horrible memories of the 1998 version; a Godzilla movie that would drag the radioactive lizard's franchise firmly into the 21st Century and build upon Pacific Rim's excellent work in making giant monsters cool again. Hopes that were fuelled by the official trailer that was filled with a smorgasbord of destruction and emotions, alongside hints of conspiracy and Godzilla himself...

So, how did it turn out? Well, it's very much a tale of two parts...

The first part is contained within the first 30 minutes of the movie in which Bryan Cranston - he of Breaking Bad fame - puts in a star turn as a grief stricken father who is certain that the government knows far more than it is willing to admit about the destruction of the Japanese nuclear reactor that he and his wife worked at. And, frankly, as I was sitting through the first 30 minutes I was thinking to myself  'wow - if it keeps going like this, they are going to have not just made a great Godzilla movie but they'll have made a genuinely great movie - full stop."

So maybe it was my fault. Maybe I jinxed it. But, you see - for reasons known only to the film makers - they decided not to make Bryan Cranston the main protagonist but, instead, passed that mantle onto his son (the wonderfully named, Ford Brody, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who just so happens to be an American-as-apple-pie marine cut from the same nondescript cloth as a thousand other action movie heroes (with an equally nondescript wife in the shape of Elizabeth Olson waiting for him at home). And, from that point on, the second part begins and things descend into a world of contrivance and illogic as Ford somehow manages to find himself in every single place in the world that the monsters happen to pop up...

And yes, I did say monsters - plural (although, that's not too much of a spoiler if you caught any of the later trailers) - but, unfortunately, we spend the majority of our time having to make do with two generic monsters that look like they were the unwanted love children of the monster from Cloverfield and the bugs from Starship Troopers. Indeed, considering the title of the film is Godzilla, you may well end up surprised by how little Godzilla you actually get to see...

I really wanted to be blown away by this movie. I wanted something utterly bombastic, a testament to all that is good about monster movies but instead I got a generic 'action hero must save the world single handedly' character arc and not enough Godzilla. And maybe I shouldn't have wanted more than I got, but you see the first 30 minutes of the film served as an advert for how good this movie could have been - a big, fat what if that only highlighted how insipid and uninspired the remainder of the movie ended up being.

Yes there is destruction on a glorious scale, yes there are monsters fighting and yes Godzilla looks like he should and is a whole lot bigger than the puny version seen in the 1998 version. But, this could have been so much more, could have been so much better. It's not so much that Godzilla is a bad film, it's just that it's an unsatisfying one. I wanted to love it but, as you probably guess by now, I didn't...

Fast and Furious 6 Review

When we dream, it would appear that are whole sections of our brain that we just can't call upon. For example, have you ever noticed how easy it is to transition from one place to another in a dream? One minute you're in a train carriage, the next you're in a rain forest; and yet your mind calmly accepts this leap of location without so much as asking 'erm, did that just make sense?'. There is probably a proper scientific term for this, but I like to refer to it as dreamlike naivety. And if you're wondering why it is that I'm rambling on about the way dreams work when you were expecting me to be reviewing Fast and Furious 6, well it's because - in my humble opinion - Fast and Furious 6 is a movie best watched while in a state of dreamlike naivety...

Fast and Furious 6 follows on directly from the events of Fast Five (2011), during which the team successful separated a drug lord from his $100 million, and sees the various members of the crew enjoying a life of luxury and a life without crime. Now, of course, if things were to continue in this vein for the rest of the movie then it would be a pretty tedious movie but they don't because Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) is soon tracked down by Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) who has a photo that suggests that Dom's former girlfriend, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), is not as dead as she appeared to be in Fast and Furious (2009) and is actually alive and working for an ex-special forces soldier by the name of Owen Shaw (Luke Evans). It's enough to convince Dom to reform the team and they all head to London to try to stop Shaw from stealing a complicated set of ingredients he needs to put together some mcguffin or another (that always stays fairly vague, even when it's directly explained). And from then on it's a veritable feast of stunt driving, wise cracking, gun fighting, and ass kicking that not only defies belief but also pretty much all known laws of physics...

...and I liked it.

I will freely admit, this is not the kind of movie you should go and see if you pick at the contrivances and wince at the merest hint of what might possibly be a tiny plot hole. This is a movie that is basically a set of plot holes stitched together in a smorgasbord of insane action. It's a roller coaster of a movie that assails you with scenes which can only truly be enjoyed if you've set your brain to dreamlike naivety mode and can just watch them unfurl across the screen in wave after wave of automotive abandon. Forget that the villain's plan makes little or no sense, forget that the team seems to have gone from a bunch of street racers to a team that can challenge Ethan Hunt and the gang, forget that cars are not indestructible and that rolling one several times will likely result in more than a few bruises, forget that the decisions made by the team (and the villain) are exceptionally bad throughout much of the movie . Forget ALL that.

If you can do that, you can really enjoy it for what it is. If you can't you're going to hate this more than I hated Prometheus (which is to say, an awful damn lot). Thankfully, I had no problem switching my brain to autopilot and just enjoying the sheer ridiculousness of it all. I was going to give this a seven out of ten but the ending was surely worth an extra point on its own (you'll see what I mean if you go watch it). Fast and Furious 6 is like a supercharged muscle car - all horsepower, nitrous-oxide, and gleaming chrome - a product of pure brawn and not too much brain. But fortunately, a bit of dreamlike naivety can sometimes be just what one wants...

Rating:  8 out of 10

Olympus Has Fallen Review

Redemption is an all too familiar theme of movies. In this movie, we join a secret service agent who has failed in the past with fatal consequences yet now finds himself in a position where he can redeem himself for his previous failings...oh, no wait. That's In the Line of Fire...and this is Olympus Has Fallen in which we join Mike Banning (played by Gerard Butler) a secret service agent who has failed in the past with fatal consequences yet now finds himself in a position where he can redeem himself for his previous failings. When terrorists take over the White House, it just so happens that Banning is the only person left who can possibly save the President...

On a side note; it has to be said that the White House is really not a great place to be this year if you're paying attention to Hollywood - not only does it take a severe beating here, but it will also come under similar attack when White House Down (starring Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx) launches later this year. It's like buses. You wait years for a movie about terrorists taking over the White House, and then two come along at once...

So, anyway, back to the review. Our protagonist, Mike Banning, used to work as the head of the President's security detail - that is, until a tragic road accident, in which the First Lady died, saw him demoted to a desk job working at the Treasury department (where he gazes longingly out of the window at the White House, sitting only yards away). But, when a terrorist attack rocks Washington DC, Mike finds himself on the scene and soon is the only man left inside the White House and the only man capable of saving the President (played by Aaron Eckhart) from a gang of highly armed and trained terrorists.

This is an out-and-out action movie that makes no pretence of being anything else; there is very little attempt to flesh out any of the characters involved and enjoying the movie does tend to rest on you not questioning some elements of the plot too hard. The method of the terrorist attack, and the utter ineffectiveness of pretty much everyone on the outside of the White House that subsequently follows, does stretch the bounds of plausibility a little, but this really isn't the movie to go and watch if you're expecting anything less than black and white morality and lots of violence.

It's predictable. And I don't say that necessarily as a criticism; after all, predictable can be fun. A roller coaster is predictable - we know what's going to happen; this turn, this dip, this loop; but we can still enjoy that wild, predictable, ride. So, if the conclusion of Olympus Has Fallen is never in doubt to anyone, is the ride at least a wild one?

Well, it has its moments. There's enough gunplay, martial arts and knife fighting to keep most people happy -although I did find some of the brutality felt a little out of place; not that I have anything against brutality in films as such, it's just that it's all about context. Some of the violence that was depicted, particularly to women, seemed rather callous - which, obviously, was the point that was being made about our villain but I felt it was rather a blunt means of demonstrating it and seemed slightly at odds with the tone of the rest of the movie.

Mike Banning is also no John Mclane; witty one liners are few and far between in this movie and I think it perhaps suffered a little for that. I find that humour serves as an excellent tool alongside action - to provide contrast against the darkness of the action, if you like. Having very little humour meant very little contrast, and so all the scenes sort of spilled up against each other haphazardly.

Olympus Has Fallen is not a bad movie. But I'd have a hard time telling you that it's a good movie. It's a very, very average movie - a composite of Hollywood clichés and tropes that are assembled professionally and then executed reasonably well. If you are looking for something to waste two hours on and are prepared to turn your brain off at the door, then this is reasonable entertainment. If you're looking for something filled with twists and turns, with revelations and intrigue, and characters that you can get invested in, then this isn't the movie for you.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Evil Dead Review

One question we should perhaps try to clear up at the outset is as to whether Evil Dead should be considered a sequel, a remake or a reboot. Well frankly it's slightly confusing as, although it is being talked about as a simple reboot of the series, it manages to follow the first The Evil Dead (1981) fairly closely and yet is being talked about as a series that will (at least according to director Fede Alvarez and producer Bruce Campbell) eventually cross over with the original Evil Dead series (sometime after Evil Dead 4 - which will be called Army of Darkness 2). So it's a surprisingly difficult question to answer accurately - let just say that it's clearly not an out-and-out sequel but that it does appear that it is set in the same universe as the main series.

Evil Dead follows a group of five friends who choose to stay at a remote cabin in the middle of the woods in order to help one of their number, Mia (played by Jane Levy), overcome her drug addiction. She is aided in her quest to go cold turkey by her friend and qualified nurse Olivia (Jessica Lucas), Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci), as well as her brother David (Shiloh Fernandez) and his girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore). Of course, before long, we know that drug addiction is going to be the very least of their concerns...

When exploring the basement turns up a bunch of dead cats, the smell of burnt flesh, a shotgun and plastic wrapped package that is further sealed by a knot of wires, our group of friends - rather than bugging out and heading off to find a cosy motel somewhere - decide that it's not a problem and the place is just going to need a bit of sprucing. Clearly, none of them have ever watched a horror movie.

Which is also the only explanation that can be found when Eric decides to take some wire cutters to the package and finds, inside, a hefty book that is (rather originally) bound in human skin - the Natorum Demonto. It's a nasty evil book filled with crude sketches, strange incantations and is liberally daubed (possibly in blood and, helpfully, in English!) with warnings not to read any further and definitely not to attempt to recite any of the phrases contained therein. But, of course, Eric is so excited to find a human skin bound book that he goes and ignores all the warnings and actively goes seeking out dubious Latin phrases (which, unfortunately don't really sound scary any more, ever since JK Rowling cornered the market on the use of Latin in fiction). From this point on, all manner of bloody mayhem ensues...

And bloody the mayhem is. One thing Evil Dead does not skimp on is the gore. Flesh is seared, pierced, sliced and burnt and an array of objects - from glass shards to machetes, from pieces of a porcelain toilet to electric meat knives, from shotguns to nail guns - are utilised to inflict gruesome injuries on all and sundry. But the trouble is that, as the violence tries harder and harder to top itself for brutality, it becomes so over-the-top that it actually becomes comical - indeed, there is one moment (and you'll know it when you see it) that reminded me so much of the Black Knight scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail that I ended up laughing out loud at a moment I'm sure the film makers didn't intend to be amusing when they shot it.

And that's another problem. It's all so po-faced (especially compared to some of the previous movies in the Evil Dead franchise) with everyone taking themselves so very seriously and, at times, that's at odds with the sheer overwhelming lunacy of the violence.

And so, while the question of exactly what Evil Dead is turned out to be a difficult one to answer, an altogether easier question to answer is whether or not this reboot/remake/sequel manages to live up to its tagline as "the most terrifying film you'll ever experience". And the simple answer is "no". For reasons that I'll explain.

Back in 1981, when The Evil Dead exploded onto our cinema screens it was a breath of fresh (albeit blood-flecked) air; its level of gore and violence was something that had never been seen before, it earned a citation as a 'video nasty' and was even banned on video in a number of countries. The story of a group of five students who, inadvertently, summon up a demon that then begins brutally dispatching them really cemented itself as one of the most influential horror movies of the 1980s, and helped to establish a number of the tropes of horror movies.

But, skip forward thirty two years to the present day and many of the things that were so original about The Evil Dead are now clichéd and predictable. But it's not just that. This reboot/remake/sequel just didn't have any magic to it - the characters are dull and stupid and it's impossible to really care about them; the gore, while substantial, never really felt particularly imaginative. And perhaps most telling of all, while there are literally buckets of blood, there are very few substantial scares.

Can I recommend a cinema viewing? No, please don't encourage them.

Can I recommend it for a watch on DVD/Bluray/Netflix? Well, if you fancy watching a horror movie where the gore is more outstanding than the cast and you are prepared for an awful air of predictability then feel free to give it a go.

My rating: 5 out of 10.

Iron Man 3 Review

Three, if we are to rely upon the veracity of De La Soul, is the magic number.

But the truth is, three is often a dangerous number when it comes to movies. Too often it seems that the third movie is the one in which a franchise reveals its flaws; sometimes (like in Beverly Hills Cop III) it shows itself  as a franchise that has run out of steam and out of ideas, sometimes (like in Jaws 3) it shows itself to be almost a parody of the movie that spawned it, while other times (like in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective Jr) it's just so apocalyptically bad that it's hard to believe that it shares even the vaguest creative DNA with its predecessors.

So, with Jon Favreau (director of the first two Iron Man installments) having stepped aside and Shane Black (writer of Lethal Weapon and writer/director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) taking over the directorial reins for this third installment, the question was whether Iron Man still had its mojo workin' or whether it was set to join a long list of third movie failures...

Iron Man 3 picks up on events post-The Avengers and we meet a Tony Stark who is struggling to sleep, is struggling to maintain his relationship with Pepper, and is trying to cope with occasional bouts of anxiety attacks (which I would imagine are very much a risk after having hand-delivered a nuke to another dimension and then falling several miles to near certain doom). Yes, the old Tony Stark is still there - the playfulness, the witty repartee - but things clearly aren't the same for him since the Chitauri hit town last summer.

And while Tony struggles to come to terms with his inner demons, a new terrorist is in town - The Mandarin (played by Ben Kingsley), who is seemingly always several steps ahead of the US government, and whose actions soon bring him into direct conflict with Tony Stark. But, as well as a terrorist to worry about, there's also Aldrich Killian (played by Guy Pearce), a blast from Tony Stark's past whose motives are initially rather unclear but who is clearly playing with some dangerous technology...

For me, Iron Man 3, deftly avoids the obvious third movie pitfalls and, despite us joining a slightly more world weary Tony Stark, this was - for me - the lightest movie in the franchise so far, with more than a few nods in the direction of family entertainment (while still managing a fewer slyer winks for its older fans). Robert Downey Jr. simply is Tony Stark, to the point that it's hard to see where Robert ends and Tony begins and that's good because there were a few places where it was up to Downey to carry the whole movie (luckily, that's the kind of challenge he's up for).

Guy Pearce delivers as Killian, while Ben Kingsley manages to present a truly multi-faceted performance in the role as The Mandarin. There is plentiful action, more explosions than you can shake a stick at and enough CGI to keep even the most devout CGI fan nourished for some time...

...but, it was not quite the comic book perfection that we got with The Avengers. The motives of the main villain were more than a little unclear and, at times, his plan seemed to be rather torturous when something far simpler could have delivered exactly the same benefits. Also, despite there being more people in suits in this movie than all the other Iron Man movies put together, there was less Iron Man in Iron Man 3 than I was expecting (and far more Tony Stark).

I also imagine that comic book fans will have their own opinions on this interpretation of The Mandarin, which stands out as quite different to the character we've come to know through the Iron Man comics. Some will see this version as a master stroke, others are likely to come away feeling they've changed the character too much...

But, none of that can take away from the fact that Iron Man 3 delivers quality, popcorn-fuelled, entertainment and is the first true blockbuster of this movie year that really has to be seen in the cinema to be properly appreciated. It's fun, it's action-packed and - while it has a few moments where the pace dips - it's still a solid 8.5 out of 10 for me.

Snitch Movie Review

First things first; you may be wondering why this is a purely written review rather than one of those fancy, newfangled video reviews I was experimenting with recently. Well, it's not because I hate the sound of my own voice (although it does sound so very wrong to me!), and it's not because I'm just too damn lazy (although it is an awful lot of work to put a video review together). No, it's actually because I just couldn't find anywhere quiet enough to record properly today. If it wasn't people shouting in the street and quad-bikes revving insanely past, it was one of my dogs snoring so loudly the microphone kept picking it up. So, no audio. Just words.

By the way, I finally took the plunge and bought myself a Pathe card - meaning unfettered access to all the movies I can possibly face seeing, and a likely increase in the number of reviews that are going to be coming your way in the near future...

Ok, so on with the review.

Frankly, if you saw the trailer for Snitch (which featured more than a smattering of blazing guns, exploding cars and lorries sliding down roads) then you may have been slightly misled into thinking that is just another one of those mid-budget actions films starring The Rock. But, you see, this isn't really an action movie at all - it's more of a slow-boiling thriller which has a bit of action littered throughout. And it's not starring The Rock, it's starring Dwayne Johnson.

Dwayne Johnson is in slightly different territory here - he's playing an everyman character, as opposed to a rampaging action hero. He plays the part of John Matthews, the owner of a construction business whose perfect life with his wife and daughter is interrupted by a problem from his former marriage in the shape of his estranged teenage son, Jason (Rafi Gavron).

Jason has got himself into a bit of a drug-related pickle. Having rather stupidly agreed to accept delivery of several grands worth of drugs from a friend, he finds himself in the middle of a drug sting and despite attempting to do a runner, is swiftly snatched up by the po-po. It turns out his 'friend' set him up in order to reduce his own sentence and, thanks to the mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug possession that are in place within Missouri, Jason is suddenly facing a minimum of ten years in prison if he doesn't snitch on someone else. The problem for Jason is that, since he isn't actually a drug dealer, he doesn't have anyone to snitch on and he refuses to set someone up like he was set up...

Step forward his dad who goes to see the state's attorney (Susan Sarandon) and, after much pleading, manages to persuade her to reduce his son's sentence if he can gather evidence on drug dealing and bring her a bigger bust.

And so, with the reluctant help of an ex-con at his construction firm (played by Jon Bernthal of The Walking Dead) John gets introduced to the world of drug gangs, firstly in the form of the rather dangerous Malik (played by a scene stealing Michael Kenneth Williams) before working his way up (perhaps a tad coincidentally) to some real heavy hitters...

There are more than a few things to like in Snitch. For a start I was surprised to find that Dwayne Johnson can act. No, seriously...for once, I'm not even being sarcastic. Dwayne Johnson gets an opportunity to show off his acting chops and he does a far better job than I was expecting. And the issue of mandatory minimum drug sentencing forcing people to snitch on friends just to help wriggle off the hook they're on is quite an interesting one to explore...

...but...

It felt like the movie was a little unsure of what kind of movie it wanted to be. On one hand, it's a thriller that examines serious issues...but, it's The Rock so we have to throw in a couple of action scenes. On one hand, Dwayne Johnson plays an everyman who gets in over his head in order to save his son...but, it's The Rock so we're waiting for the moment when he unleashes himself like a one man wrecking crew. And, maybe because director Ric Roman Waugh has a background in movie stunt work, some of the stunts feel a little forced in the context of the rest of the movie (on a side note - what's with the love of attaching cameras to the grills of cars and the sides of lorries? Some rather strange choices of shots at times...).

Plus, there are rather too many contrivances to ensure that the plot gets from A to B as expected. It starts off in the realms of the fairly believable but things get less and less credible as the story progresses. The movie boasts that it is 'inspired by real events' but I'm thinking that the real event was probably the mandatory minimum sentencing law and everything else here is purely fictional - but what do I know?

At the end of the day, this isn't awful. Dwayne Johnson is a far better actor than I'd expected (he's not Al Pacino, but he's no Arnold Schwarzenegger either) but the film would probably have worked better with a genuine everyman actor rather than a guy who's built like a brick shithouse and looks capable of snapping most of the movie's bad guys like toothpicks if he should so desire.

Is it worth seeing at the cinema? Probably not.

Worth a watch on DVD if you've got nothing doing and you fancy seeing something that's easy to follow and isn't purely car chases and shoot-outs? Sure, why not. It's not a movie that you'll remember (in fact I'm forgetting it already) but I'm going to give it a 6 out of 10.

Oliver's Movie Reviews - Wreck-It Ralph

After a receiving a wealth of feedback on my first ever movie review - the best of which I collated and then totally forgot to follow - I decided it was about time I had another go at this film reviewing malarkey. The first order of business was (of course)a bit of guitaring over the intro and outro and I even managed to sling together something resembling end credits. Time, and feedback, will tell whether I managed to get any better at this second time around but - regardless - I'm still rather enjoying it...

Today's review is Wreck-It Ralph:

Oliver's Movie Reviews - Jack Reacher

In something of a change from the usual service I decided to have a go at doing a movie review of the new Tom Cruise film, Jack Reacher. I rather enjoyed writing it and putting it together and, if one or two people besides me also manage to derive a modicum of enjoyment from it then I might just be persuaded to make this something of a habit...