An intensely bleak and frank look at five soldiers lives within the confines of a tank at the final moments of World War Two, Fury doesn't pull its punches and proves to be one solid war movie.
Brad Pitt heads the story as tank "Fury's" captain Don Collier during the conclusion of World War 2 and the allied forces merciless push deep into enemy territory in Germany. With the enemy more fraught and zealous than ever, Allied forces are being cut down in what is an exhausted, pointless phase of the war. His tank crew are one of the few survivors on the spearhead.
The film begins with one of their five man crew killed in action and a greenhorn rookie is recruited in to take his place. This recruit is little more than a typist, played by a fresh-faced Logan Lerman, and given the task of co-driver, so you can see immediately where our character development comes from. Lerman's character Norman is the audience surrogate and introduces us to not only the bleak reality around him but also how aggressively inhuman his crewmates have become over the months of war.
The acting here is superb. Director David Ayer apparently drove his actors hard here and you can see it. Pitt's recent career has been debatable but he is great here! Transformers star Shia LeBeouf is playing a very downplayed character role here, which is also impressive; he works well as one of the tank crew veterans.
The action and tank battles are also excellent; the film works in plenty of quiet and morose moments to exaggerate the moments of carnage in comparison. Most of Fury is quiet, bleak and consuming to watch, but the action is intense and fantastic to see. Tanks aren't often shown so completely in movies, and Fury shows quite how vulnerable humans are both outside and inside the vehicle! Whenever someone so much as pops their head out of the vehicle you start wincing, fearing some sudden shot will kill them at any moment!
It is a very effective character piece and a solid portrayal of wartime artillery in the guise of Hollywood action. It does suffer from fairly predictable story elements and progression, like I said, our surrogate is a rookie surrounded by veterans, and while you might not be surprised by the time the film ends, you should be moved enough by the acting on show that it more than makes up for these short comings.
I recommend it, it isn't rife with American propaganda, in fact it muddies what is right and what is wrong as war time so often does very well. Setting the story near the end of the war gives you a real vibe of how senseless and wasteful events truly became.
An independent Australian production, the critics appear to be raving about The Babadook, but honestly I thought it was hopeless.
Single mother Amelia struggles to cope with her six year old son named Samuel who appears to have violent, antisocial behavior. When a book called "Mister Babadook" mysteriously comes into their possession, things go from bad to worse as an unseen entity haunts them. Is it all in their imagination?
I went into The Babadook with absolutely no idea what it was or what it was about. A five-star rating from Empire certainly made me invested in seeing it.
The film is a slow boil. If the audience is looking for the next Insidious or even a new Woman in Black, they will be sorely mistaken and will quickly become restless. But this isn't where the film lost me. The Babadook does well in setting up two characters who are both unhappy and deeply troubled, our actors Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman are great at invoking unease and bringing a lot of physical acting into their roles. Also the best, best part of this film is surely the "Mister Babadook" book itself, a creepy, demented children's pop-up book which is wonderfully designed. There's little wrong with the setup of this film, even if it does feel at times like an episode of Kids say the Darndest Things.
But things quickly go downhill after the first forty minutes or so. The story is only ninety minutes long but it feels like an eternity by the time the third act swings around. While Noah Wiseman's Samuel is believably weird, after so much screaming and yelling you become apathetic to him, and when things finally begin to happen the film immediately cheapens itself. Our wait through domestic troubles and the alienation from our characters' friends is rewarded with some of the most cliche horror beats and unintentionally funny and awkwardly paced scenes. I'd say it was all intentionally funny if it weren't for the volume of critics and audiences claiming it is genuinely terrifying...
The Babadook is an independent film, as I said, and I appreciate that, but they ignored a far more terrifying end to this story (an ending more likely within their budget too) and chose a more straight-forward, cliche, horror movie finale. I was never frightened or on the edge of my seat throughout this movie, and the pay-off was completely absurd and laughable after the inexorably long build up.
The best I can say about it at the end of the day is: great acting, good potential in the story and a unique creature. Just a shame it was so badly implemented.
Additional Marshmallows: I just like saying the word Babadook.
Babadook.
Babadook. Babadook.Babadook-dook-dook...
Uh oh...
It is very stupid, very loud and with a pacing that never slows down, but as dispensable as it truly is it still feels like what a Turtles movie is. I enjoyed it.
News reporter April O'Neil suspects there are vigilantes in New York City that are fighting back against the notorious terrorist cell known as the Foot Clan, yet has no evidence. However her investigation makes her life a whole lot weirder.
Writing a synopsis for something so engrained in public knowledge seems preposterous, the Turtles have been in mainstream circulation for nearly thirty years (almost as old as I am, and include the original comics and they ARE as old as I am!) yet the film seems at odds about how to treat this issue.
It plays narratively like an origin story (with some alterations) yet is edited as though we already know these characters. Is that a roundabout way to say "The characters aren't fleshed out enough"? Yes, yes it is.
I grew up with the cartoon so I know these characters, yet when in the third act we get big sweeping character moments it feels completely out-of-the-blue due to the lack of characterisation! It doesn't bother me personally, but it bothers me as a critic: characters haven't been established in this origin story.
However the characters are great fun, despite all of this, as they remain unchanged. It feels like the Turtles of old are back again and bigger than ever (literally) I personally have very little to say about how they look, which apparently is a massive problem for many people. I will take a new, fresh look over replicating the same thing over and over.
Shredder too is a very important aspect in my affections for the franchise, Shredder was always a favourite of mine and when this film apparently advertised American actor William Fichtner to be Shredder I had to swallow a lot of my frustrations to give it a chance... But as it turns out, I am happy to say, Fichtner is NOT Shredder! This Shredder is quite bad ass actually.
So Shredder is good, the Turtles are good, designs are good, story is pulpy and full of predictable cliche that will make reluctant parents roll their eyes but is serviceable, now onto what I considered the biggest problem in the film's production: Ms Megan Fox.
Any actress could play April, honestly, it isn't a hard role to play. But why Fox, why? Luckily though the film, with a dollop of self-awareness, defuses this disdain by beginning with Fox's recent career metaphorically summerised in one humourous tirade. Also most of the supporting cast begin by suspecting April's sanity is in question. Did that alleviate all of my disgust? No, but it certainly helped!
It isn't as ADD as the Transformers movies, the story behind this film is so incredibly simple that you are just awash with action sequences and can accept it as just that. That being said, I would have liked a quiet moment or two tossed in there to help the pacing. The script does what you'd expect: poke fun at the ludicrous premise while having our heroes quip and cheer obliviously as they always do.
You've probably already decided whether you are seeing it or not, and my pro-Transformers opinions probably don't sway any of you naysayers, but I enjoyed it for what it was. It wasn't as good as it could have been, but it did feel like a Turtles movie.
Additional Marshmallows: I am a big enough Turtles nerd to have spotted the little Usagi Yojimbo reference!
So I guess I should eat my words a little bit... well done James Wan, you managed to prove you can direct some scares after all!
When writing the synopsis for horror films, it always sounds the same:
When a family move into a new house in the countryside they find themselves noticing an increasing amount of supernatural goings on. But when these ghostly happenings start to target their children, the parents decide to call in two experts to investigate...
On paper The Conjuring sounds like every single haunted house story that has ever come before it, and that's because it sort of is. Familiar ground is tread frequently here, even from director James Wan's own arsenal (the deplorable Insidious) but happily I can report that The Conjuring delivers a great dollop of spooky atmosphere and deliver tropes and cliches well enough that they prove decent amounts of scares.
Patrick Wilson is back, but this time he isn't playing the victim but the analytical partner of the investigative team, Ed Warren, and beside him Vera Farmiga as his clairvoyant wife Lorraine. Together they want to help the Perron family who, not a day or two after moving into their new home, lose their dog and find a dusty, sealed basement in their house.
The film boasts the tried and tested "Based on a true story" tagline, but of course this can be taken with a pinch of salt, it comes with all the Hollywood trappings of a classic possession story. Spooky doll? Check. Spooky girl? Check (the Pessons actually have five daughters to utilize for scares!) Spooky tree? Check. Spooky piano and music box? Check and check. If all of this is to be believed then I guess reality isn't so far from a screenwriter's dreams after all!
Wilson and Farmiga deliver decent performances, the character of Lorraine definitely stealing the show being at the centre of most of the film's quieter, tense scenes. But Lili Taylor's casting as the mother was transparent. I don't like criticising this, but when an actor/actress becomes typecast to this degree within a single genre the plot becomes predictable!
But for what it is worth, The Conjuring delivers a lot of good tension and murky atmosphere. It is hard to believe this is directed by the man who directed Insidious... they are very different in tone and substance. It might be full of tropes and maybe a little forgettable, but I am fairly certain you will be avoiding mirrors, looking over your shoulder and questioning any bump in the night for a while afterwards. And that's what is important.
Additional Marshmallows: For a film called "The Conjuring" there wasn't a whole lot of conjuring going on.
Additional additional Marshmallows: The cinema where I worked when this film released proved to me how few people could pronounce the title. CON-JEW-RAN.
A twisting thriller with fantastic performances from the two leads, reminds a lot of old thrillers from the late eighties and early nineties.
Isn't marriage wonderful...!
...
Nick and Amy are happily married and live together as writers. He is a simple but handsome and likeable soul while she is pragmatic, beautiful and slightly aloof. But when one day Nick returns home to find Amy missing and the house becomes the scene of a crime, he finds himself under scrutiny in a police investigation and mystery that quickly grips the nation. What happened to Amy?
It is very hard to talk about Gone Girl without spoiling most if not all of the film, so I will endeavour to restrain myself. Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike have never been better than in this film, especially Pike who might very well be onto a career defining role here.
The characters aren't the only well defined element here, but the depiction of the media and how it affects the masses, showing people en masse as a fickle mob that will lash out at whoever they are told to. One example, no spoilers, is best shown early on when Affleck's Nick, dazed and bewildered by his predictament, absently smiles once during press photographs. This one moment is seen blown out of proportion as a media frenzy calls it proof that he murdered his wife! Whether he did or not, the sudden backlash over such a small detail is very well implemented here.
The film starts out strong, running two stories parallel with Nick's current predicament and Amy's diary leading up to her disappearance. The police investigation is spearheaded by Kim Dickens as Detective Rhonda Boney, and her cool calculated start to the case both comforts and threatens Nick in equal measure.
I would say the film loses its integrity a little in the third act, not to give anything away, though the audience has to give the film a little benefit of the doubt. I saw what was being done, but the implementation felt a little rushed towards the end.
I might also say that... it was a little predictable. Not to say that it wasn't incredibly suspenseful! It certainly was, and the characters were all so well portrayed that I scarcely noticed the one-hundred and fifty minute runtime pass! But even a little reading between the lines will probably show you what's really going on.
I wish I could say more, Gone Girl is packed with suspense and thrills (and even some nice humour) it is bleak at times, sexually charged in others, and overall a very rewarding piece of drama.
Oh James Wan... no matter how hard you try you still aren't convincing any scares out of me.
Following the events of the first film, Chapter 2 follows the Lambert family as they attempt to leave the horrors behind by moving into father Josh Lambert's old home. But when they do it is apparent something is still lingering and following Josh from his previous experiences.
To say I hate 2010's Insidious would be... accurate. I found it abrasive, stupid, childish and worst of all not scary. You might wonder then why I even bothered watching the sequel? Well I am a man who looks for the best in people, and perhaps Chapter 2 might prove to be director James Wan's redemption.
It isn't really.
All of Insidious 2's saving graces are in its final act where it takes what little original ideas it has and spins some clever, elaborate trickery for the briefest of moments. As a film it also drops a lot of the "stupidity" I mentioned from the first film: instead of Darth Maul from the Star Wars films being the ghoul in question (and silly Irish-jig-ghost-boy) we get a more traditional ghost story woven together with some unnerving domestic abuse undertones. Patrick Wilson as the father plays his part well too, and is probably the only stand out performance here.
The tone and pacing feels much the same as Insidious, we still have our gormless "ghost hunter" sidekicks chewing up the scenery. If you actually liked Insidious you will enjoy this just as much!
But James Wan still treats his film like amateur-hour ghost stories. The soundtrack still drives me completely batty, telegraphing surprise scares like a great big warning sign with a narrator. "EAK EAK EAK EAK" "WooooooOOOOOOOooOooOoOOOEOOOEOEEEeeeeeeeeeEEEEE".
James... it is possible to scare people without the silly violin and piano chords.
In fact, there was one, ONE moment that actually freaked me. In this entire film, one fleeting shot was actually clever enough to surprise me, and you know what? It didn't have any music playing during.
I've never seen so many badly timed and badly implemented jump scares, at least not since the first Insidious. I kid you not, one such initial scare was basically the mother walking into a toddler's walking frame. THE HORROR. The first hour was extremely dull and so predictable that you'd have to be seeing this film with a friend to get any enjoyment out of it. A friend who has the spacial awareness and self security of a paranoid doormouse.
So no, I didn't care for Insidious Chapter 2, there are far far better scares in superior films (I couldn't help but feel this was directly ripping off one such film, The Woman in Black) and while its third act has a bit more merit and intrigue, it takes a long hour to get there.
