From the creator of 2013's Prisoners, and getting ridiculously high critical acclaim, but Sicario is no Prisoners.
An FBI agent who stumbles upon the dealings of a drug cartel is roped into a special Government taskforce to aid in the neutralisation of the drug trade on the US and Mexican borders.
I don't get the massive critical success of Sicario. I really don't. While director Denis Villeneuve really has his stamp upon it stylistically; it has the same perpetually moody, grim and intense atmosphere, as a story and as a film it really doesn't do anything.
Emily Blunt leads the cast as Kate Macer, an FBI agent who we see in the film's opening stumble across a house where the walls are lined with corpses. This opening is, frankly, the best and most interesting part of this entire film. There's a real sense of dread, a sense of putridity and cruelty that is amplified by the film's score. The film grabs you instantly, but it slowly loosens its grip.
Kate Macer quickly becomes a non-character. She has vague motives at best to help this taskforce, and they (led by Josh Brolin) do not tell her anything; everything is deliberately kept secret from her. Why? That would be the film's anchor, the meat of the story is how this unit alienates and treats her like a ghost. It would be, had the film actually led to anything worthwhile.
On top of this, Emily Blunt can play a strong female protagonist, yet here her character is made to be virtually useless; she even nearly accidentally sleeps with a villain. The mystery of why she is even in this brutal, dangerous place becomes more of a nuisance than a compelling reason to watch.
The film's perspective moves gradually away from Macer completely, and towards Benicio Del Toro's character Alejandro, who is a quiet, seemingly unassuming man within the taskforce who when asked refuses to say who he works for. There's an uncomfortably long stint where we are following a woman we know nothing about, following a man she knows nothing about, for reasons we don't know. And like I said, the film ends with very little pay off for all this mystery.
The film's opening is fantastic. It really, really is. The score, Blunt and Del Toro are also all incredible with the roles they play in the film. The music is unsettling and make the omnipresence of threat from all directions palpable; the film's sense of dread is incredible and does test your wits and drains your resolve.
But it drags itself down with a over reliance on mystery and it loses the audience. Fans of Prisoners might be expecting a twist or two that never come, or audiences are put out by characters we don't especially care about.
I criminally underrated Prisoners, and I would rather watch that again than Sicario.
Clint Eastwood's directorial step into the Iraq war with this biopic proves to be clunky despite his trademark skill at getting the best possible performances from his actors.
American Sniper is based off the real life heroics of one Chris Kyle, a Texan "cowboy" turn SEAL sniper during the war in Iraq. He was quickly realised to be the most lethal sniper in US history, called by his peers as Legend, with over one hundred and sixty confirmed kills to his name.
The film charts not only his impressive career and the dangers he faced but more importantly his fracturing state of mind and the war's influence on his family life.
This must be the most stoic and intense performance I've ever seen from Bradley Cooper, turning himself from the know-it-all pretty boy into a muscular, patriotic and multi-layered soldier.
You know what to expect going into a film directed by Eastwood; a film driven by stunning performances that drive home heart-string pulling sympathy and emotion, and he certainly rubbed off on Cooper. Kyle's relationship with his wife, played by Sienna Miller, has a lot of chemistry and proves to be the best element of the film.
But for all of this good chemistry (and without spoiling the story if you don't know already) I found the film to be skirting around some of the real issues, issues that Eastwood would have given real gravitas to, instead preferring to show rather classic and archetypal war story beats. Scenes that could provide more emotional weight end before things are fully realised, at least I didn't feel as moved by the characters and their peril as I could have been. A defining moment for this is the ending, literally the last few minutes were the most emotional of the entire movie, to the point were it almost feels forced.
Being based off Kyle's autobiography, and how seemingly patriotic he was as a person, one wonders how accurate the story's antagonists really are, specifically an enemy sniper who's skill could only be matched by Kyle himself. What could have been a moving character study that Eastwood would excel at, becomes a little cartoonishly heroic. It feels more like a movie about his incredible deeds (which are incredible) instead of a biopic about the man himself.
Clunky is the word I would use. It was a decent film for Bradley Cooper's performance and some intense moments, but it didn't do enough to get me completely invested; I came away from it remembering a lot of standard war story beats.
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.
Very loosely based off the novel by the same name, Starship Troopers was a pretty infamous film when I was growing up, but it has become a cult favourite of the science fiction genre. Unfortunately... people thought this lightning-in-a-bottle exploitation of Paul Verhoeven deserved a sequel... and another sequel...
To this day I refused to watch the sequels, but now I feel I am ready to see just how trashy they really are.
Yes, there is a third animated sequel now, but that one will have to wait!
Starship Troopers (1997)
Paul Verhoeven's sci-fi love letter to warploitation and war satire still stands up by today's scrutiny! As silly and self-aware as it is.
In a future were Humanity is in the middle of a mindless war with an unknown alien force, enrollment with the military is encourage and even enforced over young people. Ricco is one such young soldier, and the story follows his recruitment, training and finally battle experiences.
If there is one thing Verhoeven is good at, it is making vastly enjoyable, satirical adult movies, distilled most completely in this film and 1987's RoboCop. The film takes the few comic skits from RoboCop (television adverts) and blows them up by eleven with full military recruitment videos that treat war, bloodshed and killing in defense of Earth as a family friendly commitment for all, young and old. The satire is rife throughout this film, coupled with the seemingly ambiguous designs or origins of the war to begin with! It is great fun, though I'm sure some audiences might find some grief in it if they are looking for a more "serious" toned sci-fi film.
Starship Troopers is a long, loaded film too. It goes through multiple phases as we follow not just Rico's (Casper Van Dien) career but also his girlfriend's (Denise Richards) career as a space pilot and their own friends. The narrative almost feels episodic, but its heart and satire prevents it from feeling like a stop-and-start.
The visual effects, asides the occasional alien, are still fantastic. Verhoeven clearly put a lot of money and effort into making his film look physical and practical, with model effects for the spaceships and several physical effects for some aliens. This coupled with awesome blood squibs to ramp up the gore makes the film a riot in terms of action and war scenarios!
This film has some infamy for me personally; at least, for people my age. Released in 1997 were I was thirteen, this film became notorious for containing aliens, war, swearing, nudity and gore, I remember friends feeling proud having seen it! It certainly delivers all of these things in ample supply!
It has plenty of cliche, and the episodic nature of the screenplay makes things feel a little forced at times, especially with how flippantly the universe and the society are described. It plays fast and loose with its logic which might annoy or perplex more cynical people. It has surprisingly not aged, though there is one scene at a party with some pretty dated music playing!
Overall it is a great science fiction action movie! I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys the genre and hasn't seen it yet. It is gory, adult, full of wartime satire and packed with action set pieces and awesome special effects.
Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation (2004)
Without Paul Verhoeven at the helm and a fraction of the original film's budget, none of the cast returning... the sequel completely tanks unless viewed in a vacuum (of space!)
Set after the events of the first film, the story follows a platoon devastated in the war against the Bugs on a distant planet. They become entrenched within an abandoned factory, and while their psychic officer sense something within their ranks, they find an imprisoned and disgraced officer.
Well... this is certainly a step down from the original's budget and tone! The film opens with action as our squad is vastly outnumbered... at least... we assume they are. The cinematography is terrible, the shots alternate between our characters shooting in a grey fog, to aliens running around in isolation.
The majority of the film however takes place inside the factory, and actually takes the tone of a horror movie instead of an all out war film like Verhoeven's original. We get very few of the original aliens; our protagonists are safe behind a surrounding energy barrier, instead the threat comes in the form of body-snatchers.
The budget kills the film stone dead, the filming is poor, the acting is poor, we are trapped in a single location and the enemies are hiding within our human characters, and by comparison to its glorified and sprawling predecessor this film deserves a lot of frustration and hate. It doesn't even attempt to justify its existence with decent setup and connection with the greater universe.
But... by its own merits, it has some redeeming factors. It has some decent claustrophobia, and there are still great physical alien effects that are gooey and bursting with venom and bile. Director Phil Tippett has done very little actual direction work, but he had worked as a stop-motion animation supervisor and creator on such little known films as RoboCop, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and the original Star Wars trilogy! While his direction is terrible, I can appreciate the monster effects that he clearly had a lot of say with.
I suppose I had such low expectations for this film that these few decent qualities surprised me and actually made me appreciate the atmosphere generated.
Put it this way, the first film had a budget of $100,000,000, this film had $7,000,000! Not even a tenth of the original budget! So while it is very questionable why this film even exists, you can forgive its need to reuse "money-shots" from the first film, and television-grade acting.
There are better body-snatcher stories out there, it has little to no connection with the first film, making it quite a redundant watch unless you like to see some creepy alien designs.
Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (2008)
Directed neither by Verhoeven or Tippett, Marauder was a straight-to-DVD affair even in the USA and directed by Edward Neumeier. It claws back some of the original's satirical tone, has more budget to play with but feels really awkward when it is all said and done.
Johnny Rico (played by returning actor Casper Van Dien) now a Colonel, must rescue an important psychic military leader who's ship crash lands on a distant world. The handful of soldiers on the planet must hold out against approaching aliens long enough to be saved, yet political espionage threatens Ricco's rescue attempt.
Unlike the second film, the third movie attempts to embrace the wider universe and government that lurks in the background of the franchise, and... marginally fails in doing so. While it does recapture some of the tone and satire, the delve into why this corrupt, military controlled government shows the flaws in the premise all too well, and this film lacks the ambiguity the original film could play with.
The killer issue I had with this film is a strange switch of narrative direction when we get to the third act. A villain, determined by their actions, is positively redeemed and proven to be correct about everything and virtually wins when other conspiracies come to light. It is hard to explain without "spoiling" it, but it felt as though the third act had been rewritten for some reason and a narrative (and thematic) flip occurs. There's also a heavy handed religious development, which comes out of nowhere and doesn't feel right within the satire of warploitation movies...
Despite Rico returning, the film is mostly centred around Captain Lola Beck (Jolene Blalock, of Star Trek: Enterprise... err... fame?) as she leads the hopeless survivors of the crash landing to safety. While this isn't terrible by providing some nice landscapes and photography, the script is bland and I counted several occasions where they rip off Pitch Black ("Where's your God now?" quips Beck)
While the budget is a little better here, it is still woefully short at $9million, the bugs CG looks like the worst it has ever been, though the film maintains a level of physical effects. The opening attack on an entrenched fortress is decent and has some fun moments.
The film feels quite scatter gun, as if they wanted to hit as many notes as possible like the original film but with a fraction of the cost, most notable is the completely shoehorned "group nude scene" that presumably fills in for the original's shower scene. But unlike a shower scene, this one feels completely unnecessary and completely gratuitous.
It is hard to say which is better, ST2 or ST3... While the second film lacks any of the tone or heart or integrity of the first film, it does feel more comfortable with its singular purpose. The third film feels like a low-rent but full sequel to the original, despite narrative flaws and cheap special effects. While it is a close call... the third film's attempt to be an actual sequel means it just wins out.
Having just seen The Monuments Men, I opted to find another unorthodox "war film" starring George Clooney. This time though, it was a lot of fun!
Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) is a reporter out to prove himself to his cheating girlfriend, and may have found the story to make a name for himself. Lyn Cassady (George Clooney) was once a military officer who was trained in psychic warfare as part of "The New Earth Army". In following Cassady, Bob must travel to Iraq and discover whether the story is true or utter lunacy.
The film opens with the teasing text: More of this is true than you would believe. That is exactly how this entire film plays out, in a constant state of egging you on, testing how far you can believe a real military organisation would go to win a war.
A lot of the comedy comes from bending your suspension of disbelief, and the deadpan, honest delivery of so much nonsense. The root of the story, for example, is that the American military decide to start researching into psychic powers because the Russians had begun similar tests. Tests the Russians begun because the Americans had attempted it first... which wasn't the case at all; it was a French hoax. Eventually entire divisions were created and funded for the development of real psychic powers!
Enter Jeff Bridges as Bill Django, a Vietnam veteran who started the project and inspired Lyn to be come a "Warrior Monk", or "Jedi", through military practices more closely resembling a hippie movement! Believing they can walk through walls, stare animals to death, being able to remote view distant places and will people into submission.
Bob is unfortunately stranded in wartorn Iraq with Lyn, living with the man's delusions while trying to discover if any of it is in fact true!
The film is a bizarre, oddball experience but seen through the sane lense of McGregor's character. Had this film been directed by Terry Gilliam or The Coen Brothers it would have been a surrealist experience, but as it stands it is a comedy simply about the characters. Clooney delivers some great lines, true nonsense yet given with such deadpan sincerity. Bridges, of course, chews the scenery and has a riot as a new age pacifist, and it is hard to restrain the giggles when Ewan McGregor asks, with a straight face, "What is a Jedi warrior?"
I definitely enjoyed it. It isn't a war film, but it encapsulates a lot of the lunacy and blind convictions that people can have in times of crisis. It is a great example of actors delivering so much humour with such conviction.
It is good fun, full of familiar faces, and far from the norm!
Zero Dark Thirty is more of a requirement in film than it is in art, giving some sense of closure to millions affected, and treats the subject with respect.
The film follows the true events of one CIA woman's dogged determination to finally find and kill terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden.
Directed by Katheryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) the film is in good hands; it maintains a dedicated honesty from start to finish, it never blemished the story, its development or the characters and gives you a real sense that these events took place. It is almost more of a documentary than a drama in that respect.
Its pace is slow, and with a runtime of 210 minutes it may seem a little long in the middle, but it is good to be enacted in such a way. Everyone is waiting for the film's climax, but the slow burning build up only heightens your dedication to seeing it through to the end.
It is a necessary film. I mean that it feels like it takes you very personally on the characters' journeys to finding the terrorist, and this will give a tremendous amount of closure for the millions of people affected. The final night-time sequence is fascinating and starkly shot, giving the audience a full and involving representation of how the events truly unfolded.
The way that our protagonist Maya (Jessica Chastain) struggles to find the evidence and the clues she needs to give rise to military action, threatening to see it all collapse and give in at any moment, nicely catches the audience up in the cause.
I have my issues with films based on real (and recent) events. Film's like The Impossible, United 93, World Trade Centre do not interest me as they appear too deliberate and almost showboating with horrific events that are too fresh in our minds. Zero Dark Thirty however feels distanced enough to be acceptable; yes, it opens with real audio from the 9/11 attack, and includes a sequence representing (and archive News footage of) the London bus bombing, but the purpose of the film is not showing these events, it is to show the end of these events.
Some might argue that it is boring, too long and that the characters are relatively neutral but... I find it hard to agree. The film is an efficient and arrow straight visualisation of real events, to say it is inherently "bad" would be a mistake!
It is implemented with cold precision, and it doesn't attempt to charm or alleviate you as it progresses. The film's sole purpose is to give closure, and by the time the film finishes I think many people will feel satisfied and a little startled because of it.
I'm sure these days it is said: "Anyone can make a zombie film". Ozombie is proof that this is not the case.
Oh okay, as soon as you know the premise, you'll know that you cannot take this seriously, and it shouldn't be, but even as a spoof it is terrible.
So, after her brother Derek goes to Afghanistan in a wild revenge plot to kill Osama Bin Laden (despite by all accounts he was already killed), a Yoga instructor called Dusty joins a troop of soldiers to look for him. The team are out in the wilderness to hunt down the resurrected Bin Laden and his zombie horde.
Yeah, its one of those films, you know, the ones you watch with friends when you are all drunk? I can only compare this with the likes of Uwe Boll movies, yet... marginally... this deplorable, talentless waste of time is better than his movies.
It has zero charisma, despite how the dialogue is permanently set to "witty banter" mode, it doesn't even make particular fun of itself; there's no moment I felt like these actors were reveling in the stupidity.
The action is terrible and scenes are both poorly edited and poorly implemented, for example: a soldier gets jumped on as they are all standing in a circle facing each other, in a open clearing. How did no one see that zombie?
Our token woman in the squad has a samurai sword (for no given reason, I might add) and while in several shots the sword doesn't even have a physical blade, she clearly does not hit zombies through the head, yet they die anyway. Heck, in one scene a horde of brain-eaters just ceases to exist, failing to survive the film's editing.
Our characters are bland, the soldiers' only have back story when they are seconds away from dying. Derek is about thirty years old, yet clearly has the brain of a twelve year old. While I was greatly disappointed Dusty shows no sign of being a Yoga instructor... Come on, it SAYS that on the dvd BOX! She isn't even inconceivably wearing Yoga gear in the middle of a battle, that's how not joyfully silly this thing is.
Yes, I said it. This spoof film isn't even that outrageous, it isn't even Machine Girl silly, verging more towards Battle: Los Angeles levels of blandness. Why has it even got an 18 certificate?? There's blood yes, but not that much, there's no noticable bad language, no sex and no nudity, or even extreme gore or violence outside zombies getting shot in the head (sorry to sound so disappointed, but that's generally what makes things 18 rated!)
So no, spare yourself the trouble, unless you have a bunch of friends to watch this with while drinking yourselves senseless. The only grace this film had was a surprising amount of semi-realistic military hardware (NOT including the terribly CG animated helicopters. Yeah, apparently it is possible to animate helicopters badly)
Additional Marshmallows: Watching films like this, I find myself asking more logical questions than I should be, but that's what happens when you're given such a bizarre premise.
If you have soldiers sent against zombies, knowingly and willingly, surely you'd give them a means to end their own lives relatively painlessly? No, all these guys have is a friend planting a bullet into their face. Yeah, I'm sure their family will be happy to receive that body!
Battleship? More like a Sub...
...with ham and cheese!
Am I right?
Following the success of the Transformers film franchise, Hasbro runs its finger down the index of toy licenses they own and inexplicably land on the Battleship board game. The film follows a young man drafted into the Navy in a bid to get his act together and win the confidence of an Admiral whose daughter he has hopes to marry.
But during a Naval military training exercise, aliens attack!
This is an overlong, noisy and emotionless experience that has had way too much money thrown at it, but let's go into the positives first, lest this turn into a rant (which it will anyway)
As bad as it is, and as cheesy as it is, at least the film is self-aware that it has no credibility and doesn't even try. The special effects are very impressive in most areas, the alien designs are good (even though they look like numerous existing video game concepts) and the basic idea of the film isn't bad. Unfortunately it is blown way out of proportion and loses all credibility.
Now am I suggesting there was a better film adaptation of Battleship that hasn't been made? Yes, I actually am. (I surprise myself sometimes...) I am fine with several ships being locked in a contrived scenario against alien ships and resorting to Naval tactics and quick thinking to save the day. That's a small, intense situation; stuck on a boat against overwhelming odds.
But no, Battleship wastes time with either hammed up goofball antics or ham-fisted sincerity. We have our lead's girlfriend hiking around Hawaii with a double leg amputee in bid to restore his confidence, we have jocks playing football, we have computer geeks being socially weird, and later we have the lead cast hire a load of OAP Navy veterans to man an out of commission Battleship to win the day.
Now... I feel bad for saying this, but the "Booyah, America; we never back down!" vibe makes these otherwise sensitive and heartfelt scenarios (amputees and war veterans) a little silly. Especially when your film opens with your lead breaking into a grocery store to steal a chicken burrito to the sounds of the Pink Panther theme.
Yes, that happens.
Even having giant metal alien bowling balls smashing around cities and freeways, miles away from the ocean, has little to nothing to do with anything. All it does is waste time, waste money and make trailer-fodder. Why couldn't we have just had ships trapped at sea, fighting each other? Why do we need a girlfriend and an amputee subplot, why do we need computer nerds quoting ET, why do we need a tired romance subplot that gets completely sidelined by ocean battles?
Make things short, concise and clever! Not bigger, dumber and noisier!
It is a popcorn movie; it is loud and stupid and has no elements to warrant any real praise other than flashy special effects. If you want to waste some time, go for it, but you might find you've wasted too much time.
Additional Marshmallows: My argument for less-is-more would be perfectly described if I could only find the original, initial teaser trailer Battleship had. All it showed was Neeson on his ship's bridge, the energy shield locking off a section of ocean, battleships and alien ships facing off. That was it, and you know something? When I saw that trailer, I thought the film looked excellent!
Then the full trailer came out.
I'm having a hard time writing this review, as I think I'm in the minority who simply didn't get what the hype is all about?
Catch-22 is a 1970s war satirical comedy, created by the director behind The Graduate and based off the book by the same name. It follows a soldier who wishes to be declared insane so he can leave the military and escape the unjust chain of command, but the "catch" to this is that you have to be insane to fly into battle. To leave you must be insane, but to be insane you have to fight.
The film is a lot more than this however. Captain Yossarian is plagued by memories of a young officer killed in action, while everyone else around him seem utterly crazy themselves; from selling everyone's parachutes, to having men sliced in half, or even impersonating dead men.
I get satire, I really like Black Adder Goes Forth for example, but I was not expecting Catch-22's backwards, upside down, totally non-linear story structure. It disconnected me from the characters, and from most of the humour; I had no idea what was meant to be funny half the time, I think the first time I laughed was forty minutes in with Orson Welles character arriving on the scene!
I will say though, seeing real live World War Two machinery and aircraft taking off and flying was pretty amazing, and I won't say I didn't find several parts goofily funny. I certainly "got" the messages being thrown at me, but I simply couldn't engage with the choppy narrative structure. I've not read the book... I hear it is similarly "crazy".
Perhaps one should read the book first, or watch the film twice!
Spielberg is back at it again; tugging our heartstrings and does it with great ease. Yes, I do have a sentimental streak!
War Horse is a film adaptation of a stage play based from a children's book of the same name, and follows the traumatic adventures of a young man and a horse he befriends during World War One.
When a floundering farmer bids on purchasing a young stallion instead of a plough horse, it is up to the son to train the animal and rescue their family's farm from debt. Unfortunately after boy and animal have bonded, war is declared against Germany, and the horse is sold to the army. Distraught, the boy also enlists in the hope of finding his lost friend.
I was pleasantly surprised by the quirky sense of humour and love that the film's characters portray; I was wary of such films becoming heavy and sluggish with angst, but here there is a wonderful balance. The horse itself is a passenger for much of the movie, and we meet the many different faces that care for him throughout his fraught journey, each of them loaded with personality. I did not think the film was crass or corny.
Spielberg does not fail with the war torn environments and rolling hillsides; the brutality of trench warfare is played much like Saving Private Ryan's Beaches of Normandy.
My gripe with the movie however was very irritating... the Germans don't speak in German. Spielberg is great at being accurate, and there's a scene included with a British soldier meeting a German officer and he notes: "You speak good English"... Yes, and so does the entire German army! It made scenes set within German ranks quite unconvincing, and I think some added tension was lost in later scenarios. Spielberg should definitely have known better!
Still, I don't believe this to be a entirely destructive criticism; the film is wonderful and the final act is unquestionably powerful. 'Will I cry', you ask?
Of course you will.
Additional Marshmallows: BBC's Sherlock Holmes star Benedict Cumberbatch appears as a Major in the British military.
