Wednesday 31 July 2013

The Wolverine

It is somewhat befitting that Wolverine, the poster boy for the X-Men whose regenerative powers allow him to live beyond a conventional human lifespan, has always been played by Hugh Jackman ever since his first on-screen appearance way back in 2000. In the 13 years since X-Men hit cinemas we’ve seen countless superheroes come, go and assemble, yet Jackman and Wolverine have remained a constant presence in our multiplexes. You have to tip your hat to the Aussie actor, who despite his stature and handsome features (many forget Wolvs is supposed to be a 5”3 ferret man) has managed to inhabit the character to the point where the two have become virtually indivisible.

Which makes it an even bigger shame that The Wolverine doesn’t live up to its star’s talent and charisma, because despite lessons have clearly been learnt from the disappointing X-Men Origins: Wolverine, there is something aloof about Logan’s latest solo outing. Paradoxically, in a summer where we've already been treated to Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel, adamantium turns out to be the weakest bond. 

The first issue is mainly a narrative one. Despite being inspired by the popular series by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, the plot for the big-screen adaptation feels threadbare and more like an excuse to relocate our clawed protagonist to the Far East, just so that he can square off against a series of Yakuza thugs armed with knives, blades and assorted sharp objects. Admittedly, Japan makes for an exotic setting and a welcome diversion from past scenarios overpopulated with fellow mutants, but the novelty does wear off pretty quickly. Also, the curveball we were supposedly thrown in the trailers, i.e. that Logan would become once again mortal and therefore be bereft of his healing ability, turns out to be a damp squib (or is that squid?).

Secondly, there’s no getting around the fact that, hairy protagonist aside, there are no interesting characters to keep us gripped throughout. Tao Okamoto is a gorgeous presence as Mariko Yashida (one of Logan’s true great loves in the comics), but her modelling background means she is cornered whenever she needs to convey emotion. The villains don’t fare any better, with Will Yun Lee required to do little more than shoot arrows from buildings, while Svetlana Khodchenkova’s Viper brings to mind ugly memories of Batman & Robin’s Poison Ivy. Meanwhile, Famke Janssen is back as the ghostly apparition of Jean Grey, just in case anyone had forgotten this is an X-Men film. Why she has to wear a skimpy negligĂ©e in all of her scenes is never made clear but what the hell, we'll go with it...

And what about those afore-mentioned blade-on-blade scraps? There is an exhilarating sequence set on top of a speeding bullet train that will keep you on the edge of your seat, but fails to linger in memory like the similarly-themed Spidey vs Doc Ock tussle in Spider-Man 2. A stand-off with an army of ninjas in a snowy village starts off promisingly but ends just as things start to get dicey, while the final showdown with the Silver Samurai is likely to turn off fans of the comic, given the character’s lazy big-screen treatment.  

All of which leads to the conclusion that what The Wolverine lacks in mainly is direction. James Mangold is a perfectly competent filmmaker, but with Darren Aronofsky originally attached to the project, one can’t help but wonder how the movie would’ve turned out with the Wrestler and Black Swan director at the helm. A visionary auteur is always more likely to produce a more inspired and satisfying piece of work, even if it happens to be just a tentpole superhero film.

Nevertheless, the mid credits sequence alone is almost worth the price of the cinema ticket and based on what we glimpse in the space of a minute is enough to get one pumped for next year’s X-Men: Days of Future Past. And the best thing is, it’s shaping up to be Wolverine’s best on-screen adventure yet. Roll on 2014.

2/5

Sunday 28 July 2013

The World's End

Reunions with old friends can be something of a double-edged sword. Go in with no expectations and chances are you’ll feel not a day has gone by since you last saw each other, the bond and chemistry still wonderfully intact. If however you get hooked on nostalgia and try too hard to recreate fond memories that are best left in the past, you are more likely to end up with a crushing disappointment.

The World’s End, which reunites real-life best buds Simon Pegg and Nick Frost with director Edgar Wright six years after they last collaborated on a feature length project, is far from being the crushing disappointment you might have feared, yet somehow doesn’t quite live up to the expectations set by Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead.

The plot sees a group of high school friends being reunited by Gary King (Simon Pegg), former leader of the pack and self-appointed local legend, twenty years after they last tried to complete an epic pub crawl consisting of twelve venues, the final one being the titular World’s End. The problem is not everyone is keen on reliving the past quite like Gary, especially his estranged best mate Andrew (Nick Frost). And to make matters worse, the town of Newton Haven seems to have been taken over by an army of alien robots.

While Shaun was presented as “a romantic comedy with zombies” and Fuzz tried to transpose the buddy cop action movie conventions to a rural British setting, TWE positions itself as a coming of age film spliced with Sci-fi DNA. The first act is heavily invested in establishing the relationship between the core characters, so much that we’re introduced to them twice: first as teenagers and then as their older, mellower selves… except Gary is still clinging onto his glory years with the same firm grip he has on his outdated Goth wardrobe.

He is easily the most complex character we’ve seen Pegg play to date, especially as he’s always been the straight man to Nick Frost’s goofy sidekick, but this time the roles have been switched. The latter is a family man with a successful business, all too happy to have put his boozing years behind him. The former is a world class jerk with Peter Pan syndrome, desperately trying to conceal hidden, disturbing layers. It’s this role reversal that proves to be TWE’s biggest strength, the on-screen relationship between the two actors proving far more compelling than the chummier and straightforward versions seen in Shaun and Fuzz.

But herein lays the key problem with TWE. Because so much time is spent on the backstory and relationship between these characters, the sharp turn into sci-fi territory feels like a distraction from a more grounded and interesting narrative. In Shaun of the Dead the horror storyline feeds into the plot gradually by teasing the imminent arrival of the zombies with sight gags. Here the alien invasion is signalled by a sudden and very messy scrap with a group of chavs in the men’s room, which feels abrupt and forced in comparison.    

That’s not to say TWE isn’t as funny or as action-packed as its predecessors. If anything, the gag-rate is impressive and of the rapid fire kind, so much that you’ll struggle to remember all the stand-out lines (although “we’ll always have the disableds” is a contender for best of the bunch). The decision to follow through with a pub crawl in the midst of an otherworldly threat may be baffling from a logic point of view but it does make for demented action set pieces due to the characters’ increasingly inebriated state, with Nick Frost at one point coming off as a drunk Hulk/Jason Bourne hybrid, as he batters hordes of adversaries with the aid of stool chairs. If anything, it proves Edgar Wright has become just as comfortable directing fight scenes as he is at doing comedy, which bodes well for his upcoming Ant-Man gig for Marvel. And, this being a Wright/Pegg screenplay, you can expect a Cornetto reference and cameos abound.

It’s just a shame yet somewhat fitting that, keeping in theme with aliens being invasive, the film disappears up its own arse like a giant anal probe in its’ closing minutes (MILD SPOILERS FOLLOW). Is it really necessary to justify the invasion with an overlong exposition scene? Isn’t the epilogue a little too Mad Max for its own good? By this point it seems the filmmakers have already moved onto aping yet another movie genre instead of wrapping up nicely the one they’ve been focusing on for the past 100 minutes.

To adopt the reunion metaphor one last time, The World’s End feels like a pleasant enough catch-up where everyone has a good laugh, but there’s an underlying sensation you’re getting too old for this shit, or rather, that this shit is starting to get old. But we’ll raise nonetheless a glass to Pegg & co. for their valuable effort. After all, completing a well-loved trilogy is a feat just as impressive as completing a twelve venue pub crawl. Cheers to that.


4/5 

Thursday 18 July 2013

Pacific Rim

In the not too distant future planet Earth is invaded by a rapid succession of Kaiju (“giant monster” in Japanese) who emerge from a trans-dimensional portal at the heart of the Pacific Ocean and wreak havoc along the coasts of the surrounding continents. In the face of such devastating attacks, mankind responds to the otherworldly threat by constructing towering robots, Jaegers (“hunter” in German), that are capable of taking on the beasts head on, mano a mano.  

After skimming through the above synopsis it would be very easy to dismiss Pacific Rim as brainless schlockbuster entertainment. Giant robots? Decimated landmarks? It’s the sort of movie that Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich could pull off with their eyes closed (‘cause let’s be honest, there probably wouldn’t be much difference if they were open) and that they’d do in a heartbeat to pay for their new pool. But as it turns out, this actually happens to be the newest film by Guillermo Del Toro, the Mexican horror auteur who gave us Pan’s Labyrinth and that was, lest we forget, in line to direct The Hobbit until Peter Jackson took over the reins.

Now this nugget of information may not necessarily change your preconceptions on Pacific Rim, but if you like your summer entertainment with a bit more style to go with the all explosions and mayhem, you’ll find there are plenty of moments of beauty – yes, beauty – to behold here. The Kaiju, for one, look like they’ve been directly lifted from surrealist paintings, each one a different shape, size and character to match their grotesque appearance. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise, given Del Toro likes to personally sketch his creatures and he’s had plenty of practice on Pan and the Hellboy franchise. But while the Jaegers obviously aren’t as expressive as their scaly opponents, they remain awe-inspiring creations to marvel at – an early shot of a damaged Jaeger falling to its knees on a snowy Alaskan beach conveys the sense of scale a film like this requires, as two miniscule on-lookers helplessly survey the scene.

Perhaps amid all these monumental figures, it only seems natural that the human characters are dwarfed by comparison. Charlie Hunnam and Rinko Kikuchi headline an international cast that is likeable enough, but the only actor who stands shoulder to shoulder with the Kaiju and Jaegers is Idris Elba, as the ludicrously named Stacker Pentecost, a gruff general prone to portentous monologues and who raises a menacing finger whenever someone dares to touch him without his permission. However, del Toro has an ace up his sleeve: every Jaeger must be manned neurologically by two pilots, whose brains must be “drift compatible” in order to control the colossal machine, which is why couples, siblings and relatives tend to make the ideal recruits thanks to their deep bond. Not only is this an ingenious plot device that keeps us emotionally invested in the characters, it also allows us to make sense of the hulking robots’ movements during combat.

And what great combats they are, indeed. With fighters this big, you’d be forgiven for thinking you won’t make much sense of what’s going on when the carnage begins, especially after being scarred by the chaotic mess that were the Transformers films and, it has to be said, this year’s Man of Steel. But in Pacific Rim the action scenes are used sparingly, play out more like clunky wrestling matches (no doubt influenced by the director's and Mexico’s fascination with luchador movies) and are all the better for it. The shot of a Jaeger dragging an oil tanker across a devastated Hong Kong before brandishing it like a sword is a sight that needs to be seen on the big screen.

Pacific Rim may not be Guillermo del Toro’s most intellectual or profound film and the title admittedly does sound like an activity Russell Brand would engage in behind closed doors, but it sure is the most stylish and unapologetically entertaining blockbuster of the summer. If the thought of monsters vs robots doesn’t do it for you, then you’ll want to avoid this like gout. Those of you who instead grew up on Power Rangers and have always wondered what it would be like to see Megazord take down one of Lord Zedd’s goons on the silver screen in 3D, this is your lucky day.   

4/5

Wednesday 17 July 2013

Monsters University

Most studios can’t pull off prequels, as they usually feel like risk-assed films that cynically cash in on the popularity of the original. But then again, most studios aren’t Pixar. After the lackluster effort that was Cars 2, the animation studio has delivered a second installment worthy of the Toy Story franchise, as Monsters University focuses on the college days of loveable critters “Sulley” and Mike Wazowski. With a series of well-timed gags revolving around frat parties and campus-set antics, this can easily be considered Pixar’s Animal House, but animator-turned director Dan Scanlon never takes his eyes off the affecting relationship between his two protagonists. A+.


4/5