Wetlands: DVD Review

Wetlands: DVD Review

Rating: R18
Released by Madman Home Ent

Talk about pushing buttons.

German movie Wetlands is likely to outrage the more conservative with its opening 10 minutes which involve masturbation with vegetables, extremely dirty toilets and more frank talk than you'd expect in an Irvine Welsh novel.

It's the story of Helen, an outsider who explores all her sexual taboos and society's no-nos with a joie de vivre and shocking simplicity. When she ends up in hospital, she and a nurse end up forming a relationship - and Helen's life starts to change.

There's a punky vibe to this film, and there's no denying the energy, day glo colours and energy of the lead help it propel along, making the shocking seem relatively ordinary and all part of daily life, as well as acceptable. Essentially a coming of age tale (in more ways than one) stick with Wetlands past its bold opening section - it's rewarding but in ways you may not expect.

Before I Go To Sleep: Blu Ray Review

Before I Go To Sleep: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Sony Home Ent

Based on the SJ Watson novel and from the writer / director of the underrated The American and Brighton Rock, comes this mind games/ head trip high concept thriller.

Kidman is Christine, a severe amnesiac, who wakes every day having had the last 24 hours of her life wiped out after a traumatic car accident, which left her battered and beaten. She wakes up each day with her husband Ben (Colin Firth), who patiently explains what's going on.

But each day, unbeknownst to Ben, Christine gets a call from a Dr Nash (soft spoken Mark Strong) who tells her to find a camera in her closet which has videos on explaining what's been happening. Along with these video diaries, Christine begins to get memories come flooding back - as the truth starts to slowly unfurl.

Recalling Memento to begin with thanks to its wall of photographs and written post-it notes around the house, you'd be forgiven for thinking that it was a case of similar territory.

Essentially a three-hander, Joffe opts for a psychological build up where the pendulum of truth and mistrust swings back and forth on Ben as Christine delves deeper into her own past and makes discoveries she's not prepared for.

Kidman delivers a variety of wide-eyed and horrified and shocked looks as the various situations demand of her but just manages to convince of the emotional rollercoaster she's boarded daily. Equally, Firth goes from fully supportive to fully shifty and back again in as many turns as the movie spins on its axis. And Strong is his usual solid self as the doctor who offers help to Christine, unasked for and therefore inviting questions over his motive. But none of the actors really ever shine through; they're solid enough, but don't dazzle.

The problem comes with the denouement of this movie (don't worry, no spoiler ahead) which is somewhat inevitable given how nobody really shows their hand until late in the piece. As it's a three-hander, and based on a book, whereas the twist may be slightly more plausible on the page, it's difficult to execute on screen given that a late in the day addition would throw implausibility into the mix.

In among the maudlin and melancholic tone, Before I Go To Sleep works on the mind games front and does keep you guessing throughout, before its totally OTT ending throws any sensibility out of the window. It's a shame because the suspense built up and the back-and-forth questions are quite effective during the thriller; sadly though, the moment it ends, you're suffering from the same affliction as Christine, because it's relatively unmemorable.

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Dracula Untold: DVD Review

Dracula Untold: DVD Review

Rating: M
Released by Universal Home Ent

another re-imagining of the origins of the Dracula story in time for Hallowe'en.

It's 1442 Transylvania and Hobbit star Luke Evans is hunky-but-troubled Prince Vlad, who's forced into taking terrible measures to protect his people from the oncoming might of the Turkish army, led by warlord Mehmud (Dominic Cooper, all guy-liner and one note).

After discovering an immortal devil atop a mountain cave, Vlad the impaler makes a pact with the creature to save his family from death and slavery and his kingdom from slaughter. But that deal with Charles Dance's Faust-like demon means that Vlad has 3 days to resist the urge to drink human blood or forever be changed into a creature of the night.

Dracula Untold is more a medieval fantasy fight film than a full on blood-sucking Dracula flick.

Moping and brooding, the troubled Luke Evans as Vlad the Impaler does the best he can with a fairly anaemic script that's more about family, fathers and sons, reincarnation and destined tragedy than seeking out scantily clad ladies and biting them.

It's surprisingly bloodless too, with most of the proceedings being taken up by some very impressive FX shots from heat seeking infra red vision for the Dracula creatures watching from the dark, peeling off of skin when struck by sunlight, some smart CGI bat work as they swirl like an out of control twister to an opening 3D freeze frame shot which shows off the stylistic vision of first time director Gary Shore. As well as the FX frenzy (and the usual Dracula horror cliches - millions of bats flying out of mountains), the main thrust of this revision is an attempt to give Dracula more of a tortured almost emo-like conflict and make his ascent to what he is a more internal moral struggle as he battles with the monsters within, trying not to become the monster himself.

Which is perhaps a good thing, because a lack of any real solid antagonist during the muddy proceedings to face off with is somewhat crippling. Cooper's Mehmud is bereft of screen time, character development and consequently is as little a threat as you'd ever encounter, with his sole machinations being to get 1,000 boys conscripted into his army. Likewise, his wife (played byEnemy star Sarah Gadon) has little to do and is subsequently wasted.

That said, there are some pleasing touches and references to theDracula mythology; a believer in Dracula who wants to be his servant raises a few nostalgic smiles (including the iconic "Yes Master" deference line) but the desire to fill the movie with darkly lit battle scenes where the Turkish hordes are covered with bats makes for somewhat eye-crippling viewing.

Along with a frankly ludicrously tacked on final sequence, and so much wood at times that it's almost fatal for a man troubled by stakes, this Dracula is somewhat of a muddled outing with some bad dialogue riddled through the script. It lacks the bite of the start of a franchise, but should be applauded for trying to humanise the monstrous myth as this movie tries to Bat-ter your heart as well as the senses.

Rating:

Fury: Blu Ray Review

Fury: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Sony Home Ent

They say war is hell.

And for large chunks of David Ayers' war-warts-and-all movie Fury, that's certainly the case (read into that what you will).

In this latest to join the pantheon of panzer crushers, Brad Pitt plays Wardaddy, a sergeant scarred literally and metaphorically by a long tour of duty. He's the head of a Sherman tank (with Fury blazoned on its gun - Freud would have a field day with that visual lack of subtlety I suspect) whose bloodied and muddied crew is faced with death during the final days of World War II, lumbering from one job to the next, escorting troops and clearing the way as the final push into Nazi territory reaches its ultimate end.
Into their number comes fresh-faced Norman (cliche number one) played with quaking fear and moral sensitivity by Logan Lerman, who's inevitably going to undergo a baptism of fire as the assistant tank driver, helping the Fury team to push into Germany. But, the further into the enemy's territory they get, the more challenges and horrors await them.

Fury is, in many ways, your typical Hollywood war movie. 

There are intense fight scenes where the explosions are bigger than anything you'd have imagined, bullets whip through the air like red and green laser beams and there's a final (reality-defying) showdown which sees the tank crew overwhelmed by insurmountable odds as they draw a line in the sand. There's also plenty of time during the final battle for speeches and soul-baring heroics which don't ring true given the level of menace apparently on their doorstep.

Plus, with the exception of the aphorism-spouting Wardaddy and the from-baby-to-man-in-one-day coming of age journey of Norman and their relationship, the men in the tank are pretty much one note - (the smart quippy Mexican, played by Pena, the hillbilly played by Bernthal and the quiet Bible reading one played by LaBeouf) - making the emotional pull of the climactic showdown all too lacking. In fact, at times, you feel the plot and its execution is lumbering and lurching as much as the tank itself as it charts a course through Germany, even though Pitt's performance rises above the rest.

And yet, there are moments where Ayers defies the Hollywood war machine conventions and proffers up something commendable which rises above the cliche of the combat and the gritty horrors in most war movies postSpielberg's Saving Private Ryan.

Visually, Fury is tremendously affecting, with striking war-torn vistas and hauntingly bleak imagery peppered throughout. 

In among the grim and mud-strewn atrocities of war (people strung up by the sides of the road, a body in a suit crushed under a tank track, half a face is to be cleaned off from the insides of a tank, a soldier on fire who shoots himself in the head rather than burn alive), there are long swathes of quieter scenes where the tedium of war and the tensions and psychology of men together are exploited to maximum effect.

None more so than one central pivotal scene which sees the stoic Wardaddy and Norman enter a German home in a liberated village for some R&R. The house has two women within and, thanks to Pitt's effectively dialled down, questionable character and almost mute performance, the simmering tension and latent uncertainty of how this play out brings out a dramatic frisson that's missing. Things are further ramped up a notch psychologically when the remaining members of the crew gate-crash the meal, adding a level of ugliness to the extended proceedings and proving a reminder of what lies ahead when the final vestiges of humanity are threatened.  

Ultimately, Fury is a solid war-is-hell movie, with scattered moments of poignancy that whimper rather than roar; the claustrophobia of the tank is under-used and the shattering of Norman's innocence is over-used. 

War is indeed hell, and while Ayers is to be applauded for his keen eye for horrific detail, his taking his eye off the ball in other areas and sub-par characters almost cause this tank to stop dead in its tracks.

Rating:

Newstalk ZB Review - The Theory of Everything, Selma and HipHoperation

Newstalk ZB Review - The Theory of Everything, Selma and HipHoperation

http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/saturday-mornings-with-jack-tame/audio/darren-bevan-mawkish-movies-fail-to-move/

The Equalizer: Blu Ray Review

The Equalizer: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Roadshow Home Ent
It's the one man might of America versus multiple Russian gangsters in this latest hell-hath-no-fury-like-Denzel-scorned outing that feels like something from the 1980s.

Reuniting Denzel with his Training Day director Antoine Fuqua, the duo set out on updating an 80s gritty UK crime series that starred Edward Woodward as an avenging angel.

Washington is McCall, whose life is a measured calm and precision, and whose past is a mystery. Working in a DIY store and living his evenings reading books at a local diner, he forms a friendship with child prostitute Teri (Grace-Moretz) who's under the control of Russian gangsters. When she's beaten to a pulp, he decides to exact vengeance. But his brutal act of revenge stirs up a hornet's nest and soon, bigger sharks are circling.

The Equalizer is in parts brutal, but a solid thriller, that skimps a little too readily on the action in favour of ponderous build up and stylish slow-mo shots aimed at looking cool more than anything else.

Denzel goes for measured and zen-like calm as he trots out an intensely brooding version of his Man On Fire  routine, with each take down he enacts being characterised by a gloomy stare as he visualises how it'll all go down and an over-reliance on choreographed slow-mo shots. Choosing to spend time dispensing healthy living advice to a colleague who wants to be a security guard, advice to Teri on a singing career and sucking on his jaw to demonstrate when he's really ticked off, there's little call for Washington to be anything other than emotionless and completely invincible throughout; with the exception of a handful of scenes which see him soften and open up when his back story is hinted at about two thirds of the way through the film.

Predictably, the story follows a very well-trodden, if somewhat ambling path, with Grace-Moretz's damsel merely book-ending proceedings, and Fuqua choosing to drag out the film for as far as it can be stretched as McCall takes on the one-note villainous Russians - who aside from Martin Csokas's snakelike Fixer barely register.

Short, sharp bursts of brutality punctuate the at times sedentary proceedings as the one-on-one talking ends in bone-crunching agony for those opposed to McCall (and with a final showdown in McCall's DIY store offering up plenty of OSH related issues and conveniently placed weapons). Fuqua chooses to rely on those to provide some life in among the beautiful cinematography and endless grey dusky cityscapes.

City vistas glisten in the dark with a brooding gritty underbelly and Fuqua's framed some wonderfully evocative shots - from fans all whirring in the DIY store to alleyway take downs - but it doesn't distract from the pace of the film which really never feels like it's fully kicking in or building to an emotionally invested climax, given how invincible McCall appears to be - and how outclassed the Russians are when facing him.

All in all, The Equalizer doesn't do subtle - even from allegories and allusions to the books he's reading - the tension is relatively non-existent and the game of cat-and-mouse somewhat lacking in suspense, but yet I couldn't help but entertained in this vengeance tale that's all style and very little substance.

Whether that's grounds enough for a sequel and an unending franchise is debatable, but, as with the TV series which ran for 4 years, you wouldn't bet against McCall.

Rating:

Amazonia: DVD Review

Amazonia: DVD Review

Rating: G
Released by Roadshow Home Ent

A plane crashes in the forest, the sole survivor is trapped in a cell, but makes an escape - only to have to traverse strange foreign climes with no idea of what danger is lurking around the next corner.

It all sounds very familiar, doesn't it?

Yet this film has a unique MO to a tale which is all too familiar - its protagonist is a capuchin monkey with the most expressively natural face committed to celluloid in a long while. (Discounting those damned dirty apes from San Fran earlier in the year or since Marcel annoyed Ross).

With nary a line of dialogue and only the natural parameters of the Amazonian rain-forest and all who dwell within to bring it to some form of vivid life, Amazonia is an interesting hybrid of survival story and nature documentary.

From toucans hurling discarded half-eaten fruit at the monkey to various bugs filmed in extreme close up, Ragobert's created something wildly unique and at times, strangely compelling, as the monkey's story is crushed into the usual survival tropes and human type situations.

It's the lush contours of the Amazon rain forest and the life within which makes Amazonia worth your time; younger audiences will be enlightened by this foray into a microscopic world we're unlikely to experience - and older adults will be impressed at its brevity, if they can stomach the pro-environmental message that is threaded through.

All in all, Amazonia works as a window into a world we're unlikely to glimpse and for an animal star who's likely to delight and amuse as he takes on his most dangerous role ever.

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