Jupiter Ascending: Film Review

Jupiter Ascending: Film Review

Cast: Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Eddie Redmayne, Sean Bean
Directors: The Wachowskis

Space opera, stunning visual effects and a big messy plot all collide with limited effect in the Wachowski’s latest outing.

A doe-eyed Mila Kunis  stars as Jupiter, a cleaner who dreams of another life and who finds her dream is more of a reality than she realises when she becomes the victim of a space war.

It turns out Jupiter is actually a princess and an heir to the ownership of the Earth, a fact imparted to her when she’s saved by half-wolf/ half-human Caine (a pointy-eared Tatum). With killers dispatched by Balem Abrasax (Eddie Redmayne, prone to whispering and then shouting for no obvious reason) the tyrant heir of a family, Caine and Jupiter soon find themselves on the run and trying to restore Jupiter’s rightful position in the cosmos.

It’s clear where the money’s gone on the Wachowski’s latest.

Sumptuous space visuals, an array of creatures and alien races all appear to have gobbled up the cash that could have been spent on the story.

Saddled with some laugh-out-loud dialogue (one brutally forced in moment of contrived romance sees Jupiter telling Caine that she loves dogs – another reveals that bees can recognise royalty as they swirl around Kunis), thrown in overt references to the likes of Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, some incredibly lazy and missing character development, Jupiter Ascending becomes an incomprehensible visual mess, lacking in coherence and offering nothing more than an assault on the eyeballs.

Kunis manages as best she can in her role, but suffers through some of the indignities of the script and the pacy directing; Tatum is near mute (and pointlessly shirtless) as his bland character grunts his way through continually skating through the skies (no, seriously) to save Jupiter; and Redmayne’s Ming-the-merciless wannabe villain is so underdeveloped that his greatest threat appears to be utilising his over-bite to chew through the scenery as he becomes a last-act villain plot device.

It’s a shame that the Wachowskis who brought us such visual feasts as The Matrix trilogy, Cloud Atlas, Speed Racer are reduced to this near incoherent hot mess. If the story stopped occasionally to breathe once in a while and take in the scenery, it would have been a slightly less flawed execution. Instead by racing breakneck speed between action sequences, having Caine continually save the day, throwing in a leftfield romance simply because, and providing a lack of consequence, this wannabe Star Wars clone has less bite than Tatum’s dog-eared lycan.

Though commendation must be given to one light sequence where Jupiter has to have her ID and regency validated; the Wachowskis’ satirical touch and take on bureaucracy is hilariously on the money and reminiscent of Brazil (replete with Terry Gilliam cameo).

Plundering from the giant treasure trove of sci-fi may have proven a fruitful ground for The Wachowskis in terms of stunning aesthetics and truly out of this world visuals mixed with extravagant costuming and an overly bombastic and overloaded OST.

But by failing to observe some the fact that character is what helps these stand up over the years after the FX have proven outdated, the cinematic folly that is Jupiter Ascending is more facing a descent into cinematic obscurity.

Rating:

Life Of Crime: Blu Ray Review

Life Of Crime: Blu Ray Review

Rating: R16
Released by Madman Home Ent

Elmore Leonard makes another outing onto the big screen with this adaptation of one of his novels.

It's your classic crim movie as well, with two down-on-their-luck guys (Def and Hawkes) deciding to kidnap Jennifer Aniston's wealthy woman, confident that her husband (Tim Robbins) will stump up the ransom. But the trouble is, he's on the edge of divorcing her so that he can make his mistress (Isla Fisher) happy...

Soon, the duo is struggling to work out how they can pull this back.

Life Of Crime is solid if unspectacular fare, that really sits within the genre but hardly challenges it.

Aniston's fine as the woman who realises her place in the world has changed; Robbins, though, verges on parody as the cheating hubbie. Def and Hawkes make a watchable enough pair and have enough charm to carry the movie through.

It's not one of the best Leonard adaptations, but it certainly isn't a bad film that's not worthy of your time. It's nice to see Aniston flexing her dramatic muscles, but it's not quite enough to raise Life Of Crime into the higher echelons of the genre because while it looks the part with its 70s recreations, it's lacking the sparkle and fizz that you'd remember from other Elmore Leonard adaptations like Justified and Get Shorty.

Rating:

Newstalk ZB Review - Talking Fifty Shades of Grey and Gone Girl

Newstalk ZB Review - Talking Fifty Shades of Grey and Gone Girl

Fifty Shades of Grey was the big release of the Valentine's Day weekend.

And I stepped up to the plate to review Fifty Shades of Grey.

Here's what I said to Jack Tame about it...

http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/saturday-mornings-with-jack-tame/audio/darren-bevan-50-shades-of-nay/

The Skeleton Twins: Blu Ray Review

The Skeleton Twins: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Sony Home Ent

It's off to the deep dark world of indie for this emotionally rich piece about a pair of estranged siblings, whose concurrent suicide attempts brings them back together.

In The Skeleton Twins, Kristen Wiig is Maggie, a dental hygienist , married to Luke Wilson's Lance, a loveable guy who clearly dotes on his wife and the idea of becoming a father. But unbeknownst to him, Maggie's wrestling with some big secrets behind the veneer of suburbia.

Into their lives comes Milo (Hader), unhappy and suicidal - his initial attempt forms one of the starkest images of the film as red blood seeps up through clear water in an opening shocker.

As the two gradually open up to each other after years apart, the bonds are re-strengthened and tested once again in this darkly tragic yet bittersweet piece.

Hader and Wiig have great comedic chemistry together and comedic timing (as shown in a lip synching sequence) but also have dramatic depth as the emotions start to rain down.

Director Luke Johnson drives the film well, juggling a sensitive line between dark and deliciously funny as the lies we often tell to each other are exposed. But there's an air of sadness that hangs heavy on The Skeleton Twins that's inescapable (aside from a depressingly cliched Hollywood and improbable ending that somewhat sours the experience) and provides fertile ground to explore the relationships.

Poignant, warm, effective and heartbreaking, indie The Skeleton Twins provides hidden depths to these comedic actors and delivers a uniquely skewed view on life that feels all too real and engaging. You could say there's some dramatic meat on these here bones... 

Rating:

CitizenFour: Film Review

CitizenFour: Film Review

Cast: Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald
Director: Laura Poitras

Whistleblower, patriot, traitor, hero.

All of these have been levelled at the subject of the Oscar nominated documentary, CitizenFour, Edward Snowden.

Whether you believe the information or whether you back the theory that if there's nothing to hide then there's nothing to fear, there can be nothing more incendiary than the Edward Snowden revelations.

The disclosure that the Obama adminstration was deeper into invading personal privacy than was believed forms the basis of CitizenFour - and more specifically, the unspooling on screen of the instigator of the leaks, Edward Snowden.

Film-maker Laura Poitras has captured lightning in a bottle in some ways with this, her third doco about personal freedoms and reporting in post 9/11 America, as she manages to chronicle the real time unspooling of Snowden's claims and the releasing of them into the international conscience.

Central to CitizenFour is the eight day hotel siege in June 2013 when Snowden unleashed his claims anonymously via Glenn Greenwald and first stunned the incumbent adminstrations. You could be forgiven for thinking Snowden was some kind of Machievellan plotter lurking in the shadows, rubbing his hands in glee at the unveiling of such bombshells, but Poitras' doco is at pains to show the man as he is, with no histrionics and OTT editing in place to either canonise or demonise the man in any way shape or form.

In fact, the simple unveiling of facts (a lot of facts, almost too much for those not in the least bit au fait with the claims) is the basis of this calm doco, which simply follows events rather than shaping them or fuelling any kind of sentiment.

On that front, CitizenFour is an interesting piece, one which will lead to hyperbolic claims that it's one of the most important documentaries of our time, because of the subject matter.

It's perhaps more interesting that the film itself does little to reveal too much more of the man or those around him - the government is always a shady presence in the piece, seen to be acting off camera with malice aforethough and Snowden himself is a man caught up in a potential maelstrom that he's not fully considered the implications of.

Occasionally though, Poitras peppers her relatively dry piece with some personality and humour; Snowden himself types his password while cloaked under a veil (to prevent over-analysis and digital interpretation of keystrokes); equally, a series of fire alarm tests in the building provoke Snowden to unplug the phone. These could be the actions of a true paranoid man but with calm presentation, Poitras grounds Snowden in a humanity that's relatable and perhaps, sympathetic.

Claims at the end that POTUS is possibly implicated by a new source hang without any follow up (a frustrating symptomatic fact of this doco is that it doesn't reward the casual viewer at all); it's technically well put together, relatively focussed on the global implications of the bombshells, but fails to fully follow up anything; in that way, CitizenFour feels a like a "Day in the life of" piece, which gives you the context of what transpires and why it's happening but with a cold detachedness that's distinctly obvious throughout - even though Snowden's reasoning for not being the story are valid in the context, to make him the subject of the doco and not fully explore that isn't totally seizing on what's available.

While CitizenFour is likely to take the Best documentary category at the Oscars this year, it feels like the documentary adheres very strictly to the codes of its genre which is to its detriment; there's little other than a documenting of facts which makes this feel a little too aloof to be the incendiary bombshell it clearly wants to be.

Rating:

Life Is Strange: PS4 Review

Life Is Strange: PS4 Review

Developer: Square Enix /Dontnod
Platform: PS4

Ever since TellTale Games set the click and play world afire with The Walking Dead, Fables and now Game Of Thrones, the question has always been when would other studios come to the party?

Well, the Dontnod studio (who developed the much underrated Remember Me) is the first to try and capitalise on the craze with this story set in an American high school (and which utilises some of the rewind technology and ideas you saw in Remember Me).

It's the story of Max Caulfield, a quiet withdrawn teen who has a fascination with a Polaroid camera and who one day experiences a vivid dream with a twister while dosing off in class. Waking up, Max discovers she can rewind time now she's back in her home town of Arcadia Bay. Which is curious for her, but also fortunate as it gives her a chance to help answer the tough questions in class (she's able to retain vital information when she rewinds time) as well as stopping someone from being shot in a bathroom.

Chrysalis is the first part of Life Is Strange and to be honest,it's more about set up than anything else.

It's a typical high school kind of mini movie in a way - all the usual issues are there from catty girls to social awkwardness and exclusion, no familiar trope is left unturned. And yet, it's intriguing more than it is fully engaging.

Max's dialogue occasionally feels a little forced as you wander round exploring everything and sometimes the graphics (such as Max trying to brush her fingers through her hair) don't always work, but it's worth sticking with Life Is Strange. Rewinding gives her a chance to relive it all again and do things differently, but the extra prompting from Max afterwards makes you doubt your choices - it's interesting as they'll all play out in future episodes I guess, but it felt like there wasn't quite as much in terms of consequence as you'd expect (although to be fair, this is only Chapter One).

Arcadia Bay feels like it's something out of Veronica Mars and Buffy meshed together - there's mystery ( a disappeared girl), high school bullying and ostracism and a whole heap of hokum as the time travel is left fully unexplored (though it's a great hook - who wouldn't want to do it all again as a troubled teen?)

All in all, Life Is Strange is a good intriguing start to the five part series. I'm interested to see where it goes and if the emotional pay off is as solid as you'd hope for, given some of the themes explored in Chrysalis.

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Fifty Shades of Grey: Film Review

Fifty Shades of Grey: Film Review

Cast: Jamie Dornan, Dakota Johnson
Director: Sam Taylor- Johnson

The phrase goes that there's no pleasure without pain.

Sadly, in the film adaptation of EL James' soft-core mummy porn erotic novel 50 Shades of Grey, there's very little actual pleasure and a reasonable amount of cinematic pain.

For those uninitiated in the twisted love story of Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey and unaware of the push and pull of the "romance" and story of the dominant and submissive, the story goes a little like this:

Steele (a mousy, lip-biting Dakota Johnson) finds her life upended when she meets the young billionaire head of a telecommunications corporation Christian Grey (The Fall star Jamie Dornan). There's an attraction between the pair and Grey pursues Steele in manner that many would consider creepy and a cause for a restraining order - but when Steele decides to give him a chance (to which many sensible minded people would scream "Why?") she finds his world is about the BDSM and control rather than love and relationships.

Determined to change him, Steele ploughs on and opens up her virgin world to the pursuit of other pleasures, despite her conflicted views...

It's tempting to simply dismiss the Fifty Shades of Grey series as nothing more than a male fantasy written by a woman (a submissive woman willing to do everything the man wants) and I suspect there's probably a good reason why the book series have been so perennially popular with the imagination and escapism proving a large part of their appeal.

But it can't disguise the fact that the film version of the steamiest book around, which has sent conservative groups into a frenzy of fear that civilisation will end, is so mind-crushingly boring and so terrifically unsexy. (Even if you argue that the core audience will lap it up without question)

To be fair, the cinematography is stunning; pristine business vistas, Grey's world is all staunch regimented colours and some wonderful lighting and shots are peppered throughout; even Dakota Johnson brings a rounded humanity to the relatively one-note virginal Steele that's surprising - and there are even dashes of humour throughout that prove unexpected and welcome.

But in between the push and pull of the romantic tussle (Steele's continual argument is that she doesn't want to do this relationship, then she does and then she she doesn't), the terrible dialogue is endlessly distracting and unintentionally hilarious.

Lines like "If you were mine, you wouldn't be able to sit down for a week" or "I'm not going to touch you until I have your written consent" as well as scenes of butt-naked Jamie Dornan aka Grey playing a piano as he's troubled elicit more titters on the screen than the dreaming that potentially they'd garner on a small page.

Equally, there is so much talking about contracts, submission and what it entails, the back and forth of deliberations, that the apparently inherent deviant sexiness of the book is completely lost in the execution on the screen - and is certainly not the MO of those likely to whip themselves up into an outraged frenzy.

None more so than the actual softcore overly scored sex scenes, which are so technically brought to life, it's like watching an unerotic manual enacted by robots whose slightest interaction and touch elicits OTT deep breathing and ecstatic moans.

Films like 9 1/2 Weeks, Unfaithful, Nymphomaniac and Basic Instinct may have shocked and  been derided over the years but at least they had a degree of sensuality and danger that struck a chord (even if people wouldn't admit it).

Also, a relative lack of chemistry between the leads doesn't help matters - sure, there are scenes of Steele biting her lip and Grey looking lustfully on and plenty of those breathless moments when they're in each other's arms, but the crippling lack of any kind of sizzling intensity makes it nigh on unwatchable. Dornan doesn't help with committed wooden delivery in the film which starts off with rom-com trappings and then moves into long winded melodrama that belie its fan-fiction origins.

I'm sure all of this won't matter, though - the ticket sales are already through the roof and the fans are already crying that the critics don't understand (a claim levelled at so many of us during the Twilight Saga releases), with the phenomenon likely to be massive at the box office and relatively bullet-proof.

Fifty Shades of Grey may be an attempt at a twisted love story, but it's so engrossed in its own seriousness and execution that it ends up being tied up in knots of its own as it works slavishly to satiate its trembling audience, rather than attract new recruits to the cause.

Terribly boring, terrifically unsexy and with a cliffhanger ending that's laughable, this series is likely to be style over substance; a damp squib of an R18 film that's afraid to shows its wares or get its sizzle on.

In fact, it's in dire need of some cinematic viagra for the following two movies.

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