Pitch Perfect 2: Film Review

Pitch Perfect 2: Film Review

Cast: Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Hailee Steinfeld, Elizabeth Banks, Skylar Astin
Director: Elizabeth Banks

The pitches are back in the sequel to the phenomenally popular Pitch Perfect.

After a humiliating command performance at Lincoln Center, the Barden Bellas enter an international competition that no American group has ever won in order to regain their status and right to perform.

But Anna Kendrick's Beca's mind is on other things as she looks to move on from the Bellas, graduate from college and get a life.

Pitch Perfect 2 rarely hits the harmonious highs of the first flick, which perfectly mixed sentiment, warm fuzzies, acapella musical goodness and a deft sprinkling of characterisation as well as some damn funny laughs.

The problem is that this time around as the movie negotiates that difficult second album, the group's already known and so it's more left to the newbie Hailee Steinfeld (whose mum was once a Bella and whose desire is to follow in her shoes) to provide some of the life and vitality as the next generation of the Bellas to come to the ball.

But, it's not quite handled as well, with Steinfeld's Emily feeling very much one-note rather than the whole aria, with not the slightest hint of character coming through for most of the time she's on screen.

Equally, Anna Kendrick's Beca, the slightly acerbic yet eminently likeable character from the first, is forced to the sidelines a little, despite having the only real chance to develop away from the group, thanks to an internship at a music producer's company providing her a lifeline after the Barden Bellas.

Predictably, Aussie comedy behemoth Rebel Wilson gets her fair share of the awkward and offbeat funny lines, from her opening Wrecking Ball turn offending a certain Commander in Chief and precipitating the Bellas' fall from grace. But she's also saddled with a romantic subplot with the first flick's Bumper that really goes nowhere aside from one perfectly executed sequence that wraps it all up, leaving you feeling the movie has wasted too many opportunities.

The problem is this difficult second album doesn't feel like it has that much to the story, as it lurches from one musical number to the next with the flimsiest of threads, with each set piece energetically directed by Elizabeth Banks, delivering the frenzy and high energy you'd expect from music videos. Banks has an astute eye for the comic moments though, and the musical scenes fizzle where the rest of the film fails to crackle.

However, that's not enough to stop the energy levels sagging when the movie heads away and back into the rather underwritten Bellas' quest to regain their position at the top. There's no ebb and flow between these moments and it cripples the feel-good factor as it bounces between yet another excuse to launch into more singing.

There are two sequences in the film that remind you of the glory of the first; the opening dance for the president has the amusement factor of both the Bellas and Banks and her erstwhile co-commentator (and occasionally racist and bigoted) John Michael Higgins delivering the slightly bizarre laughs for maximum effect. The second collects all the girls together at a campfire as they try to re-discover their mojo, with a version of that Cups song and a slapstick punchline that mixes both the sweetness of the relationships and the broader laughs that the first Pitch Perfect captured so perfectly.

By not keeping the gang together, reducing most of the Bellas to stereotypes or punchlines of their own gags or ignoring them completely, this frothy over-long, over-stuffed feels like an excuse to launch Now That's What I Call Pitch Perfect - The Album, whereas in fact the second Pitch Perfect hits too many bum notes throughout.

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That Sugar Film: Film Review

That Sugar Film: Film Review

Cast: Damon Gameau, Stephen Fry, Jessica Marais, Brenton Thwaites, Isabel Lucas
Director: Damon Gameau

This documentary, screening at the New Zealand International Film Festival's annual Autumn Events gala weekend is looking to capitalise on the polemic themes launched years back by Morgan Spurlock.

This time, it's Aussie director Gameau, a kind of Johnny Barker / Russell Brand lookalike, who decides that having foregone sugar for years, he will now eat 40 teaspoons of the white stuff a day as an experiment to see what effect it will have on him.

With a new born on the way, Gameau's keen to show it's sugar not anything else that's the food demon, so complicit in the global boom of obesity and sugars within so-called low fat food and their healthy ilk. So, Gameau decides to eat only the so-called healthy food to see what effect that will have on him as he negotiates his 60 days' quest.

That Sugar Film is no Supersize Me.

Gameau is an eminently watchable type with his outlook driving the high paced film along, but he seems a little awash with what exactly he wants to say with this doco - and more importantly, how he wants to say it.

A lack of science proving his facts and experimental conjecture derail the movie, which revels in some didactic interludes from the likes of Stephen Fry but goes for easy laughs - such as his sucking down an energy drink while attending pre-natal classes with his girlfriend - rather than using the research and science to validate his opinions.

There are moments which land though - a 17-year-old American youth called Larry whose addiction to soft drink Mountain Dew has left him with rotten teeth undergoes a Marathon Man style dentist visit that will have some squirming and others shouting at his mother who claims never wanting her son to be hurt but never stopped him drinking it; and an examination of an Aborigine community (and its scheme Mai Wiru) that's been ravaged by their addiction to Coca-Cola shock.

But there's nothing in this film that personal advocacy and common sense couldn't prevail over (maybe, perhaps that is the point, there's a lack of personal responsibility in this day and age); there's certainly no real smoking gun evident other than a series of conjecture and some candy coated hypothesis. It's all wrapped up in some pretty sweet visual stylings; talking heads emerge from food containers and espouse arguments and some graphics reek of their ADD stylings to appeal to the young.

As a beginner for debate, That Sugar Film is a reasonable place to start; there's no denying the consumption of sugar affects Gameau's moods, waistline and outlook, but a lack of a real robust argument - or any comments from any of the companies peddling low fat wares - means this isn't as sweet as perhaps it could be.

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Paper Planes: Film Review

Paper Planes: Film Review

Cast: Ed Oxenbould, Sam Worthington, Deborah Mailman, David Wenham
Director: Robert Connolly

The director of Balibo has gone in completely the opposite direction with this family friendly movie that's refreshingly retro in many ways.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day star Ed Oxenbould is Dylan, a young kid living in Western Australia, whose dad's mired in grief following the death of his mother five months ago.

With his father (played with Aussie outback blokiness by Sam Worthington) refuses to move off the couch or show any interest in life around him, Dylan finds his interest piqued in a paper planes championship. When he makes it through to the national finals, Dylan discovers he faces threats and friendships in equal measures from those around him.

Paper Planes wears its heart on its sleeve with a gently refreshing naivety that some will find endearing, and others will find frankly infuriating.

Reminiscent of the gentle Children's Foundation dramas which used to play back in the UK on a Friday afternoon, its retro charm has certain limited and likeable appeal if you're willing to forego some of the lulls and some of the faintly sketched out characters.

Messages of competing for fun, not just for winning and the bonding of fathers and sons are likely to cause as much a ripple in some emotions as the frankly gravity defying CGI planes cutting through the air provoke incredulity.

Skewing young with its overt messages and earnestness, the piece is carried by the almost everyman behaviour of Dylan - as personified by Oxenbould's lispy, heavily cow-licked haircut kid. There's a certain charm to his turn as we celebrate the traditional kid in the Aussie outback (one early scene sees him playing Snake on an analogue phone while all his classmates turn in their latest iDevices to the teacher) and his underdog status.

But if Paper Planes stops from soaring, it's due to moments which demand the audience draw the dots and overlook the gaps in character development; Worthington spends most of the movie moping, Dylan's friendship with a chubby classmate barely progresses along the "let's put our differences aside and be mates" level, and the villain of the piece is more cardboard and stiff than the paper the planes are fashioned out of.

Ultimately, with its heart-on-its-sleeve earnestness and with a target of youngsters purely in mind, Paper Planes will hit its demo square on. It could have done with an expeditious trim here and there though, and some parents may feel the nostalgia of the past isn't quite enough to see them through - but you can guarantee that most of the kids watching this will be planning their own papyrus based miracles of aviation after the credits have rolled.

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The Congress: DVD Review

The Congress: DVD Review

Rating: M
Released by Madman Home Ent

Sci-fi and satire are the order of the day of The Congress, from the director of Waltz with Bashir, Ari Folman.

Starring Robin Wright, and inspired by Stanislaw Lem's novel The Futurlogical Congress, it's the story of the actress Robin Wright, considered washed up by the Miramount studio. Unable to secure work for years, due to demands and concerns over looking after her son, Robin's offered one last contract by the studios to hand over her digital image so they can do what they want with her.

The only condition is she can never act again...

The Congress is a surrealist piece of cinema, that dances the line between head-scratching and reality with ease. But in among the animated weirdness, there's also a satire that hits at Hollywood and current pre-occupations with digital rights and intellectual property. Half animated, the film waltzes a line between Yellow Submarine with some truly gorgeous animation that is psychedelic and intoxicating to look at, as it mixes the line between sending up characters you know from Hollywood via classic WB animation with a dash of Ren and Stimpy.  It's the visual style which soars here initially before you immediately become accustomed to it.

And once you do, you realise that The Congress is quite a sad piece and potentially a warning to Hollywood over where it's going - there's no way that Folman's not constructed a piece which fires a shot over their bows telling them that the extremes they've painted in this picture could signal an interesting debate somewhere down the line. Pre-occupations with Hollywood fads, women in movies, ownership of properties - it's all up here for the discussion. There's a lot to debate and think on after this film - and that's no bad thing.

Serena: Blu Ray Review

Serena: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Sony Home Ent

Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence re-team after the success of American Hustle andThe Silver Linings Playbook in this Depression-era set tale, taken from the book by Ron Rash.

Cooper is George Pemberton, the owner of a timber empire, who's dealing with the possibility that his empire is being threatened by plans for a national park. However, there's a ray of light when he meets Serena (Lawrence) and decides they will be married.

Once the daughter of a tree empire owner, Serena proves to be very much Pemberton's equal in business and in love - but her arrival into the Smoky Mountains proves to be polarising, particularly when a former lover of Pemberton's and their illegitimate child comes back into the spotlight.

Serena aims for melodrama among the mountains, but ends up feeling like a melodrama with a muddled Mills and Boon pastiche thrown in for good measure.

The film's sat languishing on the shelf for a couple of years (it was shot before American Hustle) and while Cooper and Lawrence have that trademark chemistry, the adaptation of the book just fails to ignite any cinematic spark or drama that would have been inherent.

The whole feel of Serena is one of a mournful tale, from a long opening sequence of smoke hanging around the misty mountains to the simmering tensions and jealousies within, there's clearly enough material to make this work, yet it never quite takes off and soars into the drama that it clearly wants to be.

Part of the problem is that the revelations and actions of the third act feel forced in and don't resonate as perhaps they should; character motivation is simply shoe-horned in and never really feels plausible as the ideal passion-filled marriage apparently disintegrates.

Equally, the leads fail to really hit the notes needed for their characters; Lawrence feels oddly miscast and while she looks the part (all porcelain white face and crimped blonde bob), she lacks the usual subtlety needed to reach some of the emotional and psychological depths needed as she goes from sweetheart to Lady MacBeth. And Cooper reaches for dramatic but seems to be more sleep-walking than anything in this. Even an unrecognisable Rhys Ifans as a vengeful Golem-type character fails to hit anything other than a dirge.

While the film's beautifully shot, with the community at logger-heads over the foresting issue, there's a feeling that the haze in the mountains has also settled on the director and her cast in this over-cooked adaptation, which dulls more than dazzles thanks to a distinct lack of sympathy for the leads.

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What We Did On Our Holiday: DVD Review

What We Did On Our Holiday: DVD Review

Rating: PG
Released by Trasnmission Pictures

The producers of Brit comedy Drop The Dead Donkey and (perhaps more relevantly)Outnumbered essentially produce another version of Outnumbered with a parallel cast.

Dr Who star David Tennant and Gone Girl Rosamund Pike star as Doug and Abi, who are about to head their separate ways and more pressingly to Scotland for Doug's father Gordy's birthday.

As the duo - along with three kids - pack up and head north, the inevitable tensions begin to rear their heads. Convincing the children not to say anything about the separation has varying degrees of success, but when the family hits the homestead, it soon becomes clear that Gordy's health is deteriorating quickly - and any revelations will hasten his potential demise.

Cue the predictable cracks, exasperations and awkward moments that seem to plague British family get togethers and summer holidays within the UK...

What We Did On Our Holiday is very good at honing in on what it's like to be eminently British and how to behave during strained family outings. But it's plagued with moments which feel forced, an uneven tone that doesn't veer too closely to broad comedy or drama to be effective enough.

Using the old adage of "kids say the darndest things" at the worst moment, the trio of children are set up as wiser than their parents and unleash truth bombs and absurdities for maximum effect. However, it's a mix that doesn't quite gel unfortunately, given the wealth of talent involved.

Tennant is as watchable as ever, mixing a bit of OTT behaviour and drama; Pike is relatively straight-laced; and there's a certain tragic irony in seeing a maudlin Connolly play a man who's quite sick. The issue really with What We Did On Our Holiday is more one of tone; by not quite deciding whether to delve deep into farce or drama, the script feels all too predictable and inevitably mawkish (even with the occasional spontaneous reactions from the children) as the secrets and lies swirl around before bubbling over.

The central conceit that adults don't know enough and children do thanks to their innocence and all-seeing eyes, as well as explosive secrets coming out at inopportune family meetings just feels all too familiar and lacks the freshness to give What We Did On Our Holiday an edge or bite that it desperately needs as it teeters between pathos and tragedy.

A final act resolution jars and feels unnatural in places thanks to the pacing of beforehand, but there are bittersweet moments and performances in What We Did On Our Holiday which help you through - and may even provoke a feeling of familiarity.

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Newstalk ZB Movie Review - The Avengers, Boychoir and The Gunman

Newstalk ZB Movie Review - The Avengers, Boychoir and The Gunman

Jack was back this week after an ANZAC day break

This week, I talked The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Boychoir and The Gunman

Take a listen below!

ZB Movie Review