Fantastic Four: Film Review

Fantastic Four: Film Review

Cast: Miles Teller, Michael B Jordan, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, Toby Kebbel, Reg E Kathey
Director: Josh Trank

It's back to the origins tale for the new reboot of the Fantastic Four series, with the director of the wonderful Chronicle at the helm.

But it's sad to say that based on the early evidence of the reboot of the franchise (last seen in 2005), it may be less of a Fantastic start than perhaps 20th Century Fox were hoping for.

For those unaware of the Stan Lee comic and the series, it's the story of child prodigy Reed Richards (Whiplash star Miles Teller) who has spent his childhood dreaming of teleporting to another world. One day at a science fair, with his lifelong pal Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell), their science project catches the eye of Dr Franklin Storm.

Recruiting them into his scientific world, Richards helps Sue Storm (Kate Mara), and Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbell) achieve their goal of teleportation to another world. Also along for the ride is hot-headed Johnny Storm (Jordan) who's been co-opted into the project by his dad.

But when the four of them discover that NASA will be taking over their project, they decide to eject protocol and teleport themselves to another world...which doesn't quite go according to plan, leaving one of their party dead and the others dealing with super-powers.

The latest re-imagining of the Fantastic Four is a pretty dour, gloomy and science- exposition heavy set up for a series that never really feels like it lifts off.

Parts of the film feel like large chunks of the narrative was sliced and diced out, leaving the first act to feel as elongated as one of Richards' extended limbs and the final act too conveniently wrapped up without the hint of any kind of real conflict. Equally the underdeveloped story sees an occasional lack of chemistry between the leads and the tantalising tension between two former best friends, which is initially mined for potential dramatic effect and potential tragedy, is ditched neatly in favour of a third act resolution.

It's a shame because there are some touches which work quite nicely for the film; Doom's rampage when he returns is up there with horror's finest moments as is the discovery of a stretch limbed Richards strapped down to a gurney. And there are moments when the characters cut through the gloom and throw a light on each other that work particularly well - like in the film's final moments as they discuss their name.

In parts the CGI works nicely too - Reed's limb-stretching as mentioned looks impressive, a mix of both painful and cartoonish; and the Thing's rocky foundations are nicely laid, giving Bell a modicum of face-work to go on; but Storm's flame on falls down a little on the facials, and Sue's floating blue ball has a few wobbles at times.

The biggest problem with Fantastic Four though is the story-telling beats, the overload of exposition and the lack of stand-out character moments in among dark and grim settings.

A sequel may already be planned and given the origins are all explored, it's to be hoped the second film can give this fantastic quartet of actors a little more to chew on, rather than looking dourly around as events unfold around them.

Rating:

Get Hard: Blu Ray Review

Get Hard: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Roadshow Home Ent

It's perhaps a brutal coincidence that Get Hard's central premise is about prepping Will Ferrell's white collar stockbroker for jail time because watching this comedy is like doing a prison sentence for anyone in the audience.

Ferrell is James King, a man whose life appears to be going well; he's scored a hot fiancee (Community star Alison Brie) and is about to be made partner of his stock-broker firm, led by his soon-to-be-father-in-law (Craig T Nelson).

But it all falls apart when he's arrested at his engagement party and charged with fraud and embezzlement, leading to a court appearance where he's sentenced to 10 years jail by a judge who's over Wall Street types walking free.

So, with 30 days to get ready for jail, King engages the services of Darnell (Kevin Hart) a car wash attendant at his company who he believes, because he's African-American, has been to jail and can ready him....

Get Hard trades on offensively unoriginal stereotypes, a raft of dick jokes that just aren't funny, gay stereotyping, homophobia and over-uses a "gag" that there will be plenty of rape in prison for King, given how he's not tough enough to survive.

Be still, my aching sides.

The central premise of the film could have been a majorly impressive satire, but instead three screenwriters (!) cash all of that in for lazy scenes that lack jokes or any kind of punch-line humour.

The gag is that Darnell is as middle-class as they come, using his riffs on Boyz'n'The Hood to provide the wealthy but idiotically naive King with his insights into what jail time could proffer. Thankfully, though, in yet another lazy stereotypical moment, Darnell has a gang brother who can conveniently help.

One of the worst scenes sees Darnell taking King to a prominent gay hang-out to help him train to offer another service in prison which will help him survive. It's deeply unfunny as well as offensive, given that the writers don't actually have a point or punchline for Ferrell to make. I'm betting the writers would see that they're pushing the envelope but what they're actually doing is failing to raise anything satirical or remotely amusing.

Sure, Get Hard is supposed to be a buddy comedy, with Hart taking the role that would have been Eddie Murphy's or Chris Rock's a few years ago, but the film has nothing new or original - or even funny - to say, leading it to feel dated within seconds of it starting.

Get Hard is flaccid, unfunny and a waste of everyone's time. It's a betrayal of Ferrell's comic talents and Hart's motor-mouth tendencies. While the duo has a reasonable comic rapport and some riffs work unexpectedly well, it's again a case of this seeming funnier on paper than in actual execution.

Quite frankly, all of those involved really should be given a prison sentence - for crimes against comedy and for lazy stereotyping.

Rating:

It Follows: Blu Ray Review

It Follows: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Roadshow Home Ent

A terrifically old school suspenseful horror from the director of The Myth of the American Sleepover, you wonder how the likes of It Follows has not been done before.

Following a young bunch once again, director David Robert Mitchell is the story of Maika Monroe's Jay, who sleeps with her new boyfriend Hugh.

Only to be then chloroformed when there should be cuddling afterwards.

When she awakens, she's told by Hugh that an unseen something will now start following her and she has to avoid it - but that the only way to permanently get out of this pursuit is to sleep with someone else and pass the curse on.

But if the person who's been affected with the curse is killed, the creature stalks its original victim.

With a premise like that, you'd expect a somewhat trashy movie as the teens sleep their way around, promising plenty of loose sex and even looser morals.

But what actually transpires is a terrifically well-delivered, technically taut horror that makes great fist of an ominous soundtrack, perfect locations and slow seeping shots to create an atmosphere of utter dread within. At least one reveal of the thing following Jay is utterly terrifying and creatively executed, thanks to a combination of perfect timing, soundtrack and plausibility as well as tapping into one of those most horrific fears with you since the dawn of time.

The cast's fairly impressive too - once you get your head around the fact that in many ways, this is an old school horror where potential victims don't exactly make the wisest decisions. But that's not to dismiss it as retro or tacky in any way shape or form.

The relationship between Jay and her sister, as well as her first boyfriend Paul (who's happy to help relieve her of the curse) is excellently handled and the growing sense of dread is brilliantly executed throughout. Once the paranoia sets in the psychological effects are easy to understand, eminently watchable and smartly dished out. Even Jay's initial reticence to pass it on (one character remarks it should be easy for her as she's a girl) gives way to a sickening sense of inevitability for her own sanity.

Monroe is the right mix of naive and love-struck at the start, but once the horror starts to set in, her gradual descent into full-on terror and near breakdown is a compelling, if horrifying one.

Sure, you could argue this is a large metaphor for STDs and teen sex, but it's more than that. Mitchell's executed a classic horror that incorporates the terror of a faceless stalker. Wisely choosing to ignore the need for explanation for what exactly is going on, how it all began (perhaps fertile ground for another movie) and concentrating simply on delivering dread and terror, It Follows' MO is atmosphere and successful jump frights, deftly transcribed to the screen that channel a primal simple fear - something's coming for you and you can't escape it...

It Follows more than delivers on those - and don't be surprised if after seeing this, you walk home checking over your shoulder a couple of times....

Rating:

Love 3D: NZFF Review

Love 3D: NZFF Review

The most provocative title on the New Zealand International Film Festival's extensive slate actually ends up being the one that's perhaps the tamest when weighed up against expectation.

Cinema's enfant terrible Gaspar Noe (Enter the Void, Irreversible) has filed a chamber piece for the festival scene, riddled with pornography and ruminations on relationships.

It's the cautionary story of American film-maker Murray (Karl Glusman) who ends up in Paris and in a passionate relationship with Electra (Aomi Muyock) - but that's not where the story begins; it takes up on New Year's Day with Murray waking up with another girl Omi and his baby.

As he gets up, he gets a call from Electra's mother, telling him she's not heard from her daughter in a while and worrying. This sets Murray off in a spiral of memory and regret which we're party to.

Love 3D is a polarising experience, but it's actually a triumph of atmosphere over substance, of insecurities and regrets over a road less travelled.

Sure, there's plenty of love-making on show (some of it which is literally in your face thanks to the 3D element) and Noe is clearly trying to push buttons given the number of scenes and frequency in which he injects them into the admittedly slight narrative. But Noe's claimed that he's looking at what love does to people and how they experience it and that the sex is an integral part of it. No doubt some will dispute that, and there's certainly a feeling that these scenes lose any kind of perverse appeal by being so prevalent.

However, when Noe moves away from this side of things, there are parts of the narrative which work and others which don't. The reflections and ruminations on the relationship as Murray prowls his flat feeling trapped make him a difficult and selfish protagonist to care about - and certainly, his behaviour to Electra and other women reinforce that idea; is Noe commenting on the behaviour of men or Murray in particular? It's hard to tell because no commentary is forthcoming and no judgement is either. But in showing Murray with Electra, Noe does a wondrous job of collecting the fervour and fever of young love, though sadly not in enough scenes, preferring to show their indulging in carnal desires as a profession of this - again, making it difficult to really grasp onto either as perfect partners.

Ultimately, Love 3D is no Irreversible; there's maybe one singular moment when you feel like Noe's gone as far as he can in reaching his cinematic climax, but the scorn of the prior films feels softened with this latest. It's not for everyone's tastes and there are times when you wish Noe had smoothed off some of the edges and created more than just atmosphere - but perhaps we get the love story our society reflects these days.

Queen and Country:NZFF Review

Queen and Country: NZFF Review

Director John Boorman's sequel to the 1987 film Hope and Glory is a perhaps slight comic memoir of a Britain in the 1950s.

With the end of World War II in the rear view mirror and a potential conflict in Korea beckoning, Boorman chooses to centre on a Home Counties barracks and the daily fight of two conscripts railing against the futility of the war machine.

Those conscripts are the dashingly charming Bill (Callum Turner) and his pal, the tightly wound Percy (Caleb Landry Jones) and their antagonist is Sgt Major Bradley (David Thewlis), an officious prig of an army type, who follows everything according to the code and never deviates from it, much to the annoyance of all caught in his firing line. But while life in the barracks is claustrophobic, a world outside hints at love and lust for both....

Queen and Country plays more light and comic, a sort of mix of It Ain't Half Hot Mum and Dad's Army combined with a slyly British cocking-a-snook at the futility of authority that was so prevalent in the likes of the Lister/ Rimmer dynamic in Red Dwarf, Monty Python and Yes Minister.

But underneath the veneer of black comedy, there's a black vein of inevitable sadness coursing through this film's veins. It's a taciturn expression of the fragility of the nation in light of the conflicts that have shaped the world and its inhabitants.

Occasionally though Queen and Country feels like the sadness is over-bearing, lurking as it does in the background - from Bill's sister (Vanessa Kirby) whose marriage is falling apart to his love interest Ophelia (Tamsin Egerton) whose eyes hint at tragedy through to Landry Jones' occasionally OTT acting as Percy, everyone is damaged.

Some of the threads aren't neatly pulled together in this post-war tapestry and some of the resolution can be seen with a distinctive predictability, but Queen and Country works more as a comedy a la Blackadder than a dramatic re-fashioning of events in the world. Ultimately though the mismatched tone of comedy and tragedy don't quite mesh as well as they should and Queen and Country ends up being a curio of British army mores and sensibilities rather than a film with a profound insight into those who fought the class system in the wake of the war.

Dope: NZFF Review

Dope: NZFF Review

Mixing Boyz'n'The Hood, Run Lola Run and Malcolm in the Middle, Dope's sensibilities tend more towards the goofy rather than the fully dramatic.

It's the story of three 90s hi-hop obsessed geeks, stuck in high school and who find themselves stuck in a drug deal gone wrong by circumstance. Their misadventures mean their leader Malcolm (Shameik Moore) finds himself on a coming of age journey that's both dangerous and hilarious.

Dope is entertainingly breezy and circumnavigates the trio of meanings given to the word by a dictionary definition on screen as the film begins.

By turns, its screwball comedy, violence and depiction of street culture is perhaps something we've seen time and time again, but thanks to an update of the Risky Business ethos within, it manages to be something that feels as fresh as Will Smith was way back when he hit Philly.

It's largely in part to Moore that the film works as his wide-eyed innocence goes from zero to full blown hero during the flick's hijinks. But despite the occasional escalating farce, the blast of reality is never far away from Rick Famuyiwa's movie - gun culture features as prevalently as the comic tones do in this portrait of life in Inglewood.

At times though, there are moments when the freshness of the film starts to wear off and a more uneven edge starts to creep in - and it slips into Boyz'n'The Hood sensibilities and stereotypes with ease - there's certainly objectification of women throughout and the film could have perhaps have done with less of that perpetuating of stereotypes as it successfully blazes a trail through race.

As mentioned, it's Moore who excels though - a moment that needs to have his character step up in the worst possible way proves devastating by Moore's acting, his aching vulnerability and blazing new found bravado conflicting in his eyes conveying more than any dialogue ever could.

The film's ultimate message though seems somewhat lost - a final coda on screen sees Malcolm embracing his goofy dancing and taking on the mantle of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air's Carlton with gusto; it's an uneven touch that decries the Boyz to men story that's just transpired and reduces some of the power of what we've witnessed.

Tale of Tales: NZFF Review

Tale of Tales: NZFF Review

The director of Gomorrah and Reality, Matteo Garrone, constructs a Brothers Grimm style triptych with Tale of Tales, taken from a clutch of Neopolitan fairy tales written by Italian poet Giambattista Basile.

In a kingdom (possibly not too far from the visual neighbourhood of Westeros) where monsters, hags, ogres, kings and princesses live, we settle on the stories of a childless queen (Salma Hayek) who turns to magic to achieve her dream, a king (the wonderfully expressive Toby Jones) whose daughter wishes to be married and a randy king (Vincent Cassel) whose libido knows no boundaries.

Garishly gothic and slavishly baroque, Tale of Tales is not going to be everyone's taste.

As we plough through the portmanteau, there are perhaps hints that the stories don't intersect perhaps as well as Garrone would like (a thought borne out by the final shot) even if they do inhabit the same universe. And there are certainly threads that, even when pulled together in the final stages, snap and dangle unconvincingly rather than neatly tie together.

However, it's the visuals and the performances that keep Tale of Tales on a course of cinematic voyeurism.

Certainly the practical creature effects assign the film a credence that would make Guillermo del Toro happy and the locations are truly something to behold- and the human elements are equally as pleasing.

An obsequious Cassel brings thrust to the bacchanal leanings of his king, Hayek has a tragic touch that the barrenness of motherhood can only bring to life, and Toby Jones steals the piece with his superbly expressive king who is more concerned with the love of a tick than the happiness of his daughter (Jones alone deserves praise for the physical comedy he conveys with just a few cursive expressions).

But beneath the veneer of these fairy tales, the miasma of sadness and the thematic bond is a relatively strong one, a reminder that these stories have their heart in bloody tragedy; however, it's a touch that Garrone perhaps fudges in the ultimate execution. The majority of the stories hardly have a satisfying ending and the conclusion of the film feels arbitrary rather than resolute.

Perhaps one to savour for the darker delicious edges rather than the narrative execution, Tale of Tales proves to be a visual feast - albeit a hollow one.