Escape Room: Film Review

Escape Room: Film Review

Cast: Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Deborah Ann Woll, Tyler Labine
Director: Adam Robitel

Less torturous than the Saw franchise, but still none the less suspenseful, Escape Room's premise is a nicely executed mystery box, awaiting to be opened.

Zoe (Russell) is a college kid, who finds herself at a loose end at the Thanksgiving break, and not going home. Upon receiving a mystery box, she cracks it open, eventually, to discover an invite to an Escape Room meeting, where the prize is $10,000 for escape.

Upon arrival, she finds a clutch of others in the waiting room as well, destined to be her colleagues in the escape. But each has a secret, and as the reality begins to settle in, everyone has everything to lose.

While Escape Room is a case of some fairly weak character work (everyone's a stereoptype in some form or other), thanks to the lead's empathy, there's a bit to latch on to in terms of emotional stakes.

And what Escape Room may lack in depth for leads, it more than makes up for in terms of execution.

Essentially a series of five chamber pieces, the claustrophobia and suspense of an escape machination is given a taut and well-executed edge. Certainly, the aesthetics of the third room is brilliantly conceived and nonchalantly realised. To say more is to spoil that reveal, but needless to say this one central set piece more than makes for the price of admission.

What's not as great about Escape Room (aside from some of the aforementioned characterisation) is the fact its ending feels deliberately conceived as a cash-grab, scene setting for anything future. It's massively disappointing that this cynical approach is deployed, robbing the audience of a feeling of completion and a film that deserves another on its own merits, rather than lazy writing by studio fat-cats.

Ultimately, Escape Room provides some knotty moments, gives the torture-porn series a welcome non torturous approach, but fails the finale intensely.

The Girl In The Spider's Web: Blu Ray Review

The Girl In The Spider's Web: Blu Ray Review

The Millennium Trilogy was, to be frank, a sensation.

Dark, dingy, Scandi-noir that hooked audiences, the Noomi Rapace/ Michael Nyqvist combo sustained three films and millions of book sales. The subsequent reimagining with Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara fell short, even if it embraced some of the darkness and intense nastiness which percolated through the first.

And now, from the director of Don't Breathe, the book not written by Stieg Larsson has made it to the big screen, with The Crown star Claire Foy taking the lead role of hacker Lisbeth Salander.

Yet, The Girl In The Spider's Web all feels so formulaic, and largely unexciting.

The story concerns Salander who's contacted by Stephen Merchant's Frans Balder to retrieve a defence programme he's written. Salander does, but then finds herself unexpectedly under attack from others who want it, and framed for crimes she didn't commit.

Racing against time to clear her name, and stop the end of the world, Salander discovers the conspiracy has a very familial feel to it...

The problems with The Girl In The Spider's Web are largely not those connected with the execution of the film, which deploys some clever twists and starkly nasty imagery with veritable aplomb.

And the problem doesn't lie on the shoulders of a relatively emotionless Foy, who largely turns Salander into a scowling, scornful, brooding superhero type, in a performance which dials down the restraint, ups the physicality from Foy and leaves an impressive feel.

The main issue with The Girl In The Spider's Web is the story itself - it seems so out of keeping with what the original trilogy aimed for.

When Salander first appears, it's like she's cosplaying Oliver McQueen from Arrow, and the script demands an avenging angel like performance as the righter of wrongs, catapulting Salander into the echelons of damaged superheroes. And while Alvarez does much with jerky camera movements and handheld rushes to complement a sense of suspense at the start, he soon abandons for formulaic thriller territory.

The Girl In The Spider's Web still has some nightmarish edges, and while the emotional touches at the end come down to a short scene involving two people on a snowy ledge, there's little to let the light in throughout.

Stanfield is terribly and woefully underused as an American agent chasing the missing program; and in much similar ways, journalist Mikael Blomkvist is sidelined as the story goes on, robbing the film of the central spiky partnership that was such a tenet of the original series.

If all of this feels like The Girl In The Spider's Web is being damned, it's pertinent to say it's still a competent thriller, even if it's one constrained in a narrative web of its own doing.

It's just compared to the original films, and source material, no matter what Alvarez and Foy do, it's not enough to lift it from the gloom that pervades throughout - both of atmosphere and of oh-so-familiar pulp plot which lacks the sophistication and lyrical poetry of the first three. 

How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World: Film Review

How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World: Film Review

Cast: Jay Baruchel, America Ferrara, F Murray Abraham
Director: Dean DeBlois

The animated dragon saga hits its conclusion capper with The Hidden World, a film that's a visually layered but occasionally muted end to the series.

Jay Baruchel's Hiccup is back, this time as the chief of Berk, and still pal to alpha dragon Toothless.

With Hiccup facing marriage to Astrid (Ferrara), the world of Berk is thrown into disarray with the arrival of a new dinosaur hunter Grimmel (Murray Abraham) determined to wipe Toothless' kind from the world.

As the tribe up and leaves from Berk, Hiccup begins to doubt himself, and worries what future lies ahead for them all - and most importantly, for his pal Toothless.

There is no doubting the calibre of the animation of How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.

Certainly, the sequence where The Hidden World is discovered is visually astounding, shimmering as it does with colour, and subtle hues.

And there are moments between Toothless and his new lady dragon friend that are up there with some of the best animal courtship sequences you've seen on TV animal shows (complete with some truly adept orchestral scores helping the scenes soar).

The visuals are award-worthy, and certainly do much to build on previous installments.

But it has also to be said, there's a lot of distraction in How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World which pulls away from engaging with Hiccup one last time. Tedious back and forth bonehead banter between Tuffnut and Ruffnut grates immensely and derails the emotional heft that's brewing.

When How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World concentrates solely on Hiccup and Toothless though, it soars. From the age old message of learning to love with loss, and realising they have to move on, Jay Baruchel does some of his best work, giving Hiccup the bittersweet sadness he needs to carry it off.

It's a good solid end and capper to the trilogy, and while the emotional edges work best when they stay focussed, the ultimate open end feel to the film allows you to hope against hope that one day, Hiccup and Toothless will reunite on the big screen.

Mega Time Squad: DVD Review

Mega Time Squad: DVD Review

More loopy, than Looper, Mega Time Squad is a blast.

A ludicrously-fuelled tale of crime and lack of ambition in middle New Zealand (Thames, to be precise), director Tim Van Dammen's follow up to NZIFF hit Romeo and Juliet: A Love Story is nonetheless stylish.

Anton Tennet is John, a small town hoodlum who's less a player, more easily-to-be-played. Part of a crime gang run by Jonny Brugh's Shelton (the humourous lunatic of the piece), John's sent to rob a triad at his behest to prevent the Chinese from getting a foothold in Thames.

While carrying out the deed, John gets his hands on a mysterious piece of Chinese jewellery that has mystical time-travelling properties...and suddenly finds he has ambitions he never realised.

Fresh, enticing and flipping funny, Mega Time Squad is easily one of the best time at the movies.

With a laconic style and some unexpectedly humorous moments to pierce any of the meanness (of which there's little) van Dammen celebrates the Kiwi in the middle of the country, and never once loses any of the smarts of the film's genre. It may play up the mystical elements of the bracelet and then never quite deliver (the film's only criticism), but van Dammen's clever enough to use the genre for what it needs, and never loses sight that the core of the story is of a man stuck where he is split between wanting to be and not.

Very much a celebration riddled through with a lunatic lo-fi joie de vivre (and some truly amusing yet human imagery, pies under a cloche being the best), Mega Time Squad is enjoyable.

There's nothing pals and pies can't solve, and amid the wannabe gangster storyline and growing absurdities, Mega Time Squad packs as big a heart as you could ever want from a NZ film.

What Men Want: Film Review

What Men Want: Film Review

Cast: Taraji P Henson, Tracy Morgan, Aldis Hodge, Josh Brener
Director: Adam Shankman

An uneven script, doused in a smattering of MeToo gags and some current pop culture references, does not help Taraji P Henson in the latest take of the Nancy Meyers Mel Gibson  flick, What Women Want.

Henson is Ali, a ball-busting sports agent, who's stuck in a firm that's clearly a boys' club and bouncing from one one night stand to another. Rejected again to take partnership in the firm, Ali finds her world further complicated when at a bridal shower she meets a psychic (an unhinged Erykah Badu) who gives her the ability to read men's minds.

Faced with the possibility of using this to get ahead at work, Ali becomes re-energised and desperate to get a star client before her other compadres.

Clever references to Get Out and crowd-pleasing Black Panther moment aside, What Men Want seems to be lost in its own execution, an uncertain mess of where it wants to go and how it wants to get there.

Henson is uniformly excellent though, giving Ali a ball-busting bluster that's needed early on, and a life that shows that she's as good as the boys in the Boys Club sports agent company to get ahead. But saddled with material that's rote and formulaic does little to help Henson rise out of the mire, no matter how hard she tries - and no matter how hard the script tries to mix Jerry Maguire with Entourage.

It helps little that it aims for every low-hanging fruit it can, barely hitting some of them with the crass bat swinging in every direction.

There are obvious learnings here, and perhaps that's what hinders What Men Want - unless you're a gaggle of women, boozed up and after a girls' night out, the film's less than content to satiate many in the audience. It's shallow as you'd expect, giving the men thoughts about body image, promotion, social climbing and work insecurities, as well as the usual sex issues.

Ultimately, while a love story with Aldis Hodge is reasonably well handled, Tracy Morgan's involvement feels like a muted amount of bluster to be fired in the direction of the audience. Supposed to be a foil for Henson's Ali, Morgan's Joe Dollar feels weak and badly-timed for the necessary gags.

All in all, What Men Want is a weak attempt at a feminist bout of humour. Were it not for Henson's all-in approach, the film would be torture for nearly two hours.

As it stands now, it's still torture, but a little more endurable in parts.

Win American Animals on Blu Ray

Win American Animals on Blu Ray

To celebrate the release of American Animals, thanks to Madman Home Entertainment, you can win a Blu Ray copy!

About American Animals

Nobody wants to be ordinary

From Bart Layton (The Imposter) and starring Evan Peters (The X-Men Series), Barry Keoghan (Dunkirk & The Killing of the Sacred Deer), and Ann Dowd (The Handmaid's Tale) comes the extraordinary and thrilling true story of four friends living an ordinary existence who brazenly attempt to execute one of the most audacious art heists in US history. 

But not everything is as it seems, and as the daring theft unfolds through each of their perspectives, they start to question whether their attempts to inject excitement and purpose into their lives is simply a misguided attempt at achieving the American Dream.

To win all you have to do is email your details and the word ANIMALS to this address: darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com or CLICK HERE NOW!

Competition closes March 5th

Win Mega Time Squad

Win Mega Time Squad

To celebrate the release of Mega Time Squad, you can win a copy, thanks to Madman Home Entertainment

About Mega Time Squad

Out of time without a clue

A small-town crim finds an ancient Chinese time-travel device that can help him pull off a heist and start a new life-but he may not survive the consequences of tampering with time. 

The Castle meets Looper, Mega Time Squad is a study in high-meets-low, combining elements of the sci-fi, the crime thriller and the comedy to make a comedy heist film with a time-traveling twist.

To win all you have to do is email your details and the word MEGA to this address: darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com or CLICK HERE NOW!

Competition closes March 5th