Spies in Disguise: Film Review

Spies in Disguise: Film Review

Cast: Will Smith, Tom Holland, Rashida Jones, Ben Mendelsohn
Director: Troy Quane, Nick Bruno

If the thought of Will Smith playing a talking pigeon in a spy movie repels you, this is still utterly the film for you.

A veritable cinematic cartoon blast of pacy fun, Spies in Disguise gets 2020 off to a great start in ways you could never imagine.

Smith is Lance Sterling, a smooth go-it-alone spy, who's framed for a theft of a drone. Holland plays Walter, a socially inept tech genius who finds himself in the middle of the conspiracy when Sterling decides he has no one to trust...

So far, so Odd Couple, and so not really re-inventing the wheel - yet Spies in Disguise respects the spy genre and the mismatched buddy trope with absolute aplomb.

Packing in spy stunts and heart before the Bond-riffing titles even begin, it's clear that Spies in Disguise knows and respects its target market, as well as the history of what's gone before for the respective genres.

What emerges is a whipsmart film that's aimed at the kids but keeps the adults (and the young at heart) firmly in its grip too - puns riff of Fifty Shades of Grey in one moment, another involving Glitter and Kittens is rolled out to great effect.

Based on animated short, Pigeon: Impossible, Spies in Disguise's strength is that it keeps the pace up, knows the dynamic is where the fun lies, and knows its animation isn't groundbreaking but showcases it to dazzling effect.

Sure there are messages about accepting being weird, and teamwork over loner behaviour, but Spies in Disguise is smart enough not to ram them down throats and concentrate on the goofy edges above all else. But it also knows that the smart thing to do is not dwell on one element above all else, and as a result, the coherency is compelling.

Spies in Disguise deserves to be a hit - fresh, funny and frantic, it's animation at its most basic - there to entertain from beginning to end.

The Kitchen: DVD Review

The Kitchen: DVD Review

Melissa McCarthy digs deep once again from the well of seriousness which served her so well and nabbed her an Academy Award nomination.

McCarthy stars as Kathy, the wife of an Irish mobster in Hells Kitchen in New York in the 70s. When Kathy's husband, along with his two co-conspirators, are jailed, Kathy, along with her friends Ruby and Claire (Haddish and Handmaid's Tale's Moss respectively) decide enough's enough and look to take over business.

But their desire to do the right thing and also make some money on the side puts them in the eyeline of the police and the Mafia.

The Kitchen's approach to drama is piecemeal at best.

Whereas Widows had dramatic heft, emotional bite and weight, The Kitchen flounders in comparison.

Sadly, by dipping in and dipping out of the characters, and even with a restrained McCarthy trying to build on Can You Ever Forgive Me, The Kitchen doesn't hit any of the straps it wants to.

Opening with James Brown's It's A Man's World over shots of NYC, as well as mobsters, it's clear that this is a male perspective and those in charge are determined to smash it. But underwriting, as well as scenes that fly by quicker than they should, those involved really don't know how to construct a drama that has tension and suspense.

Shouting stereotypes and with dialogue that's ham-fisted as the characters' so-called intentions, this attempt at gender-flipping falls massively short.

Humorous moments that are supposed to be dark and gallows are delivered with such heavy-handedness they fall flatter than they should or deserve to. There's a lack of nerve, and even moments of violence, brief as they are in their brutality, fail to deliver the punch they could have.

IT's almost as if The Kitchen were too afraid to go as dark as it could, to deeply enrich its characters and to blur the moral lines that the best gangster films do - because of that, it ends up feeling inconsequential, a waste of the talents within and a flight of empowerment that's grounded before it even begins.

Little Women: Film Review

Little Women: Film Review

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Emma Watson, Eliza Scanlan, Laura Dern, Chris Cooper, Timothee Chalamet, Meryl Streep
Director: Greta Gerwig

The latest adaptation of Little Women is a delightful and emotionally devastating, engaging affair that sees director Greta Gerwig reteaming with her Lady Bird star to create a contemporary take on a timeless novel.

Ronan is Jo March in this tale which loops back and forth to weave a linear tale of the March sisters and their lives that many will be familiar with (it is, after all, the eighth outing for the 1868 novel).

But this story, set as it is in the aftermath of the American Civil War in the 1860s in New England, feels more contemporary than any other revival put on screen.

Largely due to the trifecta of Greta Gerwig's scripting and staging, Saoirse Ronan's wonderfully understated and weighty performance, and Florence Pugh's multi-dimensional turn.

However, where Little Women excels is in its pace, and its zipping about in storyline; it's not that anything here feels rushed, or skated over, more that it delivers with a generosity of spirit to make it one of the year's best.

It ducks between the delightful courtship of Laurie (Chalamet) and Jo with aplomb, turns Pugh's Amy's petulance into something truly moving and generally gifts everyone with a moment or two to shine. Its only error is in its denouement, a sequence that feels unearned and a little too emotionally flat. (And in honesty, it could stand to lose 20 minutes of its run time).

It's hard to single out any of the players, but both Ronan and Pugh deserve some form of accolade for their work within; both send very familiar characters on very familiar arcs but deliver in fresh and enticing ways for a story that's nigh on 160 years old - something which is no mean feat.

"People want to be amused and not preached at," an editor decries early on, as Jo presents her latest book in the aftermath of the civil war. The duality of the meaning's not lost, given some could view this as feminist cinema - but Little Women has no time for such inane trivialities as this.

A breath of cinematic fresh air to cleanse the cynical pallet, Gerwig's Little Women deserves to be shouted about from the heights; it's alluring, enticing, thrilling, emotional and unconventionally unstuffy - in short, it's a delight you can't afford not to see.

Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan: DVD Review

Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan: DVD Review

The war film is an obvious beast to master.

It requires a reasonable amount of character setting up, then a soupcon of tension, some action and some emotional catharsis mixed in with a denouement of tragedy and the human condition.

Red Dog's director Stenders knows that, and setting the Anzac story of a little-known battle in Vietnam, the film chooses to recreate the feeling of courage under fire as the skirmish plays out. (The 120 plus inexperienced New Zealand and Australian soldiers believed they'd only face a handful of Vietcong - whereas the reality was somewhere in the region of 2500.)

Travis Fimmel is Major Harry Smith, a would-be leader frustrated by the backroom machinations of the officers as a battle near the Vietnamese plantation Long Tan draws ever closer.

When his company finds a chance to be involved, Smith, who's determined to prove himself seizes it with lustre - but most of his troops aren't ready for conflict, or willing to commit to Smith's methodology.

Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan recreates the battle scenes with a sheen that's polished and accomplished, as bullets fly left, right and centre. Limbs are torn, soldiers are felled and outrage boils as those behind in the camps bluster and effectively abandon their compadres in the heat of one upmanship.

But because of the script's broad strokes and brash characterisation, the sacrifices feel slight, and the beats of the movie are obvious - enemies within the same side soften, and you can almost hear what's coming next a mile away.

And don't even think about getting any kind of insight into the Vietcong as this film is less interested in portraying anything of the faceless enemy other than frenzied, screaming and in slow mo.

Much like Red Dog dealt in the interactions of the everyday, Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan tries for similar, with more patchy results.

Fimmel goes from boggle-eyed to humbled, and his companions fare equally less well.

Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan hits every cliche going, and then some, but still manages the kind of solid war film propaganda that it intends to do when it tries to educate.

The action is well-presented, relentless and with a small scope (and maybe some budgetary restraints), Stenders relives the theatre of war with a kind of palpable horror and intensity. But it's the more human side of the conflict that lets the film down badly, robbing it of poignancy, pose and purpose as it hurtles to its inevitable conclusion.

Jumanji: The Next Level: Film Review

Jumanji: The Next Level: Film Review

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Jack Black, Danny Glover, Danny DeVito, Awkwafina, Rhys Darby, Rory McCann
Director: Jake Kasdan

Jumanji: The Next Level is like any video game sequel.

It retains the core elements of what made the original popular, but tries to add in new elements to continue the franchise. In the second sequel to hit the Jumanji franchise, the gang returns to the game to rescue Spencer (Alex Wolff) who's been drifting and feeling lost since the first game concluded.

But this time around, Jumanji faces a new threat in the form of Rory McCann's warlord Jurgen the brutal - and it's up to Dr Bravestone and the group to save the day.

Essentially redoing the first film in many ways (even overtly in the movie's final third), Jumanji: The Next Level takes what works the first time around and retools it (only slightly though) for the sequel. Yet at times, the film feels like it's coasting by and repeating itself, only really allowing The Rock and Kevin Hart the chance to switch it up a little.

In fairness, the relationship between the two of them and the bickering banter works well as they put Danny Glover and Danny DeVito's warring oldies into the game, and giving Karen Gillan the chance to take the lead.

A couple of set-pieces impress with ostriches and mandrills, but in truth, the second is a repeat of the first, no matter how well Kasdan orchestrates them. The game may dwell on its body swap mentality, but the film this time around mixes up the avatars and brings in Glover, DeVito and Awkwafina's characters to relative comic aplomb.

However, the film's disjointed game level style plot tries awkwardly to inject a need for Hart and Johnson's characters to bicker and then try and make up, as the surprise of how and why the avatars work is out of the bag.

Ultimately, Jumanji: The Next Level is fun enough family fare, it offers enough reason to exist for the broad market it's trying to hit - it may not level up enough and will need to shake things up for the teased sequel.

The Angry Birds Movie 2: DVD Review

The Angry Birds Movie 2: DVD Review

The birds are back to slingshot and likely to catapult their way back into tiny minds, even if the older ones may be a little more resistant to the charms of the mobile phone based movie.

In this second, Sudeikis' Red returns, as the hero having saved Bird Island from the perils and pranks of Piggy Island.

Revered as a hero, Red's deepest insecurities come to the fore again when he's co-opted as part of a team to take on the insurgents of Eagle Island, which are threatening both Piggy and Bird Island.

An uneasy alliance is formed between the Pigs and Birds, as they unite to fight the common foe - but for Red, the enemy lies within.

Functional and occasionally funny, The Angry Birds Movie 2 relies on sight gags for its moments, and generally succeeds.

But it's never more than solid to anyone but its target audience to be frank.

A sub-plot with three hatchlings trying to rescue their eggs feels like an ode to Ice Age's Scrat and his nut that nobody asked for - and while cutely executed, it adds little to the overall plot and feel of the film other than to serve to show the flow isn't quite there and the main story is thin at best. This isn't a deep level movie, more a surface once over lightly to replenish a franchise. (Though a toilet sequence is genuinely side-splitting in its execution).

There are signs that the female led empowerment of Silver, the extra element into the already-recognised team is there to teach kids that girls can be part of it too, and deserves to be commended. But the female leader of Eagle Island seems like a step back in terms of women, no matter how well voiced she is by Leslie Jones. Its obvious message of teamwork and male insecurity can be seen a mile off - but again, this is for kids.

Yet, at the end of the day, the animation looks pliable, lush and squishy enough, and while you sense some of the cast has been expanded, along with the location, simply to provide a game update, The Angry Birds Movie 2 does what it says on the tin.

Nothing more, and nothing less. And sometimes, for a kid's film that wants simplicity, that's no bad thing. 

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood: Blu Ray Review

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood: Blu Ray Review

The new Tarantino film, possibly his penultimate cinematic entry, is an odd beast.

Riddled with nods to his way of delivering film and saddled with his own tropes, Once Upon A Time...... in Hollywood is an elegaic and relaxed film, a hang out with buddies movie that's about the waxing and waning of the old Hollywood - before it erupts in another direction in the final 30 minutes.

Tarantino himself has asked for no spoilers, but suffice to say, the film zeroes in on Leonardo Di Caprio's Rick Dalton, a fading TV western star and his longtime stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt, a simmering performance that lounges in casual charm and charisma but offers hints at more).

It's 1969 Los Angeles, and the tides of change are sweeping through Hollywood, and Dalton's trying to find his place in what's ahead - is the Golden Years over for them all?

Reflexive and reflective, Once Upon A Time...... in Hollywood is an intriguing proposition that may at times test your Tarantino love and frustrate the casual cinema viewer.

While there's no doubting that Tarantino's evocative recreations of 1969 Hollywood shine out (from his love of locations to period details), there's also a feeling in a lot of the film of padding and endless scenes of musical cues and scenes of driving simply being thrown into the mix, just for the sake of a soundtrack.

There's also a feeling of more of a meandering narrative than has ever been deployed before; it's never quite clear whose story exactly the film is thanks to intersecting lines that don't quite cross with thematic power as is usual with Tarantino.

And yet despite all of that, and a troublesome ending sequence which is true Tarantino, the film offers many pleasures, even if it's not one of Quentin's best. There's a buddy feeling throughout and the vibe between Pitt and DiCaprio is a good one throughout, making being in their company never a chore.

But without some expeditious editing, Tarantino's spinning a yarn that's a little too long in the tooth, no matter what allegories you pour on the relationship between Rick and Cliff and how it reflects real life.

It wallows when it doesn't need to and drifts as it crosses genres between revenge fantasy and period drama, and satire on the time and Tarantino's western fascinations.

All in all though Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood is a fairy tale, a rumination of times gone, all poured through a Tarantino prism; yet it's an intriguing and entertaining enigma that will have you talking and thinking long after the sun's set on 1969 Los Angeles.