Underwater: Film Review

Underwater: Movie Review

Cast: Kristen Stewart, Vincent Cassel, TJ Miller, Jessica Henwick
Director: William Eubank

You've seen Underwater before.

Whether it's the mix of The Meg's terror, or the barely disguised Alien rip off baby creature, or in the seabase under threat mentality of various episodes of Doctor Who, there's a sense of deja vu from the moment this murkily executed, frustratingly workmanlike film begins.

Stewart is Norah, a close-cropped techie type who's spent so long under the sea working on the drilling operation that she's no longer sure what day it is, or if she's awake or dreaming.

However, her tenuous grip on reality is rudely awoken when large sections of the miles-deep rig begin to fail and she's forced to run for her life. Siding with a handful of other survivors, including the rig's Captain (Cassel, largely wasted), it becomes a desperate run for life as it transpires something outside the walls, potentially shaken out from the company's deep-sea drilling, is hunting them - and won't leave anyone alive.

Underwater's production values are stunning.

While the CGI creatures are a massive let down, the visualisation of the suits, the grimy walls and subterranean corridors is a claustrophobe's nightmare.

Director William Eubank makes great fist of the encroaching walls and the creaks and jolts of the underwater rig falling in around our ears. Using tightly shot close ups, or images from within the helmets, he gives the film a sense of terror, of urgency and of uncertainty which is largely lacking from a lot of the rest of the script.

Inconsistencies of the creature's behaviour, a desire to give Stewart's Norah a line worthy of Ripley and some truly average CGI work drags Underwater into the sea murk, which is a shame, as there's a kernel of a good thriller horror lurking here, a ticking time bomb of man versus nature mixed in with an "God what did we do" ethos and paranoia that's worthy of any film.

But by showing the creatures, the film squanders any good will, and despite a more muted, racked by tics Stewart showing she's never a one dimensional actor, there was truly some real potential here to uphold the despair and the fight for survival.

Underwater is serviceable enough - just frustratingly, it feels underwritten and its potential lost at sea.

Seberg: Film Review

Seberg: Film Review

Cast: Kristen Stewart, Jack O'Connell, Vince Vaughn, Anthony Mackie, Zazie Beetz
Director: Benedict Andrews

With its perils of surveillance of the innocent story, you'd expect Seberg to be a seething commentary on the contemporary ills Americans face.

But in truth, Seberg's simplicity is what cripples its tale of the downfall of Jean Seberg (Stewart, in a largely vacant shell of drama until the final third of the film kicks in).

Stewart is Seberg, an American actress who garnered fame through her part in Jean Luc Godard's Breathless in 1960. When Seberg is seen supporting the Black Panther movement via way of Anthony Mackie's Hakim Jamal, the FBI is ordered to wiretrap and surveil her as part of the FBI COINTELPRO programme.

As the surveillance steps up, Seberg's grip on life starts to falter, and an FBI Agent (O'Connell) begins to question whether his bosses are doing the right thing...

The drama is present in Seberg, and the stage is set for an explosive showdown that lays bare the perils of defamation, the cost of the stalking and the clash of ideologies within. Yet, by laying out broad brush strokes and having a lead who doesn't feel she inhabits the role, the fault lies squarely in the script of Seberg, which is too light and fluffy to really deliver the bite it needs.

Vaughan's pro-FBI man is merely a monster, and O'Connell's wavering is presented too simply. The conflict is nowhere explored nearly as much as it could and should be in Seberg. Presenting Seberg as Joan of Arc early on aims to show her martydom but the film does little other than to portray her as a victim throughout, which is intentional, but unearned thanks to the weak script.

In the final third, as the consequences ramp up, Stewart delivers something close to searing, but it's really too little too late as the muted feel hits the film and cripples it.

Seberg is nowhere near as searing as it should be, and its chance to condemn, lay blame and berate those who gifted Seberg with her unwanted paranoia is squandered, when it should have been seized and milked to maximum dramatic effect.

Win a copy of Zombieland Double Tap

Win a copy of Zombieland Double Tap

To celebrate the release of Zombieland Double Tap, thanks to Sony Home Entertainment, you can win a copy.

About Zombieland Double Tap

Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock move to the American heartland as they face off against evolved zombies, fellow survivors, and the growing pains of the snarky makeshift family.

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The Grudge: Film Review

The Grudge: Film Review

Cast: Andrea Riseborough, Jacki Weaver, Demian Bichir, John Cho, Betty Gilpin, Lin Shaye
Director: Nicolas Pesce

With its split time narratives and its desire to try and do something different with Ju-on, The Grudge's 2020 outing has laudable intentions.

This time around, the curse of the angry ghost is brought to America, and a cop (Riseborough, channeling Scandi chic and dour faces) sets about investigating the murders in a suburban house, that have plagued generations.

But the more she investigates, the more drawn into the world she becomes - and the more she faces the possibility she will be taken....

The Grudge has an intriguing premise - but by stretching it out across three time different periods, and chopping and changing the narrative, the film denies the movie going audience the one thing a good horror movie should give them - frights.

Less a jump fest, more a choppy psychological piece, this outing for Ju-on, which began back in the early 2000s when Ringu and its ilk were popular, feels like a frustrating exercise in tedium and endurance, a haunted house horror that barely has the frights to match its macabre machinations.

Riseborough is gritty enough, but doesn't get enough to do with a script that demands she's more dour-faced than anything else. Bichir adds yet another horror outing to his CV, but his grizzled detective does little but grumble about proceedings and warn of horrors.

Weaver impresses as a suicide assistance nurse, but with the time jumps, the film loses the build up of tensions when it needs them the most, and each set piece leads inevitably to where you expect it would - and where the script has already shown you. There's little to surprise here, making the 90 minute run time still feel like time is going backwards.

Simply put, The Grudge is a drudge, one of 2020's worst and most frustrating missed opportunities.

Playing with Fire: Film Review

Playing with Fire: Film Review

Cast: John Cena, John Leguizamo, Keegan-Michael Key, Dennis Haybsert, Judy Greer, Brianna Hildebrand
Director: Andy Fickman

It's not just that Playing With Fire is bad, it's also that it's so excruciatingly bad that it extinguishes your will to get through its 95 minute run time.

From Nickleodeon, you'd expect this tale of a group of smoke jumpers, headed up by straight-laced Cena's Jake Carson, to be broad family fare. However, as this mix of Kindergarten Cop and unfunny flat oneliners proves, not everything Cena touches turns to comedy gold.

When Carson and his team rescue a group of three kids, headed up by Deadpool's Brianna Hildebrand, from a fire, they're forced to give them shelter in the firehouse for the weekend.

But the chaos of the kids in the big house causes untold issues for the uptight, emotionally stunted Carson and his compatriots. And it's further compounded when Carson finds his chance for promotion dangling in the balance.

Playing With Fire is a mix of sentimental with the silly, but unfortunately, none of it really gels together.

Slow mo shots of the firefighters early on give way to corny gags and a plot that's threadbare at best, non-existent at worst.

Sure there's the old trope of the emotionally stunted men getting in touch with their feelings, but none of it's presented well enough to be engaging.

From Keegan-Michael Key's over-emphatic No2 to Leguizamo's misquoting and My Little Pony watching firehouse chef, the film's desire to play silly and broad doesn't work, because the gags aren't amusing enough to anyone over the age of 5.

A lack of writing can't be substituted for what's needed within the film, and while Cena et al prove they don't care enough to debase themselves with what the script dictates, Playing With Fire is more an exercise in patience and tedium.

The problem is that the rewards for doing so just aren't nearly enough.

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon: Film Review

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon: Film Review

Director: Will Becher, Richard Phelan

It's hard to explain why A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon works so well.

From its sci-fi easter eggs to its general desire to encapsulate timeless British silliness with throwaway gags (a bull in a china shop being the best), there's something about Aardman's work that just feels iconically English, yet universally funny.

While this latest may lack the heart of the first Shaun The Sheep movie, it's lost none of the madcap charm as we return to Mossingham. With a UFO sighting in the village, the farmer decides to cash in to try and make some money to upgrade his harvester.

However, Shaun's already met the alien, and in true buddy movie mentality, sets out to get the little critter home before the shady government agencies capture him first....

From slapstick silliness to pratfalls, scifi gags that include ET, Doctor Who, a wonderful Hitchhiker's nod and a truly brilliant 2001: A Space Odyssey pastiche, A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon is family fare for everyone to enjoy.

Once again, Aardman's homed in what makes British humour so amusing, and shows once again this animation studio's spent more time than any other weaving in gags into every single frame.

Sure, under closer analysis, it does lacks the emotional edge of the 2015 debut, but it over-delivers the silliness and packs in more jokes than you can take in. A finale doesn't quite match up all the pieces, but all in all, Aardman's still delightful and determined to leave you grinning.

There's also an opening reminder of how Wallace and Gromit led the way with their Grand Day Out (even down to the robot's roots in Farmageddon), but while they may be benched due to the sad death of Peter Sallis, Shaun The Sheep has certainly got years to go - here's hoping we don't have to wait another 5 years for the next outing.

Ride Like A Girl: DVD Review

Ride Like A Girl: DVD Review

The story of Michelle Payne, the first female jockey to win Flemington in 2015, the horse race which stops Australia should on paper be a home run.

In theory, an underdog story, a tale of female empowerment and of triumph in the face of adversity, it has it all as it goes into the starting gate, promising a powerful start and an uplifting final furlong.

But what emerges from Ride Like A Girl is a story given such a light touch that very little rarely lands as it should, despite the stoic work from Palmer, the reliable gruff from Neill as the emotionally stunted father and Stevie Payne as the real-life brother, Stevie.

The trouble is that Griffiths keeps flitting from one sequence of Payne's life to another, hardly allowing anything to resonate as it should. Equally the chauvinism and sexism that was thrown Payne's way warrants only the briefest of mentions in proceedings and certainly doesn't do much to increase the drama stakes.

Where the film is more triumphant is in its execution of the horse riding sequences, capturing both the intensity and the tension of the race from within the galloping cluster. It means that in these sequences alone, there's a palpable sense of stakes and tension.

And the family story at the heart of the Payne story is the one that beats a little louder than normal - certainly Stevie Payne brings real pathos to his role, and never once does the script play to an audience's easy expectations.

Ride Like A Girl does feel, at times, like a TV movie writ large but it lacks the conviction of its desired inspirations, preferring instead to plough a conventional and extremely safe path. Ultimately, because of that decision at a script and directorial level, the film rarely raises its head from the pack and disappoints what should have been an easy win.