Non-Review Reviews | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Anchorman 2 – The Legend Continues

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Darren

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues is perhaps twenty minutes too long, and indulges in a little bit too much of the nostalgia common in comedy sequels during its final act, but it’s a movie with its heart in the right place. More message-driven than its direct predecessor, and much more of an ensemble piece, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues is an enjoyable example of the sorts of cringe comedy that made the original such a cult classic. While it might not measure up perfectly, it ranks quite highly among the annals of comedy sequels.

Jumping for joy?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: adam mckay, Anchorman: The Legend Continues, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, arts, Christina Applegate, David Koechner, Legend Continues, paul rudd, Ron, Ron Burgandy, sequel, Steve Carell, will ferrell | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Railway Man

Posted on December 17, 2013 by Darren

The Railway Man is certainly an ambitious film. Adapting the true story of British Second World War veteran Eric Lomax, who won the 1996 NCR Book Award and the J. R. Ackerley Prize for The Railway Man, his autobiographical account of his time in Japanese captivity and the aftermath of the war. Adapted by Frank Cottrell Boyce and Andy Paterson, and directed by Jonathan Teplitzky, it remains a fascinating and compelling exploration of the wounds left festering by war.

The biggest problem with The Railway Man is that it is perhaps too ambitious; it tries to include too much, and to cover too much ground in the space available. Despite that, it remains a moving and harrowing look at the remarkable life of one veteran.

Trained for this…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Andy Paterson, Bangkok, colin firth, Eric Lomax, Frank Cottrell Boyce, Jeremy Irvine, Lomax, nicole kidman, Patti, Railway Man, world war ii | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Walking With Dinosaurs – The 3D Movie

Posted on December 15, 2013 by Darren

You never really grow up past the love of dinosaurs. Sure, you are probably never as relentlessly fascinated with the gigantic reptiles as you were when you were a kid, but those prehistoric creatures still garner affection from children of all ages. That was, after all, the basic premise of Jurassic Park, which got a high-profile 20th anniversary re-release this year. It was also the driving force behind Walking With Dinosaurs, the ground-breaking CGI documentary broadcast on the BBC in the UK and on Discovery in America.

So adapting the show to film seems like a logical step, and Walking With Dinosaurs: The 3D Movie is a bit of a no-brainer for a holiday family release, especially with families that have children too young to watch The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug or Anchorman: The Legend Continues and who have already seen Frozen. It’s a concept that really sells itself, which makes it incredibly frustrating that Walking With Dinosaurs: The 3D Movie goes out of its way to sabotage itself.

“It was a night like this, forty million years ago…”

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 3d film, Avery Brooks, bbc, David Attenborough, Dinosaur, film, Hobbit The, john leguizamo, jurassic park, justin long, kenneth branagh, United States, Walking With Dinosaurs | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Hobbit – The Desolation of Smaug

Posted on December 11, 2013 by Darren

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug represents a considerable improvement on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Some of the same problems still lurk at the edge of the frame: the pacing needs a bit of work; the movie is about half-an-hour too long; it feels a little too consciously like one extended prelude to The Lord of the Rings. And yet, despite all these flaws, The Desolation of Smaug accomplishes a lot of what it sets out to do.

This is very clearly the same Middle Earth that viewers remember from The Lord of the Rings. Even the least obsessive viewer will still recognise the occasional familiar landmark or setting from the early film. It’s not just the New Zealand locations that shine through; great care has been taken to establish a geography of this fictional landscape. Viewers who have yet to memorise the names and routes on Tolkien’s meticulously-prepared maps can see that this is the same world.

It’s just being seen from a different perspective. The Hobbit isn’t really an adaptation of that much-loved adventure tale, at least not exclusively. It is instead being crafted as a companion piece, with the heroes’ quest providing a handy travelogue of a world in turmoil.

The gold standard?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Bilbo Baggins, Desolation of Smaug, Gandalf, Hobbit, Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, J. R. R. Tolkien, lord of the rings, Luke Evans, Middle-earth, New Zealand, Smaug, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Thorin, Thorin Oakenshield | 15 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)

Posted on December 9, 2013 by Darren

Ben Stiller recently explained that he was growing more interested in directing and less interested in acting in front of the camera. Even if he hadn’t confessed that in an interview, it would be hard to shake that feeling while watching The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. It’s beautifully shot and contains a number of impressive sequences and set pieces, but ultimately feels a little hollow – like a beautifully-sketched picture inhabited by two-dimensional characters.

There are moments of splendor and beauty to be found in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, but often in spite Steve Conrad’s script rather than because of it.

Daydream believer…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, ben stiller, christmas, Curious Case of Benjamin Button, James Thurber, Kathryn Hahn, Kristen Wiig, Life, Mitty, Performing Arts, sean penn, Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Steven Conrad, Stiller, Walter Mitty | 11 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Kill Your Darlings

Posted on December 2, 2013 by Darren

Kill Your Darlings feels like several different films all rolled into one. Is it an English major detective story about investigating one ruthless act through character and theme and other literary devices? Is it a coming of age story about a young man finding himself at college in New York City against the back drop of the Second World War? Is it a condemnation of the recklessness and the irreverence of the young Beat movement? Is it a standard college adventure story about young students sticking it to the man, and refusing to let authority figures tell them how to live their lives?

Kill Your Darlings is most interesting in the space between the familiar genre trappings, when it focuses on the characters at the dawn of the emerging literary movement. Indeed, the spirit of the film is best captured in one drug-induces segue in which our characters find themselves slipping between the reality and existing in a gap between moments. Kill Your Darlings is by turns romantic and cynical in its handling of Allen Ginsberg and his development as a young artist, featuring a wealth of superb central performances which can’t quite hold the film together.

Given the literary cut-up technique that we see the gang experiment with here, it feels strangely appropriate that Kill Your Darlings should be an uneven mess of a film, with a wealth of great ideas existing in the space between plot and tone and substance and reality. It just doesn’t make for a particularly satisfying film.

Talkin’ ’bout the Beat Generation…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Allen Ginsberg, Beat Generation, Columbia University, Dane DeHaan, daniel radcliffe, Ginsberg, Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, Jack Kerouac, Kill Your Darlings, Lucien Carr, Michael C Hall, New York City, William Burroughs | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Mandela – Long Walk to Freedom

Posted on November 26, 2013 by Darren

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom is very clearly a sentimental life-affirming true story, very clearly pitching itself as an upbeat and hopeful account of one of the most iconic statesmen of our time. A collection of all the “greatest hits” of Mandela’s struggle against oppression and hatred, Mandela is an efficiently calculated piece of cinema. It’s a grand sweeping historical epic that never really pulls back the layers of the character it examines, instead opting (mostly) to film the legend.

And it works. After all, what other world leader in the past half-century can lay claim to such an inspirational narrative? Nelson Mandela’s journey lends itself to this sort of optimistic and inspirational adaptation, and the subject is a comfortable fit for this sort of sweeping life-affirming whirl-wind exploration of Mandela’s personal history.

Courting public opinion…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Africa, African National Congress, Anti-Apartheid Movement, Biographical film, Clint Eastwood, film, Idris Elba, Justin Chadwick, King's Speech, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela, Naomie Harris, nelson mandela, Robben Island, south africa | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: 12 Years a Slave

Posted on November 25, 2013 by Darren

12 Years a Slave is a harrowing and moving piece of cinema. The most profound and cutting of the recent studio films to explore slavery in America, Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave is almost relentless in its probing explorations of the systems an structures that allowed and reinforced that slavery – it’s hard to watch at points, providing a deeply unsettling glimpse at the suffering that man is capable of inflicting upon his fellow man.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 12 Years a Slave, Benedict Cumberbatch, chiwetel ejiofor, Darkest Africa, John Ridley, Michael Fassbender, Slavery, Solomon, Solomon Northup, steve mcqueen, United States | 7 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Hunger Games – Catching Fire

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Darren

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire suffers from a problem comic to the second story in planned trilogies. It lacks its own clear arc or structure, instead serving as a little more (or perhaps a little less) than half a film. There’s no conclusion or resolution here, just a lot dangling plot threads and insinuations – the suggestion of a larger and grander conflict looming on the horizon that might offer some measure of closure.

While it improves on quite a few flaws from the first film, it ultimately feels rather hollow; like an extended trailer for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay.

Hungry for more?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, Catching Fire, film, george lucas, Hunger, Hunger Game, Hunger Games, Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Katniss Everdeen, Mockingjay, Movies, Poverty | 11 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Family

Posted on November 20, 2013 by Darren

I can’t tell you what The Family is. Not because of omerta or anything as cliché as that, but because it seems like The Family itself doesn’t know. I can describe what happens in the film, taking you through the events as they unfold on screen. I can describe the set-up. I can talk about its obvious influences. But I can’t tell you what exactly Luc Besson’s latest film actually is, because it seems like Besson himself can’t make up his mind.

Is it an action film with a quirky and unconventional set-up? Is it a gangster comedy about a former crook trying to go straight? Is it a fish-out-of-water comedy of manners about Americans arriving in northern France? Is it a pitch black comedy about a self-justifying sociopath attempting to carve out his own place in the world? Is it a high-stakes thriller about a family putting their lives on the line? Is it a weird coming-of-age drama? The Family is all of these things at various points, but it never commits to any of them.

Instead, it uses these elements to just keep circling until the running time is over.