Non-Review Reviews | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Captain Phillips

Posted on October 10, 2013 by Darren

Captain Phillips is the tensest thriller of the year, no small accomplishment when you consider that director Paul Greengrass and writer Billy Ray are working from a high-profile true story that unfolded across media less than a decade ago. “This story is getting a play here,” a naval negotiator is advised a little over half-way into the film, and it’s hard to imagine that anybody going to see the film isn’t loosely familiar with the events (and outcome) of this Somali pirate attack.

Despite this, Greengrass manages to ratchet up the tension on Captain Phillips, turning it into a high-stakes thriller. Even knowing the inevitable outcome, Greengrass pushes the audience to the edge of their seats, refusing to allow the movie to throttle down from the moment that two unidentified blips appear on the trawler’s sonar screen.

Movie piracy really is bad…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Billy Ray, Captain Phillips, Catherine Keener, Greengrass, Maersk Alabama hijacking, Muse, Paul Greengrass, Phillips, Piracy in Somalia, Tom Hank, tom hanks | 8 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Barbaric Genius

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Darren

Barbaric Genius has a fascinating subject. Writer John Healy was responsible for The Grass Arena, generally regarded as one of the most searingly and brutally honest depictions of life on the streets published during the eighties. However, despite the fact that The Grass Arena became a touchstone for an entire generation and that it was so successful that it was developed into a film, Healy faded rather quickly from view. Despite writing consistently over the years that followed, none of Healy’s work was published for more than two decades following the 1988 release of The Grass Arena.

It’s an intriguing mystery, and Barbaric Genius does a thorough job exploring it, but the documentary suffers a bit as it tries to bring its subject into focus, often feeling like director/producer/narrator Paul Duane is having difficulty getting the necessary distance between himself and the film.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: art, arts, business, Documentary film, Duane, film, Grass Arena, Healy, history, John Healy, Movie, non-review review review, Paul Duane, review, The Grass Arena: An Autobiography | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Turbo

Posted on October 6, 2013 by Darren

Turbo is the best animated movie of 2013, well worth coming out of your shell to see. It’s probably the best Dreamworks film since Kung-Fu Panda and the best CGI animated feature since Toy Story 3. Indeed, Turbo manages to evoke a lot of the charming early Pixar films, in particular channelling Ratatouille, as we follow the adventures of one common unloved animal who decides that “good enough” is not quite good enough.

Stop the clock…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: animation, arts, dreamworks, Indianapolis 500, kung-fu panda, Kurtwood Smith, michael pena, Movies, paul giamatti, Ratatouille, ryan reynolds, Snail, Tito, toy story 3, Turbo | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Fifth Estate

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Darren

The ink is still fresh on The Fifth Estate, although perhaps that is too outdated a metaphor. The code is yet to be debugged might be more appropriate. History has yet to really decide what it will make of Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Cyber freedom fighters, the internet generation’s Woodward and Burnstein? Or reckless and disconnected kids failing to realise that writing on screen can have very real consequences? “Editing reflects bias,” we’re reminded early in the film, perhaps a concession that that the movie can’t get the necessary distance to offer a definitive (or even especially nuanced) take on Assange and his revolution.

The Fifth Estate comes down quite hard against Assange, essentially reducing Benedict Cumberbatch’s white-haired technological genius to something like a Bond villain. Director Bill Condon struggles to make typing code look sexy with laboured metaphors. And yet, despite that, there’s a willingness here to engage with something big and bold and important, however clumsily the script grapples with the implications of Wikileaks.

The result is something far more compelling that the dire Diana. Diana was a film so close to its subject that it couldn’t muster any enthusiasm or offer anything approaching a challenging opinion. The Fifth Estate is too close to its subject matter, and it clumsily stumbles into obvious bias and slant, but it’s still an intriguing attempt to parse a new media that it seems Hollywood doesn’t really understand.

He’s Assange one, that one…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Bill Condon, contemporary, film, Julian Assange, Movies, non-review review, review, the fifth estate, thriller politics, Wikileaks | 5 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Runner Runner

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Darren

Runner Runner feels like it should be a lot more fun than it winds up being. For a film about gambling, it lays the cards on the table pretty quickly. It’s a story about an ambitious young man who is offered wealth and success, only to eventually discover that the price is nothing less than his soul. As such, our plucky young hero has to keep all the plates spinning as the walls close in around him, trying to keep his head above water and the wolves from his door. There are, of course, other clichés I can throw in there, but these will do for now.

As such, Runner Runner isn’t about originality or insight, borrowing heavily from far better character studies and morality plays – even the casting of Justin Timberlake as a nerdy internet-savvy college student feels like a riff on his role in The Social Network. Runner Runner is all about the execution of these familiar high concepts and plot points. Unfortunately, the movie never seems too invested in its stakes, or too engaged with the game it is playing. When the chips are down, Runner Runner can nothing but fold.

I want to believe this is the same look Ben Affleck had when reading the internet’s response to Batffleck…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Affleck, ben affleck, Costa Rica, Federal Bureau of Investigation, film, Gambling, Gemma Arterton, Justin Timberlake, Online gambling, Runner Runner, Social Network, Timberlake, United States | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2

Posted on September 29, 2013 by Darren

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 is like an extended visual sugar hit. There’s always something happening, the characters seem in perpetual motion, and there’s never a moment where the audience is allowed to catch up. A technicolour marvel, there’s an endearing energy to all this, allowing the plot’s riff on classic monster movies (from King Kong to Jurassic Park) to become infectiously enjoyable. There are moments where the movie almost seems too sweet and too insubstantial, but they are only fleeting – there’s another neat visual gag, corny pun, or exciting slapstick joke only ever seconds away.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 is hardly food for the soul, but it’s certainly a satisfying meal.

A berry good idea…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: anna faris, Bill Hader, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, Flint, James Caan, jurassic park, king kong, Perpetual motion, Steve Jobs, Will Forte | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Blue Jasmine

Posted on September 19, 2013 by Darren

Blue Jasmine is Woody Allen’s irreverent modernised take on A Streetcar Name Desire. Sure, some of the finer details have been changed to protect the not-quite-innocent. The story is relocated from New Orleans to San Diego. (“This is such a European city,” our lead notes, as if to suggest it isn’t such a significant change.) The character of Stanley Kowalski has been divided across several different supporting characters – the Polish Augie and the car mechanic Chili. (“He’s just another version of Augie,” Jasmine suggests of her sister’s later boyfriend, drawing attention to the fact that they are both other versions of another character.)

Allen plays of the structure and the beats of Tennessee Williams’ hugely iconic play, even playfully branding his Blanche Dubois stand-in as the movie’s “blue” Jasmine French. The result is enjoyable and intriguing, anchored on a fantastic central performance from Cate Blanchett as the Southern belle who might not be quite the victim that she claims to be. As with so many Allen films, there’s a rich ensemble at work here, but Blue Jasmine works beautifully by riffing cleverly on a classic of American theatre.

“… the kindness of strangers…”

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alec baldwin, Allen, Blue Jasmine, cate blanchett, Jasmine, New Orleans, Sally Hawkins, San Diego, san francisco, Stanley Kowalski, Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams, Woody Allen | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Prisoners

Posted on September 17, 2013 by Darren

Prisoners is very much a game of two halves. Feeling like two separate films grafted together, Prisoners feels at once like a psychological exploration of American masculinity and also a far more conventional serial killer film. Indeed, had director Denis Villeneuve and writer Aaron Guzikowski decided to cut suddenly to black two-thirds of the way through Prisoners, we’d have a frustrating but much more cohesive atmospheric drama.

Instead, it seems like the duo conspired to surgically attach the last act from a far more conventional thriller on to their robust framework. The result is intriguing, but disappointing – the conventional paint-by-numbers final third diminishing a lot of the richness to be found in the first section of the film.

Somebody is about to get Jack(man)ed…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Aaron, Alex Jones, Denis Villeneuve, Detective Loki, hugh jackman, jack bauer, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Keller, Paul Dano, Roger Deakins, serial killer, The Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok, United States, viola davis | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Insidious – Chapter 2

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Darren

Horror sequels are tough to execute, particularly where you have a returning cast. After all, strong horror films typically work by ramping up the pressure on the central character, building inexorably towards a climax. It’s very hard to follow on from that – where do you go? It’s very difficult to wind the tension back down and start ramping up from scratch, and the same trick is never as effective the second time.

Insidious: Chapter 2 faces these challenges, and – to its credit – it tries to work around them. It embraces an almost camp aesthetic to help compensate for the fact that it effectively kicks off at maximum volume, relishing the sheer absurdity of its demonic co-stars. It splits the main cast up in order to allow it to try to maintain a constant sense of pressure, while also delving into back story and origin. It subtly shifts its frame of reference from movies about possession and haunting toward a different sort of horror film.

However, these attempts aren’t as successful as they might be. While there are moments of wit, the humour and heightened camp occasionally causes tonal confusion. Splitting the cast up is too convenient a narrative device and diffuses (rather than maintains) the tension. Slasher and serial killer movies are hard to get right at the best of times, and the movie’s climax feels awkward grafted on to a possession story. Insidious: Chapter 2 has moments where it works very well, but also spends a significant amount of its running time groping in the dark.

Well, at least it’s an amicable haunting…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: box office, Chapter (religion), film, Horror film, Insidious, James Wan, Leigh Whannell, Lin Shaye, patrick wilson, Scream 4, Trailer (promotion), Whannell | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Call

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Darren

The Call is one-half knock-off of the underseen and underrated Cellular, a delightfully pulpy high-concept thriller which perhaps felt a little bit too similar to Phone Booth. The Call is also one-half knock-off of Silence of the Lambs, with the second half of the film in particular feeling like one of those psycho killer thrillers that were oh-so-popular in the mid- to late-nineties, but which became less popular in the post-CSI era. The Call has a delightfully ropey central premise, a high-concept for the mobile age, straining all manner of credibility and suspension of disbelief.

However, the problem lies in the execution. The Call wallows in heightened melodrama, struggling to sustain its central premise by trying to make us “feel” for the central characters in the most coy and manipulative of manners. Director Brad Anderson’s intrusive style doesn’t help matters too, seemingly unsure whether he’s making an action movie, a psychological horror or a high-concept thriller, and so instead tries to mash the three genres together with limited success.