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Non-Review Review: Daddy’s Home

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Darren

Daddy’s Home is fairly mediocre comedy, despite the promise. In some respects, the film recalls very successful Will Ferrell vehicles. The premise of the film is fairly solid, with father and step-father competing with one another for the love of their children; it loosely resembles a middle-aged version of the awkward immaturity that made Step-Brothers such fun. The film features the unlikely comedic team of Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg, two actors who had played very well off one another in The Other Guys.

The problem is simply one of calibration. Daddy’s Home struggles to pitch itself at the right level, never finding the right balance between sincere and cynical. It seems trite to complain that the protagonists of a modern comedy are unlikable or unsympathetic, but Daddy’s Home never feels like it finds an emotional core. This is not a fatal flaw of itself, but it becomes a problem when Daddy’s Home cannot supply a steady stream of laughs.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: comedy, daddy's home, film, mark wahlberg, Movie, non-review review, review, will ferrell | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Night Before

Posted on December 2, 2015 by Darren

The Night Before does not always work well, but it works hard.

The tale of three unlikely best friends embarking on one final Christmas bender runs through the checklist of the modern “overgrown manchild” comedy genre elements. There is arrested development. There is adulthood beaconing. There is responsibility to be claimed. There is friendship to be fractured and ultimately strengthened. There is a great supporting cast and a number of very effectively employed cameos. All The Night Before does is to apply a layer of festive frosting atop a familiar recipe.

A star performance…?

The formula has been dulled somewhat by the frequency with which it has been deployed. A lot of The Night Before feels familiar and even rote. However, there are moments of absurd clarity. The Night Before puts a surprising amount of effort into some of its more effective gags, painstakingly setting up the pins so that they might be knocked down at a later date. In particular, one of the climactic gags is the result of a great deal of careful alignment over the preceding nineties minutes, a laugh that looks cheap but is as intricately crafted as a fancy tree ornament.

The Night Before is not the most hilarious or memorable or definitive of these sorts of Apatow-esque comedies, but there is an endearing effort to it all. There is never a sense of coasting, even at points where the film leans towards the nostalgia and arrested development that it spends so much effort trying to escape.

You take my elf…
You take my elf-control.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: anthony mackie, film, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Movie, non-review review, review, Seth Rogen, the night before | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Good Dinosaur

Posted on November 24, 2015 by Darren

It may have been too much to hope for two classic Pixar films in the space of a single calendar year.

The Good Dinosaur is generally quite solid, but it lacks the sense of narrative craft and emotional weight that marks the very best of Pixar’s output. As with Brave before it, there is a sense that The Good Dinosaur would have made for a fairly middling entry in the larger Disney canon. In terms of ranking the studio’s output, “the good Dinosaur” is perhaps a fairly apt label for the project. It is light-hearted and fun, but lacking any distinct sense of substance and identity.

Bad human! Bad!

The best thing about The Good Dinosaur is its core concept. At the heart of the story is a rather ingenious narrative hook. What if the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs… missed? What if that hunk of rock that came hurdling through space had come in at an angle just a couple of degrees off course? What if it were simply a shooting star passing through the sky one night rather than a full stop marking the end of the Cretaceous period or the Mesozoic era? That is a wonderful jumping-off point for an adventure, and The Good Dinosaur never quite measures up to that.

The Good Dinosaur is ultimately a buddy comedy road trip adventure about a young child who finds himself stranded far from home with an unlikely travelling companion. The result is an occasionally enjoyable, if not entirely satisfying, film.

I am dino, hear me roar!

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: disney, film, non-review review, pixar, review, the good dinosaur | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Christmas with the Coopers

Posted on November 23, 2015 by Darren

Christmas with the Coopers largely succeeds at what it sets out to do.

It is an affectionate ensemble dramedy that celebrates the eccentric and the surreal aspects of family units, whether those are families that were found or those that were thought lost. Christmas with the Coopers is part of a proud holiday ensemble tradition, a spiritual successor to New Year’s Day or Valentine’s Days, although it seems like any true Christmas ensemble piece must rest comfortably in the shadow of Love Actually. It seems unlikely that Christmas with the Coopers will become a new holiday favourite.

christmaswiththecoopers4

Nevertheless, there is a charming efficiency to Christmas with the Coopers, with the movie accomplishing a lot of what it sets out to do. There is festive cheer a plenty, wry narration from Steve Martin, lots of mad dashing through convenient obstacles, affirmation, snow, and the warm realisation that family is what you make of it. There are very few surprises to be found, but then that is entirely the point. Christmas with the Coopers aims to be as reassuring and as familiar as any old-fashioned family holiday get together.

It largely succeeds.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: christmas with the coopers, film, Movie, non-review review | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Hunger Games – Mockingjay, Part II

Posted on November 17, 2015 by Darren

As with the rest of the series, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part II has an admirable sense of ambition.

There some bold ideas here for a young adult series, some of which are increasingly relevant to twenty-first century political realities. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part II feels like very old-school science-fiction, tackling big issues through metaphor and allegory. While the final film in the series is very much an action spectacular, the script offers any number of observations about terrorism and state power, about media and revolutionary politics. It is nice to see such a big-budget high-profile film tackling these ideas.

Straight arrow…

At the same time, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part II feels a little too clean and tempered for its own good. The script is willing to engage with complicated questions of moral relativity, but the problems frequently feel superficial. The movie frequently suggests that political and military realities are not as clear-cut as they might appear, before offering a rather clear-cut solution to what was presented as a moral quagmire. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part II does not follow the path of least resistance, but it follows the path of second-least resistance.

Oddly enough for a story that has been split across two films, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part II feels rather incomplete and rushed in places. Certain sections of the expansive ensemble are casually brushed aside towards the end, with the film tying its major plot threads up quite hastily and efficiently. Still, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part II is impressively produced and anchored in a few great performances from a very experienced cast. The result is a smooth-running film that perhaps might have been better to embrace a few more bumps and hiccups.

As the world burns…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, katniss, media, modern warfare, non-review review, review, the hunger games, the hunger games: mockingjay, war | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Spotlight

Posted on November 3, 2015 by Darren

Nominally, Spotlight is about the exposé that ran in the Boston Globe identifying dozens of paedophile priests who had been shuffled around Boston parishes and the corrupt institution that sheltered them. Thomas McCarthy’s film never shies away from the horror stories told by the survivors of such institutional abuse, nor does it ignore the systems that were complicit in perpetuating and covering up that abuse. Running just over two hours, McCarthy’s film is meticulous and painstaking as it sorts through all the leads and follows the unravelling thread.

However, Spotlight is also about something bigger. It is a story about institutional structures as they exist, and how those structures are primarily motivated to protect themselves. The big reveal in Spotlight is not that the abuse is taking place, it is just how many people tried in how many different ways to expose that abuse to the cold light of day. The Catholic Church might be the most significant institution involved in the cover-up, but Spotlight suggests that the structures of Boston (and implicitly all over the globe) failed the people who needed them most.

Spotlight is a powerful film. McCarthy is not the most dynamic or exciting of directors, but his matter-of-fact presentation style suits the material perfectly. Towards the end of the film, journalist Matt Carroll jokes that he has started working on a horror novel to distract himself from the particulars of the case. Spotlight is very much a horror story, but a horror story where the discomfort is tied to the sheer inevitability. McCarthy’s camera is always definite and steady; a slow pan or zoom confirms what the audience already suspects, and is all the more effective for it.

McCarthy has assembled a fantastic cast, including John Slattery as Ben Bradley Junior. Bradley is the son of Benjamin Bradley Senior, the executive editor at The Washington Post who oversaw the Watergate coverage and who was played by Jason Robards in All the President’s Men. This creates a nice thread of real-life continuity for Spotlight, cementing its pedigree. McCarthy’s journalism epic is powerful stuff, and perhaps the most compelling endorsement of long-form investigative journalism to appear on screen in quite some time.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: boston, catholic church, Child abuse, clerical child abuse, film, journalism, Movie, non-review review, religion, review, spotlight, tom mccarthy | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Spectre

Posted on October 24, 2015 by Darren

Second acts are always tough.

This is very much the case with Spectre, whether in terms of the film itself and its relationship with Skyfall. Despite the considerable backlash that Skyfall has generated since its release – an inevitability in this era of hype – it remains one of the best-loved and best-received James Bond films. It makes sense for the follow-up to try to capitalise on that success, in much the same way that Tomorrow Never Dies attempted to up the ante from GoldenEye and that Quantum of Solace attempted to build upon Casino Royale.

Spectre will suffer in the inevitable comparisons to Skyfall. The film doesn’t have the same clarity of purpose, revisits a few too many of the same things, and lacks the sheer beauty of Roger Deakins’ cinematography. Any direct comparisons between the two films will see Spectre coming up short. This is a shame as, taken on its own merits, Spectre is a remarkably successful James Bond film. Indeed, with three out of his four films firmly in the “hit” category, Daniel Craig assures his place as a James Bond for the ages.

Spectre is perhaps a little over-extended and gets a little lost in its own extended middle section. It perhaps falls a little too heavily into the “origin story” territory teased by Skyfall. However, it is stylish and confident, with charisma to spare. Spectre retains the energy and verve of its predecessor, capitalising on a script that knows what it wants to be about and perhaps the franchise’s most artful director. Spectre is one of the better Bond films, but it suffers from having to follow one of the very best.

A nice ring to it…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, james bond, non-review review, review, spectre | 17 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Black Mass

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Darren

Black Mass has endearing ambition.

This is an old-school crime biography, one that foregoes clarity or singularity of purpose in favour of sprawling scale. Black Mass covers decades in the life of notorious Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger. The thematic throughline is his connection to the local branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Agent John Connolly. Connolly grew up with Bulger, and hits on the seemingly ingenious idea of advancing his own career by bringing Bulger into the fold as an “informant.” It is an arrangement that benefits Bulger and Connolly more than the FBI.

Gangbusters…

There is an interesting story to be told there, the tale of two men gaming the system for their own advantage. Many of the stories around Bulger are so ridiculous and improbable that they defy belief; they make for perfect cinematic fodder. With two strong lead actors, and a clear arc, the tale of Bulger and Connolly could be compelling and revealing. However, it also seems far too modest for Black Mass. Although Bulger and Connolly form the spine of the film, its limbs sprawl out in every possible direction trying to cover everything.

It is a valiant effort. There are moments when Black Mass really works as it picks on an awkward conversation or a loaded confrontation. However, these moments feel fleeting; they are a chain of short stories rather than a single cohesive narrative. Black Mass is frequently fascinating but seldom satisfying.

Awash with corruption…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Adam Scott, Benedict Cumberbatch, black mass, Corey Stoll, Dakota Johnson, film, Jesse Plemons, Joel Edgerton, johnny depp, Julianne Nicholson, Juno Temple, kevin bacon, Movie, non-review review, Peter Sarsgaard, review, Rory Cochrane, scott cooper, whitey bulger | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Last Witch Hunter

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Darren

There are quite a lot of things wrong with The Last Witch Hunter, to the point that it’s almost endearing that the film sends so long setting up a potential sequel. (The Second Last Witch Hunter, perhaps?)

The Last Witch Hunter is a misbegotten mess that feels like the work of five different writers working with five different directors and a surprisingly consistent VFX team. The film is stilted, illogical, clumsy and ill-judged. Indeed, it seems like the production went wrong from the moment it was decided that Vin Diesel would be the perfect actor to convey the enormity and tragedy of immortality. Diesel is a reliable screen presence, with considerable gravitas, but he is not ideally suited to this sort of pathos.

… and carry a big sword…

The Last Witch Hunter stumbles from half-formed idea to half-formed idea, through a mess of CGI and misjudged direction. There are point where the action can be difficult to follow, whether through the script’s dependence on liberal amounts of exposition or the fast-paced editing that makes it difficult to get a sense of character or location in the midst of all this computer-generated mayhem. There is something frustrating to all this, given the faintest hints of interesting concepts that are smothered in rip-offs of other better films.

The audience might well wish that it really is The Last Witch Hunter.

Any witch way, but loose…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, Movie, non-review review, review, the last witch hunter, Vin Diesel | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Mississippi Grind

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Darren

Mississippi Grind is an intimate and thoughtful character study, featuring two superb central performances from Ben Mendelsohn and Ryan Reynolds. Written and directed by the team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, Mississippi Grind finds two gamblers winding their way down the eponymous river in the hopes of winning big at a poker game in New Orleans. “Like Huck Finn,” compulsive gambler Gerry insists when the idea first comes to him. It seems an appropriate comparison, given the themes of the film.

Never pushing its meditations on the American Dream too hard, and never labouring its points too heavily, Mississippi Grind achieves an honesty that borders on the profound. More than that, it captures both the romance and the desperation of that one last bet – the inability to settle for “enough” and the insistence that there is always everything to be won, even if it means that everything can be lost.