Julian Assange | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Escape Plan

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Darren

Escape Plan doesn’t demand too much. It doesn’t demand too much from its lead actors, and it doesn’t demand too much from its audience. A film about watching two of the biggest action stars of the eighties teaming up should be a celebratory occasion – a trip down memory lane, one last go-around for old time’s sake as we watch this dynamic duo escape a mysterious “off the grid” prison which seems quite like the place I imagined all eighties action stars go in the end.

Instead, Escape Plan feels like the middle section of John Woo’s Face/Off extended out to a two-hour feature film, the story of a man who shouldn’t be in prison forced to escape from a futuristic science-fiction gulag through a series of overly-elaborate action set-pieces. There is, quite frankly, not enough here to support the movie’s extended runtime, with the script never daring to swerve sharply away from expectations or clichés. Escape Plan delivers exactly what the premise promises, but nothing more and never with anything approaching enthusiasm.

Old-timer hard-timers…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Amy Ryan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Demand, EscapePlan, expendables, Jim Caviezel, Julian Assange, Rocky Balboa, Schwarzenegger, sony, Sound Shapes, sylvester stallone | 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The ink is still fresh on The Fifth Estate, although perhaps that is too outdated a metaphor.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 »

Watch! UK Trailer for The Fifth Estate!

Posted on September 13, 2013 by Darren

Entertainment One just sent of this latest UK trailer for The Fifth Estate. It is very similar to the trailer we previewed way back in July, running just five seconds shorter. Still, it looks like it should be one of the more interesting features of award’s season, exploring the life and times a personality whose story is still very much on-going. It’ll also be interesting to see how the movie addresses the controversies surround Assange. (And whether it will help cement Benedict Cumberbatch as the kind of actor who can anchor movies like this.)

Anyway, the trailer’s below. The US version is here. It is released in the UK on October 11th.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Assange, Benedict Cumberbatch, Bill Condon, Daniel Brühl, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, Fifth Estate, Julian Assange, Wikileaks | Leave a comment »

Watch! The Fifth Estate Trailer!

Posted on July 17, 2013 by Darren

The summer’s barely over, but we’re in Oscar trailer season. Or, more accurately, Benedict Cumberbatch season. Yesterday we had our first look at Twelve Years A Slave. Today, it’s The Fifth Estate, the film looking at Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Cumberbatch is interesting here, with his bleached long hair quite a departure from what we’ve come to expect from the actor, and his Australian accent somewhat warping his recognisable deep voice.

The film itself looks interesting, if only because the material is so recent and so controversial. Given that popular culture has yet to make a judgement on Assange, it’ll be intriguing to see what Bill Condon’s biography offers. The cast does look superb, though.