At the Movies with General Havoc

[General Havoc]

Black Sea

Alternate Title: Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope...

One sentence synopsis: A group of jobless submarine engineers try to recover a cache of Nazi gold from a wrecked submarine at the bottom of the Black Sea.



Things Havoc liked: By now, if you've spent any time following this project of mine at all, you know that I tend to have pretty solid opinions on many of the actors that cross our list. Idris Elba is a pimp. Vincent D'onofrio can't act. Liam Neeson kills people in a growling monotone way too much. While I have not yet had much of an opportunity to opine on the subject of Jude Law, this seems to be as good an opportunity as any to remedy that fact. By and large, and with one or two notable exceptions (Gattica, Sherlock Holmes), Jude Law sucks. He sucks for the same reasons that a lot of actors suck, not that he has a lack of talent, but that his talent is often misplaced, in Law's case in a series of unwatchable leading-men roles (Cold Mountain, A.I., Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow) where his instructions from the directors seem to have been "be as bland as humanly possible". However, I've seen actors suffering from Leading-Man-Disease (Matthew McConaughey and Ben Affleck for instance) recover with the application of time, eventually no longer young enough to play bad roles and forced, by process of elimination, to play good ones. Usually this changeover is accompanied by the actor in question spontaneously playing roles filled with grit and dirt and lots of stubble, and so it was that while I didn't see 2013's Dom Hemmingway, the trailers for it alerted me that it was probably time to take a look at Mr. Law once again.

Captain Robinson (Law) is a Scottish (I think) deep-sea salvage expert, veteran of many years' employment, now found redundant and sent home with an impressive resume for a skill that nobody is demanding any longer. Fuming angry at having been cast aside, Robinson contracts with a number of other middle-aged-and-older engineers and experts in the field to go after a semi-mythical treasure nestled in the Black Sea, a German U-boat sunk carrying millions of dollars in gold bullion from the Soviet Union back to the Reich. In the time-honored tradition of caper/heist films like this, a crew of misfits and colorful characters must be assembled to accomplish this task, played in this case by a horde of character actors, including one of my favorites, Ben Mendelsohn (Place Beyond the Pines, Animal Kingdom), and the best thing from last year's Most Wanted Man, newcomer Grigoriy Dobrygin, he of the intense, fiery stare, and terse, laconic dialogue. Law, Mendelsohn, and Dobrygin (as well as a host of actors I don't know) all do a fine job with the material, snarling at one another through thick Scottish, Irish, Yorkshire, or Russian accents, exuding both shady behavior and cool professionalism, even as the film goes through its obligatory course, the natural one in this case for hard men trapped in a submarine under any conditions.

And indeed, the best quality this film has is professionalism. Kevin MacDonald, of One Day in September and The Last King of Scotland (and of my first-ever bad review, The Eagle, though we'll forgive him for that) handles this movie with a sure and competent hand, ensuring that the audience knows enough at any given moment as to what's going on without the need to stop and exposit. Everything is well-grounded in enough realistic-sounding engineering and science-talk, true or not, to keep us on track, some of it seemingly thrown in just for atmospheric purposes. Paradoxically, a movie that plays its material this straight can actually wind up being very hard to predict, as the iron-handed foreshadowing of most films that opt to let the audience understand just enough to catch onto the important plot beats, and thereby wind up highlighting exactly what's about to happen (Star Trek Into Darkness had a particularly bad example of this). In this film, a character will mention in a throwaway line that the air inside a wrecked submarine has long-since turned into chlorine gas, or that a cargo sledge being hauled in by a winch has to keep moving or the suction of the bottom sediment will fix it in place, and we simply don't know if these things are going to be important or not. And yet at the same time, unlike films such as Interstellar, the movie doesn't grind to a halt just so the filmmakers can impress us with their homework assignments, be they relevant or not. All the information we receive seems like something these men in this situation might say to one another. This is not as minor an achievement as it might seem.

Finally, submarining is simply one of those professions I will never do under any circumstances, and like the great sub films of yesteryear (Das Boot for instance), this film gets across very, very well why this is so. A nice twist on the old stories told in these films is that there are no depth charges raining down on our heroes from hungry destroyers up above, but all that means is that some of the other 9.816 things that can go fatally wrong when one is in a submarine are finally given some time to shine. Things go badly (it's a suspense movie, did you think everything was going to go smooth?) in the blink of an eye, generally with horrible consequences for all involved, and the crew must deal successively with everything from undersea cliffs and canyons to fire, electrical explosions, and of course, the omnipresent crush of the sea around them. Most thrillers like to pretend that they are keeping the audience in some suspense as to how things are going to turn out, while simultaneously doing all but screaming at them with megaphones that this character or that one is going to make it or die. This film takes the time to build up a character as important only to axe them in a nearly random fashion, simply to show you that it's willing to do so. You kind of have to respect a filmmaker whose approach to making a thriller is that of a hostage-taker trying to prove his willingness to kill to the police. Joss Whedon would be proud.



Things Havoc disliked: Straight technical drama like this is fine, only someone churlish would ask for more than a good movie about an interesting topic, and yet filmmakers can get greedy sometimes, and this time I'm afraid to report that's just what happened. It's not good enough, you see, for the men to be trapped on a submarine where things start to go wrong. We also have to have conspiracies and psychotics to tide ourselves over.

I mentioned Ben Mendelsohn a moment ago, who is one of my favorite character actors, and like many such character actors, often gets typecast into specific kinds of roles. In Mendelsohn's case, it's usually someone on the edge of a psychotic break, or who perhaps has already had one, but is not letting it show. So it is here, as Mendelsohn's character, Frasier, is a violent maniac, who picks fights with the Russians for what seems to be no reason whatsoever, and is willing to murder people at the drop of a hat. That such people exist is not the point. The plot does not revolve around Mendelsohn being a killer or a psychotic, he simply is established as such, and then we go on our merry way as though nothing happened. I recognize that psychos do not need good reasons to kill people, that's a staple of film if not reality, but unlike every other element of the film this one is telegraphed waaaaay too directly, as Mendelsohn practically paints a message on his shirt in earlier scenes stating "I am an unstable element on this crew who will balkanize everyone by committing wholly unnecessary violent acts." A little setup isn't so bad, but the problem here is that the audience is made aware of this trait quite a long while before anyone on the crew is, meaning we have to spend a good portion of the film simply waiting for the characters to catch up with us.

And then there's Scoot McNairy, of Argo and Gone Girl, who here plays a character I can't even fathom the reason for. A "company man" sent by the organization setting up this little shindig, McNairy's role in the film is to be the obligatory stick-in-the-mud saboteur who complains at every opportunity that everyone is going to die and insists on doing the one thing that the main characters (and the audience) do not want them to do, preparatory to initiating hammer-weighted conspiracies with the rest of the disgruntled crew so as to force the main cast to play along. These sorts of characters (Burke in Aliens being the ur-example) usually serve as walking-comeuppance machines, designed to make the audience feel good whenever something bad happens to them. Fair enough, but in a crew of dedicated hard-asses already established as being willing to kill for their share of the gold in question, all of whom are inside a submarine beneath the ocean where nobody can tell what they are doing, why does anybody put up with this douchebag? Because the plot requires it? Because if they simply off him in the first hour (as I was hoping they would), then the further disasters he will be responsible for cannot occur? Filmmakers take note: you''re not going to lose the audience if the film allows the hard-assed killers to kill in a hard-assed fashion when the circumstances are appropriate. Their very ability to do this without losing the audience is the whole reason you cast hard-assed killers.



Final Thoughts: Like many films on this project, Black Sea is a movie of limited horizons, simple story about men attempting to perform a complex task, no complications, no Gordian plot-knots. I always feel bad not giving these sorts of films better grades, but I'm required here to tell you all what I actually think, and not what I wish I had thought so as to earn more credibility. Ultimately though, I did like Black Sea considerably more than I expected to, despite manifest issues with characterization and over-complicating the plot. Solid submarine films that do not involve World War II or deep-sea monsters are hard to come by, and good ones harder still. If that's your thing, I'd suggest giving it a look.

And even if it's not, trust me, in Doldrums season, it's best to take what you can get.

Final Score: 6.5/10

[General Havoc]

Jupiter Ascending

Alternate Title: What Goes Up...

One sentence synopsis: A girl from Earth is kidnapped into a universe of dynastic politics after being identified as the re-incarnation of an interstellar queen.


Things Havoc liked: Back in 2012, I saw one of the greatest films I have ever encountered, a sweeping, epic opus that went by the name of Cloud Atlas. I loved Cloud Atlas so much that I broke my own review structure when it came time to talk about it, gushing in barely-coherent ramblings about the tapestry of history and the connections between people, or some such. So much did I adore this film, in fact, that I swore then and there that whatever its creators, the Matrix-directing Wachowski siblings, created next, I would, without question, see it, for they had earned as much by presenting something that filled with amazement and wonder. And now here we are, two and a half years later, and what have they given me? Jupiter Ascending. And true to my word, I have seen it.

So what can be said in this movie's favor? Well for starters, the film is absolutely gorgeous. The term "visual director" is one that I've never had much use for (are there non-visual directors out there somewhere?) but if ever it applied to anyone, the Wachowskis would be a strong candidate (as would Wes Anderson). Space in this film is on display in its full Kubrickian majesty, with spaceships and space stations comprised not of the customary phallic or gun-encrusted fare from many modern space films, but spires and sails and organic-looking spindles that waft through the void like the fins of some enormous interstellar whale. The effect is so over-elaborate as to become almost hypnotic, a design archetype that seems to be drawn less from standard movie science fiction, and more from the mysterious and fantastical side of the genre, from sources like Dune or the Barsoom cycle or Warhammer 40,000, with cathedrals of light embossed and imbued with every conceivable enhancement and artistry. The effect is not restricted to outer space either, as scenery, costuming, and everything else positively drips with opulence, hinting at the power, the age, and the decadence of the immense world that the Wachowskis are trying to set before us.


Things Havoc disliked: As such, it's a great pity that the movie sucks.

Do not mistake, this movie sucks. Hard. It sucks for reasons both familiar and alien, but it sucks all the same, a massive, bloated, festering pile of a movie that despite some interesting ideas, is nothing more than a waste of time. Why is it a waste of time, you ask? Well that answer is rather unfortunately complicated, but it's probably best to begin with Mila Kunis.

You see, Mila Kunis can't act. Irrespective of the circumstances, the project, the tone of the film or the quality of the actors you surround her with, Mila Kunis can't act at all. I can't claim this comes as much of a surprise to me, having watched Black Swan and Oz the Great and Powerful and Book of Eli and half a dozen other things, but I don't believe I appreciated until now just to what degree Mila Kunis' inability to act actually reaches prior to sitting down and watching this movie. Here, playing Jupiter Jones (the name is given a rather handwavey explanation, but still), a Russian immigrant who works with her family cleaning the houses of the wealthy in Chicago, Kunis is tasked with playing the standard fish-out-of-water archetype as she is swept up in events of galactic importance. I don't object to this archetype at all, of course, it's used as often as it is for a reason, but the entire point of the archetype is that the character must grow to master his/her surroundings and seize back control of their own destiny. Kunis plainly doesn't know what to do with this character, reciting her dialogue as though reading it off a cue card, and emoting to the astonishing sights and sounds around her with all the passion of a patent attorney preparing a deposition, but the biggest problem is that her character remains completely useless throughout the entire movie, bubble-headedly wandering from planet to starship to cathedral to space station like an airheaded extra who got lost on their way to the casting call and stumbled into the middle of a Star Wars knockoff. I can abide many things in a movie, dear readers, if I could not I would have lost my mind long ago. But one thing I simply cannot abide is a useless protagonist, and Kunis' Jones is one of the most useless characters I've seen in this entire project, to the point where tertiary characters without names actually accomplish more in the course of the plot than she does.

But while Kunis can't act, and therefore has no idea what to do about this predicament she finds herself in, there are a number of actors here who can, and whose coping strategies at being dropped into a movie this stale are... interesting. Channing Tatum, who has been in his share of bad movies, plainly knows what kind of film he's in this time, and looks and sounds completely uninterested in his surroundings, mumbling his lines as though he's recovering from an all-night bender, and lapsing into half-understandable exposition at the drop of a hat. Given that we have no idea what he is actually talking about, as he throws out casual references to objects, people, and locations we've never heard of, Tatum's dead-eyed mumbling renders it actually quite difficult to understand what in the hell he's saying. Tatum is also tasked with the unenviable duty of trying to portray a romantic relationship with Kunis, with whom he shares absolutely no chemistry, save perhaps for soporific gas. Sean Bean meanwhile, he who always dies (spoiler alert?), does his best playing a character whose motives and relationship with everyone else I was entirely unable to understand, being as the film consists of him being introduced by throwaway comment and then engaging in a lengthy series of about-faces wherein he sheds what little motivation he has in favor of new, equally-confusing motivation. I suspect his hope was that if he confused the audience sufficiently, they might forget he was in the movie. But taking the opposite approach is Eddie Redmayne, a fine young actor who, according to this film, has taken leave of his senses. His character, Balem Abrasax, serves as the primary antagonist (sort of), and Redmayne plays him like a cross between Emperor Palpatine and Al Pacino as Lucifer, alternating between a strained, throaty whisper that sounds vaguely orgasmic, and screaming unbridled madness in the style of Sting-in-Dune. The effect is not precisely menacing, but perhaps Redmayne is taking the Lee Pace approach, reckoning that the only method to survive the movie is to overact to the point where anyone who criticizes you risks being devoured along with the scenery.

That said, Redmayne does at least liven the movie somewhat, something I appreciate when the rest of the film is such a leaden chore. Perhaps Tatum's lack of enthusiasm tainted the whole mix, but for an eye-watering spectacle film that is also a space opera, Jupiter Ascending drags for long stretches of its run-time, as the plot meanders from one meaningless confrontation with one of the evil, self-serving Abrasax nobles to the next. At one point in the middle of the film, Jupiter and her retinue must go to a bureaucratic planet to get her claim recognized officially, a sequence which consists of her visiting department after department (in a clear reference to Brazil) before finally stumbling upon a helpful bureaucrat (played by Terry Gilliam himself, see above) who manages at last to get her papers processed. What is the purpose of this 5-10 minute section? What lessons does the heroine learn or meaningful events transpire? Nothing. We get to watch her watch robots watch bureaucrats shuffle paper, until at length the movie allows us to watch something else for a while. Similarly, an entire wasted series of plotlines concerning the antics of Kunis' extended Russian family back home on Earth feels like nothing more than filler, in the vein of the parents' antics in the Transformers movies, a series of meaningless sequences in which people complain about not having enough money to pay for their video game equipment, which we are being shown in preference to the staggeringly vast galactic civilization that our "hero" is supposedly being enmeshed in. The main villain doesn't even get a moment's screentime for 2/3 of the film, as Jupiter slowly gets hoodwinked by other, lesser nobles, for plots that have nothing whatsoever to do with the main threat, and which afford her neither the skills nor the lessons, nor even the equipment she will need to finally confront the bad guy. And by confront, of course, I mean stand around and watch other people confront him, because Mila Kunis cannot be allowed to take any goddamn action in a movie in which she's supposedly the star!


Final Thoughts: I can't pretend that I didn't know Jupiter Ascending was going to suck. The trailers for this movie looked awful in that wonderfully YA/Twilight-in-Space sort of way that graces a lot of movies released around this time of year, and neither the announcement that it was being pushed back to February, nor the casting of Mila "Needs an Acting Coach" Kunis, filled me with hope as to its qualities. That said, even with that, I remain surprised at just how awful this movie was, a turgid slog of a film, albeit one with pretty pictures, that feels rather like the Wachowskis' dumping all of the characterization and plot details they weren't able to use in the third Matrix movie, due to the need to include seven hundred thousand references to Neo-as-Jesus. If nothing else then, this movie can teach me a lesson about the risks entailed in following directors blindly, even when their last project was as monumentally good as Cloud Atlas was. My policy with this project has been only to see movies that I believe honestly have a chance of being good, and I believe it should stay that way. Lord knows I see enough crap as it is.

And as to the Wachowskis? I would simply suggest next time that they let someone else write their film, as that seems to have worked for them in the past. Otherwise I'm worried their next project may literally include Space-Jesus, save that in this rendition, he will be forced to watch uselessly as other people sacrifice themselves on his behalf before returning to Jerusalem and becoming a carpenter again.


Final Score: 3.5/10

[frigidmagi]

Was there alot of religious/Jesus symbolism in this film? Or were you just referring to Matrix movies that don't exist?

[White Haven]

That's a damned shame, because I follow the work of some of the artists involved in the concept work for the movie. The visuals implied some interesting things... ah well.

[LadyTevar]

I have been told to go to this movie, enjoy the visuals, and turn your brain off so the plot holes don't hurt as bad.

[General Havoc]

Was there alot of religious/Jesus symbolism in this film? Or were you just referring to Matrix movies that don't exist?

I was referring to the Matrix films-not-to-be-described, particularly the third movie, in which we actually begin to approach peak Jesus. Jupiter Ascending had many flaws, but at least it was without that.

That's a damned shame, because I follow the work of some of the artists involved in the concept work for the movie. The visuals implied some interesting things... ah well.

The visuals delivered some interesting things. The rest of the movie was apparently made without reference to them.

I have been told to go to this movie, enjoy the visuals, and turn your brain off so the plot holes don't hurt as bad.

My brain doesn't power down that low, Tev. I seriously doubt yours does.

[General Havoc]

Kingsman: The Secret Service

Alternate Title: Mr. Darcy Kills Everyone

One sentence synopsis: A poor kid from a council estate is recruited into an international organization of gentlemen-spies to stop a megalomaniac from destroying the world.


Things Havoc liked: Pickings tend to be slim this time of year. We all know this. We've been through this dance now four times, and entering a fifth, we have all seen what disasters can lie in wait in Doldrums season. Last week alone we encountered the second movie of the year, a shoe-in for the worst of the year list already in the form of a Mila Kunis snore-fest masquerading as a space opera. I do not, as a rule, see movies that I expect to suck, but with the inflexible requirement of a film a week bearing down upon one, it can be necessary at times like these to take risks one might not otherwise take, see movies that smell bad because of a stupid-looking trailer or a formulaic plot. Sometimes, in the darkest periods of the movie calendar, it becomes necessary to take what few glimmers of hope are on offer, the pedigree of a director with a fine record behind him for instance, one like Matthew Vaughn, of Stardust, Kick Ass, and X-Men: First Class, or perhaps the opportunity to see actors one adores, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Michael Caine, Samuel L. Jackson, regardless of the evident idiocy of the project they are appearing in. Sometimes, in a time like this, on the heels of a terrible movie and a disappointing Oscar season, one must take a risk that the film one is going to see may well be garbage, but hold onto the hope that it may, at least, have some entertainment value as garbage.

And when one takes this risk, though I do not recommend trusting to it, one should also bear in mind that there is always, no matter how unlikely, the possibility that the film you have selected under such protest may actually turn out to be something amazing.

Kingsman: The Secret Service, is a living argument against cynicism. It is a stunning, explosive, horrifyingly-violent action-comedy madhouse, filmed with wit and charm and the same grotesque lack of restraint that Vaughn has become a byword for, a movie I had absolutely no expectations for, which left me literally gushing in its aftermath. Maybe Doldrums season broke me, and maybe it's just that I haven't seen a movie this unabashedly fun in more than six months (that's twenty-five goddamn movies, bear in mind), but if this is the sort of thing about which I am wrong, I do not care to be right. Kingsman is a revelation and a masterpiece. I adored it. What the hell else do you want?

I love Colin Firth, though he is not someone I think of when it comes time to cast irreverent action comedies, or at least he wasn't prior to this film. Playing Harry Hart, codename Galahad, a middle-aged James Bond analogue in a five-thousand-pound suit with a cut-glass posh accent and impeccable manners, Firth brings all his Kings Speech/British Reserved charm to a role that involves him, at certain points, performing some of the most showy and violent action sequences I have seen since the Raid 2. If this sounds like something you cannot envision, then you are on the same page I was on not long ago, as I presumed, erroneously, that any action scene involving Colin Firth would have to be some sort of Taken-2-style bad-stunt-double-editing work. And maybe it was here too, I don't know, but the illusion at the very least is perfectly compelling. Firth is on fire in this movie, making his turn in last year's wretched Railway Man feel like a distant memory receding blissfully into the past. The insanities he gets up to over the courst of this film would not be out of place in any one of Matthew Vaughn's previous works, all without once letting his veneer of old-world charm drop. It's one of those roles that causes you to never look at an actor the same way again.

Not so Samuel L. Jackson, who has made a career out of roles that fit that very description. Here he plays Valentine, a cross between Steve Jobs and Mike Tyson, a billionaire environmental philanthropist who intends to destroy the world as a solution to global warming. Jackson always livens up the screen no matter what he's playing, but here he plays a lisping martinet seeking world domination and mass death in the best tradition of a Bond villain, a comparison made explicitly several times over the course of the movie. Jackson's character is absurd, but it's consistent across the film, which is a rarity in cases like this, as many actors think that their villains have to continually dial up the crazy to absurd levels to make these kinds of things work. Jackson, a veteran of hundreds of movies good and less good, knows better. Another man who knows better is the incomparable Mark Strong, whom I love dearly, and who takes on a role as "Merlin" that is one part Q, one part drill instructor, and another part crusty-old-badass-who-knows-it-all. If the notion of spending several hours in the company of Mark Strong doing these things does not appeal to you, then get the hell out of my reviews, you tasteless snob.

But while Firth and Jackson and Strong are always awesome, movies like this always fall apart because of their leads, the inevitable unknown young actor who has to play the central role in the coming of age stories that these sorts of things always take the form of. And yet for once, that isn't what happened, because this time, Vaughn somehow found newcomers Taron Egerton and Sophie Cookson, who are given the task of playing Eggsy and Roxy, two newly minted recruits for the shadowy secret service, whose task it is to try and prove themselves against their peers and the usual rote steps movies like this take on. And yet both Egerton and Cookson, particularly the former, are spot perfect in the role. Egerton manages to do the near-impossible by playing a likeable chav (think about that), successfully walking the tightrope between a wide-eyed youngster overawed at his present circumstances (which is usually boring), and a smart-mouthed wise-ass who claims to have seen it all (which is always insufferable). Egerton nails everything he's given, both before, during, and after his transformation into a Kingsman, be it action scenes, drama, humor, or simple quiet dialogue. I have literally never seen anyone pull off a role like this, save perhaps for Chris Pine's turn as Kirk in the new Trek movies, and given that that performance anchored the entire film, it's only fitting that this one does the same.

Kingsman, like Kick-Ass, is based on a comic book by legendary asshole Mark Millar, and yet while I have few good things to say about the man, his insistence on working with Matthew Vaughn ever since the debacle that was Wanted is certainly one of them. Vaughn is in his element here, producing a movie that is grotesquely over-the-top without ever losing a sense of fun, an expertly shot and crafted film that relies on the contrast between good old-fashioned ludicrous ultra-violence and British reserved humor to stage its strongest moments. Stuntwork is flashy and inventive, including multiple sequences of all-out crowd-brawls, and battles involving a female assassin (Algerian Hip-hop dancer Sofia Boutella) named Gazelle who fights with a pair of "blade runner"-style prosthetic legs whose name is taken literally. A thunderous soundtrack featuring everything from Lynard Skynyrd to Edward Elgar, and a colorful visual style that richly paints the scenes of bloody slaughter and allows the audience to drink up every last detail polishes everything off alongside a whole series of hilarious stunt castings and cameos (try and ID the scientist in the opening scene. It took me five minutes to be certain I wasn't hallucinating).



Things Havoc disliked: All of this is necessary, of course, to cover up the fact that the plot of Kingsman is as generic as it comes, a plot that is no doubt engraved somewhere on a plaque in the old-screenwriter's-home in Beverley Hills. A young kid who has fallen in with the wrong crowd and failed to live up to his potential because of challenging life circumstances must finally "make something" of himself, growing up and becoming a man. I have only seen this particular plot done about six hundred times before, in everything from the aforementioned Star Trek to Millar's own Kick Ass and Wanted. So repetetive is this plot, to be honest, that I could predict, beat for beat, what was to happen in largely every single act of the film, who was to die, at whose hand, and what the results of that death were, who would win what competitions, what characters would turn out to be truly heroic deep down, and which ones would fall by the wayside. Vaughn and the scriptwriters use every trick there is to try and disguise the fact that this plot is entirely derivative of roughly a third of all movies ever made, but there is simply nothing for it. We have all seen this story before. Many, many times.



Final Thoughts: But then again, doesn't that fact make Kingsman all the more impressive? After all, if I wanted to go see original works, I would watch nothing but the most obscure, foreign, indie cinema and leave Hollywood and its directors to rot. That would, however, mean I would not get to have seen Kingsman, the finest pure action movie I have seen since The Raid 2, and one of the biggest surprises I have ever encountered at the cinema. So well-crafted, so vibrant, so much fun is this movie that the presence of what may quite literally be the oldest story on earth does not detract from it a whit. I adored this film, to the point where I was babbling incoherently about it for hours thereafter, and even saw it a second time just so that a friend of mine would get a chance to bear witness to its awesomeness.

I do what I do because I love watching good movies, but a good movie that comes about where I had not thought to find one is perhaps the best surprise of all. So it was with Cloud Atlas, with Suckerpunch, with Real Steel and Cabin in the Woods and Pain & Gain. I understand if one might be inclined to dismiss Kingsman as a cheap ripoff of Bond or any one of a dozen YA books as that's precisely what I did before I went to see it, but the reality is simply, gloriously, else. Kingsman flat out rocks. Go forth and bear witness. If you've any appreciation for the sheer joy of cinema, you will not regret a minute of it.

Final Score: 8/10

[frigidmagi]

Just got back from seeing it.

The Church scene was amazing. The violence stays on this side of cartoony for the most part so you can enjoy it without having your face rubbed in it. Yes, the plot is rather time worn but the actors managed to inject it with life (although the bar scene bit was great stuff). Although there was one bit of original writing to do with Roxy and Eggy, which I liked.

Although man there were more then a few heavy handed vibes of class warfare in this movie. All of it playing to my prejudices (well expect for the White House part but meh, they were fairly even handed I thought) so I'm not complaining.

[LadyTevar]

This was a the kind of movie that had me in my seat bouncing up and down in sheer joy, and at one scene in sheer AWE at the multicolor fireworks going off. Every Checkov's Gun was fired, every motif of the young man winning, and it was gloriously, beautifully done. The church scene, with the galloping "FreeBird" score, was epic with the ultra-violence. The end of that scene was shocking, both for the massive death count Galahad had racked up, and for the confrontation with Valentine. No, this 'ain't that kind of movie'.

It was only afterwards, having time to think upon it, did I see the grand Anti-Randite message in all the wealthy, upper-class, aristocratic politicos get their asses handed to them by "Tailors" and Chavs. While I did notice Arthur's distaste for non-aristocrats, my knowledge of British culture fooled me into thinking it was the same elitism that lead Martin's parents to emigrate to America. That kind of warfare is still far too common against anyone who has 'bought their silver' with hard work, instead of inheriting it from your family. That made me slow on the uptake when it came to Valentine's cadre of friends.

Heavy-handed message or not, this movie was still fantastically filmed, featured snappy dialogue, had a great villian, and best of all it had some of the best action scenes I've seen in months. I adored it, and I'm glad Havoc and I finally agree totally on a movie.

BTW: My whole theatre erupted in helpless laughter at the Fireworks scene. Did yours?

[General Havoc]

Some critics I follow have criticized this movie as being violently anti-American. I'm as hardcore an American nationalist as you're likely to meet outside of Texas, and I think they're all full of shit. This movie is only anti-American if you presume that Americans are all either members of the Westboro Baptist Church or the Koch family (which I believe a number of these critics may well presume). The movie was filled, in my showing, with hysterical laughter at dozens of points, including the fireworks sequence and the church scene (oh god, the church scene). I don't regard the message as heavy-handed, as the movie was quite plainly an insane romp and presumed a world where the elites of the planet contrived to commit mass genocide against all the rest. So be it.

And honestly, where else are you going to encounter a likeable chav?

[General Havoc]

And now for something completely different

I didn't go to see the shorts last year, just couldn't find the time for it, and yet I found I missed them. It's useful at this time of year to remember that the Doldrums too shall pass, and that there are good movies on offer even when one has no reason to suspect as much. Top that off with the fact that I have a strong suspicion that next week's venture will be godawful, and I thought I ought to take in some lighter fare before facing up to just what Hollywood has wrought this year.

And so, I offer:

The 2014 Oscar-Nominated Live Action Short Films

Parvaneh: It doesn't count as having a surprising plot when you don't have one at all, guys. Parvaneh, an Iranian-Swiss offering, is about an Iranian immigrant in Zurich trying to find a way to send money home to her family without a valid ID card, and the hijinx that befall her along the way. Of course by hijinx, I don't mean a hell of a lot, as she meets a local girl and is dragged around the city all night by her to no real end. The film is interestingly-shot enough, and I suppose in a way it's nice to see movies about immigrants in Europe who aren't met with pure, distilled hostility. But even for a short subject, the whole thing just seems a bit lightweight.
5.5/10

Butter Lamp: By far the weirdest film on offer in the showcase, this French-Chinese collaboration (short films seem to invariably also be foreign, for some reason) consists of a traveling picture studio setting up local people from a village in what I assume is supposed to be Tibet and taking their pictures in front of enormous matte-painting-style backdrops of everything from Disneyland to the Forbidden City. Rather than have a plot, this film relies on atmosphere and the interplay between characters to paint a picture for us, and even has several moments of hilarity, particularly when an old woman begins prostrating herself to the image of the Potala. Most of those I saw this showcase with picked this film, of all of them, as their favorite of the bunch, and while I didn't quite agree, I do admit there's something intriguing about this plotless little piece.
7/10

Aya: To quote Roger Ebert, this film is like being on a long bus ride with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. Short subject or not, this lengthy Israeli film about a woman who impersonates a limousine driver and picks up a classical pianist from Denmark feels like it simply will never end, like some dark bastardized cross between Locke and Under the Skin. Boring as all hell and riven with obvious efforts on the part of the cast to ape "meaning" without ever finding any, this thing is the longest of any of the shorts on offer, and should have been the shortest.
3.5/10

Boogaloo and Graham: A charming, if insubstantial little piece from Northern Ireland (who always seems to have an entry in the live action shorts), this film takes as its subject Belfast during the troubles and concentrates on two boys who are given pet chickens by their father. Not much is really done with this concept, but the idea is cute, and its harmless enough, even if the movie seems to be about as consequential as a home video from the 70s.
6/10

And the award for Best Live-Action Short Film goes to...

The Phone Call: Yeah, sue me. This is the most "Hollywood" of the films, with recognizable actors in the form of Sally Hawkins and Jim Broadbent (or at least his voice). So be it. A quiet, dour piece about an old man calling a suicide hotline and talking to the woman who works there is, in my mind, the most well-done of all of them. The movie is nothing elaborate, but both of the leads, particularly Broadbent, capture the desperation of such a conversation perfectly well, all without ever getting overly "scripty". It's a close call here, but I thought this movie's capture of the way that conversations like this actually go, the awkwardness and strange asides that come with complete strangers speaking candidly to one another on their worst days, that leads me to give the award here.
7.5/10

[General Havoc]

The 2014 Oscar-Nominated Animated Short Films

Me and my Moulton: What exactly was the point of this thing? This Norwegian day-in-the-life film about three sisters and their parents has a few nice slice-of-life moments (the parents' modern-archetecture stools are a pretty good idea), but if there was actually a point to all this, I managed to miss it. These characters exist, and then we're done. Nothing much to it, really.
5/10

The Bigger Picture: A strange British piece done in a very odd art style (stop-motion chalk drawings on a wall), this film seems to be about nothing but the fact that two brothers are trying to take care of their elderly mother until she dies, and then they no longer have to do so. I can't really claim I hated this movie, but the more I thought about it, the less I liked it. It seemed to be about nothing more than the fact that your loved ones will die and you will let them down as they do so. Have fun.
4.5/10

A Single Life: And speaking of dour stuff (what the hell is with all the death in the animated shorts this year?), this quick little piece about a magical, time-traveling LP record is actually kind of cute. It doesn't overstay its welcome, it gets the idea across without dialogue, and its ending, dark though it is, is actually kind of funny. I don't know if larger points are on offer here and I just missed them or something, but I didn't mind it overmuch. This year's crop did not cause me to say that terribly often.
6.5/10

The Dam Keeper: Longest of the five offerings, this sweet little Pixar offering is done up in a very memorable art style of artwork-within-artwork, and like the previous short, works entirely without dialogue. There's not a whole lot on offer from the story here, with a pig who is picked on by his schoolmates and a fox who befriends him, but the style and design are enough to pull the movie through, along with the strange, ethereal qualities of the film's danger, a wall of shadowy darkness that spills over the town like fog, kept at bay by a windmill. Someone commented that this design might well have been inspired by the water-pumping windmills in Golden Gate Park, and the more I think of it, the more I think they were probably right. Not one of the great classics, perhaps, but still a nice little film.
7/10

And the award for Best Animated Short Film goes to...

Feast: Disney wins again. This rotoscoped short film that I first encountered in front of Big Hero 6 is a lovely, cute little piece about a dog and his owner and the many foods that the dog savors over the course of the film. Maybe I just have a soft spot for dogs (the dog movie won my award last time too), but this film's emotional core is as strong as anything Disney makes. The music, the animation, the storytelling by means of a dog's expressions and actions, this film gets everything right. Sometimes you simply have to reward the obvious heartstring-tugger. Animation is good at such things. And I just really like dogs.
8/10

[frigidmagi]

I loved Feast.

[General Havoc]

What We Do in the Shadows

Alternate Title: Hobbiton by Night

One sentence synopsis: Documentarians film a group of vampires around Wellington for several months, learning about their lives and habits.


Things Havoc liked: With as many movies as I watch, I don't get around to seeing a lot of television. As such, while I've certainly heard of New Zealand-based comedy group Flight of the Conchords, mostly thanks to their musical stylings, I have not seen a great deal of their work on screen at any point. Still, reputation is reputation in this sort of thing, and with the Doldrums still upon us, a small indie offering from Kiwiland about Vampires seemed as good an option as any. Words cannot describe the horrors that otherwise awaited.

So... Wellington, New Zealand: Southernmost capital city in the world. Quaintly picturesque town nestled on the straights between the North and South islands. Headquarters for the production of the Lord of the Rings. Overrun by vampires. But fear not, would-be visitors, a collection of fearless cameramen and documentarians have ventured forth to draw back the curtain from the dark world of these dwellers of the night. Finally the truth can be known.

What We do in the Shadows is a mockumentary in the style of Christopher Guest, centered around a group of four flatmate vampires living in one of the more boring cities on Earth, and engaging in their nightly routine of hunting, bloodsucking, and performing dark rites. Sort of. Explaining what actually happens over the course of this movie would sort of defeat the point, I feel, as that's the point of the jokes in the first place, all of which work better in context than they would here. So let's turn to the vampires themselves. Taika Waititi, a filmmaker I've barely heard of, plays Viago, a German transplant vampire who moved to New Zealand in pursuit of his lost love but got waylaid when his coffin was rejected for insufficient postage. Fluttering about the shared flat, he clashes alternately with Deacon (Johnathan Brugh), a douchebag who seems to have gone on with his douchebaggery in the afterlife, circumstances be damned, and Vladislav (Jermaine Clement), a morose sex-obsessed technophobe (initially), who may or may not be Vlad the Impaler, and who spends most of the movie shivering in terror at the mention of his arch-nemesis, "The Beast". As the filmmakers follow these three around, we meet all manner of other denizens of the Wellington underworld, from Peter, an eight-thousand-year-old Nosferatu-knockoff, to a local pack of new-age Werewolves, to Nick and Stu, a fledgeling vampire brought into the coven early on, and his human associate who helps the Vampires discover the wonders of such modern marvels as Facebook and selfies.

This all sounds dry, I know, but the humor in this film is very dry, in a sort of spur-of-the-moment style with references and in-jokes worthy of any mockumentary I can recall. From Deacon's familiarJackie, pissed off that she hasn't been turned into a Vampire yet while being forced to run his errands and clean up after his "feeding" efforts, to Vladislav's... "skills" at hypnosis, to Nick's conception of subtlety when it comes to disguising his nature as a vampire, to how the Werewolves deal with their... condition... the entire affair is a welter of circumstantial comedy, none of which, I'm afraid, will play well here. The film also uses its indie-documentary style to send up found footage films, periodically turning in satire far worthier than anything the Scary Movie series has put out.



Things Havoc disliked: You kind of have to like films like this, films that sort of wander around without a point to them, in order to get much out of this. There is no plot to the film, no arc, no narrative progression. Characters do have things happen to them, yes, some of which have been established before, but there is no real unifying theme to the movie beyond the characters existing and being followed by the camera crews. I realize that documentaries and the films that ape them work differently than feature films, but even fake-true stories are supposed to be stories, and there's no real equivelant to Waiting for Guffman's theatrical performance, or Best in Show's dog show, the central unifying event around which the movies were made, and which served as a sort of climax. Attempts are made with the undead masquerade ball that the characters are looking forward to for much of the film, but the ball itself doesn't really pay anything off and the characters go on thereafter as though it were simply another incident. Even when aping real life, it's possible to be a bit too meandering.



Final Thoughts: The difficulty with a movie like this is that there really isn't a lot to say here. You really are going to like the concept of this film or you are not. I saw the thing based on a single trailer at an indie showcase some weeks ago, and thought it was hilarious and fun. Someone else might take one look at this review's description and think it was the most boring thing on Earth. They would probably not be wrong. But the fact that the jokes, in fact the film itself, works only in context, makes it rather proof against any attempt to review it. Flight of the Conchords made a fake-documentary-comedy about New Zealand vampires living in a flat in Wellington. Whether you think this sounds like the sort of thing you would like or whether you think it doesn't, you're probably right.

Final Score: 7/10

[Lys]

Wellington by Night, though obvious, would have been better as an alternate title.

[General Havoc]

Wellington by Night, though obvious, would have been better as an alternate title.

Hobbiton by Night was what I was suggested when I proposed Wellington by Night to my viewing companions. There's no pleasing people.

[Lys]

You need to learn to prioritize. It's not people whom you need to please, they don't matter, I do.

[frigidmagi]

Or if I can make an alternative suggestion? Ignore Lys, after all she's just Elessar's sidekick. :P

[Lys]

God damn you, I have a higher kill count than Elassar and better diplomacy rolls!

[frigidmagi]

And more near riots to your name then anyone else in the party! I'm counting that bio attack in the inn as a near riot by the way. :D

[Steve]

*raises eyebrow* Do I want to know what is meant by "bio attack"?

[Hotfoot]

3 month old Hurlg.

[Lys]

And more near riots to your name then anyone else in the party! I'm counting that bio attack in the inn as a near riot by the way. :D

Yes, and it's always the hot blooded main character who always gets everyone in trouble!

*raises eyebrow* Do I want to know what is meant by "bio attack"?

I misjudged the alcohol content of a particular drink. It apparently wasn't high enough to give it a shelf life, which meant it had turned into a weapons grade chemical agent by the time I opened it. The mess was bad enough that I volunteered to pay the inn's staff two days wages for their emotional distress in having to clean it up.

[General Havoc]

And what about MY distress from pain and suffering?

[Cynical Cat]

And what about MY distress from pain and suffering?

Well the main character was responsible enough to walk away from the comic relief supporting character's mess immediately and suffered none, so any pain you suffered is a direct result of your poor decision making. The main character was busy laughing his ass off in another bar.