Film Reviews by Alphaville

The phrase ‘revisionist Western’ usually makes the heart sink and this amateurish, miserabilist bore, lauded at Cannes, is no exception. Set in Chile in 1901, the landscape looks great… when you can see it. Much of the film is shot in the dark. No drama or driving plot, mumbled conversations that hold no interest, endless silences featuring meaningful looks… You get the idea. Downbeat and dour.

The crime-caper/love story plot is little more than serviceable, but the movie stands or falls by its parkour stunts and these deliver in spades. Executed without wires, even by plucky star Taylor Lautner, and filmed in-camera without special effects to a rocking electronic score, this is jaw-dropping stuff.

Sad to see septuagenarian Pierce Brosnan acting his age as an old-time hitman and, as directed by septuagenarian Phillip Noyce, the film has a similar slo-mo feel to it. Even sadder is seeing nonagenarian James Caan in one of his last roles. No amount of jaunty muzak on the soundtrack can disguise a sad, tired film from first frame to last.

Jaunty music, banter and flashbangs can’t disguise the emptiness of the script. The bulk of the film is filler separating unimaginative set pieces at beginning and end. The first is a standard car chase, the second a climactic damp squip confrontation with an underwhelming ghost.

Apart from a few stunts, it’s hard to care. The quickfire, superficial dialogue probably looked good on paper, but in front of the camera it just makes the characters look like actors instead of vice versa. Consequently both the rom lacks credibility and the com is excruciating. Add a threadbare plot, overlong talkie scenes and a terrible teeny pop soundtrack and you’re soon longing for something to get interested in. The background stuntman scenario probably gave the project its greenlight, and there are some good pratfalls here, but when it all ends up in boring superhero-type flashbangs it seems like a wasted opportunity.

For most of its run-time this low-budget piece of tosh has four people stuck in an Irish forest cabin being watched by unseen creatures. It’s basically a drama-free stage-play with added foliage. How did it ever get the green light? Could it be coincidence that the director is M. Night Shyamalan’s daughter and slumming it in the lead role is Dakota Fanning?

Twee child/baby-centred plot holds little interest, leaving only a few excellent scenic shots to keep us interested.

After the astonishing Fury Road, I had high hopes for this film more and it starts well enough with a kick-ass motorbiking mum battling Chris Hemsworth’s motorbiking gang across the desert wasteland to rescue her kidnapped young daughter Furiosa. Then it degenerates into adolescent intertribal bickering, with Chris chewing the scenery as the Great Dementor. More chase/battle sequences interrupt the pantomime plot, with lots of motorbikes crashing as they chase the War Rig (a big truck). Alyla Browne is a real find as the young Furiosa and Tom Burke as an ally brings some much needed character interest later on, otherwise Anya Taylor-Joy as the grown-up Furiosa has nothing to do except look blank while the rest of the cast ham it up, take the money and run. There’s no denying the excellent stunt work and visceral film-making, but it soon becomes repetitive, goes on forever and we’ve seen it all before in Fury Road. The minimalist score doesn’t help either (it’s louder on the enticing trailer). Disappointing.

In the hands of Alex Garland, this film about a civil war in the US should be a blockbuster epic, instead of which it’s unbelievably trite and underwhelming. We follow a group of press people trying to photograph the action. Action? If only. As they travel by car from New York to Washington DC there’s one slow talky scene after another, signifying nothing. As observers, they hold no interest as characters. Chief press person Kirsten Dunst remains sullen and stony-faced throughout. What little action there is is ruined by showing it as they photograph it, in staccato stills. What we’re left with is a series of uninvolving tableaux and an equally annoying ending. A dismal score with dire pop songs makes everything even worse. Hard to keep watching without hitting FF.

Apparently well-known in Denmark, this is the true story of an English princess who marries the mentally disturbed Danish king and has an affair with his doctor that changes the course of history. It’s the 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment, and they bond over the works of Rousseau. It can’t go well, can it? Although straightforward in the telling, restrained and with the standard plinky-plonk piano score, this is a well made, intelligent, handsomely mounted film with a screenplay that zips along nicely. As long as you expect no fireworks, it’s an unexpectedly immersive viewing experience.

Four circus freaks are on the run from a six-fingered Nazi concert pianist. If that premise and the title make you think this is some cheap Italian rip-off, leave your preconceptions at the door. This is movie-making on the grand scale, full of magic moments, with huge sets, an unending stream of surprises and a no-holds-barred climax. Gorgeously filmed, operatic in scale. Whimsical, beguiling and often tragic as the band of four discover that their captured leader is on a train heading for a concentration camp. Sample scene: the electric (literally) Matilde can’t help but burn anyone who touches her, so it’s edge of seat stuff when a Nazi soldier decides to rape her. As a whole the film is probably a tad too long, but it remains a blast. Fellini would have been proud.

Well, whadya know? A romantic sort-of-comedy drama that’s a class above your average brain-dead boring point-and-shoot star-vehicle. This is a proper film with a dynamic time-jumping screenplay, visual panache and a driving synth score. The tennis is good too. It’s half an hour too long and runs out of ideas before regaining form at the climax, but it’s still a cut above.

Like many Chinese films of its ilk, this is a feast for the eyes but lacks plot clarity and characters to root for. The typically hammy acting doesn’t help. However, it has an undeniable grandeur right from the outset, which features a visceral cgi-enhanced battle in the snow. The plot, such as it is, centres on a relic called the Fengshen Bang that can save mankind from the Great Curse (yawn, yawn). It’s overlong and gets bogged down in boring court intrigue. Nevertheless, the scale is vast, the visuals are sumptuous, the cgi jaw-dropping, the camerawork kinetic and there’s a rousing climax with added monsters. If cinema is a visual medium (clue: it is), this is a visual treat.

This is a well-executed film about a Korean moon landing that goes wrong, with some thrilling Gravity-style visuals early on. The trouble is… we’ve seen it all before. It develops into the standard rescue mission, with various technical problems and emotional outbursts in mission control that are neither involving nor exciting. Shame.

While Kong’s in Hollow Earth fighting off predators, Godzilla’s on the surface fighting off monsters and napping in Rome’s Coliseum. But… oh no!... Kong’s got toothache and has to surface so that gung-ho vet Dan Stevens can fit him with a false tooth. And that’s just for starters. Dan and Rebecca Hall now have to go down to Hollow Earth. Why? Who cares? Coupled with a knowingly ironic score and filmed by a director (Adam Wingard) who doesn’t get overly bogged down in character exposition, this is a fast-moving off-the-wall ride with grandiose visuals. Negatives? The token unfunny wisecracking sidekick and the cgi mash-up climax. Still, eat your heart out, Marvel.