Film Reviews by Alphaville

Set in 1969, this is a feast of nostalgia for baby boomers but lacks focus as a drama. It owes too much to one of Tarantino’s favourite 60s films – Jacques Demy’s ‘The Model Shop’, which has a similar lack of plot to drive the movie forward. The two leads at its heart – fading star Leonardo DiCaprio and his stuntman Brad Pitt – are too one-dimensional to hold the viewer’s interest. This results in a patchwork of episodes, most of which go nowhere.

That’s not to say there are no standout scenes here. Damian Lewis is a hoot in a cameo as Steve McQueen. Brad has a rollicking fight with Bruce Lee and his visit to the Manson compound pulsates with tension. Sharon Tate goes to the cinema to watch herself in The Wrecking Crew – a scene made powerful because we know what’s going to happen to her (the viewer’s knowledge of the events of 1969 is taken for granted).

But just when the film’s beginning to grab, Tarantino ruins it all again in the third act with a voiceover that pointlessly describes everything we’re seeing on screen. And yet… turnabout again with a final outburst of violence that is more unexpected and powerful than you might imagine. All told, there’s some really good stuff here, but it could have been so much better with a tighter script.

Another ho-hum instalment in the franchise. It’s a competent re-working of the usual hokum, long on cgi and short on anything that will make you care two hoots about superheroes and supervillains who fight each other yet again. Phoenix can fly and only has to raise a palm in someone’s direction to send them flying too, so nothing new here.

The plot retreads the standard story arc so expect the usual superhero soul searching and climactic bash. Bland Sophie Tucker isn’t up to investing her lead character with any charisma and there’s even a female baddie called Vuk (make up your own jokes). Any plus points? Hans Zimmer’s orchestral score is less annoying than usual.

This miserable little Irish film, shot mainly in dingy interiors so dark you can barely see what’s happening, is a travesty of a Western. Right from the beginning, when it opens with a funeral and a sermon by a hellfire preacher in a dingy church, you know it’s going to be more concerned with setting a downbeat naturalistic tone than satisfying a paying audience. It will make any Western fan (indeed any film fan) want to put their foot through the screen. The fact that Irish writer/director Ivan Kavanagh has won awards on the film festival circuit adds to arthouse cinema’s increasingly bad name.

A coming-of-age film about two teenage girls growing up in Georgia (the country, not the US state) in 1992. If you’re looking for another Mustang, forget it. This is the polar opposite of that brilliant film. Based on an autobiographical script by one of the directors, this is social realism filmed as documentary. Nothing much happens with zero cinematic style. The trailer misleadingly tempts prospective viewers with a gun, but you’ll be bored stiff long before that puts in an appearance.

Based on a comic, this is a let-down in nearly all departments. Poorly plotted, acted and directed, it’s full of dire talkie scenes that go nowhere. Even most of the action scenes fail to convince as our impassive floppy-haired (aren’t they always?) hero fights off all-comers in Jackie Chan fashion. It’s redeemed only in the final half-hour by two extended sword fights against the two biggest and most enigmatic baddies. After action fans have suffered for 90 minutes, these may even be enough to make the two sequels worth catching.

It’s 1597 and the Japanese fleet is invading Korea. They have more than 300 ships while the Koreans have 12, but the Koreans have General Yi and he knows the coastal waters. The brilliantly-realised sea battle has an epic quality reminiscent of Kurasawa films such as Kagemusha. The plot requires concentration at first as the various characters are introduced, plans are made and skirmishes lay the groundwork for later developments. It’s worth the effort.

Backed by a powerful score, co-writer Kim Han-Min directs with panache and complete command of his material, building tension and anticipation in equal measure. The final hour is taken up with the battle itself and it’s a stunner – a visceral spectacle of pounding action bolstered by convincing special effects. It’s bloody, exciting and gut-wrenching, packing such a punch that you’ll be exhausted at the end of it.

After the exciting Mesrine, this second collaboration between director Jean-Francois Richet and star Vincent Cassel is a real disappointment. Set in Napoleonic France, it’s mostly filmed in dingy interiors and is more concerned with period mood and lighting than plot, character and action. The result, even for die-hard Vincent fans, is a soporific bore.

Yet another joyous, life-enhancing, cinematic Loach extravaganza. Joke! Yet another class-warrior rant against the system in the guise of another one-dimensional depiction of the struggling British working class. It’s like being locked in a room with Jeremy Corbyn. This time our Ken’s railing against the gig economy. He’s perfectly entitled to dramatize this, of course, but no one should be inveigled into watching it without first being made to sit through the trailer. This is supposed to be a film, Ken, not a miserable TV drama. Even the dog has only three legs. Best thing about it? At least he keeps the camera firm without jiggling it around.

Great review from PV. You only need to watch two minutes of this to realise what you’re in for – in-yer-face handheld close-ups of chain-smoking low-lifes you wouldn’t want to spend more than one minute with. If there’s any place for this kind of poorly directed miserabilism, it’s the TV. Why does the Lottery Fund continue to finance British directors who have so little sense of film that they don’t even know how to handle a camera?

With a minimalist comic-book story, cardboard characters and the usual cgi flash-bangs set to bombastic muzak, this soul-crushing film is typical of the Marvel franchise. And it gets worse. Using Lola de-aging technology to make 70-yo Samuel L. Jackson look young is just creepy. Ageing is not just about the face. The smoothed-out face looks odd anyway, but on a 70yo actor’s body and posture? (They tried to de-age this too)

The film begins with half an hour of scene-setting. Our Kree superheroine then lands on earth in 1995 and for a while it looks like the plot might develop into something interesting as she adjust to 1990s culture. But we’re soon back to superhero fisticuffs as Skrulls come after her.

What’s our superheroine’s special power? “Supercharged fire hands”, as her friend politely puts it. Yes, really. For two hours. Naturally it all ends in the usual cartoonish climactic biff and bash with orchestral overkill. Who’d have thought? And she survives for the next episode. Who’d have thought? And in case you’re wondering, yes, the film does tick all the politically correct boxes with right-on messages for snowflakes. Who’d have thought? And does it end with a post-credits trailer for the next instalment? Take a guess.

Set amongst the beauty spots of Europe (Venice, the Alps, etc), this fairly zips along without the usual Marvel baggage. The up-to-the-minute plot revolves around deepfake technology and gives rise to some imaginative surreal sequences, making even the cgi battles against monsters less boring than normal.

It works even better as a superior high-school comedy as Peter Parker (Spider-teen) and his classmates go on a European school trip. JB Smoove (Larry David’s house guest in Curb Your Enthusiasm) is a riot as their teacher. Instead of yawnfest superhero angst and soul-searching we get fun set-pieces and punchy dialogue. Sample: when Peter tells the girl he fancies that she’s pretty, she replies haughtily “And therefore I have value?”. Marvel nerds may be disappointed, but for those who find most superhero films a waste of screen time, this one’s impossible not to like.

After a startling, giddily shot opening on a burning skyscraper, our hero fireman is killed but can be reincarnated if his life has passed seven moral tests. Unfortunately this results in an episodic, over-acted melodrama, with relevant episodes from his life shown in flashback. Despite this, the film’s well worth watching purely for its many and varied other-world action sequences. These are truly spectacular, having an immediacy and kinetic energy lacking in glossy Hollywood superhero films.

The sets are dazzling, the soundtrack is storming and the chase sequences, with a frenetic camera picking out protagonists as they fly in and out of reality, are a visual feast. A top-grossing film in South Korea, there’s a sequel in the can and more planned. If you get bored with the melodrama, fast-forward to the next action sequence and wallow in the gorgeous sights that only cinema can produce.

A dialogue-heavy drama about the relationships between Freud, Jung, Jung’s wife and the female patient he becomes involved with. Some emotional jumps in character are hard to take and, like most David Cronenberg films, it’s in no rush to get anywhere. Nevertheless, if you’re looking for a solid, efficiently-told Sunday-night drama with interesting subject matter, this will fit the bill for 95 minutes.

With Luc Besson writing, directing and even holding the camera, you know you’re in for a film that’s going to zip along cinematically, with visual interest in every frame. This one harks back to Nikita, with model Sasha Luss as a Russian government assassin. The elliptical plot constantly surprises with twists that make no sense until Besson backtracks to reveal what’s really going on. His intention (as he says on the DVD Extras) was for the plot to resemble a nest of Russian dolls, which are revealed one by one.

Given that, there’s nothing here we haven’t seen before, with an indestructible hero/heroine fighting insuperable odds. If only Besson could invest more in character he’d be making brilliant films. This one is instantly forgettable, with a lead actress who should stick to modelling, but it’s bold, brash, beautiful and great fun to watch. After watching the current crop of British social-realist films, mired in miserabilia, it’s a pleasure to sit back and wallow in a film made by a director who’s in love with the visual possibilities of cinema.

In this “Die Hard in a football stadium”, Dave Bautista is the latest over-beefed Hulk to masquerade as a leading man (he nearly gets stuck in a turnstile). He’s even saddled with the usual annoying teenage daughter-in-peril. Ray Stevenson also lacks charisma as the leading badass Russian rebel who’s got West Ham’s stadium in lockdown during a “soccer” match and is going to blow it up.

On the other hand, there’s some neat dialogue, some black humour that works, a feisty bad girl, a good fight in the confined space of a lift and a bog-standard boring motorcycle chase made interesting by choreographing it to Jonathan Pierce’s match commentary (he’s very good as himself). All told, Final Score is not as good as Gerard Butler’s Fallen franchise, but there are many worse actioners around and it’s hard not to like a film that has an American character punched for calling football soccer.