Film Reviews by Alphaville

With more clarity of plot and some judicious editing this could have been a worthy sequel to Blade Runner. Unfortunately the wearing first hour is full of gloomy intensity, slow-moving plot, overly deliberate camerawork and characters drained of emotion. All of which makes blank-faced Ryan Gosling the perfect leading man. Not a lot of it makes much sense (robots giving birth?!), which turns the sci-fi aesthetic of the original into fantasy. Watch the DVD extras, for instance, if you want to know more about spinners, pilotfish and barracudas.

After the first hour matters improve as a clearer plot kicks in, there are more exciting scenes, visuals and score, and the film builds to a brilliantly-realised final fight. According to director Denis Villeneuve (again on the DVD extras), the subtext is all about memory: ‘Are we humans without memories?’ Ignore that, plod through the first hour and enjoy the spectacle of the rest. The best things in it are the two female leads: Gosling’s holographic companion Joi and the chief replicant badgirl he fights at the end. Cut out the dross and this would have been a film to remember

Lo-key small-town thriller in which Max Records plays a teenager with sociopathic tendencies who stalks ageing serial killer Christopher Lloyd. The tone is one of black humour, which detracts from any excitement or thrills. Over-praised in the press, it’s an affable time-passer but no more.

Although Bong Joo Ho has directed some brilliant Korean films, he comes seriously unstuck with this English-language effort. Not that the material, based on a nonsensical graphic novel, has much to offer anyway. The Snowpiercer of the title is a train that speeds around the world non-stop carrying the last remnants of humanity after the earth has frozen. Yes, really. The plot, such as it is, requires the lower classes at the back of the train to fight their way through to the upper classes at the front of the train. It’s an allegory of class warfare, you see.

It’s B-feature filming, in claustrophobic interiors, mostly in gloomy windowless carriages, with lashings of inane dialogue to eke out the run-time. It’s impossible to care about any of the paper-thin characters so expect no excitement or drama at any time. Intervals of misplaced black comedy further undermine the whole concept. The film has been overpraised for its allegorical content, but as a viewing experience it’s of interest only to completists of Bong Joon Ho’s work. See the brilliant Train to Busan to see how it should be done.

This slice-of-life drama about a 31yo woman (hardly ‘jeune’) opens with her having a rant after being dumped by her boyfriend. Then she wanders the streets with a cat and smokes a lot. And so on. Filmed with a soap-opera aesthetic, it’s a poor advert for modern French cinema. Watch the trailer first to see what you’re in for, then do something more interesting than watching the whole sorry mess, like doing the washing –up. The DVD also has a similar 40min timewaster by the same director – Leonor Serraille. It’s a name to avoid.

Trust no reviewer who finds this film boring.

Timothee Chalamet is a 17yo in Northern Italy coming to terms with his feelings for girlfriend Marzia and visiting American archaeological intern Armie Hamer. There are sex scenes with both and also a solitary scene that will ensure you never look at apricots the same way again. But it’s his burgeoning relationship with Hamer that forms the focal point of the movie. This may make it sound like just another gay film, but it’s much more than that.

The lazy days and warm summer nights of rural Lombardy are so lovingly evoked that it’s like spending a two-hour holiday there. You can almost smell the countryside. Chalamet is riveting as we watch him try to navigate his confused feelings, while his father (Michael Stuhlbarg) has a wonderful speech about living life to the full that makes you wish all parents had such wisdom. The heart-warming, heart-breaking final shot is the most powerful since Truffaut’s 400 Blows. With a deserved Best Picture Oscar nomination in 2017, this is a film that will suck you in and stay with you long after the final credits have rolled. And for DVD fans there’s a bunch of fascinating extras that add to the film’s impact.

This is a confusingly-plotted thriller about a North Korean special forces operative on the run in South Korea from an equally capable North Korean officer. It’s a good premise, but scenes seem to have been cobbled together in almost random fashion and the frenetic hand-held action sequences, fast-edited and filmed too close in, pass in a nauseating whirl.

As with the Harry Potter films. you need to see superhero films in sequence to avoid plot confusion. This one, for instance, opens with Superman dead. Given that proviso, Justice League has more gravitas than most comic book fare and Zack Snyder directs with the same flair and grandeur he brought to 300.

Unfortunately the material he has to work with is the usual juvenile nonsense. Our band of heroes (Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman et al) have to stop animated baddie Steppenwolf finding three ‘mother boxes’ that will make the world a ‘primordial hellscape’. Not to worry… Aquaman has a pitchfork. Must have been Friday afternoon in the writers’ room when they came up with that scenario.

There are too many characters to care about and the inane plot and dialogue make the film sag between bouts of cgi action. But if you fast forward through the dull bits there may be enough here to while away an hour or so, even if the fisticuffs do become repetitive. In the DVD Extras the producers threaten there are more episodes to come.

With more cardboard Marvel superheroes than you can shake a stick at (Thor, The Hulk, Dr Strange etc.), you have to feel sorry for the numerous star actors who have so little to work with. As if that isn’t bad enough, they spend most of the time off-screen while their cgi avatars battle it out. Never mind. Take the money and run.

Within five minutes the Hulk is in a fisticuffs contest with big baddie Thanos. He’s the first to be mighty enough to wield two infinity stones, you see, so the whole Marvel stable is required to subdue him. In other words it’s the bog-standard superhero plot.

The only interesting character, the ambivalent Loki, is killed off at the beginning. And when you think it can’t get any more ridiculous, the Guardians of the Galaxy turn up with cgi animals that make Basil Brush seem an invention of genius. The usual confrontations are dutifully ticked off in a manner that surely even retarded fanboys must tire of soon. The ending, if you last out the 2hr+ bore-a-thon, is completely unresolved, setting up the next instalment in the franchise. Please make it stop.

This superior sequel is an exercise in tension. The CIA starts a Mexican drug cartel war as retribution for a terrorist attack. It’s complicated, with plot and dialogue so dense that you may even find subtitles a help to understand the military small talk. The plot gradually focusses in on agents Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro, who find themselves being forced by circumstances onto opposing sides. There’s plenty of action, although the tone, underpinned by a grumbling score, is tense rather than gung-ho. You might wish the leads would occasionally show a bit more fear or excitement, but pay close attention and you’re in for a thrilling couple of hours.

Casey Affleck mumbles his way through another film. As if it’s not achingly slow enough already, full of static camera shots, held far too long, sometimes without even a person on screen. If you’re looking for a movie (i.e. which moves), this barely counts as one. With such a poor attempt at audience engagement, it’s hard to care about the content. Affleck dies and becomes a ghost that no-one can see. He wanders around draped in a sheet while we watch his widow silently wander around the house and eat food. According to the film blurb, it’s a meditation on life and grief. Yeah, right. At least Affleck’s death has stopped the mumbling. But wait… there are flashbacks… the mumbling has started again! This reviewer gave up at this point. It’s anti-cinema at its worst.

In snowy northern Norway a snowplough driver exacts revenge on the gangsters he thinks have killed his son. Other gangsters get involved and the killings, some of them of the wrong people, escalate until the plot develops into a black comedy. There’s little going on behind the surface, and it does sag occasionally through repetition, but you’ll want to stick with it. There are some nice bleak moments, as in the very last few seconds, and some nice snowscapes to look at until the next killing comes along.

Based on a true story of young German soldiers made to clear land mines from Danish beaches after losing WW2, this is an interesting idea under-developed in the filming. Having the young men brutalised by a sadistic Danish commander is heavy-handed and unpleasant to watch. The tension of the land-mine scenes is lost because of writer/director Martin Zandvliet’s muted direction. His avowed aim of exploring an ‘eye for an eye’ mentality (see DVD extras) needs both more subtlety and more heightened drama to turn this into a riveting movie.

The not-very-interesting tale of an aircraft pilot who gets caught up in undercover CIA operations in Central America in the 1970s and 80s. If you’re unfamiliar with the political scene then – Contras, Noriega, North etc. – this anti-government history lesson, as implied by the sneering title, is unlikely to engage non-US viewers. Tom Cruise does his best with the shallow, corrupt, gun-and-drug-running lead character, but you’re hardly gonna root for him. According to director Doug Liman (on the DVD extras) we’re supposed to see him as a loveable rogue. Er, no, he ain’t.

Liman has made some great films, but there’s little he can do with the material here except adopt a fast pace to try and maintain the viewer’s attention. Played as a black comedy, the film never hits the spot and the jaunty score further distances the viewer from the action. The project obviously got the green light because of its left-wing political stance, but it makes for poor cinema and would be better suited to a short documentary.

Following the ridiculous Pacific Rim comes an even more ridiculous and boring sequel in which giant robots swap fisticuffs with each other and Japanese monsters while bashing into skyscrapers. It’s a juvenile cartoon that makes even the equally ridiculous Transformers franchise seem like a masterpiece.

The very concept of giant robots manned behind the eyes by synchronised pairs of adolescents (yes, really), whose movements power the robot’s movements, is laugh-out-loud nonsensical. Any talent the cast may have is not on view. The fact that some of the dialogue is in Mandarin as a sop to the increasingly important Chinese market shows what this film is really about. For real masochists, the DVD contains a director’s commentary.

The very misleading title and trailer may lead you into expecting another Honk Kong shoot-em-up, but this is something different. It’s a charming little film in which an ageing ex-Triad boss (the always reliable Anthony Wong) falls for a younger woman (the always watchable Charlene Choi), even though anyone can see it’s she and his younger brother who are made for each other. Not until a dramatic plot point at the hour mark does the tone become darker as old adversaries must be faced. The whole makes for an odd combination of genres. Does it work? Not entirely, but it’s worth a look to find out.