Film Reviews by Alphaville

With multiple viewpoints, loads of voiceover and irritating flashbacks that slow the narrative, this must have worked better in book form. Maybe the lead character struck a chord with some readers, but the immediacy of the big screen reveals her as a drunken pain.

Her involvement with other characters strains credibility. The many flashbacks, full of incessant soul-searching (sometimes even in the clichéd psychiatrist’s chair), strain patience. Even the ridiculous, overwrought climax, when at last something happens, is weakened by flashback and introspection.

The whole project is so old-fashioned, melodramatic and trite that even these attempts to spice it up with a cut-and-paste approach merely highlight its emptiness. Listen to director Tate Tyler’s boringly descriptive audio commentary on the DVD and you’ll understand why the film is so bland.

This is less a thriller than a character study of an autistic accountant who also happens to be a martial arts and gun expert. It’s never clear exactly what’s going on behind the scenes with our hero’s dealings with unseen crooks and there are only minor bursts of confusing action.

Ben Affleck is fine as the lead but Anna Kendrick as the damsel in distress is intensely irritating as she ums and ahs her way though her dialogue. Fortunately she’s irrelevant to the plot and soon drops out of it. Not that there’s much room for plot with screeds of explanation to get through concerning autism and backstory.

There’s some climactic plot development and action, but it comes too late and you’ll probably find it laughable anyway. There’s even a terrible score complete with ill-judged nauseating ballads. It’s a grown-up film, which deserves kudos these days, but the package needs more thrills than this.

Real-life disaster becomes action movie. A docbuster. A film of two halves: the build-up and the explosion. The first half is all oil rig banter and technical jargon (subtitles will help). The second half is a cgi extravaganza of explosions and pyrotechnics.

The whole oil rig and fire above the base is cgi. It’s brilliantly done by ILM (check out the excellent DVD extras) but you either revel in this sort of thing or you don’t. The search for authenticity makes the action confusing, as it undoubtedly was in the real-life incident on which the film is based. Shaky hand-held camerawork doesn’t help.

It’s hard to take the politicking seriously when the BP man in charge is played by supercilious John Malkovich doing his usual hammy acting. It’s also hard to feel any emotional ties to the men who died as we never get to know them. If this were fiction they’d be viewed as expendables extras, which induces a feeling of guilt in the viewer in the face of the real-life tragedy. As for the melodramatic ending, you’ll cringe at the religious overtones and excruciating soundtrack ballad.

Nevertheless, this must have been a hard directorial gig to pull off. As Peter Berg showed in Lone Survivor, he’s at his best when it comes to visceral filmmaking and there’s plenty here to keep pyromaniacs happy. Others may find it all a bit samey. Check out the DVD extras for some fascinating behind-the-scenes-footage.

This is an old-fashioned film with an old-fashioned vibe. Tom Cruise is on the run from baddies with a woman and a daughter in tow. Yep, he’s saddled with one of those annoying teenage daughters that American filmmakers seem to love. In the DVD Extras Tom calls it a ‘crime thriller’ but to call that an overstatement would be an understatement.

Patrick Heusinger makes a worthy baddie but otherwise everything about the film is lazy, dull and uninspiring. None of the characters convinces. The plot never develops any momentum. The action is too low-key to be exciting. Edward Zwick directs with little flair. The by-the-numbers climactic fight even takes place during a clichéd New Orleans parade. Is that the best they could come up with?

You know those pieces of conceptual art that have nothing to show beyond a concept? This is the cinematic equivalent, except that ‘cinematic’ it isn’t. Amy Adams lies around staring into space while the thriller she’s reading plays out for us in flashback. There’s supposed to be synergy between the two timelines, but the present timeline is too inane and boring to care about. There’s even a third unnecessary backstory shown in flashback.

The thriller timeline is the only one with any interest so you’ll probably give up on the others and try to catch that by fast forwarding to the interleaved clips of it. That said, it’s an unpleasant rape/murder story that salivates in the victims’ terror. Writer/director Tom Ford seems to like degradation. The film even opens with some grotesque obese nude dancing that may well have you hit fast forward immediately.

Rather than a thriller, this is more a slow-paced, forced melodrama, with stilted acting and dialogue. The only real success is the detective who investigates the murders. As played by Michael Shannon he injects a much-needed dose of reality.

Nocturnal Affairs reminds you of those bum-numbing painterly pieces Peter Greenway used to make in the 70s. It’s like a student exercise. On the DVD extras Ford explains the concept and, as with most conceptual modern art, that’s more interesting than the piece itself.

Like George Lucas, Peter Jackson was a promising director before he got side-tracked into playing with cgi. Making Kong more realistic merely highlights the ridiculousness of the tale. At least a man in an ape suit or a Godzilla suit is fun.

When it comes to the mawkish climax on the skyscraper, which goes on forever, you’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh. The equally risible score will you off orchestral schmaltz forever. Acting kudos to Naomi Watts for keeping a straight face. If you insist on seeing a Kong film, stick with the original or watch the superior 1976 John Guillermin version.

This the best yet in the rebooted series, with some impressive space station and planetary designs. There’s even a great opening, with Kirk in voiceover contemplating life in space. But we’re soon back to the usual Star Trak clichés, of which you’re either a fan or you’re not. Unless you’re a Trekkie it’s neither funny enough nor thrilling enough..

Director Justin Lin does a good job with the lightweight stuff at his disposal but can do little to inject much life into affairs as the film degenerates into the usual catalogue of explosions. At least these are better than Independence Day Resurgence explosions but that’s not saying much. As for the climactic fight between Kirk and miscast baddie Idris Elba, it’s a damp squib.

The plot advances through one contrived confrontation after another. Each character’s predicament is given an update before we move on in piecemeal style to see what’s happening elsewhere, making it less involving than a good episode from the original TV series. Amazingly, each of our lovable characters is nearly but not quite get killed, while the usual dreadful cartoonish orchestral score highlights every beat.

It’s about time someone brought some imagination and depth to these films. This one is popcorn stuff for pre-teens.

Those rampaging zombies from 28 Days Later are back and this time they’re on a train, so hold on to your seat for the ride. South Korean cinema is showing Hollywood how to do it these days and this is terrific genre film.

Director Sang-ho Yeon is completely in control of his medium, filming fluently with panache and imagination, both aerially and on the ground. Less skilled modern filmmakers resort to amateurish hand-held camera shots to mimic immersion in a scene. Sang-ho Yeon shows how it should be done, with style to spare. If you’re interested in the technical aspects, watch the ‘Making Of’ feature on the DVD.

Although it’s the director’s first live-action movie he has an instinct for when to build tension, when to quieten it down and when to really ramp up the action. What’s more, he makes us care about what happens to his characters, right up to the tense closing seconds. There are moments when you’ll shout at the screen like a kid.

The zombies are expertly choreographed and there are some remarkable scenes. One has them falling out of the sky then getting up to continue their rampage. Another messes with trains in a way we haven’t seen since Frankenheimer’s brilliant The Train. Some shots have an almost apocalyptic grandeur. This is what World War Z should have been.

With great visuals, great situations and a resounding score, Train to Busan is not just for fans of the genre but for anyone who thrills to visceral film-making. It’s fun, it’s exciting and it’s beautiful.

This film about an indigenous detective trying to solve a murder case in the Australian outback has its admirers among jaded critics. Perhaps it enabled them to catch up on some sleep. There may be a good film trying to get out here but it’s stifled into submission by the treatment.

It’s one of those affairs where everyone speaks oh-so-deliberately with long pauses in conversations and lingering looks. There’s no drama, no thrills, no intensity, no pace. The story’s minimal. There’s not even any music to brighten things up and trigger some emotion.

Writer/director Ivan Sen hasn’t yet learned how to use a movie camera. The clue’s in the word ‘movie’. He mostly just plonks it down in front of someone speaking. And he can’t even frame that with any visual interest.

There’s a shoot-out at the end but who cares? It’s soooooo slow. Well done if you can keep your finger off the Fast Forward button.

In the wake of several good films on the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Hitler’s ‘Butcher of Prague’, Anthropoid ruins a terrific story so thoroughly it makes you angry at the waste. The film gets off to a bad start with confusing, handheld, too-close-in shots of a parachute landing. It has the aesthetic of a poorly-made home movie. It settles down for a while after that but every time the action hots up the images go haywire again. Perhaps director Sean Ellis couldn’t afford a Steadicam.

The budget is certainly underpowered. We hardly ever see Heydrich, or indeed any German until the last half hour. The overriding vibe is a theatrical tell-don’t-show. Most of the film takes place in closed rooms with action relayed by characters entering stage right or left. Ellis manages the seemingly impossible task of draining all drama out of the story, reducing it to scene after scene of indoor planning.

The on-the-nose dialogue is banal throughout, leaving the viewer to seek interest in watching a selection of British and Irish actors struggle with thick Czech accents. At least, one presumes they are meant to be Czech.

You might be sorely tempted to skip the plodding first hour before the assassination attempt, but be warned that this only lasts a couple of minutes anyway. And don’t get me started on the ending – a long shoot-out that’s an amateurish handheld visual mess. Has Ellis never seen The Wild Bunch?

The film’s only success is the rumbling score, which does its best to add much-needed tension. Otherwise this is a terrible disappointment. It sent me scuttling back to the superior 1976 version Operation Daybreak.

This third adaptation of Dan Brown’s books about symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) starts well and goes downhill from there on. There’s a terrific prologue about the extinction of mankind due to overpopulation and an intriguing opening with Hanks in hospital, shot in the head, with no memory of what happened and with a hit woman breaking in to finish him off.

It develops into a prolonged chase around some European cities, with Hanks pursued by various bodies while he tries to decipher cryptic clues as to what’s happening. Felicity Jones is too lightweight to act as a foil as the girl on the run with him. It gets sillier as it progresses, with some preposterous plot intricacies leading to an overblown climactic set-piece that descends into pure comedy.

It nevertheless remains watchable, if not always for the intended reasons. Director Ron Howard can always be relied on to deliver a solid production, the locations look good and Hans Zimmer contributes one of his less bombastic scores. It’s a shame it’s all so ridiculous.

This is a seedy film about an ex-con (Mel Gibson) on the run from a Mexican drug cartel (yawn) with his off-the-rails 17yo daughter (Erin Moriarty). Naturally there’s some father-daughter bonding to be done (yawn). There are lots of tattoos and cursing and of course Gibson gets to ride a motor bike (yawn).

There are some token shoot-em-ups and the film has a gritty reality, but you never care about any of the dislikeable characters. Trashy, downbeat, B-movie fare.

I don’t normally review children’s films but this masquerades as an adult film so it deserves all it gets. Think Starship Troopers with none of the creativity, imagination and intelligence. A moronic cgi-fest for brain-dead game-boys. So cynical it even features Chinese product placement for the international market.

For all the cartoonish alien destruction on show, the leading characters never seem to be in any danger. Drama and dialogue are at pre-teen level. Every predictable beat is emphasised by a bombastic score.

Will our heroes survive? Will it end with a lot of whooping? You have to ask? Even the gag reel is embarrassing. Watch and weep.

An engrossing, well-mounted account of an ill-fated 1996 Everest expedition. Director Baltasar Kormakur insisted on keeping it real. ‘Please, no acting,’ was his instruction to his actors. The cast dutifully immerse themselves in the snow with gusto and even the Italian Alps make a great understudy for Everest itself.

It seems churlish to carp, but the film’s attempt to remain authentic and true to its real-life participants makes it not without flaws. Firstly, when we’re impatient for the action to start, there’s a long flashback that sets up the backstory of the main participants before they hit the climb. Others in a large cast are so poorly sketched that when there’s a reference to them we don’t who they are. Like Everest itself, the cast is overcrowded.

Secondly, mountaineers wearing heavy gear and goggles in a storm are difficult to distinguish from each other. Among the bit players especially it’s often hard to know who’s who. All of this diminishes audience involvement and makes the viewer feel guilty for not feeling more when a ‘minor’ character (based on a real person) dies.

Given these caveats, Everest is well-made and remains one of the better fact-based mountaineering films.

After being evicted from his home, Andrew Garfield joins forces with cynical realtor Michael Shannon to earn money by evicting others. Yep, it’s a film about the sub-prime mortgage financial crisis but, guess what, it’s riveting. Unlike other failed attempts at the same subject, such as The Big Short, this really hits the mark.

Garfield takes a step up in class from his Spiderman persona as the conflicted hero. We follow his progress and his moral dilemmas, half-hoping, half-fearing for him. There’s a deal going down for 100 homes. So why is the film called 99 Homes?

Director Ramin Bahrani keeps a tight grip of the action and moves it along at a brisk pace, aided by an insistent rhythmic score. It plays like a thriller with heart and builds dynamically to a tense climax. Well worth catching.