Film Reviews by Alphaville

Part 2 of kids become superheroes by shouting the word ‘shazam’, but without the original’s USP. If you sat through Part 1, you’ll probably be able to sit through the equally undemanding Part 2. It’s kiddie superhero nonsense with as much cgi as you’d expect and the usual bland banter, rousing orchestral score etc. Nothing new here except for Helen Mirren slumming it as a baddie. Move on.

Two Japanese teenagers deal with their families and life following a natural disaster. Fans of director Sion Sono will be sorely disappointed with this 2011 offering, which is nothing but an overlong downbeat drama, devoid of his usual quirky plotting and creative visual flourishes. Even the trailer can’t drum up any interest with lines such as: He just wanted an ordinary life. Yeah, that I need to see!

Following a murder, three academic probability experts and a special forces hard man team up for revenge. What’s new? The hard man and the gang who committed the murder play it as a straight action thriller, while the academics think they’re in a comedy. The conceit works brilliantly. Quirky characters, quirky plot and a film that’s both thrilling and funny, dark and moving at the same time. The director underplays each scene, giving every beat, comic or otherwise, equal prominence. The effect is to build the tension, disorienting the viewer so that you never know when it's going to explode into action. It works brilliantly. Surely worth a Hollywood remake for those who can’t read subtitles.

It’s an interesting idea. 8yo Vicki has such a highly-developed sense of smell that she can recreate any smell and bottle it in a jar. But where to go with this premise? The smell of her aunt takes her back in time to her aunt’s younger self, and it seems it will become time-bendingly interesting when her aunt’s younger self senses her presence. But the plot makes nothing of this and goes nowhere… and there’s nothing at stake but a family mystery. The novelty and some nice Alpine scenery make it watchable, but it could have been so much more. Even the enticing film title only refers to the sports centre where Vicki’s mum works.

Those silly blue cgi people are back, with their flying around the forest on big birds and singing in the toilet (sorry, la’vi). Now they’re underwater as well! Those nasty humans are back too, with their nasty robots and their nasty clanking machines disturbing the peace and – worst of all – their nasty attitude. Tom and Jerry had more depth.

Why can’t they just drop a big bomb on the whole planet? Surely this is one place in the universe that would be improved by species extinction.

As if the first film wasn’t bad enough, this one doubles the pain by lasting for a posterior-numbing, brain-numbing three hours. If you sit through this you really need to get out more.

The anti-war aim of the film is laudable, the epic scale undeniable, the direction faultless, but… Churlish to say, we’ve seen it all before. Raw recruits go to the trenches in WW1 and we follow them from training into battle. Despite the endless carnage, there’s little dramatic interest when everything is so repetitive and predictable. Ironically, the most dramatic scenes cover the off-battle politicking to end the war. It’s a classic story and a remake of a classic film, but is perhaps better viewed as an educational documentary than an engrossing feature film.

Bargain basement Japanese gore, OTT lurid and amateurish. Never has so much paint be spilt in the service of simulating blood.

A dad and his annoying daughter fight to survive in a world overrun by monstrous plants. Why are screen daughters so annoying? Papa! Papa! Will no plant rid us of her? Also ruining the film is a by-the-numbers plot and screeds of inane dialogue and hammy acting between bouts of action. It’s a shame because, even with a measly run time of 89mins, the scale is epic and the special effects, even when hilarious, are spectacular and deserve a better film. Worth a look if you’re partial to a cgi extravaganza to pass the time.

An English-speaking alien looking very much like Adam Driver crash-lands on earth 65 million years ago. This is his survival story as he contends with asteroids, dinosaurs and the obligatory 9yo girl (not as bad as usual). It doesn’t sound promising. There’s nothing here we haven’t seen before. Yet written and directed by the two guys who wrote ‘A Quiet Place’, this is a good-looking, well-made, grown-up and intelligent antidote to kiddie superhero franchises.

As in ‘A Quiet Place’, good use is made of sound design and the action doesn’t disappoint. At a mere 82mins before the end-credits roll, they should have re-instated some of the deleted scenes shown on the DVD Extras, but what remains is admirably taut. In a film world beset by childish superheroes, it should be applauded.

Light-hearted caper pits a cast of expendable characters against a cocaine-fuelled bear. It takes a while to get going then the severed limbs start flying to pop songs such as Depeche Mode’s ‘Just can’t get enough’. The main problem is that the comic characters hold no interest and there are too many scenes of them without the bear. Plus it was a mistake to hold the climax in gloomy darkness. Still, it’s an irresistible idea, based on true events, and is a hoot in parts.

Sion Sono’s first English-language film is even more unclassifiable than his previous work. With explosives attached to his privates, gangster Nick Cage sets off on his push-bike to rescue a woman from the land of no escape. Not that the plot matters as it barely hangs together from one scene to the next. What matters is the epic scale, surreal visuals and wild confrontations. For example, one monumental set has hordes of people trying to stop the hands moving on a giant clock to stop the universe exploding. You’ll either give up on it all after a few minutes or sit open-mouthed in wonderment. The final guns and swords climax, played out to a dramatic orchestral score, is a tour de force of operatic grandeur. It’s a divisive film not without many faults, but a Sion Sono movie is always an event worth catching.

Absurdist drama about a man who loves his deerskin jacket and goes to increasing lengths to stop anyone else wearing any jacket. One drab scene follows another as he wanders around in his jacket and talks to it in his hotel room. Unfortunately it’s not funny and it goes nowhere. It’s probably the longest 73-minute film you’ll ever see. Even as a ten-minute short it might be pushing it.

You’d hope a film directed by and based on Steven Spielberg’s early life would be full of wonder and insight about cinema, but those moments are few and far between. It’s mostly a bland family drama that takes a whole hour (out of an overlong 2½ hours) to get going. After that there’s some heartfelt drama among family members at last and a couple of telling cameos from Judd Hirsch as a black-sheep uncle and David Lynch as John Ford. Otherwise it’s little more than a vanity project with little flourish and disappointingly meh.

Another devilish, unclassifiable, remarkable film from Japanese director Sion Sono. Is it sci-fi? Teenage drama? Fantasy? Voyeurism? Gothic horror? An exploration of free will v determinism? Who cares when it’s this weird and wonderful. The gruesome, surreal opening coup de cinema, thankfully not shown in the trailer, is startling in its audacity. Things tail off for a bit after that as we become involved in teenage girl shenanigans (hence only 4 stars instead of 5), but soon we’re back among the action and plot twists. Not the masterpiece that was Love Exposure, but pure cinema. Why can’t the British film industry wean itself off social realism and make something as weirdly wonderful.

A sort-of Korean John Wick that never quite works. The feeble set-up has our trained assassin hero looking after a teenaged girl played by a K-pop star (yawn, yawn). But the main problem is his stoney-faced indestructability, which robs the fight scenes of any drama. There are a couple of well-choreographed fights – one filmed in a single Steadicam take and the final one against the main blond villain, but the long between-fight scenes really sag. It always seems to be on the verge of taking off but never does. In the end I got so bored with the hero that I wanted the villain to win.