Film Reviews by GI

Another Marvel Cgi fest' and another trip into the 'multiverse' (I think by now most of the Marvel superheroes have had a dabble in there but I maybe wrong). This is a genial high energy fantasy film with Benedict Cumberbatch having the time of his life as the weird hero who is pining for his lost love (Rachel McAdams). Whilst at her wedding to someone else he has to deal with a big one eyed monster thing that is chasing a young girl who it turns out has the power to open portals into the multiverse, where Dr Strange gets to meet some other versions of himself as well as some superheroes that have taken on a different aspect to the ones we all love here in our universe! There seems to me to be the influence of the Harry Potter films in this and it drifts around toying with a superhero film mixed with some science fiction and supernatural horror (we get a zombie version of Strange at one point). It's another one for fans, and whilst it rattles along at a neat pace, it's still a little too long and is essentially a series of huge punch ups. Elizabeth Olsen is good as Wanda , an ubër witch that covets the young girl's power. Strong support cast includes Benedict Wong, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Patrick Stewart, Hayley Atwell, John Krasinski, Lashana Lynch and Charlize Theron shows up in a cameo in the inevitable mid end credits sequence that signposts the next film. It's ok I suppose but nothing here that we haven't seen before.

A sentimental and dull contemporary western from director Clint Eastwood who also stars. The trouble with this film is that it never gives anything remotely interesting and the main plot has holes galore and the central relationship is a predictable story that's been done before and better. Eastwood plays Mike, a former rodeo star who ended up as a ranch hand for his boss (Dwight Yoakam) who in the films' introduction fires Mike essentially for being past it. Indeed Eastwood was 91 years old at the time of this film and looks it so believing he's a competent horse ranger is a real stretch. His age becomes an issue as the film continues because a year after his dismissal the boss inexplicably recruits him to go to Mexico and 'rescue' his 13 year old son from a drunken mother.So Mike heads off, finds the boy and heads back home with him where on the way they bond and Mike teaches the angry and street wise kid some life lessons. The bonding part of the narrative is a gentle affair but nothing much else happens. Eastwood relies on scenes of the Mexican sunsets and landscape to interest the viewer and provides little else. The mother sends a henchman after them but he's mostly incompetent but Eastwood seems to be a big hit with the Mexican ladies! That is the biggest implausibility here and it's clear the part was for a younger man and casting himself seems a strange choice. Unlike some of his previous films where he's played an older grump such as Gran Torino (2008) Cry Macho is a tame, uninspiring film.

An intense and somewhat esoteric relationship drama that can divide audiences from director Bernardo Bertolucci, who clearly loves eroticism. The Dreamers is a complex, mostly plotless, character study of three young adults; American shy and naive student Matthew (Michael Pitt) and twins Isabelle (Eva Green) and Theo (Louis Garrel). The setting is Paris in 1968 a time of political upheaval and social unrest. Matthew is studying French there and meets the twins through a shared love of cinema. They invite Matthew to move in with them at their parents large apartment while the mother and father are away. Matthew soon finds that his love for Isabelle binds him into the twins bizarre relationship with each other that emotionally transcends anything he has experienced before. As a sexual relationship begins with Isabelle Matthew struggles to understand their view of life and future. The three leads are first class here in portraying the complexity of the three way sexual awakening that occurs once Matthew becomes part of their lives but he cannot understand why he cannot break fully through the bond that the twins have developed. This is a film to admire even though it is one that forces you to question the issues of sex, love and turmoil that the three start to learn from each other. This is certainly an interesting study and a film that possibly requires a couple of viewings in order to really appreciate.

What this sequel to 2004's Night Watch lacks in originality and horror tropes it makes up for in fantasy action and sheer entertainment. There's huge action set pieces and stunts that appear to be there for no other reason than to include them but you can forgive this because they are such a delight. Like many sequels the impact of the original film is now lost so it has to make up for it by being more spectacular and the reason this is a worthy follow up is because it neatly ties up the storyline from the first film. The uneasy truce between the forces of Light and Dark hangs by a thread especially as it appears that two 'Great Others' have appeared, one for the light and one for the Dark. The trouble is Night Watch 'Other' Anton is in love with one and the other is his son. This creates the conflict of the narrative which is essentially a fantasy romance with some themes about family, parenting and the break up of the Soviet Union and the rise of western values in Russia. At the end of the day this is just great fun and if you enjoyed the Night Watch then this is a must see.

Films adapted from gaming media tend to come up against the hardcore geek fanbase surrounding these games and ultimately fail. I'm not a gamer and so consequently look at this entirely from its value as a narrative film. Having said that I'm sufficiently aware to recognise that the set pieces here run as if it's the game. Whether this is to keep the fans happy of just the only way adapt this I don't know but it leaves the impression that it's just a game adapted to a film! With heavy influences of The Princess Bride (1987), the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Jurassic Park (1993), the Game Of Thrones TV series and even Monty Python this is a fantasy film set in a magical land of sorcerers, creatures, swords and warriors dosed heavily with comedy aimed at young teenagers and a script that relies of modern American wisecracks making it a shallow and forgettable film. Despite that it is a lively and brilliantly conceived film that fans will no doubt love. Chris Pine leads the cast as a thief who abandons his wife and child to go on an adventure where he teams up with a female warrior (Michelle Rodriguez). Escaping from prison he wants to redeem himself and find his daughter, now in the hands of the slimy baddie (Hugh Grant), and needs a couple of magical gizmos to help him sort his life out. This cues a rather long film of fighting monsters, wizards and things through various labyrinths or strange underworlds etc etc....you get the idea I'm sure. The end result is a rather average fantasy adventure that is aimed at a certain age group but doesn't offer much you haven't seen before in better films. The title suggests a new franchise but I suspect that won't happen based on this.

A first class drama, rock biopic and romance story and one of the best narrative films that charts part of the history of The Beatles. Starting in 1960 and gifted young artist Stuart Sutcliffe (Stephen Dorff) and his best mate John Lennon (Ian Hart) are members of an up and coming rock 'n' roll band. They're on their way to Hamburg to play as the resident band in a strip club. Stuart has recently sold a painting and John has convinced him to buy a bass guitar with the proceeds. He can't play it but is drawn to the charisma of John who believes the band can make it big and agrees to be a part of what is Lennon's dream. Once in Hamburg Stuart meets the quiet and beautiful Astrid (Sheryl Lee) and they soon fall in love much to John's consternation. With the story spread over two years and ending in tragedy this is a quite accurate depiction of the Beatles time in Hamburg but focused on the three way relationship between Sutcliffe, Lennon and Astrid. It's a compelling drama, scripted rather well and telling the story of a talented young man who is often unknown in the Beatles history but was a remarkable painter. It's also a tender story of love built around a time of anger and change. Hart is excellent as the dedicated and focused Lennon, not adverse to voicing his anger, and Dorff has really captured Sutcliffe's persona with the real Astrid as an adviser on the film remarking how accurate his portrayal. The other band members are all good at their various roles especially Gary Bakewell as Paul McCartney. This is a well made, well acted and very moving and interesting drama and a film worth checking out whether you are a Beatles fan or not.

Originally intended as a TV mini series this is a fantastically original horror film, stylish and exciting, and one of Russia's most popular films. It begins with a great battle, centuries ago, between the forces of Light and Dark (a battle scene very Tolkienesque in style). This sets the scene for a world where living among normal people are 'Others' who have supernatural powers, some are witches, wizards or shape shifters or even vampires for example. As the forces are equally matched an ancient truce is in place and to prevent breaches of the truce each side has a sort of police force that investigates violations, the Light's force is called the Night Watch. Every 'Other' can freely choose which side they want to join but an ancient prophecy says that one day an 'Other' will emerge and whichever side he joins will then dominate the world. Anton (Konstantin Khabenskiy) is a Night Watch 'Other' who is trying to prevent a young boy from being killed by a Dark 'Other' but he soon finds that the Lord of Dark has designs on the boy. The special effects are amazing and the plot is unusual, original and really clever and the setting of the action in Moscow lends the film a gritty realism that would have been lost if this was a Hollywood movie. Thematically the film delves into the grey area between good and bad and like all really good horror films it makes for a variety of interesting readings. I cannot recommend this enough, it's really very, very good.

Reputed to be the most profitable independent film ever made, made on a shoestring budget and hugely influential this is still a classic of the horror genre and set the rules for zombie films ever since. Despite claims on it's behalf this is not the first real zombie film (for example Hammer Films had released Plague of The Zombies two years earlier) but it certainly included narrative tropes that have been part of the zombie culture ever since, such as cannabilism, they only die by head shot etc. In 1968 the cannabilistic elements in this film were truly shocking and the film is still today very gory and tense. It's a simple story, yet very well told with a completely unknown cast, a brother & sister visit their father's grave where a strange old man attacks them. The girl escapes pursued by the man and seeks refuge in an old farmhouse where a group of strangers are also hiding from an epidemic of recently dead corpses which are coming alive and have a craving for human flesh. They soon become besieged and like all films where a disparate group are trapped the dynamic is in their fight with each other in the stress of trying to survive. Director George A. Romero cleverly cast a young black actor (Duane Jones) in the lead, a very bold move in the USA at the time and his character dominates the group. Like all great horror films this is about the state of American society in the 1960s and it's a sharp condemnation. As a film, today, it's a masterpiece of simple film making and one of the best American horror films of all time.

Based on a true story signposts this as a B movie exploitation film, a comedy creature feature that never really excites but is sporadically good fun. With an opening scene that homages the opening of Jaws (1975) this has a large consignment of cocaine dumped in the forests of Georgia where a black bear eats some and becomes extremely agitated and murderous all the while craving more of the drug. For victims it has the drug dealers who want it back, led by Ray Lotta in his final film and his disheartened son played by Alden Ehrenreich, a love sick Forest Ranger (Margo Martindale), some local street thugs, a cop and Keri Russell, as a mother searching for her daughter and her friend who are playing hookey from school. It all amounts to what you'd expect, the bear chases down people gorily killing as it goes while the surviving humans battle each other over the drugs and /or surviving. The film lacks the punch and scares that are a prerequisite of a film like this and many of the laughs are fairly routine jokes. It's enjoyable enough but that's the limit of it.

Even accepting director WesAnderson's famed eccentricity in film this maybe impenetrable for many and it's certainly not a good starting point to venture into the Wes Anderson filmography. Asteroid City retains the light comedic sophistication of all his films, rich in detail (indeed you'll have fun scanning the screen for all the tiny and funny details that are on offer), it's ensemble cast, the pastel coloured images reminiscent of American 1950s comic books and it's pop culture roots. Set in the mid 1950s in the small desert town of Asteroid City, so named because it's on the site of a meteor crater, and the US government has a space observatory there and a nuclear testing site close by (mushroom clouds of atomic bomb tests routinely appear on the horizon), it also hosts an annual school science project prize giving. A group of people with their science minded kids show up for this and they have a host of bizarre inventions including a 'death ray'. Former war photographer Augie (Jason Schwartzman) is one of the parents as is film star Midge (Scarlett Johanssen), and we watch as they fall in love during the quarantine that is forced on everyone due to a strange event. There is also a framing device to the narrative that shows the film to be a play and highlights the artificiality of the drama. This is essentially a pathos, framed around the theme of grief, with Anderson's usual dead pan style and his presentation that appears as some other medium. Here it's cartoonish, driving home the American fascination with weirdness and the unknown that was at its height in the 50s (Area 51, space aliens, Bermuda Triangle etc). If you're a diehard fan of Andersons's work then you'll love this, I do admire his films but this is a bonkers film and not one I enjoyed more than many of his previous works. You have to give some kudos though to a director that gets such a list of people wanting to work with him. Here the cast includes Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Steve Carell, Rupert Friend, Matt Dillon and others. Try this because its original and different.

Probably the best example of the Roger Corman B movie exploitation cinema that was hugely popular in the 1970s. It's cheap, cheesy, bloody and with large dollops of female nudity. A black comedy that is laugh out loud when viewed today with its dystopian narrative but 70s styling and it's a film that has definitely influenced many since. If you watch for example Robocop (1987) you can see the seeds of Death Race 2000 there. In a future fascist USA an annual cross country road race in weaponised cars is hugely popular mainly because the racers are allowed to kill innocent bystanders in order to gain points. The champion racer, and due for his unprecedented third win, is Frankenstein (David Carradine), a mysterious driver who claims to be disfigured by traumas received in previous races hence his monicker and masked costume (like a superhero). His biggest rival is Machine Gun Joe (Sylvester Stallone) which doesn't amount to too much as there's only five racers. This year Frankenstein has a new navigator (Simone Griffeth) who is a member of the rebellion out to sabotage the race and bring down the corrupt President. All the women characters have nude scenes, the men have none, there's lots of speeded up footage to show cars running fast, some very daft fights that are very unconvincing. Indeed Peter Fonda who was offered the lead refused it on the grounds the whole thing was insanely stupid and he was right. But this did launch a film career for Carradine, was very popular with a certain male demographic mostly because it was controversial in its violence which is really tame by later standards. The attempt at a serious indictment of violence is not lost on the viewer but Rollerball (1975) released around the sometime was a more powerful film on that score. This is a cult favourite and a much copied film to see out of interest and you'll have a good chuckle watching it.

This is one of the great classic British horror films that taps into a culture of folklore, gothic old houses and pagan history. It was made at a time when good storytelling was the principal aim and of course technology for special effects was limited. Watched today the effects may seem rather fake but if you can put that aside this is a compelling, tense and very original horror film. American matinee star Dana Andrews plays psychology Dr John Holden who has travelled to England to participate in an investigation into the claims of Julian Karswell (Niall MacGinnis) that the supernatural is real and that he can summon demons. Holden has made a career of debunking such things and refuses to give up the task even after the sudden death of his colleague and when Karswell predicts his own death in three days. Director Jacques Tourneur uses shadow and a jarring soundtrack to create an eerie and unsettling atmosphere as Holden finds that there maybe more to Karswell's claims than he is prepared to accept. A great British film and a precursor to the Hammer cycle that came soon after this was released. A must see for all film fans.

Witty and sharply scripted romantic comedy, a glossy production (Judd Apatow being linked here) that makes this gay comedy something of a first in the sense it's about a gay couple in a film that received a wide theatrical release. Written and starring Billy Eichner as Bobby, a New York based man who campaigns endlessly for the LGBTQ+ community mainly through a podcast but at the sometime rues the clichés of the gay world all the while indulging in them. He shuns commitment explaining, to us the audience, that gay men view marriage, sex etc in a different way to heterosexual people. And then he meets Aaron, a hunky man who epitomises everything Bobby despises about the gay community. Aaron too is not into commitment but as you'd expect there's an initial spark that soon grows and the main narrative structure of the romcom is assured. The couple navigate the minefield of love through the film which starts as a very funny and well observed comedy but ultimately slips into sentimentality. There's a rich display of support characters that help the film retain it's comedy roots and whilst this may have had the ambition to be the 'first' real gay romcom it certainly is a film that you don't have to be gay to really enjoy.

This is a seriously compelling psychothriller and courtroom drama anchored by a superb central performance from Sandra Hüller. It's a most intriguing film with its ambiguous title and equally ambiguous narrative arc. This is obviously a did she/didn't she story but it's so grounded, unhurried and delves deep into issues of patriarchy, family, love, guilt and actually life itself. When Sandra's husband is found dead in the snow outside their chalet home an investigation begins to unravel how he came to die. He has a fatal head wound and the police begin to suspect she killed him but she claims it was more likely suicide and an accident cannot be ruled out either. The only reliable witness is their young son, Daniel, who is partially blind following an accident years before. He didn't see anything but may hold the key to what has been happening in the house. The film has a smooth texture and emotional intensity which makes impossible to not become involved in the narrative as it plays out, mostly in Sandra's trial for murder. The film is beautifully written and directed with a sure hand by Justine Triet. There is a lot going on here from the theme of justice is blind epitomised in the son's handicap to the family pet dog who sees and hears all! A clever and exceptionally focused film.

Director Kathryn Bigelow's first directorial effort and a great little horror film it is too. Set in the American mid west it's the story of bored rancher's son Caleb (Adrian Pasdar) who meets the mysterious and sexy Mae (Jenny Wright) who seduces him after which he is forced into the company of a vicious gang of drifters led by Jesse (Lance Henricksen). They turn out to be killers who shun sunlight, feed by drinking blood and apparently have lived long lives. So this falls into the vampire sub-genre although the word 'vampire' is never used. Many of the tropes of vampire films are absent here so there's no fangs, wooden stakes, garlic, issues with mirrors etc and the reason these people are as they are is never explained. They do have huge strength, can't be killed in normal ways and definitely avoid sunlight which becomes a major plot point. A contemporary road/horror film with the influence of John Carpenter all over it, it's bloody, great fun and has the great Bill Paxton on fine form as one of the very nasty baddies. This is a little gem of a film and highly recommended if you've never seen it.