Movie Catchup: "If It Bleeds, It Leads"

It's been a while since I wrote about the films I've been watching, so here goes. First up, a comment on modern news media.

Nightcrawler

Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), a petty thief and hustler in Los Angeles, encounters a freelance news crew at the scene of an accident.

An update of Network with a central character that makes Tony Curtis's Sidney Falco look compassionate and altruistic, Gyllenhaal gives a strange and chilling performance as the amoral anti-hero Bloom. The plot and direction are excellent, and he's ably supported by Rene Russo, as the news director who encourages him, and Riz Ahmed, as his gullible assistant. Both the movie and Gyllenhaal's performance are Oscar material, in my view, and the film is highly recommended.

The Equaliser

Next, a remake of the 80's TV series with Denzel Washington. Working in a hardware super-store, Robert McCall (Washington) lives a quiet, unassuming life until he tries to help a young prostitute.

Although it nods to the original TV series, this film is really a copy of an earlier Denzel movie, Man on Fire. Washington adds class to what would otherwise be another addition to the vigilante genre (Taken, Three Days, etc.), and there's been a bit more thought put into the plot and characters than normal, Marton Csokas as his Russian nemesis is particularly sinister. It is just a pizza movie at heart, however, just not a bad one.

Transcendence

This is Johnny Depp's attempt to make a serious science fiction movie. After being assassinated by an anti-technology terrorist group, Dr. Will Caster (Depp), an A.I. expert, has his consciousness uploaded into a computer.

Although the special effects are good, the film is let down by the plot, which lacks pace and energy at critical points. This is probably because it's trying to deal with philosophical issues (human identity and the singularity) in a medium that doesn't easily support their discussion. The acting is okay, if a bit pedestrian, which reflects the dull dialogue, and there's a few A-Listers to fill in, but overall I felt that it was just a little too slow.

A Walk Among The Tombstones

The latest vehicle for Liam Neeson, he plays a retired policeman hired by a drug dealer to investigate the disappearance his girlfriend.

From a novel by Lawrence Block, Neeson does well as the recovering alcoholic Matt Scudder (the start of a possible series). The plot is well conceived and translates well onto the screen, although Scudder's teenage sidekick T.J. (Brian Bradley) could have done with being older. After seeing Neeson in worse films, it was nice to see him in something decent. This was also the second film with David Harbour in a supporting role (he played a crooked cop in The Equalizer)

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

Yup, Tom Clancy's hero gets a reboot. After recovering from his injuries in Afghanistan, former marine Jack Ryan (Chris Pine) becomes a financial analyst working secretly for the C.I.A. when he comes across a plot by Russian intelligence to collapse the American economy.

Directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also plays Ryan's nemesis, the plot is reasonably good, if a bit cartoon, and the acting more than adequate, given that Pine is supported by Kevin Costner (much better cast than in the previous movie), as his boss, and Keira Knightley as his wife. Not a bad pizza movie, if a bit predictable.

The Naked City

A classic not-quite-noire from the 1940's, New York police detectives Lt. Dan Muldoon (Barry Fitzgerald) and James Halloran (Don Taylor) investigate the murder of a good-time girl.

The acting is a bit wooden and there's not a bad cop in sight, but the real gem is seeing New York, New York in the 1940's (some of the sound is bad because they were filming in people's apartments and houses). The director, Jules Dassin, was one of the more adventurous in America, but was eventually blacklisted for his communist sympathies and moved to Europe. There are a thousand stories in the Naked City, and this was one of them.

3 Movies - Edge of Tomorrow, Guardians of the Galaxy and Three Days to Kill

The movies I get from Amazon are in threes and I managed to get them all replaced this time around and watched one after the other.

First, Three Days to Kill, a (perhaps unintentional) comedy thriller staring Kevin Costner as an ageing CIA agent trying to reconnect with his estranged family and offered treatment for his terminal illness in return for one last job.

An inferior competitor to the Taken series, even the occasional stabs at comedy don't really work and the whole thing, although workman-like, is a damp squib. Only the action scene's redeem it a little, but even those are run-of-the-mill. Ignore.

Next up, Guardians of the Galaxy, based on the Marvel comics, one of whose authors is one of my favourites, Dan Abnett of the Eisenhorn\Ravenor series. Having been kidnapped by extra-terrestrials as a child, adventurer and thief Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) manages to acquire a metal orb that attracts the attention of villain Ronan (Lee Pace).

Not bad. The plot's pretty good, if relentless; the action well paced and the special effects gob-smacking and original. The characters are a little too cardboard for my taste: Vin Diesel plays Groot who only says the same thing over and over again, "I am Groot", so everyone got their money's worth there. Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer is better value, but Bradley Cooper adds little as Rocket. The 70's sound track and Quill's use of it to connect with his past, especially his mother, does add a human touch and stops it all being too alien. A good all-round pizza movie.

By the way, without looking at the credits, see if you can spot Karen Gillan from Doctor Who.

Last, but far from least, there's Edge of Tomorrow, the latest Tom Cruise vehicle. After an alien invasion of near-future Europe, U.S. Army spokesman William Cage (Cruise) gets accidentally caught up in the human counter-attack.

It's like an over-the-top mash-up of Independence Day, Groundhog Day and The Longest Day. The technology (me being geeky) is incredibly well realised with lots of vertical take-off aircraft (similar to the V-22 Osprey currently in service) and hovercraft, as well as the exo-skeletons. The plot's a bit convoluted but its origins as a Japanese short-story might be responsible for that. Cruise and Emily Blunt, as the soldier who's experienced the same time-looping before, do well enough, but there is a sort of forgettable quality about the story (in a similar way to a previous Cruise film, Oblivion). A good enough pizza movie if you ignore all the resurrection undertones.

Here's a thing. There's a school of thought that says that recent movies have a preoccupation with ageing, death, longevity or immortality. The reason for this is that the people who make the movies (star in them, produce or direct them) are the so-called post war baby-boomer generation and mortality is catching up with them. This is expressing itself in the films (Cruise is 52 and Costner 60) so the idea has some merit.

Man of Steel - "Welcome to the Planet"

More Summer of Cinema with the Superman reboot in 3D. Clarke Kent faces his ultimate challenge when his Kryptonian past catches up with him and the people of Earth.

Absolutely fantastic. I enjoyed every minute, although it was a bit exhausting. Henry Cavill was good as Superman (he's a big, chunky lad!), coming to terms with his destiny, Amy Adams as Lois Lane was as cute and sparky as you'd expect, but it was Russell Crowe as Jor El and Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent that gave the film it's class acting, Crowe especially relishing the role. Michael Shannon's Zod was also notable, making the character less of a meglomaniac than Terence Stamp's version and more someone driven to save his people whatever the cost.

However, it was the Giger envisioning of Krypton was what made it special for me: it was a suprise and felt absolutely right, giving Krypton an organic, metalic, insectoid, alien look, working especally well in 3D.

Highly recommended: go and see it and be as gobsmacked as I was!