Plane films
Long-haul flights can never really be called pleasant,
but my Hong Kong-London journey was about as painless as could be hoped for.
Bringing on your favourite pillow in your hand luggage is definitely my
top tip.
I got in enough sleep that I feel like jetlag isn’t
going to be an issue, and as usual I watched a whole load of films to pass the
time. None were exactly wonderful works of art, but all kept me entertained.
#1: Ant-Man
My first choice, and one that I was specifically
looking for. When it was on in the cinemas, I didn’t go to see it and part of the
reason I wasn’t desperate to go was that I was actively thinking ‘I bet it will
be on the plane when I head home for Christmas’. And so it was – and while
overall I quite liked the film, it isn’t one I was sad to have missed on the
big screen.
I had high hopes for Ant-Man, but it
certainly wasn’t the kind of unexpected pleasure that Guardians of the
Galaxy managed to be. Paul Rudd wasn’t very engaging as Scott Lang, and
though Michael Douglas was probably the most fun part of the whole film, he
didn’t exactly get to do very much.
Some good humour (though a few too many comic relief
minorities), the expected superb special effects and neat tie-ins with the rest
of the Marvel Cinematic Universe made this worth seeing, if by no means
essential viewing.
#2: Pixels
The best thing about Pixels was probably the
models promoting the film that were placed around Shinjuku. But I expected the
film to be terrible, so when it was indeed terrible I was not disappointed.
The humour is extremely lazy, the premise is no less
atrocious than it seems on the surface, the characters are extremely unlikeable
and the effects, while very well-done, struggle with being intentionally
artificial with the result that a lot of money was no doubt spent on making
something look mediocre.
But hey, if anyone watched this film expecting it to
be anything other than brainless dreck, they need to pay attention.
#3: Minions
(See full review on my animation blog)
#4: Shingeki no Kyoujin
What worked:
-
The visuals, all colour graded to muted greys and
browns for a pleasantly bleak world. The sets and CG backgrounds were very
nice-looking, the costumes were excellent and the Titans themselves were just
the right sort of creepy.
-
For the most part, the editing and direction, though
some parts seemed vulgar, like having to be shown one boy Armin spoke about in
an flashback when everyone will have remembered him.
-
The action sequences, which were well-choreographed,
visceral and energetic.
- Hans (Hange) in her goggles. She was perfect, both on her
own strength and as a reflection of the anime version.
What didn’t work:
-
The casting. I don’t think everyone should have been
Teutonic – such a huge part of casting movies revolves around getting more of
the target demographic to attend. These names bring more of the Japanese
domestic audience. On the other hand, Eren was extremely forgettable, the
supporting cast often hard to tell apart (and not just because they were
Japanese) and the ham they got to play Shikishima, a role replacing Levi, was
utterly horrible with his posing and overacting.
-
Mikasa. To make the plot more succinct they made
major changes to Mikasa’s story. Unfortunately, this removes her interesting
character growth in her own right, keeps her offscreen for a large chunk of the
film, and makes her ability to kick some butt something derived from the
strength of the men around her rather than innate.
-
The pacing. Way too long is spent on reiterating the
very basic character traits of the supporting cast, without actually fleshing
them out into decent characters. Then the plot meanders and ends with nothing
resolved at all.
-
Baby titan. Too silly.
#5: Shingeki no Kyoujin: The End of the World
I didn’t even realise a second Shingeki film
had already come out. Nevertheless, there it was, available for viewing, so I
watched it too. It was similarly turgid, overacted and unsatisfying as the
first film, and featured a horrible attempt by two extreme over-actors to
out-overact one another with the two principal antagonists of the piece.
The motivations here were often utterly stupid
(nobody stops to say, ‘Shouldn’t you just do your dastardly plan with the walls
as they are?’) and sometimes the characters are, too. For example, Eren is
about to be eaten, the Titan holding him by his cloak while he vainly waves his
blade at it. And it never occurs to him to just cut off his cloak.
The plot here moved on further than the anime has
covered, so I don’t know how much of this is spoiler material and how much just
invention for the adaptation. Not knowing is good, because I’ll have to wait
and see how close it is to the source (I suspect it doesn’t match at all).
This film gave a lot more closure than the first
did, though of course not everything is yet resolved. I can’t say I care to go
and find out what becomes of live-action Eren and pals, but if it’s on the
plane again another time, I might watch.
#6: Fantastic Four
Well-known to have been a huge flop, FF continue to
be Marvel’s hardest property to successfully adapt, the problem being that
their origin story and their powers are kinda goofy, and the team works much,
much better when they’re already established as prominent heroes with wild
accomplishments that much of the Marvel Universe looks up to as trailblazers.
Trying to make the team young and relatable just isn’t effective.
I had high hopes when I saw that Doctor Doom would
be the villain of this piece, but while he’s quite fearsome here, ultimately
the plot robs him of impact. Too much time is spent setting up Reed’s character
without ever making him actually interesting, and then there’s just no time to really
establish Doom as a decent threat. Ultimately he has no real gravitas and
though the stakes are high, they never actually seem particularly high in the
film. The finale is rushed and fails to engage, and so much has been expended
on Reed that the rest of the team – even Ben Grimm – just aren’t very
interesting at all.
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