Eddie the Eagle, Warcraft, Pete's Dragon and London Has Fallen

1: Eddie the Eagle

This small-scale, endlessly affectionate biopic has all the hallmarks of a cheesy sports anime: an underdog no-hoper who has the establishment against him defies expectations to win the affection of the world, and while not rising to the top of his sport – rather an impossible feat against people who have trained their whole lives – fulfilling a childhood dream and competing at the highest level. It works so well as a formulaic sports story that it’s amazing so little had to be added to the true story.

Of course, this is not a realistic docu-drama. There’s a shameless exaggeration of characters and adversaries, especially Tim McInnerny’s Olympics official. Taron Eagerton, who was not particularly likeable in The Kingsmen, is much better as Eddie, an inherently likeable buffoon, Hugh Jackman adds real gravitas to his washed-up, fictional coach character, and there are great cameos from Christopher Walken and Jim Broadbent. Handsome Edvin Endre from Vikings also gets to deliver a fantastic little monologue with really nice clock imagery as top ski jumper Matti Nykänen.

Watching the movie, you know things weren’t so simple. Eddie didn’t just go to a training camp specifically for ski jumping and recklessly endanger his life until someone helped him. He didn’t have a father who always discouraged him until finally being won over. Obviously he didn’t try the 90m jump for the first time in his life in the Olympics. But it doesn’t really matter. It’s meant to be a fun and silly tribute to a fun and silly story, and in that it succeeds very well.

2: Warcraft

Having a bit of an addictive personality, I stayed well away from the time and money sink that is World of Warcraft, and thus I don’t know much about it. I could probably have told you it’s a high fantasy set in the world of Azeroth and that the bad guys are collectively called the Hoard, but that’s about it.

I actually quite liked the look of the Warcraft trailer, though, enjoying the fact that it didn’t just present a Tolkienesque world of good humans against evil orcs, instead focusing on some orcs who have a nobler purpose than just conquering and pillaging. That said, it’s a pretty straightforward overall plot, with conquering and pillaging at its heart.

This is an unashamedly over-the-top fantasy story, with wizards doing proper flashy magic, orcs smashing things with hammers and dwarves busily crafting weapons. Unfortunately, everything is too tried-and-tested, so there are no surprises beyond the limited attempts to make a sympathetic orc character. A lot more of that angle would have worked better, but the fact is that the orcs are simply born killers who intend to conquer everything.

This isn’t going to bring new fans to the game, and I doubt it will start a whole new franchise – though plot elements were left hanging to tease that possibility. It would have been much improved by something to chip away at the polish, a sceptic or a cynic or a buffoon. Everyone was just too earnest, playing their roles so dispassionately.

Oh, and I didn’t even recognise Glenn Close.

3: Pete’s Dragon

I’ve never actually seen the original Pete’s Dragon, but I believe the intrigue in the original revolves around whether Elliott the dragon is real or not. No such question here, but by the looks of it they did away with any but the barest resemblance to the original in any case.

Unfortunately, what results is a story that has nothing new to offer. It owes a lot to Flight of the Navigator, E.T. or even Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World in the kid-and-strange-companion-hunted-by-adults, and I’m sure there are plenty of other examples.

I was mostly bored by this remake, perhaps because I hoped for some psychological ambiguity, only to get a remake that replaced a campy original with a new plot that was nonetheless entirely unoriginal.

4: London has Fallen

I watched this only because it was the sole vaguely interesting-looking film short enough for me to watch on the jaunt between Seoul and Tokyo, though I suspect it was only that short because it had been heavily censored. I never saw Olympus Has Fallen but I don’t think it was necessary to know Gerard Butler was a tough guy in the Bond-Bourn vein and he has to protect the president.

Honestly, what I wanted from this film was to see London blown up. Not just Big Ben, but a whole variety of familiar landmarks. Not because that’s what I want in real life, of course – but because it’s always fun to see places you know in this kind of action story. Here, a huge terrorist attack at the state funeral of the UK Prime Minister dispatches most of the world’s most prominent leaders – with only our heroic US president to be protected by his tough, mostly bulletproof bodyguard and a few disposable allies.

Nothing smart and strewn with cheap effects but the initial attack was fun to watch.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

I’d heard mixed things about Rogue One before seeing it. It was unnecessary, it was yet another Death Star story, it had an obvious social justice agenda…it was the best Star Wars film since The Empire Strikes Back. But I managed to stay almost wholly free of spoilers and watched it with an open mind.

I enjoyed it very much. This is a movie designed to please the ‘Member Berries’ of South Park, full of nostalgia and a loving recreation of the mood and aesthetic of the original trilogy. It’s a great mid-quel idea, building on the set-up to the first movie that is seen off-screen. In A New Hope, Darth Vader boards Leia’s ship to seize the Death Star’s plans. This is the story of how she came to acquire those plans.

One thing I liked about a story set in this time is how in a small way it addressed one of the biggest qualms I’ve had about the Star Wars universe – how in the time between the end of episode III and episode IV the Jedi and Force users have gone from being highly visible and undeniable to being so obscure that Han Solo can be sceptical about the Force even existing. That still rings a little false to me, and it still makes me feel unsatisfied that the entire Empire rose and fell within a handful of decades when in the original film it feels like they’ve been ruling for generations, but seeing the traditions and relics associated with the Jedi being stamped out here helps a little.

What Rogue One does so well is to assemble a whole new cast of rag-tag characters to take on the efficiency of a dominant empire. Yes, the main crew ticks diversity boxes, but that’s just fine – every character is likeable, unique and brings something to the mix. And the best of them all just so happens to be a droid, the superb K-2SO who gets all the best lines while striking an awesome balance between C-3PO, Robocop and Marvin the Paranoid Android.

Perhaps the most striking element here is the use of CGI to recreate the faces of some original cast members, most notably Peter Cushing. I think it worked superbly, and didn’t look jarring or artificial to my eye at all (though seeing it in 3D, with the associated allowances the brain makes for realism, may have had an effect). Moreover, whoever provided the vocal performance for Grand Moff Tarkin (it’s not yet clear from available information) did a superb impersonation.

Plotwise, the film was simple and kept up a satisfying pace. Stealth, battles, spectacle and plenty of chances for that heroic self-sacrifice I mentioned I was a sucker for in my Inside Out review. Fun though the set-up was, the pay-off of space battles and fights against Imperial walkers had me grinning like a child. I ’member!

I don’t care if it’s unnecessary or can be seen as a cynical cash-in. This was an extremely fun piece of filmmaking and I’ll be happy to go to a new Star Wars film every year if there’s one showing. 

Star Trek Beyond, Alice Through the Looking Glass, The BFG and Now You See Me 2

It's kinda weird to see yourself in a plane movie

Star Trek Beyond

After a strong reboot, this is a bit of a misstep for the new Star Trek franchise. The Enterprise is taken down by a space scavenger and the divided crew must prove that unity is strength, not a weakness - though the antagonist always wins through numbers so doesn't oppose the idea very well. 

On a dusty world, the crew use salvaged scrap and enlist the help of a badass female alien to recover a McGuffin that threatens the entire Federation. 

The whole plot feels lazy and generic and it was far harder to care about the characters, good or bad, then in the previous films. This felt totally unimaginative and the plot would have made a poor entry as an episode in the original series. Disappointing. I'm glad I didn't watch it in the cinema.

Alice Through the Looking Glass

At the very least, a new Burton/Disney instalment of Alice in Wonderland is going to be a visual treat, of strange inventive creatures and distorted bodies. And so it is with this watchable but not very likeable sequel.

An adult Alice has improbably become a sea captain, but a spurned suitor is seeing to it that she becomes in every way an ordinary young woman.

Returning to Wonderland through the looking glass, she finds the Mad Hatter out of sorts. He found something to remind him of his family and has become obsessed with finding them. Only they died in a Jabberwocky attack years ago.

Alice resolves to go back in time, but as so often happens in this sort of time travel story, instead she discovers some deep dark secrets.

The film tries a little too hard to make coherent and consistent characters of Carroll's, and arguably this would have been a very dark story if there were no secrets to uncover. I think that normalising the cast and greatly reducing the random nonsense of the original detracts a lot from the charm. This feels more like an Oz film than an Alice one. 

But the climactic final action is a feast for the eyes and this is an inventive piece of fan fiction based on an original world, even if it doesn't match the original tone, and Sasha Baron-Cohen's Time is a fun mixture of slapstick and menace. 

But that sea captain idea? Nah. Just too unbelievable.

The BFG

This is one of those strange cases of a CGI-heavy movie that looks very strange and uncanny when clips are seen in isolation, but when watching the whole film, coheres nicely. In fact, this is rather a good adaptation of a beloved novel that suffered from not being the kind of story that lends itself well to movie trailers. The BFG's strange speech, Sophie's understated strong-heartedness, a story that revolvers largely around hiding and small but touching wonders...

Spielberg does suspense as well as he does wonder, which works here, but somehow the lack of real development for Sophie holds the movie back from really becoming affecting. She's brave and clever but doesn't really need to grow in a significant way during the course of the story. That would really help, I think.

Unsurprisingly, the whizz-bangs are minimised here, to the point they may as well not have been included. Even as a small child, I thought that part fell flat.

I thought this adaptation might have been poorly done but it's actually very respectful, even loving. That charm came across to me, but sadly I don't think it's going to resonate widely. For my personal enjoyment, though, my impressions were positive.

Now You See Me 2 

I can't be really objective about NYSM2, because I had a very small part in it. Over three very cold and rainy nights, I was an extra, showing up blink-and-you'll-miss-it crowd scene moments in both the Dave Franco and Lizzy Caplan sections in the climactic final act, despite them being set in totally different places. How's that for magic?

So it's slightly regretfully that I report that this is the usual case of a very poor Hollywood sequel. I really enjoyed the first movie, more even that average reviews may lead you to expect. I loved the origin story here of different styles of magicians brought together with a common goal, the twists were satisfying and the Robin Hood theme worked well. 

Here, sadly it's not so. There's a very strained explanation for the change in female actresses, then the Horsemen not only reveal themselves to the public again in underwhelming style in scenes set in New York but filmed in the ExCeL (would've been much more convenient for me to be an extra there!), the antagonists are foiled much too easily and then the final twists just don't feel like anything new or surprising. Plus the idea to give Woody Harrelson a goofy second role took things way too far into Austin Powers territory.

There are things to like here. Some of the magic works nicely and it's occasionally spectacular. But where the first film was a very pleasant surprise, the second is unfortunately just everything one would expect from a cash-in sequel.

Suicide Squad

I wasn't too bothered about seeing Suicide Squad in the cinema, but hoped it would be on the plane or something one day. Well, on the plane it was, and it was an ideal brainless action movie to see.

The best thing about the movie was its soundtrack, full of classic rock tracks, front-loaded by The Animals and the Stones via the likes of Credence Clearwater Revival and Black Sabbath to end with Queen – but with plenty of much more recent tracks when they fit the mood. Otherwise, it was enjoyable in just about every way, but in no way outstanding.

The Suicide Squad is a simple idea - various DC bad guys forced together with a noble cause. Some are better-known than others and the likes of Captain Boomerang aren't exactly big draws. But Killer Croc provides the muscle, Harley the glamour and surprisingly enough, it's Will Smith's Headshot who is the everyman here, the emotional centre, not really being a bad guy despite being a career killer. A kind of Leon figure, if you like.

The problem here is the lack of a real sense of threat. Too much of the film is divided between the hope of the Joker - played superbly by Jared Leto - actually becoming a decent villain, the obvious subplot of the woman running the show being the worst monster and the main Enchantress plot which is just too overblown and lacking in interesting motives to work - not to mention performed with too much ham. Good characters, performances and on-screen chemistry unfortunately didn't hang together with a plot that made me really care, and that was the most important thing.

Horror movie mini reviews

Watched several horror films over the past couple of weeks.

First we watched Darkness Falls, about a vengeful spirit coming for kids who lose their last teeth, which was a total stinker. Bad acting, totally inconstant supernatural powers and character shields taken to the point of absurdity made it a very low-grade horror. 

Second was Lord of Tears, an attempt to find something very spooky, but despite the effective and using viral clips of the ‘Owl Man’ going after urban explorers that were released to promote the movie, it was a disappointment. Terrible acting, daft soliloquys and worst of all a ghost that seemed unable to do any actual harm to the protagonist beyond doing bad interpretive dance at him, it seemed a real waste. A simple plot like ‘The Owl Man is coming for you until you free a tormented spirit’ would have worked, but the Owl Man (and ghost) had to be palpable threats for this to be effective. Telegraphing all the twists with pseudo-creepy short clips near the beginning also removed most of the tension.

 Third, The Witch, a recent horror film meant to be very creepy, following a Puritan family as they encounter a witch after moving away from town. It was a simple film that was compelling and fun to watch, very tense with interesting characters, but sadly there was little I would call scary. Still looking for an actually frightening film to watch together!

The Gallows followed in our quest for scary horror. It was typical found-footage shenanigans and none of the victims were likable, but there were some decent atmospheric moments. The ending was so unnecessary, though.  

The Conjuring, was a tried-and-tested formula haunting story, perhaps unsurprisingly as it’s based on the real-life ‘demonologists’ Ed and Lorraine Warren, who inspired many a horror film, but was a satisfying story of creepy happenings and ghoulish images. Better than most of the other things we’ve watched, but still nothing I would call special.

The Haunting in Connecticut followed. Though the climactic part of the movie (where it becomes entirely the filmmakers’ fantasy) was pretty satisfying and visceral, and the idea of a horror movie where the visions are at least possibly just hallucinations caused by medical treatment is interesting, unfortunately most of the film dragged and just didn’t make for compelling viewing. 

Thi13een Ghosts was next, mostly to see the fun designs of the different ghosts, especially the Jackal and the Hammer. These fun flights of fancy were the best part of the film, but the rather cheesy moving house, deeply unlikeable characters and endless coincidences took the wind out of the movie’s sails. Fun to watch once for the visuals but not a favourite. Some actual scares would be nice, too…and the utter lack of reaction to seeing a man sliced in two was bizarre. 

Mama came after that, which was marketed as a Del Toro film but was actually only executive produced by him. Still, it had decent production values, excellent performances by child actresses, and a ghoulish phantasm that just stayed on the right side of looking ridiculous. It was nothing original or special, but it was certainly compelling, the performances were good (including Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from Game of Thrones and The Other Woman doing quite an amusing Spock’s-evil-twin turn with two roles), the production values were excellent and the ending was not predictable. It won’t endure as a classic horror story, but it was certainly one of the best of the crop we’ve watched lately. 

The Woman In Black 2 was mostly a little dull. I’d forgotten the plot of the original movie, which unlike the play had the element of the ghost being able to control children and force them to kill themselves. That happened here, too, with a stream of evacuees being offed in the creepy old house from the original, but one boy who for no good reason was favoured by both the woman in black and the main character, had to be saved at all costs. It rang pretty hollow overall, and relied way too much on meaningless jump scares in fantasy sequences, but the production was slick, the aesthetics pleasant and the acting not at all bad. 

Finally, we saw The Quiet Ones, another revived Hammer film, this time about a professor doing experiments on a girl who can manifest psychic abilities. It’s purportedly based on true events, but it has extremely little to do with its source material. The set-up is nothing original – a cameraman joins the research team to document events and ends up in too deep – and there are uncomfortable echoes of Blithe Spirit. It also needed to pack much more into its run-time than it did. Still, some decent jumps and interesting characters elevate this a little above average.

Deadpool

I’ve missed a lot of Superhero films lately, from Civil War to X-Men: Apocalypse, though I fully intend to see them all at some point – very possibly on a plane. However, I got to go and see Deadpool in a nice comfy cinema, which was welcome!

On the other hand, I can’t say I loved the film. Deadpool has never been much of a favourite of mine, and he works best showing up for a very short time before going away again. I dislike fourth wall-breaking humour and Wade just isn’t all that interesting as a character.

But the movie was entertaining. It’s a very simple genesis story, showing how Deadpool came to be Deadpool and then going on a quest for revenge – with help from two very entertaining X-Men, Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead who, yes, was chosen purely for her name. Big satisfying setpieces end the beginning and end of the movie, and there’s a very ordinary sort of background story told in flashback.

The film was perfectly decent, but I must say I expected much more. I thought we’d be seeing a whole lot more action, more humour and more fights. The flashback parts just took way more time than they needed to and didn’t establish enough to make us really care for Deadpool. There were some funny one-liners, mostly about other X-Men or referring back to Ryan Reynolds’ other less successful forays into superhero roles, but so much of it was just trying to be funny by swearing or being vaguely sexual. It was very schoolboyish.

Overall, the big problem was doing too little for a full movie. Not enough happens. Reynolds’ Deadpool was done well, more likeable and watchable than he could so easily have been, but he just didn’t get to do enough.

It seems there was some censorship on the Japanese version, but given the amount of stuff that was uncensored I don’t think it can have been anything big. The only thing I didn’t like was the reference to Basil Fawlty being deemed incomprehensible to Japanese people so being rendered in the Japanese subs as ‘Mr. Bean’! Now that I can’t forgive!