Deadpool 2

I can forgive a lot of things in a Deadpool movie that would bother me if the story was meant to be taken seriously. I can forgive a slapdash plot where trying to follow the logic of what the antagonist makes zero sense (Cable not going back into the prison, for example). I can forgive the failure to make the story driving the plot in any way interesting or engaging. I can forgive using the only major female characters in the film as basically a plot-pushing angel and superpowered girls who are kind of along for the ride. I can accept the cast of secondary characters built up by the first film and some interesting new additions to the cast being totally underused. If, and only if, the film is funny.

The problem was that it just wasn’t that entertaining. Recent Marvel movies have done a great job of being laugh-out-loud funny. The Guardians of the Galaxy movies, Thor: Ragnarok and even the recent Avengers: Age of Ultron all managed to be really funny, slip in a whole lot of pop culture references and still switch to serious mode when required. Deadpool absolutely needs to set itself apart by not only being more irreverent and adult than these other comic book films, it needs to be the funniest of the bunch.

And it just isn’t. There were a lot of jokes that left me smirking – repeating the dig about not being able to afford a decent number of X-Men only for them all to be glimpsed watching in disapproval; a really big-name star playing an invisible character; calling out X-Men as a dated analogy for racism in the 60s and making cracks at Black Tom Cassidy not being black. They all got a little smile from me. But I only actually laughed once, and that was the dig at Rob Liefeld and his inability to draw feet (which is actually how I first became aware of him, when people were ranting about his art). And of course that was the point nobody else in the theatre laughed.

The humour just doesn’t work as well as the character-based humour in the other Marvel movies is working. Firstly, the film makes a point of trying to give Deadpool depth by making a good third of the movie a miserable rumination on mortality and being left alone if you’re basically immortal. Which obviously isn’t especially funny. It then sets up a gag where X-Force don’t last longer than a few minutes, and while it’s a little funny it doesn’t work that well after all this pontificating about how losing a loved one can have such a harrowing affect. Don’t Bedlam and Zeitgeist have any loved ones?

A lot of the issue is timing. I feel like a lot of the humour is in the vein of Parker and Stone vein – build something up as important then tear it down. The ‘Holy shit balls’ song for the Juggernaut was definitely very South Park. But I feel like they would have handled the parachute sequence so much better to make the bathos actually funny. Same with the opening credits – they’re a funny parody of James Bond with Flashdance thrown in there, but they’re at a point in the movie that’s just left the audience on a downswing so the humour just isn’t prepped right.

Russell and Cable also don’t work very well. Russell is very unlikeable, even for a kid who is destined for terrible things Looper-style. His storyline also leads Deadpool to making a whole lot of paedo jokes that just didn’t sit well with me because nobody’s gonna find them especially funny or edgy and child abuse is not really something to make light of. Cable just wasn’t very interesting either, seeming not especially driven or edgy. Also, a little ironically after seeing Brolin as Thanos, I just don’t think he was physically big enough for Cable, who is meant to be huge. A huge human, obviously, not huge like the Juggernaut – who I have to say was a highlight here and unfortunately underused.

Overall, I was pretty disappointed. The film only worked if it was actually funny, and for me it fell short. It was sometimes clever, sometimes impressive and sometimes very up-to-the-minute with what it chose to skewer, and thinking back on how the whole publicity campaign was done the concept is amusing, but it needed to actually make me laugh and it didn’t. It didn’t even try to for way too much of the movie. I didn’t particularly like the first film either, but I feel like it at least made me chuckle. Hopefully any future sequels will do better.  

Birdman

It’s been a few years since this came out and proved an unexpected Oscar darling, but I felt like watching some kind of subversion or parody of superhero movies and remembered this. Though there’s an element of superhero parody, especially with one glorious scene late in the film, actually this is much less about movie-making and far more about the entertainment industry as a whole.

The story is quite a simple one. An actor whose star has faded named Riggan wants to be taken seriously as a creative force, so is putting on an adaptation of a Raymond Carver story on Broadway. When he decides his co-star is terrible and an opportunity arises to replace him, one of the play’s actors offers to bring in her boyfriend, who is a highly respected method actor. A series of disasters in the previews and escalating conflicts with the other actors and family members he’s surrounded himself with lead to Riggan’s perception of reality getting increasingly warped.

Through these interpersonal conflicts, various themes get explored – high art versus mass entertainment; personal pride and insecurity; how to bring life meaning and the euphoria of performance; old-school fame through a series of gatekeepers versus social media and going viral by chance. It’s a thoroughly modern, thoughtful script aware of the past while looking at changes the world is going through, and tapping into the fashion for superhero movies was a great relevant choice.

There are a few things that annoyed me here. Mostly I thought the dialogue was great, but there was a bit too much of people walking around talking to each other about profound metaphysical conundrums or huge relationship problems, which even in the world of theatrical luvvies was a stretch. There was just too much soul-bearing without the counterbalance of normal conversation that suggests this isn’t just how they always communicate – which would be totally unsustainable. There was also a bit too much focus on the gimmick of simulating one long uninterrupted shot, which let’s face it isn’t anything new and without considering reel-change cuts has been done since Hitchcock. Some parts, like temporal transitions, really might as well have been cuts and just hurt immersion.

But what was good about this film massively outweighed what didn’t work. The biggest triumph here is the performances, especially the interactions between Michael Keaton and Edward Norton, which are tempestuous, brutal but most of all believable. All the actors here have to show great versatility – the characters all act, put on a façade for others and show the naked truth by turns and all of them pitch it so well. The stakes for a small circle of people with backgrounds that are pretty difficult to identify with over the course of just a few nights really feel significant.

The music is great, too. We basically get a jazz drum solo for the vast majority of the film, for all the original music. It’s a great sizzling jazz kit that at times gives a cool driving rhythm, at time a pounding, rattling, anxious beat that heightens the sense of paranoia, and at other times simply underpins the action and gives a sense of impetus in a film made largely without cuts.

Two things carry this movie. First, the fantastic multifaceted performances. Second, the play-like attention to characterisation, crisis and breakdown. This is dusted by interesting musical experimentation, some grimly comic moments and some great nods to the simple, addictive fun of Hollywood. Really fun to watch, though I would add not quite as clever as it seems to think it is.

Avengers: Infinity War

Keeping this spoiler-free, so it may be a little abstract at times!

I greatly enjoyed Infinity War. These days I don't often go to the cinema, and I don't tend to watch the standalone movies until a while after release day. I didn't see Doctor Strange or the latest Thor until a few months later, and I haven't seen Black Panther yet because I'm pretty sure it will be available on my flight back to England in July. But when they all team up, I get excited and want to go. Glad I saw it on opening day, too, because inevitably my Facebook feed showed a spoiler the very next morning. 

The movie was everything I wanted it to be, which is more than I can say for the first two Avengers movies. The first was fun but the final act had no real sense of a genuine threat or bit emotional payoff. The second was marred by the annoying way they wrote Ultron and his weird plan. This one was much bigger, more spectacular and crazier than the others. Shifting the whole MCU into Cosmic Marvel was always a bit risky, because when things become overblown space operas, you risk losing the human element and the idea that characters like Captain America can still hold their own seems a bit absurd. But the comics manage it, and so have the movies. The careful build-up from the largely human dramas of the first Iron Man movies and the original Captain America mean we're invested in these characters even when realism is long-since cast out. The battles and setpieces here are as far-fetched as anything in anime, but it works.

Thanos is also an excellent antagonist. Brutal and merciless but utterly convinced he is right, vulnerable and not beyond suffering, with a dream of fixing the universe and settling down quietly, he is actually convincing even at this absurd intergalactic scale. It’s believable that he’s committed to his goal and will stop at nothing to reach it. Honestly, his plan doesn't make that much sense in this version. His comic motivation - pleasing Lady Death - probably would seem too ridiculous to work here, but at least was logical. I can understand his modus operandi, but getting the Infinity Gauntlet and unlimited power surely offers alternate solutions to the original problem he wanted to fix?

What impressed me was how elegantly all the different elements here were juggled. The opening perhaps tramples on the triumph of a previous movie in something of an Alien 3 shocker, but it gives us a strong focus for who to follow in the narrative. We then have very clear points of focus during the fetch quest to follow – who has the stones, who is coming for them, and who is there to defend them. Thanos having his Black Order to split up and send to retrieve the stones made sense, even if they could have had much less difficulty teaming up from the start, and even if some of the heroes’ actions are dubious, the scriptwriters put in quite a clever catch-all from Dr. Strange that waves away any missed opportunities or seemingly misguided actions.

The big battle scene is a bit dull, to be honest. It’s great to see lots of heroes in action, but against CGI fodder it has very little impact. Still, this is a bit of a tradition from the Avengers movies. Probably the biggest thrill was having the Guardians of the Galaxy interacting with the Avengers, providing some of the funniest and most awesome moments.

The audience leaves probably a little surprised, perhaps moved, and almost certainly eager for more. I know I want the Avengers 4 ASAP. The story clearly isn’t over, and there are plenty more MCU movies to come. I have a feeling we’ll leave the next movie with a feeling of almost perfect inversion of what we got here. But I’m certainly curious to see what effect this is all going to have on upcoming movies like the next Spiderman and Guardians films. I’m assuming the new Ant-man and Captain Marvel films will be set before this, with some scenes perhaps in parallel. We’ll see.

Either way, this was an action-packed space melodrama with lots of battles that brought a smile to my face and a surprising range of emotions. I definitely enjoyed it, even if a little part of me was sad that we still can’t have the X-Men included in all this. 

Plane film 2: Murder on the Orient Express

I was going to watch the Blade Runner sequel for my second film on the return leg to Japan, but it was far too long and I had no hope of squeezing it in. So instead I opted for a Kenneth Brannagh double-bill.

This time, he was not only starring but directing, in a much more playful and fun role. Like most people who grew up in Britain, David Suchet will always be the definitive Poirot for me, but it’s fun to see such a well-known actor take a crack at this character. The archetype Poirot is part of is also in vogue just now – the eccentric, egotistical genius who is insufferable for people around him but a lot of fun for an audience to watch. See Dr. House, Doctor Strange, Sheldon Cooper etc.

So with an extra focus on OCD, we have another remake of one of the most famous Christie stories. It’s mostly faithful, with various European characters altered to be black or Latino for diversity quota points, because as everyone knows different European nationalities don’t count as diverse.

The cast here is phenomenal. Just about every single character is played by a well-known big name, established or recent. Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Salma Hayek, Michelle Pfeiffer, Willem Dafoe…the sheer number of recognisable faces who can command top billing all on their own is impressive. And yes, Branagh focusing so much on himself rather than letting these actors shine deserves the criticism it got. And yes, it’s dubious that this was a necessary adaptation when the story has had so many celebrated adaptations before this, and just about everyone knows the big twist – whereas something like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is becoming increasingly little-known.

The film is as well-made as one might expect, with sweeping shots of the railway journey and beautiful costume details. The music is forgettable but fitting, and the anxious feeling of the middle act is well-executed through editing and framing.

Worth a watch but probably not worth launching a new franchise or replacing Sherlock Holmes in the public consciousness. 

Plane movie 1: Dunkirk

On the way back to Japan I watched something a bit more solemn – and the film I wanted to watch last time I was on the way to Japan too. War flick Dunkirk, following some human stories of the evacuation in 1940.

This isn’t a particularly easy film to watch, nor a satisfying story, as it just follows several characters during the chaos of a panicked evacuation. The only possible triumph is escaping from a far stronger threat alive, though of course everyone knows how the war ended five years later. The narrative essentially follows various characters involved in the evacuation on sea, land and air, with the emotional keypins being the piermaster commanding everything, a pleasure boat owner doing his bit and his son having horrific formative experiences on the journey. An RAF pilot is also heroic in the face of adversity, and there are a number of scenes in sinking boats that are horrible reminders of the consequences of war, but ultimately it’s more of a fragmented overview than a conventional story, and probably stronger for it.

There are a number of familiar faces and some less familiar ones. Kenneth Branagh is a strong patriarchal figure, sometimes kindly, sometimes stoic and sometimes having to be callous. Mark Rylance is probably the standout performer, with the perfect everyman presence for this film. I struggled to remember where I recognised him from – it was partly Bridge of Spies, but mostly The BFG. Then I don’t know whether I should be ashamed or proud to admit I didn’t recognise Harry Styles one bit. He did a fine enough job, not standing out as a poor actor or making me want to follow his acting career, but his character was perhaps the least compelling of the film’s major cast.

Well-made, mature, respectful historically and well-acted, this was an excellent addition to the canon of war films. And like so many other war films, it is moving rather than entertaining. 

Kingsman 2 and Miss Peregrine's

Plane film 1 - Kingsman: The Golden Circle

I quite liked the first Kingsman movie, and it had one extremely memorable extended action shot, but I didn’t particularly like Eggsy as a character and wasn’t nearly hooked enough to see it in the cinema. As another plane film, though, I thought it was worth my time.

This film was a lot more cartoonish than the first, and struggled with tone. I can’t be shocked by the evilness of a villainess forcing her underlings into cannibalism when she has robot dogs watching. I can’t ponder the hypocrisies of the legality of different drugs and the power of drug lords when Elton John is doing flying kicks. The film never seemed sure whether it wanted to be a spy thriller or a comedy, and while it could have pulled off a mix of both, it was often too jarring.

This film sees millions endangered by a classic bad buy plot that basically boils down to poisoning everyone and extorting them for the antidote. Eggsy and co are in dire straits and need help from overseas counterparts. Everything works out through a combination of character shields, coincidence, techno-magic and bad guys attacking one by one, but there are some great setpieces on the way, some fantastic combat choreography (especially with a lasso), and some satisfying moments of going out in a blaze of glory and self-sacrifice.

Julianne Moore and Halle Berry have fun with their roles here, and unsurprisingly Colin Firth had to be brought back even if it’s all a bit dubious. I’d probably have enjoyed this a lot more if it had picked either comedy or drama wholeheartedly, but it was still a fun little diversion.

Plane film 2 – Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

This seemed like my sort of film – Tim Burton directing a gothic-tinged story about kids with superpowers set (at least in part) in the 40s. But I wasn’t desperate to see it, mostly because it just seemed like yet another retread of the X-Men premise of a bunch of kids with superpowers gathered together in a school until a menacing force makes the unleash their powers and kick bad guy butt.

I’m glad I’ve seen it now, and it was also a pretty fun movie not to be taken seriously, but in many ways it was also a disappointment. The smaller disappointment was how long the thing took to get going, with the central conflict not even rising until about an hour in. The much larger one ended up being that there was absolutely no question whatsoever of the bad guys overpowering the good. On the good guy side there were a couple of useless kids, sure, but then a slew of them who could kill you with a glance. The bad guys were basically Mystique, Iceman and Beast, and just never had any chance against the far more powerful kids. Samuel L. Jackson in particular is constantly talked up as powerful and unstoppable, but can’t actually do anything much and gets easily stopped by some of the less powerful children. He, his fellow baddies and the supposedly feral monsters are also bizarrely careful not to harm any kiddies or cause any serious injury to random passers-by in Blackpool.

It was fun to see the kid from Hugo again, older and lankier than before. Shame neither he nor Miss Peregrine herself had much character. Samuel L. Jackson and Judi Dench obviously have fun, and this is undeniably a feast for the eyes almost throughout. It’s a fun film to look at, and the kids’ designs are great. The problem is the story is so generic, the setting has been seen many times before, the climax is a real let-down and the rules of time travel and affecting the future are completely arbitrary.

How I wish I knew what that magic x-factor is that makes a kids’ book successful in America, even if it’s just a rehash…

The Last Jedi

I think enough time has passed now to talk about The Last Jedi without fear of spoiling people. These impressions, therefore, will have spoilers.

Though the dust has settled after the initial shock that this film sent through fandom, the debates are raging on. The reasons are speculative, and there’s a huge amount of straw-man arguing from all perspectives because of it, but the fact is that critics have almost universally lauded this film, while viewers have been much more divided with a tendency towards disappointment. Thus the current Rotten Tomatoes score of 90% from critics and 50% from audiences.

For my part, I’m with the disappointed parties. I didn’t hate the film, and quite enjoyed the spectacle and production values, but there were many flaws. Yesterday, one straw man argument I saw was that the detractors can’t decide why they dislike the film, with the article’s writer claiming that their personal acquaintances contradicted one another about the negative points of the film as though that couldn’t just be her invention, as though everyone who dislikes something has to be unified in their reasoning, and as though as though the backlash hasn’t been remarkably consistent.

The things that a lot of people have complained about, some of them nitpicks, that I agreed with: -

-       The film is too long. It drags and several subplots don’t actually have any consequence.

-       There’s too much coincidence, with conspicuous character shields and a lot of people just happening to be in the right place at the right time.

-       Luke acts far too differently from the established character, and the reasoning as to why he became this way doesn’t make much sense. This is particularly annoying when you remember the first film was centred on searching for him.

-       There’s no adequate explanation how the Republic basically evaporated and the Last Order went from remnant of an old, defeated Empire to just as big and powerful as the Empire ever was.

-       Snoke is badly-realised, insubstantial and dispatched too simply.

-       Rey is uninteresting, too good at everything she does without effort or struggle, and very hard to empathise with.

-       Concern is expressed for captive animals but not the exploited children alongside them.

-       The Empire pays off Del Toro’s character when they could easily have just shot him.

-       Hyperdrive-as-weapon is cool but should have been used or at least mentioned before this if possible.

-       The First Order had many many other options besides slowly following and bombarding the Rebels – who without explanation are no longer called the Resistance.

-       Leia’s adventure in space was badly-executed.

-       Admiral Akbar wasn’t even given a death scene.

-       Luke’s final scene is a force projection for no decent plot reason when going in person would be much more impressive and moving – leading to suspicion Mark Hamill wasn’t even told his character would die.

-       Captain Phasma has blaster-resistant armor so why don’t more of the soldiers have it?

-       Holdo should have just shared her plans with Poe and avoided an entire overwrought subplot.

-       It’s strange that Holdo’s sacrifice is celebrated as heroic when it seems unnecessary (droids? Autopilot?) but Finn is prevented from doing similar, whereupon only coincidence stops that from meaning everyone he knows and values is slaughtered.

-       The First Order are presented as laughable, weak and ineffectual, so defeating them seems less an underdog’s triumph than a matter of course.

-       A heavily-merchandised symbol of capitalist film-making criticises capitalism.

But for me, the thing that rankled the most was how small-scale this was. This series is an epic space opera with consequences affecting life across numerous worlds. This was just about one ship, or one ship and its small attending fleet. It didn’t feel like there were high enough stakes, compared with past films. It just wasn’t that exciting to watch.

There are other things I know some people disliked that I didn’t mind. I liked Holdo as a character and didn’t find Rose annoying. I thought the porg moments were cute and think Kylo Ren is an interesting volatile antagonist even if he isn’t all strength, decisiveness and aloof indifference. I like Finn and think he’s got a good everyman touch. The irreverent humour was largely welcome, though the opening ‘on hold’ joke maybe didn’t fit the universe that well. And if Rey really does come from nothing, that’s fine by me as a backstory – but her character still needs a whole lot of work, especially if you throw out what was one potential explanation for her hypercapability. Her coming from nowhere is fine, but her being able to do what every single other person with her capabilities before her took years of training to do needs some explanation.

I also think this movie is less overtly political than people want it to be. There are undoubtedly leftist, progressive influences on this movie but I don’t think they should fundamentally change how the audience enjoys them. I don’t like the alt-right complaints that it’s pushing diversity in a jarring way (why shouldn’t a fantasy sci-fi universe be diverse?), that it pushes the agenda of wiping away the old ways to bring in the new (young upstarts actually learn that they should listen to and even blindly trust the established authorities here, even if those authorities happen to be matriarchs in this film) or that the New Order is a swipe at the alt-right (Star Wars has always been about a rag-tag, diverse crew of underdogs prevailing against pseudo-fascist oppressors).

On the other hand, I don’t like the Leftist narrative that if you dislike the film, you must be some chauvinist privileged man-child neo-nazi on the wrong side of history, that the reason the New Order work is because they’re a weak echo of a terrible force from the past that should be mocked (that not only means your onscreen bad guys are very unimpressive, it also makes it a bit strange that they essentially win and dominate by the end of the film) or that criticising arms dealing is somehow an ultra-progressive new feminist ideal this movie presents and has never before been depicted by the (extremely patriarchal and 1%-friendly) Hollywood machine. Shoehorning the movie’s events into your own political agenda is just as annoying as the people who feel like everything that makes them feel uncomfortable is an attack on their way of life. And it’s annoying to see two sides yelling that this is a huge smash hit and this is a huge flop at each other long before the numbers can definitively back either claim up – just as happened with Wonder Woman and Ghostbusters before this.

I also don’t know how anybody can celebrate this as the end of Luke Skywalker’s character arc. No matter your politics, I can’t see how this would not be a disappointment, even if you accept that this is no longer his movie series and is now Rey’s. Even no longer the protagonist, Luke is very much a positive hero character and I infinitely prefer where his character was taken in Extended Universe novels (not that I actually read them) to this new canon. Not to mention how sad I feel that Mark Hamill was clearly extremely disappointed with what happened here – I almost wish he’d refused to have any part of it.