#40: JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH

STARRING: Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Ed Skrein, Written by David Koepp. Directed by Gareth Edwards. Budget $180 million dollars. Running time 133 minutes. 

First off the good news! Back in 2022 the last film in this series, the truly awful Jurassic World: Dildo-Minion landed the top spot on my list of the worst films of the year. I mean it was appalling. This one won't end up on this year's list. There endth the good news.

This is the seventh film in the never-ending pantheon of films based on or inspired by the originator Jurassic Part back in 1933. It's been three years since the last World effort and this one is a bit different because it's written by David Koepp who wrote the original first two films and who isn't half bad as a writer, and directed by Gareth Edwards who did the stonkingly good Godzilla (2014), Star Wars: Rogue One (2016) and the visually strinking Creator (2023). It also ditches the idiotic story line about the clone child, the dubious acting talents of Chris Twatt, and those sodding annoying raptors.

To understand the dynamics of this film, I've decided to replace the names of the characters with their job descriptions. So, for example Scarlett Johansson becomes Covert Operations Expert, Jonathan Bailey becomes Paleontologist, Rupert Friend is Corporate Big Shot, Mahershala Ali is Team Leader. Then there's  Ship-wrecked Dad, Ship-wrecked Dad's Youngest Daughter, Ship-wrecked Dad's Eldest Daughter, Ship-wrecked Dad's Eldest Daughter's Boyfriend, as well as, Cannon Fodder One, Cannon Fodder Two and Cannon Fodder Three. To make things simple I've initialised each job description to help with reading the synopsis. CCE, P, CBS, TL, SWF, SWFYD, SWFED, SWFEDB, CF#1, CF#2. and of course, CG#3 See, much easier. 

And now to the film itself.

The plot, since there is no story, sees the following happen. Back in the recent past (five years) a stupid scientist in a full-body hazmat suit but with an open visor helmet is eating a Snickers bar in a top secret research laboratory on yet another one of those sodding islands. Chocolate plays an important part in this film and without the Snickers bar in this one, there simply wouldn't be a film. Seriously.

Anyway, before you know it there's another dinosaur outbreak. I kid not. The events of this entire film happen because an idiot eats a Snickers bar. Seriously.

However in the present, Palaeontologist (P) is sad because no one loves dinosaurs anymore and the Natural History Museum is being closed down (assumably because everyone watched the last three movies). Luckily, Corporate Big Shot (CBS) convinces Covert Operations Expert (COE) to take him and P to the dinosaur island for lots and lots of money. So, SOE, CBS and P meet up with Team Leader (TM) on his super-fast, state of the art, ship and set off to hunt down three dinosaurs and take samples of their blood to make a vaccine to save people. Meanwhile in another part of the ocean on a wholly inadequate yacht a non-nuclear family comprising soon-to-be Shipwreck Dad, his young daughter, his elder daughter, and his eldest daughter's dead-beat boyfriend are shipwrecked by one of the dinosaurs that other guys are hunting and end up being rescued and then going along for the ride. However it isn't long before everybody is shipwrecked again, and we lose CF#1 and CF#2 in quick fashion. Obviously, because CBS is working for a big pharmaceutical company, he's just another Carter J. Burke, so naturally he's up to no good. The family of ship wrecked job descriptions are separated from the other bunch, but luckily all on the same island and so both sets of job descriptions set off to rendezvous at an abandoned village on the other side of the island, where COE has conveniently arranged for a helicopter to pick them up, but only if they can get there in time, the helicopter will only wait two-minutes before pissing off. Christ, even Uber drivers wait longer than that. 

Anyway, lots of stuff happens, there's action, drama, excitement and stupidity beyond the dreams of adverse. There are moments between the action when some of the job descriptions give you back story to make you feel for them, but you don't. Other jobs do things that hasten their own demise because that's their role, and yet another job surprises everybody by not being the way you were expecting from his job description.

AND YET. It was rather fun. If you can ignore the following. The awful plotting, the terrible product placements, seriously Doritos, Sneakers, M&Ms, and a whole litany of sweets and snacks. There's an entire functioning petrol station at the abandoned village on the dinosaur island that is still fully functioning and it's packed full of sugary delight even after 5 years of inactivity.. There's even a smaller dinosaur that SWDYD gets addicted to candy. 

The dinosaurs look great. Well, three of them do, the T-Rex, in the best scene in the film, seriously good, very edge-of-your-seat good, then there's the TerryandJunesarus and its cliff lair, which is pretty good too and then of course there's the bit where we get to see Jaws but with dinosaurs, and that's really good! In fact, come to think of it, all the bits with the dinosaurs were good. It's just all the bits with the thick as shit humans doing stupid things that begins to grate. You're on the side of the dinosaurs, wishing them on, "Please", you silently plead, cos you're in a cinema and it's not polite to talk, "kill them all, kill that little fucker who keeps feeding that poor dinosaur all that candy. Then kill that wanker with the stupid beard cos he's a shit boyfriend. And please, please kill the bloke with the briefcase cos he's seriously stoopid." And then the whole film suffers an Alien Romulus incident and all that good will is literally pissed up the sodding wall when a goddam gigantic made-up dinosaur hybrid Alien monster/creature roars into view for the final climatic showdown.

And it's thankfully over.

Like I said, there were great bits, and lots of fun to be had, but by the same token there was a lot of stupidity and shit too. Still I didn't loathe with the same bile and hate as the last two of these shit shows, so you know. Winner, winner, almost chicken dinner.

7/10 

#41: F1: The Movie

STARRING: BRAD PITT, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies and Javier Bardem. Written by Ehren Kruger. Directed by Joseph Kosinski. Budget $300 million. Running time 156 minutes.

Grand Prix, Le Mans, Days of Thunder and The Love Bug, just some of the legendary films that have been made about motor racing. To that pantheon comes this, the latest, and most expensive, FI: The Movie. Starring not one, but two of the most charismatic hunks of beef on the silver screen, Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem who bring so much male sex appeal to this that it renders the need for a critical analysis of this picture practically pointless. 

The utterly improbable plot sees 61 year old 'nomadic racer-for-hire and former Formula One Driver'* Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) recruited by his old best mate, Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) the team owner of APXGP to help him win just one race in the last nine races of the F1 season, to save APEX from being sold off. 

And that's it. Obviously there's a young hot-headed rookie racer, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) who's also racing for Apex so the two drivers can crash heads (and cars) and the old timer can teach the youngling in a sort of Karate Kid kinda way how to race real good. Then there's the moustache-twiddling baddie, fellow APX corporate board member Peter Banning (Tobias Menzies) who wants the team to fail so he can sell them off and make money. The love interest comes in the guise of technical director and car designer Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon) whose revolutionary new (SPOILER ALERT) spoiler winds the day (Geddit?).

Naturally, all the secondary characters all initially dislike Sonny, cos he's a rebel but come to respect him in the end. And talking of ends, this one literally comes down to the final race of the season and the literal final PITT stop!

Thank holy fuck for the charisma of both Bardem and Pitt is all I can say. Both men ooze such rugged male gorgeousness and charm that they double-handedly save this from being a total car crash of a movie. Brad gives a masterclass in acting and I found myself watching his face in extreme close up even in a two shot, just watching the man at work. By god he's good, he delivers lines with relaxed calm and even makes funny lines plausible. He dominates the screen and owns it to the utter detriment of everyone else, except Bardem. BTW, in case you weren't aware, Pitt is one of my passes. 

ANYWAY, what of the film I hear you groan. Well, the action is good, the races are teeth-clenching, it's directed by the bloke what did 2022's Top Gun: Maverick, although this one is far less intense than that. The trouble with F1 races is that the merest touch between cars and the race is over, and so too in the film, just when you're engaged and engrossed in a race two cars touch and it's over and it's back to the pit lane and off-track shenanigans, bickering, romance and bro-mance. This is a film with no skin in the game, the ending is never in doubt. It is, come to think of it, the equivalent of the great 1954 bio pic The Glenn Miller Story, but without the trumpets and clarinets, it presents only the good stuff and no whiff of bad behaviour or drama, apart from some youthful cockiness, and mild villiany. It's a film that is intense but never truly exciting, action-packed but also very much by the gears. 

And once it's over, you'll park it away and forget where you left it in the multi-story carpark of your memory.

7/10

*Thank you Wikipedia.

39: 28 YEARS LATER

STARRING: Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jack O'Connell, Alfie Williams and Ralph Fiennes. Written by Alex Garland. Directed by Danny Boyle. Music by Young Fathers. Budget $60 million. Running time 115 minutes.

It's been 28 years since the initial Rage Virus outbreak ravaged the land and plunged the world into an apocalypse of running zombies. The entire UK is now a quarantined zone, heavily patrolled and guarded by the naval fleets of NATO, no one can ever leave. On a small island connected to the mainland by a causeway that is only accessible at low tide lives a community of survivors who have seemingly reverted to the 1950s. They guard their walled community religiously and survive frugally sending out official scavengers to the mainland in search of resources when theirs run low. Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is the lead scavenger and he takes his 12 year-old son, Spike (Alfie) on his first trip to the mainland leaving behind his seriously ill mother, Isla (Jodie Comer) behind. While on the mainland they encounter terrible threats and sheer menace when they're targeted by an Alpha - a super-charged Rage infected leader of a group of zombies and are chased back to the island.

It's only then does Spike discover that back on the mainland there was an actual doctor who he believes could cure his rapidly ailing mother. So, he does the only thing a character in a film like this can do. He breaks out of the island compound and drags his mother back to the mainland on a quest to find the Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) who's been living on the mainland since the outbreak. The good doctor has spent his time wisely building a huge monument to the dead in the guise of bone forest and keeping a furnace burning 24/7 with the bodies of the dead he harvests. Spike and Isla's journey brings them in contact with another Alpha, Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry) and Erik Sundqvist (Edvin Ryding) the sole survivor of a Swedish NATO mission to the mainland. Together the three of them begin a deadly voyage to the death forest of Dr. Kelson. But things take a dramatic and surprising turn when the three travellers become four with the introduction a new-born baby.

I'm sure that'll end happily. 

Added to that is a mysterious message written on walls and carved into the bellies of the dead that reads: "JIMMY IS COMING".  Although who or what Jimmy isn't revealed until the staggering final scene...

By god this is a powerful film, truly tense and desperate, it doesn't let up for one minute and the often visceral gore and brutal violence splatter almost every scene with no mercy.  Danny Boyle directs with absolute power and the script by Alex Garland is superb. 

I had a major problem with the plot once little plucky Alfie Williams as Spike kidnaps his mom and takes her back to the mainland in search of the doctor, it seemed like one of those deeply annoying plot contrivances that only ever happens in the movies and yet as the plot progressed it stopped being a problem and became the film's emotional core, the relationship between Spike and Isla was beautifully handled and Comer proves yet again what an exclamatory actress she is. Added to that, the totally genre defying introduction of Dr. Ian Kelson, who brings a much needed and very poignant counterbalance to the whole film, offering a sense of peace and tranquility to the terrible gore and threat of death.

The whole film is intercut with scenes from Sir Lawrence Olivier Richard III and oft-repeated voiceovers of the 1915 recording of Rudyard Kipling's poem Boots, coupled with glimpses of into the every day lives of the Rage infected in the wild.

By no means is this an easy film, it's filled with nihilism, it's fantastically bleak and deeply savage, and yet it's also deeply engaging and at times moving. And to cap it all there's that ending where the riddle of the Jimmies is answered and by god you'll either, like me, laugh yourself hoarse at its sheer audaciousness, or gasp in outrage and disgust at its bravado. 

I had no idea going into this film that there was a sequel coming in January and I can't wait. 

Quite simply one of the most unique and powerful films of the year. 

10/10

#38: FROM THE WORLD OF JOHN WICK: BALLERINA

STARRING: Ana de Armas, Anjelica Huston, Gabriel Byrne, Lance Reddick, Ian McShane and Keanu Reeves. Written by Shay Hatten, directed by Len Wiseman. Budget $90 million. Running time 125 minutes.

The fifth film in the John Wick universe. Apparently the events of this film take place between the 3rd and 4th Wick movies. As if that matters.

This time round we have Eve Macarro as our John Wick, so to speak. Played by Ana de Armas, who gloriously kicked butt in No Time to Die, Eve is an orphaned assassin and ballerina trained by the Ruska Roma dance school following the murder of her parents at the hands of a mysterious cult of killers called the Cult, lead by The Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne). Under the tutelage of The Director (Anjelica Huston), Eve is trained to be a total bad ass and naturally after one successful mission heads off on the revenge trail to avenge her dead parents. Aided by her benefactor, Winston (Ian McShane) Eve is soon finds herself in the Cult's uber-secret base of Hallstatt in Austria, where everyone is an assassin., even the coffee shop staff and the staff in Lidl. There in Hallstatt she fights her way through absolutely everyone towards her final confrontation with the Chancellor. Because the Cult and the Ruska Roma have an unspoken rule of leaving each other alone, The Director sends John Wick to kill Eve before she can have her revenge. 

Thanks to a never-ending series of chance encounters, Eve has absolutely no difficulty in tracking down the Cult's base of operations, each person she meets on her personal revenge voyage is able give her just enough information to get her merrily to Hallstatt. Even good ole John Wick seems to disregard his orders and rather than kill Eve allows her to beat the living shit out of while all the time telling her she has options. 

So, I loved the first John Wick film, it truly revolutionised the action film genre and re-invented and rejuvenated Keanu Reeve's career. It was a tight, insanely punchy, fantastically violent and satisfyingly brief movie and I fricking loved it! Watching John Wick lay waste to an army of henchmen in a series of superbly choreographed fight scenes and gun battles was a thrilling and most importantly never repetitive or boring. Sadly, the same can't be said of The Ballerina, early on in her training sequence tiny, nah impish Eve is told to use her disadvantages to her advantage and cheat to make a virtue of her size. After that one training mission she never again uses that wisdom. However, she doesn't really need to as everyone she fights conveniently allows her ample time to get her shots or fists in first and really don't seem that bothered by dying. Lucky for her.

What follows is a good looking, very well shot and edited action film, but sadly with a plot that follows the same plodding formula - pout, chat, fight, kill. Pout, chat, fight, kill - until her final showdown with Wick and then her final one with the Chancellor and then it's over. It's sadly very repetitive and frankly a little dull, her victory is never in doubt, her minimal wounds are laughable considering she's going up against a literal army's worth of highly trained killers, and the only damage she seems to suffer is a slight cut above her eyebrow. No concussions, no ruptured spleens, no shattered bones and not one single bullet wound or gaze, Christ even Wick suffered actual injuries, but not so our Eve. And that, dear reader is what robs this from being glorious, it has no skin in the game, and nothing to prove. It's the latest produce from a machine that's set to follow a winning formula, although missing one key ingredient, Keanu Reeve in the lead role. 

Acting wise, Ana works hard to be convincing, but at times she comes across as stroppy and almost petulant, she really throws herself into the action but it's not entirely convincing although the highlight is a superb flame-thrower fight. And it was a delight to see Gabriel Bryne back in a movie, I can't remember the last time I saw him, he has real menace, although I think he's horribly shortchanged in this one. Likewise Angelica Huston is splendid in her returning role as the Director of the Roma. And bringing up the rear, so to speak, Ian McShane who still seems to be revelling in his role as the manager of the Continental hotel.  

Hollywood has wholeheartedly embraced the idea of a female super agent on a revenge mission from La Femme Nikita to Long Kiss Goodnight, Atomic Blonde, Red Sparrow, Anna, Salt, Black Widow, Kill Bill, Hanna, Colombiana, Haywire, and Peppermint to name but 12, and at least two of those are also trained ballerinas, so this isn't exactly a new genre, but I just wish it had been a lot more inventive, if the makers of John Wick had wanted this to spawn a new franchise I think they might have miss-fired (geddit?). Looking at that list of films I have to say that apart from Anna, Red Sparrow (both ballerinas) and Colombiana that that list of films would make for a brilliant binge watch, particularly Haywire, which is frankly an absolute powerhouse of a movie. 

But this? Well, it's okay, but nothing original and nothing to worry John Wick about.

7/10

#37: THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME

 

STARRING: Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Mathieu Amalric, Richard Ayoade, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, Bill Murray and Hope Davis. Story by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, screenplay by Wes Anderson. Directed by Wes Anderson. Running time 109 minutes.

When uber-rich industrialist Zsa-Zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro), survives his yet another assassination attempt on his life that sees him walk away from his 7th near-fatal plane crash he embarks on his greatest scheme, the Phoenician Scheme and attempts to reunite with his estranged daughter and nun in training, Sister Liesl (Mia Threapleton) and his nine sons. Meanwhile his many enemies, fellow tycoons set out to destroy him, his legacy and his new scheme once and for all, leading Korda and his daughter to embark on a quest to save his dream.

Oh my god, what a film what a film! I realise that this will polarise many people but for me, this is the film of the year! Hands down!

A glorious film, as always art directed and directed to near perfection by Wes Anderson, whose unique visual vision makes his films instantly recognisable. From his meticulously designed sets to his idiosyncratic camera moves his films have an identity that is indelible.

The performances by the superb ensemble cast are all expertly mannered and 'acterly' as if appearing in an am-dram performance and it matters not one jote. Del Toro is superb, as is Mia Threapleton, but the MVP is Michael Cera who brings a wonderful energy to his role as the socially awkward home tutor Bjørn Lund who gets dragged into the globe trotting adventure.

Every aspect of this film was a pure delight, from the soundtrack, the style and direction, it's at turns funny, and dramatic and frantic. Whether you like this film or not will rely entirely on what you think of Wes Anderson's other films, and if you're a fan of his wonderful oeuvre then get ready for 109 minutes of pure bliss. 

I cannot wait to see this one again and again!

10/10   

#36: MISS IMP: FIN REC

 

STARRING: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Henry Czerny, Angela Bassett. Written by Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie. Produced by Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise, stunt flying in helicopter Tom Cruise, stunt flying in airplane Tom Cruise, underwater stunt man Tom Cruise. Budget $300-400 million. Running time 170 minutes.

I'vegottobequickcostheresalottocraminandIdonthavetimeforpunctuation.

No, that's not going to work. Look, this is the eighth and, we're told final MISS IM movie and there's a lot to cover but only three hours worth of film time to tell it in.

It starts the minute the screen lights up and then just goes, like a jet-car at 300mph, there's absolutely no time for anything but plot, in this film even when Cruise is not running from A-B, he's running on the spot, seriously. There was a scene that was cut out where Cruise is running on the spot while trying to do a poo, and it wasn't nice. So, Cruise is on cruise-control for the whole film, every problem presented is dealt with bang, bang as it races to the ending. Everyone has their eye on the clock and no time is spent, or wasted, on meaningful silences, pregnant pauses or moments of somber introspection. NO SIR! There's a goddam world to save from a totally evil AI, and quite so in this film because world is literally 3 days away from total global armageddon and nuclear annihilation. In fact, it's hardly surprising Cruise and everyone is running so goddam fast, like me they're just trying to arm-aggedon out of here!

SO. The last time we hung out with Ethan and the gang in MIS IM: De Rec P1, they were up against the Entity - a super intelligent, sentient, AI that had escaped into the real world and gone rogue and a whole bunch of people wanted the tech. Aided by a shadowy character called Gabriel (Henry Czerny), who killed Hunt's first girlfriend in the past. He was a driven, evangelical and deeply fanatical henchman who believed the Entity was going to save the world. Ethan spent the whole film trying to find and hold on to two currant bun keys that when wedged together would open the vault thingie that housed the Entity, which was hidden in the bowels of a sunken Russian submarine, although no one knew where. The film was gripping, exciting and laid the ground work for this, MIS IM: The Fin Rec.

So, in this one, armed with the current buns Ethan heads off to find the sub, evade every single law enforcement officer in the world and try and stop both the Entity and Gabriel before either one of them can do something bad. There's atomic bombs to defuse, hijackings, car crashes, chases, gun battles, knife fights, fisticuffs, and thrilling death-defying stunts that leave you on the edge of your seat. 

So why didn't I love it more? I have to say this isn't a bad film, I didn't fall asleep once, I was gripped and the three hours flew by, but by the same measure I left a little underwhelmed, it was good, but didn't soar, gripping but not insanely thrilling and there were some plot decisions which were very poor, indeed laughable. 

I was frustrated that Gabriel who'd been such a great foil for Cruise is reduced to nothing more than a moustache twiddling cartoon villain in this outing cackling evilly at times to remind us he's evil, but most annoying the Entity which featured so heavily in the last film disappears for a huge chunk of this film and even more maddeningly doesn't have a final showdown with Ethan, sure he's at the climax but I wanted a final confrontation. 

The action is superb but gone was any sense of a team of agents working together to save the world, the film tries and succeeds in tying together the past films in the series, with previous plot devices and story threads cleverly woven into this. But at times this came across as a Tom Cruise: Miss IM: Greatest hits show, with this incredible achievements acknowledged in a sort of film festival sort of way, you have expected Cruise to stand up and accept the award while in the background on the big screen a compilation clip is show of all his best bits, oh wait. That's exactly what happened! 

Look, I love the Miss Im films, well all except the second one, which is an absolute pile of donkey dicks. And in preparation for this one Pet and I rewatched them all, including the second one and I have to say that despite how entertaining this was, it wasn't as good, it didn't roar, it sort of hummed. But that's not to say this was a bad film, it just wasn't as good as I wanted it to be. There was too much incident, and too much time was taken in just getting Ethan and his band together for the final act. Indeed it felt that 2/3rds of this was just the premable, which was all too linear, there were no surprises, everything was methodically laid out, every problem was dealt with as the team moved on to the next. Perhaps one of the high lights was the unexpected return of a character from the first film who proves to be an absolute delight. 

However, all that said, this had great stunts, my god, the stunts were amazing, that bi-plane stunt will have you holding your breathe, and that coupled with great action, and some nice character work including managing to make Simon Pegg likeable (and all it took was a collapsed lung), the direction by Christopher McQuarrie is superb, he and Cruise are a great team, the music was perfect and action was good and yet... 

I saw this last week and I've been mulling it over for a week, I've even talked to a couple of critics for their opinion and we all seemed to feel the same way, that it was 'good, but not great'. And alas at the end of the day I really wanted this to be great, to end the franchise on a beautiful high. 

8/10 

#33-#35: LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU, FANTASTIC MR. FOX, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

 

We've been blessed by a recent re-release of some Wes Anderson oldies and what a treat. Sadly, The Royal Tennanbaums got cancelled, and they didn't show my personal favourite Anderson, Rushmore, but that's the only negative.

Life Aquatic with Steve Sizzou is edgiest of the three, but with the best soundtrack, I find it probably the saddest of his films. The performances are exceptional, with Bill Murray soaring the highest. Mr Fox is gloriously animated and Anderson's unique visual style is allowed to zing but for me the Grand Budapest Hotel was simply flawless and it's probably my joint favourite Anderson movie along with Rushmore. It's so layered, both in characters and plot, it's relentless and feels like a screwball comedy. Ralph Fiennes has never been better his creation of Guastave is sublime. I cannot fault this film, I loved every second and would have happily watched it again straight away. I watched it with a grin and found myself delighted endlessly by the visual brilliance of Anderson, and beautiful elegant storytelling.

Wonderful stuff.

Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou   9/10
The Fantastic Mr. Fox                9/10

The Grand Budapest Hotel        10/10