#98: HOPE

 

STARRING: Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Jung Ho-yeon, Taylor Russell, Cameron Britton, Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender. Written and directed by Na Hong-Jin. Budget $46 million. Running time 156 minutes.

When the sherif of a rural reason of South Korea, including the coastal town of Hope, gets a call about a mutilated cow it sets off crazy battle for survival across the town into the neighbouring forest for not just the sherif, but his second-in-command and several local hunters when a relentless, seemingly unstoppable monster goes on the motherfucking rampage and just downright massacres the entire town! But that's just the beginning of what's about to be unleashed on the unsuspecting world and audience. 

Bloody hell, but Korean films are wack. This is three films in one and at the end, the first of a proposed trilogy. It's long, and really drags between the action beats and there's a lot of pointless waffle as characters bicker, argue and generally talk too much. There are far too many characters and the film jumps from one focal point to the next with each scene. One of the main characters owns plot armour so powerful he's able to survive utterly insane amounts of damage with nary a blink, like being thrown through trees and falling from the height of 40 or 50 ft with only a light case of winding.

There are many scenes of chases as the monsters, there's more than one, chase nearly every human we meet in endless scenes of carnage and gore. An infinite supply of guns are used in every scene, despite the fact the monsters seem impervious to them, until it's required they're not. 

Presented in three major sections, the first in the town of Hope is exhilerating! The streets of devastation and carnage is genuinely unsettling and the sherif's fight for survival is fantastic! This sequence is both funny and gory and you'll find yourself laughing with it thanks to some very choice dialogue. The second sequence in the forest as a group of friends and hunters stumble across a crashed alien spacecraft is a visually and audio battering assault that shows us the monsters in all their glory and begins to paint a picture of what's going on. The final sequence is perhaps the weakest and most repetitive and features a death so shocking surprising that the audience I saw this actually gasped in surprise. It's also this portion that laid the ground work and filled in the blanks of what's actually going on and, well, it's a tad disappointing, left as we are with not so much a cliffhanger, but an end of part one. 

There's a fantastic film here if only the writer director Na Hong-Jin had been able to cut this back from it's 2 1/2 hour running time down to something more reasonable like 90 minutes, because there's a lot of filler here, which judging from the walk-outs tried the patience of the audience. 

I'm beginning to realise that I truly love the cinema of the Far East, there's a quality to Japanese and Korean films that I find truly satisfying, they're filled with tropes and dialouge and action beats I'm not used to, which keeps me guessing and on my toes, and that's deeply satisfying. The effects are mostly very impressive, but it's the practical scenes of destruction that really elevate this. And the cast of ordinary Joes and Joans make a welcome from the muscle bound lugs of Hollywood. There's also a satisfying lack of girl bosses saving the day to stick out like a sore thumb, what we have instead is a strong female character in the shape of the sherif's second-in-command who fights just as well and defiantly as the men. 

Anyway, it's a gory, frenzied demented ride, which despite suffering from being far too long and a tad boring at times was nevertheless utterly saved by the spectacular opening section set in the destroyed town of Hope.

8/10      

#97: AVENGERS: ENDGAME: ENCORE

 

STARRING: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Danai Gurira, Benedict Wong, Jon Favreau, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Josh Brolin and many, many others like Robert Redford, Michael Douglas, Renne Russo, Bendy-Dick Carrot-Patch, Tilda Swinton and more. Screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. Directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo. Budget $400 million. Box office $2.79 billion. Running time (original) 181 minutes. Originally released in 2019.

With just over three months to go before the release of Avengers: Doomsday, Disney are releasing this, the highest grossing film of all-times to get us in the mood. A film seemingly rather beloved with a Rotten Tomato score of 91%. It's a film that very satisfyingly concluded Phase 3 of the MCU and was a direct sequel to Avengers: Infinity War, which saw Thanos click his fingers and kill one half of the universe's population. It's also the film that probably marked the high water mark of the super hero genre and the birth of 'Super Hero Fatigue', a phrase so beloved by the critic-arti. 

Avengers: Endgame: Encore starts with the effects of that finger click as half the world's population dies and then follows the surviving members of the Avengers as they head off after Thanos and chop his head off. Then, five years later they set off for a wacky adventure, travelling back through time to gather the Infinity Stones before Thanos, so they reverse Thanos's flick leading to the greatest superhero battle of all times, and one of the most iconic shots ever shot, that of Cap America catching Thor's hammer.

Apparently, to set up Avengers: Doomsday work, the MCU had to go back and recon Endgame adding an additional four and a bit minutes to the already gargantuan running time of 181 minutes just so the conceit of Robert Downey Jr. playing Doctor Von Doom can work, especially since RDJ died at the end of A:E. In all honesty I don't really know if the tinkering has done that much. It looks as if one of the promised 'extra bits' wasn't in the version I saw, so who knows.  

So seven years since I last saw this at the cinema, it's become hard to remember that when the MCU was firing on all cylinders it was a true force to be reckoned with. Phase 3 brought to an end a superb run of films that was royally let down by the absolute dreck that followed in its wake and it's truly disappointing to watch this and know what was to come next. 

I remember really loving Infinity War the first time I saw it, with it's bleak, rather shocking ending and I seem to remember thinking that as good as End Game was it just wasn't as good, too tongue in check at times, too big and too shouty. But it has some truly incredible moments, like Captain America picking up Thor's hammer, that really resonates and had the packed cinema tonight roaring. That final boss fight is still exhilarating, but the multiple endings wears you down. Plus the sheer number of characters, some of whom pop up for one word, like The Wasp, before disappearing becomes a little fan service-esque.

But it was an entertaining enough romp and I found myself enjoying the trip down memory lane. 

What I didn't enjoy was the audience, or at least part of the audience, of young late teen boys who have taken up this deeply annoying game of fake laughing as loud as they can for as long as possible, like a shriek, which in turn trigger other groups of boys to do the same until the film became drowned out by the hateful noise. It finally took one man to slap one of the boys to stop it. Good. 

Anyway, this. An action packed romp, but long oh so bloody long and second time round there's not really anything else new to discover. And the so called new bonus material, well, don't blink. 

8/10 

#96: GODZILLA 2000: MILLENNIUM

 

STARRING: Takehiro Murata, Hiroshi Abe, Naomi Nishida, Mayu Suzuki and Shiro Sano. Written by Hiroshi Kashiwabara and Wataru Mimura. Directed by Takao Okawara. Budget $13 million. Box office $28 million. Running time 107 minutes. Originally released in 1999.

As any regular readers of my blog will know, when it comes to the movies of Godzilla I am utterly blind to his failings, indeed apart from the odd blimp I consider them to be works of near perfection. I've been a fan since I first saw a picture of him in my Octopus book of Science Fiction when I was ten years old and now 52 years later I'm getting to see Godzilla films on the big screen, whenever the Barbican shows them, which brings us to this!

The 24th official Godzilla film and the first of the Millennium era. Made after the 1998 Tri-Star Godzilla movie written and directed by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich. G2K:M was the first Toho film in five years and was rushed into production months after the Tri-Star effort, it presented Godzilla as an out-and-out villain, a raging, furious force of nature. The suit (worn by Tsutomu Kitagawa) was based on the 'KingGoji' suit from 1962's King Kong vs. Godzilla and features big eyes, massive dorsal fins, pointy little ears, oh and a mouth full of huge fangs. In this film he's actually scary, just the way I like him!   

The plot, not that there's much of one, sees a million(s) year old sunken UFO recovered from the seabed when Godzilla decides its time to do a bit of stomping. Turns out the UFO is here to prepare the Earth for colonisation, while two teams of Godzilla watches try to predict, in one case, his movements while the other camp want to kill him. Queue a series of increasingly destructive engagements leading to one final showdown in the streets of Tokyo between an alien clone of Godzilla and the Big G himself in some utterly apocalyptic destruction. God, I miss the days of men in rubber suits trashing scale models of Tokyo.  

As always Toho try to fill the background or secondary plot with meaningful human characters, in this case two teams of people tracking and chasing Godzilla and as always you somehow come to care for them. But it's not them you come for in a Godzilla film, it's the main event himself and in this he doesn't disappoint. The destruction nicely augmented with CGI is brilliant and the scale perfectly handled. 

This was an exhilarating, rambunctious romp that managed to pull off something truly special by making the Big G actually feel incredibly threatening and scary! In the opening 20 minutes one group of our plucky heroes find themselves literally facing off with Godzilla and you truly feel the scale and the absolute terror an actual encounter with him would ellicit. As always in these Godzilla films you get a real feel for the collateral damage and actual scale of disaster, far more so than with the recent Hollywood films. That said, I can't say this one resonated with me as much as All Out Monster Attack (the second Millennium film), it's a tad too poe-faced for me and a little bit repetitive, but it's still filled with spectacular action set-pieces and scenes or extraordinary destruction. 

This is only the second time that a subtitled version of the film has ever been screened for an audience in this country and the chances of it ever being screened again are slim to say the least. 

A glorious, romp of monster mayhem, masterfully managed by the people who know him best. 

8/10 

#95: RESIDENT EVIL

 

STARRING: Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, Paul Walter Hauser. Written by Zach Cregger and Shay Hatten. Directed by Zach Creger. Based on Resident Evil by Capcom. Budget $75 million. Running time 95 minutes. 

Bryan (Austin Abrams) is a medical courier looking to finish for the night and go home to his newly pregnant girlfriend, Michelle (Sara Paxton) and discuss their future, that is until he's given a double fee job to transport a medical freezer bag to Racoon General Hospital and heads off into a snow blizzard where he accidentally runs down an old woman and everything goes wrong in ways so bizarre, so outrageous, so gory and so goddam insane that you'll start questioning your own sanity. 

Austin Abrams is perfect for this film, a nerd, a wimp forced to fight for his life using only skills he's learned from playing video games and at points in the film he finds those skills sorely wanting. 

Directed by Zach Cherry, the genius behind Weapons and Barbarian, who also co-wrote the script for this fantastically gory and exhilarating romp. He manages to honour the mechanics of the game itself with knowing little nods, like Bryan arriving at the hospital at the beginning of the film, filmed from behind, and having to decide whether to turn left or right, or the search of the abandoned farm house for ammo, or the absolutely delightful meta gag of Bryan drinking milk from a bottle and eating cereal straight from a box called 'Life'. Similarly Bryan keeps levelling up his weapons and even finds himself counting his rapidly diminishing meagre ammo, or his constant failure to shot padlocks, then there's the clever use of first person shoot 'em ups, as Bryan searches deserted corridors and sewers. Likewise there's a gorgous 'iris out' scene break where the actual forest slowly engulfs the hero's car as he drives off into the distance. 

This is a film packed with excellent jump scares, which don't telegraph themselves, plus revelations that are sure to cause gasps of horror, they made me gasp. The soundtrack is perfectly suited to the absolute gory bloodbath you're about to experience and never intrudes. And through it all runs a superb, thick vein of comedy that helps to break the spell, and boy do you need it. 

The audience seemed to unite as one, seeking comradeship in shared laughter at the horror unleashed upon them. It was a much need release, as the horror just kept building until the astonishing final boss level showdown at the top of a 28 storey hospital. 

Referencing a slew of famous horror films, like The Thing, Evil Dead, Day of the Dead, and channelling Train to Busan, this powers through the running time furiously and leaves you dazed but never bored, you find yourself rooting for Bryan and hoping he'll somehow managed to survive it all, only time will tell...

Goddam it I loved this, it was a fantastically fun and furious gross-out romp, brilliantly and hilarious gory, with The Thing inspired split-headed creatures and multi-limbed monstrosities, and more tentacles than a Shokushu Goukan. This was a horrific and deranged horror romp that totally nailed the landing and for once didn't bottle it, right down to the insane final shot. 

9/10 

#94: BAD APPLES

 

STARRING: Saoirse Ronan, Eddie Waller, Nina Brown, Jacob Anderson, Rakie Ayola, Robert Emms, Sean Gilder and Kerry Howard. Written by Jess O'Kane, story by Jonatan Etzler and Jess O'Kane. Based on De Oonskade by Rasmus Lindgren. Directed by Jonatan Etzler. Running time 101 minutes.

Primary school treacher, Maria Spencer (Saoirse Ronan) is having a bad old time of it, she's disliked by the parents of her students, the school's Head and staff think she's incompetent, her boyfriend's dumped her, her Scandinavian home is a building site and her life is been made a living hell by one of her 10 year-old students, Danny (Eddie Waller). He's a rage ball and utterly uncontrollable, violently disrupting classes and school outings, defying her and bullying all and sundry. On the verge of an Ofsted visit, Danny pushes fellow student, Pauline (Nia Brown) down a staircase and breaks her arm and he's suspended. When Maria tries to tell Danny's father Josh (Robert Emms) she ends up 'accidentally' kidnapping Danny and locking him in her basement. Over the next six weeks her life is transformed with his disappearance, her class thrives, the parents love her, and even her ex-boyfriend - the schools' deputy Head Sam (Jacob Anderson) sees her in a different light. However, Maria has a second problem student, Pauline (Nina Brown) who's fixated on Maria and blackmails her when she discovers Danny is locked in the basement. The town every man jack of them, save for Josh, thrives now that Danny's missing and things come to a head during a PTA meeting. 

This is Saoirse Ronan's film, she is superb bringing a desperate weariness to her portrayal of Maria, she's a victim of fate, and even the kidnapping isn't what it seems, and yet with Danny now her prisoner a bond develops between the pair of them and we get a glimpse of his life and reasons why he might be so horrible. This is when the film is at its strongest, the connection between her and him is great and offers an intriguing plot point, but this is squandered with the progressively more unhinged Pauline whose antics just cause you to groan in frustration. The film is soon to be revealed to be a black comedy and although laughs are in short supply it does have its moments. 

There are several plot points that seem to offer different routes which are ignored and a major plot hole late in the third act derail the whole thing.

There was a similar film out this year called The Good Boy starring Stephen Graham and Andrea Risenborough which covered a similar set up but with more skill. This can't decide what it is and ultimately leaves you feeling a little flat.

7/10  

#93: THE TRUMAN SHOW

 

STARRING:  Jim Carrey, Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich, Natascha McElhone, Holland Taylor and Ed Harris. Written by Andrew Niccol. Directed by Peter Weir. Music by Burkhard Dallwitz, Philip Glass and Wojciech Kilar. Budget $60 million. Box office $264 million. Running time 103 minutes. Originally released in 1998.

Written by Andrew Niccol and directed by Peter Weir this 28 year-old film seems more prescient with each passing year, predicting with apparent witchcraftian ease the prolific growth of reality TV. Jim Carey is Truman Burbank, the unknowing star of a world-famous live TV show called The Truman Show. His whole fabricated life, from birth has been broadcast live to the world to see. He spends his days in a fictitious costal town of Seahaven Island working as an insurance broker, and even his mother (Holland Taylor), his wife, Nurse Meryle Truman (Laura Linney) and child-hood best friend, Louis Coltrane (Noah Emmerich) are just actors playing out lines read to them through their ear-pieces. And from his office in the moon, Christof (Ed Harris) the god-like figure who produces and directs the Truman Show watches over Truman dictating every minute of his life. But Truman has an urge to explore, to travel the world and when, one day, he narrowly avoids death from a falling spotlight Truman begins to see the cracks in his reality and realise his world might be something else, something sinister and he sets out to escape, while the whole world watches with baited breath.

What a profoundly moving film this is, a brilliantly brisk 103 minutes of cinematic gold, funny, tragic and emotionally moving. Nowadays it would be an eight-part Netflix series, with one filler episode and dragged out across eight hours, although it wouldn't surprise me if there wasn't one in the works already.

But this glorious little film is a modern marvel, emotionally moving, powerful and superbly acted, Jim Carey is a revelation and showed in this one film that he could act and well, keeping his little comedic gimmicks in check apart from his crazy dance in the car and the rain storm on the beach and playing it straight. He's gone on to prove he was more than a clown in both Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Man in the Moon. In this you'll find yourself drawn to his plight and rooting for him, yearning him on and when at last he triumphs you feel as if you've escaped too. Similarly the music is exceptional and the use of the main Truman hero music twice, first as he defies the system, and then when he finally sailing free. There's also a strange feeling of anti-climax at the end when you realise just how different and difficult his life is about to become and it's bittersweet despite the fact he's broken free, you want to know he's going to be safe and you wonder whether he'll be able to find true love with Sylvia, or if she'll turn out to be just an obsessive fan. And what of poor Christof, the other prisoner of the show, what now for him now that Truman has escaped, for him his life is effectively over there'll never be another event like The Truman Show for him while Truman himself is going to become a global megastar forever in the spotlight and glare of publicity. I'm sure there'll come a time for him when he realises he was never freer than when he was a prisoner of Seaheaven. 

If I had one criticism it would be the length (which is what my wife said to me on our wedding night) I wish it was longer (also what she said to me). Normally I winge about films being too long, but every now and then I watch a film and wish it was longer, this, Blade Runner, The Paper, Master and Commander and Spatacus. Actually, I'm lying about that last one, it's perfect just the length it is (which is what I said back to my wife on our wedding night).

One day, I'll find my own way out of the David Leach Show*, but until then I'll have to make do with Truman's adventure. Perfection is rare, so is this. 10/10

*FOOTNOTE:
Actually, if you're interested in reading David's own adventures in the real world then check out his autobiographical graphic novel David Leach Conquers the Universe available direct from the author and Dead Universe Comics in Aylesbury. It's all true!

#92: TRANSFORMERS THE MOVIE (ANIMATED) 40TH ANNIVERSARY

 

STARRING: Eric Idle, Judd Nelson, Lenoard Nimoy, Robert Stack, Lionel Stander and Orson Welles. Screenplay by Ron Friedman and Flint Dille. Directed by Nelson Shin. Music by Vince DiCola. Animation companies Sunbow Productions, Marvel Productions and Toei Animation. Budget $6 million. Box office $5.9million. Running time 85 minutes. Originally released in 1986.

Sorry to swear right off the bat, but FUCK those godawful live action Transformers movies, every goddam one of them from the first five truly hateful Michael Bay abominations: 2007's Transformers, 2009's Revenge of the Fallen, 2011's Dark of the Moon, Age of Extinction in 2014 and the fucking, unbelievably atrocious The Last Knight in 2017 which brought to an end a decade-long cultural attack that Michael Bay vomitted over the world. Then, just one year later Travis Knight spat out Bubblebee, and finally to add insult to injury Steven Caple Jr ejaculated Rise of the Beasts all over us in 2023. 

Those eight live-action movies went to gross over $5.42 billion dollars worldwide, proving that age-old adage of 50 million files eating shit can't be wrong. And so to this, the hand-animated animated feature film that's celebrating its 40th anniversary. Unlike other 40th Anniversary films that have been released this year, this is the only one I've not seen on the big screen and I went as eager as a proverbial beaver to see it. I've seen it a dozen or more so times on video and DVD, but up there on the big screen, never! 

Enough rambling, old man, tell us of the film, tell us of its plot, then describe the experience and final wrap it up in a pithy final paragraph before scoring it out of 10 like you normally bloody do!

The plot to this 40 year old film is just about as bonkers as you can get, indeed as I sit here and write I realise there wasn't a plot, there was just a series of explosions linked by a limitless number of transforming robots. There was the giant planet sized one, Unicron voiced by Orson Welles he wanted the gem thingie from Optimus Prime's chest and then there was Megatron leader of the Deceptorcons who also wanted it. He launched an all-out attack on Earth which finally killed Optimus, forcing him to hand the power gem thingie to Ultra Magnus, and Megatron was mortally wounded and revived by Unicorn and told to destroy the power gem crystal thingie. So he chases the Autobots around a bit, until they crash on a junk planet, get captured by some sort of fish-like Trannies, then Unicorn attacked the Transformers home world, and the lead Ultra Magnus gets killed and Megatron tries to double cross Unicorn, but gets eaten, so then the other Autobots unite the Trannies on the junk planet and they attack Unicorn, put out his eyes and blow him up killing him, but not before bringing Ultra Magnus back to life with the Matrix, that's what the glowing gem stone crystal thing was, the power Matrix. And then the film ends.  

Jesus that wasn't good, sure my nostalgia for it was strong but even that couldn't help. I know I'm blind to the short-comings of Godzilla films, but not so this. At the end of the day this was a badly animated 85 odd minute toy advert with some truly awful heavy metal songs thrown in. It's repetitive, confusing, and utterly baffling. Then Eric Idle turns up spouting not one line of dialogue, just an endless stream of random TV jingles and ads, at times this film seems to almost Dada-esque in its approach. And spare a thought for Orson Welles in his last ever movie, his voice hidden behind filters to make it almost unrecognisable, save for his last weary death groan as Unicrom get his head chopped off.

But damn it if it wasn't oddly entertaining at the same time. The hand-drawn animation of gigantic planet transforming was spectacular, Unicrom when he finally transforms is amazing but sadly it's not enough. The robots change size quicker than a Conservative heading to Reform, I mean at one point Megatron is huge, then next he's sitting in the fist of another having transformed into a gun. And the ones that go from robot to Boom box and then eject tiny cassettes which transform into little robots. And Grimlock, the sodding transforming dinosaur, who is so stupid he has to be pushed up the ramp of a spaceship to escape death. The dialogue is just sound bits and catchphrases and the voice acting is painful. This is  looks like a 85 minute long Saturday morning cartoon. It's cheap looking and scrappy and repetitive and packed full of stupid plot points and holes.

But, and I say this in all honesty, it was still somehow stupidly enjoyable! The cinema was packed, the audience of students and dads taking their kids were up for it and enjoyed it, laughing and revelling in the chaos, and it was 1000% better than all of the other animated films trailers before it. Seriously each and every one were just the same generic sassy, wacky kids flicks, all CGI animated and all looked exactly like each other. At least this looked different, infinitely different and I'd watch it over all those in a heartbeat. 

Despite all its many failings this is still better than each and every one of those motherfucking, godawful live-action Transformers film put together.

7/10

P.S.

For all you film nerds out there. Name the other film Orson Welles and Robert Culp starred in?