#51 HERCULES 3D

#51 HERCULES 3D Starring Dywanne Johnson, Ian McShane, John Hurt, Rufus Sewell, Peter Mullen, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Aksel Hennie and Joseph Fiennes.

Directed by Brett Ratner 98 merciful minutes short.

This is a What If version of the legend of Hercules, the 'What If' being, what if Hercules was a real man and the 12 tasks could be explained away, along with all the seemingly supernatural elements of the legend and he was a real man?

Based on the comic book by Steve Moore, this is a entertaining enough movie and a million miles away from the spate of Hollywood's, recent sword and sandals 'epics'. It stars the always likeable Dywanne (The Rock) Johnson who, as always, brings his own bodyweight in screen presence along to the proceedings.

Oddly enough, despite the title this isn't a one man band film, it's a team movie - like Ocean's 11 (A Hercules 6, if you will) but without the hi-tech heist elements, the Las Vagas setting, the David Holmes funky soundtrack or the band of laconically cool thieves, confidence tricksters and rogues. Instead we get a band of warriors made up of an aged, spear-juggling soothsayer - who knows how he will die, not when (the always good value, Ian McShane). The young story teller - eager for a fight, but prevented at every turn by his over-protective uncle. The grizzled old friend (Rufus Sewell) - who's been his loyal friend since childhood. The silent berserker maniac - who never speaks (accept for one single solitary word can you get what it'll be?). Oh, and the lithe Amazonian warrior (Ingrid Bolsø Berdal) - with the limitless supply of arrows for her long bow. Set 350 years, or so, BC the film follows the exploits of Hercules after he's done the legendary 12 Tasks while he's doing a World Tour with his band, all looking forward to that one last payday until they can retire and live like kings. He's racked by dreadful nightmares of the death and slaughter of his family and he's frightened of the one Task he never finished - battling the dreaded Cerberus at the gates of Hades. This film has action and adventure aplenty but because it's a 12A no teeth, no gore,  and no nudity. Take my word for it, this is no Conan The Barbarian! It does, however, have a lot of violence, lots of sword fighting and lots of death, it just lacks bite or grittiness and any gouts of blood spurting off in slow mo or limbs lopped off.

I have to say I struggled with this for quite a while, I wanted to like it but it wasn't until well into the second half that I finally found myself enjoying it. There's a lot of earnest discussions and impossible to spell names bandied about when all you want is for Herc (as his friends call him) to smack something really hard, but when he does it's fab. The film's plot takes a not-unexpected twist, pantomime-like turn in the 3rd act and yet by that stage it's got you hooked and you don't mind one bit. This is a fun enough picture and I was impressed it tried so hard to ditch the over-blown CGI mythological bollocks of similar films like Clash of the Tit Ants, The Immortals or Noah and instead tried to demythtify the legend. it's an interesting approach and presents us more with the Magnificent 7 in Ancient Thrace than one lone man of muscle as previous Hercules films have been.

I was expecting Dwanne's Hercules to be more ripped to the tits than he was, but the Rock just wasn't rippling in muscle, sure he's big alright but he's no certainly no Steve Reeves.

Anyway, I saw this in 3D so it was quite a gloomy looking and at times quite dark, affair, but there was plenty of stuff thrown at the screen and at times it was rather fun. The action sequences are impressive and thankfully it didn't outstay its welcome with a blessedly brief running time of just 98 minutes, thank Zeus! Not horrible or terrible and certainly not as crushingly disappointing as say Clash of the Tit Ants 1 or 2, and a hell of a lot more enjoyable than Transformers 4: Age of Extinction.

Now all together. War! Huuu! What is it good for? Establishing order in an ancient world riven by strife and civil unrest under the machinations of a despotic megalomaniacal ruler. Say it again y'all!

7/10

#49 BEGIN AGAIN

#49 BEGIN AGAIN
Starring Kiera Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, Adam Levine, Hailee Steinfeld, Catherine Keener and James Cordon.

Written and Directed by John Carney. 105 minutes.

When British singer song writer Kiera Knightley gets dumped by boyfriend, rising rock star, Adam Levine in New York she ends her final night in the big apple hanging out with fellow Brit and chum, James Cordon in a local bar during open night mic where's she's discovered by A&R man, Mark Ruffalo who drunkenly offers her a record deal and the rest is Begin Again. Together these two lost souls (he's a divorced, out of work, washed-up, border-line alcoholic - trying to reconnect with his ex-wife and daughter, she's the jilted, devoted, staggeringly gifted singer-song-writer ex-girlfriend) might just save each other! Ruffalo takes Knightley under his wing and sets out to record her demo album, using the streets of New York as their recording studio and the limitless funds of Cee Lo Green's rap star friend to finance the whole deal. Then it's a whistle stop tour of New York with a hip, folksy soundtrack and some mild relationship issues to give the whole thing a bit of bite.

Ultimately this all comes down to whether or not you like Kiera Knightly, if you find her gaunt, huge-doe-eyed, twitchy face insanely annoying then this film won't win you over. However, if you can get past the twitch, then this sweet-natured, New York based fairy tale might be for you, not a rom-com, more a frien-com. This is a feel-good fairytale with a good cast and some nice music. What's nice is, this isn't about a burgeoning love affair between the two leads, more their blooming friendship.

Hard to hate, it'll leave you feeling cosy and warm.

8/10

#47 & #48 & #50 DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

#47 # 48 #50 DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

Starring Andy Serkis, Andy Serkis, Andy Serkis, oh and some other actors including Gary Oldman, Jason Clark, Keri Russell and did I mention, Andy Serkis?

Directed by Matt Reeves, 130 minutes short.

Well, that's it, the movie of the summer and one of the best films of the year done and dusted. No, compulsions, no quibbles, no doubts, this film delivers and then knocks it out of the ball park.

Taking up 10 years after Rise of the Planet of the Apes, this movie is an utter marvel from beginning to end and shows Hollywood and the likes of Michael Bay, Ehren Kruger and Damon Lindelof that a summer event, tent-pole, blockbuster doesn't have to be a vacuous, braindead explosion of cgi excess. That a event film can be a totally fulfilling experience and not just empty brain calories. Taking its own sweet time to get going, this film spends its time wisely, investing the apes with real humanity, and the first 20 odd minutes are just spent watching the apes exist in their forest tree home, before we even get our first glimpse of the remnants of mankind. And when the humans do finally turn up, with the plot, the centre of attention never moves away from Andy Serkis and his troop of motion-captured actors. And it's a delight to find the plot evolving organically over its 2 hr 10 minute running time as the two groups of survivors meet and try to co-exist while mistrust on both sides builds and finally explodes leading to an almighty confrontation and a dramatic and satisfying third act finale.

But the main thing you notice is just how good the actors playing the apes are, the fact that 90% of the emotional strength of this film comes from their physical performances and that fact they spend nearly all that screen time talking in sign language is simply astonishing. But that's not to denigate the human actors in this film, everyone delivers a measured and powerful performance almost as if they all wanted to deliver a film they'd be rightly proud of.

The first Apes film, Rise came as a huge surprise to everyone, no one expected it to be just as good as it was, well I seriously doubt anyone could have expected this sequel to up the ante quite as much as it does! This is a powerful and intense film, which never loses sight of the story or plot beneath the simply staggering special effects, which are utterly seamless, in fact this kicks the bar into orbit so convincing is the cgi illusion.

This is a film that deserves to bank a billion, an adult drama with action, intrigue, and adventure that never sags and doesn't disappoint.

Don't miss this one, but feel free to skip the 3D.

9/10

Crazy thing is, I've seen this three times now and it's still enjoyable, still can't fault it.

#46 TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION

#46 TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer.

Directed by Michael Bay. Written by one of those online automatic plot generators and weighing in at a truly stagger 165 minutes or two hours and 45 fucking minutes of your life you're never getting back.

INT: HOLLYWOOD BIGWIG OFFICE/DAY.
AUGUST 2011.

MICHAEL BAY is summoned to a high level meeting for a critical debrief on the awfulness of TRANSFORMERS 3.

SUIT:

MICHAEL, PLEASE TAKE A SEAT. 

SUIT 2:

 TO GET STRAIGHT TO IT, MICHAEL. 

WE'VE BEEN RUNNING A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

 ON TRANSFORMERS 3 AND WE THINK WE'VE 

FOUND OUT WHAT'S WRONG WITH IT AND 

WHY IT GOT SUCH A CRITICAL MAULING.

 

MICHAEL BAY:

LISTEN, BEFORE YOU GO ON, LET 

ME SAY SOMETHING, PLEASE...

CONT'

...I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO SAY! 

YOU'RE GOING TO TELL ME THAT THE 

REASON IT GOT SLATED IS BECAUSE OF ME! 

CONT'

THAT MY STYLE OF FILM-MAKING IS JUST TOO

 BOMBASTIC! MY EDITING IS TOO FRENZIED, 

THAT THE FILM LACKS ANY PROPER STRUCTURE,

 THAT THERE'S TOO MUCH ACTION AND NOT ENOUGH

 REAL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.
THAT I SACRIFICE IT ALL FOR EMPTY SCENES 

FILLED WITH LOTS OF THINGS EXPLODING

 AND NO EMOTIONAL DEPTH OF ANY KIND.

THAT ALL I DID WAS BLOW SHIT UP,

 FILM STUFF IN SLO-MO, OVER-USE THE

 FILTERS, STICK A TON OF PRODUCT 

PLACEMENT SHOTS AND BASICALLY I 

JUST KEEP ON MICHAEL BAYING IT!

 WELL I'M SORRY! 

I PROMISE I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN!

SUIT 3:

NO! MICHAEL NO! THE ONLY THING

WRONG WITH TRANSFORMERS 3 IS 

SHIA LEBOUFF AND ROSIE HUNTINGTON-WHITELEY.

CONT':

AND WE WANT MORE OF THE SAME, JUST WITH 

MARKY MARK WAHLBERG INSTEAD OF LEBOUF AND 

SOME BINT TO REPLACE THE LAST ONE.

MICHAEL BAY:

JESUS, I WAS SURE YOU 

WERE GOING TO FIRE ME.

SUIT 1:

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
WITH THE PHOTOS YOU'VE GOT ON US!?

I'm not a 100% sure that's how the post-Transformers 3 conversation went down, but you never know...

So, what to say about this film.

I heard it described as cinematic piss, well, that's unfair to piss. This film is more like being run over by a truck carrying liquid shit to a vomiting convention and having that truck reverse over you to ask directions. 
 

This is a stupid piece of shit film and not in a good way, it's a stupid piece of shit and a boring, bland, dull, yawn - I'm bored, bored out of my gourd kinda a way, bored-when-will-this-end-sort-of-way, in a 'I wish I could eat my own eyeballs and escape' kind of way. A sort of, 'dear god, why won't this shit end, sobbing into your own hands' sort of way. Like realising you've just lost three hours of your precious life watching this overblown, underwritten, expensive, bloated, boring, unintelligible, homogenised, badly acted (except for Tucci) mess of pixels hitting other pixels for some reason. Everything in this film explodes, EVERYTHING, even Transformers who aren't awesome beings of metal and machine but soft little tin plated toys that explode in huge fireballs of fireworks, debris and rubble each and everytime something taps them to ask them to move.

This film is a sickening, bloated advert for insanely expensive items from cars to underwear, to drinks to trips to China designed to do nothing other than make more mucho money for Hasbro and Michael Bay. It has NO redeeming features of any sort at all.

I frankly had no way to understand anything that was happening, or who any of the characters were, or why anyone was doing anything. i just didn't care.

And yet, when it started and right up to the bit when the truck one transforms and starts on about something to do with something, I was midly intrigued, but as soon as Wahlberg starts complaining about his teenage daughter it was a  lost cause.

There is so much wrong with this film I can't be bothered to explain it, this film just isn't worth it. i lost 3 hours of my life to it and I don't want to lose any more.

2/10

#45 COLD IN JULY

#45 COLD IN JULY

Starring Chuck Yeager, Dexter and Sonny 'Crockett' Tubbs aka Michael C. Hall, Don Johnson and Sam Shepard.

Written by Jim Mickle, and Nick Damici and directed by Jim Mickle. 109 minutes.

Set in the late 80's this is a slow burn thriller that starts small with a break-in and the accidental killing of an intruder and ends with an all-guns a-blazing shot out, but via a revenge plot and a supposedly corruption ridden police force.

Michael Hall plays the mullet-affected picture framer who one night kills a criminal in his own home and gets the Cape Fear treatment from the burglar's recently released career criminal father, Sam Shepard and that's just in the first 20 minutes! From then on the film takes a delight in leading you down one route after another before throwing you into something considerably more sinister.

This is an entertaining film with three good performances from the leads, particulary from Don Johnson who easily, and with immense skill, shows us just how staggering charismatic he is! Sam Shepard demonstrates his easy acting chops and Michael C. Hall showcasing his vulnerability and likeability. It's also one of those films that's better if you know very little about it before going in, so I've already ruined it for you by saying as much as I have!

It's a guarantee that you won't be able to second guess this gripping and entertaining little flick, even though there are a few plot points that you can't help feeling where just left dangling because they stopped being important to the film.

Overall, a satisfying and enjoyable little thriller, although no classic.

7/10