The Oscars 2015: My thoughts

The biggest awards night in Hollywood has come and gone and it’s time I gave a few of my thoughts on a few of the major winners. I won’t go into much detail over the general gossip that occurred on the red carpet, just some of the major awards themselves and my opinions on each as well as the major surprise that happened on the night.

Choices I agreed with

• ·      American Sniper winning best sound editing, rather than best picture

As some of you have seen from my review of the film, I was not very impressed by American Sniper’s one sided approach and was glad to see far superior films trump it in most of the award categories. Granted the film’s technical presentation was fairly well done so the film was at least deserving of its sound editing win but did it really deserve nominations for best actor and best picture?

Standing at a stark contrast to my less than favourable reception of the movie, many individuals (especially in the US) have made their frustrations known over the fact that American Sniper did not win best picture or best actor. Everyone is entitled to their opinions but personally I believe there are two things that are incredibly amiss about the outrage. Firstly, a film being both successful and popular with audiences everywhere does not automatically mean it deserves top accolades across the board; that would be like giving awards to a terrible film like Transformers: Age of Extinction simply because it made more money than other films last year. Secondly, (with no disrespect to soldiers overseas who sacrifice so much to serve in the armed forces) the prime reason why American Sniper was such a hit with American audiences and critics was because it was heavily biased towards that demographic; failing to fully delve into the complexities of soldiers and the struggles they face whilst maintaining a fair look at the opposing side of the conflict. In short, the film was all black and white, portraying American soldiers as the heroes of the story; yet somehow that was good enough for a spot at the Oscars. Hopefully in the future the awards will not be so hasty in giving these kinds of films top nominations which could easily be filled by other better films. Nightcrawler anyone?

(Sourced from www.heart.co.uk)

• ·         Eddie Redmayne winning best actor

While the likes of Boyhood and Birdman were being tipped for best picture, the best actor category went to a performer who most definitely deserved it more than anyone else at the show. Eddie Redmayne gave a phenomenal performance as Stephen Hawking, perfectly capturing his enormous frustration and subsequent battle with motor neurone disease. It was simply a masterclass in both emotion and facial expression that earned Redmayne high praise from many; even Professor Stephen Hawking himself was very impressed by the actor’s portrayal in The Theory of Everything.

After seeing Redmayne’s awful performance in Jupiter Ascending, I was afraid that this may have affected his chances to win the award. But as we saw, when a fantastic performance stays in the minds of audiences and critics alike, that’s more than enough to forgive a major misstep. This is undoubtedly an excellent leap forward for Redmayne’s acting career and I hope that he continues to put out some brilliant performances in the future.

(Sourced from www.cultjer.com)

• ·         Interstellar winning best visual effects

Christopher Nolan’s space epic Interstellar stands at the peak of my favourite films of 2014 and while I was a little disappointed that it didn’t manage to get nominated for the more coveted awards, it was great nonetheless to see it take home best visual effects. On a side note, some of the people who worked on the effects for Interstellar (and also fellow nominee Guardians of the Galaxy) are graduates of where I’m studying, Bournemouth University; it would have been really interesting to talk to some of those individuals but as it stands, I greatly applaud their work on visual effects. Given how the science fiction setting allowed Interstellar to do much more with its special effects, other nominated films may have had little chance against it at the awards.

The big surprise

(Sourced from www.express.co.uk)

• ·         Boyhood getting snubbed by Birdman for best picture

In terms of major surprises at the awards, there was only one real candidate. For a while it seemed as if Boyhood was unstoppable when it came to winning awards. A boon for critics everywhere, the film scooped numerous awards and accolades, including best film at the BAFTAs earlier this month. But when it came to the ultimate prize, the honour went instead to Birdman; a film can claim to take a few steps beyond what Boyhood has done.

Birdman does a rare thing, in that it takes on a cinematic style that has never really been done in Hollywood before. Add to this the well-rounded characters and engaging plot and you have a film which was more than worthy of standing alongside Boyhood in the nominations. Perhaps that was what compelled the judges to bestow Birdman with the most coveted prize in the movie business.

That just about does it for my thoughts on this year's Oscars. Maybe I'll get round to watching and reviewing the films I didn't get to including Foxcatcher and Whiplash next month. 

Spider-Man joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the return of the Alien franchise: My thoughts

February 2015 has seen two major stories from the film industry, so in a first for this blog I thought I’d share my thoughts on them. Keep an eye out for my reactions to the Oscars in a few days' time.

Spiderman joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe

After fourteen years of ownership, Sony has reached an agreement with Marvel on Spider-Man, allowing him to not only be rebooted again, but also join the likes of Iron Man, Captain America and Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe at some point in the future. A new Spiderman film set in the MCU is set to arrive in in 2017 with Sony maintaining full creative control over the character, along with the upcoming Sinister Six spin-off in 2016. On the other side of the coin Marvel will work out ways to integrate the webslinger in with The Avengers and possibly other projects yet to come.

So how will the move affect the Spider-Man character? Well with the cancellation of The Amazing Spider-Man 3, it’s safe to assume that Marvel is one step closer of Spider-Man from now on. Considering the mixed reactions to The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Marvel’s proven track record with superhero films, this should prove very beneficial. Whilst Marvel still doesn’t have full creative control just yet, it’s a good step forward that has the potential to result in better quality Spiderman films.

The return of the Alien franchise

After nearly twenty years, Neil Blomkamp, director of the fan favourite District 9 and its pseudo-successor Chappie has finalised a deal with 20^th Century Fox to produce a brand new Alien film. The movie is currently rumoured to be set several years after Ridley Scott’s upcoming Prometheus sequel. Fox is hoping that Blomkamp will “take the Alien franchise to the next level” which is certainly possible given District 9’s critical and commercial success.

If you’ve seen my review of the original Alien, you’ll know that I’m a huge fan of the franchise, but with this new project it’s hard to tell what Blomkamp will do with Alien 5. Will it be a side story of sorts or will it link back to events in the previous films? It’s unknown whether Sigourney Weaver is still attached to the project but truth be told, I’d want to see an Alien movie without her for a change. Fox had the mind-set that all four of the Alien films simply had to have Weaver in the lead role, and by the time Alien Resurrection came along in 1997, this choice was really starting to get stale. Despite it being early days, I’m really excited nonetheless for the long awaited return of one of the most famous movie monsters of all time.

Jupiter Ascending Movie Review

Since their break-out success with the original Matrix in 1999, the Wachowskis have become known for having great visions in cinematic technology; despite these achievements though, the two directors have never really managed to back up their presentational techniques with solid plot and characterisation. Jupiter Ascending, their latest offering has some brilliant production values but this comes at the price of a problem that has plagued the filmmaking duo for many years now.

The plot of Jupiter Ascending begins on Earth and tells the story of the titular heroine (Mila Kunis), a human destined for great things; after alien creatures attempt to assassinate her, only to be thwarted by Caine (Channing Tatum), Jupiter learns that she is part of the Abrasax alien dynasty that has control over many planets in the universe. From here the film unfolds across many locations on Earth and beyond as Jupiter finds out more of her true destiny and her place in the universe. Jupiter Ascending’s execution in its attempt to be a sweeping space opera is heavily bogged down by numerous problems. The film’s pacing is in a desperate need of a tune up; scenes based on Earth and the cosmos are heavily unbalanced, as if the film can’t decide where it wants to be. Other more abrupt jump cuts really damage the film’s pacing; one moment the characters are in space and then suddenly they’re placed into a spaceship with no context or transition The biggest issue with the plot is how nothing really comes into its own or amounts to anything; rather than weaving ideas of the film’s setting into the narrative in clever ways, the Wachowskis instead force characters to spoon-feed exposition to the audience rather than allowing them to contribute to the plot. Many of the film’s settings and themes, such as the different siblings who vie for control of the galaxy we only see for brief moments and as such the plot is never cohesive enough to be engaging.

Just as the plot squanders its chance to generate a thoughtful sci-fi tale, so too do the actors utterly fail to create convincing and detailed characters. Jupiter just isn’t a very good protagonist; very rarely does there come a point where she does anything other than land herself in trouble and then relies on Caine to come in and save her. This is made worse by laughable dialogue that caters too much to the teenage crowd rather than a broad audience. Caine fares an inch better in that the audience can tell that his character has had a rough past but the film doesn’t go into this trait with enough detail to make him worth caring about. You could say that the chemistry between Kunis and Tatum packs in more emotion than that of Neo and Trinity in The Matrix but that isn’t really saying much considering how both of their characters aren’t very developed or interesting. The other characters including Sean Bean as the roguish Stinger Apini (which is a rather gratuitous title seeing as his DNA has been spliced with that of bees) are just the same; underused and undercooked, never getting any chance to make their presence felt or to make the audience care about their fates during the proceedings. Then there’s Eddie Redmayne as the main antagonist, and what a big step back this is from his excellent performance in The Theory of Everything; Balem Abrasax clumsily and obnoxiously bounces between barely understandable whispering and insanely over the top yelling which serves a terrible substitute for actual motivation and development as a villain. All told, the characters in Jupiter Ascending range from barely competent to unintentionally funny; they simply do not contribute to the plot or setting in any reasonable way.

Technical effects have always been the Wachowski’s greatest strength in filmmaking and for the most part Jupiter Ascending continues that thread with some truly stunning displays. Celestial backdrops give way to a wide variety of interesting worlds and designs that mix science fiction with a hint of light fantasy that definitely keep the audience’s eyes glued to the screen (too bad that the plot and characters can’t accomplish the same!).  However basic and rushed the plot’s exposition may be, the world portrayed in Jupiter Ascending does do a moderately good job of drawing audiences. Unfortunately the film’s technical aspects are not without problems; some of the action scenes, particularly those with Tatum skating around on gravity defying skates quickly become repetitive whilst others are simply too dazzling to be viewed clearly, such as a space battle where Caine and Stinger must blast their way through a ship’s net defences. Like several other films made by the Wachowskis, a choir is employed during the film’s more intense moments and for what it is, it does succeed at putting across the sheer scale of the action at hand. The technical aspects of Jupiter Ascending keep the Wachowski’s pedigree intact but they can’t be used as a crutch to lean on anymore.

Jupiter Ascending will undoubtedly dazzle audiences with its visuals and interesting sci-fi world; it’s just too bad that just about everything else is so underwhelming, so undercooked that the film can never hope to achieve the same level of prominence as the works the Wachowskis have done before. If you’re a fan of science fiction, you’ll probably get some enjoyment from the film’s technical side, but everyone else should stay away.

Rating: 2/5

5 Niggling Things: Skyrim

It’s been a little while since I wrote something on gaming so here’s another entry. This time I’m looking at what many consider to be Bethesda’s biggest and best effort into the role playing genre and the fifth main entry in the Elder Scrolls series. A game as massive as Skyrim is bound to have some faults here and there so let’s get right to it; episode two of five niggling things.

1. Competent if slightly underwhelming swordplay

As an RPG franchise, the Elder Scrolls has never really been known for deep and complex combat, instead opting for the three simple play styles of direct warrior, ranged mage or stealthy thief. But when you look at countless other RPGs on the market today, especially The Witcher series and the way they go much further with their combat systems, Skyrim’s seems very basic by comparison; the third person kill cams ripped from Fallout are satisfying to watch and the way your character’s attacks become progressively stronger is certainly rewarding but let’s see a wider array of combat moves and styles in the next game. I’m thinking of jump attacks for warriors, wizard duels for mages and evasive rolls for thief characters as well as special attacks and combat techniques geared to specific weapons and spells.

2. Bugged quests

This is a tricky one, considering Bethesda’s track record of releasing games that always have a few bugs lurking within the code but during my time with Skyrim I had the misfortune encountered more bugged or unfinishable quests than perhaps any other game I’ve played in the genre. Waking Nightmare, The Forsworn Conspiracy, Blood on the Ice and several others often came to a screeching halt, forcing to me to either abandon the quest completely or make use of codes to force the game to proceed onward; not to mention that if you're playing on console, there's no way to fix the quests at all. The problem really stings for some quests as it breaks their sense of immersion and the often highly detailed lore they contribute to the universe of Tamriel. Despite a few patches from both Bethesda and the generous support of the modding community, many quests in Skyrim are still relatively easy to break and this is something which the developer needs to work on for next time.

3. An inconsistent reputation system

In Skyrim, there are all kinds of factions to join and skills to develop and each of these draws different comments; for example if you put time into upping the pickpocket skill, guards will say “I find your hand in my pocket, I’m going to cut it off” or if you join the Companions, NPCs will make different comments depending on the stage of that quest-line. This is fairly good for progression but unfortunately that’s where the nature of the reputation system ends. There should be a more dynamic system to make NPCs react to the Dragonborn in different ways; perhaps something that refines on the reputation system seen in Fallout New Vegas. If the player is dressed in Thieves Guild or Dark Brotherhood armour then the guards could be more wary of the player and this in turn would reinforce the need to stay hidden when moving through civilised areas as a criminal in Skyrim. In turn joining different factions could yield additional benefits such as store discounts on certain items, depending on the faction. It would certainly be a lot more engaging than walking past characters and having them greet you like normal even when you’re clearly a member of a sinister organisation.

4. Disruptive loading screens

Open world games need to load; because their worlds are so massive and varied, it’s a really difficult task for developers to have areas directly stream across the entire experience. The load times may not be quite as tedious as those in Fable 3 but again, other RPGs have taken steps forward by trimming down their loading times more coherently whilst Skyrim has to have one every time the player character enters a new area. The modding community, most notably “Open Cities” by Arthmoor (Download it here: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/8058/?) has proven that several areas of Skyrim’s vast land can still function without the need to drop to a static black screen. It would go a long way towards building and maintaining immersion in the world if Bethesda was to cut down on the loading times for future instalments in the series.

5. Perks with little purpose

Skyrim’s level trees involving star constellations look great and were a progressive step up from Oblivion’s static menu systems and for the most part the perks you unlock are very useful in enhancing your chosen play style. Unfortunately a problem still persists that several studios as well as Bethesda have trouble with; a somewhat lack of ingenuity in the perks you choose. In Call of Duty, the useless perk was eavesdrop (listen in on the enemy’s voice chat when barely anyone used a headset), in Far Cry 3 it was firing a pistol while on a zip line, and in Skyrim the main two are “fists of steel” (an increase to the damage of hand-to-hand attacks) and “quick reflexes” (slows down time when blocking an enemy’s power attack). The former is more of an issue as players must unlock it to progress through to the far superior “Conditioning” perk (Makes heavy armour weigh nothing). Every perk should have a practical purpose, which will make the levelling up process a far more rewarding undertaking and this applies not only to Skyrim but to all games which possess some kind of perk system.

Post-Viewing: Does Taken 3 signal the end of the grizzled action hero archetype?

When the original Taken was released in 2008, something about it clicked with audiences worldwide; the incredibly simple premise of Liam Neeson going round beating up anyone foolhardy enough to get in his way not only turned the actor into an action star, but also created a new archetype in the process. The idea of an older anti-hero pioneered by Taken spawned countless imitators with similar styles such as Stolen with Nicholas Cage in 2012, as well as The November Man with Pierce Brosnan and No Good Deed starring Idris Elba in 2014. Taken itself would see two sequels along the same time period and not even they could recapture what made the original so popular, despite both films being fairly successful at the box office. Now that Taken 3 has been released, receiving critical panning from a vast majority of critics, it’s difficult to see the archetype lasting any longer.

Where did it go wrong? I believe the answer lies with the derivative nature that all the films adopted. Rather than trying to push the sub-genre forward with more creative scenarios, filmmakers instead opted to mostly copy Taken’s design because it proved to be so popular with audiences. In turn they also lost sight of the gritty and more realistic situations that the main character was caught up in and so the films had far less impact than they did before. Taken 3 is especially guilty of this, censoring its once gritty violence with a 12A rating and repeating events from other action films.

Surprisingly, watching Taken 3 reminded me a lot of 2013’s A Good day to Die Hard; both films feature hackneyed plots, suffer from poor editing and throw in a poorly thought out twist towards the end of their run times. This brings to mind the issue of banking on brand identity; because the names have become so synonymous in the action genre, audiences believe what they are about to watch is a well-produced action film that stands out from the others that flood the market. Essentially this can sometimes allow producers to get away with making sub-par films because they know that once audiences see the big name on the poster or trailer, ticket sales are almost guaranteed.

The grizzled action hero archetype appears to have run its course and Taken 3 is pretty much the end of the road. When the series that originally pioneered the idea has gotten progressively worse and can’t get it right anymore, you know the sub-genre just won’t go any further and maybe that’s for the best, given the drastic decline in quality over seven years.

Taken 3 Movie Review

The original Taken landed quite the hard-hitting punch on audiences on its debut in 2008. Ever since then the surprise hit has gradually declined from what made it work; the trilogy comes to a close with Taken 3 which will easily go down as one of the most muted and poorly produced final chapters in the action genre’s long history.

The plot of Taken, what little there is of it takes place almost entirely in Los Angeles; Brian Mills (Liam Neeson), his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) and daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) are living happily when suddenly Mills finds Lenore dead in his flat. Framed for the murder, Mills must track down those responsible for Lenore’s death and also protect his daughter once again. If this premise sounds all too familiar, you’ll know from the offset exactly where the film is going. Taken 2 was derivative enough but Taken 3 sinks to a far lower level; not only does the film repeat plot points from its predecessors but it outright rips off other action contemporaries such as The Fugitive, Die Hard and The Transporter. Without an original bone in its body the film ploughs along at a blindingly quick rate, often glossing over any kind of character development or exposition in seconds. What made the series what it was has disappeared completely; even the character at its centre has run out of tricks to keep the audience watching, making Taken 3’s plot an uninteresting and disjointed wreak.

The lone positive attribute of Taken 3 is the performances from the main actors; despite the downright anaemic amount of material given for development, Liam Neeson and Maggie Grace still have relatively good chemistry on screen, resulting in a consistently believable bond. The other characters however are practically non-existent; they have no personal traits, no internal struggles, nothing to distinguish them from the clichéd police characters that have been in numerous other action films. Forest Whittaker’s performance as Inspector Frank Dotzler is especially disappointing given the actor’s strong reputation. The same also applies to the villain (played by Sam Spruell for about fifteen minutes), who for the most part is completely absent from the film’s proceedings and does little other than filling the overly used cliché of an angry Russian who just wants money. Ultimately any decent performances by the main actors are quickly buried under a mound of woefully underdeveloped side characters which veer too far from the film’s once realistic tone.

The action sequences featured in the Taken series, particularly the first film have been known for their gritty, pseudo-realistic action sequences. For the final film in the series, any pretence of this has been completely thrown out the window. The action here is some of the most nauseating and poorly edited I’ve ever seen in an action film; every time something fast paced occurs like a car chase or fist fight, the film furiously jumps between at least fifty cuts or more whilst constantly shaking the camera in a bid to make the action seem more intense. This is exacerbated even further by the film’s 12A rating; the moments where the series stood out for its hand-to hand combat have been replaced with toned down sequences that do nothing to set themselves apart from other action films. A senseless use of music utterly fails to convey any kind of emotion in a film where it does not belong. The technical presentation of Taken 3 has taken arguably the biggest step back from the original film which honestly leaves little to salvage from the overall experience.

Taken 3 is quite the epitome of a tired serious floundering about in the mud for its final instalment before its inevitable demise; aside from the main actors doing a half decent job of selling the characters that have been present from the beginning, the film really doesn’t have anything going for it. This is surely high time for both the series and the archetype it spawned to retire for good.

Rating: 1/5 Stars

American Sniper Movie Review

Films based on modern conflicts sometimes have a tricky dilemma to answer in their production; do they focus on action in an attempt to garner as large an audience as possible or do they try to do something more profound and examine the darker side of the world’s most recent conflicts? The latest effort from long standing actor and director Clint Eastwood is American Sniper which follows the exploits of one solider whose status rose above many others in modern conflict. It aims to stand alongside the likes of The Hurt Locker and Jarhead but in practice it has a very difficult time reaching that level.

American Sniper follows Navy Seal Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper); considered the most dangerous sniper in US military history, Kyle racked up a total of over 160 confirmed kills across four tours in Iraq and as such, has simultaneously become a legend in the eyes of his comrades and a demon in the eyes of the enemy. The film cuts back and forth between his time in Iraq and his at home with his wife (Sienna Miller) and family and this is where the film’s first problem arises; the movie is simply too fast and abrupt. Action sequences can never build tension effectively as they often cut back to Chris’s civilian life at seemingly random intervals whilst the moments with Chris’s family aren’t able to convey enough emotion to make the audience care about their fates as the film constantly hurls the audience back to the Middle East again. Similarly the film really doesn’t go into much detail into the dehumanising elements of war; for example there are a couple of moments where Kyle is forced to shoot children who he believes are out to murder his comrades; you can definitely feel the guilt and tension that creeps down the scope of his rifle, but then a few scenes later, this is almost completely forgotten about and as a result you never get the sense that the character is becoming more and more weighed down by mental trauma. The film only hints at the psychological issues that plague soldiers, rather than exploring them fully as other films of its kind have done so much better. The film’s biggest offence though is how it takes a considerably uneven, almost black and white viewpoint towards the conflict it portrays; Americans are seen as brave soldiers protecting their homes and families overseas so that makes them the heroes of the story whilst Middle Eastern militants are shooting at the Americans so that automatically makes them the villains with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Just as the film doesn’t bother to go into detail about the psychological side of conflict, so too does it refuse to examine the combatants on both sides with a balanced and morally grey viewpoint. American Sniper’s plot is ultimately a muddle, failing to go into issues with proper detail and charging along too quickly for its own good.

Main leads Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller do an acceptable job of fitting the archetypes of determined soldier and worried wife; Miller in particular shows a great deal of emotion when she fears for her husband’s life. The two try their best to get across the pressures placed on families who have members serving in the armed forces but because the film is so poorly paced, these moments are often just as rushed as the action sequences. Unfortunately while the main actors do a mostly serviceable job with the material they’re given, the film’s dialogue devolves into a painfully clichéd rut on several occasions, especially during combat sequences where lines such as “Get some!” and “Gnarly!” make the film’s narrow focus all too evident. The other characters, especially the fellow marines Chris is tasked with protecting don’t have much depth; again this is something which could have been developed further if we had been given time to get to know the characters and care about their fates but instead they’re just the average underdeveloped grunts that we see in countless other action films. Like the plot, American Sniper’s casting is mixed, not consistently making a good impression across the entirety of its runtime.

American Sniper can find some redemption in its technical presentation; the action is always tight and consistently edited, not resorting to a single shot of shaky cam in a bid to make its action scenes seem more intense and a minimal use of CGI placed against the use of real land vehicles does give the film a strong sense of authenticity. This is matched by some powerful sound effects which do make a strong contribution to immersing the viewer in the setting (if only the pacing did the same!). The film’s standout moment comes towards the end where Chris’s unit must escape a dangerous sandstorm; it’s the closest the film ever comes to proper tension and just as the soldiers are disoriented, so too is the audience as the action and actors are difficult to see clearly. The film’s presentation is fairly decent for a war film but all told it cannot make up for the uneven plot and inconsistent characters.

American Sniper’s biggest problem isn’t that it veers dangerously close to the realm of propaganda; the main issue is that it handles so many elements in such basic and one-dimensional ways that it becomes nearly impossible to take the film seriously. It’s a very divisive kind of film that has garnered a fair bit of controversy but in my estimation, it’s rather disappointing.

Rating: 2/5 Stars