Four Reviews of Movies from 2010

[philosoraptor42]

Toy Story 3
Would you believe, I wasn't sure what to think of this one when I saw it at the cinema? I guess the thing is that coming out of a cinema you are inevitably wowed by a movie. There's a certain extent with some movies that you just WANT them to be good, especially if you had to fork out extra money to see them on the big screen. Hitchhikers Guide had left me with a kind of odd feeling after watching it because there were so many bits that looked good (vogons actually looking like bureaucratic aliens rather than green blobs, the "so long and thanks for all the fish" show tune, improbability drive turning everything into knitted wool, hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional mice getting ready to chop up Arthur Dent's brain), but when I watched it again on DVD my reaction was "this is so rubbish, how was I ever impressed by this". I had this sneaking suspicion that I was going to look back at Toy Story 3 later in a similar and go "was that really the same movie I loved so much in the cinema?"

While I did love it, you must realise that Toy Story 3 was inevitably under greater scrutiny. The previous movies (particularly the sequel, oddly enough) had been so good. And with other Pixar works like Wall-E and Up being so impressive, there was super-high pressure on this to live up to all that.

So a few things that caused nagging doubts were the rehashing of old themes. Even the main theme of "toys get abandoned in the end" was pretty central in Toy Story 2. A voice in the back of my head was saying "we've seen this all before!" And of course, one of the characters isn't really so different from Stinky Pete. There's also the "Buzz is delusional that he's a galactic ranger" thing.

However, all those things are given a new twist in this new movie. The motivations of the "Stinky Pete" type character are different. The "deluded Buzz" thing gets a new spin too. While Woody was considering the option of being forever preserved in Toy Story 2, the problems and proposed solutions to abandonment in Toy Story 3 are very different. Plus, there are some very good new aspects. Mrs Potato Head gets used very well and there's some interesting (to say the least) use made of Mr. Potato Head too. Mr. Potato Head had never seemed quite as cool in previous movies. Interestingly, in a movie where the toys are often complaining about not being played with enough, we often get some very good scenes showing what's so awesome about childlike imagination as they play with the toys.

There were a few points where I wondered whether the movie was really meant for children as there are points which are a bit innendo-ey and there are other points which are quite dark. Then I remembered that these aren't really issues at all. Subtle innuendo has often been found in children's shows and there are plenty of examples of darkness in classic children's movies such as "The Neverending Story". No, the real out-of-place element was the subtitles. I can't explain why they were there as this would be quite spoilery, but I would nevertheless note that children can probably get the gist of what is going on in those scenes even if they aren't old enough to read and keep up with subtitles yet.

On rewatching this movie on DVD, I found that none of the magic had gone. Also, this movie features one of the most frightening toys ever. (Picture at the end of all the reviews. Don't scroll too far past the review for "The Crazies" if you'd prefer to leave it a surprise.)

5/5


The Expendables
We all saw that massive list of actors in the poster. However, as the spoof on The Editing Room notes, the majority of those names play a pretty minor role. Perhaps the best scene in the movie (and this is partly because it really puts you and a good mood and gives you the impression that this is going to be a really kick ass experience) is one with Arnold Schwaarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone. Now, I was no idiot. I know Schwaarzenegger would be out of the door and out of the movie pretty quickly. Still, his banter actually got me pretty excited about where the film was headed next.

Bruce Willis, briefing them on the potential job, is able to take the michael to a decent degree in this scene and I was looking forward to him possibly turning into a bad guy or double-crossing them or whatever he was supposed to be doing. Sadly Bruce Willis is also in a hurry to collect his payslip.

So who is left to finish the movie? Well there's Dolph Lundgren, who admittedly isn't bad. Jet Li, who rarely seems to be pitted against anyone with any talent for martial arts choreography, so he comes off looking a bit pants. Jason Statham, who gets to look cool with knives, but sadly doesn't have the acting talents to brighten up a poor script. Sylvester Stallone has the same problem. On top of that there are two other action "stars" (to use the term exceptionally loosely) one of whom is there to be the token black guy and another whose only purpose is to say "look at me, I've got an actual cauliflower ear" as if that's impressive. In the end, the movie has to be carried by Stallone and Statham and neither is really up to the challenge.

Giselle Itie and Charisma Carpenter both get the opportunity to play damsel in distress. Oh yay. Also, Mickey Rourke gets to go all emo on us, never actually do anything active, and he even gets to cry. Personally I preferred his role of wandering around with a little dog in "Once Upon A Time In Mexico".

In fact, that's possibly the biggest issue with "The Expendables". Stallone (and since when is he called "Sly" ffs?!) doesn't seem to understand how to make action scenes pay off. There are an absolute ton of explosions, but in the end with no indication of what caused the explosions, where they are coming from and what is at stake, it's all rather boring. There's one point where they come out of a tunnel somewhere and we are told they are boxed in because they've wired all the area behind them to blow - yet the area they are supposed to be destroying is right in front of them! I really did not understand the tactics being employed and found myself with a strong sneaking suspicion that these "Expendables" were rather inept in planning military escapades. If this had been played for laughs, it might have worked. Sadly the movie appears to have very little in the way of humour outside of the Schwarzenegger/Willis scene and a few unfunny attempts at humour regarding Jet Li's small stature.

In the end this is a bad Jason Statham movie, with Dolph Lundgren actually giving a pretty good performance, Jet Li not being given the opportunity to showcase his abilities properly and some short, good quality cameos which were never going to make up for the complete lack of plot or excitement in the rest of the movie. In short, overall this was rubbish.

2/5


The Infidel
I'd heard kind of lacklustre things about this movie. Basically most reviews seemed to give the impression that it wasn't very funny. Clearly these people have no sense of humour. Then again, being a big fan of Omid Djalili probably helps things along. Actually though, the movie was written by David Baddiel, however it makes fantastic use of Omid Djalli's talents in ethnic impressions and accents as well as his incredible knack for physical comedy. I also got the impression that a few parts were somewhat inspired by Djalili's stand up show. (I would strongly recommend "No Agenda") There was one point where Djalili's character is feeling hot outside and I half expected him to start doing his godzilla impression. (That'll make more sense if you watch his stand up, there's also this clip that is very good and this other one which is pure genius.)

So anyway, The Infidel. While Omid Djalili is great from beginning to end, the real laughter doesn't start until Richard Schiff, from the West Wing, shows up. He's playing a Jewish American who is randomly working as a London cabbie. While Djalili is expressive and hyper, Schiff is able to be more calm and sarcastic and the two actors play off of one another beautifully.

The basic premise of the movie (which is revealed pretty quickly and is clearly explained on the box, but nevertheless, you might still consider it a SPOILER so you're being warned here about a potential SPOILER in this paragraph, ok? Consider yourself warned...) is that Djalili's British Muslim character (in real life he's actually an ethically Iranian Ba'haist Brit) discovers that his parents adopted him and that his birth parents were actually Jewish. This means that he is technically Jewish. He's a little overwraught about this anyway, but other issues arise which make it even more complicated. So yeah END OF POTENTIAL SPOILER.

The Infidel is full of excellent comic timing and absolutely hilarious moments, but it's also good a good heart. This is a really feelgood movie. Not only is this proper British humour which embraces Britain's multiculturalism, but it's also got a great plot which ties up nicely and never feels naff or preachy. I mean, oh my goodness, I could list all sorts of funny bits from this movie, but I really don't want to spoil the surprise.

One last thing, we discover quite early on that Omid's character, Mahmud, is actually a big fan of an eighties pop star invented for the movie. While my gf thought that guy's music was rather cheesy, I actually found the song (with the chorus "why don't you close your eyes at midnight?") really really catchy.

I'm guessing the lack of success of this movie is mainly a result of the 15 certificate, which is pretty much inevitable with the f-word used so often. Interestingly the movie has now been exported to a number of Arabic and Islamic countries (wikipedia lists United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Lebanon, Oman, Iran and Saudi Arabia), but apparently they didn't release it in Israel, even in spite of the writer (David Baddiel) being Jewish himself. *shrugs*

Oh well, hopefully Israelis can still pick it up on DVD. :)
5/5

The Crazies
I really don't think they knew what they wanted to do with this movie. I'd heard before watching it that it was pretty much going to be a zombie movie without the zombies. However, it turns out that the "zombies" are actually infected people who act in a psychotic way which echoes the cruelty of ordinary uninfected human beings. The thing is, we already have some pretty decent movies which do that, in the 28 _____ Later movies. In fact, the way those movies made the "zombies" parallel real-life rage-blinded mob activity was just perfect. Meanwhile "The Crazies" just seemed to create individual psychos.

So are these "zombies" able to run? Well, possibly. They tend to just walk around at a reasonable pace. Also, sometimes they just grunt and repeat phrases as if they are confused about their surroundings. Other times though they show actual reasoning processes and signs that they actively recognise the people they are harming. In fact, in one case a "zombie" has been stitching up people's eyes and mouths. To put it simply, the "zombies" just seem plain inconsistent.

What they seemed to be trying to do here seemed rather similar to what Garth Ennis does in his recent graphic novel "Crossed". Those feature live infected people too, rather than undead people. Ennis' graphic novel is based somewhat on Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" (and here, in fact, lies one of the major missed opportunities in "The Crazies", as we shall see). The idea of Ennis' infected is that the infection unleashes in them all the potential for evil and cruelty in them. The idea is that, even with infected children, it unleashes the urge to commit horrific cruelty on others just for the fun of it. Essentially the disease turns huge swathes of the population into psychopaths, albeit with a clear indicator (provided you manage to get close enough to see it) in the form of a large mark of infection in the shape of a cross across their faces.

In "The Crazies" the infected similarly seem to be keen to inflict cruelty and death just out of curiosity (though perhaps the really creepy thing about the crossed is how much they enjoy it). The crazies also, quite often, have infection producing a red rash across their faces. Also, the crossed, like the crazies, seemed to have differing levels of reasoning ability. The thing is that while the crazies very rarely spend much time thinking about what they are doing at all. They generally just seem to be opportunistic. But perhaps worse than anything is the cliched nature of the survivors. The writers try to use one characters pregnancy as a way of getting us to empathise, but it seems they haven't got many more tricks up their sleeve than that.

It's not surprising that the poster involves a guy dragging a pitchfork. That image represents the only part of the movie which scares you in a way that makes you actually care. The rest of the time I never really felt terribly engaged by what happened onscreen. Sure, I might find it horrible and I might have a genuine sense of danger, but there was rarely the right sort of build-up to make me actually properly engaged. It's often more a case of "oh here's another infected guy" rather than a real concern about what happens.

In fact, the main thing missing in this movie was a decent story arc. It's not that the characters don't have some kind of depth to them. Actually they really do feel like real people. However, the storyline is just meandering and it's really hard to invest in it. After a while, you come to realise that the movie has absolutely nothing to say. At one point there's almost the suggestion that the army troops brought in to control the situation might themselves be run by crazies (after all, many of the crazies are indistinguishable from ordinary people), but this is never explored. Unlike the crossed who unleash the worst cruelties of humanity and the infected from 28___Later who reveal humanity when it's blinded by rage, the crazies are just random psychos. In the end, the crazies might as well just be zombies, which gives us what would be a rather poor entry in the Resident Evil series.

Oh and the movie ends with a bang, in a similar way to "Aliens VS Predator: Requiem". The writers don't seem to understand how that kind of weaponry works, since no one seems concerned about the aforementioned pregnancy as we cut to credits at the end (nor their own health for that matter). As the movie ends we are treated to some fake news broadcasts which give the impression that the filmmakers thought they were making a much more exciting and fun movie than the one we just watched. To be honest, all the things this movie appeared to be trying to achieve, such as a sense of fear, dread and hoplessness as your society breaks down, are done much MUCH better in the movie of McCarthy's "The Road". Sure that wasn't perfect, but it's head, shoulders and torso ahead of this pile of rubbish.
1.5/5



Supremely creepy toy from Toy Story 3....





Picture below. Do you want to spoil the surprise?









Also, Family Guy: Something Something Dark Side
Watched about 15 minutes before giving up due to a distinct absence of humour. What the hell happened to that show?