Well, kind of… I mean, I knew it was an action film starring Jason Statham. I may love Jason Statham but you can only hope for so much from his movies. In this case, unfortunately, I hoped for a little too much. In that I hoped for a bit more action.

I guess this is why I shouldn’t watch trailers.

You know what? I’m going to have a bit of a rant here. Why make something look like a straight up action film if it’s not? And while I’m at it; putting things in the trailers that aren’t in the film. What’s that about? I’ve noticed that cropping up a lot more lately and I don’t like it one bit. Stop lying to me trailers. This is why I become fascinated with my shoes every time I see a trailer of a film I think I might like. I don’t want to have unrealistic expectations. I fear all hope is lost for Priest and Sucker Punch mind, there’s no way they can possibly live up to those trailers. Battle: Los Angeles too. Not a chance.

I’m not done ranting though… The fact is, there seems to be this view creeping into cinema that it all rests on the opening weekend – like in music, where if a certain song or album doesn’t get straight to #1 it’s a failure. It’s an awful road to go down. It’s leads to this ridiculous mis-selling of films, mostly in an attempt to appeal to the 15-25 y/os who regularly go to the cinema. This in turn means that most of the gross -is- in the opening weekend. Not because it’s necessarily a bad film, or that people only want to see films when they’re new, but because it was marketed in such a way that it got the wrong audience to go along. Those folks hated it and off they went and told all their friends. Now even the right audience is put off because 1. it looks like a film for teenagers and 2. they’ve heard it’s crap. Poof. A good movie becomes a failure.

But I digress.

Anyway, I’m not actually saying that happened here. The Mechanic isn’t a particularly good film. It’s not a bad film per se… It just tries a little too hard to develop something that appears to beyond the capabilities of it’s director and screenplay writers. Or maybe it’s the editor that’s at fault. I’m not sure. I’m thinking the director though. The problem with The Mechanic is that it’s an action film that’s trying to build in a bit more um… motivation… than you generally see in these kind of action flicks.

I could probably throw a bit of blame on the actors here, I won’t. Not just because I love Jason Statham, but because I don’t think they’re given much to work with. I don’t know. Put it this way… I would have expected that Jason Statham getting a protege would involve him actually working with the protege in key scenes. Apparently not. I would have expected that the “getting to know you” phase wouldn’t have just been a 2 minute montage. Apparently not. I’m sure Ben Foster and our man Jase would have been able for the task but it just wasn’t put in front of them.

Ok. It’s not all bad. There are some good bits. Perhaps call it a collection of good scenes thrown into a jumble of irrelevent incidents. And shaken about. To be honest, I don’t know what exactly this film thought it was doing but if it was action film there was too little action in it and if it wasn’t… then what the hell was it?

It’s just weird. You have this supporting cast of interesting characters and these 2 leads who seem to be interesting characters… but none of them are put to real use to create any semblance of plot or emotion. It’s like the film skirts around the idea of having a real plot and creating real relationships between the characters but ultimately it never actually gets to saying what it’s wants to say. It’s supremely annoying. That is the main thing really. It’s not that it’s a bad film. I just think it could have been a really good film if more effort had been put into it.

Anyway, I feel like I should say something nice about it since I didn’t actually hate it. The action scenes were class… It does manage to have more plot than the average action film (for all the good that does) and um… Oh yeah, it looked cool. I liked the… what’s it called in film? Grading? Anyway, like I said, it looked cool.

And I liked his house. Now that the one from A Single Man is off the market I’ll have to start looking elsewhere… in preparation for when I win the lottery of course.

6.5/10

It’s not that Alice in Wonderland is a bad film. Hehe, that’s probably my favourite phrase, I don’t like saying films are bad… but… Alice just wasn’t as brilliant as I wanted it to be. Then again I don’t know what I expected. I mean it looked good… and the story definitely seemed to follow the Alice canon… it just wasn’t as magical as I thought it would be. It wasn’t as fairytale or as wonder-filled as I thought it would be.

I think we could (and should) have spent more time with the Wonderland characters. There was all this stuff at the beginning that I just didn’t care about. I know you need a certain amount of exposition but it didn’t even really seem to tell us where she was coming from and seemed to go on for ages and then when we got to Wonderland we got introduced to a whole load of other characters but we never spent a lot of time with any of them.

In particular I was disappointed by the lack of Mad Hatter or even the White Rabbit, at least there was a bit of the Red Queen… Mostly the film seems to sweep through the supporting characters without giving them much of a chance to leave an impression. I didn’t hate the Alice character but she wasn’t half as much fun as the others so I would have liked more time with them.

Visually, it was beautiful but it wasn’t incredible. I’m starting to wonder if Avatar has spoiled things a bit. Certainly I didn’t feel like the 3D in this was up to much. It was more than you’d see in say, the Toy Story 3D adaptations, but it still wasn’t great. Also the Avatar world was beautiful but also so it was so immersive; in a way that Wonderland here is not…

…But I could be giving Avatar too much credit here as well. It’s entirely possible that Tim Burton just didn’t do that good a job with this. Actually I’m more inclined to believe that… he failed to make me care that much and it wasn’t weird enough to blow me away.

I will say this and I’m not sure if it’s really in its favour – I do think it’s suitable for children. It’s not dark like Burton’s other films. Maybe not for very young children, like those under 6, but certainly for other kids I would think it should be fine. There’s nothing in it that’s worse than what’s in the books, so if you’re fine with your kids hearing those kinds of stories then this will be grand.

I just don’t really know what to think of Tim Burton any more. I think he needs to stay with the fantastical type of stuff but leave the kids stuff behind. An adult version of Alice in Wonderland would have been a better choice for Burton and, I think, for the rest of his cast. I like to think it would have been a lot more engaging and we wouldn’t have gotten all tied up with PG storytelling we didn’t really need.

So, I’m not going to say don’t see it. I know there’s plenty people out there who’ll love it, and certainly bring your kids along. Don’t expect some twisted dark version of Alice, this isn’t what the film is.

6.5/10

REVELATIONS 6:8

I was looking forward to The Road. As I mentioned in some previous posts, I’m all about post-apocalyse movies.

Post-apocalypse / dystopia a favourite genre of mine. I really like the idea of examining how individuals and society (or societies) might respond in the face of total catastrophe. I suppose I just feel that society is, to a certain degree, a self-perpetuating artificial construct so I wonder, if there is an interruption, what changes would that bring to its perpetuation. Would society collapse? If it does, would a new one rise from its ashes? Would they build it better? Or would the individuals left just eke out survival and that would be it. Is there a critical mass of people needed to create a functioning society? What would happen? It’s fascinating.

Sorry about that random diversion, it’s just that I’ve said in so many posts over the last while that I like post-apocalyptic and dystopian stories so I thought it was about time that I explained it a bit…

Anyway.

This film is an adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name. He also wrote the novel that 2007′s No Country For Old Men is based on dontyerknow. It’s directed by John Hillcoat, who I hadn’t really heard of before, and stars Viggo Mortensen, a man who surely deserves an Oscar by now. Actually I thought he deserved one for A History of Violence but he wasn’t even nominated that year… Basically The Road is about a man and a boy trying to survive in the world after an unexplained apocalypse.

I really thought I would like this film. Well… ok, it’s not that I didn’t like it… I was just left with the distinct impression that I had seen it all before. And yes, I’ve see a lot of this genre of film and I’ve read a good bit of this genre as well so maybe I have seen it all before; but I was rather hoping that there would be something different about this one. I don’t believe that it’s a completely “done” genre. I still believe that these can be powerful emotional stories, whether they are cautionary, hopeful, funny, depressing, introspective, whatever. Everyone I knew who had read the book says it is so depressing and the reviews (that I’ve skimmed over) are all saying that it’s so crushingly depressing so I was expecting more of an emotional punch here… and I think they missed the mark.

Ok, it was depressing… it’s post-apocalypse. It’s generally depressing. But I didn’t feel involved in their story. Now I will admit, I do generally prefer the genre with a bit more hope than this film and maybe more hope would have made me feel more involved with them… but I don’t really think that was the problem. I think one of the problems I had was that we got little sense of what was driving them. Sure there’s that primal urge to survive, that fire, but it was never fully dealt with in the film. What was driving them? Is it hope? Is it sheer bloody mindedness? There are hints of religion here and there but again, not fully dealt with. Even the breakdown of society wasn’t particularly dealt with…

As far as I’m concerned, if you’re not examining the individuals, the society or any particular relateable thematic element (like faith or war or the environment) and nothing much happens plotwise then what is your film about anyway? It’s just a cold look at two people taking a long walk down a road to nowhere… and this walk wasn’t half as eventful as that other long walk Viggo Mortensen went on not that long ago…

…Oh, I don’t know, maybe this is meant to be a story about a father’s love for his son or something. I hope not, because I think that would draw unfair conclusions about the mother… unfair because her story’s never really told either. I’m clutching at straws to find a point to this film really and uh… I kinda sound like I hated it, I didn’t hate it. I guess I just wanted it to be more than just run of the mill. It was very… flat. Well there was one scene in particular that I really liked. That one where our characters showed an emotion other than fear or anger. That was a good scene. I do wish I had read the book, maybe it fills in some blanks…

…Or maybe I really have just seen this story too many times.

Nah.

5.5/10

But is Monsters vs. Aliens a good film?

Yeah. I enjoyed it.

Then again, I enjoy all films. I can say this though, while I enjoyed it at the time, it didn’t stay with me at all. Two days later and I’m having trouble remember what the characters were like at all. That might have to do with the fact that I have a bit of a headache at the moment, but I doubt it. It has more to do with the fact that the characters weren’t particularly well defined. It didn’t bother me that much though, it’s a kid’s film so it was only about 94 mins long. Which is probably a bit long for a kid’s film to be honest.

If I were to criticise it I would say that it was a bit glossy. Not that you want gritty in a kid’s film. I guess I mean it was a bit teflon coated, it slides in through the eyes, slips through the brain and out the…. mouth I guess?… when you tell people about it later. OF kind of like B.O.B. and his ball – you’ll get it if you watch.

Anyway what’s good about it? Seth Rogen’s character B.O.B. is very funny. It’s a funny film, in a light way. Also I really appreciated the Dr. Strangelove references. I hope war rooms really do look like that.

All in all there isn’t that much to say about the film. It’s grand ol’ romp with a few odd looking creatures and a giant woman and if you have to go see a kid’s film you could see worse. I wouldn’t particularly recommend it if you don’t have to see a kid’s film though. I’m sure there are better films out there – Watchmen, Gran Torino and Marley & Me, to name three. I’m still gonna give a decent rating though for what it is, it was better than Bolt 3D anyway.

6.5/10

I know I gave it 7/10 on twitter but that was when I was walking out of the theatre, I’m downgrading it a little now on reflection.

Wristcutters: A Love Story is set in an afterlife for people who’ve committed suicide. It’s a different kind of afterlife from the traditional winged one (be it above or below)… instead it is, in the words of our main character, “… basically the real world, just crappier”.

Zia (Patrick Fugit, best known from Almost Famous, just in case you’re wondering where you might have seen him before.) is a young man who’s committed suicide because his girlfriend Desiree (Bibb), has left him… their relationship isn’t particularly important though. Whatever happened before, he has ended up in this afterlife, working in a pizza parlour, living in a crappy apartment and just existing. So far, so dull – well no actually, the film is interesting so far… A chance encounter in the local supermarket leads Zia to discover that his former girlfriend took her own life a little while after he did. Given that he still has little else to “live” for he decides to take off with his interesting Russian rocker friend Eugene (played by Shea Whigham). While on the road they meet an outwardly interesting young lady called Mikal (played by Shannyn Sossamon) who’s on a mission to find the “People In Charge” and explain why she shouldn’t be there So far, so interesting – well no actually, this is where the film starts to fall down…

I wanted to like this film… it has lots of interesting ideas, most of which are hinted at early on. Its problems start when they get on the road… from there on in it loses steam… it seems to flounder, the director takes a while to pick the idea he wanted to centre on and in my opinion he picked the wrong one. Then again maybe my expectations were to blame, I thought I was going to see an indie film exploring, I don’t know, ideas and concepts – stuff about suicide, naivety of youth, friendship, life after death – the kind of stuff you expect and indie film to cover. I expected it to be smart, funny and quirky… you know, a good indie film… and for a while it looked like it was going that way. Then all of a sudden, to my horror Goran Dukic got lazy and just decided to turn it into a love story. Now I shouldn’t have been surprised – the clue was in the title… but I don’t know, I just hadn’t expected it to be nothing more than a love story in the end. I try so hard to not expect anything of the films I watch, it just sets you up for disappointment… but sometimes… you just can’t help it.

Wristcutters: A Love Story just wasn’t what I wanted it to be at all and while all the little ideas and side characters made it an enjoyable watch; overall it just didn’t live up to the awards and nominations it garnered. I really should have learned after that abominable The Aryan Couple that film festival awards count for nothing and that the only ratings that are worth any consideration and IMDb ratings (after DVD releases) and rottentomatoes.com!

Quickly, to address the other stuff… the acting was commendable, the cinematography and art direction were great. Special mention as well to Will Arnett, I always find him entertaining and his appearence was a well needed laugh, even though the idea behind it did have a feel of an after thought… Overall I’m actually going to give it a decent enough rating because actually it wasn’t a bad film at all. For all my complaints about it, the main thing I didn’t like was the love story – I wasn’t expecting it when I really have no excuse – after all, it was in the title!!

6.5/10

So back to the film. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is pretty much a romantic comedy, but more along the lines of Knocked Up than 27 Dresses (actually, did I write a review of 27 Dresses yet? No? I’ll have to get around to it soon). Anyway, it’s not that surprising really, since FSM and KU share the same producers, current favourites Judd Apatow and Shauna Robertson. In general, I’ve enjoyed their films and FSM was no exception. I laughed – job done. Being honest, it wasn’t the best film these two have produced, that honour goes to… I’ll have to say Anchorman (of the ones I’ve seen anyway) but it was good fun at the time.

“What was good about it?” I hear you ask… well, I liked the main character, though considering the guy playing the main character wrote it; it’s hardly surprising that he was the most well rounded and sympathetic character of the lot of them. Russell Brand was very good too, a likeable lothario and while hardly the brightest bulb, still had a brain in his head – exactly the kind of caricature he should be playing. Jack McBrayer from 30 Rock was very funny to in a small but memorable supporting role. Aside from those three the characters weren’t great, Sarah Marshall in particular was pretty one dimensional but it didn’t really matter. It’s just a comedy, a fluffy light film to eat popcorn to.

I can’t really recommend it to be honest, certainly not in the cinema, but it was entertaining at the time and I don’t think you’d regret it if you got it out on DVD.

6.5/10

Which leads us to his latest offering, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It’s not a bad film, it’s actually reasonably entertaining but it just didn’t quite work for me. It wasn’t the musical aspect, I love musicals and I left the cinema thinking that I’d much preferred to have seen it as a stage show… I think the problem was that I just found it so predictable. From practically the moment Johnny Depp’s character steps off the boat, you can see how it’s going to end (don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you!). Now, predictability isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I take all films as they come, however if a film is going to be predictable there has to be something else keep you hooked and this film didn’t have anything. The songs were decent, the acting was fine, it looked great but it was never enough to tip it into the category of a great film, for me.

There were some positives though. As I mentioned, visually it was brilliant, all the hallmarks of a Tim Burton film and then some. Also I thought the principle characters were perfectly cast, particularly Alan Rickman, when you hear his voice you just know there’s something evil about him. Helena Bonham Carter too was spot on and Johnny Depp is never out of place in Tim Burton’s shadowy gothic world. It was also pretty funny when it was trying to be, Sacha Baron Cohen certainly did his job on that front.

All in all it was fine, there was nothing really wrong with it to be honest, it just didn’t work for me. Perhaps I was expecting too much, though I try not to with Tim Burton. I just can’t help thinking that there just wasn’t enough of anything to pull it off, it was just lacking in heart or sparkle. That’s why I think the stage show would be better, at least on stage there would be the passion of the spectacle, the drama of the theatre if you will…

6.5/10