Spectre (2015) Review

Spectre (2015) Action & Adventure

By the third time a helicopter flew into view, I was exhausted, and dreaded the prospect of yet another interminable and unconvincingly rendered crash scene. 

The plot was an unappealing mess of recycled ideas. This film brings us yet another revenge story about someone who shares history with Bond but has since turned evil. That was precisely the plot of the last movie - and rather like the last three Star Trek films, most Batman films, the Superman reboot, this year's Avengers, etc.

Like last time, the stakes are raised by nebulous and non- frightening, yet world threatening (so we are told, but never shown) computer network technology. 

The film once again focuses on the question: "are spies still relevant?" I don't find that to be an interesting premise for a Bond film. Why not just assume that the answer is 'yes' and make a fun and smart action movie with a heart? Casino Royale nailed this. If you really must cover the question of whether your main character is relevant, then at least deal with it once and accept the answer! In Skyfall we learned that you still want a man in the field. In this movie, we learn that you still want a man in the field (and, in case anyone was still not getting it, poor Ralph Fiennes in his role as a flaccid M spells it out literally).

While I liked both actors involved, I didn't care for the romance - the movie desperately wants to build it up to be something more than an just another Bond girl. That is an admirable idea, but since the result pales in comparison to the stellar romance in Casino Royale, it seems totally unconvincing when Bond sacrifices his entire career for her at the end. Holy moly - Bond settles down? For THIS girl? What an ending to Craig's character arc that started with Vesper's death (so much more meaningful than anything in any of the other Craig Bond films). Bam, all his emotional problems are solved, because he met a hot blonde. "I've got something better to do than all this!" (throws gun away, gets into car with whatshername). Gee, great ending.

All the interesting plot developments from Casino Royale and (and even Quantum of Solace to some extent), such as Bond's emotional state after losing Vesper and the Quantum organization, are chucked out the window. Skyfall discarded Quantum in favor of a good idea (Bond/M son/mother relationship) and a bad one ("is MI6 still relevant?"). Now, Quantum is back... Kinda. This time, it forms no threat at all - you see, it turns out this OTHER organization that THIS movie is about is even moar powerfuller. And it was really this other, super duper evil organization all along. Muahaha!

That is a tiresome plot twist if ever I've seen one. It completely missed the mark for me; it's weak to try and make your own plot look better by retroactively stating that all villains of the previous movies were really just pawns in this guy's game of chess.

And that's not the only aspect of Bond history that is severely diminished by this film. In Skyfall, we learned about Bond's youth, spent with an old Scottish dude named McAngus. I think. And, of course, his relationship with M.

This time, however, it turns out that Bond actually grew up in the Bavarian Alps with a couple of yodeling Germans named Oberhausen. Errr? Am I the only one confused here? (Possibly.)

Bond turns out to have a sort of surrogate brother, who is very blond, very German, and very jealous. Oh and he also happens to be a supervillain, with an enormous army, who somehow managed to stay absolutely hidden for all these years. There is a powerful and compelling reason for his having all these skills and resources: it's convenient for the plot.

And so, all previous Bond movies are reduced to one large scam operation, a plan by an Alpine superhero that makes absolutely no sense, in a failed attempt to give this movie a great villain. Christoph Waltz is a joy to watch, but he is never allowed to be a real threat. The man gets little to work with, as did Javier Bardem in the last one - criminally underused, awesome actors.

The film's tone was confusing. There is one gruesomely violent scene involving eyeballs - I don't enjoy seeing such aggressive violence, although here I seem to be in a vanishingly small minority. Call me old fashioned, but I was always happy that Bond films used polite violence: gentle fist fights until one guy faints, or perhaps someone shoots a gun and somewhere else, far away, someone falls to the floor.

Putting my personal feelings aside, it was jarring to have this scene be followed up by a cartoonish fist fight on a train, after which the eye-ripping guy is yanked out of a train by a rope, but not before realizing his predicament like Wile E. Coyote hanging over the ravine and saying "shit!". Is this a corny spy movie with train fights a la Bond vs Jaws? Where Bond leisurely glides a crashing airplane around for a few minutes and then humorously lands precisely on top of the bad guy's car? Or is it a somber drama about an aging man's career in a time when nobody knows whether spies are still relevant? Or does it want to be a raw, violent gangster film like Goodfellas, reveling in the sight of bad guys proving their credentials by maiming others?

Goosebumps (2015) Review

Goosebumps (2015) Adventure & Comedy

Teenager Zach Cooper (Dylan Minnette) and his mother Gale (Amy Ryan) move from New York to the small fictional town of Madison, Delaware. His new neighbors are a girl named Hannah (Odeya Rush) and her mysterious author father "Mr. Shivers" (Jack Black), who tells him to stay away from his daughter. At his new high school where Gale becomes the new vice-principal, Zach meets and befriends Champ (Ryan Lee), a socially awkward student who is often bullied. One night, Zach hears Shivers and Hannah arguing from his window, followed by Hannah screaming. When he calls the police to investigate, Shivers assures Officer Stevens (Timothy Simons) and Officer Brooks (Amanda Lund) that the scream was from a movie. The officers lecture Zach about wasting the police's time and leave as Gale reprimands Zach.

Suspicious of Shivers and fearing Hannah is in danger, Zach anonymously calls Shivers and pretends to be a police officer and tells him to come to the police station for further questioning. Once he is gone, Zach and Champ break into Shivers' house in search of Hannah. They find several manuscripts from the Goosebumps book series, all of which are locked. They unlock The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena, but are confronted by Hannah who assumes they are burglarizing the house. Zach clears up the misunderstanding. But when he accidentally opens the unlocked book, the Abominable Snowman emerges from it and breaks out of the house. In the ensuing chaos, the Night of the Living Dummy manuscript is accidentally unlocked as well. Zach, Champ, and Hannah pursue the Abominable Snowman to a local ice rink where it attacks them, but Shivers appears and sucks it back into the book.

On the way home, it is revealed that "Mr. Shivers" is actually R.L. Stine, the author of the Goosebumps books. He explains to the three kids that he created the books' monsters when he was a child to cope with severe bullying. However, the monsters became real and he had to lock them in their manuscripts. Returning to the house, Stine and the kids are confronted by Slappy the Dummy (voiced by Jack Black), the villain of Night of the Living Dummy who is angry about being imprisoned. Before Stine can capture him, Slappy burns his own manuscript and flees with the other manuscripts in The Haunted Car. The Lawn Gnomes from Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes are also freed. Zach, Hannah and Champ help Stine smash them into pieces, but each gnome reforms itself making them realize that they cannot be destroyed.

Slappy frees the other Goosebumps monsters, destroys their manuscripts, and leads them on a destructive rampage across Madison where the Body Squeezer from Invasion of the Body Squeezers Pt. 1 and 2 freeze the entire police department. Zach suggests to Stine to write a new book that will trap every monster, but he can only do it on a special typewriter which is at the high school. He and the kids are attacked by various Goosebumps monsters on their way to the school including Brent Green the invisible boy (also voiced by Jack Black) from My Best Friend is Invisible and a giant mantis from A Shocker On Shock Street. Will Blake's werewolf form from The Werewolf of Fever Swamp pursues them in an abandoned supermarket. They escape and Zach's aunt Lorraine (Jillian Bell) hits the werewolf with her car. As Stine and the kids continue toward the high school through the cemetery, Zach notices that Hannah glows a ghostly blue in the moonlight. Before he can ask her about it, a zombie bursts out of the ground. After they escape the zombies from Welcome To Dead House and the Graveyard Ghouls from Attack of the Graveyard Ghouls in the cemetery, he privately questions Stine about Hannah's existence. Stine reveals that she is not real, but a Goosebumps character he created after his wife died, though Hannah is unaware of this.

At the school, they find the typewriter and Stine starts working on the new book. However, Slappy confronts Stine and breaks his fingers before it can be finished. The monsters attack the school during a fall dance where the giant mantis grabs a person and the swarms of bees from Why I'm Afraid of Bees and the mutant plants from Stay Out of the Basement get into the school. Champ rescues Taylor (Halston Sage) from Will Blake's werewolf form by biting him with his silver teeth fillings and they kiss. The students have to barricade themselves inside to keep the other monsters out.

The Big Short (2015) Review

The Big Short (2015)         Biograpy & Drama

No subject in the world is inherently interesting or uninteresting, for it's always about the communicative method or channel used to promote or inform one about the subject that is either interesting or not. Having said that, some subjects are more alienating than others, and one of those subjects is economics/finance, largely because of its dependency upon a plethora of terminology and jargon that usually cannot be adequately defined without including other terminology or jargon. Before you know it, searching the definition of something like a "Roth IRA" leads you to Google searches about embezzlement and quantitative easing in efforts to try and circumvent and define what you were originally looking for.

Thankfully, Adam McKay's The Big Short assumes the audience is fairly stupid and blissfully ignorant when it comes to the interworkings of what led to the global economic crisis of 2007-2008, which saw record unemployment and catastrophic results for the usually reliable housing market. In true movie fashion, we observe the financial crash, not from an insider standpoint, where sure-fire, grade-A trades and exchanges are being made, but by a plethora of quirky outsiders trying to run away from a boulder that keeps gaining on them until it flattens them and everyone in their tracks. The only ones saved are the ones who didn't manage to fall or stumble when pushing said boulder down the hill in the first place.

We initially meet a quirky hedge fund manager named Michael Burry (Christian Bale), who discovers that the U.S. housing market is based on a series of subprime loans (which, we are told by Margot Robbie as she soaks in a bubblebath whilst sipping champagne, may as well be synonymous with "s***") and is inevitably going to collapse sometime in the second quarter of 2007. Being that the housing market is often viewed as the safest bet in America, Michael begins to go around to different banks to bet against the stability and long-term security of the housing market in efforts to profit from the impending disaster.

Spotlight (2015) Review

Spotlight (2015) Drama & History

After watching Spotlight yesterday, I felt heartbroken, disgusted and furious. The topic, plot and dialogues built around them are amazingly good, but what's this movie's strongest point still remains remarkable acting of fantastic assembly cast - from Keaton and Ruffalo, to Huff and Creighton.

My opinion about Thomas McCarthy was fairly split. Although he had done some pretty good ("The Visitor", "The Station Agent"), but also some average ("Win Win", "Million Dollar Arm") and even bad ("The Cobbler") movies, he had only directed 5 of them before "Spotlight", so I was inclined not to prejudge. Before watching the movie I've heard some pretty good comments about how he dealt with directing, and I have to say that he did pretty fair job with it. His and Singer's job as screenwriters, however, was done remarkably. It is one of those scripts where you can notice writers weren't afraid to be progressive, to input lots of names, events and different speaking styles to make it more realistic, active and suspenseful. You can definitely notice Singer has previously worked on lots of Crime TV series, as the script unravels in very thrilling, climatic way it usually happens in Crime TV shows.

On the other hand, acting was just superb. I think this movie should serve as a benchmark for all the well-acted movies that are yet to come. I believe that, if Academy was to nominate 10 supporting actors this year, all 4 of them - Keaton, Ruffalo, Tucci and Schreiber would've gotten a nod. Sadly, beside Rylance ("Bridge of Spies"), Stallone ("Creed"), Elba ("Beasts of no Nation"), Shannon ("99 Homes") and young Tremblay ("Room"), I can hardly see more than Keaton and Ruffalo in that race. I also think Rachel McAdams does a pretty good job as an only female Spotlight reporter. In fact, her "interrogation" scenes with Keaton tie with Ruffalo's amazing "It could've been you, it could've been me, it could've been any of us" monologue for the best scenes of, not just the movie, but maybe even the whole year.

To be honest, Spotlight is no Birdman, but it is still the greatest drama of the year. It's a very clever movie, with immensely important topic and near-perfect dialogues, crafted both by amazing actors and great screen writing. If "The Revenant", "Joy" or "Hateful Eight" don't prove to be better, this is the movie I will root for during the Oscar night.

Room (2015) Review

Room (2015) Drama

Room, based on the book by Emma Donoghue, starts on young Jack's 5th birthday. He gets a birthday cake from his mother (but no candles); a visit from his father; and a gift, albeit belatedly. This would all be perfectly normal except that all of this takes place within 'Room' - a confined space with only a single skylight for daylight and no means of escape. For the mother, Joy, was abducted as a teen and locked away for sex in the style of the dreadful real-life examples such as that perpetrated by Josef Fritzl in Austria. Jack is the (presumably) unintended result: a boy with no perception of the real world beyond his four single-sided walls and with the staunchly-held view that the things he sees on a flickering TV screen are in 'TV land' and unreal. Will Jack and Joy survive and ever see freedom again? 

And that's where I'll leave this synopsis, since (if you've been lucky enough to avoid the trailer) there is a tense cat-and-mouse story to unfurl here.

This is an absorbing, although slow-moving, film that builds to some truly nail-biting moments. The screenwriter (also Donoghue) and director (Irishman Lenny "Frank" Abrahamson) are to be commended in keeping the story and drama really well-grounded and un-saccharined. Old Nick (Sean Bridgers), the 'evil kidnapper', is not painted as some predictable monster: he is even portrayed to be kind and caring at some warped level. And there is no gratuitous sex: we are in effect seven years into the story and the abnormal is now completely normalised.

Zoolander 2 (2016) Review

Zoolander 2 (2016) Comedy

After a 15-year hiatus, Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) and Hansel (Owen Wilson) will soon walk down the runway yet again. Zoolander 2 has become one of – if not the – most highly anticipated comedies of the coming year, and the release of its first trailer last week only increased that anticipation. However, not everyone is thrilled with what they saw when the trailer dropped. LGBT activists have now called for a boycott of the film due to its allegedly offensive portrayal of the transgender community.

THR reports that the controversy in question stems from a particular character in the film named All, portrayed by geek messiah Benedict Cumberbatch. All – as the name would suggest – is an androgynous supermodel that does not fit into the binary perception of gender. When introduced to Derek and Hansel, the former asks if All is a male or female model, followed by the latter clarifying with the question, "Do you have a hot dog or a bun?" It's a fleeting moment, but one that did not sit well with quite a few people.

LGBT activist Sarah Rose – whose petition to boycott the film has received almost 6,000 signatures – spoke out against what she perceives to be an offensive portrayal of trans people in the film:

Cumberbatch’s character is clearly portrayed as an over-the-top, cartoonish mockery of androgyne/trans/non-binary individuals… This is the modern equivalent of using blackface to represent a minority. Like any rational person, I think there's a place for discourse and humor in society, but the last thing the transgender community needs at this moment is another harmful, cartoonish portrayal of our lives.

Deadpool (2016) Review

Deadpool (2016) Action & Adventure

"Deadpool" is the story of two like-minded individuals who fall in love amidst calamitous hardships – and physiology-altering mutant abilities with disfiguring side effects. Former Special Forces soldier Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) works as a mercenary-for-hire out of Sister Margaret's School for Wayward Children. Running his mouth while running odious lowlifes out of business nets him a satisfying career that also inadvertently introduces him to Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), a prostitute who shares his penchant for dark humor and funereal banter. The two quickly fall in love and become engaged, only to discover shortly thereafter that Wade is afflicted with terminal cancer. Unwilling to subject Vanessa to further torment and misery, Wilson spontaneously leaves her. When a mysterious broker offers the desperate man a possible remedy, he agrees to undergo an experimental procedure that will change his life forever.

Posing itself as the ultimate anti-superhero movie (with a theatrical release timed for Valentine's Day), "Deadpool" goes to great lengths to distance itself from the pack of recent Marvel entities, which have become more or less interchangeable. The problem is that it accomplishes this mission with such unyielding purposefulness that it regularly ceases to be a about a character in a film; at times, the world of Deadpool exists somewhere in between the Marvel Cinematic Universe, self-aware satire, and an alternate reality, where superheroes are recognized as products of movie studios. Fortunately, the humor tends to make up for the noncanonical bits and the occasionally unwelcome attention towards the fictionality of cinema.

Crazy credits, pop culture references, animation mid-scene, nods to movie tropes ("It might further the plot," suggests T.J. Miller's Weasel, when motioning Wade to meet a black-clad man in a shadowy corner booth), and routine breaking of the fourth wall are all gimmicks to highlight the flaws of superhero pictures, as well as to mock them mercilessly. It's funny to see this skewering in action, but it becomes contrary as the film progresses, particularly as it begins to employ the very techniques and devices previously laid bare for roasting. Had "Deadpool" chosen to use only super-soldiers and human sidekicks, it would have been forgivable to see the star prancing about like an R-Rated version of "The Mask," filled with the dirty dialogue of Kevin Smith. But once Colossus (voiced by Stefan Kapicic) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) show up (and Angel Dust - played by Gina Carano - reveals her abilities), the cliché superhero customs turn exhausting rather than facetiously self-deprecating.