Film Review: The Wolverine

The Wolverine. Rated M (frequent action violence and coarse language). 126 minutes. Directed by James Mangold. Screenplay by Mark Bomback and Scott Frank.

Verdict: A peculiar romance/superhero hybrid that never quite reaches its potential.

Can too much of Hugh Jackman’s incarnation as The Wolverine be a bad thing? With Jackman bulked up and front and centre in almost every frame, The Wolverine suffers from a frustrating unevenness in tone and a screenplay that veers dangerously toward the repetitive, tried-and-trusted superhero formula. It’s a shame, because when the film is raging against its peculiar ordinariness (the sequences on the roof of a Bullet Train and Wolverine being relentlessly harpooned to standstill are stand-outs), it shows real promise.

It begins, too, with a great set-up as the atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki. Logan/Wolverine, who is imprisoned in a deep, brick-lined chamber, rescues a young Japanese soldier Yashida (Ken Yamamura) from the effects of the blast. Years later, Logan is summoned to the older Yashida’s (Haruhiko Yamanouchi) deathbed – ostensibly to be thanked for saving his life all those years ago. But as Yashida’s ulterior motive becomes clear, Logan must protect Mariko (Tao Okamoto), the heiress of the ageing Yashida’s technology company’s fortune in order to discover precisely what the ailing Yashida is really planning.

Mangold (3:10 to Yuma, Walk the Line, Girl, Interrupted) is at his best in the well-considered, action set pieces, while Bomback (Total Recall, Unstoppable, Die Hard 4) and Frank’s (Marley & Me, Minority Report) screenplay lacks efficiency and only contains a couple of moments of genuine effectiveness. The problems stem from the key relationship between Logan and Mariko – on which film focuses almost entirely – and which is not interesting enough to sustain the film’s dramatic core. We too often find ourselves in a strange Marvel/Jason Bourne/Romantic Drama hybrid world, which is at complete odds with everything we are led to expect from the film’s opening sequences.

Rila Fukushima’s fabulous Yukio (an Anime-inspired character who insists on becoming Logan’s bodyguard), is the film’s saving grace (and the most accomplished performance), while Svetlana Khodchenkova’s toxic Viper simply doesn’t get enough screen time. Viper becomes a cardboard cut-out character, and with less of the Mariko/Logan romantic musings, she might have become a more interesting character – not to mention a fascinating foe for the ever-frowning, and mostly depressed (and depressing) Wolverine.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Monsters University

Monsters University. Rated G. 110 minutes. Directed by Dan Scanlon. Screenplay by Daniel Gerson, Robert L Baird and Dan Scanlon.

Verdict: A long, laughless Pixar misfire that plays it deadly straight.

Prequels, like sequels, can be difficult films to make work in their own right – and this prequel to 2001’s hugely successful Monsters, Inc. suffers from running overtime (with young ones obviously struggling to stay the distance), and its over-populated character list that results in bloat and clutter.

Monsters University tells the story of how one-eyed monster Michael Wazowski (voiced by Billy Crystal) met his pal, the big blue monster James P Sullivan (John Goodman), at, well, university. Under the watchful gaze of Dean Abigail Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren), Michael and James must overcome their natural inability to be truly scary in order to keep their place in the university’s prestigious ‘scare program’. Finding themselves relegated to a group of misfits – the university’s Oozma Kappa fraternity who operate from a quaint suburban house – the unlikely group of timid monsters must use all their resources to ensure they have a future as the truly scary monsters they dream of becoming.

There is no doubting the effectiveness of the splendid animation on show here, but there is little of the sheer creative adventurousness we have come to love, admire, and expect from Pixar (Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, WALL-E). Gerson, Baird and Scanlon’s screenplay is a limp, cheerless affair that gives the impression of being stuck in an endless loop of deadly earnestness that appears to be have been so keen to secure a G rating that its neglected to include anything of genuine interest.

The one sequence that comes close to inspirational, is when Michael and James inadvertently find themselves trapped in the human world – where in order to return to the monster’s realm, they must scare a group of policeman half to death. As beautifully done as it is (with a fine line about learning to accept our strengths and our weaknesses equally), it also achieves nothing more than to pad out a film that could have done with a major injection of laughs and some form of interesting conflict.

As it stands, Monsters University is a harmless and humourless affair that will keep the kids interested for at least half of its running time. Good luck with the other half.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: This is the End

This is The End. Rated MA15+ (strong crude humour, coarse language, sexual references, comedic violence, nudity and drug use). 107 minutes. Written and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg.

Verdict: One for the boys.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Seth Rogen (The Green Hornet, Pineapple Express, Superbad, Da Ali G Show) and his gang of (mostly) B-Grade Hollywood celebrities have a field day sending themselves, their employers and the doomsday genre up mercilessly with this rough and ready outing into vanity film-making. How they get away with it (and what their managers might think) is anyone’s guess – especially in the case of James Franco, who risks never being taken seriously in a movie again.

When Rogen’s friend Jay Baruchel (How to Train Your Dragon, She's Out of My League, Million Dollar Baby) comes to stay for a weekend in LA, the best buddies end up at a wild party at James Franco’s (Oz the Great and Powerful, 127 Hours) house where the guests include Emma Watson (Harry Potter’s Hermione Granger), Jonah Hill (Moneyball, Get Him to The Greek) and Rihanna. But when Judgement Day arrives, the fun and games are seriously turned upside down.

On one level, This is The End is a massive ego-trip made by a bunch of actors that many audience members will struggle to recognise – and if you haven’t seen their similarly styled breakout project Pineapple Express, a good percentage of the film will sail right over your head. But it’s precisely the extent of their collective conceit that also provides the film with its peculiar attractiveness. If you can get past the almost prehistoric premise that these actors are playing themselves, it ends up being a snide, funny, crass, breath of fresh air with genuine laughs, a couple of jump-out-of-your-seat frights, and some fabulously over-the-top visual effects.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim. Rated M (science fiction violence). 131 minutes. Directed by Guillermo del Toro. Screenplay by Travis Beacham and Guillermo del Toro.

Verdict: The most perfect invading alien monster flick in recent memory.

Lovers of the good old invading alien monsters movie will have the time of their lives with del Toro’s spectacular, no holds barred adventure – possibly the most perfect example of its kind in recent memory. Waiting for the film to trip over itself (it’s a massively ambitious undertaking), becomes a futile exercise as the early action set pieces (which also feed in the crucial back-story) scorch across the screen in marvellously accomplished style.

As gigantic Kaijus (the Japanese word for monsters) rise from the depths of the Pacific Ocean to conquer the world, humans have developed massive fighting machines called Jaegers (German for hunter) to wage war against the invading beasts. Piloted by two humans whose brains are linked to ensure they are not overwhelmed by the ferocity of the Kaijus, the Jaegers are ultimately found to be a futile defence. But when two young pilots Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) and Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) take control of the decommissioned Jaeger ‘Gipsy Danger’ – each with a score to settle – the Jaegers find themselves back at the frontline in a race against time to close the deep-sea portal once and for all.

Del Toro (Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy) and his frequent collaborator, Cinematographer Guillermo Navarro, expertly account for the film’s technological and visual challenges – helped enormously by the stunning work of Production Designers Andrew Neskoromny (Apollo 18, AVPR: Aliens vs Predator – Requiem, Dawn of the Dead) and Carol Spier (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen).

Del Toro and Beacham’s (Clash of the Titans) screenplay, while heavy on the patriotic and nationalistic imperatives that are standard fare in Hollywood blockbusters, also manages to inflate the stakes at play from the very beginning and keep them high all the way through – ensuring that our interest and involvement in the story never wanes.

The cast, led by the charismatic Hunnam and the feisty Kikuchi, play the material for all it’s worth – even if they are ultimately swamped by the film’s brilliant alien monster versus man-made robot visual and technological brilliance.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Man of Steel

Man of Steel. Rated M (science fiction violence). 143 minutes. Directed by Zack Snyder. Screenplay by David S Goyer.

Verdict: A potentially great film inexplicably loses its way and collapses into chaos.

There’s a defining moment in this fantastic, frenetic, but ultimately flawed telling of the Superman legend. Our hero Kal-El, played to furrowed-brow perfection by British Adonis Henry Cavill, is preparing to destroy the meglomaniacal General Zod’s (Michael Shannon) ‘world engine’ – a machine that is transforming the earth’s atmosphere into one that will no longer be inhabitable by humans. Having wrestled himself free of a shape-shifting metallic monstrosity, Superman summons all of his power and soars into the heart of the machine – powered there by an astonishing climax to Hans Zimmer’s (Inception, The Dark Knight, Sherlock Holmes) score – in an effort to restore balance to the planet. It is comic book perfection.

Snyder’s (Sucker Punch, Legend of the Guardians, Watchmen, 300) and Goyer’s work is undeniably at its best in the first two thirds of the film, and particularly the first act – where the self-destructing Krypton is superbly realised. Presided over by a fine, urgent and stately performance from Russell Crowe as Kal’El’s father Jor-El, the origins of the infant’s dispatch to Earth establish the conflict (that eventually grinds the remainder of the film into the ground) with an epic sense of a child’s (and a race’s) destiny.

The charting of young Clark’s journey to adulthood is equally involving, with an anti-narrative structure that takes us both forwards and backwards beautifully as the young man’s backstory is fleshed out. The scenes between Dylan Sprayberry’s anxiety-stricken 13-year-old Clark and Kevin Costner’s Jonathon Kent are deeply moving, while Diane Lane’s performance as the long-suffering, heroic Martha Kent is the best of the film.

The care the filmmakers have taken to establish a deeply heartfelt engagement with the story’s lead characters, makes its eventual collapse into chaotic, overly destructive, 9/11 exploitation simply impossible to justify. And, unforgivably, that sensation you will feel as Clark and Lois (a fine Amy Adams) kiss amongst the ruins of New York (sorry, Metropolis), is something like absolute bewilderment as to how something so right could have gone so horribly wrong.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: World War Z

World War Z. Rated M (horror themes, violence and infrequent coarse language). 116 minutes. Directed by Marc Forster. Screenplay by Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard and Damon Lindelof. Based on the novel by Max Brooks.

Verdict: Just makes it over the line thanks to a fine performance from a desperate Brad Pitt.

For a genre famous for gruesome, low-budget films – such as those mastered by the founding father of ‘the zombie movie’ George A Romero with his Night of the Living Dead (1968) – this over-produced epic has struggled to make it to the screen. Reports of radical re-writes and re-shoots have plagued its journey to the cinema, and while it is certainly not a disaster, its flaws are obvious and many.

Former United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) has worked in some serious trouble zones around the world. When the human race is threatened with extermination by a plague of zombies, Lane is handpicked to lead the race to find the source of the outbreak, and identify a possible defence against it.

As one expects from the classy Pitt, he throws himself into the chaotic proceedings with real flair and dedication – and in less capable hands, the film would have been far less effective than it is. There is no doubt that this is a star turn, and he receives excellent support from Daniella Kertesz, whose Israeli soldier Segen accompanies Gerry on the final stages of his mission to halt the zombie onslaught.

While Foster (Quantum of Solace, Finding Neverland, Monster's Ball) has made vastly superior films to this one, his eye for both spectacle and intimate human drama ensures that World War Z maintains a certain kind of equilibrium that is ultimately what holds the film together in a modestly satisfying manner.

Cinematographer Ben Seresin (Unstoppable, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) has us spending far too much of the time in the dark (possibly to make up for the below par visual effects), but the early sequences in Philadelphia and later in Jerusalem, where the zombies swarm over the Israeli’s defensive walls, are spectacular.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.