Inside Out. Rated PG (mild themes). 102 minutes. Directed by Pete Docter and Ronaldo Del Carmen. Screenplay by Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley and Pete Docter.
It is impossible to imagine how much poorer our lives would be without the films (A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, to name just a few) from Pixar Animation Studios. Ever since their game-changing debut with Toy Story (1995), Pixar have been at the forefront of animated storytelling, and imaginations around the world have been inspired by their marvellously inventive creations.
It might also be just as impossible to imagine how Pixar could raise the bar yet again, particularly within an industry that is obsessed with producing a seemingly endless number of sequels. And while Pixar is no stranger to the perils of sequelitis, Inside Out represents a bold, original and radical departure from all that has gone before.
Set mostly inside the mind of a girl named Riley, Inside Out is about how her emotions – Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger – create, harvest and store our young heroine’s memories and life experiences. The creative team’s skill and unwavering commitment to what can only be described as a challenging and mind-altering premise, results in some extraordinary sequences and some incredibly special ones, such as those featuring the gorgeous creation that is Riley’s imaginary friend Bing Bong.
Where Inside Out succeeds without peer, is in the magical way in which an abstract Universe of emotion, thought, memory and action has been imagined and then flawlessly realised. Not only is Inside Out one of the most original films in recent memory, it is also a film that has the power to change not only the way you think, imagine and recall, but also what you think about. And these days, that is nothing less than an astonishing achievement, and one that will leave you utterly enthralled.
This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.
Jurassic World. Rated M (violence). 124 minutes. Directed by Colin Trevorrow. Screenplay by Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly.
If there is one revelation from the experience of Jurassic World, it is how wonderful the first film, Jurassic Park (1993), was. Somewhat impolitely ignoring the series’ two less-successful sequels – 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park and 2001’s Jurassic Park III – Jurassic World begins with a fully-functional theme park to which visitors now flock in their tens of thousands.
The park is run by the fastidious Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), who finds herself having to look after her nephews Zach (Nick Robinson) and Gray (Ty Simpkins) while their mother (Claire’s sister) begins divorce proceedings. When Claire is not busy meeting with the park’s owner Simon (Irrfan Khan), she is negotiating with Velociraptor trainer Owen (Chris Pratt), who Masrani wants to work more closely with the park’s newest creation, the Indominus rex. But when the fearsome and intelligent Indominus escapes from her enclosure, pandemonium reigns supreme.
Trevorrow, with one other feature film directorial credit (2012’s Safety Not Guaranteed) to his name, might have been a peculiar choice to helm this enormous undertaking, but he does a fine job steering the hectic action sequences to their moderately satisfying conclusions. The major problem is the screenplay, which apart from countless references to the vastly superior original (and several reverential nods to Jaws and King Kong), fails to establish a unique world or vision of its own.
There is no denying the overall effectiveness of the thrilling action set pieces and visual effects, and nor can you fault the spirited performances from the hard-working cast. But as Claire, in super salesperson mode, says early on: “No one’s impressed by dinosaurs anymore”. Unfortunately, by the time Jurassic World finally fades from view, it’s almost impossible not to agree.
This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.
Entourage. Rated MA15+ (strong sex scenes and coarse language). 104 minutes. Written and directed by Doug Ellin.
Verdict: The politically incorrect Entourage boys are back in town.
Loosely based on the life and times of Mark Wahlberg on his journey to movie stardom, Entourage (2004–2011) was a hit television series, created and written by Ellin, and produced for HBO by Wahlberg and Stephen Levinson.
The series focussed on the escapades of movie star Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier), his manager Eric (Kevin Connolly), his half-brother and wannabe actor, Johnny (Kevin Dillon), his loyal friend Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) and his indefatigable agent, Ari (Jeremy Piven).
The series was helped enormously by the presence of Wahlberg (and a vertiable catalogue of Hollywood stars making cameo appearances), and a good deal of its effectiveness was due to the fact that we never knew if the often outrageous storylines were based on actual events in Wahlberg’s life.
For the big screen version, Ellin has steadfastly refused to depart from his hugely successful formula, and he and his original cast members run with it at a hundred miles an hour. Vincent’s next project, a film called Hyde he is directing and starring in, has already cost Ari’s investor Larsen (Billy Bob Thornton) millions of dollars. But when Vincent tells him that he needs more money to finish it, Ari learns that the extra funds will only be forthcoming if Larsen’s troubled, spoilt son Travis (Haley Joel Osment) is allowed to personally oversee the film’s completion.
What worked for the series transfers onto the big screen in all its tasteless and politically incorrect glory. Of the cast who are mostly going through their overly familiar paces, Piven is the stand-out as the stressed-out Ari. The scene where he loses his temper during a relationship counselling session and furiously punches a framed picture of a kitten is both as wrong and as hilarious as it gets.
This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.
