Film Review: Magic Mike XXL

Magic Mike XXL. Rated MA15+ (strong coarse language and sexual references). 115 minutes. Directed by Gregory Jacobs. Screenplay by Reid Carolin.

In the three years since Magic Mike (2012), Mike (Channing Tatum) has realised his ambition of running a custom-made furniture business. Even though he is living the dream, his small business is struggling to cover its costs, and in no time at all he finds himself back as one of the Kings of Tampa for one final performance at a national strippers convention.

Before it finds its rhythm and reason, the sequel meanders along with long scenes about the circumstances in which the guys reunite. Missing, a little too obviously, is Matthew McConaughey’s Dallas, who has disappeared off to Europe. Also absent is Alex Pettyfer’s Adam, whose rite of passage from a tortured 19-year-old protégé to stripper superstardom formed the basis of Carolin’s engaging screenplay for the first film.

Fortunately, McConaughey and Pettyfer’s absence gives Carolin the opportunity to shine the spotlight back onto Tatum, who dances up a storm and is more than capable of carrying the film. He receives excellent support from the returning Joe Manganiello as Richie and Matt Bomer as Ken in particular, who also get more to play with this time around. Manganiello’s scene when he is dared to make a bored, convenience store shop assistant smile, is great fun.

But where Magic Mike XXL departs significantly, and most successfully, from the first film, is the way in which its female characters are given more depth and purpose within the story. Jada Pinkett Smith’s fascinating Rome essentially ends up replacing Dallas as the troupe’s MC, while Andie MacDowell is wonderful as divorcee Nancy, a woman who, along with her close circle of friends, discovers that their wild and untameable passions are far from extinct.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Jupiter Ascending

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Jupiter Ascending. Rated M (violence and science fiction themes). 127 minutes. Written and directed by Andy and Lana Wachowski.‬

Verdict: Cinderella meets Star Trek.

Unbeknownst to Earth-bound cleaning lady Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), she is the queen of an alien race who must be eliminated so that the powerful dynasty, led by the ruthless Balem (Eddie Redmayne), can take control of their home planet’s valuable resources. Fighting to ensure that Jupiter is restored to her rightful place as leader of the Free World is Caine Wise (Channing Tatum), a pointy-eared warrior with a wicked set of skates, who will do whatever it takes to keep Jupiter alive.

Witnessing Jupiter Ascending is like watching someone desperately trying to rescue a burnt roast dinner, with exactly the same level of impending doom and embarrassment. At its best though, it is a sumptuous visual feast that appears unable to be contained within the screen across which it blazes. But for the sheer audacity of creating a film that is so beautiful, baffling, boring and shambolic – often all at precisely the same time – you’ve simply got to hand it to The Wachowskis (The Matrix trilogy, Speed Racer, Cloud Atlas).

Jupiter Ascending is delivered to the screen with such unabashed confidence, style and budget that it almost seems rude to suggest that it hasn’t worked. The many expensive, big action set pieces are so dark and ill-defined that it is often impossible to work out what’s going on.

Tatum, who spends much of his time looking extremely uncomfortable, skates endlessly around the galaxy with his shirt off rescuing the hapless Jupiter, while Redmayne makes the bizarre choice to either whisper or scream his dialogue. Kunis, on the other hand, floats through the story looking as though she hasn’t the faintest idea what’s going on. Which is perfect really, because most of the time neither do we.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: White House Down

White House Down. Rated M (action violence and coarse language). 131 minutes. Directed by Roland Emmerich. Screenplay by James Vanderbilt.

Verdict: More than just the sets and props are reduced to rubble in this chest-thumper.

You’ve got to hand it to Emmerich (2012, The Day After Tomorrow, Godzilla, Independence Day). He’s the go-to guy whenever Hollywood thinks they need to blow-up The Whitehouse again for whatever reason. And obligingly, he does – not in quite the same spectacular fashion as he did in Independence Day (1996), but boom, and the most influential building in the world is reduced to smouldering rubble. Perversely, watching this film in the week we remember the attacks of September 11 in 2001, it’s as compelling as it is grotesque.

The mess of contradictions that surround Emmerich’s film-making career make him infuriating to watch. His The Day After Tomorrow (2004), which he has also wrote, was a spectacular achievement. His re-imagining of an ice-bound New York (and the rest of the planet) was brilliantly realised, and sequence after sequence remains extremely watchable. He also revealed himself to be a fine dramatist, particularly with the unforgettable sequences involving the glass-roofed shopping mall and the tanker that drifted up the middle of a New York street.

With White House Down, it’s business as usual as ex-soldier and Secret Service Agent wannabe John Cale (Channing Tatum doing a fine Bruce Willis impersonation) finds himself making the sure that President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) gets out of The Whitehouse alive after it is taken over by some guys with Iraq war-sized chips on their shoulders. Complicating matters is that Cale and his daughter Emily (an excellent Joey King) were in the middle of a tour of The Whitehouse at the precise moment it was taken over, and Emily, of course, is taken hostage.

Vanderbilt (The Amazing Spider-Man, Zodiac) throws everything at this turgid affair. His long, patriotic and uninspired screenplay is only saved by a fine comedic line shared between Tatum’s bluff and Foxx’s bluster, which both actors play like there will be no tomorrow.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Magic Mike

Magic Mike. Rated MA 15+ (strong nudity, sexual references, coarse language and drug use). 110 minutes. Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Screenplay by Reid Carolin.        

Verdict: A beefcake showcase that slowly reveals itself to be far more than it might, at first glance, seem.

While it’s certainly no The Full Monty (1997), in which an unlikely group of down-and-outers fight poverty with their striptease act, Magic Mike has a good deal going for it. At first glance, it’s an autobiographically-inspired showcase for the skills of the indefatigable Channing Tatum (21 Jump Street, Dear John, The Vow), who started his career as a stripper. But with Carolin’s finely-balanced screenplay and the watchful and carefully-considered eye of Soderbergh (Contagion, Traffic, Erin Brockovich), Magic Mike gradually begins to delve into the dark and dangerously addictive side of ‘showbusiness’ – self-delusion, narcissism and a rampantly destructive drug-fuelled subculture.

Film Review: 21 Jump Street

21 Jump Street. Rated MA 15+ (strong violence, crude humour, coarse language and drug use). 109 minutes. Directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller. Screenplay by Michael Bacall.

Verdict: This lame, sluggish, patchy affair all goes downhill even faster after the Johnny Depp cameo appearance.

Playing fast and loose with the iconic television drama series (pictured) on which it is based, 21 Jump Street certainly has its moments – few and far between though they are. Where the series (1987–1991) focussed on relevant and topical issues of the day, this big screen version goes entirely for laughs and, with a couple of exceptions, misses them by a wide margin.

Film Review: The Vow

The Vow. Rated PG (mild themes, coarse language, nudity and sexual references). 104 minutes. Directed by Michael Sucsy. Screenplay by Jason Katims, Abby Kohn, Marc Silverstein and Michael Sucsy.

Verdict: Perfect Valentine’s fare. Just remember to keep your seat-belt fastened at all times.

Inspired by events in the life of Kim and Krickitt Carpenter, The Vow is a romantic drama that is as solid as a rock. And almost as interesting as one.

It all starts promisingly enough as we are introduced to two love birds – Paige (Rachel McAdams) and Leo (Channing Tatum, pictured) who leave a cinema and drive off into the wintery night. Moments later, after Paige takes off her seat-belt to have sex with Leo in the car, a truck slams into the back of their randomly parked vehicle, sending her flying head-first through the windscreen.

As an Insurance Commission of WA commercial about the importance of wearing a seat-belt, it might have all ended there successfully enough. But no. There’s another 100 infuriating minutes as poor old Leo desperately tries to remind his now-amnesic wife of how wonderful their pre-accident life together was. Standing in his way are Paige’s selfish parents Bill (Sam Neill) and Rita (Jessica Lange), and her smarmy lawyer ex-boyfriend Jeremy (Scott Speedman, of Underworld fame), who each prefer the Paige they remembered, manipulated and controlled in the years before she met the free-spirited Leo.

To their unending credit, Ms McAdams (Mean Girls, Sherlock Holmes) and Mr Tatum (Dear John) invest everything they have into the laboured, cliché-ridden script – and their devotion to the tasks at hand (and their charming and engaging onscreen chemistry) works entirely in the film’s favour. Ms Lange (Frances, Crimes of the Heart, American Horror Story) takes all of a few minutes in her brief scene in the garden to give the cast an acting master-class, while Mr Neill gives the impression of never feeling entirely comfortable with the fact that he’s in a scene at all.

Even though Mr Sucsy (Grey Gardens) directs with a fine sense of respectable intimacy, nothing can mask the film’s fatal flaw – which comes when Paige earnestly (and somewhat self-defeatingly) declares that she hopes, one day, to love someone as much as Leo loves her. The temptation to scream out of sheer frustration might be all too difficult to resist.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group