Film Review: Insurgent

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Insurgent. Rated M (science fiction themes and violence). 119 minutes. Directed by Robert Schwentke. Screenplay by Brian Duffield and Mark Bomback. Based on the novel by Veronica Roth.

Verdict: A series of spectacular sequences almost save this long, bloated sequel.

For the plethora of films that focus on young adults fighting to survive in a post-apocalyptic world, the challenge is to create enough points of difference to ensure we remain interested. Like The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 (2014), Insurgent’s padded-out story could have been told in half the time, which is a major disappointment because when Insurgent is good, it is very good.

Picking up where Divergent (2014) left us, Tris (Shailene Woodley), Four (Theo James), Peter (Miles Teller) and Caleb (Ansel Elgort) are on the run from Eric (Jai Courtney) and his gang of mercenaries. Jeanine (Kate Winslet) wants Tris captured and brought to the Erudite faction, where Jeanine is desperate to identify the contents of a mysterious box that she believes will provide her with more power over the population. Only a Divergent can solve the riddle of how the box is opened, and Jeanine is convinced that Tris will be her best chance of success.

Woodley has settled into the role of the reluctant heroine beautifully, and Schwentke is absolutely right to ensure that she is the star attraction as often as possible.

But where Insurgent really works is in the spectacular sequences involving the simulations that Tris is subjected to in order to solve the riddle of the box. Plugged in to an octopus-like cluster of cables, she is plunged into virtual worlds where she must endure life-threatening challenges. While the visual effects and Joseph Trapanese’s score are superb to experience in these sequences, they also serve to reveal just how many moments of genuine intrigue and engagement are completely absent from the rest of the film.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

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: Total Recall

Total Recall. Rated M (action violence, coarse language and nudity). 118 minutes. Directed by Len Wiseman. Screenplay by Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback.

Verdict: A visually dazzling example of the very best the sic-fi action genre has to offer.

Philip K Dick’s short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale was first adapted for the screen as Total Recall (1990). Directed by Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Starship Troopers) and featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger as construction worker Douglas Quaid who ends up defending the human population of Mars from evil oppressors, Total Recall went on to become a classic of the science fiction action genre.

What is particularly interesting about Wimmer (Salt) and Bomback’s (Unstoppable, Die Hard 4.0) new adaptation is how successfully it manages to incorporate the mind-bending complexities of Dick’s extraordinary story while adding sufficiently involving new geographic challenges. Instead of impending hostilities on Mars, the invading forces are now preparing to travel through the Earth’s core (courtesy of a ripper ride called ‘The Fall’) from ‘The United Federation of Britain’ to exterminate the population of ‘The Colony’ – Australia.