Film Review: Sex Tape

Sex Tape. Rated MA15+ (strong sex scenes, sexual references, coarse language and drug use). 94 minutes. Directed by Jake Kasdan. Screenplay by Kate Angelo, Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller.

Verdict: Apple® product placement reaches a new high.

Cameron Diaz, Jason Segel and Jake Kasdan first worked together on Bad Teacher (2011), the story of Diaz’s ‘bad’ teacher Elizabeth, who quits her job to marry her rich boyfriend, only to find herself back in the classroom again after he dumps her. Her mission to find another wealthy man to marry was one of the most unexpectedly enjoyable films of the season. Even though it has its moments, this outing for the trio is considerably less successful.

When parents Annie (Diaz) and Jay (Segel) try to rekindle their previously passionate sex life by making a sex tape, copies of the resulting video end up being shared amongst their friends on second-hand iPads that Jay gives them as gifts. When Annie’s future employer Hank (Rob Lowe) receives one of the iPads, Annie and Jay decide to go to whatever lengths are necessary to retrieve it before he has the chance to watch it.

Lowe is an odd choice for the role of Annie’s future boss, mostly because it is impossible to ignore the fact that he had his own infamous moment in the ‘sex tape’ sun way back 1989. Lowe has become a fine actor over the years, and his performance as the peculiar Hank is well below the standard he has set for himself in West Wing and Brothers and Sisters.

When it is not resembling an over-produced commercial for every Apple® product under the sun (Jay owns a ridiculous number of the company’s devices), the screenplay struggles to last the distance. While there are certainly some big laughs to be had (the scenes involving Jay and Hank’s German Shepherd guard dog are ridiculously over the top), it ultimately feels as though everyone is trying just that little bit too hard to get it over the line.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Rated M (violence and infrequent coarse language). 130 minutes. Directed by Matt Reeves. Screenplay by Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver.

Verdict: A compelling return to the rebooted Planet of the Apes.

This sequel to Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) has its problems, but under Reeves’ (Cloverfield) inspired direction, it manages to mask almost all of them.

Human survivors of the ALZ-113 plague are holed-up in what is left of San Francisco. In the mountains, the apes have established a civilised, self-sufficient community lead by Caesar (Andy Serkis). But when the two communities collide, a battle for supremacy erupts.

While the early sequences involving the apes, horses, a bear and a herd of wilder-beast are clunky, the motion capture technology comes into its own once the script begins to focus on character. Serkis, who is the technology’s human heart and soul (he played Gollum, King Kong and Caesar in Rise …), delivers another superb performance as Caesar. He is beautifully supported by Nick Thurston as his son, Blue Eyes. Our eyes are the windows to our soul, and these two bring great depth to the story with only their eyes.

Australian-born Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty) is great as Malcolm, one of the leaders of the human community, and his complex struggle with the ethics of sacrificing peace for the sake of having access to electricity, is one of the scripts many involving storylines.

While the human-hating Koba (Toby Kebbell) feels too much like The Lion King’s Scar, the complexity of the different relationships that feed the story are entirely absorbing. As Reeves moves in for a spectacular close-up on Caesar’s eyes at the end of the film, it might be impossible to know who you will care about most in the impending battle that is to come.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Jersey Boys

Jersey Boys. Rated M (frequent coarse language). 134 minutes. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Screenplay by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice.

Verdict: Clint Eastwood delivers the sensational Jersey Boys to the screen flawlessly.

Since its Broadway premiere in 2005, Brickman and Elice’s music theatre version of Jersey Boys has played to critical and public acclaim all over the world. Boasting the perfect rags-to-riches and back to rags again story about four boys from New Jersey who would achieve international fame as The Four Seasons, and a soundtrack to die for, this cinematic adaptation is simply perfection.

Eastwood (as he proved with Million Dollar Baby and Changeling to name just two of his directorial triumphs), understands the intimacy of human drama possibly better than any director working in cinema today. With his constant collaborators, cinematographer Tom Stern and production designer James Murakami, Eastwood painstakingly recreates the era to perfection, acknowledging the work’s origins with a lavish, multi-dimensional theatrical sensibility.

John Lloyd Young (who played Frankie Valli on Broadway) leads an exceptionally multi-talented ensemble, who embrace the material with consummate passion and skill. It’s not hard to see why Lloyd Young won practically every award going for his Broadway debut performance as Valli. Not only does he account for the performer’s powerful falsetto magnificently, Lloyd Young’s is an un-showy performance of immense musical and emotional depth.

Vincent Piazza (Boardwalk Empire) is equally good as the charismatic Tommy DeVito, whose determination to create a better life for himself and his friends would derail spectacularly as the group began to achieve its well-deserved recognition. Piazza brings the loveable rogue to the screen beautifully, and if it is impossible to dislike him for the role he plays in the group’s final years together, it’s because without him, they would never have existed.

It’s unlikely that nostalgia buffs will have a better time in the cinema this year than with this lovingly crafted film from a director who, somehow, just keeps getting better and better.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Transformers: Age of Extinction

Transformers: Age of Extinction. Rated M (action violence and coarse language). 165 minutes. Directed by Michael Bay. Screenplay by Ehren Kruger.

Verdict: A long, bloated script lets down a visual triumph.

Deep in the heart of this fourth film in the Transformers series is a great little story about the importance and value of loyal allies. Sadly, after two and three quarters hours, it becomes almost impossible to care, and metal fatigue takes on an entirely new meaning.

It has been five years since Chicago was destroyed in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) is an inventor who is struggling to make ends meet and to be able to afford to send his teenage daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz) to college.

When he discovers an old truck in a run-down picture theatre, Cade takes it home to restore it to hopefully make some money. Instead, the old truck transforms into the now fugitive Optimus Prime, and attracts the attention of rogue CIA agent Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer) who is working with a megalomaniacal Transformer, Lockdown, to find and destroy all of the remaining Autobots.

The battle for supremacy between the humans, the Transformers, and Stanley Tucci’s inventor Joshua Joyce, who has isolated ‘Transformium’ (the morphing process that enables the Transformers to change their form), is never less than a visual triumph. Even after four movies, the transformations are still a thrilling experience, and the marauding Lockdown’s spaceship is a masterpiece of design and functionality from production designer Jeffrey Beecroft (making his debut with the series).

Instead of Chicago, this time it is Hong Kong’s turn to be decimated. In one astonishing sequence, Lockdown’s magnetic spaceship moves across the city, vacuuming up everything in its path, only to release it all back down on the terrified population. Had we not had to wait so long for the final slap-down, it might have been even more spectacular.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: How to Train Your Dragon 2

How to Train Your Dragon 2. Rated PG (mild fantasy themes and violence). 102 minutes. Written and directed by Dean DeBlois. Based on the novels by Cressida Cowell.

Verdict: This perfectly dazzling sequel is a must-see in 3D.

A sequel to the stunning How to Train Your Dragon (2010) was always going to be tricky. The first film (in what is now slated as a trilogy) was a complete story in its own right – a classic rite of passage tale about a young Viking, Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), and the fearsome dragons he would learn to understand, tame and love.

Not that any reservations appear to have troubled DeBlois and his collaborators, for here we have the most perfect sequel imaginable – a film that not only looks and sounds magnificent, but one that takes the story of Hiccup (a perfect Baruchel again) and his clan to fantastic new heights of storytelling.

From the opening shot, DeBlois and editor John Carr are never less than in complete control, with a dazzling (in 3D it is mind-blowing) opening sequence of gravity-defying spectacle, as the clan’s young dragon riders participate in the annual Dragon Race. While Hiccup and Toothless are away exploring new worlds, they fall foul of a gang of dragon trappers who are working for the evil despot Drago Bludvist (Djimon Hounsou). Using a ferocious alpha dragon’s powers of hypnotism to turn the peaceful dragons against their owners, Bludvist is threatening to take over every clan in the land.

Packed with high drama and spectacular action in equal measure, How to Train Your Dragon 2 is a remarkable achievement. DeBlois refuses to shy away from the confronting events that occur in Hiccup’s perilous fight (and flight) for independence, and powered by John Powell’s ravishing score, the emotional stakes at play will challenge even the hardest of hearts.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.