Film Review: Paper Towns

‪ 

Paper Towns. Rated M (sexual references). 109 minutes. Directed by Jake Schreier. Screenplay by Michael Weber and Scott Neustadter. Based on the novel by John Green.

The previous cinematic collaboration from Green, Weber and Neustadter was the hugely successful tear-jerker The Fault in Our Stars (2014), directed by Josh Boone. For this adaptation of Green’s earlier novel, Schreier takes over the directorial responsibilities, and does a simply perfect job of delivering this charming film to the screen.

Seeming to arrive out of nowhere, without the usual multi-million dollar marketing blitz, Paper Towns is about a young man, Quentin (Nat Wolff), and his fascination with his feisty, independent neighbour, Margo (Cara Delevingne), with whom he has been in love with for years. Sadly, Margo has never felt quite the same way about Quentin, and it is this classic contradiction that practically everyone will relate to on some level.

Having driven her around their neighbourhood on an entertaining night of revenge-inspired shenanigans that also serves to bring them closer together, the following day Quentin is surprised to discover that Margo has disappeared. Certain that she has fallen in love with him, Quentin believes that Margo has left a trail of clues to help him find her. With best mates Ben (Austin Abrams) and Radar (Justice Smith) in tow, Quentin sets out to find Margo and declare his undying love.

Wolff is excellent as the vulnerable young suitor who can barely find the words to describe his feelings for Delevingne’s equally good Margo, while Abrams’s over-sexed Ben guarantees some great laughs, ensuring that the film doesn’t get bogged down in doom-laden introspection.

Paper Towns also stands out from a number of other recent contributions to the ‘young adult drama’ genre by being a refreshingly intelligent, involving experience of fine, weapon-free storytelling.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

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: Terminator Genisys

Terminator Genisys. Rated M (science fiction violence and infrequent coarse language). 126 minutes. Directed by Alan Taylor. Screenplay by Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier.

The mighty Terminator series of films, which began with James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984), can easily be credited with having influenced an entire generation. Not only did Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “I’ll be back” enter the popular vernacular, there was the inspired premise of his T-800 model robot being sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor, who was yet to give birth to John, the boy who would eventually grow up to destroy the robots’ nuclear-powered weapon of human annihilation, Skynet.

Kalogridis (the brilliant Shutter Island) and Lussier’s screenplay wisely holds fast and true to the original premise, but adds an additional layer of mind-bending time-play that evolves from an early blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene involving John Connor (Jason Clarke).

John is again leading the armed resistance fighters, including Jai Courtney’s Kyle Reese, in a battle to destroy Skynet. Similarly, Schwarzenegger’s terminator is sent back to 1984 to assassinate Sarah (Emilia Clarke), and Kyle volunteers to go back and make sure she survives. But it is when John, who hadn’t been born yet, suddenly arrives back in 1984 and comes face-to-face with Sarah and Kyle that things really start to get new and interesting.

As much as Genisys is a refreshing take on the original’s storyline and the origins of Skynet, it is actually all about Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is a particular kind of cinematic royalty. While it makes no sense that ‘Pops’, (his older terminator character who now protects Sarah) meets his younger self in terminator mode, the face-off scenes between the younger and older Arnie are, like the rest of Taylor’s assured handling of this hugely entertaining adventure, an absolute treat.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Ted 2

Ted 2. Rated MA15+ (strong drug use, crude humour, sexual references and coarse language). 116 minutes. Directed by Seth MacFarlane. Screenplay by Seth MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild.

No doubt as a result of the sensational box office success enjoyed by the original Ted (2012), MacFarlane’s perverted, talking teddy bear with a toxic drug habit is back for a good deal more of exactly the same, mostly crass and tasteless, shenanigans.

Ted 2 begins with Ted (voiced by MacFarlane) marrying his sweetheart Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth). When the couple decide to start a family, his best mate John (Mark Wahlberg) offers to be the sperm donor. Unfortunately, Tami-Lyn is unable to conceive, so the couple decide to adopt a child instead. But when Ted discovers he is unable to adopt because he is legally classified as ‘property’ not human, lawyer Samantha (Amanda Seyfried) takes on the fight to have Ted’s civil rights recognised by the courts.

Just like the first film, the CGI Ted is a marvellous creation, and the extent to which you might manage to forget that he is a computer generated character says a lot about how successful Ted (and MacFarlane’s brilliant voicing of him) actually is.

But as it is with every project MacFarlane (Family Guy, A Million Ways to Die in the West) is involved with, your perception of the quality of the entertainment will depend on how you feel about his particular style of humour. At its best, Ted 2 boasts some momentary flashes of MacFarlane’s typically razor-sharp wit, mixed up with some potent and timely observations about the essence of equality.

Unfortunately, it also takes a deadly serious amount of time (just shy of two hours) to lazily and sluggishly insult, ridicule and humiliate everyone and everything in its path.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Inside Out

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.

Film Review: Jurassic World

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.

Film Review: Entourage

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.