REVIEW | The Dark Knight Rises

This is not Spiderman 3. It is not Iron Man 2. But this is also not very good.

The final chapter of Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is beautifully shot, with the cinematography and direction being superb throughout. The acting is excellent from those who have been with the trilogy throughout and even better from Hardy as Bane, JGL as the new Gary Oldman/spoiler and, best of all, Hathaway as Catwoman. These three, along with Bale, earn their moments of levity in this flick and they do so with aplomb. The major set pieces are just stunning, whether understated in the sense of the final scene involving the bomb or even the shots shown in the trailer of the bridges in the distance, or balls out crazy like that of the football stadium, they are created with the same level of detail and care.

Unfortunately everything else isn’t. There are far too many plot-holes in this movie to simply wave them off as being par for the course with a blockbuster (see another person’s excellent but spoilerific run through here for proof) but while I was sitting there in the cinema aghast at these utterly fucking bonkers moments, there are more fundamental problems. There is not a simple, central narrative to the story like those of the first films, making the entire middle section a mess. The editing is poor, even from the start where we are first introduced to Commissioner Gordon talking about Harvey Dent for a matter of seconds before cutting to Bane In A Plane for the entirety of that sequence before jumping back to Gordon talking about Dent making that initial moment entirely unnecessary. A daft nitpick but from that moment I knew that we were in for a bumpy ride. The now obligatory car chase is dumb as hell and serves absolutely no purpose. Bane is big but he is nowhere near as frightening as Joker.

This culminates in a film that, even if you were not acknowledging it as the final chapter of the series, has bigger stakes than the previous two and yet I felt nothing. No concern, no emotional tugs and no interest. It seems as though Nolan had a great many ideas for the film and, when the movie came in at over four hours, decided against cutting chunks to make it more linear and opted instead to trim, rendering the entire movie undeveloped. This not only makes it a disappointing end to the trilogy but a bad movie when considered as a stand-alone.

Verdict: Spunk

DAN

REVIEW | Nostalgia For The Light

This is a poetically narrated, stunningly photographed, blissfully philosophical look at two groups of people who inhabit the Atacama desert in Chile. Firstly we are introduced to the astrologers who have descended on the desert to take advantage of the clear and thin skies. Telescopes have been built that stand in stark contrast to the dry surface of the desert, a place that has been said to resemble the surface of Mars due to it’s lack of humidity and moisture. Secondly we meet a group of women who have searched and dug amongst the rubble for almost thirty years for the remains of their loved ones who were initially dumped into grave pits in the desert before being dug up and apparently dropped into the sea. It it this juxtaposition between the two groups and the idea of them both desperately trying to find answers to our past in very different ways that is the main thesis behind the film and it is equally as compelling in it’s visuals, narration, subjects and point of view, a mesmerizing piece of documentary film-making.

Verdict: Movie

DAN

REVIEW | Magic Mike

Issues that blokes will have with this movie:

  1.  It’s about dudes stripping.
  2.  The cast has a bunch of fellas better known for rom-coms and chick movies.

That’s it, and neither of those are entirely fair.

This is a movie about strippers rather than stripping. Sure there’s a fair bit of gyrating willies, thonged arse-wobbles and oiled torsos, but this is a movie about the people rather than their jobs and Soderbergh, Reid and Tatum have nailed that. It’s not flashy, it’s not overtly pandering to hen party crowds and it would be as good a movie if it were about bartenders.

As for point two, McConaughey had the Lincoln Lawyer last year, has been in the controversially dark Killer Joe this year already and has The Paper Boy, a movie that shocked Cannes, still to come in 2012. He is definitely doing his best to erase Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past and Failure To Launch from our brains. Tatum has been in The Vow but he has also out-funnied Jonah Hill in 21 Jump Street and his four films this year have an average Rotten Tomatoes score of 68.25%. As for Pettyfer, he still cannot act but he does his best impression of an actor here. Regardless, Tatum and McConaughey are worth the admission price alone here.

This is a really fun, enjoyable flick that worked on an entertainment basis perfectly. The pacing is really good, the direction works perfectly and the whole piece seems very naturalistic. There was one flaw however, and that is how lightweight it feels. It never quite convinced in any facet of the film, whether it be characters, themes or plot, introducing certain elements and then never exploring them in a satisfying manner.

And fellas, if you’re still not sure if this movie is for you, you get to see more boobs than willy, including those of Olivia Munn. You can probably find those on the internet though, right?

Verdict: Movie

DAN

REVIEW | Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

There are not enough movies about regular people at the end of the world. Not sons of scientists (Day After Tomorrow) or amateur astronomers (Deep Impact), but everyday people who can have fuck all impact on the outcome. That’s what we get here when Dodge (Carell) and Penny (Knightley) decide to join forces to live out their final wishes. Unfortunately their relationship often descends into typical faux-indie romance territory and they rely on the audience to keep reminding themselves of the tragic backdrop to elevate it in any way. To reinforce the situation we are treated to an incredible supporting cast along the way and it is when it becomes the world’s last ever road movie that it is at its most entertaining. Whether it be Rob Corrdry and Patton Oswalt rejecting all social and sexual etiquette at a party, Derek Luke attempting to prepare for surviving the apocalypse in military fashion or the excellent TJ Miller and Gillian Jacobs exploring a hippy, free-love lifestyle at a roadside diner, these characters explore the concept of dealing with the end of the world in a far funnier but also realistic fashion.

And this is the movies major flaw, we are forced to stick with these two leads and their relationship when we really want to explore these additional characters and, to an even greater extent, the central concept of normal people reacting to their impending doom. It is telling that the shots of people holding lawn sales or mowing grass are more moving than almost anything that happens between the two leads with the exception of a phone call that Penny has at one point.

The premise of this movie far outweighs the final outcome but that’s not to say that this isn’t an above average movie, because it is. If ever a film deserved to be remade in a few years, this is it.

Verdict: Movie

DAN

REVIEW | Katy Perry: Part of Me

This is a fun movie. Sure it’s PR propaganda that never paints Katy Perry in a bad light whether in conceiving her ‘art’, her family history or the eventual downfall of her marriage, but it’s fun all the same. If you’re not a fan of her music then you might find it hard going what with large amounts of live footage carefully chosen to represent the topic being discussed at that time, but if you don’t like her music then why the heckings would you watch the movie or even read this? There are a few moments that teeter on becoming moving, mostly those occurring in the aftermath of the relationship breakdown, but, if you’re a cynical bastard like me, you’ll find even the cuter, more natural scenes somewhat manipulative as you know that they would not paint Katy in a bad light so how do you know the difference between a genuine nice moment and a falsified one? Regardless, while this doesn’t quite manage to be a documentary in my eyes, I had a good, fun time with it.

Oh and the 3D is exactly what you would expect from it, purely there for firing foam canons and the like at the screen. I enjoyed it a great deal as, while I like the technology being used to create depth, I bloody love big balls coming at my face.

Verdict: Spunk

DAN