The Lego Movie - Review

Directors: Phil Lord, Chris Miller Writers: Phil Lord, Chris Miller Studios: Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, Lego System A/S, Vertigo Entertainment, Lin Pictures Cast: Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Nick Offerman, Alison Brie, Charlie Day, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman Release Date (UK): 14 February 2014 Certificate: U Runtime: 100 min

ZOMG: “The Lego Movie” is awesome. Like, properly, amazingly, heart-soaringly awesome. Like, I-wanna-go-get-out-my-old-official-Lego-bucket-and-build-a-rocket-ship-with-some-brightly-coloured-interlocking-building-blocks kinda awesome. It’s so awesome its theme song is literally called “Everything is Awesome.” And this song is so infectiously catchy I can’t for the life of me imagine it ever vacating my earholes — not that I’d want it to. Sing it with me: everything is awesome, everything is cool when you’re part of a team...

Ahem. But seriously, “The Lego Movie” is super-fun. It’s like bottled joy — a bottle made of Lego! Save your silly, cynical rants about commercialism and corporatisation and let “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” duo Phil Lord and Chris Miller take you on an exhilarating sugar rush through their giant Lego playset. In fact, any and all cynicism should be quick to drown in the sea of awesome we’re invited to plunge into here; even the toughest and most doody-headed of cynics should have their veritable pants charmed off by the subversive wit and the boundless invention “The Lego Movie” boasts by the bucketload; not to mention the sheer, explosive enthusiasm bursting out from the screen and into your face.

The vividly vibrant and thrillingly hectic world of “The Lego Movie” is a seamless mix of stop-motion and computer-animation, and it is dazzlingly gorgeous. Living in this colourful land is Emmet, a sprightly but hopelessly ordinary Lego construction worker voiced by Chris Pratt who finds himself at the centre of an age-old “chosen one” scenario. Apparently he’s “the special,” the one prophesied to defeat the evil Lord Business (Will Ferrell), who schemes to glue everything and everyone into place using a secret weapon called the Kragle. On his quest, Emmet teams up with the fugitive Master Builders, among them a kooky old mystic (Morgan Freeman), a free-spirited punk chick called WyldStyle (Elizabeth Banks), Lego Batman (Will Arnett), Lego Wonder Woman (Cobie Smulders) and a robo-pirate called Metalbeard (Nick Offerman), and is pursued by a one-man good cop/bad cop duo voiced by Liam Neeson.

Sound fun? You bet your tiny plastic caboose it is. And the whole thing whizzes along at an unstoppably exuberant pace — in fact, it moves with such frenzied ferocity you half-worry it’s all going to crash at any minute but it never does and it just keeps going and it’s utterly thrilling. All the while Lord and Miller giddily undermine the clichés of the plot at every step — in one scene, Emmet daydreams through important backstory exposition, and it’s rather strongly suggested that the central prophecy was maybe, possibly, probably made up by Morgan Freeman’s mad mystic — and generate enough geeky (Lego-owned) pop culture nods and send-ups to keep any fanbase squeeing in their seats. Where else could you see Dumbledore and Gandalf sharing the screen together and Superman getting annoyed by a clingy Green Lantern?

It’s fantastic to see a family movie which values and promotes creativity, individuality and imagination so fervently, especially when it’s attached to the wise and surprising message that although being creative can be good, sometimes simply following the instructions works too. It’s also fantastic seeing a family movie which is just this funny and witty and clever in its comedy: with rapid-fire gags, Lord and Miller’s whip-smart script has a stonking laugh-a-minute hit rate. At the end, my sides were sore from all my hysterical giggling and my face was stuck in an expression of pure, child-like glee. Put simply, “The Lego Movie” made me feel like a little kid again, playing with my Lego blocks on the floor of my bedroom, building spaceships and supercars and making up wild and crazy stories. If there’s a funner film this year I will literally shit a brick (not literally). All together now: everything is awesome, everything is cool when you’re part of a team...

Rating: 10/10

RoboCop - Review

Director: José Padilha Writer: Joshua Zetumer Studios: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Columbia Pictures, Strike Entertainment Cast: Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson, Abbie Cornish, Jackie Earle Haley Release Date (UK): 7 February 2014 Certificate: 12A Runtime: 118 min

It would be far too easy for me to loudly declare that José Padilha’s shiny new “RoboCop” update is nowhere near as good as the original “RoboCop” from 1987 and then be done with it; to condemn it for lacking the smarts, the charm, the razor-sharp wit and the juicy satire of the Paul Verhoeven classic and then simply walk away. It would also be too easy to complain about the film’s much-derided PG-13 rating, which stands in bold opposition to the original’s hard-R certification; while Verhoeven’s gutter-tongued, ultraviolent sci-fi was splattered in guts and gore, Padilha’s remake takes a far more family-friendly approach; I counted a single puddle of blood and the one use of the F word — or, to be more precise, the MF word — is bleeped out.

It doesn’t take a neuro-engineer’s degree to see why hardcore fans of the Verhoeven version are pissed off — this is their favourite late-’80s blast-em-up, neutered and lobotomised for the young teen demographic. But to me, tearing down this reinvented “RoboCop” for being too tame and studio-manufactured seems a little too dismissive and knee-jerky. Because if you wipe your memory of the original film and meet this on its own terms — difficult, admittedly, considering the amount of cribbed lines and design choices (Jackie Earle Haley actually says, “I wouldn't buy that for a dollar,” I'm not kidding) — and this “RoboCop” reboot is, believe it or not, perfectly serviceable popcorn sci-fi. Now, that's certainly not what the original “RoboCop” was — it was far more daring and profound, and still is — but take this for what it is and you have a solid enough hi-tech blockbuster boasting a few scoopfuls of brain matter, plenty of style and surprising heart, if precious little blood splatter.

Besides, Padilha does manage to set his film apart from Verhoeven’s, to a certain degree. The bare bones of the plot are basically the same: in 2028 Detroit, straight-arrow police detective Alex Murphy, now played by Joel Kinnaman of the US “The Killing,” is critically injured by violent crooks. Facing death’s door, he’s taken in by robotics mega-corporation OmniCorp and reborn as the cyborg RoboCop, the future of law enforcement. What’s different is how RoboCop develops throughout the course of the story. In Verhoeven’s version, RoboCop starts off as a machine thoughtlessly following its prime directives before slowly but surely regaining its humanity. In the Padilha version it’s a little more complicated: RoboCop starts off as Murphy, his memories and personality fully intact, is stripped of his emotions when he becomes unstable and then, to the bewilderment of his creators, begins to override his programming.

What this means is that Padilha’s film lacks the (brilliant) streamlined simplicity of Verhoeven’s film — lengthy scenes featuring a distraught Murphy coming to terms with his situation and undergoing combat training could do with some trimming — but does have more focus on Murphy as a person, albeit a horribly mangled person stuck inside a robo-suit. More time is also dedicated to Murphy’s family, who in Verhoeven’s film appeared only in brief flashbacks. Here, mother and son Clara (Abbie Cornish) and David (John Paul Ruttan) are often at the front and centre of the plot: though visited by Murphy soon after his transformation, Clara and David become increasingly concerned when OmniCorp refuse them access to him. Perhaps their boosted presence overstuffs the plot, but they do lend proceedings a certain dramatic heft and aid in our emotional connection to Murphy and indeed the film.

Of course, there's a ton of CGI action on display, which Padilha handles efficiently and which should satisfy the teenage crowd. And as any fan should know, no “RoboCop” remake would be complete without some biting satire, and Padilha’s film gives it a good chomp: there are clear stabs at American businesses, politics and the media, although they’re less a fatal plunge into the dark heart of America than a slap on the wrist. An opening scene featuring an armed military drone shooting a kid dead on the streets of Tehran fits neatly into the US’s ongoing drone controversy. And like in the original, there’s a clear anti-corruption stance: Michael Keaton gets to be deliciously slimy as Raymond Sellars, the crooked head of OmniCorp, and Gary Oldman is on fine form as the genius scientist who finds himself compromised by the soulless, PR-driven world of big business. Samuel L. Jackson, meanwhile, plays a ranting, uber-patriotic, one-sided media mogul who is in no way inspired by any ranting, uber-patriotic, one-sided media moguls associated with any real American news networks like, oh I dunno, Fox News. Ahem.

But what ultimately makes Padilha’s version a success, albeit a mild one, is not the political satire, nor the CGI action. It’s that in amongst its flashy visuals and overblown set-pieces it doesn’t lose sight of it and its predecessor’s central concern: that being the all-important question, is RoboCop a machine or is he a man? Padilha understands what made Peter Weller’s man-in-a-can really tick back in ’87, his internal conflict between his programming and his humanity, and has kept that largely intact. That’s not to say that Kinnaman’s RoboCop is as compelling as Weller’s — Kinnaman tries but struggles to set himself apart from Weller’s iconic performance — but it’s those slices of humanity that help keep this from being just another brainless, hollow remake. Padilha's “RoboCop” isn’t the original film, nor did it stand a chance of being it. But it's a relief that it's directed by someone who seems to have an understanding of what made the Verhoeven film work so well. And you have to face it: this is better than it had any right to be.

Rating: 6/10

Dallas Buyers Club - Review

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I, Frankenstein - Review

Director: Stuart Beattie Writer: Stuart Beattie Studios: Lionsgate, Lakeshore Entertainment, Hopscotch Features, Sidney Kimmel Entertainment Cast: Aaron Eckhart, Bill Nighy, Yvonne Strahovski, Mirana Otto, Socratis Otto, Jai Courtney Release Date (UK): 29 January 2014 Certificate: 12A Runtime: 92 min

I don’t think this is quite what Mary Shelley was going for when she wrote of her modern Prometheus in 1818: flying stone gargoyles, snarling demons who burst into flaming fireballs, sword-waving “Clash of the Titans” rejects and a Frankenstein’s monster courtesy of Abercrombie & Fitch. As if poor Mary hadn’t spun in her grave enough times since her death in 1851, here stomps “I, Frankenstein,” which has scarred but boltless hottie Aaron Eckhart doing battle, Van Helsing style, with the computer-generated forces of darkness. In fact, the sheer, record-smashing velocity of Shelley’s coffin-spinning in response to “I, Frankenstein” ought to be enough to reanimate her corpse, which is good because it means if we dig her up she can greet director Stuart Beattie in person and then give him a good hard kick up the backside.

This dark and murky comic-book actioner, based on Kevin Grevioux’s graphic novel, reimagines Shelley’s creature as a brooding, undead anti-hero stuck in the middle of an ancient war fought between evil demons and angelic gargoyles (don't ask). For over two centuries, Frankenstein’s monster, renamed Adam by his gargoyle buddies, is hunted by hellspawn who promptly get their demonic asses handed to them. A howlingly miscast Bill Nighy is the head of the demons, the tea-sippingly sinister Prince Naberius, who seeks the unholy secrets hidden in the pages of Dr. Frankenstein’s scientific journal so that he may make his own monsters and doom mankind, or something.

The stench of “Van Helsing” is strong with this one, from the incomprehensible, bonkers plot to the dreary exposition to the eye-watering CGI overkill — actually, the only thing that worked in favour of Stephen Sommers’ bum-brained 2004 blockbuster is cripplingly absent here: a sense of humour. Maybe it could’ve worked as one of those goofy old Universal monster movie sequels, like “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man” or “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” — as this deadly serious “Underworld” knock-off, it’s a butt-numbing, headachey bore. I have no doubt that Grevioux’s original comic is lots of fun, but such an outlandish premise is easy to embrace in comic book form: it's all cartoon characters and speech bubbles, after all. Watching real life human beings doing what they do and indeed saying what they say in “I, Frankenstein,” and with such grim expressions slapped onto their faces, the only reasonable response is, “This is dumb and boring and I want my money back.”

Rating: 2/10

There, I Fixed It

Much better.

Grudge Match - Review

Director: Peter Segal Writers: Doug Ellin, Tim Kelleher, Rodney Rothman Studios: Warner Bros., Gerber Pictures, Callahan Filmworks Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, Kevin Hart, Alan Arkin, Kim Basinger, Jon Bernthal Release Date (UK): 24 January 2014 Certificate: 12A Runtime: 113 min

It sounds like a movie lover’s dream come true: Rocky vs. the Raging Bull; Stallone vs. De Niro. Two heavyweight champions of American cinema going toe-to-toe in the boxing ring. How could this not be fun? How could this not be cool? I’ll tell you how: when it’s “Grudge Match,” a punishingly punch-drunk studio comedy which pits Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro against each other and somehow manages to make that a drag to sit through. I was kind of impressed: who knew Jake LaMotta calling Rocky Balboa a “super pussy” could be so boring?

In “Grudge Match,” they play Henry “Razor” Sharp (Sly) and Billy “The Kid” McDonnen (De Niro), a couple of old Pittsburgh boxing rivals whose fierce rivalry came to a bitter end when Henry quit the sport before their final fight in the early ‘80s. Since retired and no longer on speaking terms, they’re unwittingly reunited by a promoter (Kevin Hart) who offers them a deal: one last fight, a grudge match he calls it, for a few big bucks. They accept and the “Rocky”-style training montages begin — with added old-man jokes! Meanwhile, Henry reunites with an old flame played by Kim Basinger and Billy reunites with his estranged son, played by Jon Bernthal.

Those last two sub-plots are mere distractions used to pad out the runtime: though it’s always nice to see Kim Basinger on the big screen, we know what we’re really here for, and that’s Stallone punching De Niro in the face, and vice versa. We do get that for the film’s final 20 minutes, and though that final fight is kinda fun when it finally arrives it’s not worth the tedious slog that is the film’s first hour and a half. Stallone and De Niro’s natural charms, still present even when they’re phoning it in, can’t make up for such pitifully lightweight gags, nor a script that sounds like it was written by a six year old — I mean super pussy, really?

Rating: 4/10

August: Osage County - Review

Director: John Wells Writer: Tracy Letts Studios: The Weinstein Company, Smokehouse Pictures Cast: Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Chris Cooper, Ewan McGregor, Margo Martindale, Sam Shepard, Dermot Mulroney, Julianne Nicholson, Juliette Lewis, Benedict Cumberbatch, Misty Upham, Abigail Breslin Release Date (UK): 24 January 2014 Certificate: 15 Runtime: 121 min

“August: Osage County” is a film swamped in melodrama: a darkly comic domestic drama set somewhere hot and sweaty outside Pawhuska, Oklahoma, it centres on the reunion of the most dysfunctional family in our known universe — these people make the Griffins from “Family Guy” look like the Brady Bunch. Of course, melodrama is to be expected from Tracy Letts, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play the film is adapted from: William Friedkin’s film adaptations of Letts’ previous plays “Bug” and “Killer Joe” did after all feature Michael Shannon pulling out his own teeth with a pair of pliers and Emile Hirsch having his skull caved in with a can of pumpkin puree.

There’s nothing quite so violent here, but in amongst the ferocious screaming matches and smashed dinner plates you get the sense that we’re not far from it. The estranged Weston family — among them Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor and Juliette Lewis — are reunited by crisis when patriarch Beverly (Sam Shepard) suddenly disappears without a trace. At the rural Weston country house the whole family comes together to support Beverly’s wife, the loopy, depressant-addicted Violet (Streep). As the Westons bicker and tussle it’s not long before there’s some harsh “truth tellin’” around the dinner table and dark, long-buried secrets finally come to the surface.

As the drugged-up, sharp-tongued matriarch of the family, Streep obliterates all that surrounds her, including her ensemble of co-stars — bewigged, unhinged and sporting the darkest of sunglasses, she’s like Bob Dylan in drag as played by Nicolas Cage. The only one who walks away unscathed from Streep’s piercing glares and maniacal cackles is Julia Roberts, and that’s purely through wrestling Streep to the ground to snatch her pills away. Others try — Benedict Cumberbatch gives it a good go as the cripplingly shy screw-up of the family — but it’s a losing battle; this is Streep’s show, and there’s just no topping her.

As I said before, “August: Osage County” is swamped in melodrama, with big, loud, sometimes shrieking performances and prickly one-liners howled with pointed fingers. This leads me to believe that it might’ve worked better on-stage. This is not to say that it’s a bad movie — its performances and dialogue are too enjoyable for that — but all this yelling is exhausting and there’s something rather stage-bound about it; watching it I couldn’t help but feel that its true home is not on the cinema screen but on broadway. Though I enjoyed it, mostly for Streep and her drug-infused madness, I frankly struggled to picture it winning the Pulitzer for Drama — I assume the reason is much more evident in the original stage production.

Rating: 6/10