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BVS

Where to start? Where to start?

Let's start with what BVS isn't. BVS isn't just a film about Batman fighting Superman. THAT film would be fun…ludicrous, campy, enjoyable fun. THAT film would be full of laughs and wonders and make you feel like a child again. That film would make you feel stupidly happy.

Zack Snyder's BVS is none of those things. Zack Snyder's BVS is very much a Zack Snyder film: relentless in its dark tone, bludgeoning with its CGI spectacle, concerned with its own importance and obsessed with surface aesthetic. But that was a given; it's not 'Ant-Man'. It opens and closes with funerals; making you feel stupidly happy was never the intention.

'Batman V Superman' is obviously a bad film in many ways but it is no worse than most superhero fodder and a lot better than many of them. To be honest I would take this over the 'Dark Knight' trilogy and 'Man Of Steel'. I wasn't bored for a moment, I thought it was endlessly fascinating and I would readily watch it again. It's not bland, it's always provocative and it defies your expectations. It's difficult to get a hold of because it is simultaneously ambitious and so very stupid. It's leaves you with a deep sense of unease. It is full of poor decisions, bad logic and incoherence but so what? Snyder isn't interested in storytelling, he's interested in speaking directly to your subconscious (notice how many dream sequences there are in this movie - how it's driven by the power of nightmares). He's interested in allegory not narrative and for me the film is better for it. It prods and pokes at your fears, you emotions, your beliefs. It's better than any film called 'Batman V Superman' has any right to be.

I can see why people hate it - there's plenty to hate. It's not feel-good in any way. It's not an emotionally uplifting film and structurally it's very disjointed: an hour setting up some convincing motivation for why they would fight, they fight, then suddenly they stop fighting for the stupidest, most banal reason (although I quite liked the goofiness of it and I "get" what it's trying to do emotionally). And then a monster turns up. And they fight that monster. And then it ends. Sort Of.

The first half is where Zack Snyder crams in all the interesting things he wants to explore, all the things he wants to do. The second half is where he puts in all the things he HAS to do in order to satisfy studio and audience expectations and those expectations are basically now the same as a video game: the heroes must fight through several levels, then meet a big boss monster, then unlock all these other characters as the prize.

The stuff in the first half doesn't pay off with any kind of satisfying resolution and the stuff in the second half is crazy, frenetic Saturday morning cartoon action marred by some poor CGI. You're likely to find one half better than the other and then likely to find stuff to dislike in your chosen half. It feels broken….

 ….but yet…..

 ….I enjoyed every minute of it. I really had a blast with it, even though I expected to hate it. It's still horrible entertainment in many ways: joyless, bludgeoning, aggravating and the darkness is overwhelming but there are so many interesting things going on that it makes it worthwhile. I admire the boldness of its vision and the action scenes are inventive and well executed. It's full of surprises and delivers on comic book spectacle. There are plenty of interesting and weird moments along the way. Mostly it's batshit insane.

BVS is a angry and dumb in the same way that America in 2016 is angry and dumb. That doesn't make it prescient, or profound but it does make it fascinating and timely. The film muses on power and principle. Both heroes have blood on their hands. Both have a problematic "might is right" strength. Both are troubled and troubling. Superman is a broken moral compass burdened by our expectations of him and in many ways he is indifferent to us. Batman unflinchingly uses torture and machine guns to further his vigilante justice. Lex Luther makes them slug it out…for what?...for lols and sadistic glee. It’s a messed up movie for messed up times. You can read plenty into it and you can just enjoy it on a visceral level.

What about the cast? Affleck is good as a deranged Batman and I enjoyed his performance . He does a lot with little more than fifty shades of extremely pissed off. I think Affleck's okay and I don't really get why people beat down on him so much. Henry Cavill is more of a problem for me. There are times when I look at Cavill's face and actually can't understand what emotion he is trying to portray. Academy Award nominated actress Amy Adams has little do as Lois Lane other than get fucked in a bathtub, get pushed off a building and constantly need rescuing. It's an unacceptable way to portray that character in 2016 and doubly shameful because it’s a waste of a great actress. Gal Gadot turns up and smiles and hits stuff and plays her character with real gusto. She seems to understand the character but I found it hard to adjust to her odd accent and she mangles most of her lines. It's not a problem here…but I'm not sure she can anchor a whole movie. Jesse Eisenberg is maddening….but in a good way. I think he's a bit creepy anyway and if you don't like him as an actor then you might not buy into his twitchy, mercurial Lex Luthor but it made sense to me for him to portray that character as some sort of deranged Mark Zuckerberg.

I have real problems with Zack Snyder but this film is good in ways that I never expected. It will be interesting to see where the studio will go next with these characters following the overwhelming negative reaction to the film from critics and fans. The weird thing is….BVS pretty much gives "the fans" everything they wanted to the extent of being a checklist. It delivers on its superhero smack-down premise and crams in loads of other stuff besides. It has striking visuals, it plays around with archetypes and brings them up to date. It's simultaneously realistic and fantastic. It's brutal and contemporary and uses those daft costumed heroes from the 1930s/40s to say something about where we are now. That's what Superman and Batman comics have been doing for the last three decades. That's what's up there on the screen. And now people are shrugging and saying they don't like it.

There's plenty I find repugnant about BVS too. It's suffused with occult imagery if you care to look for it, it's irresponsible to the point of being dangerous and careless with its casual violence - do we really need to see graphic torture photos of Clark's mom for instance? This is a film that wallows in its own filth. But the clues were already there in Nolan's Batman films and in Snyder's entire oeuvre and in 'Deadpool' too. People like their mainstream movies "dark" nowadays in ways that would have seemed impossible even a decade ago. BVS is just the endgame to all that darkness. Except, it's not - 'Suicide Squad' is just around the corner and looks like absolute sewer filth (it's hilarious to learn that the studio is now trying to lighten things up and make it funnier before release). I'm not on a moral crusade (face it- most kids have seen worse on their computer screens), I just think it's interesting that some people think this is a film that crosses the line.

In some ways BVS is redeemed by not trying to hide its nihilism. It's there in every frame. It keeps slapping you in the face with it. But at least it's honest about it. There are plenty more films that people like (without thinking about it) that are far more noxious with their manipulation.

Perhaps "fashionably dark" has become unfashionable again. I don't think that's true and I don't think flippant humour would have helped this film. I think it mostly got the tone right and that surprises me.

I think what's irked people is the muddled content and the emotionally unsatisfying ending and the fact that it holds a mirror up to reflect some uncomfortable truths about what we want from our heroes and from our entertainment.

If anything, its biggest fault lies with the studio trying to do too much, too soon. It's in such a rush to build a universe that it neglects to lay down some basic foundations. Even so, I'd rather it be ambitious and fail, than serve up the boring, predictable, empty entertainment I was expecting.

Not great but nowhere near as bad as the word of mouth would suggest.

A multi million dollar misunderstood film with plenty of memorable moments.

Dead Unfunny.

‘Deadpool’ then.

Like being locked in a room with American frat boys, tanked up on red bull, all screaming for your attention. Sweary boy banter, dull action and ‘Family Guy’ unfunny humour. Mostly jokes that aren’t even jokes at all - just insults or snide phrases instead of punchlines or wit or observation. The sort of film that high fives itself every time someone gets a headshot. Deliberately trying to provoke you - but would buckle immediately if you told it to turn it down. Teenage bullshit. I mentally walked out after ten minutes.

‘Deadpool’ is so self aware tha t it goes to great lengths to point out how clever it is at subverting superhero conventions - whilst slavishly abiding to them. Each excess boringly repetitive. A chewing gum movie. Stretching, stretching on and on long after it has become become tasteless.

Deadpool breaks the fourth wall. Deadpool thrusts his groin at us. Deadpool wanks in secret. Deadpool prattles on and on like the boorish self-satisfied prick that he is.

Deadpool can fuck off

And clearly awful, cheesy, middle of the road music is a thing now in Marvel movies.

Looking forward to twenty years of Deadpool memes

Looking forward to twenty years of people telling me Deadpool is their favourite film.

Truly fucking awful. Immediately gets the number one spot in my list of “Films Everyone Loves But I Really Hate’.

That Star Wars Film

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

It's the same old same old in space. There is an Empire Mark II (now an equal opportunities employer) and a Rebel Alliance and they're still at it. On the plus side....nobody is bothered about the taxation of trade routes anymore.

The Jedi are fucking useless. Alway have been, always will be.

Luke Skywalker is the last Jedi. He's fucking useless too. A whining farm boy, a failed apprentice, a lost brother, a bad friend and the neglectful owner of a droid. Sworn protector of the galaxy, yet he fucks off as soon as things start getting heavy, just like Obi Wan did; just like Yoda. Why anyone is even bothering to try and find him is a real mystery.

The Empire Mark II have a cunning plan: instead of building a weapon as big as a planet for the umpteenth time they are turning a planet into a weapon. It's solar powered, so probably cost effective. This time the bad guys have Lord Voldermort on board only now he's called Snoke (no, really) and he's now about twenty feet high with Gollum's eyes. He's training up some boy from Slytherin called Kylo Ren to be a badass. Ren is prone to hissy fits just like Anakin. He must have Jedi blood.

Thank goodness Hermione Granger is the chosen one this time. Unfortunately she is stuck on a desert planet playing tomb raider with an over emotive Dusty Bin.

How are Han and Leia? Well, it's complicated.....

And that is all I am going to say on the matter....because actually I quite liked it.





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March On The Capitol: Mockingjay Part Deux.

*Spoiler alert*

There is no way to talk about the positives of this film without spoilers. You have been warned.

You may remember that I didn't get around to seeing 'Mockingjay: Part 1' until very late in the day and when I did it turned out to be exactly the protracted, dull, lumbering bore that I expected it to be. However once you've committed nearly seven hours of your life to something, you feel duty bound to see it play out. In all honestly, I went to see this one in the first few days of release just to get it out of the way as quickly as possible, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it a rewarding and fascinating film.

A kaleidoscope of thoughts ran through my mind as I was watching it (and there is plenty of time for your mind to wander) and there was much musing on the nature of revolutions as the film shambled towards a grimly satisfying bittersweet resolution.

A week after the Paris attacks I was watching a film that has revolutionaries/terrorists pretending to be refugees in order to commit a violent attack. It features bombs being dropped purposefully on children as a means of influencing public opinion. It has the ruling elite watching guerrilla generated footage that implores citizens to turn their guns to the Capitol. There are subterranean, forgotten, mutant humanoids (the monstrous underclass?) that just want to destroy anything that crosses their path. It has good people who want to change the world being literally annihilated by those twin enablers of power - armaments and oil (I don't know what that black stuff is - but I'm reading it as oil.)

All of which makes 'Mockingjay: Part Two' the most timely, politically provocative charged film currently out there

It's also badly paced, clumsy, frustrating as hell and strangely dispassionate....but hey you can't have everything.

It is a remarkably political film, and one that has the courage to logically follow through on its premise to a convincing conclusion. I feared this final film was going to throw all of the rhetoric out of the window and just be content to have Katniss decide between two suitors whilst battling the forces of oppression. It is admirable that the film sidesteps such a classical Hollywood narrative. There is no pat moral story or reassuring comfort at the end of this film. One set of lies is traded for another set of lies and nothing is ever the same afterwards. We are shown the other side of the (President Coin) coin when a new Hunger Games is devised. The cycle of violence is broken but it only feels temporary whereas the damage done is permanent. What Katniss has lost is evident. What she has gained seems fleeting. She is damaged. The world is damaged. Life goes on but not as celebration.

When Peeta and Katniss are together in bed and he asks her if she truly loves him, or is still only pretending to love him ....we're not quite sure that there is any real conviction in her answer. Peace is found....but no real progress and the ultimate message of the film is that "We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self destruction."

But it's not a bleak film, just an honest one. It's also resolutely not dumbed down for a young audience and is all the more admirable because of it.

It's a shame that the Hunger Games series as a whole lost momentum by being drawn out over so many years. Personally, I'd rather have had two 'three-hour' films rather than four 'two-and-a-bit' hour films. The final instalment works hard at rekindling some excitement but it never quite gets out of the lugubrious rut it fell into with 'Mockingjay: Part 1 " and it never hits the emotional notes the way it should (well, not for me anyway - others in the cinema were crying - so it could just be me).  There's some callback to the original 'Hunger Games' when the journey through an evacuated city full of booby traps evokes the survival of the fittest atmosphere again and it recalls the arena setting but even the best action sequences seemed a bit formulaic and lacked tension. The 'fighting our way through the drain' scenes sequence in particular felt like it was grafted on from some other blockbuster (of the 'I Am Legend' meets 'Aliens' variety) and were riddled with sub standard, seen it all before, video-game CGI.

It also doesn't help that it slows down to cram in a number of cameos only in order to say adios to characters from the previous films, some of whom you barely remember. Who the fuck was that tiger-lady for instance? I'd completely forgotten about her and some of the campy costumes and characters now seem out of place in such a grim film.

Jennifer Lawrence is clearly a great actress but probably underplays Katniss a bit too much in this film. It's not quite the bewildered, somnambulist performance of 'Part One' but she does maintain this resolutely blank, detached approach to Katniss that becomes aggravating at times. Katniss is strong - yes, seen too much - yes, done bad things - yes..... but she's still a young girl - she should be a volcano of emotion. Admittedly she does explode in a scene towards the end but I felt that we needed to properly connect with her again long before this point.

Minor gripes aside, you've got to say that fans of the books should be more than happy with how the series has translated to screen, when it could so easily have become a 'plucky young girl defeats bad-guys in the near future whilst wearing skimpy outfits - let's all go home now' load of forgettable nonsense. At least we didn't have to suffer that!

I think it will remain a series I'd like to revisit  every so often (preferably with a ffwd button), I think its remarkable that it exists in the form that it does, I think it is relevant to the times we're in and I'm glad that youngsters will keep discovering this story. I'm also glad that it's all over but it's a good, interesting, thought-provoking conclusion to the series.

It's A Shit Business.

'Kill Your Friends' is an okay|(ish) British gangster movie....that doesn't have any gangsters in it. Man of the moment Nicholas Hoult plays an A&R man for a major record company at the height of Britpop. As you might expect it's a shark eat shark world of decadence, immorality, excess and drug-fueled paranoia. The only way to be the last man standing is to be the biggest bastard in the room, have the biggest hit and (the spoiler is in the title) literally kill your friends. It is a homegrown 'American Psycho' by way of 'Gangster No. 1' and is basically just people being nasty to each other for the running time with a pretty cool soundtrack. I quite liked it but then I'm quite susceptible to in-jokes about the music business (there's a great gag about much derided Camden chancers Menswear), self conscious Columbo moments and seeing the late 90s as period drama.

Nicholas Hoult doesn't quite find the dark charisma to create another Patrick Bateman character but he does look the part. I once knew an actual living, breathing A&R man and he looked and dressed exactly like this. To be fair he was actually a nice guy (at least to your face) but he did have a psycho girlfriend and was actually clueless about music so they at least got that right.

It's one of those films that I guess you would have to call dark comedy or satire but it's not about very much at all really. There's a visual punchline about the music business being literally cutthroat but you're not going to find anything beyond that level of illumination. It's a shit business, sex and  drugs are integral to functioning in that world, nobody knows anything, luck always wins out and you have to lie like other people breathe. Is it anything we don't already know? It does however speak the truth about meetings - that bit is true regardless of what profession you are in.

One of those films that is perfectly watchable, quite enjoyable at the time but doesn't stay with you the next day....which is why I haven't got that much to say about it.

Good soundtrack though.

There Will Be Bright Scarlet.

'Crimson Peak' is the sort of film I like to watch through sleepy eyes whilst curled up on the sofa on a miserable winter's day. I actually saw it in a recently refurbished cinema, seated just in front of a man who smelled like smoked mackerel....and I still liked it. In fact, I loved it.

Imagine a fairy tale done in the gothic horror style for Hammer studios and directed by Mario Bava. Imagine Edgar Allan Poe had been a steampunk comic book artist and imagine that Walt Disney had worked with Roger Corman on an adaptation. Imagine 'The Shining' as a romantic period piece directed by Dario Argento using technicolour film stock. It has that vibe about it.

'Crimson Peak' is the latest atmospheric outing for Guillermo del Toro and although it is indisputably an exercise in style over substance it doesn't really matter when it all looks so ravishing. It's languid at times, has poor dialogue, some clunky acting, fails to resolve a number of loose plot threads and you could argue that the supernatural element is entirely redundant. But for me that all added to the slightly woozy feeling of  drifting in and out of watching an old film melodrama on the television whilst feeling snug under the blankets with a Lemsip, on a snow-day.

It has a crumbling mansion, murder, incest and stabbing; lots of stabbing. It's gorier than you might expect and has several jump moments that are more effective those found in more overtly "horror" films.

I loved the colour palette and the detail in dress and decor and basically succumbed to the sheer visual grandeur of it all. If you're expecting it to be horror you'll be disappointed. If you're expecting it to be 'Twilight' you'll be disappointed. If you're expecting 'Fifty Shades' you'll be disappointed. If you're expecting it to be Tim Burton fantasy you'll be disappointed. If you like slow-burn cinematic poetry and operatic excess than you'll love it