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

Stirred. But Not Shaken.

Spoilers? Much.

On the whole 'Spectre' is effective, superbly crafted entertainment that gives you everything that you would want from a James Bond film. So why then is it so peculiarly unsatisfying?

Let's try and break it down into its constituent parts:

Pre credits sequence. A bravura opening - bold, confident, technically brilliant and jaw dropping to watch. It's all downhill from here.

Bond theme. Sam Smith. Not the worst (third from worst) and it works in context but still rubbish. Forgettable even as you are listening to it.

Title sequence. Didn't really work for me. Naked Daniel Craig and lots of Octopus appendages. Surely they should have run with 'Day Of The Dead' imagery (that being the theme of the whole film). It's not 'Octopussy' and it's not H.P. Lovecraft. One for fans of Japanese tentacle porn and/or Octonauts fans only.

Bond. Dour, sullen and insubordinate hitman. Does very little actual spy stuff. They've spent four films trying to make him a rounded, psychologically convincing, actual real-world character. He isn't.

Bond girls. Monica Bellucci. Oooh look .... its a "Bond girl" in her fifties....how revolutionary. Yeah and then she's summarily fucked and chucked after just two scenes. Bond hits on  a recent widow, says 'I'm here to protect you", they shag, he leaves the number of "someone who can help you", Bond disappears.
Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux). The weakest, least convincing "capable of looking after myself" Bond girl in years. A bland Bond blonde. Zero chemistry between her and Daniel Craig. The film fails to establish enough meaningful romance between them. This becomes a major problem later on when we're supposed to buy into his emotional need to save her.
Miss Moneypenny. Built up as a character in the previous films only to be wasted in this (but we know she's a person in her own right because she sleeps with someone other than Bond).
Judy Dench's absence is very noticeable in this film.
It's just a bit disappointing. I mean, it's not as if anyone's expecting Bond to pass the Bechdel test... but really.

M: Excellent. You could argue that he dos more to save the day than Bond. Ralph Fiennes is strong in all his scenes.

Q: Ben Whishaw is very good but it feels like a whole part of his story hit the cutting room floor in this one.

The Villains. Disappointing. Dave Bautista is an imposing adversary for Bond to fight. Andrew Scott is excellent but you just want him to reveal himself to be Jim Moriarty. I do love Christoph Waltz but his polite, charming, psychopath schtick is becoming a little overfamiliar by now. He's chilling in the impressive Spectre boardroom scene, but as soon as he steps out of the shadows it's apparent that the great and powerful Oz has been revealed to be nothing more than a pathetic little man behind a curtain. Hans Landa had coiled menace, Blofeld is just a weirdo wearing slippers and no socks. Rubbish.

The Plot: Quite linear but I'm okay with that (Bond isn't suited to complexity - see 'Quantum Of Solace' where they foolishly attempted it) but there are no surprises. Unconvincing motivations and a misguided attempt to link Bond and Blofeld's back stories and make their conflict personal seems unnecessary and contrived. There's an attempt to join the dots by implying that the previous Daniel Craig films were linked as part of a master narrative. Retroactive Continuity the geeks call it. I don't care for it. I don't have a problem with plot holes in Bond films (it's the flow of the thing that's important) but I do take issue with a film that is full of stuff that serves no purpose and has no consequence. Even though the film is two and a half hours long it still feels as if chunks of it are missing and that it is leading us towards something much greater than it delivers. As an example of the former look at the sequence where Q is tailed and trapped on an Alpine cable car by some heavies, thus preventing him from meeting Bond at a pre-arranged rendezvous. We cut to some action with Bond, who escapes trouble and then makes it back to be greeted by Q at the prearranged place. We expect a trap, a betrayal or at least something that will pay off later. Instead there is just a flippant comment along the lines of  - "Oh I was tailed but I lost them" and nothing of consequence happens. The film is riddled with moments like that, as if another draft of the script or a more critical edit was needed. And what was going on with Bond's microchipped blood? This was a neat idea that could have raised the stakes on Bond's action by having him under constant surveillance (the big theme of the film) and render him incapable of being one step ahead of the bad guys ..... but within the very same scene that it is injected into him he basically just asks Q to turn a blind eye to it.

Locations. Excellent. Mexico City, Rome, Austria and Tangiers, but then then way too much time in miserable, drab, grey, subterranean London. Instantly takes us from the high glamour of Bond to an average episode of 'Spooks'.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles. All of those - including an iconic Aston Martin car chase that goes form mundane, to Mr Bean, to Batmobile. 'Fury Road' it isn't.

Gadgets. An exploding watch is the deus ex machina that gets him out of trouble. Ffs its 2015 not 1965. Surely they could have come up with something better than this.

"I expect you to die." Prolonged torture scene with precision needle insertion. Very nasty and straight out of 'Colonel Sun' (Kingsley Amis' attempt at a bond novel). It would have been more effective if Christoph Waltz had played it with more tactile sadism and hadn't been just a grinning monkey pushing the buttons on the torture machine.

Fisticuffs. Good fight on a train sequence. It needed to be a little more violent if anything but it is a well executed sequence.

Memorable lines. M has all the best lines

Bond Villain's Secret Lair. Solar powered desert residence seems to be protected by a handful of temp agency henchmen. Security check doesn't run to taking watches off people. One gas tank outside - hit it and the whole thing goes up in flames. Truly spectacular explosion though.

Themes. The dead are alive. On the money stuff about surveillance, data protection and leverage on governments by shadowy organisations.

Subtext. Theresa May thinks she is M, everyone else knows she is C. London is the best place in the world to obtain personal information. Data is a commodity. Intelligence services are complicit in manipulating governments. The past will return to haunt us.

Overall 'Spectre' is much better if you view it as a celebratory overview of fifty years of Bond rather than as a film in its own right.  Fifty years of any mass market entertainment is likely to provide moments to cherish as it well as flat periods full of frustration, and the history of Bond is no exception. We all have our own favourite Bonds, films and eras. 'Spectre' seems to knowingly condense all of that history into one film. It's bound to be an uneven ride. After a confident, bravura opening (easily the best pre credits sequence the franchise has ever provided) it all builds to a whimper not a bang, which is a shame, but it is solid entertainment and top tier Bond.

If this is Daniel Craig's last outing as Bond, then he is going out on a high (certainly compared to those other "last" Bond films - 'Diamonds Are Forever', 'A View To A Kill', "Licence To Kill', and 'Die Another Day') but it does feel like we've gone through a revolving door over the past decade. The re-invention, the tonal shifts, the psychological probing, the stripping away of all the surface trappings all seem to have been for nothing. Every "tired" element seems to have crept back in.

I'm not saying this is even necessarily a bad thing. 'Spectre' is the most Bond-like film of the Daniel Craig era and ultimately the most entertaining because of it. Like I say, for all its faults, this film does deliver everything you think of when you think of Bond.

I think Bond 25 is going to be fascinating. Will the creative team go for a complete re-boot again, will they move towards a more crowd pleasing formula, or will they try and play off on the tension between both? Will they tempt another credible world class director into the fold ( I can't see Mendes returning), will they go with a "visionary" director or will they just go with some MTV twat who's seen a lot of Bond films?

Whatever lies ahead it has to be said that Bond at fifty years old is in very good shape indeed.