X-Men: Days Of Future Past

Super powered mutants, evil robots, time travel and a whole lot of flares and sideburns going on you wouldn't expect Bryan Singers newest X-Men outing to be anything but groovy, I just wish that was the case.

The latest in one of the longest running comic book movie series going, Days Of Future Past shows our favourite team of exceptional youngsters not so fresh faced anymore. Initially beginning in a dystopian future where mutants and the majority of mankind are all but extinct, no thanks to Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinkalage-Game Of Thrones) an anti-mutant military scientist who created the Sentinel Program, giant morphing robots that seek out mutants to purge them from the earth. Singer begins the film with imagery reminiscent of a concentration camp, bodies being strewn around by machines and the disheveled living wandering through cages. This is where old Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and old Magneto (Sir Ian McKellen) hatch a plan to send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back in time to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from killing Trask and changing the future they reside in. It's a lot to take in this soon into the movie but just go with it, there's so much else that will aggravate you if you think too hard about it and the plot almost pleads with you just to enjoy the ride.

Wolverine must now bring together a haggard and somehow walking Young Xavier (James McAvoy) now powerless after Beast gives him a serum he can take that takes away his powers but lets him walk again. Apparently injections can heal a broken spine, it's pretty dumb. Also having to find the other side of the morality coin is an imprisoned young Magneto (Michael Fassbender) serving life sentences for the apparent murder of President John. F. Kennedy one of the films highlights stems from his rescue with the aide of the super speedy Quiksilver, It's very reminiscent of the opening scene to X2 but somehow the schoolboy style humor he brings keeps it well in your mind after the credits roll.

As much as the internet seems to be loving Jennifer Lawrence at the minute and her characters development from happy go lucky shy girl to conflicted revolutionary is second only to Xavier's transformation into the wise teacher he'll become, she seems to get an abnormal amount of screen time as apposed to some others who could have desperately used it. For instance Trask's motivation for wanting all the mutants isn't that compelling and he's nothing more than a face for the films villains. As much as I hate the casting of Halle Berry as Storm it wouldn't have hurt to see more of what the future mutants could do, Iceman uses his classic ice slide for a moment and fan favourite Blink fights using portals which I left thinking she had one of the more visually stunning powers.

The film flogs a lot of what you've seen before however, Mystiques eyes glowing yellow while she's transformed and the obligatory Wolverine popping the bullets out of his chest/slow unsheathing of the claws, at times it feels like ideas were running thin in the creative department and even some new things they tried are a little forced (Beast can apparently Hulk out now) Everything aside however the performances are usually convincing, McAvoy and Fassbender outdo their elders and seeing the younger versions of characters you're used to be so flawed and full of youthful rage is a refreshing change of pace.

In it's own right the film is perfectly adequate, an oft confusing plot but full of great dialogue and high octane action pieces will keep you hooked, despite this if you're a fan of the series the contradictions to the other films and lazy wink to the audience will leave you feeling deflated.

Godzilla

The eighth one

Spoilers

After sixteen years since his last big screen outing (or ten if you've seen the Japanese ones) the undisputed king of monsters is back to smash up iconic landmarks and have your inner nine year old squeal with glee. Dinosaurs are cool but nuclear dinosaurs top everything.

The premise of the film basically follows the life of Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Kick ass) an explosive ordnance disposal technician and his family in two points of time. It initially begins in Japan where Ford's father Joe (Bryan 'Heisenberg' Cranston) an overworked nuclear power plant supervisor sends his wife and a team to look at the damages to the plants core. Disaster arrives on cue and after a huge explosion and the plant being quarantined we hurtle forward fifteen years to see Ford happy with a wife and son. All seems to being going well until he gets a call from Japan to go bail his now estranged father out of prison. The years have not been kind to Joe and his son only see's him getting lost in his conspiracy theories. You know whats bound to happen from here anyway, Joe's not so crazy and it gets a bit late to listen to him. There is one man who seems to have an almost prophetic knowledge of the giant monsters however, Ken Watanabe (Inception) plays Dr Serizawa (possibly an Easter egg from the nineteen fifty four movie) a scientist who works with Monarch, an organisation tracking a number of giant monsters for decades.

Despite a somewhat decent cast the human side of the monster story lacks tremendously, Taylor-Johnson and his on screen wife Elizabeth Olsen are almost a paint by numbers family and it will make you wince in horror. Hopefully it's just what they had to work with that is the problem and not their chemistry, otherwise Avengers 2: Age Of Ultron is going to have it's weak link. Aside from this the usually hard hitting actors are woefully underused, Cranston is as always a pleasure to watch and his trauma and outright frustration with shady government cover ups are one of the films highlights, and yet he's out of the film before the halfway mark. Watanabe also begins the film as a believable and mysterious character who devolves into a cliched mannequin who's sole function is to utter cryptic one liners and spout exposition no ordinary human would be able to arrive at, he unintentionally provides a few laughs however so I guess he has that going for him?

In this aspect it remains faithful to the Toho Studios films. Faithful in that around 85% of the film is comprised of lackluster human stories you sit through in anticipation for the real star of the movie. The build up is worth it and even after giving up a lot of screen time to the films villains (Giant monsters this time! Not the army for once.) Gojira's eventual debut is monumental, hats off to the art department because he looks incredible, and this version of the roar is both heroic and terrifying. He commands a presence and the sluggish but jarring shots he throws at the rival monsters are something you feel the force of, also his atomic breath is Awesome.

You weren't expecting an Oscar winner were you?
With all its faults and a tendency to drag every now and again Godzilla is a welcome return to the big screen and the lack of Matthew Broderick can only improve a movie. Look forward to the sequel, here's hoping for an appearance of this young lady. 

The Amazing Spider Man 2

Lucky number seven

If You weren't aware I will ruin things for you with this review so if you haven't seen it here's your warning, if you don't care too much anyway then press on you hardened powerhouse you.

Marc Webb's second outing for the upcoming 'spiderverse' may not actually be amazing, but when it's good it's pretty great.

Andrew Garfield has Spider-Man nailed now, he's quick with the quips and seeing him climb, swing across the New York skylines and pretty much doing whatever a spider can is visually stunning, Webb keeps you close and at times you really get a sense of what it's like to don the spandex. His Peter Parker however is a mixed bag, the happy go lucky and fun loving side is hard not to like, he oozes charisma especially alongside co-star Emma Stone as the chemistry between the two sparks. On the other hand the will they won't they couple often jackknife into overly angst ridden relationship babble you'd most likely read on a cringey Tumblr post. It's a little hard to watch at times.

Emma Stone brings a more human element to the whole ensemble, although she ends up a damsel in distress for the most part she gives as good as she gets to Peter, all the super powered hi-jinks rarely seems to unnerve her, any problems that arise she either charms her way through or beats it with great intelligence. If you're a comic book fan then what some of you assume will happen actually does and it. Is. Brutal. Webb absolutely nails one of the most iconic scenes of Spider-Man lore.

Not even Batman broke that badly...

The films main flaws sadly is with its villains, much like Spider-Man 3 it's main problem is that too many villains ends up cluttering the narrative and although at least two of the three bad guys have a good set up, they have little to no pay off, often being dealt with in less than a minute. There's really not much to say about Paul Giamatti's Rhino, a Russian mobster who chews the scenery like it's his last meal yet he's said in interviews this was his intention so I guess we can forgive him for that? 

A real shame that Oscar winning Jamie Foxx has so much talent to be wasted on a character with such little substance. He plays Maxwell Dillon, an electrical engineer for the dubious Oscorp industries, Max is meant to be a sympathetic loner style character but is a little too odd to really relate to or feel much for, his apparent isolation from everyone around him sets up his characters transition into an electrically charged super villain bent on destroying Spider-Man but as visually electrifying as he is (there's an excellent Times Square scene) the character just fizzles out into a disappointing end. 

I love puns.

If you have never seen the movie Chronicle I recommend you go see it first of all, but the creepy kid with super powers from that appears once again as a creepy kid with powers. Dane Dehaan plays the sometimes charming sometimes sociopath Harry Osborn returning to New York to take over Oscorp from his dying father Norman. We discover that Harry has also inherited the affliction that destroys his father and is desperate to get his hands on old friend Peter Parkers blood as he believes it's all that can save him. Dehaan is suitably creepy, his chemistry with Andrew Garfield feels genuine while they're still chummy but his eventual transformation into the Green Goblin (the change scene is great, the overall appearance however is more Billy Idol with gangrene) is a little rushed. I'm pretty sure he has only three minutes of screen time and although he makes Spidey struggle he's quickly dealt with. 

There is quite a nice set up for these guys though, at least a few of them.

Overall it has enough action beats to wake you out of some of the slow paced teen angst segments and disappointing sub plots (looking at you Parker parentals) an unforgettable third act and a hope filled ending gives it enough to warrant intrigue in Sony's 'spiderverse'

But lets be honest we'd prefer him in The Avengers right?

Muppets Most Wanted

Number 6

"We're doing a sequel, that's what we do in Hollywood, and everybody knows that the sequel's never quite as good" Flight Of The Conchords' Bret McKenzie writes in the opening track of the Muppets newest venture to the silver screen.

Despite it being true that Muppets Most Wanted feels watered down compared to the previous film, that shouldn't take anything away from this one, there's enough joy and humour to make the child and adult in you smile. The basic plot is that after the success of the first film the crew have no idea what to do now, in steps Ricky Gervais playing the superficially charming Dominic Badguy (pronounced bad-gee, it's french) and persuades the gang into doing a world tour much to the dismay of Kermit. SPOILERS though... it's all a clever ruse between Dominic and Constantine, the worlds most dangerous frog who looks exactly like Kermit apart from a villainous mole and a Borat esque accent. Together they hatch a notorious plot to rob the crown jewels which takes them all across Europe with stereotypical hi-jinks along the way.

While this is a Muppet movie it's still nice to see a human element present here, actors playing such caricatured individuals they'd be Muppets themselves if they were made from felt. A personal favourite of mine is Ty Burrel playing French Interpol inspector Jean Pierre Napoleon, a somewhat lazy and inspector Clouseau style partner to Sam Eagle who now works for the CIA. Both are hapless and on the hunt for Constantine and their back and forth is without a doubt the highlight of the movie, it's made all the more funny that Ty Burrel genuinely looks like Sam the Eagle.

Tina Fey also stars as the tough as nails Gulag prison guard Nadya. She rules the Gulag with an iron fist and constantly thwarts a certain green frogs attempts to escape after he is framed through the clever use of green paint and an extra sticky mole. It really isn't easy being green sometimes. It's within these prison scenes we also see a personal highlight of mine and that's Jermaine Clement (the other half of Flight Of The Conchords) along with Danny Trejo (Machete!) Ray Liotta (Goodfellas) and WWE's very own Hornswoggle. These high security prisoners all begin learning a routine for the annual prison talent show, apparently it's that or they riot and Kermit calls on his past experience with the Muppets to whip these cliche tough guys into shape.

We all came to see this for the Muppets however and sadly not all of them get their time to shine, of course Miss Piggy takes center stage throughout most of it in a sub-plot involving her desire to be wed to her beloved Kermie which didn't really pay off in any way. Fozzie, Animal and Walter (remember Jason Segel's little brother from the first one?) gradually crack through the arrogant Constantine's disguise and travel to find the real Kermit as for some reason he's the only frog who can stop him. Really though would it have been too much to ask for more Rowlf the Dog? He is the king of deadpan.

Bret McKenzie does another great job peppering the story with catchy songs you'll be humming to yourself for the rest of the day but none really reach levels of Life's A Happy Song or others from the previous movie, you can legitimately here a Flight Of The Conchords song in a later number however so that was a little bonus.

Slapstick laughs, witty one liners and more songs and cameo's you can shake a rubber chicken at, this one appeals to all audiences. While it's having a hard time getting out of the shadow of it's predecessor Muppets Most Wanted is a great little show to while away the hours.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

The fifth one

I'll try to resist any America puns I can.
Probably going to be spoilers.

Marvels star spangled hero returns (I tried.) for his latest venture and we see a post battle of New York Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) struggling to place himself in modern day Washington DC. Splitting his down time between taking thirteen mile jogs around the Washington Monument and doing undercover stealth missions against Algerian pirates, he's torn up about his current fate and as a familiar face tells him 'he can't go back to that time'. This film changes the game a little and at times feels more like a political thriller than your average comic book movie, at least until the third act The Winter Solider is more spy vs spy just with extraordinary people in it.

Evans has found his Steve Rogers. What sets him apart from the other members of his team is that at heart he's a genuinely good guy among the good guys, sadly for him he's a man lost in time and struggling to come to grips with the modern way of warfare. He was never happy with what he had to do in the forties but as he puts it to Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and his controversial project Insight, "This isn't freedom, it's fear." There's an endearing innocence about Steve compared to his morally grey team mates.

Most recognizable would be Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow, self assured and flirtatious all the while proving that the super hero business isn't just left up to the guys. Full of witty comebacks and all said with a wry smile, Johansson is having fun with it and yet at times there are allusions to her dark history that was mentioned in The Avengers, it's at these points Johansson shows her range and happily steps away from being a one trick pony.

Thankfully compared to Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World the comedy doesn't seem shoehorned in or takes away any seriousness from a situation, newcomer Antony Mackie stars as The Falcon, an ex para-trooper with a flight harness you can't help but want to try out, visually it looks incredible while he weaves in and out of explosions and cannon fire and really steals the majority of scenes he's in. Hopefully we'll see him in the sequel or the next Avengers because the guy brings humor whenever it's needed.

Our seasoned veterans in the film come to clash quite often and their chemistry is somewhat lacking. Samuel L. Jackson breathes charisma as S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury and often comes to clash with Cap himself an how things should be handled, but when he butts heads with world security council member Alexander Pierce (spy movie veteran Robert Redford) the connection doesn't seem as fierce. Both of them actively stand out in the ensemble and by themselves thoroughly convince you but it seemed Redford was just coasting off what felt familiar to him and didn't try much new.

Last but not least and my favourite part as a comic book fan is the films title villain, The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan). So anyway spoilers he's secretly Bucky Barnes from the first movie. Captain America's best friend. Fell off the train? I honestly wish they'd made his apparent death more momentous in the first movie because although it's alluded to near the start of the film the reveal that he is the brainwashed villain lacks a little. That doesn't change the fact though that he's the perfect match for Captain America, equally as fast, skilled and strong (a robotic arm will do that to you) as his old friend but fights in a much more brutal manner. Paying no heed to collateral damage and even putting fear into someone as skilled as Black Widow you know he's a big hitter. Stan shows his range between slowly regaining memories lost for 70 years to uncontrollable rage as the memories come back whilst fighting his former friend, it's the first marvel villain since Loki that's had such an impact on the lead characters and the audience themselves, something the past few films have lacked monstrously.

All in all you know what you're in for here, classic action with witty repertoire between provocative characters with all the classic cameo's, Easter eggs and an epic post credits scene that I don't feel at liberty (geddit?) to talk about. Go see it already.

300: Rise Of An Empire

Review numero quatro!

The unnecessary sequel to the movie full of scantly clad muscular men killing each other in slow motion, and despite all this it's the women that carry this movie.

Director Noam Murro does his best Zack Snyder impression here giving us an hour and forty minutes of unimaginative and frankly painful cinematography, the narrative runs alongside the Spartans battle against the Persians in the first film and see's Athenian hero Thermistokles (charisma vacuum Sullivan Stapleton channeling the ghost of Leonidas) fight, flex and give cliched motivational speeches to his rag tag and unmemorable troops as they battle the Persians at sea.

Eva Green however is one of the films saving graces, she plays Artemisia, a Greek born naval commander working for the Persian Empire who sets the bar for 'not to be messed with'. A powerful femme fatale who's merciless and unhinged psyche is portrayed with such subtlety you'd be best treading on egg shells around her. Though I'm not sure if I'm putting her on a pedestal purely because she acts circles around the majority of her co-stars. 

There are plenty of nods to the original film, familiar characters return such as Xerxes, the giant king from the first movie who with little explanation we see how he transforms from a regular man into the 'God King'. Some magical desert water? Really? Lena Headey also returns as Leonidas' wife Queen Gorgo, again showing that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned as she not only cuts her way through hordes of Persians but delivers a speech with far more weight to it than all of Sullivan's combined. Good God I've missed Game Of Thrones.

In defense of the film the visuals as always look great, from the lavish Persian temples and the flaming rubble of Athens you're always reminded that this is very much a Snyder film, gorgeous visuals and brutal murder seems to go hand in hand with everything he touches. Sadly he also co wrote the screenplay and you find yourself shifting in your seat until another battle arrives to spark some entertainment into a franchise that is very much mirroring the battle of Thermopylae with the critics. They even shoehorned in a "this is Sparta" line, if it was anyone but Lena Headey that said it I would have cringed uncontrollably.

Regardless this movie will do well at the box office and there will undoubtedly be a sequel dealing with the end of Xerxes, a villain literally nobody cares about. Wait for the DVD.

I never thought I'd miss Gerard Butler so much.

Robocop

Review Numero Tres!

Oh Dear.

Full disclosure, I really enjoyed the 1980's version by Paul Verhoeven so it's going to be hard for me to be unbiased here.

Take a shot every time you read the word Robot.

Also spoilers.

In the far off future of 2028, Detroit still remains a breeding ground for violence and crime, the powerhouse company Omnicorp has robot soldiers overseas rather than fleshy soldiers and wants to bring them to the states for use as law enforcement. The original film is known for its moral messages about humanity that echoes throughout its entirety, the new one does include some messages. There is a scene early on after we see Samuel L. Jacksons character, a charismatic TV host (and one of the films few saving graces.) speaking with a reporter out in a war zone witnessing how the robotic soldiers handle things. What ensues is a horrific shoot out which mirrors the use of unmanned drones in our society. It's a powerful message but gets dropped almost immediately after the scene ends, a wasted effort really.

Soon enough we meet our hero Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) he's a likable enough tough guy cop who's also a family man, and his relationship with his wife and son is quickly established as being incredibly ordinary. That is until his car explodes due to a bomb planted by a crime boss. Uh oh. Omnicorp jumps on the bandwagon after Raymond Sellers the companies CEO (played menacingly by Michael Keaton/Batman) they need to show the world that robots are A OK, so with consent from Murphy's distraught wife Clara (an emotion she plays for the remainder of the film) they get him suited up and Robocop is born. 

Waking up Murphy meets Dr Norton (Gary Oldman) a compassionate scientist at Omnicorp who created Robocop and is at odds with Raymond Sellers. slowly Murphy realizes he can't move and see's himself in the classic chrome suit, on further asking to see what's left of him the suit pulls away and both Murphy and the audience realize he's now nothing more than a face, brain, a pair of lungs and a right hand? This scene would have been great if it wasn't for the hand, I get where they're coming from, on one side he's still a human with a conscience and on the other he's the metallic and iron hand of the law but the one human hand makes him look comical, and it's without a doubt impractical. Would you punch a washing machine with your hand? Same basic concept considering he fights predominantly giant robots. 

Another interesting deviation from the original is that Murphy retains his humanity from the get go, he even has a flip up visor for his face as apposed to the bolted on one (a monumental scene in the 80's version) between awkwardly trying to remain a family man despite the leash put on him by Omnicorp we get some of the better moments of the film, Rick Mattox (Jackie Earle Haley) plays a generic douche bag who puts Murphy through his paces in training exercises, we see through the robot visor how Robocop fights crime using the power of trigonometry and an overuse of the colour red. 

I paint a bad picture but it surprised me how much better it was than I had imagined. I mean the new black suit is cool right? That isn't to say this is something to immediately go out and see, while not being an awful film it does drag along slowly and is laden with one dimensional (some would say robotic) characters who you feel nothing towards. We live in hope that the trend of rebooting classic 80's movies ends here. 

I'm looking at you Die Hard.