Movie, music and TV reviews by Matt Neal, a Rotten Tomatoes-accredited ABC Radio film critic (also an author, musician, journalist and all-round okay guy).
(M) ★★★ Director: Jodie Foster. Cast: George Clooney, Jack O'Connell, Jodie Foster, Dominic West, Caitriona Balfe, Christopher Denham, Giancarlo Esposito, Lenny Venito.
"I promise I'll never go near another superhero franchise ever again."
YOU know who it’s cool to hate right now? Those fat cats on Wall Street.
It certainly feels like that at the moment. After The Big Short and The Wolf Of Wall Street, and with the spectre of the real-life Global Financial Crisis still haunting our recent past, it seems the bankers are ripe for a kicking.
They’re not a new target, obviously. From Gordon Gecko telling us that “greed … is good” in Wall Street, to the likes of Boiler Room, Margin Call, and Rogue Trader, or docos like Enron and Inside Job – all these films hit upon the varying methods of exploring the haves, the have-nots, and disliking the people who help decide the difference between those two categories.
Money Monster takes us once again to the theatre of Wall Street and although it doesn’t have anything new to say, it at least gives the audience a new scenario in an increasingly familiar setting.
Jack O’Connell plays Kyle, a disgruntled investor who loses everything when a company’s computer glitch wipes $800 million off its stock value overnight.
Rather than take the news lying down, Kyle lashes out at TV money pundit Lee Gates (Clooney) – a gaudy, cynical showman who said the company was a sure thing just weeks before it crashed – by taking Lee hostage at gunpoint on live television.
It’s a great set-up that hits at the heart of the anger that still bubbles, particularly in the US, in the wake of the GFC. But don’t expect any great truths or insights to be unveiled. Money Monster is merely a neat thriller played out against a very “now” backdrop that we’ll likely forget about sooner rather than later, unlike The Big Short and The Wolf Of Wall Street, which people will probably still be talking about for years to come.
Foster’s direction is competent and the movie is tight and tense when it needs to be. It also manages some nice surprises along the way – a heartfelt plea for public support from Gates and a live-to-air phone call from Kyle’s pregnant girlfriend are two key passages that give the narrative a much-needed jolt.
But the film is lacking in a few places. It has more to say about the media than the morality of Wall Street, leaving the whole thing feeling like a missed opportunity for something bigger thematically.
Money Monster is also a rare example of miscasting – rare because the casting choice in question is George Clooney. He’s too damned likeable and while he sells Gates’ hostage-induced change of heart, he’s not believable as the pre-peril jerk he’s supposed to be. Money Monster would be a better film if we hated Gates more at the start, but Clooney can’t make us do that.
Meanwhile Roberts is wasted but good in the thankless role of Gates’ director Patty, leaving it up to O’Connell to own the show, which he does. He makes Kyle by turns intense, sympathetic and pathetic, and does a great job as the heart and soul of the film.
This won’t go down as one of the great Wall Street movies, nor will it end up in the lists of the best things Clooney, Roberts or Foster have done, but it’s a good-enough thriller that has some nice moves occasionally.
Unlike Clooney, who’s dancing in this movie leaves a lot to be desired. Some people may see this as a selling point though, so take that as you will.
(MA15+) ★★★★ Director: Shane Black. Cast: Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice, Matt Bomer, Margaret Qualley, Keith David, Kim Basinger.
Russell really wanted to be at home because the Rabbitohs were playing.
SOMEWHERE in between writing the script for Lethal Weapon and directing Iron Man 3, Shane Black wrote and directed a film called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
Initially a flop, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang became a cult favourite because of its offbeat take on the crime noir genre and its inspired comedy pairing of a back-in-the-game Robert Downey Jr and an on-the-way-out Val Kilmer.
The Nice Guys is a very similar proposition from writer-director Black with exactly the same strengths – an offbeat take on the crime noir genre and a surprisingly effective comedy pairing of a still-hot-right-now Ryan Gosling and a probably-on-the-way-out Russell Crowe.
Crowe plays Jackson Healy, a thug who wonders whether he should become a private eye and try to do something good with his life. Gosling is Holland March, a private eye who rarely bothers to do anything good with his life, except provide for his daughter (wonderfully precocious Aussie teen Angourie Rice).
The pair’s paths cross thanks to a girl named Amelia (Qualley), whom lots of people are keen to get hold of for various nefarious reasons, as she may prove to be the key in not only a couple of murders, but maybe also a larger conspiracy.
The story’s multiple red herrings and hard-boiled antics lead around in circles that harken back to the classic noir novels of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler and a ‘70s setting adds fresh spice to the genre, along with some outrageous costumes, cool production design and a funky soundtrack featuring the likes of Kool & The Gang and Earth, Wind & Fire.
Black has great fun with the era, the conventions of the crime story, and in Gosling and Crowe he has a dynamic duo to deliver his delicious dialogue. There are plenty of laughs, and while no one will be suggesting Crowe focus purely on comedic roles from now on, he handles the humour well.
Both he and Gosling give great performances that help smooth out the bumps in the way their characters are written, which is one of the few prominent flaws of the film. Healy goes from being a hard man with no compunctions about killing someone to being sick at the sight of a dead body, while March’s alcoholic widower walks a weird line between smart and dumb.
The supporting cast that weaves in and out of the story is solid, but Rice is a scene-stealer. Her biggest claim to fame prior to this was the little-seen Aussie end-of-days thriller These Final Hours but you can guarantee she is a star in the making on the strength of her performance here.
Overall, The Nice Guys is a cool little neo-noir gem. The plot feels like it’s wandering, but it works (if you take into account how inept/corrupt the police in this film must be) and provides more laughs than a lot of out-and-out “comedies” being pumped out of Hollywood in recent years.
(M) ★★★½ Director: Bryan Singer. Cast: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac, Nicholas Hoult, Rose Byrne, Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner, Olivia Munn, Lucas Till, Evan Peters, Kodi Smit-McPhee.
"Just because you're a mutant, it doesn't mean you're too good for a seatbelt."
WHILE walking out of a cinema screening of Return Of The Jedi, a character in X-Men: Apocalypse quips that the third part of a trilogy is always the worst.
It’s a particularly meta and self-insulating moment in the third film of the second X-Men trilogy, which is indeed the worst of this trilogy, but in this case ‘worst’ doesn’t mean ‘terrible’.
Bloated, yes, over-the-top, yes, but not bad. X-Men: The Last Stand – the third film of the original trilogy – was bad, but Apocalypse, while not reaching the lofty heights of its predecessors First Class and Days Of Future Past, is still pretty good.
Apocalypse is largely set in the 1980s, 10 years after the events of Days Of Future Past. Professor Charles Xavier (McAvoy) is running his school for gifted children (aka super-powered mutants), occasional villain Magneto (Fassbender) is in hiding, and Mystique (Lawrence) is behind the Iron Curtain rescuing fellow mutants from some kind of mutant fight club.
But a new power is rising. A long dormant mutant named En Sabah Nur aka Apocalypse (Isaac) has awoken and is gathering powerful followers to his side as part of his quest to wipe the world clean and start again. Naturally it’s up to the X-Men to stop him.
Unlike many of the previous X-Men films, which have thrived on the mutants-as-hated/feared-minority analogy, Apocalypse ditches any kind of theme that might get in the way of its computer-generated world-wrecking. This is X-Men Gone Global – for the first time in the series, the threat is against all of humanity and director Singer has the FX budget to do it.
Those looking for the more cerebral edge amid the mutant throwdowns will be disappointed, as any cerebral edges have been buffered off, but at least Singer still knows how to handle his mutant throwdowns. A cameoing old favourite is a highlight, Quicksilver (Peters) once again gets a great scene to hang his goggles on, Nightcrawler’s powers are cool, and an angry Magneto is always a watchable Magneto.
In terms of spectacle and fun, Apocalypse delivers. It also juggles a lot of characters and a handful of intersecting stories reasonably well, but as is always the case with such an ensemble, some players get little to do beyond wield their powers in a timely fashion.
It is a shame there isn’t more depth here as it may have masked some of the sillier moments. Fassbender almost pulls off some terribly overwrought lines because he’s so damned good, and so does McAvoy. But you get the feeling everyone is sniggering off-camera about how damned ridiculous Apocalypse looks, which makes it hard to take the Big Bad too seriously.
It seems petulant to poke fun at the over-the-top nature of a film where a main character is an immortal mutant trying to destroy the world. First Class and Days Of Future Past were brilliant at remaining grounded in the face of absurdity (which is also an excellent trait of the films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the first two Nolan Batman movies) but Apocalypse struggles to contain itself. The opening sequence in ancient Egypt is overstuffed with digital bells and whistles, as is the chaotic final battlefield. It makes you long for a time when Singer didn’t have nearly a quarter of a billion dollars at his disposal.
The most impressive thing about the X-Men series is the way it has reinvented itself. Via Days Of Future Past, the film has managed to double-back on its own timeline to give itself a renewed vigour and cast. Apocalypse allows us to meet a new Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Jean Grey, Angel, and Storm in a way that is not jarring. It also mean the producers can have a crack at plotlines they fumbled first time around, such as the Dark Phoenix saga, which is hinted at here, setting up for a new trilogy filled with its fresh new faces.
However, it’s going to be hard for a new trilogy to top Singer’s past three X-films. Apocalypse isn’t the perfect note to end on, but its an enjoyable enough conclusion to the trilogy.
(M) ★★½ Director: Garry Marshall. Cast: Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson, Julia Roberts, Jason Sudeikis, Britt Robertson, Timothy Olyphant, Héctor Elizondo, Jack Whitehall, Sarah Chalke, Aasif Mandvi.
There's "agreeing to be in a bad movie", and then there's "agreeing to be in a bad movie wearing a bad wig".
FIRST there was Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve, and now Happy Days creator and Pretty Woman director Garry Marshall has plucked Mother’s Day off the wall calendar where he gets his movie titles from.
As with his past two films, this one has plenty of star wattage, a cheesy balance of rom and com, and an excess of intertwining stories, some of which work and some of which misfire worse than a poorly chosen Mother’s Day present.
There are four key narratives here. Single mum Sandy (Aniston) is struggling to come to terms with her ex-husband’s new 20-something bride and having to share her kids with a step-mum, sisters Jesse (Hudson) and Gabi (Chalke) have hidden their respective interracial and lesbian relationships from their bigoted white trash parents for too long, Bradley (Sudeikis) is trying to raise his two daughters after the death of his wife, and Kristin (Robertson) refuses to marry the father of her child (Whitehall). Somewhere among all this, Julia Roberts flits around as shopping channel guru Miranda.
As with Marshall’s previous two films, all the issues of all the characters build to a climax on one day – here it’s Mother’s Day, obviously – where everyone learns a lesson about the importance of family and how amazing and versatile mums are.
It’s a noble and worthy theme to hang a movie on, but unfortunately some of these character arcs are more effective than others. Two work well – Aniston’s chapters are well thought-out and examine interesting facets of modern family dynamics, while Sudeikis’ story has plenty of heart and emotional punch to it, even if it is a little underdone.
But as with many of these rom-com anthologies, proceedings get dragged down by the weaker stories. Hudson and Chalke’s section had the potential to be the most interesting as it grappled with prejudices tearing a family apart, however this part of the film ends up devolving into a mess of slapstick and cheesy epiphanies. Where a note of truth rings out in the two aforementioned stories, this one is full of sitcom artifice.
The Robertson/Whitehall tale is also a swing and a miss, partly because it feels tacked on and partly because it’s poorly realised, even though Whitehall's stand-up routines within the film are pretty good.
Marshall and his editors get credit for weaving the threads together well in the final act, and the stars all do a decent job, particularly Aniston and Sudeikis.
But too much of this is patchy and awkward, like it’s four TV pilots stuck together, or four film ideas no one was game to turn into full movies on their own.
There are a couple of laughs here and some nice sentiments, but ultimately Mother’s Day is a 50/50 proposition, like cooking dinner for your mum but making her do the dishes.
PS. Does anyone want to take bets on what day of the year Marshall will use for his next movie? Surely the smart money is on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?
(M) ★★★★ Director: Anthony & Joe Russo. Cast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Rudd, Emily VanCamp, Tom Holland, Frank Grillo, William Hurt, Daniel Brühl.
"Wait - are we running to something or away from something?"
BEING the nerd that I am, it’s difficult to assess this, the 13th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), without comparing it to Batman vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice, the second film in the DC Cinematic Universe (DCCU).
(It’s also difficult to write this review without going overboard on the acronyms – do I really have to write out Batman vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice and Captain America: Civil War, or can we get by with BvS and CA:CW?)
Both films deal with similar ideas – in a world where superheroes exist, who keeps the superheroes in check? It’s the very question at the centre of the greatest superhero graphic novel of all time, Alan Moore’s Watchmen – “who watches the watchmen?”. How would the world function with so much power in the hands of so few people? And how would you minimise the collateral damage if those few people started throwing their weight around?
Both films also focus on a large number of super-powered characters, introducing new ones and revisiting old favourites. Both films also take great pride in pitting the heroes against each other – that’s the raison d’etre of BvS and CA:CW.
The thing about comparing these two films – and this is the point where the DC fans on Twitter will start calling me a paid-off Marvel shill – is that CA:CW does all of the above really well. BvS, by comparison, does almost all of the above poorly.
CA:CW centres on the fallout from some of the previous MCU films (a working knowledge of the MCU is helpful but not necessarily essential). The mismatched bunch of heroes known as The Avengers has been gallivanting around the globe avenging, but unfortunately innocent civilians have been getting in the crossfire.
The UN, personified by General Ross (Hurt, last seen in the MCU in The Incredible Hulk), presents The Avengers with an ultimatum – sign up as UN-sanctioned superheroes and do as you're told, or don’t. Unfortunately the “don’t” means you will likely be regarded as a vigilante and potentially a criminal.
Tony Stark AKA Iron Man (Downey Jr) is confronted by the repercussions of his actions and decides to sign on. Steve Rogers AKA Captain America (Evans) is still haunted by the deception of his previous bosses (as seen in Captain America: The Winter Soldier) and feels The Avengers work best independent of governmental meddlings. This sets up a super-powered schism that is not likely to end well.
There are other factors in play, such as the loose threads of what happened to The Winter Soldier (Stan) and the arrival of Black Panther (Boseman), but mainly this is about building up to Captain America and Iron Man duking it out, as was the case with Batman and Superman in BvS.
CA:CW builds to that punch-up in a smart, measured way. The heroes discuss the problem, express their ideological viewpoints in a balanced manner, but continually fail to agree, with the stakes getting higher and higher until they reach the metaphorical equivalent of pistols at dawn. In other words, it’s pretty much the opposite of the illogical and awkward set-up that led Batman and Superman to go tete-a-tete in BvS, where the film had to actively work to avoid its two heroes from having a sensible conversation as it would have quickly resolved all the issues that supposedly underpinned the story, making the much-anticipated titular fight redundant.
Furthermore, CA:CW’s approach raises the stakes. Batman and Superman could have easily sorted things out by talking, but instead made them both come off as irrational macho idiots when they finally fought (although, to be fair, it is a good fight). Meanwhile, most of the 12 (yep, a whole dozen) heroes who battle it out in CA:CW have legitimate arguments for believing what they believe, and thus they are fighting for a cause or a truth they hold dear. This is not fighting for the sake of fighting because it says that’s what has to happen on the movie poster – this is action driven by characters, and narrative compelled by decisions, choices and ideas. In other words, the big battle makes sense in the scope of the story and is an inevitable outcome.
And where BvS struggled to incorporate Wonder Woman (who could be edited out of the film with little impact on the story) and its other numerous cameos (which could have been cut even more easily), CA:CW breezes through its role call of caped crusaders like it’s no big deal. It introduces Spider-man and Black Panther with easy, natural dialogues (although to be fair Spider-man’s introduction is a little forced) and gives them reasons to take part in proceedings. It also handles its 10 other characters comfortably – they contribute to the narrative, set-pieces, themes, discussion, and humour of the film (on that last point I should point out I have no issue with the ‘dark’ tone of BvS). Every character is far more than a gratuitous easter egg thrown in to merely spruik the next movies – they are pieces in the story’s puzzle.
But that’s enough of the nerd fight. On it’s own CA:CW is another fine addition to the MCU. It combines the usual humourous banter and the life-on-the-line drama, with the climax providing a real sense that the MCU will be irrevocably changed after the credits roll.
It’s getting harder for these intertwined films to stand alone, but CA:CW works hard to be watchable without requiring homework, while also rewarding the dedicated followers of the MCU and the comics they’re loosely based on. For example, newcomers will quickly figure what Ant-Man is all about, while the return customers will revel in Captain America throwing back to his first film by saying “I can do this all day” – a line that, in context, says a lot about the character.
Speaking of the comics, this Civil War is very different to the Civil War of its source material, but carries on Marvel’s ability to cherry pick ideas from its pages successfully to create something new that still feels true to the source in some way. The scope of this film is smaller than the Civil War of the comics, but the directors and MCU brains trust have made the Civil War idea work in the MCU.
The Russos have kept some of the conspiracy thriller tone they used in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but married it with action sequences edited like a modern war movie. At times it borders on the blizzard editing that is far too prominent in current actioners, but mostly it stays on the right side of watchable.
The cast is uniformly great. If it hasn’t been said enough already, let’s say it again – Marvel have cast their movies impeccably. We can’t imagine anyone other than Downey Jr and Evans as Iron Man or Captain America, but ditto for everyone else. Rudd confirms he was a great choice for Scott Lang aka Ant-Man, Paul Bettany’s Vision is a weirdly wonderful creation, and so far it seems like the casting directors have outdone themselves yet again with their new Spider-Man.
I feel sorry for DC fans. Marvel continues to hit it out of the park with its movies. They made an Ant-Man movie and one with a talking raccoon in it for chrissake, but DC can’t even get Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman to work well in a movie together.
(PG) ★★★½ Director: Dexter Fletcher. Cast: Taron Egerton, Hugh Jackman, Jo Hartley, Keith Allen, Iris Berben, Tim McInnerny, Jim Broadbent, Christopher Walken.
"I thought I told you to shave those sideburns!"
IS it possible to do a sports movie that isn’t completely overflowing with clichés?
Probably not. Cinematic sport can’t exist without the underdogs, the redemptions, the montages, and the impossible dreams becoming realities. These components (minus the montages) typically make up the real stories we love to find in actual sports – tales of triumphing against the odds, of coming from nowhere and ending up somewhere, of surprising the doubters and naysayers.
This film about Eddie The Eagle certainly doesn’t shy away from the sporting clichés. The true story of British ski jumper Eddie Edwards is resplendent with them, but just for good measure, the filmmakers have thrown in a heap of made-up ones as well.
In fact, don’t expect much truth at all in this biopic. What it gets right though is the spirit of Eddie’s endeavour and heart and goodwill that generated, which the film replicates.
Egerton plays Edwards, the plasterer who became the star of the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics thanks to his sheer enthusiasm rather than his sporting prowess.
Edwards is portrayed as a single-minded individual whose only desire is to be an Olympian. After being cut from the downhill ski team by a snooty official (McInnerny), Edwards switches to ski jumping as there are no other Brits taking part in the event, making qualifying easier.
He’s helped along the way by washed-up ski jumper Bronson Peary (Jackman), a boozy American booted from the sport for his rebellious ways.
Peary is a good example of the film’s love of a good cliché – he’s an entirely invented character that adds a whole new bunch of tropes to the story on top of Eddie’s own no-hoper-does-good exploits.
With so many typical turns, the film survives almost on heart alone. Egerton does a fantastic job of winning our sympathies, gurning away with great sincerity as he smashes and bashes his way towards his dream, but amid the fictionalisation is an almost unbelievable true story of how one man effectively gatecrashed the Olympics. That seed at the centre of the film helps win you over and build up an immense amount of goodwill for the character.
It would be easy to mess up a film like this but the narrative is played out unfussily, the tone is kept light, and the whole enterprise has a vibe about it that matches Eddie’s can-do attitude and everpresent smile. Sure, it’s corny but it’s genuinely heartwarming.
Director Dexter Fletcher gets good mileage out of his ‘80s-style onscreen titles and an excellent ‘80s replica soundtrack, largely penned by Take That’s Gary Barlow, which helps capture the era perfectly.
It’s closest cousin is undoubtedly Cool Runnings, and while it won’t endure like its Jamaican relative, Eddie The Eagle is an enjoyable Olympic underdog tale that’s hard to hate.
NOT that long ago in cinematic history, special effects reached a point where it became possible to put anything you could imagine on screen and have it look real – like, really real.
The dinosaurs of Jurassic Park, the ape of Peter Jackson's King Kong, the tiger in Life Of Pi, the worlds (and Jar Jar Binks) of the Star Wars prequels, the entirety of Avatar – for better or worse, the advent of computer animation meant photo-realistic digital creations that could sit smoothly alongside real world people and environments were just a million or so mouse-clicks away.
In hindsight, the aforementioned movies and their CG animals and settings (throw the simians of Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes in there too) point directly to Favreau’s live-action version of Disney’s The Jungle Book. This film seems like an inevitability; as though the technology was being developed just so we could one day see a life-like take on Mowgli’s story without the spectre of animal cruelty hanging over it.
It’s a perfect mesh of subject matter and special effects, not unlike Life Of Pi and Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes – two stories that benefited from tech wizardry finally catching up with the potentials of visual storytelling.
Favreau’s film owes more of a debt to Disney’s 1967 cartoon than Rudyard Kipling’s original tales, but is an intriguing mix of the two, while also striking out on its own occasionally with the narrative to find new directions. It follows Mowgli (Sethi), the “man cub” raised in the jungle by wolves, as he struggles to escape from the evil tiger Shere Khan (Elba) and return to civilisation with the aid of Baloo the bear (Murray) and Bagheera the panther (Kingsley).
The darker tone of Kipling’s work, which Walt Disney deliberately steered his version away from, is here in places, but so are a couple of the 1967 songs from The Sherman Brothers and Terry Gilkyson. As such, the movie moves in and out of the light and shade, but be warned that this may scare the pants off the younger kids – Shere Khan is a wonderfully malicious villain and some animals die (although in a bloodless, mostly off-screen fashion).
It’s the light-and-shade combo that is the biggest sticking point with the movie. Its photo-realism and occasional animal-on-animal violence sits awkwardly at times alongside, say, a giant ape voiced by Christopher Walken singing a song (yes, that really happens in the film).
There are also moments when The Jungle Book looks a bit like a computer game - CGI still has its limitations - but by-and-large it is a beauty to behold. The animals are amazing, as are the largely animated environments. Sethi, probably the only tangible thing in most of the scenes, rarely seems out of place alongside his digital counterparts.
The cast is generally impressive. Finding a Mowgli was apparently quite a challenge, but newcomer Sethi does a good job. There are a few Jake “Ani Skywalker” Lloyd-like moments, but they’re mostly forgivable.
Kingsley is a good match for Bagheera, while Elba is an even better one for Shere Khan – Elba drops menace into syllables like Dr Dre drops beats (ie. with ease), and it’s a frighteningly good voice performance. Murray has fun with his role although he runs dangerously close to letting Bill Murray trample over the top of Baloo the bear. Similarly, it’s impossible to separate Walken’s voice from Walken, even when it’s coming out of an animated Gigantopithecus. Walken plays King Louie like a mob boss and it’s kinda fun, but also kinda distracting.
Generally speaking, this re-imagining of The Jungle Book is impressive. It has a sense of wonder and spectacle to it often lacking in big blockbusters, genuinely offering up a visual feast we have not partaken of before, which is all the more impressive when you consider how many times this ‘book’ has been told.
But importantly, Favreau hasn’t lost sight of the heart and emotion at the centre of this story amidst the CG wizardry bringing it to life. This is still the moving tale of a boy struggling to find his place in the world, torn between his nurture and his nature, and all the positives and negatives that each side brings.
