The Captains Paradise

Alec Guinness in an Ealing studios comedy. Appreciating film through the ages is one of the goals of this blog and becoming more familiar with the work of the greats (and Guinness is undeniably one of the greats) is the real reason behind this blog. Lots of films come out each year that are exciting and I want to watch but having the older films, the silent movies and the films in different languages helps to further my film education and give a purpose to this blog.

I hope that your linguistic skills are up to scratch because when Captain St.James (Guinness) is in Morocco he is speaking a different language (not french but I think Spanish) to his wife and then translating some things into English. This is a story about a man who manages to have two wives and captain a boat (The Golden Fleece) that travels between Gibraltar (wife one) and Morocco (wife two). Claiming that he has found the paradise of life living like this he works exceptionally hard to maintain his cover and make sure that neither wife discovers of the others existence but like with all affairs and movies, in the end something will go wrong and both of his wives become discontent with the life that he wants them to have and Nita (wife in Morocco) takes on a lover and then shoots the lover.

This film is the way in which to not treat women. Living two completely different lives works well for the Captain and he enjoys it but it doesn't work particularly well for the women. One woman never gets to go out and enjoy life properly and the other woman doesn't get to cook or do any of the quite things. Both end up leaving him and he is left with nothing because trying to restrict people into a box doesn't ever work out in the end but you have got to applaud his efforts, the way that he convinces one woman to not cook because it will ruin her nails, her face, her hair and just about everything else of any concern to her. I am slightly amazed at how gullible she is but it was funny to watch and to think that somewhere out there in the world there is a woman who refuses to cook on the principle of it ruining her looks.

The ending is superb and a twist. This film sums up the way that some people think and treat others. Slightly comical but very enjoyable. Alec Guinness is always a pleasure to watch!

Ender's Game

A second appearance within a year for Asa Butterfield on this blog. A name that wasn't known to me until I watched Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children in September/October is now becoming one that I need to look out for. Scrolling through IMDB I have actually seen several movies that he has been but just never realised that he was in Hugo, Nanny McPhee 2, The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas and Ashes to Ashes (TV series).

This cast is crazily famous. Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, Hailee Steinfeld, Viola Davis and Abigail Breslin are the names that instantly scream out. This is also a second appearance in a much shorter period of time for Harrison Ford and Viola Davis on this blog.  This is another film about training children to become soldiers. We know that Viola Davis will be fantastic because she always is and the same can be said for Ben Kingsley and Abigail Breslin so all eyes are really on Harrison Ford. In Cowboys and Aliens he was poor but he was so much better in this film. It's sad to say but it seems like Harrison Ford is loosing his ability to act. The older he gets, the worse he is in movies. With Asa Butterfield always looking more like a kid who is likely to be bullied than a child who is going to stand up to anyone watching the character development in this film makes for a very interesting watch. Admittedly, Harrison Ford isn't a particularly threatening man so it doesn't look like Ender has to be a particularly strong character but only at the end do you realise just how strong he is. This isn't a kid who was pathetic, this is a kid who out thought everyone else, was more intelligent than the others, knew how to work as a team and achieved his potential without regularly being beaten up.
Ben Kingsley isn't evil in this film. There is no designated 'bad guy' in this film so it's not the same plot that features in most movies with the good guy beating up the bad guy.

The biggest question in this film is how far are you willing to go in order to protect yourself? Are you prepared to open fire on a planet that may be a threat but isn't currently possessing any threat to you? When you tell someone that it is a game then it all seems fine and isn't morally questionable but once you realise that it wasn't a game then the ethics and morals are called into question of every leading officer on that ship. Thousands of soldiers died under Ender's command and an entire planet was attacked for no real reason other than they could be a threat. When it was a game Ender was prepared to go as far as the others to win the game but once it became real he wasn't because as he states in the film 'it's about how you win' and not just about winning whatever the cost. With every battles there are casualties but this battle wasn't a necessary one and there were questions over his psychological state. A tactical genius and a fair leader but his nightmares had other things in them, things that led him to possess a different set of morals to some of the others on the ship. He was the best but like so many others in different films, also the worst because he didn't see things and think in the same way that the leaders did.

I liked Ender's Game a lot and cannot fault any of the cast for their performance. Harrison Ford was one hundred times better in this film than he was in Cowboys and Aliens or Star Wars seven. Ender, unlike Tris (Divergent) was not totally dependent on Petra (in the same way that Tris is dependent on Four) and not everything was about him. He was dominant but fair. He was in command but he allowed Petra (Hailee Steinfeld) to train him and he worked with her and his unit to come up with the best solution for everyone. Overall, a very good film.

The Conjuring 2

Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson are back to exorcise demons in Enfield. I praised Vera Farmiga last year when I watched the first film and I will praise them both again for this film. Directed by the man who directed Saw, there was uncertainty surrounding this film because Saw was found to be not as good as all the hype and certainly not in need of multiple sequels being made. The Conjuring was a very good film but there was a concern that the director was going to drag this film downhill and make it the typical sequel which is rubbish.

This film tests them more as characters and a couple than the previous film. The last fifteen minutes of this film is where all the emotion comes in. It's tense and moving and something different to what we witnessed in the first film. Their acting was magnificent in the first film but in this film they have taken them to another level. Watching this film is like watching 'The Woman in Black' live. This is what a horror film should be, not laughable, not one that I can watch whilst enjoying a sandwich, one which has me watching it through my hands, coat, knees, gloves and hat but still can't bring myself to tear my eyes away from the screen.

Using her visions in a slightly different way, Lorraine faces a demon far stronger than she has ever faced before and even suffers some personal damage in those visions. She is connected to this case in a far stronger and more brutal way than before but she needs to continually access them to help to solve this case and save Ed. Seeing the Demon face to face instead of through a character or a mirror was a nice touch but nothing will beat the determination to continue fighting this demon. At first it wasn't obvious but they came back, they did work it out and they did have to battle with something far stronger than anything that they had faced in the first movie. People do believe in exorcisms and there are people in the church who are trained to do those kind of things so this horror movie isn't that far off the mark. Unfortunately if you are at some point possessed in your life Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson will not be the ones knocking on your door and exorcising you.

The constant playing of 'Hark The Herald' suggests that this film should be watched at Christmas time as a nice contradiction to the happy films of sharing and caring at Christmas.

Lethal Weapon

Not the TV series, the Danny Glover and Mel Gibson film released in 1987.

Mel Gibson is known for being William Wallace in Braveheart and also for being in many other films. Danny Glover is known for Saw and The colour purple. Lethal Weapon is about two cops who are paired with each other, have their differences and then end up fighting the same guy over a kidnapping. With the character portrayed by Mel Gibson being a slightly suicidal officer who jumps a suicidal man preparing to end his life by jumping on to an inflatable mat underneath the building without the consent of the jumper, with a crowd watching. Most people he meets he kills and yet he manages to save lives and close cases. He is better than Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry.

Glover is the poor guy that gets stuck with him, gives him his gun and tells him to kill himself and then watches as he so nearly almost does and then to top it all off, Gibson's character saves his life. The only real action comes after the kidnapping when there is a small amount of torture (but it really is minimal) and when the chase of good after bad starts to take off. The ending is a not the best and it seemed a little unrealistic that a man who has been tortured via some form of electrocution could beat a very physically fit man who has not had such things recently inflicted upon them but that wouldn't make a good ending so they went for the unrealistic ending.

There are four Lethal Weapon films so it was obviously a huge success and the ending didn't put anyone off. In no ways whatsoever is this film a bad film I just consider it to be a little overrated. It flowed, it didn't drag and there was action but there should have been more action in it. Nothing really stood out as the highlight of the film and nothing wanted to grab hold of my tiring eyes and make them stay awake for this film which says something about the movie. I get the feel that the Lethal Weapon trilogy is going to be like the Die Hard or Mission Impossible trilogies and having had both of them on the blog last year, how repetitive and boring they became stick firmly in my mind and I will have to wait for another year before watching another Lethal Weapon movie. I have no idea what the TV series is like or if it is even anything to do with these films but if it is then I am really missing something about this film.

Jumanji

We love Robin Williams and we found this film scary as children and couldn't watch it so now more than one decade on it features.

When you are older the animation in this film doesn't scare you. They did the best that they could do and at the age that we were, living in the time that we were living, the animation was terrifying, the Lion was realistic, the spiders were still a little scary and the elephants were as good as they were in the Lion King.

The children are genius'. With so much focus on Robin Williams the children passed by unnoticed but Peter and Judy (Kirsten Dunst) are the key to everything. Reverse psychology and emotions being used in a very clever way, they keep Alan (Robin Williams) going when he is determined to no longer continue playing the game. Twenty six years on and he doesn't realise that he has to finish the game until the children convince him to continue playing. The world moved on without him and he needs to go back twenty six years by completing the game so that he can live in his intended life time and not lose twenty six years.

Jumanji is a film in which you admire Robin Williams for being serious in this film. He is known for being funny but this role wasn't a comical one. He never changes much about his physical appearance, he often looks like Robin Williams and sounds like Robin Williams but becomes a different character through his emotion and determination. He can pull off anything. Run around dressed like Tarzan- yeah, why not? He can do that as well. Fight a lion and shut it in the bedroom? No problem. The game calls to children but you should never try to cheat it because you end up being rather seriously punished by the game. If you were to watch this film as a child you would probably be afraid of ever playing a board game again and might even convince yourself that you were hearing noises. As a child this film is scary. Kind of like 'Gremlins' it does need to be a film watched by adults and not children.

I wont love this film but all Robin Williams films are good and worth watching.

Florence Foster Jenkins

You may remember the name of this film as the film that won Meryl Streep an award, causing her to and Donald Trump to have a bit of a verbal battle, which was won more elegantly by Streep.

Since making 'Mama Mia' years ago (almost ten years ago) Meryl Streep has done more with her voice, including have vocal lessons to strengthen and preserve the voice and take on more singing roles. Florence Foster Jenkins is another singing role. In real life Foster Jenkins was acclaimed to be the worst singer (amateur soprano) ever as she often would go flat without realising, completely miss the note she was aiming for and change key and was fairly extravagant in her performances. It is hard not to life when watching this film because the character is so egotistical and the character of St.Claire (Hugh Grant) refuses to let her know that she can't really sing and that people laugh at her. He pays off reporters so that they will write a good report for her to read in the papers.

The talent is not in Hugh Grant (we all knew that) but in Meryl Streeps ability to sound like she can't sing. Underneath we can hear her voice, we can hear that there is quality of a specific nature but she actually can miss the note so badly, can make herself sound so bad that if we didn't know better we would say that she didn't know how to sing. It's the look on her face and the belief that we see in the character that tells us that she isn't trying to be bad, the character genuinely believes that she can sing. As a singer, trying to sound bad is much harder than trying to get better. There is nothing more uncomfortable than trying to hit all the wrong notes and not instantly correct yourself. This character must have been one of the hardest that she has ever had to play.

With the costume and time period adding much to the film, giving it elegance and flair that gives a 'Miss Pettigrew Lives for a day' feel this film is very enjoyable. For fans of 'The Big Bang Theory' Howard is the pianist who has to regularly make adjustments to his playing to accommodate her change of key and other such things. Most of the applause is given for him rather than her singing but she continues to perform, to pay her pianist and keep her name going by having a lot of money and connections. Friends of hers actually liked to listen to her and supported her whilst others bought her record to laugh at it. Have a cocktail and enjoy this film one evening or on a sunny afternoon. With no specific audience in mind you can watch it with anyone.

The BFG (Mark Rylance)

Live action remake of this film because live action is becoming the thing to do. Roald Dahl's classic 'children's' book that can easily scare any child younger than nine or ten years old (including yours truly when she was a child). Like all Disney films, even though there is a part of the film that is a little dark and threatening as a child the songs and fantasy moments help to get you through it. Seeing as this is Spielberg and not Disney it is safe to assume that there will be no fizz pop and wizz banging in this movie!

Mark Rylance claimed the Oscar two years ago for 'Bridge of Spies'- another Spielberg film and then made this film. Being what it was and also being that he had just won critical acclaim there was a lot of build up to this film but when Spielberg is directing something then you can expect the best from his chosen cast and his production team. As much as possible he looks like the original BFG (David Jason) but with some of his own features which helps to make it that little bit more real. In 'Bridge of Spies' Rylance was quite a silent and controlled character but this character is equally as dependent on Sophie as she is on him and he gets to show all the emotions, to do more with his face in one scene than he did in the entire of 'Bridge of Spies'. Every child wants to relate to the BFG because he is a friendly, almost father like figure and when we watch this film we think of our own father or someone who takes on that type of role. He is brilliant. I think that the best fantasy character for children will forever be Robin Williams as 'The Genie' in 'Aladdin' but Mark Rylance as 'The BFG' is close and will probably be the best BFG for the next twenty or thirty years.

This film allowed my mind to travel to another world in a way that I longed for it to do so years ago. I think that this version is actually better suited for adults. Let the original version take your child's mind to as far as it can go when you are that age and let this version take your adult mind to a completely different place, to a place that you are more suited to travel to and understand as an adult and only as an adult. The detail of the giant world makes it a little more real than the other version was and so you lose a little of that fantasy which you need when you are younger. Spielberg has not added anything to make the film any longer than the original, he has just used the extra minutes from the sons wisely.

I loved this film a little more than the original and I didn't feel that the live action took anything away from the film. Ruby Barnhill as Sophie was almost exactly as I remember the animated character and I can't give any higher praise than that to a girl who took a character so close to so many children's hearts and didn't try to change the character, she just became 'Sophie'.

Lassie Come Home

Time to take a break from the recent overload of action based films. Lassie Come Home is one of the first Elizabeth Taylor films ever made, if not the first. At only eleven years old she stars in this film about the dog 'Lassie' and how important the dog is to the family. They made another six films featuring the character Lassie after we witness the remarkable struggles that the dog goes through to return home in Yorkshire after its family were forced to sell Lassie during tough times.
At 1hr 29 mins it flows nicely and is easy to schedule in to your day. The reason for making sure that older films are on the list is because they are all the typical length of one and a half hours, which is the proper length for a film. Two hours is acceptable but anything longer really is pushing it and even though the film industry seem to think that the appropriate length for a movie is at least two hours, they are wrong, we all want to do other things with our day and put off watching films that are too long.

if you consider yourself to be a film nerd (and there is nothing wrong with that) then you need to watch this film. This is when Elizabeth Taylor became earmarked for game and greatness and she was such a successful contributor to the industry. Like. Grace Kelly, a woman to be admired and an important figure in the world of film. If you haven't seen a film with her in then you should watch her first film. (this one) and then pock a familiar title. They are good films, they show the quality that was available and that no amount of technology and effects can makeup for proper acting quality.

As a film for dog lovers or people attempting to understand why dogs are so important, the bond between the boy and the dog is something that many companions of dogs will have and be able to relate to. A film like this is special for the sentimental value and not because the actors were fantastic. I want to rave about Elizabeth Taylor but it wouldn't be fair. In a supporting role she made a name for herself with a decent performance but she wasn't the star of the show and she didn't need to be.

important for film history, pleasantly enjoyable.

Insurgent

Part two of three in the Divergent series. The review for the first film 'Divergent' was less than a month ago so it should be fresh in our memories but in case it isn't I'll just bring you up to speed. Tris (Jailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) attacked Jeanine (Kate Winslet) to prevent her from making all the Dauntless soldiers attack the Abnegation faction. Now they are factionless and wanted for attacking Jeanine. Taking shelter in a few other factions, when they are chased out of Amity by Eric (Jai Courtney) and a lot of other top Dauntless soldiers, they end up in Candice and face a Candice trial. Four is cleared from any guilt but Tris cannot be cleared for her part in the event as she was never under the same implant that Four was.

Caleb, who has no staminer, no spine, no courage or no real use in this film decides that he can't keep up with Tris and Four so he goes back to Eredite and works with Jeanine. His betrayal is just stupid and irritating. Even Peter (Miles Teller) has more of a role to play in this film and is more likeable than Caleb and considering that Miles Teller only ever plays the slightly arrogant character that is saying a lot. Tris eventually hands herself in when it becomes clear that Jeanine has implanted lots of people and is making them kill themselves every day until Tris comes forward. The focus of this film is on a box that Tris' mother was keeping from Jeanine. This box is never mentioned in the first film so it must be something that features in the book. Only a divergent can complete all the levels in the simulation and open the message of the box. Typically, Tris is the only one who can open the box. When she does, the message isn't what Jeanine was after and she intends to kill Tris and Four, bury the bodies and hide the message but she is overthrown by the Factionless, led by Four's mother and the remaining Dauntless. Evelyn (Four's mother) shoots Jeanine and the message is broadcasted. This would have been the ideal place to stop making films.

The star award still goes to Winslet because her character gets a lot more development and she gets to show stronger distress in this film and also a much more cruel-hearted nature that was slightly lacking in the first film. Peter redeems himself a little by making Tris look dead so that she wouldn't unlock the message in the box but Tris insists upon completing the box tasks before escaping with Four and so Peter's effort was wasted. Caleb does nothing to redeem himself and is just an accessory to murder. Chicago should get better after this revolution but they made a third film so it is safe to assume that it doesn't. Eric dies and Jai Courtney continues his stunning role as one of the most hated characters in this series but spares us from having to suffer him and Peter in the final film (probably so that he could focus on Terminator Genisys).

Shailene Woodley is not convincing as Tris at all. Not enough emotion or determination. If the character in the book is pathetic and totally dependent on Four then fine, she is doing a good job but then the character is rubbish and if she isn't then Woodley is just doing a bad job at playing the part. Four does all the work and she just stands there and attempts to look pretty. Having changed so much from the books to ensure that the movie would stand alone they had the license to develop the character of Tris and I can't believe that she is so emotionless and rubbish because of the changes. It is okay to have a woman who can think for themselves, fight and show emotion but she doesn't really show any of those qualities. Whatever she had in the first film she lost. The first film was the best and this was still good but they didn't need to make it, they could have stopped at the end of the first film and they certainly should have stopped after this film. It had a nice ending to it and didn't need to be continued.

Beauty and the Beast

The Disney film was done so well. The reviews were negative and made this film out to be something that it wasn't. This film is better than any review has ever made it out to be. A few extra songs and some more back story is all that has been added so where the rants and reviews came from I have no idea unless they were watching a totally different version of the film that I didn't get to see.

With all the reviews focusing on Emma Watson I want to start off talking about the other Emma. I will review Watson's performance but first I want to talk about Emma Thompson as Mrs. Pot. It was always going to be hard replacing Angela Lansbury because even though the voice of Mrs. Pot was in many ways her voice it still takes a lot to pull it off convincingly and sing with that accent. We knew that Thompson could sing because she sings a little in 'Saving Mr. Banks' but I didn't know that she could sing like that. Underneath the accent was a very good voice that she was trying to conceal a little. With three different versions of Tale as old as time being played in the film I don't really understand why she was trying to conceal how good her voice was but it is the mark of a true singer when they can still sound really good underneath an accent like that. Only when she turned back into a person did I realise who it was, I was clueless until that point and normally I don't have a problem with recognising her in any film.

Ewan McGregor was another one that I didn't recognise. Singing in a French accent was even more impressive than singing in a lower class English accent. I know that he can sing, i've seen Moulin Rouge but I didn't know he could hold that accent whilst singing and furthermore, I had no idea who it was until the credits came up. Alongside Ian McKellen, as the candlestick he was superb. Everything that made the Disney film magical was still there but with better technology and skills and the addition of McKellen, who is superb in everything that he does, the film that so many people fell in love with as a child just became a film that adults can fall in love with as adults. This film is one step more than the Disney.

Emma Watson was obviously Emma Watson but she played the part well and it suited her. Her voice was so surprisingly good that I actually believed that she was lip singing for a while until she sang something that just sounded like her speaking voice. People that felt like there was a feministic twist on this character are mostly wrong. She is learning from her father and she is slightly stronger than the original character but she isn't any stronger than the original character could have been. Her Belle is perfect. The emotion is so much stronger in this film than before and instead of looking pretty and not doing much else she is the complete package. I wouldn't give her an Oscar for it but I will give her the praise that she deserves because she deserves to be making a lot more films and she needs to make good decisions over films and roles because she can act and sing- it's all there for her if she wants it.

Luke Evans... he is starting to make a name for himself and his voice was equally surprising. I would be amazed if he hadn't had some form of vocal training in his past because there was vibrato in his voice but not enough to sound totally operatic. The Girl on the train was released in November and his character had a darker side than the character of 'Bard' but we can't say that we didn't see him taking on an evil role at some point and he was superb. Again, I don't think that he would win an award for his performance but I don't think that it is the right character to earn an award. He is another one who should only go up and make a huge name for himself.

The rants about Lefou being gay- we disagree and as we review gay films on this blog it's not a homophobic disagreement. The character doesn't know who he is, he is in awe of Gaston and doesn't truly believe in himself. He wants to be as good as Gaston but doesn't feel like he ever will be and he is loyal to Gaston. It isn't until the end that he realises who he is and what he wants. If you want to see his character as gay then feel free but I think that it was fairly clear which two men were the gay couple at the end. If the film is trying to embrace equality then they did it and they did it in the best way and that is by not making a huge controversial statement. Yes, they could have had a different ethnicity for any of the main characters but it wasn't like there were only 'white' actors in the cast. Whatever reason you think that you have to not go and see this film you're probably mistaken and will only understand that or receive clarity when you see it for yourself.

Beauty and the Beast is magical. I think that some people were put off by 'The Jungle Book' because this film was labelled as 'live action' but that was only true for the beast and it made it more real and more magical. Seeing the hall come to life, the dresses, hearing the music, it took you to a different place that many films fail to do. For a while you could forget that you were in the cinema and you could actually believe that you were a spectator. For the people with childish imaginations that always wanted to be Belle you could actually see yourself in that golden dress with Emma Thompson singing and you dancing. More than two thumbs way up for this film. I've learn a lot abut the characters and appreciated the magic that was always there.
Watch out for Dan Stevens (the beast) (A walk among the tombstones, the fifth estate) it was hard to judge his performance because of him being a beast but he was still as good as the original beast.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse

Years ago, possibly on the first blog the first film was reviewed. I honestly have to say that I have no memory of it but I am getting to the point that unless I watch a film regularly or find it funny or memorable then I completely forget it and wont remember it until I watch it again. I was hoping that by watching the second film I would start to remember what had happened in the first film.

Just in case someone has opened up this review without having seen the first film- these films are about zombies. There's a limited amount of room for films with zombies because they all end up being action films in one way or another but think of this series as Aeon Flux meets 28 days later. If you don't know what Aeon Flux is then go and watch it so that you understand the reference. These films made Milla Jovovich and there are six science fiction Resident Evil films (I have seen in this order, 4, 1  and 2) and they are all scheduled for this year so let's try and make these reviews more interesting than die hard or MI reviews.

The Fifth Element is the only film of hers that I have seen so I can safely say that this series made her name and I want to take a look at why that is. When this film hit UK cinemas it was 2004 and there was the likes of Harry Potter, The Bourne Supremacy, Van Helsing, Kill Bill 2, I Robot, Million Dollar Baby, AVP, The Day After Tomorrow, Hellboy, The Butterfly effect, Troy, Saw and The Chronicles of Riddick that all would have been competing for money and the top box office spot that cinematic year so it really is no surprise that this film didn't do as well as the first film did. There were a lot of things that were similar or would attract the same audience. This made her name because even though Ian Glenn features sporadically until the end of the film she really was the character in the movie. Not the main character- she was but the cast was so small in terms of main characters that she was the sole focus for most of the film. Milla Jovovich has an Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider feel to her. She looks great when she is holding the gun and I don't mean her face or body- she looks serious, she looks like she knows what she is doing and you would back her in a gun fight.

Men are often preferred to women in action films as the main character because they are physically of a stronger build and have always been associated with the military or lifting weights and working out because for a woman, to have massive shoulders or a lot of muscle in the same way that men can is not attractive and wouldn't make for an attractive film but then Tomb Raider came along and just changed all of that. Suddenly the world kicked off with finding a woman to take the lead but for some reason, of all the films that they made with leading woman she is the strongest to Jolie. She doesn't say much but she doesn't need to- the character isn't a talkative character- she's intelligent and understands what she needs to do in order to survive. If she were a man she would be Wesley Snipes- this is the female version of Blade.

This film was criticised because of its plot or slight lack of strong plot but she stuck with it, they all have and they have made another four films because of it so I don't think that it can continually be flopping, meaning that this film wasn't enough to put them off making more and they didn't financially need to drop the series after the next film meaning that she isn't rubbish in those films, meaning that I can write a positive review about the next film and hopefully have more characters to focus on.

Clear and Present Danger

The final Jack Ryan film left for me to watch and the third in the series of 5. The correct order for lets say historical accuracy of this film franchise would go (Shadow Recruit, The Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger, The Sum of All Fears) but that isn't the order in which they were made. The Sum of all Fears and Shadow Recruit were made as reboots to the franchise but with such a huge gap between sum of all fears and shadow recruit being made we can just scrap The Sum of All Fears as a Jack Ryan film. The Trilogy should start with Patriot Games but actually starts with The Hunt for Red October and ends with Clear and Present Danger before Shadow Recruit was made, which is the start of Jack Ryan as a CIA agent.

Harrison Ford reprises his role as Jack Ryan as his last surrender to the inevitable downhill of Jack Ryan and Ben Affleck. Ford as Ryan looks old in this movie and the character has been around for a while now but I still prefer Ford as Ryan to Affleck or Baldwin. With Ford ageing noticeably he takes on a slightly different role as Ryan and with the CIA head (James Earl Jones) dying of Cancer, Ryan takes over as acting head of the CIA. He has enemies and there are people who don't want him to know what is going on so this film isn't so much about the mistakes that he makes but how he takes huge risks to do what he needs to do in order to make things right, all of which could end his career.

Willem Defoe is weirdly enough not the bad guy in this film. If you are looking at the name and it means nothing to you or you don't know why you know it, he was the Green Goblin in the Tobey Maguire Spider-man. It seems like he is going to be the bad guy and he sort of has the face for it but as he wasn't the bad guy in the previous film (Patriot Games) then it could be assumed that he wasn't going to suddenly become so in this film. He is just hired help and his character is probably the most complex because he switches from just being a soldier doing his job to turning against his employers and doing the right thing. He is always loyal but sometimes loyal to the wrong people. Looking young in this film meant that had they chosen to make more films that followed on from this film he could have become an important character. Arguably he is better than Harrison Ford in this film but then Harrison Ford never was the worlds best actor, he was just once young and attractive who looked good in action movies. Defoe doesn't suit that criteria so he actually relies on his abilities which gives him the edge in this film.

Clear and Present Danger is the unexplained end to the franchise and the ending is one of the worst. It doesn't actually end- it was as if they were planning to make another follow on movie and then just never got round to it but seeing as they made two attempts at rebooting this franchise that can't seriously be the case.

Every Jack Ryan film is enjoyable and they have peaked with Kenneth Brannagh directing and staring alongside Chris Pine and Keira Knightley. It's no James Bond or Jack Reacher but it still makes a very good cinema screening.

Back To The Future 2

Most people's least favourite film of the trilogy. Back To the future and the third one are the best. The first film received a positive review from this blog and now we take a look at the second film. The previous film ends with Doc getting out of his car outside of Marty's house and saying 'Marty you have to come with me, your kids are horrible' (or something along those lines) and we know how the second film will start.

Doc takes us to back to the future so that Marty can stop his son from getting imprisoned for falling in with Grip, Biff's grandson. So he's gone back but now Jenifer has been taken with them, except that it isn't the Jenifer from the first film because Crispin Glover did not return for this or the third film and sued Robert Zemeckis over the character being re-casted. So in this film Marty gets to play his son and Grandfather Biff steals the Delorean, goes back in time and makes himself wealthy. Marty gets to go on a hoverboard and continue his downfall weakness of getting upset when someone suggests that he is a coward.

You cannot create the perfect history or future. These films attempt to do so and as proven by this film you just can't manage it successfully. Maybe the reason why people actually forget that this film exists is because there isn't anything as memorable in this film as there are in the first and third films. Everyone remembers the first film because it introduces everything and has Johnny Be Good in it. People remember the third film because it is set in the wild wild wood but this film is the same sort of idea as the first film but just not as good. With Michael J Fox playing every version of himself in this franchise and his father's role reduced to a minimal spot we have to give him credit. At times it was obvious that it was just Michael J Fox but he did play his ancestors and descendants very effectively.

It's a good filler. It's actually a lot better as a second film than The Two Towers in 'The Lord Of The Rings' trilogy and it is a lot better than the third Hobbit film. In many ways, what we witness in this film is just the first film in twenty years or less. Marty goes to the dance again and it is the same diner. The reason why we like the third film so much is because it is a completely different setting. I am still going to say that everyone should watch the entire trilogy but only this film to complete the trilogy.

Divergent

First things first- it is SO good to be back. I was able to watch a new film or two in Austria but not able to write the review until I got back home so expect a few posts to be appearing over the week.

Divergent- my brother-in-law was insistent that we watched something that we hadn't seen before so my sister put this on. There are four books and currently (i think) three films. Similar to 'The Hunger Games' or 'The Maze Runner' this film's budget was actually dependent on the reception of 'The Hunger Games'. The film focuses on Beatrice 'Tris' Prior and Four, who are both divergent and Dauntless. The idea is that at a certain age you take an aptitude test to determine which faction you should join and then you attend the choosing ceremony, join that faction and leave your family behind. This is another film where you are not allowed out of the fence because you wont be protected and the government are trying to take over everyone's minds.

Dauntless are soldiers and Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) are some of the best in the faction but are both divergent. Times are changing and with Peter (Miles Teller) and Eric (Jai Courtney) being total idiots and evil you have a fairly obvious enemy for both of them. Kate Winslet makes a career change by taking on the real bad character.

Once you know that Alex Pettyfer was considered for the role of Four you start to appreciate just how good Theo James is. The character should be attractive but also strong, not just physically but strong willed as well and clever. Alex Pettyfer was never a soldier but Theo James delivers the perfect Four. Shailene Woodley is a new name to me and I spent the entire film thinking of her as a younger Lindsay Lohan from Freaky Friday. She was very good and even though the character was slightly different from the books and her romance with Four was way too obvious from the start she did a good job but I just don't get the feel that from this film or franchise she is going to dominate the screens in the same way that Jenifer Lawrence has done. Having seen Miles Teller in Whiplash, seeing him in this really makes you start to change your opinion of him and start to question everything that you remember of Whiplash. J.K. Simmons was supposed to be unpleasant in that role, he was supposed to push people past their breaking point but Miles Teller was the one who managed to push most of his family away- I no longer sympathise with his characters as much because in this film he is arrogant and quite evil. I look at actors who take on the same type of characters and if they don't have something distinguishable such as a voice that lends itself to evil then generally speaking they aren't acting, they are just being themselves. Miles Teller now needs to take on a completely different role to prove that he isn't just like Tom Felton.

I have reserved this entire paragraph just for Kate Winslet. It's said that she is always a nice character and her character in 'the reader' wasn't evil but also wasn't particularly nice. If we think of the films that she has been in she has always been a lead, beautiful and generally lovely. This is the first real evil character that she has played and instead of trying to be evil outright she just tried to be manipulative. It worked very well because we all know her as the complete opposite- to try and be evil and kill everyone with her bare hands would not convince us because of the character profile we have built up in our minds but to be manipulative, to be a believer but to not hit anyone is quite a skill and she was exceptional. She would have raised eyebrows when the casting was announced but once you have seen it you can agree that there is no better cast for this role.

The film differs a bit from the book and I suspect that they wanted to make it a stand alone film in case it didn't get a good reception but with the changes that they made it does make it a little harder to understand why they have made two other films. There are 4 books but this film changed the ending so the next film will not follow the next book to start with. I am tempted to put the next film on the list as well but i quite like it as a stand alone movie.