Summer Movie Mini-Review Roundup, Part Two (including Shang-Chi & The Legend Of The Ten Rings)

Review Scoring Chart - 10: Masterpiece; 9: Outstanding; 8: Very Good; 7: Good; 6: Above Average; 5: Average; 4: Below Average; 3: Bad; 2: Awful; 1: Reprehensible; 0: Non-Functional.

Although cinemas have only just started to reopen as mass vaccination takes the edge off the COVID pandemic, there has been no shortage of movies of all shapes and sizes to watch over the past months. From comic book blockbusters like The Suicide Squad or Black Widow, to more niche genre pieces like Censor or Pig, there has been a satisfying variety of offerings compared to more traditional cinematic summers, which tend to be dominated by major studio releases alone.

Rather than review each individually, these round-ups comprise short reviews of several films released to UK viewers over the past few months. The reviews in Part Two are The Suicide Squad, The Green Knight, Zola, Free Guy, Gunpowder Milkshake, Pig and Shang-Chi & The Legend Of The Ten Rings. Part One, published last Monday, comprised Black Widow, Another Round, Reminiscence, Censor, Jungle Cruise and Old.

Summer Movie Mini-Review Roundup, Part One

Review Scoring Chart - 10: Masterpiece; 9: Outstanding; 8: Very Good; 7: Good; 6: Above Average; 5: Average; 4: Below Average; 3: Bad; 2: Awful; 1: Reprehensible; 0: Non-Functional.

Although cinemas have only just started to reopen as mass vaccination takes the edge off the COVID pandemic, there has been no shortage of movies of all shapes and sizes to watch over the past months. From comic book blockbusters like The Suicide Squad or Black Widow, to more niche genre pieces like Censor or Pig, there has been a satisfying variety of offerings compared to more traditional cinematic summers, which tend to be dominated by major studio releases alone.

Rather than review each individually, these round-ups comprise short reviews of several films released to UK viewers over the past few months. The six are Black Widow, Another Round, Reminiscence, Censor, Jungle Cruise and Old. Part Two looks at The Suicide Squad, The Green Knight, Zola, Free Guy, Gunpowder Milkshake, Pig and Shang-Chi & The Legend Of The Ten Rings.

2020 Movie Catch-Up Review: Wonder Woman 1984

FILM REVIEW

Review Scoring Chart - 10: Masterpiece; 9: Outstanding; 8: Very Good; 7: Good; 6: Above Average; 5: Average; 4: Below Average; 3: Bad; 2: Awful; 1: Reprehensible; 0: Non-Functional.

WONDER WOMAN 1984
Dir: Patty Jenkins

Stars: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Pedro Pascal, Kristen Wiig

Running Time: 151mins

Wonder Woman 1984 shares more than a little in common with Gal Gadot's infamous celebrity rendition of 'Imagine': both well-intentioned, yet tone deaf and hopelessly misjudged in every conceivable way. WW84 brings to light how much of its predecessor's success was rooted in its setting. The horrors of WW1's trenches and war-torn landscapes gave the original Wonder Woman an emotional and thematic heft which its sequel's lazy pastiche of Eighties fashions and hues, unsurprisingly, cannot come close to matching.

Wonder Woman emphasized the values and value of its heroine by transporting her - a sheltered, yet powerful and intensely compassionate woman - into one of the most apocalyptic periods of human history and letting the audience experience it with her first as despair, then as hope as she used her power to do something about it. WW84's setting, by contrast, evokes nothing about its heroine and forces the film to resort to meaningless bromides, whose espoused values it itself does not even stick to.

Marvel's Wandavision Season 1 Episodes 1 + 2 TV Review

Wandavision marks Marvel's latest foray into the world of television. Prior attempts to connect their big screen output to the small screen have not gone so well: Agents Of SHIELD began as a companion piece to the movies, but such close alignment resulted in a show playing perpetual catch-up and which only developed into a satisfying endeavour in its own right once the cord was severed. Subsequent efforts, including Agent Carter and Netflix shows such as Daredevil and Jessica Jones, tied into the cinematic universe in only the loosest sense.

Wandavision's approach is closest to that of Agent Carter, which featured characters from the movies in a self-contained story arc. Marvel's return to television is this time quite literal: the series draws heavily from the aesthetics of sitcoms from the 1950s and '60s, telling the story of the relationship between an android, Vision, and a telekinetic witch, Wanda, as they attempt to settle into (hyper)traditional married life in suburbia. It is here that a press release would affix the addendum 'except nothing is as it seems', which is ironically the problem: as far as premises go, 'dark mysteries lurking in flawless suburbia' is as generic as they come. On the basis of these early episodes, Wandavision looks to be exactly what it seems and nothing more.

Movies - The Dark Knight Rises review

FILM REVIEWS 

Review Scoring Chart - 10: Masterpiece; 9: Outstanding; 8: Very Good; 7: Good; 6: Above Average; 5: Average; 4: Below Average; 3: Bad; 2: Awful; 1: Reprehensible; 0: Non- Functional.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

Dir: Christopher Nolan

Stars: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard

Running Time: 164mins
  

In all the discussion surrounding the third entry of Christopher Nolan's Batman saga, little has been said about how the story was never planned as a trilogy to begin with. Dark Knight carried through only a handful of pieces from its predecessor, Batman Begins, and Nolan had to be convinced by the studio to return for a final bow. Rises often seems intent on tying up narrative threads never intended to be joined together, and might have been a stronger movie had it stuck to the (relatively) standalone format of the previous outing. It's a commendable technical achievement, recklessly ambitious and often thrilling, but bloated by an unnecessary desire to conclude a clunkily retrofitted story arc.

Those who go in anticipating the same pleasures offered by The Dark Knight, but on a greater scale, will at least emerge satisfied: where Begins and its sequel were distinct in their intentions and storytelling style, Rises has taken heed of Dark Knight's enormous success and emulates it at every turn. There's a villain taking over a city, a self-doubting hero, an under-siege tone (Begins indulged Batman's fantastic elements to a much greater extent) and a multi-layered narrative driven by a large cast. What Rises lacks, for all its grandstanding, is focus.

 

Movies - The Avengers review

FILM REVIEW 

Review Scoring Chart - 10: Masterpiece; 9: Outstanding; 8: Very Good; 7: Good; 6: Above Average; 5: Average; 4: Below Average; 3: Bad; 2: Awful; 1: Reprehensible; 0: Non- Functional.

THE AVENGERS

Dir: Joss Whedon

Stars: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson

Running Time: 142mins

The first of 2012's behemoth blockbusters arrives with the weight of four years' build-up on its shoulders and rabid fan expectations to live up to. Despite none of the movies leading up to this point being particularly special - Robert Downey Jr's revelatory performance brought the first Iron Man closest - Avengers shows Marvel capable of rising to the occasion when it really matters. Many of the same problems from previous movies persist, but the excitement of watching these characters share a screen is enough to reduce such concerns to minor footnotes.

Despite my dread after apparently being the only person on the planet to not have enjoyed Cabin In The Woods, Joss Whedon's script does a superb job with the challenging task of not only giving all the heroes something relevant to do, but finding something approaching a human heart at the centre of this fantastical escapade.

 

The Times They Are A-Changin': The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century 1969 review

I'm not usually a big comic book reader, but have made a note of following Alan Moore's work ever since falling in love with the first League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volume. Funnily enough, I only picked it up after watching the grotesque distortion that was the movie adaptation, where I adored the concept of a Victorian Justice League of sorts, fighting crime in the realm of popular fiction, and was desperate to see if the original work did it justice. Needless to say, I haven't looked back since. Amazing to think that first Volume is now over ten years old.

I was both wildly overexcited and a smidgen apprehensive when it was announced that Moore and series illustrator Kevin O'Neill were planning a three-part epic following the League as they fought a supernatural threat over the course of an entire century. On the one hand, it was going to be the League on its biggest scale yet; on the other, I adored the Victorian arcana of the first two volumes and disconnected slightly from the more psychedelic content in the Black Dossier. The idea of moving completely out of that era was a little worrying and whilst the first entry, 1910, was close enough that it felt much the same as ever, 1969 brings something new to the table. Fortunately, that's a very good thing.

  

Patriot Games: Captain America review

FILM REVIEW

Review Scoring Chart - 10: Masterpiece; 9: Outstanding; 8: Very Good; 7: Good; 6: Above Average; 5: Average; 4: Below Average; 3: Bad; 2: Awful; 1: Reprehensible; 0: Non- Functional.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER

Dir: Joe Johnston

Stars: Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Hugo Weaving, Tommy Lee Jones, Dominic Cooper

Running Time: 124mins

On the final step before the long-anticipated release of The Avengers, Marvel's Captain America proves to be the most charming movie in their lineup to date, despite it being afflicted with many of the same problems which made the likes of The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 2 so tiresome. It helps that Captain's WW2 setting is both different enough from modern day and more familiar than Thor's slightly garish Asgard, allowing the movie to have a fresh look whilst not feeling too distant or alienating. Since the Second World War is a time that most of Captain's viewers will only recognise from photographs and reproductions, the science-fiction elements fit in relatively comfortably. History, after all, is just a story to those who haven't lived through it, so tweaking the elements making up its narrative - even if they are knowingly anachronistic - doesn't take too big a leap to adapt to.

The movie's key success is in the character writing and the performances, though. While there's absolutely nothing wrong with formula entertainment - I'm a fanatic for the Bond series, which virtually invented the big-budget cinematic formula - several of Marvel's movies have stuck so resolutely to the blueprint that they have felt overfamiliar to the point of meshing into one. Captain doesn't stray far either, but is populated by characters who come across as likeable and, most importantly, human. They may be involved with supernatural concepts, but in their vulnerabilities and determinations, they come across as people who have lived beyond the boundaries of the script. If other Marvel movies have been mechanically competent, Captain America is a mess in its structure but has the heart to compensate.

 

Colour Blind: Green Lantern review

FILM REVIEW

Review Scoring Chart - 10: Masterpiece; 9: Outstanding; 8: Very Good; 7: Good; 6: Above Average; 5: Average; 4: Below Average; 3: Bad; 2: Awful; 1: Reprehensible; 0: Non- Functional.

GREEN LANTERN

Dir: Martin Campbell

Star: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Mark Strong, Peter Sarsgaard, Geoffrey Rush

Running Time: 105 mins 

Ragging on Green Lantern seems to be a popular sport at the moment, although I don't really see why. For sure, it's not very good, but its faults are almost to a tee exactly those which have afflicted more acclaimed superhero movies such as Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and Thor. Like them, Lantern is not particularly bad, just flat average in every way. I'd be interested to hear the justification for why people enjoyed those previous three movies but didn't get much out of this one.

Perhaps it's because Lantern doesn't have a stand-out strength to redeem its flaws. Iron Man was carried by Robert Downey Jr.'s charisma and Thor's Asgardian power struggle offered something a little different to the norm, whereas this movie's best qualities just simmer at 'good enough' without threatening to convince you that you're having a better time than first thought. As with Thor, the more fantastic environments are where the best stuff takes place, this time a planet called Oa, thanks to the greater demands on the imagination proving a vital distraction which the Earth-bound scenes noticeably lack. This makes the by-numbers writing all the more apparent, most irritatingly in having not one but two characters suffering from movie daddy issues, and yet another hotshot protagonist having to learn the value of taking responsibility. Even the main villain, a giant insterstellar cloud o' pure evil, seems to have been half-inched from elsewhere, in this case the equally drab Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

 

American History X: X-Men First Class review

FILM REVIEW

Review Scoring Chart - 10: Masterpiece; 9: Outstanding; 8: Very Good; 7: Good; 6: Above Average; 5: Average; 4: Below Average; 3: Bad; 2: Awful; 1: Reprehensible; 0: Non- Functional.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

Dir: Matthew Vaughan

Stars: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Kevin Bacon

Running Time: 132mins 

As a smaller, more character-driven piece, the original X-Men is my favourite of the movies to date. First Class aims to recapture that vibe, being primarily the story of how the friendship between Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr was torn apart by ideological differences. Yet for those noble ambitions, it falls short due to a screenplay that tries to cram too much into too little time and has the attribute in common with all screenwriter Jane Goldman's work of having never so much as met a line of natural dialogue.

It's certainly not a bad film, but one I suspect was hampered by the fact that positive early word of mouth meant I went in quite looking forward to it. If you can remember how you felt after seeing all those abysmal early posters and questionable trailers, it will probably be easier to pick out the positives, of which there are a fair number. It's just a shame that First Class can only stabilise a series in freefall, rather than restore it to greatness.

 

Not A Prayer: Priest review (Flixist)

FILM REVIEW (via Flixist)

PRIEST
Dir: Scott Stewart
Stars: Paul Bettany, Maggie Q, Cam Gigandet, Karl Urban

Running Time: 87 mins 

Priest's opening features an animated segment introducing the film's mythology that terrifyingly recalls Jonah Hex, as well as featuring a character called Hicks, whose name sounds a bit like... well, you know. Fortunately, despite those early scares, Scott Stewart's movie proves to be a significant improvement over that abomination, though that's as barbed a compliment as is possible to offer. Despite some potentially interesting ideas peeking out through the rubble, Priest satisfies itself with being a forgettable action flick that is third-rate in all areas of interest.

Paul Bettany again plays a trouble man of the cloth - it's a strange career that gets typecast as an errant god-bothering action man, as is the case here, in The Da Vinci Code, Stewart's previous movie Legion, while also popping up as Charles Darwin in 2009's Creation - who is one of a line of preternaturally gifted fighters recruited by the Church to battle vampires in a post-apocalyptic world of walled cities and barren wastelands. Sound promising? Well, be ready to have that faith tested.

Priest feels like it should be an early year release rather than propping up the summer blockbusters. It's not offensively awful, just never seems to have any ambitions beyond mediocrity, which it achieves intermittently. Any interesting ideas are soon swept under the carpet in favour of ticking off the expected boxes for this kind of low-grade actioner. It's visually passable, tinted in the requisite blues and oranges, with 3D that isn't the worst conversion I've seen. The cast are OK, the score might have been assembled  from an album of 100 Generic Soundtracks, and the action is no more surprising. Though there's predictably a set-up for a sequel, this would only be excusable if it is allowed to be called Priest 2: Ecumenical Boogaloo. In a summer that should yield far more polished and exciting action blockbusters, this doesn't deserve a prayer.

Read the full review here
 

Hammer Time: Thor review (Flixist)

FILM REVIEW (via Flixist)

THOR
Dir: Kenneth Branagh
Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins
Running time:  114mins

First, a disclaimer: I've never so much as read a page of the Thor comic book. That's important, because my impression is that this latest entry in Marvel's pre-Avengers canon may offer a different experience to those with knowledge of the source material from those experiencing it for the first time. This is a denser, more fantastical world than has been put on-screen in any other modern comic book adaptation, so anyone who knows the characters and worlds beforehand may find it easier to accept many of the outlandish elements on show.

What will surely not be a matter for debate is that, on an objective level, Thor is a mess. It never manages to find a tone that balances the inherent ridiculousness of the fantasy with the need for the drama to be taken with a modicum of seriousness. There's broad humour-a-plenty and while it is no Batman & Robin (although if you're not cracking Mr. Freeze puns by the time the 'Frost Giants' show up, you're a stronger man than I), at times its silliness doesn't feel worlds away from the frivolous tone of Batman Forever.

Read the full review here