Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

I figured out while watching this movie that the story I really want to see is the love story between Thomas and Martha Wayne (Batman's parents) because maybe I'll actually feel some emotion after seeing them get shot for the thousandth time. But alas this isn't that movie. It's a movie about Superman, so let's get to it.

Set two years after the events of Man of Steel and America is still reeling after Superman (Henry Cavill) destroyed Metropolis City while trying to defeat General Zod. Several people are upset about this and none more so than billionaire Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck). As his crime fighting alter ego Batman, he is dedicated to find a way to show people that Supes is not the hero that everyone wants him to be. Meanwhile, Clark Kent is also trying to write a story showing that Batman is a reckless danger on Gotham City. Between the two dynamos is Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), who is plotting for each hero to bring down the other, all the while doing research in both metahumans (AKA future movie heroes) like Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) and finding a way to turn the people of the world against Superman.

As you can probably tell from that description, there's a lot going on in this movie. And that's a huge problem that is endemic to a lot of these superhero movies. The studios feel as though audiences are stupid and have to cram as much as possible in a single movie to sell movies that have not yet even been written. Batman v Superman has this in spades, introducing every future superhero in the DC Universe, even if it's only for two seconds at a time. These other hero cameos also just serve as a distraction that the film that you're currently watching isn't any good. This is because it is too full. The convoluted plot tries to fit in two introductions of new characters, although Batman really doesn't need any introduction, and Wonder Woman is really only introduced by maybe five lines of dialogue that doesn't give any insight at all to who she is or where she comes from. And in the middle of all this happening, we are treated to a lengthy and jarring dream sequences that diehard comic fans will be able to link to the Flashpoint storyline, but regular moviegoers might get lost with (if you're part of the latter group, maybe just take a squiz at that link). This really could have been chopped out to make a more streamline story.

The aesthetics of this movie are nothing we haven't seen before either. A lot of CGI smash on smashfest that is just moved to an abandoned part of Gotham because people got so up in arms about that happening in Man of Steel. Newsflash Zack Snyder, taking the people out of the equation won't change people's opinions on the wonton destruction of cities. Side note: while we're on Gotham City, did anyone else notice that it seemed really close to Metropolis, almost as if it were in the Greater Metropolis Area? Because you can definitely see the Bat-signal from Metropolis. Back to visuals now. Why was everything slowed down? I can get the need for some stylising of the fight sequences, but there's a whole slo-mo montage of Superman doing his super thing all around the world. I get that it's building dramatic tension, but this movie is way too dramatic for it's own good.

None of this movie's performances warrant anything to write about, but I will anyway because you know I'm that kind of guy. But because there's so many, I'll be brief about each. Henry Cavill could really instil some of his own real-life charm because Superman is too dark and brooding. On the flip side, Ben Affleck barely brooded at all, which is the only thing Batman is really good at. Up until the last five to ten minutes Gal Gadot was really only eye candy for male teenagers and then she became a badass with the only good musical theme in the whole movie. Jesse Eisenberg was over the top as a character who is supposed to be a restrained genius, not the Joker. Jeremy Irons was a very believable Alfred and the total opposite to Michael Caine, so I'm torn there. Laurence Fishburne was too wacky as Perry White this time round. Tao Okamoto, Callan Mulvey and Scoot McNairy weren't in it enough for my liking.

Five minutes into this movie, I found myself thinking, "This movie needs more Wes Bentley." If you're as confused by that sentence as I am, then allow me to explain. If a movie doesn't impress me in the first five minutes, I often think that only the appearance of Wes Bentley will make it better for me. Granted, it's not a thought I find myself with often, but this was definitely one of them. The lack of Wes and the frustrating slowness of Batman v Superman left me sadder than Ben Affleck. Nawww, poor Ben, won't you let us know what's going through that head?

Kill Me Three Times

 "This place feels like an open-air fucking insane asylum!"

With a staggered release and recent semi-ceremonial dumping onto video-on-demand platforms and home release, Kriv Stenders follow-up to the runaway success of 2011's Red Dog, Kill Me Three Times, lands with a dull splat on the Aussie cinematic pavement. The rather oblique path to audiences that this film endured works decidedly against its internationally appealing cast, with the always welcome Simon Pegg (Cornetto Trilogy, Mission Impossible, Star Trek) heading the bill, followed by Brazilian supporting player Alice Braga (Predators, I Am Legend, City of God), Teresa Palmer (Warm Bodies, Point Break) and stars of the criminally underrated 300: Rise of an Empire Sullivan Stapleton and Callan Mulvey. Veteran Bryan Brown and the Luke "the Lesser" Hemsworth round out the cast with minor roles.

Kill Me Three Times opens with black-clad, muscle-car-driving, handle-bar moustachioed hitman Charlie Wolfe (Pegg) hunting an unknown blue collar worker on the sands of a WA mining site. After a clumsy attempt at a stylish kill, for both the character and the film, Wolfe receives a mysterious job offer. The job involves following Alice (Braga), wife of the vaguely criminal Jack (Mulvey), who is having an affair with mechanic Dylan (Hemsworth), who is mates with dentist Nathan (Stapleton) whose married to Jack's sister Lucy (Palmer). For various reasons everyone wants Alice dead and Bryan Brown shows up on occasion to deliver threatening dialogue in a police uniform. It's all inter-connected and numbingly simple.

With such an internationally appealing cast, a farcical noir premise, and a picturesque location, Kill Me Three Times flaws are almost instantly blatant. The debut screenplay from Irishman James McFarland leaves much to be desired with its banal plotting, empty world and on-the-nose dialogue and is certainly dragged further down by the flat, bored direction of Stenders, who has obviously put as much effort and style into the character and camera-direction of this bloody noir-ish farce as he did with Red Dog, a film with underwhelming direction though undeniable family-friendly charm. KMTT markets itself as a triumvirate of stories of remote, back-country murder and mayhem, but it's actually one story split into three parts; the set-up and execution of an action, the context, depth and character motivations behind that action, and the consequences. Finally, add a simple and over-used 70's Southern-style guitar riff in place of a score and you have the recipe for Wasted Opportunity.

The obvious inspiration behind KMTT is to create a 70's-styled, Coen-brothers film, but the execution is almost devoid of effort or visible interest. Pegg's charm and star-power is simply wasted, a golden opportunity to capitalise on his comedic skills into an enjoyably evil character but instead he spends much of his time hiding in bushes or sitting in his car staring at the other characters. Braga is either tossed into car boots, in hiding or unconscious, and so similarly wasted.  Palmer and Stapleton are the only ones involved who seem care about what they're doing but with the limited creative authority involved, there's not much to do. What little enjoyment this film elicits comes from the performances of Pegg and Brown and the beautiful setting that is almost as devoid of life, save for the cast, as the film itself is for original ideas or satisfactory execution. A derivative, wasted opportunity.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

I've always been a huge fan of World War II movies, especially those that strive for an accurate portrayal of warfare in the 1940s, Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan being a stand out example. And then sometimes I want to see a what if scenario of the same period, Tarantino did a great job of that too. But then you might get a movie that walks a line between the two, a movie where history occurs as it did, but you supplant a fictional character, a superhero* no less, into the mix. That's why I appreciated the first Captain America movie so much.

The Winter Soldier poses an interesting question. What if you took that same soldier, with all his values and beliefs, and put him in the present day. After the events of The Avengers, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is trying to acclimatise to modern life in Washington DC. He is still an agent for SHIELD, a government espionage agency run by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson).

Rogers' partner on these missions is Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) also known as the Black Widow. After an attempt on Nick Fury's life, Rogers and Black Widow uncover a corruption plot that permeates throughout the SHIELD organisation.

There is a prevailing notion that is brought up throughout the film and that is that humanity would willingly give up its freedoms in exchange for security. This is an interesting nod to our own society, with things like surveillance of the population being conducted by most Western powers.

Chris Evans had a different challenge in this film. In the last movie, his character had to cope with a physical transformation and his performance was great. Now as a modern actor, he has to portray a man from the past dealing with things from the present for the first time. One of these things he has to deal with is dating, having not gotten over his "best girl" Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell).

For an extremely physical movie, Johansson does an excellent job to keep up with the rest of the guys. In truth, I enjoyed her fighting scenes more than the guys because it is always great to see a girl kick a guys arse.

There was also the inclusion of a new hero from the comics who I have always liked. Anthony Mackie (The Hurt Locker) plays Sam Wilson AKA The Falcon. The Falcon is famous for being the world's first black superhero with his own comic series. Sam Wilson is a veteran who helps soldiers who suffer from PTSD and is only too glad to help Rogers when he asks.

Verdict: An enjoyable Marvel movie that will get superhero junkies through to the next Avengers film.

*Superhero is a trademark term owned by both Marvel and DC. I just wanted to cover myself, you know.

300: Rise of an Empire

Or 300: On Water. This prequel/sequel takes the scenario of the first film and puts in on the sea in a slightly boring, albeit actual, naval battle. Despite the rampant action set pieces that are paraded around, this film could not capture the magical essence of the original film and I feel as though part of this stems from the fact that so much effort was put into creating elaborate 3D visual effects.

The film takes place alongside the events of the original 300 film. So while Leonidas and his 300 Spartans are fighting the Persians at the battle of Thermopylae, Athenian statesman and war hero Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton) engages the Persian fleet, commanded by Artemisia (Eva Green), in a series of naval battles with a pitiful fleet of ships.

I think the main problem with the film is that it is trying too hard to recreate the underdog feeling of the original and falling short, as well as recounting a lesser known battle. I would have rather seen an adaption of Xenophon's Anabasis, but alas that exciting epic came much later in the Persian Wars and has already been perfectly adapted as The Warriors (1979).

It also seems to me that ancient Greece was populated by mostly Australian and British people, for there is not a single American (or Greek, for that matter) actor in sight. Sullivan Stapleton (Animal Kingdom) does a passable job as Themistocles, but somehow I felt he was channeling either Mel Gibson or Russell Crowe in his rallying speeches. A lot of the original cast have returned, with Lena Headey (Game of Thrones) getting the most screen time of them.

The only noteworthy, although flawed, performance comes from Eva Green (Casino Royale). She plays a female character that is as hard and tough as the men in the film and I was happy that she was treated with the same brutality as those men. I was unhappy, however, with the one massively out of context sex scene in which she dons a pair of fake breasts that are way too large for her slender frame (anyone who's seen her debut role in The Dreamers (2003) will spot this immediately).

Verdict: A seemingly passable movie on the surface, but once you scratch a little deeper you can see that even Green's performance can't save this sinking ship.

Zero Dark Thirty

First off, this is not a propaganda movie for the US, glorifying their operation to kill Osama bin Laden. It does tell the story, but it also shows the pain felt by both sides and that it wasn't just some clean in and out operation.

The story picks up two years after 9/11, with a young CIA operative (Jessica Chastain) is witnessing her first interrogation of a detainee at the hands of her new colleague Dan (Jason Clarke). Her character, Maya, has just been transferred to the US embassy in Pakistan, tasked with finding information about top al-Qaeda personnel. The detainee that they are interrogating has links to Saudi terrorists. They soon trick him into divulging information about Abu Ahmed, an old acquaintance, who, through information they can piece together from other detainees, is the courier between bin Laden and Abu Farraj al-Libbi, a ranking officer within al-Qaeda.

Many years later, Maya is able to set up a meet with the detained Abu Farraj, only to find that he is hiding the existence of Ahmed, which Maya interprets as Ahmed being a person of extreme interest. Her senior officer at the embassy (Kyle Chandler), believes Maya should focusing on bringing in known terrorists and be trying to find out where the next global attack will be, so that they can protect the homeland.

Over the next couple of years a lot of things happen in Maya's life. She survives a bombing at the Islamabad Marriott Hotel, her friend Dan is reassigned to Washington and her friend and co-worker Jessica is killed in a botched attempt to try and bring in one of bin Laden's inner circle that she had been spearheading. Whilst trying to find any information on Abu Ahmed, Maya comes across an interview with a detainee who says that he personally buried the man they know as Ahmed, his real name being Habib Sayeed, all the way back in 2001. This seems to have defeated Maya, until a junior officer in her office finds information from the Moroccan intelligence community saying that that man that was buried was actually the brother of the courier. His name is Ibrihim Sayeed and they are able to trace his phone number with the help of Dan. Before Maya can go anywhere with this information, she is attacked coming out of her home by insurgents and subsequently sent back to Washington.

Once they find Sayeed, the operatives are able to trace him to a compound in Abbotabad in Pakistan. Through continued surveillance, Maya soon believes that bin Laden himself is residing within the compound. This belief is not shared by her seniors, who deliberate on the risk of sending in a team to take out the occupants. The CIA chief (James Gandolfini) soon decides that sending in a team to the compound would be beneficial, as whoever this mystery man is, it would be a good idea to take him out.

So Maya is sent to Afghanistan, where she is to oversee the mission to the compound. A SEAL team is put together and with the latest in stealth helicopter technology, they fly into Abbotabad to assault the compound. One of the helicopters loses power and crash lands within the walls of the compound. The team goes in and obliterates the three men who are in there, including Osama bin Laden, whose body they take with them. They also take any hard drives and intel that they can get their hands on. Once they are back at base, the team is welcomed with open arms by everyone, whilst Maya is left to contemplate what she is to do with her life now that her goal that she has been working on for a decade is completed.

Katheryn Bigelow has put together a movie that pulls no punches. Whilst it's hard to tell what actually happened in the events leading up to the operation at the end of the movie, most of the events revolve around real bombings and the detaining of real life individuals. The casting of the movie is amazing.  None of the actors have huge star power, so they are believable in the roles that they play. Jessica Chastain is brilliant as Maya and you can really see that following through with this mission means everything to her. Jennifer Ehle is great as Maya's friend Jessica who really wants to show her friend that she wants to do her best on this mission. Mark Strong plays Maya's boss in Washington and really wants to believe that bin Laden is in Pakistan.

I found the torture scenes at the beginning to be confronting, but that is how matters were handled and it is a brutal and honest truth. The water-boarding scenes, in particular, were pretty full on. The mission at the end is shown to be a far from clean mission, resulting in the loss of a state of the art helicopter and civilian casualties that should have been avoided.

The film opens with a black screen where we hear the various radio chatter that happen on 9/11, including one iconic 911 call from one of the towers. The film also has news footage from various attacks throughout the decade, as well as press conferences from both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. These give insight into the world that was happening around the events of the film.

Verdict: Spanning almost a decade, this film shows that the events leading up to the death of Osama bin Laden were not as easy as some might of thought. Although I was not a huge fan of The Hurt Locker, I think Katheryn Bigelow has done a much better job this time around.