The Legend of Tarzan

Before I watched this movie, I had myself thinking that I had never seen a Tarzan movie. But then I remembered Disney's Tarzan and it's TV spinoff, the parody George of the Jungle, the comedy Jungle 2 Jungle and even listened to Baltimora's 1985 hit Tarzan Boy (here's a fun challenge, give that one a listen while you read this). But all of those had a fairly upbeat tone to them. How does the one hundred year old character hold up in this era of gritty reboots? Not as well as it should have.

In 1890, Belgian envoy Léon Rom (Christoph Waltz) has been sent to the Congo in an attempt to make some money for the bankrupt king. He comes across Chief Mbonga (Djimon Hounsou), who promises him a lot of diamonds in exchange for the jungle man Tarzan, who killed his son. In England, Tarzan is reformed as Lord Greystoke (Alexander Skårsgard) and has received an invitation to return to the Congo to tour for some publicity. He is initially hesitant to visit, but American spy George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson) convinces him to go after hearing rumours of slavery taking place. Tarzan's wife Jane (Margot Robbie) also tags along, but this ends up being a mistake after she is kidnapped by Rom. Of course Tarzan is there to the rescue.

Tarzan suffers from some pretty bland plot problems. After a really interesting hint at some politics and great introduction to Léon Rom, the film just kicks into regular action/adventure tropes that follows perfectly in line with, well, the legend of Tarzan. And while it's not the generic discovery of Tarzan, the return of Tarzan isn't much more interesting. Another thing I found very distracting was the behaviours of some of the animals. Everyone knows that gorillas don't swing from vines and I thought it was really stupid that Tarzan would learn this from them. I would be fine with him developing this technique on his own. There is a heavily proliferation of CGI animals at work here and while it's not as bad as The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, we really don't need a cameo from a group of poorly rendered elephants.

The characterisation is at least good. Tarzan is introduced with a shot of disfigured knuckles, a remnant of running around on all fours and although Skårsgard's accent is a bit shaky, his diet of raw eggs and whiskey is something we should all aspire to (take that Rocky). Margot Robbie's Jane offers a lot more than a damsel who's nice to look at. She works well in a sticky situation and her relationship with the African tribes proves invaluable. While I said that Christoph Waltz had an intriguing intro, he ends up being a bit of a generic villain, a thing that he has become lately. Of course, Samuel L. Jackson is there to be the good sidekick as always.

While The Legend of Tarzan promised to give us a different look at the famous jungle man, it ends up being the same old story, with all the elements of his adventure we've come to expect. The only thing missing was his chimpanzee buddy Cheeta.

Furious 7

                                               "I can't believe we pulled that off"

The Fast and Furious is a wholly unique example of blockbuster film-making. In no other series could the sixth sequel of a franchise be both the highest grossing and the most critically-acclaimed in spite of a director-change and the death of one of the major stars. A franchise that's as lauded for the diversity of its main cast as for its outright lunacy and stupidity. As often as it is compared to the auteuristic style of "Bayhem", it is entirely separate, as the Furious 7 may be the only film of the decade to have an action set-piece that involves one Hispanic woman fist-fighting four hijab-clad bodyguards and an MMA champion all dressed in evening dresses and while a car flies between three separate sky-scrapers.

                                          "Time to release the Beast from its cage."

The climactic death of Han in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift was a grim eventuality during his tenure in Fast Five and Furious 6, but at the end of the latter it was teased that his death was deliberately perpetrated by British ex-Black Operations psychopath Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham). The motive being that by killing Han Shaw can bait Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his adopted "family" as revenge for them defeating his brother Owen (Luke Evans) in Furious 6. From this point onwards the plot modifies this over-arching revenge story with a Macguffin side-plot involving the enigmatic and enthusiastic "Mr. Nobody" (Kurt Russell) and the sexy & intelligent hacker (literally her only characteristics) Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel of Game of Thrones). Russell adds an extra dose of enthusiastic wit into the mix, Rhonda Rousey and Tony Jaa appear to (successfully) beef up the fight scenes, and Djimon Honsou continues his recent trend of intimidating villainous roles. This all builds upon Furious 6's James Bond-like jet-setting trend and growing reputation for choice casting, allowing for ridiculous action set-pieces to take place in vastly different locations, and truly allowing the individuality of this series to shine.



Australian director James Wan (most known for his horror films The Conjuring and Saw) gives some new depth to the madness but stays mostly true to the style Justin Lin built in his tenure from Tokyo Drift onwards.  Sky-diving cars? Sure. Iggy Azalea cameo? Why not. The Rock flexing his way out of a cast? Oh baby, yes please. But the over-editing of the fights, cringe-inducing dialogue, the too-strong foreshadowing of Brian's departure, the objectification of Nathalie Emmanuel's attractive, but otherwise very capable Ramsey, and certainly the abundance of product placement thin the growing divide between Furious 7 and its contemporaries. Wan also retains the near pornographic scene transitions, the lunatic action set-pieces, and thematic obsession with family, but builds on them in many small ways (most often through just effective mis-en-scene and camera-work) throughout the whole film. The fights incorporate interesting camera and editing techniques. the film concentrates on the dynamics and psychology of the "family" over the Statham's entertaining but one-dimensional villain, and the music unashamedly switches entirely from an obnoxious hip-hop soundtrack to an overcharged orchestral score between scenes. The introduction to Deckard Shaw is excellent in the way it establishes James Wan's role. The scene begins with a relatively touching moment of Statham visiting an unconscious Luke Evans in hospital and then in a single shot pulls out to reveal the destruction he wrought to get there, the destroyed ward, the dozens of dead and dying police and Statham's own deadly swagger. The scene contains the familial spirit, the excess of action and even ends with Statham speeding off in a sports car to hit all the hallmarks of the franchise, but the style of the reveal and structure of this scene is more than just pure spectacle.


                                   
                                                   "Woman, I AM the cavalry."

While it's tough to shoot around Paul Walker's death at that stage of the production, it's dealt with adequately with the asides of Dom and Mia (Jordana Brewster) contemplating whether Brian will accept domestication. These moments, alongside the similar aside that delves into the psychological aftermath of Letty's (Michelle Rodriguez) return to the "Family", allows for a welcome change in pace and an easy introduction to the eulogy for Walker. It's important for films to know what they are, not just who their audience is but what the film is, what it says and the way it says it. The Fast and Furious films were never meant to get this outrageously big, and it is clear on every level that the film-makers, producers, and most of all the actors know exactly what they're there to do: entertain. And in Furious 7 there is no shortage of ways to evoke that message, it comes through loud and clear.




Go and watch this movie now.

Seventh Son

                                               "To be no-good at a bad thing is good."

A wise and battle-weary Old Man is confronted by the greatest enemy from his past and recruits a young farm-Boy who slowly learns his destiny through interaction with a mysterious artifact he owns. As the boy grows, the Man, though grumpy, comes to respect and rely on the Boy, the Boy in turn slowly learns to accept the teachings of the Old Man and together the boy falls in love and they defeat the Evil and its Empire.

That's pretty much the basic plot outline of nearly every fantasy film made since Star Wars at the very least, whether it's Science Fantasy like Star Wars (or as TV Tropes dubs it, the Standard Sci-fi Setting), or the Standard Fantasy Setting from a popular book (see: Eragon). The latest incarnation of this tired trope is helmed by Russian director Sergei Bodrov, director and writer of Quickie, Prisoner of the Mountains, and Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan. Based on Joseph Delaney's 2004 fantasy novel, The Spook's Apprentice, Seventh Son follows Tom Ward, the seventh son of a seventh son as Jeff Bridges' Master Gregory, a Spook (basically a Monster Hunter Gandalf), recruits him to defeat the recently escaped evil witch Mother Malkin, played by Julianne Moore, who should know better.

Seventh Son is an awful, boring and completely unoriginal film in almost every way. The source material is apparently loosely based on Lancashire, the English county Delaney is from, and yet the film is shot in the lush wilderness of British Columbia, a Canadian province. Other sets range from Christian churchs to Meditteranean market-harbour-cities, and finally to an ancient Roman-themed deserted mountain fortress with Arabic interior decorations. The deluge of influences on the production design becomes so distracting that the first time you see Asian peasants carrying water buckets in the background you're confused, but by the time the Hindu protector god Vishnu appears alongside a giant salamander and a pair of dragons to destroy the harbour-city one no longer cares about a consistent universe. In terms of costuming it cannot be stressed enough how obviously this film wants the viewer to sub-consciously align it with Star Wars with the fact that Tom, Gregory and in one dream sequence Tom's mother all dress like fucking Jedi. It's more confusing than Lando Calrissian wearing Han Solo's outfit at the end of Empire Strikes Back.

Ironically, there's little to no magic used besides constant transformations into bear, dragon or salamander by villains, and besides those creatures and some worthless ghosts that are somewhere between a Dementor and the ghost army from Return of the King, there are no creatures or monsters in this magical world. Tom and Gregory's repertoire of magical ability is as extensive and interesting as their names are exotic as their main solutions to magical shape-shifter attack is throw glitter, light torch or swing sword.

On the performances, Ben Barnes is as handsome as a young David Wenham look-alike should be, but otherwise predictably bland white-bread protagonist. He offers no charm, no personality, and his character goes from gormless farmboy to trained warrior apparently by plot magic. His lineage that is the reason for his selection and the film's title is inconsequential, his father appears in one scene (you'd be mistaken for thinking the father of the seventh son would matter, but no), and any power he has comes from a magic amulet the audience is told his mother gave him that is ignored before the third act. His love interest is so worthless she only warrants mentioning for her AWFUL lines, but the actress' name is Alicia Vikander. Jeff Bridges must have been on another planet making this film, probably the one from Zardoz as he's doing a Sean Connery impersonation via his Rooster Cogburn character from True Grit. His constant goofy expressions and gruff demeanour only inflame the burning apathy in the hearts of the audience. Julianne Moore is utterly wasted in this role but is the one enjoyable aspect of it because she's Julianne Moore.

Seventh Son is a waste of time and money. That is the worst thing that I can possibly say about a film, that it is worth ignoring. There's no magic, no mystery, no personality and no care for this project. The amount of talent wasted on this project (Moore, Bridges, and writer Steven Knight) is damn near a criminal act, and if there's any film worth forgetting about this year, it's Seventh Son.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Before I get into the film itself, I have to just say that I'm absolutely sick to death of Marvel's releases. I used to really like their characters but with film after film, franchise after franchise, I feel that they've really diluted in quality and have over-saturated the market to the extent that I now don't want to see any more superhero movies, even from DC or any of their other competitors. Not to mention all the good that their hyper-budgets could do with smaller productions and better script treatments. Anyway, rant over. It's time to see how their latest release Guardians of the Galaxy stacks up!

In 1988, Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is abducted from Earth, with only a Walkman and a present from his mother as possessions. 26 years later he steals a sought-after orb that lands him in prison, before he teams up with a tree-like humanoid (Vin Diesel), a genetically engineered raccoon (Bradley Cooper), an orphaned alien (Zoe Saldana) and a pissed off guy with tattoos (Dave Bautista) to escape, sell the orb and hunt down Ronan the Accuser.

The plot wasn't quite as convoluted as I was expecting, but was still as ridiculous as in most Marvel films. Having said that, it's really nice to have some fresh characters in the mix, instead of the constant rinse and repeat that we've become accustomed to. It's also great to have more of a pure sci-fi film from Marvel.

There's plenty of decent humour to keep it rolling along, although some of it is a bit cringe-worthy and there were also several jokes (such as the fact that Groot can only say "'I am Groot") that were repeated to death, which got tiring very quickly. But other than a few cliches here and there, and an ending that seemed to go on and on, the plot's really not that bad and is enough to keep you entertained throughout.

There's also nothing particularly wrong with the casts' performances but at the same time, they're nothing special. The only two characters which I actually enjoyed were Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Peter Serafinowicz's character, Denarian Saal (mainly because it's Peter Serafinowicz), and they were basically the two biggest arseholes in the whole film.

Of course, with a budget of $170 million, it's going to have plenty of eye-candy, and trust me, you won't be disappointed. It's absolutely jam packed with explosions, lasers, spaceships and a CGI racoon, whether that makes up for all it's issues depends on what sort of sci-fi films you enjoy. If you're a fan of Michael Bay, this film will blow your mind with it's strong presence of plot!

At the end of the day, it's a big-budget blockbuster with tonnes of special effects that look fantastic and jokes that will keep you watching. I quite enjoyed this but it still doesn't change my stance on Marvel.

New 'Guardians of the Galaxy' Stills

After the release of new trailers for Guardians of the Galaxy over the weekend, Marvel has provided Empire Magazine with exclusive stills from the set of the film. Guardians of the Galaxy is slated for release in the next couple of months, depending where you live. What do you think of the new stills? Do they tantalize your interest in the film? Head to the Empire article link below to see all of them.

Source: Empire Online