Eddie The Eagle

If you’re looking for an intellectual and in-depth look into the world of Olympic sport, you’ve found the wrong film. If you’re looking for a highly accurate depiction of the life of the real Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards, you’re not likely to find that here either. But if you don’t smile at least once during this film, you’re made of stone.

Eddie The Eagle follows the (highly fictionalised) true story of a young man named Eddie Edwards (played by Taron Egerton of Kingsmen fame) who has had dreams of becoming an Olympian since he was a child, however lacks any real athletic ability or talent, and has no idea which event he wants to compete in. After trying and failing repeatedly to impress British Olympic Association representatives and meeting stonewall after stonewall, in steps Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman), an ex-olympic ski jumper that fell from grace. After much pestering by Eddie, he agrees to coach him (partly in order to save his life) and the pair form an unlikely bond.

The positives: The story is fun and entertaining and definitely has its ‘awww’ moments interspersed with moments of surprising sincerity, where we’re reminded that heart is an important part of being human. The film appeals to a wide audience as this story really could be about anyone, and all of us have been in Eddie's shoes at least once before: the important part is getting back up after a fall and trying again. Eddie’s unfailing optimism that he will succeed makes us care about him, a testament to Edgerton’s acting. Hugh Jackman’s performance as the hardy but somewhat unhinged coach plays well with the slightly off kilter Eddie, and their relationship tends to create much of the comedy in the film alongside the obvious jabs at English sport. Jo Hartley’s performance as Eddie’s mother was also a surprising standout.

The negatives: Although the story is a fun ride, it misses a lot of the charm of an original quirky film and does appeal more towards those who love the formula-style in their movies: there isn’t much in terms of ingenuity or innovation, just a straightforward narrative. Although it’s not necessarily a deal breaker, what you see is essentially what you get, which will be a disappointment for some people if you were looking for that indie film vibe.

Overall, the film has its rough patches and certainly misses its beats here and there, but it hits its target audience and the message of the film is has its charm. Its nice to have a film that reminds us that you don’t always have to win to be a winner.

Pan

Apart from the 1953 Disney animation, I have never seen a movie about the actual story of Peter Pan. I've seen a biopic about the writing of the play (Finding Neverland), a sequel where Peter is a grown up Robin Williams (Hook) and now a prequel of how Peter got to Neverland in Pan.

Peter (Levi Miller) lives in an orphanage in WW2 London. He dreams of one day being reunited with his mother, whom left him on the doorstop of the orphanage twelve years earlier. After investigating the head nun, Peter discovers that the young orphans are being sold to pirates who come and take them away on flying ships. Peter gets himself captured and whisked away to Neverland, which is led by the evil pirate Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman), who uses the captured boys to mine for fairy dust. It is in this mine that Peter learns that he is the chosen one of a prophecy to kill Blackbeard and free the fairies that have sealed themselves in their world. After escaping with James Hook (Garrett Hedlund), he meets with native princess Tiger Lily (Rooney Mara) to fulfill his part in the prophecy.

I must admit that I do get a certain level of enjoyment from origin stories like this one, but only when they have enough of a connection to the original source material so that there is a reminder why we went to see it in the first place. And Pan has enough of those to get by. Quiet references to Lost Boys, Tinkerbell, the crocodile and James Hook's weapon of choice being a, well, hook do a good job to make older audiences who have grown up with these characters feel a little warm inside. I also get the feeling as though the film was heavily influenced by 1991's Hook, especially with Hugh Jackman's over the top portrayal of Blackbeard rather closely mirroring that of Dustin Hoffman's Captain Hook, even down to the first time both characters appear on screen.

However, references to past works don't make a fully succinct or satisfying film. This is an incredibly action packed film and there were times when I felt like the movie needed to slow down and take a breather just so that there wasn't a flurry of activity at all times. There were two moments as well which come across as just confusing and anachronistic. They involve all of the miners chanting both "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana and "Blitzkrieg Bop" by The Ramones. When you figure out what these songs are, it throws you off completely. This film is also obviously intended to be the first step in a franchise as none of the major character arcs are completed to where they should be. I think if this was made as a stand alone movie it would be a lot better than it is.

Young Aussie Levi Miller leads the cast quite well, especially for a movie of this size. There were parts where I found his accent to be a tiny bit annoying. Garrett Hedlund gives a truly kooky, but enjoyable performance as Hook and this is complemented well by Adeel Akhtar's hilarious performance as his future sidekick Smee. Rooney Mara handles the action sequences well but ultimately I felt as though her character was rather flat. Jackman's insanely upbeat performance is probably the best part of the film although there are moments when he can get rather dark. Supporting roles by Amanda Seyfried and Cara Delvingne round out the cast.

Pan is an enjoyable enough movie with a storyline that is engaging enough that isn't too simple to get bored. Because it is a kids movie I am of course saying that it will be enjoyable for them. If you are over the age of 15, you will most likely be seeing it for the attractive stars of the film (Hedlund and Mara) or just because of Jackman's really bizarre and against type performance.

Chappie

                                                                                                    "Watch out! He's as smart as a dunny rat."

Neill Blomkamp has made the same movie over and over again and Chappie, his latest, is an attempt at funneling all the working elements of his previous films into a singular effort. Chappie is set in near-future Johannesburg, whose police force has recently began to utilise a local weapons manufacturer's "Scout" droids which are designed by Deon Wilson (Dev Patel). When one Scout is decommissioned Deon decides to test his new artificial intelligence software on the bot but both are kidnapped by a gang comprising of America (Jose Pablo Cantillo) and fictionalised members of Die Antwoord, Yo-landi and Ninja. Together, they bring the titular character to life, a sentient robot, who's child-like nature results in it being manipulated by the gang, but who's weaponised being leads to it being a target.

Chappie shares much more with Blomkamp's former films than just cast and crew.  The location and some of the production design remains unchanged from District 9, Elysium, Halo:Landfall and Alive in Joburg, as do much of the photo-realistic special effects. Chappie shares aspects of it's beginning and ending with that of District 9, as both begin with documentary-style world building and end on a non-human character accepting his fate as a fugitive. There's also the morally bankrupt corporation (headed by a nearly absent Sigourney Weaver) which employs a dangerously unhinged military psychopath (Hugh Jackman) exactly as there was in both District 9 and Elysium (Jodie Foster and Sharlto Copely). Trent Opaloch returns as Director of Photography, and again uses combination of hand-held, helicopter documentary-style shots, gorgeous slow-motion photography and environments awash with browns and greys to marvelous effect, as he did on both District 9 and Elysium.

                                                "I'm as cross as a frog in a sock!"
 

Much like Luc Besson's Lucy from last year, Chappie is stupid sold as smart, Chappie doesn't go for too much pseudo-science but instead for a film that could discuss what life and consciousness truly mean, or make a point on human and robot-controlled police states, or crime and the criminal mind, it instead chooses to have a robot learn how to be a walk and talk like a gangster from Die Antwoord. There's no style, no depth, no dimension at all, it's all about appearance, the illusion of cool, painfully style over substance. Chappie goes from the birth of sentience to full-fledged gangster in mere days, and it's these moments that outweigh and out-shine the attempts at humanisation through Yo-landi and Deon. Chappie refers to Yo-landi, Ninja and Deon as Mother, Father and Maker, but Yo-landi has a child-like mind as well, Ninja is borderline sociopathic and overtly selfish, and Deon is largely absent and does little to earn his title of Maker over Chappie.

Blomkamp's approach to information dumping and exposition is as remarkable as it is often over-simplified. The film opens on a world-building documentary, Deon vaguely describes his actions and motives to a diary-cam but is open and direct in his actions to himself when alone, and Jackman is constantly having to read out what his computer screen says when the words are presented on camera. Visually, Blomkamp rarely wastes props and devices, things are clearly arranged and utilised and this is used most notably in the replacement of parts for Chappie itself. A damaged robot is brought to a mechanic who replaces it's damaged blue ear with an orange one, already establishing Chappie as separate before he is even birthed. Later Chappie loses his arm and it is replaced with a spare, though when he finally sees another scout, a test version with the same arm, he learns a lesson about his own life. It's the least flashy element of his directorial style but nontheless a consistent part of his process and one of the most effective elements in Chappie, and it actually shows Blomkamp is a better director than he is a co-writer.

The pitfall of Blomkamp's work begins and quite possibly ends with his writing, in recent weeks he's admitted as much. He co-wrote Chappie with his wife Terry Tatchell, and between Die Antwoord, Dev Patel and Hugh Jackman, the problems are grating and overt. Die Antwoord improvise to varied effect, Dev Patel is wooden and un-believable in his dialogue but is still a professional, and Hugh Jackman's appearance and dialogue are parodical, bringing an absurd humour into this depressing world. There are absurd character choices, confusing dialogue and under-developed characters aplenty, and it's shocking that several of these characters have already appeared in Blomkamp films in some form, as they are so poorly created. Chappie is the only real human element in the film, in terms of characterisation, movement and dialogue, obviously most of this is because of Copley. Much of Die Antwoord's dialogue is obviously improvisation and adaptation, and at times it's real and effective, but the famous aesthetic of "Zef" tends to take over the film world. It creates the appearance that Blomkamp has lost control and because the world and appearance of all the gangsters, not just Die Antwoord, is so bizarre and unexplored, the entire world comes off as mindless, stupid and child-like. Hippo, one of the principal villains played by Blomkamp regular Brandon Auret, sports a hairstyle that his prepubscent sister was apparently in charge of, and all of his dialogue is subtitled. Yo-landi is child-like in temperament, mental age and style, owning a bright pink Uzi, clothes with "Sex" and "Fuck" and cat heads emblazoned upon them, and a shockingly bizarre hairstyle. And Ninja is an idiot through and through. Mentality, motivation, design and acting, The man dominates the screen in the worst way possible. To reiterate, Jackman's Vincent Moore is a parodical character, whose mullet is often in close-up, whose dialogue would make Wolf Creek's Mick Taylor blush at the boganism of it, and whose outfit in the entire finale is head-to-toe khaki. Crikey, is it a performance worth watching.

Chappie is a mess, but gladly it as a character is as adorable, charming and naive as expected. Brought to life with marvelous CGI, performance and cinematography, but utterly wasted in writing and character direction, Chappie is surely Blomkamp's most complete work to date, too bad it's completely shit. Worth watching on a lazy night when you don't want to think.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Enough with the X-Men already! Is what I was thinking before watching this movie. It's not that I'm not a fan, it was more that I thought I was all X-Men'd out. This movie showed me I wasn't.

One of the great things that was in the movie was the number of characters. In any other movie, I would say that this would be too confusing, but it made this one so much better. There are all the characters from the original trilogy (Wolverine, Storm, Colossus and, my favourite, Iceman), characters from First Class that we all loved (the young versions of Professor X, Magneto and Mystique) and new characters that will definitely be your new favourites, like Quicksilver (who I think everyone will love), played by Evan Peters (Kick-Ass). The only problem with Quicksilver is that he'll be appearing in the next Avengers flick played by a different actor, James' Kick-Ass co-star Aaron Johnson (he won't be as funny).

I won't go into too much plot, but basically the mutants of now (or the future?) send Wolverine back in time to prevent a war between mutants and humans breaking out. He teams up with young Magneto and Professor X to make this happen.

I will go into the 70's setting though. It is amazingly accurate (or maybe it just seems that way to me). Instead of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the historical moment that is the backdrop is the end of the Vietnam War. Like First Class, this adds an extra level of tension that the audience can relate to. Director Bryan Singer also handles the dramatic moments of the story really well.

The other thing this movie handles really well is the comedy. The last couple of X-Men movies have been pretty good at mixing comedy and drama, but this time it is perfected. The jokes aren't rammed down your throat so that they are overplayed, rather they are well timed and don't interfere with the films more serious situations.

I had a couple of issues with the continuity of this film in the timeline. The last time we saw Patrick Stewart's Professor X he was torn to shreds by Dark Phoenix, yet this film is set years after that and he is fine. Maybe if it was made clear that this was an alternate timeline it would be okay, but I don't think it is.

Verdict: I had a lot of fun watching this movie, revisiting old characters and meeting new ones was great. The story was pretty simple, but at the same time engaging enough that you didn't lose interest.

The Wolverine

Man, Wolverine is so cool. He has like claws and regeneration and mutton chops. What I would do for a pair of those. This Japanese-set, Australian-filmed action movie is unlike any of the X-Men movies that have come before, apart from the fact that Logan is once again the central character (when you look back at it, the only time he wasn't a main character was when Professor X and Magneto were recruiting the initial team in the 60s).

So, this film starts when Logan (Hugh Jackman) is a POW in Nagasaki, prior to the US dropping the bombs that ended the war in 1945. This scene is pretty full on, as we get a ground view of an atomic bomb detonating. Something that no one lives to tell anybody about. Except for Logan and Yashida (Ken Yamamura).

In the present day, Logan is living as a homeless man in the mountains of Canada with his only friend being a bear. He is tracked down by Yukio (Rila Fukushima), a mysterious Japanese woman, who says that her master wants to thank him for saving his life all those years ago. Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi) is now an old man dying from cancer (probably from the radiation caused by the bomb). He offers Logan a way out of his immortality, which he rejects. This film deals with Logan's internal struggle with his mutation.

This movie is really cool in the fact that it's not like the other superhero movies we've seen recently. Although it does revolve around his mutation, it's not the focus of the movie. It's more of just an action movie, where the tough main character has claws. Speaking of his claws, I've only recently been wondering about the blood on his claws and if he wipes them off before retracting them, because that is a really weird hygiene problem.

I don't really need to say whether Jackman is good as Wolverine, because he's played the character in six movies. The only other character that he should be able to slip into with the same amount of ease is Peter Allen.

The real rising star of this film is Rila Fukushima. The 170 cm model is really graceful in her action scenes and has real talent when it comes to acting. Although she has only previously been in a short film and handful of music videos, I can see her having a real future in the industry.

The only other white actor in this film is Svetlana Khodchenkova (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy). She plays Viper, although her character is very different from in the comics. Her character isn't explored too much and I wanted to know more about her background or her in general.

Verdict: A really fun movie that doesn't need background knowledge of the character or any of the previous films. Although it does call back to the comics, especially his use of 'bub'.

Movie 43

Please don't watch this movie. Don't see it at the cinema, don't buy the DVD, don't even download it, it's not worth the bandwidth. My friend who was with me at the time, walked out twenty minutes in and I would've have well if I didn't have to review it. I feel as though my IQ has halved. And I wanted to give this movie a chance.

Now I've got that out of my system, let me tell you about it. The plot begins with a filmmaker (Dennis Quaid) pitching a movie to a studio exec (Greg Kinnear). Okay, of to a good start, no problem there, that is until we get to the first short about Kate Winslet going on a blind date with Hugh Jackman. In a regular movie that would be a great set up for a romantic comedy until it all goes south when we find out that Hugh Jackman has balls hanging from his chin, fully grown male testicles. What am I ten, who would find this funny. It obviously doesn't appeal to Greg Kinnear's character either because he immediately wants to put an end to the meeting.

But still Dennis Quaid goes on with his pitch, with stories ranging from an extremely dirty mouthed Emma Stone (who is going to have to work extremely hard to regain my love) sucking on Kieran Culkin's (Macaulay's brother) finger to a sketch about a product called iBabe (a naked female that functions like an iPod) made by a company headed by Richard Gere. Other sketches include Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts telling their new neighbours about the disgusting ways that homeschool their son (some of which are borderline incestuous). I am sure their son will grow up to be a mass murderer. Another short involved young Chloe Grace-Moretz getting her first period, with all the men in the house freaking out.

One storyline I did like (I use that term insanely loosely) was called Gotham City Speed Dating. In this short, Robin (Justin Long) is at a speed dating night, only to be humiliated by Batman (Jason Sudeikis), who shows up because a bomb has been planted at the venue by the Penguin. Kristen Bell is Supergirl and Uma Thurman is Lois Lane. Superman is portrayed as some kind of perverted sex fiend. The only reason I "liked"this segment is because Jason Sudeikis played Batman similar to his character Schmitty from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and that's only because his character in that is a dick.

As the film progresses, we find out that Dennis Quaid isn't some big director, but instead some crazy guy who has wandered in of the street with the hopes of getting his film made. But then in an insane twist, at the end we find out that the camera that was filming this was just a behind the scenes camera all along.

I don't know what the makers of this film were thinking, the same thing with the actors. Was Peter Farrelly trying to make some bold statement about the future of film? I don't think so. Were the actors, keep in mind that these are Oscar and Golden Globe worthy actors, just doing this movie as a bit of fun? Maybe, we'll never know. Two particularly offensive performances come from Stephen Merchant (Ricky Gervais best mate) who ends up with plastic surgery that has turned him Asian a la Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's and Terrance Howard (as in Terrance Howard from Crash, a Best Picture winner) plays a coach of an all black basketball team in 1959, who convinces his team that they can win purely because they are black. Come on, that's more racist than the whole of Django Unchained.

Verdict: It's unfunny, racist, disgusting and just plain horrible. Avoid at all costs. Go see any other movie.