Star Trek Beyond

After the darkness that was the last Star Trek movie, the franchise has taken a much lighter turn. This can only be expected when you team up Justin Lin, director of the Fast & Furious movies, and Simon Pegg, who wrote the script. This tongue in cheek approach is a much needed thing in the current Hollywood climate, but is also a step away from the general nature of Star Trek which might upset long time fans.

The crew of the Enterprise are more than halfway through their five-year voyage through space and have stopped at deep space station Yorktown for some much needed respite. James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) is questioning his place as captain and applies to be the Vice Admiral of Yorktown. But that process is stalled when an escape pod drifts into the Yorktown space and the survivor on board claims that her ship was attacked in a nebula and are being held on a remote planet. Kirk and his crew go to the planet only to be attacked themselves. It turns out that the alien Krall (Idris Elba) was after a part of a superweapon that Kirk has. Luckily, another alien prisoner Jaylah (Sofia Boutella) is able to help figure out how to save the day.

What made this movie really work for me was the simplicity of the plot. It's a very basic rescue mission/escape movie. Pegg has written a script that really allows for focusing on the characters rather than getting bogged down in a story that is steeped in Star Trek lore. This also means that we get to see characters grow in and develop in this new universe. Simon Pegg also infuses the movie with plenty of humour that pleases both fans Pegg and these movies. One such example is when they use the Beastie Boys 'Sabotage' to save the day and refer to it as classical music. Justin Lin is also very adept at filming action and there is a lot more on the ground action than spaceship fighting, but that's what he does so well.

Due to Pegg's familiarity with his castmates, he has written a script that definitely plays to their strengths. One of these recipients is Karl Urban, which is good because Bones is definitely my favourite character. Also the character of Sulu is padded out a little more, as he given a husband and a daughter. While there has been an outcry against this, it doesn't harm the story at all and actually made me feel more a character who has been relegated to the background in the other two movies. There was a point where I was listening to Krall speak, and I wondered whether it was Idris Elba. No, I thought, he's not in this. Turns out he is, but still his performance isn't up there with some of the ones he's given in the past. Newcomer Sophia Boutella makes the character Jaylah very likeable.

In our current world of gritty reboots, Star Trek Beyond is a fun, bubbly adventure. Sure, it is part of a series that historically has taken itself very seriously, but this time round it's just a lot of fun to watch Captain Kirk and his pals wisecrack their way through the action. Also, the massive inside out planet that is Yorktown is really a wonder to see.

Finding Dory

“I’m Sigourney Weaver, thank you for joining us”

There’s possibly nobody on Earth more excited for Finding Dory than Ellen DeGeneres, and this is very much her movie, however the stakes are high with this latest Pixar release. Their track record for sequels is second-to-none, and Finding Nemo is arguably one of their most well regarded films. Thirteen years on, does the Finding story really have the legs for a sequel?

Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) is an amnesiac. She’s also a fish. After returning home from the adventures of the first film, Dory struggles to fit in on the reef. Yet after a telling flashback, she remembers a key detail about her childhood and how she and her parents became separated. Darting immediately off into the distance, her friends Marlin (Albert Brooks) and Nemo (Hayden Rolence) - after calming her down - agree to help her look for her long-lost parents.

After the usual warm-up act from Piper - possibly the most adorable Pixar short to date - Finding Dory takes no time to remind us who the new titular character is, “My name’s Dory. I suffer from short-term memory loss”, certainly not the last time we’ll hear that phrase. After a life-story in well-handled flashbacks, we pick up essentially where we left off. Whatever may have happened to Dory, Marlin and Nemo in the short time-period that we’ve skipped, it’s clear that we haven’t missed anything important. Soon enough we’re following the trio on a quest to find Dory’s parents in what turns out to be a much lighter, safer chapter in the series.

Sure, Finding Dory is just as entertaining as the original, and continues the kids/adults balance that Pixar films handle so well, but despite several set-ups and the immense challenges posed to the marine trio, it doesn’t feature any real moments of peril like the first, or manage to traverse the emotional peaks and troughs that you might expect of it.

The Australian talent is sadly gone (not surprising as it's largely set in a different part of the ocean)

which means so are the suspiciously well-meaning vegetarian sharks, a source of entertainment and danger in the original. In the handful of scenes where there are challenges to overcome, we’re far from the edge of our seats. Before we even have the chance to experience any palpable tension, the situation is quickly resolved (often thanks to one of the various new characters and their slightly too convenient attributes) and Dory, Marlin and Nemo are able to continue onward, with little to no impact on the plot or character development.

It may not have the depth, but the story is at least well written - particularly the dialogue. There was a real danger that more focus could turn Dory into the Jar-Jar Binks of the series, but her forgetful yet bubbly personality stays surprisingly well balanced. Thankfully, the animation stays true to the original, with only small-improvements here and there that all but the most hardcore of fans wouldn’t notice. Thomas Newman’s soundtrack is good for the most part but doesn’t have the same energy or mix of raw emotions that his OST for the first film did (a real contender for best Pixar soundtrack).

Finding Dory kind of feels like it’s missing something. At its best, it’s regularly witty and light-hearted fun that works for both parents and kids - with a great moment involving Louis Armstrong, a truck and slow motion - but it doesn’t challenge its younger audience with moral hurdles or the emotional punch that we’ve come to expect from the better Pixar films.

Bastille Day

As far as action movies go I tend to steer clear, not because I'm a snob who's above people beating each other up, but because I think that all the good action movies have already been made and the majority of ones coming out these days can't keep up with the movies of my youth. So when I have to go review these movies, I don't go with high expectations. Obviously I can be surprised, just like how I was with Bastille Day.

On the eve of the important French national holiday, American pickpocket Michael Mason (Richard Madden) steals a bag belonging to French bomb mule Zoe (Charlotte Le Bon), but after finding nothing of interest, he throws it in the trash. Soon after, the terrorists set off the bomb and Michael becomes the main suspect in a manhunt by the French police. But CIA agent Briar (Idris Elba) has also been assigned to bring Michael in to find what he knows. As soon as Michael finds out what he has been accused of, he sets out to clear his name.

On closer inspection, Bastille Day is a pretty current portrayal of what is going on in Europe, from the rapid rise of far right political groups clashing with with left wing protest groups, as well as the influx of asylum seekers. Of course, this isn't the main focus of the movie and only plays out in the background, along with the apparent reliance on social media everyone apart from the main characters seem to have. The plot is pretty fun and moves along at a great pace. I saw the plot of the bad guys coming a mile away, but of course anyone who has seen the original Die Hard will as well. In terms of the action, there were two memorable set pieces for me. Early on Richard Madden and Idris Elba engage in a thrilling rooftop chase where the stakes are pretty high, especially if you're afraid of heights like I am. The other one come in the back of a van, where the fight is choreographed around the movements of it.

Despite being a Hollywood movie, the film has cast no American actors which was a choice that I found very noticeable. Richard Madden (Robb Stark from Game of Thrones) was at times slightly annoying as the helpless Michael. I thought that his character would at least be a bit more assertive with the decisions he makes. Idris Elba stands out as someone not to mess with. If anything this is his audition for James Bond, much in the same way Layer Cake was for Daniel Craig. He has many more action scenes than I've seen him do before. Charlotte Le Bon doesn't really have much of a screen presence and when she is on the screen she just looks worried or scared. Kelly Reilly is absolutely wasted in this movie, relegated to a role where she just has to explain what is going on to Idris Elba. José Garcia is a pretty menacing bad guy and I would have liked to see him have a bigger part.

Bastille Day is on the whole a better than average action movie and I did have a lot of fun watching it. It isn't something worth running out to see right this instant, but it should be high on your list.

The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book is one of those stories that people of all ages have grown up with, whether it's the books, the original 1967 Disney animated movie or any of the other movie versions that have been released since. The latest version has come along at a time when making a live action version is possible without relying on unpredictable trained animals (like they did in the 90s.) And while there's a lot of good in this movie, there's also a lot of bad.

Mowgli (Neel Sethi) is a young boy who has grown up in the jungle. He was found by the black panther Bagheer (Sir Ben Kingsley) and raised by the wolf Raksha (Lupita Nyong'o). During a peacetime period brought on by drought, Mowgli comes under the attention of the tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba), who threatens the entire jungle unless Mowgli is turned over to him. Mowgli realises that the best thing for him to do is find his true place in the world and go to the man-village where he was originally from. Along the way, he comes across the snake Kaa (Scarlett Johannson), befriends Baloo the bear (Bill Murray) and angers King Louie (Christopher Walken).

The original Disney animated movie was very much targeted toward kids, no doubt about it. This one, I'm not so sure. Yes, the plot is pretty basic and doesn't need too much attention to follow it, but it is a really intense movie. Every time Mowgli found himself in a dangerous situation, I couldn't help but get caught up in the moment, so I can't imagine how terrifying some of it must have been for kids under ten. The way the world is presented to us is pretty ingenious. Everything seems out of proportion and way bigger than it would be in real life. That's because we're seeing the world through the eyes of a ten year old. Of course elephants will seem like the biggest things in the world. While we're on the topic of the animals, I have to mention how fantastic the visual effects are. So much research must have gone into how each individual animal species moves, because when you see them, you almost forget that they aren't even there with Neel Sethi, yet he reacts amazingly to them.

While all this is great, there are still problems. I felt like some of the characters were only included in the film because the filmmakers felt obliged to put them in there rather than serving any plot points. For me Kaa was the big one. She only appears briefly (basically all her part is in the trailer) and all we want to see from that character is the crazy eyes. The other one is King Louie. I find his character particularly problematic. He doesn't appear in any of the original books, but rather was created for the Disney animated movie. In 1967, I'm sure it was okay to have a parody of a black jazz musician in your movie, but when you've got a very obvious Christopher Walken doing a very obvious impression of a black person (blackvoice?), it goes a bit far. I know Christopher Walken loves to sing, but does he need to? That leads into the next problem. This isn't a musical like the old one, so why shoehorn in two songs. "Bare Necessities" and "I Wanna Be Like You" were the most popular songs from the original sure, but I found that breaking up the action with these songs just pointless.

Overall, the voice cast is pretty solid. Idris Elba and Ben Kingsley are amazing. Elba has a rather menacing voice as it is, but when it's coming from a tiger, well that's just terrifying. Kingsley is such a talented voice actor that you end up paying more attention to his character than the voice. And that's a problem that sticks out with the rest of the characters. The cast is so well known that they become removed from the parts they play. This is most noticeable with Bill Murray who seemed to be playing more of a version of himself than Baloo.

The Jungle Book is hanging in a weird limbo for me. I wouldn't say I particularly enjoyed it, but I wasn't bored. There was always something that was intriguing for me on screen and at times that distracted me from what was going on with the story. I also couldn't help noticing that this movie took some beats from The Lion King, which was a huge distraction.

Zootopia

Disney knows it’s the king of anthropomorphic animation, and the company sticks to its strengths with the Byron Howard/Rich Moore helmed Zootopia. It might not be a Pixar feature, but Zootopia promises plenty of fun scenes and more than just one mystery beneath its surface.

In a world of talking mammals (not to be confused with the world of talking reptiles in Disney’s upcoming Reptilia) a small rabbit from the countryside, Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) goes against the expectations of her carrot farming parents to become the first rabbit police officer. Judy travels to the massive city of Zootopia, where - much like when other young people first go out into the world - she inhabits a small apartment with noisy neighbours and realises her job isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Parking Officer Judy meets con-artist Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) on one of her shifts, and immediately takes a dislike to him, given her previous experiences with foxes. After abandoning her post to pursue a thief, her unimpressed supervisor, Chief Bogo (Idris Elba) gives her one last chance; to solve a missing mammals case in 48 hours. With her job on the line, Judy discovers that Nick was one of the last known mammals to see the victim. Tracking Nick down, Judy convinces him to help her, teaching kids watching the movie a valuable lesson in blackmail.

Zootopia started off tooting the same ‘follow your dreams’ mantra that Disney has heralded for many years, which plagued the awful Tomorrowland, and to a much lesser extent Big Hero 6. Not that it’s a bad concept to be communicating the power of ambition to kids, but it does wear-out very quickly. Thankfully however, after the first act and when the story takes an investigative arc, Zootopia gets into gear. As always there are a smattering of jokes tailored just for adults - such as a well-handled series of references to The Godfather - but despite its PG rating, there’s not a lot that would go over kids heads.

There’s a decent amount of tension as the mystery unfolds - especially in some of the darker scenes - and elements of the plot are surprisingly relevant, touching on social and racial issues that are all the buzz right now thanks to the U.S presidential election, among other events. However, it does seem to push these themes a little too blatantly for my liking, and for a standout Disney film it still doesn’t reach the same level of emotional complexity of even an average Pixar film.

Animation wise though, you can see the influence of Pixar on the team at their sister studio, because Zootopia screams forth with vibrant, fluid imagery that perfectly captures the tone of Zootopia and its many districts. Whilst not revolutionary in style, the animation will have sucked you into the world even before Judy reaches the big city. Matching the visuals, we get well-rounded voice work from the entire cast, thanks to the talents of Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, J.K Simmons and many others, as well as witty dialogue from Howard and co-writer Jared Bush. The characters themselves are as diverse as their animal pedigree, pitting the overly-excited Judy against the grumbling Chief Bogo, the sly Nick against the weasley Duke Weaselton, and who couldn’t love Simmon’s Mayor Lionheart, easily *unimpressive Zorg accent* my favourite.

Zootopia may be pushing its values further than its story can take them, but it’s still a beautiful, well-acted, enjoyable family movie with just enough edge and mystery to keep it interesting.

The Gunman

Pierre Morel is the man the brought Taken to the world, so I already knew what to expect when I walked into his latest feature The Gunman. With Sean Penn, Javier Bardem and Idris Elba headlining the film, it can't be that bad right?.....right?

Jim Terrier (Sean Penn) is an ex-soldier working under contract in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His girlfriend, Annie (Jasmine Trinca) works for the same NGO as he does, in a medical position. Felix (Javier Bardem) works as a contact for Jim and is interested in Annie. As part of his contract, Jim assassinates the mining minister and has to flee the continent. When he returns eight years later, digging wells, he uses some bad-ass moves to foil an attempted assassination on himself and when he begins to investigate, finds his past catching up with him.

The Gunman's plot is in a league of it's own, somehow managing to be endlessly clichéd and at the same time, frustratingly convoluted. It often feels like they're specifically adding unnecessary detail and opening up new story arcs to mask the plot holes. Just for example, early on, there's an attempted assassination on Jim, where the gunmen have vials of some 'no-frills' poison. Jim takes the vials, then somehow gets them past customs to show to his mates in London; that might seem nit-picky but it's just the tip of the iceberg. The characters seem to just spew endless jargon, followed by a "we need to go to (insert exotic location)" which seems like a good excuse to consume more of the $40 million budget, an enormous amount of money for an action thriller that really only has a couple of action sequences.

The denouement significantly improves on the hum-drum storyline, but it covers way too much ground, revealing erroneous details and trying to tie up loose-ends with about as much success as a Llama with a ball of string. The Gunman ultimately takes the path most followed, with a story that's both dull and unoriginal. The opening act set in the Congo only serves as a brief, unnecessary establishing point, and to me, using another nation's crisis as a central story arc, then abandoning it in favour of  the regular girl/villain/revenge story is not just a cop-out, it's an insult to those that are actually suffering.

The characters are no better. Javier Bardem is completely underused and has a very insignificant role, especially given his prominence on the poster. Bardem is a very talent actor, but here he's just playing an under-developed douchebag, and there's no acting around that. Idris Elba is only in the film for about the last twenty minutes, and Sean Penn joins the ranks of middle-aged stars playing bland characters who somehow punch louder than a clap of thunder but deliver lines with the dramatic force of a gerbil. Ray Winstone brings some much needed cockney relief but is unfortunately very-much a secondary character. The two strongest performances come Trinca and Mark Rylance, who I haven't actually seen in anything til now.

Given that Morel is also a cinematographer, it should come as no surprise that the visuals are really this film's only saving grace (though the actual DP on The Gunman was Flavio Martinez Labiano). The gritty look is in no way innovative, especially for the action/thriller genre, but along with some decent sound design, it does manage to build the tension. The fight scenes also seem to be extremely well choreographed, though they cut away so much that it's difficult to actually enjoy them. The most enjoyable element of The Gunman was listening to the elderly couple behind me discussing how ripped Sean Penn is.

If you're the sort of person that cherishes the Taken franchise, then you'll probably enjoy this, though then again there's not that much mindless action here either. Not even the strong cast could save this from being a terrible movie.

Benedict Cumberbatch cast as Shere Khan in Jungle Book: Origins

Fan favourite Benedict Cumberbatch has been cast as the voice of the villainous tiger Shere Khan in the live action Warner Bros. flick Jungle Book: Origins. The movie will mark the directorial debut of long time motion capture actor AndyHobbit films.

Serkis. This isn't Cumberbatch's first voice acting role, he has played the dragon Smaug in the

It will come a year and a week after Disney's own remake of the original film, starring Idris Elba as the tiger, with a release date of October 21, 2016.

Stay tuned for more updates. Story comes from Variety.

Pacific Rim

Is your giant monster making too much noise all the time? Is you giant monster constantly stomping around, driving you crazy? Is your giant monster clawing at your buildings? Think there's no answer? You're so stupid, there is! Giant robots! Is your giant monster fat, skinny or an in between? That's okay because one size fits all.

In the near future, a portal to another dimension is opened in the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean and from it come massive monsters called kaiju (Japanese for monster). Mankind quickly develops a defence in the form of jaegers (German for warrior), giant robots that are piloted by two people who share a neural link with the onboard computer. Although initially successful, the program begins to fail and in an all out effort to destroy the portal, mankind decides to drop a nuclear weapon into it.

The action is visually impressive. Although Guillermo Del Toro usually uses practical effects, he instead opted for CGI as this film is on such a huge scale. The fights between the jaegers and kaiju look really cool and this film is a definite homage to the early Godzilla flicks, mainly Godzilla vs MechaGodzilla (one of the best in the series).

Del Toro is also renowned for creating rich and diverse worlds, especially in both Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth. It is enjoyable to see kaiju body parts being sold on the black market and that whole area of the underworld seems to be a trademark of his.

Most of the cast is pretty ordinary, but the saving grace of the film is Charlie Day (It's Always Sunny). I know I seem to go on about him a lot, but he genuinely is a fantastic actor. He plays a doctor researching the kaiju and he has a manic enthusiasm about the monsters. It got to one stage in the film where I was just waiting for the next scene with him in it.

Overall, the story is pretty predictable and the films two hour run time was a bit too long for me. There is a lengthy introduction to world in which the characters live, which was cool, but once the plot started proper, the film went downhill fast.

Verdict: I feel as though Del Toro has let down his fanbase with this film. I am used to seeing more ambitious smaller films from him and felt as though this film was too big for him to grasp. The majority of my points go to his use of Charlie Day.