Collateral Beauty

Collateral Beauty is the sort of film that requires a more in depth review to explain just how appalling it really is. This review contains spoilers.

Are you one of the poor souls that went to see the infamous Movie 43? A film with an incredible array of stars, magnificently poor writing and a horrendous sense of direction that left everybody wondering how it was ever funded. Collateral Beauty has been similarly shot down by reviewers, and whilst the obvious comparisons to the aforementioned disaster might be unfitting, the minor glimpses of potential are far overshadowed by the fact that Collateral Beauty gets worse and worse at every turn.

Howard Inlet (Will Smith) is a successful advertising executive who falls apart after the harrowing death of his six-year-old daughter. Depressed, contemplating death, and worst of all, under performing at work, Howard’s concerned “friends” (Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Michael Peña) worry in supposed equal measure for Howard’s mental state, and the state of their own professional futures. The trio hire an investigator, Sally Price (Ann Dowd) to acquire evidence that would allow them to take control of the company from Howard (with his best interests in mind of course), and they soon find out that he is writing letters to Love, Death and Time – three constructs that he once used in his advertising work and is now blaming for the death of his daughter. With all obvious options ignored, Howard’s “friends” hire three actors (Helen Mirren, Keira Knightley and Jacob Latimore) to each approach him pretending to be one of the constructs, hoping that he will have a public outburst whilst their PI is filming so that they can then - after digitally removing the actors - show it to the board to prove that Howard is unfit to run the company.

*Oh the humanity*

Written by Allan Loeb (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, 21) and directed by David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada, Marley & Me), Collateral Beauty had enough capability behind it to produce at least a half-decent film, but somewhere between the ethically-barren plotline and the kindergarten dialogue, the film collapses into a hilarious smoldering pile of Hollywood farce. The story in full is as unbelievable as it is in summary - a gently sickening ride through saccharine and syrupy messages, superficial plot twists and an array of A-listers trying to act their way out of one of the worst dramatic scripts in recent memory. One horrendous issue is the dialogue, which is more literary abomination than uplifting quotage - when you have Dame Helen Mirren spitting out lines like “Nothing is ever really dead if you look at it right” surely it must be obvious that you’ve created a steaming pile of script.

Putting aside the fact that none of the characters other than Howard are even remotely able to draw empathy from the audience because of their involvement in the repulsive scheme, we also have to sit through the hilariously-poor establishing of these token issues that each of them are struggling with. Norton’s Whit is drifting further apart from his daughter, Winslet’s Claire is running out of time to have a child, and Peña’s Simon is dying - we’re all dying Simon, but you decided to die an arsehole, so I don’t care. The acting is mediocre across the board, particularly when you consider the talent on screen, but the material is so atrociously bad that there’s hardly room for improvement. Will Smith’s is the only half-decent performance, but that’s mainly because he doesn’t have to talk.

There’s a swath of other annoying issues throughout like the fact that the investigator is “secretly” filming in the background with her phone in portrait mode, but when they show the footage to the board it’s in landscape and clearly shot with a cinema camera, or the hilariously stupid idea that they could simply digitally remove the actors without an expensive composite artist. Then when they show it to the board they acknowledge the fact that they’ve hired the actors anyway. What was the actual point of it then? I could go on, if not for the inevitable brain hemorrhage that analysing this excrement would give me.

Somewhere deep in the heart of this film there was a tinge of potential, completely lost in the overblown lunacy of this attempted storytelling. In the end though, watching Collateral Beauty is a bit like pondering how quickly your life is flying by, your crippling debt, the irreparable damage we’ve done to the environment, total nuclear annihilation, the futility of existence, the end of time, a Trump presidency; the more you think about it, the worse it gets.

War On Everyone

John Michael McDonagh's latest film could not be further from his last, Calvary, which came out in 2014. Gone is the introspective brooding of that film, instead replaced by stylised gun violence and the lack for societal norms that you wished you had. That's what it seems like on the surface anyway. Deep down, War on Everyone presents a level of nihilism we haven't seen on screen since The Big Lebowski. While philosophy isn't the focus of the film, it plays a big part of who the characters are and justifies their actions.

Bob (Michael Peña) and Terry (Alexander Skårsgard) are two renegade police detectives who have just returned from a suspension they received for corruption, bribery and assault of a fellow police officer. Their newest pet project is blackmailing the shifty "Lord" James Mangan (Theo James) who is plotting a dark business venture with the shady Birdwell (Caleb Landry Jones). They recruit informant Reggie (Malcolm Barrett) to get as much information has he can, while they spend their time drinking, doing drugs and the minimal amount of police work possible. Terry starts a makeshift family with former stripper Jackie (Tessa Thompson) and runaway Danny (Zion Rain Leyba) in an attempt to emulate Bob's family life. 

If there's one thing you're going to do when watching this movie, it's laugh. McDonagh's razor sharp writing is fantastic and portrayed amazingly by both Peña and Skårsgard. Whether it's talking about the ease of finding a black man in Iceland or questioning whether a mime makes a sound if you hit him with your car, the movie is hilarious. McDonagh is also able to handle the issue of race in the United States, and particularly police shootings, with humour as well. The police captain, played by comedy veteran Paul Reiser, is relieved to find that the men shot by a SWAT team were all white, a very interesting, but also sad indictment on the nature of things at the moment. McDonagh also does something very cool with his use of other police officers in the movie, namely that there aren't any. The only connection we ever see Bob and Terry having to anything remotely police is their boss. It furthers their rogue status and makes them that bit more appealing.

This movie also shifts to some very dark elements. When we are first introduced to James Mangan, we see him shooting heroin in the back of a stable. This isn't glossed over in any way and we are shown it in an almost Trainspotting level of detail. Like his last film, McDonagh, handles the subject of child abuse again, although in a much, much darker way. And that's saying something considering Calvary was about the abuse of children by priests. Although it gets extremely dark, it doesn't take anything away from the comedy, in fact it makes you glad there is so much comedy in the film. The shifts that it makes toward the darker parts of the narrative aren't jarring or out of place, they flow in and out quite nicely. The characters, especially Terry, are driven by their central philosophy that nothing in the world has any meaning. He drinks, takes copious amounts of drugs, all because he believes that the world will go on regardless of how he acts. This is refreshing to see in the protagonist of a big budget movie. Alexander Skårsgard's hulking physique also aids this and his posture is an obvious remnant of his recent role as Tarzan.

War on Everyone isn't a movie Hollywood would make. It's dark, depressing and there are moments where you feel terrible for the characters. But there is never a moment where you don't want to be a part of the world in which the characters live. It's beautifully shot and funny as hell. Another must watch for everyone.

The Martian

    "I'm Mark Watney and I'm still alive...obviously"

The red sands of Mars have settled following a forceful storm, the sky is a healthy red, the Sun bearing down on the rocky mesa's of the Martian landscape. One certain mound of sand is disturbed by the twitching movements of a man laying prone, waking from unconsciousness. His orange-and-white space-suit is both punctured and sealed by a small piece of debris shallowly embedded in his stomach. The debris, leftover from a destroyed long-range communications satellite, is not the only problem the astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) now has to face as he scans the nearby arid landscape. Close by is the habitat Mark and his team have occupied on the planet for the eighteen days preceding the storm and the remains of the launch pad of the team's only rocket back home, which has long since departed with Mark's colleagues believing him dead. Alone on Mars with no communications and limited food, Watney resolves to sustain himself, to communicate, to survive, or as he puts it to "science the shit outta this."

The Martian, Ridley Scott's latest, distances itself from the last decade of epics from the prolific director (Robin Hood, Prometheus, Exodus: Gods and Kings and Kingdom of Heaven) and also, perhaps especially so, from the recent survival dramas of Everest, All Is Lost, Interstellar and the powerhouse Gravity, most notably through the solid writing from Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods, World War Z, Cloverfield, Daredevil). Goddard's writing of the characters in the Martian is a blend of Aaron Sorkin's jargon-fuelled relentlessness and Joss Whedon's comical perfection and wit, which has a wonderful effect on the film's tone. Unlike Gravity's direct minimalism, Everest's biopic cliches and Interstellar's cold, Doctor-Who-eyness, The Martian thankfully manages to keep a keen sense of humour to balance out the drama and despair. And this is sold by an ensemble cast of both dramatic actors and practiced comedians including Damon and Jessica Chastain of Interstellar, Benedict Wong of Prometheus, and Kate Mara, Michael Pena, Sebastian Stan, Jeff Daniels, Donald Glover, Kirsten Wiig and Sean Bean (who delivers a silly and charming Lord of the Rings gag).

                        "Every human being has a basic instinct: to help each other out."

Visually, The Martian is pretty, even with it's occasionally questionable computer effects and over-use of Go-Pro footage. The production design is obviously (and smartly) adapted from Prometheus and at times the score the soaring French horns of that score threaten to burst onto the soundscape here. The obligatory Chinese pandering scenes of The Martian are perhaps even more contrived than those in Trans4mers, and even the Chinese Space Agency exterior is the same as the Chinese corporate headquarters in Age of Extinction. But in summation, The Martian is a sci-fi survival story that is slightly more fun than it is tense, but with a strong ensemble, capable lead, balanced writing and solid production. It all comes together to make NASA's perfectl, pretty and impeccably fashioned geek army and the film's two-and-a-half-hour run-time downright fun.

Ant-Man

The build up to Ant-Man has left many Marvel fans questioning how successfully the Hollywood Goliath will be able to pull off  a film on one of their lesser known characters, particularly without the guiding directorial hand of Edgar Wright. Well I'm not a Marvel fan so who knows, I might like it! 

Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) is an unparalleled technological scientist that discovered a group of particles with the ability to change the distance between atoms, effectively able to shrink and grow objects at will. After safeguarding the technology from those that wanted to weaponise it in the 1980s, Pym gave control of his company to Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), his protégé, who know has a sinister interest in re-developing the technology. Pym's daughter, Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) has a broken relationship with her father, but nonetheless turns to him when she becomes worried about Darren's actions.

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is a former burglar who can't throw punches, and has just been released from jail. Taking up residence with a former cellmate, Luis (Michael Peña), he hopes to foster a new relationship with his daughter, increasingly difficult thanks to his ex-wife and her new partner. Soon Scott is on the look out for another score to pay child support, and burglarises the home of a wealthy old man with meticulous precision. However all he finds is a dusty old suit. Scott is soon hired by Dr. Pym, planning a heist that will save the world. 

There's no doubt that Ant-Man follows the typical Marvel construction: out-there technology, a self-referential universe, CGI, CGI and also CGI. Where the film diverges is the heist sub-plot that dominates the second half of the film. You can detect the penmanship of co-author Wright, whose other work holds similar crime/heist-centric elements, particularly in Spaced and The Cornetto Trilogy. Ant-Man also scales down on the barraging action and takes some time-out for decent character development - not commonly found in Marvel films - however this also leads to relentless exposition and too many over-emotional scenes that try to get a rise out of the audience. Also tedious is the compulsory attempts to address the cross-franchise Marvel connections. "We'd better call the Avengers", we get it, they all exist within the same universe, enough already! Stop trying to set-up future cross-overs and self-advertise to us! 

Some held concerns that given the...uhh....somewhat trivial nature of Pym's technology, Ant-Man would try not to take itself too seriously and resort to an all-out joke fest similar to Iron Man 3 - which I happen to like, but is not that popular amongst the fans - Well you can rest easy, because it manages to strike a good balance between situational humour and plot development, and the comedy works well with Rudd's usual style. Whilst the action sequences rely heavily on computer generated visuals, the unique qualities of the Ant-man story allow for some equally unique sequences, including a run-in with a newly-enormous bathtub early in the film.

Unfortunately though, there's nothing new or interesting about most of the other visuals, which are stock Marvel and ultimately monotonous, especially when it could have been so much more. It's impossible to ignore the departure of Edgar Wright from the project, who reportedly left due to differences in vision between the Hot Fuzz director and the studio. His attempt at Ant-Man would have most likely been a standout film in the Marvel cinematic universe, where instead we get largely the same recycled formula that the studio knows can produce the revenue. It's a sad situation, but we can be thankful that his influence appears to have made it into the film in some ways, no matter how small they may be. 

Ant-Man is not a great film by any stretch of the imagination. However it does manage to pull away from the pack somewhat, which is crucial if we want to see Marvel develop any unique content in the ever-expanding Hollywood superhero bubble.

Fury

David Ayer's follow up to his directorial debut, Fury, is an intense piece. He somehow has a way of getting under your skin and putting you in situations that most of us would hope to never experience. World War II was long over by the time I was born, yet I have felt the fear that tank units would have felt in the European War.

The film focuses on a tank and the men who command it in the final push into Nazi Germany in 1945. Don Collier (Brad Pitt) is loyal to his men and will do anything to get them home. After a mission that leaves one of the crew dead, he is assigned a new soldier in Norman (Logan Lerman), a young clerk with no battle experience.

This movie looks at some of the atrocities of war, although at times they can be a little exaggerated. Collier and his crew are obsessed with killing every single Nazi they find and do this, even when the enemy has surrendered and is unarmed. The violence is not hyper-real as you would expect in a movie like this, but rather it is portrayed realistically (apart from your typical Hollywood showdowns).

The film also looks at certain aspects of total war. Total war is when one of the sides in a war mobilises its entire population for the purposes of winning the conflict. As such, there are sometimes children sent into battle. This film shows the stark reality of the Germans being so desperate that they send in children as young as ten to fight.

The performances in this movie are extremely intense and well done. Pitt has mastered the American soldier by now, but his character is more sorrowful than Aldo Raine in Inglourious Basterds. His thousand yard stare belies the pain he has witnessed and felt. Logan Lerman's performance is also exceptional. As someone on the opposite end of the spectrum with absolutely no battle experience, he shows all the innocence that comes with fighting and losing people close to you.

Shia LaBeouf, Michael Peña and Jon Bernthal all play great supporting roles that display talents far from what they have been known for. Peña had worked with Ayer on his previous feature, End Of Watch, and he couldn't be further from that LA cop in this movie. LaBeouf also has come a long way from the child star that he once was with an incredibly intense performance. Bernthal builds on his amazing rep that came with his performance in The Wolf Of Wall Street.

Verdict: An intense look at the horrors of war and the toll that it takes on the soldiers who fight not for their countries, but one another.