Hacksaw Ridge

Hacksaw Ridge has a lot riding on it. It marks the return of controversial filmmaker Mel Gibson to directing, it’s a story that many have tried to put on the big screen for decades, it’s been receiving rave early reviews, and its strategically poised at the start of Oscars season.

Desmond Ross (Andrew Garfield) is a devout Seventh-day Adventist, which prevents him from harming another being and renders him a conscientious objector. He and his brother Hal (Nathaniel Buzolic) live with their mother Bertha (Rachel Griffiths) and their father Tom (Hugo Weaving), who is an alcoholic clearly suffering from his time in the First World War. After helping a man who’d be pinned under a car get medical treatment, Desmond meets Dorothy Schutte (Teresa Palmer), a nurse that he’s instantly smitten with. After Hal enlists in the army against the wishes of their father, Desmond decides that he also should enlist, intending to serve as a field medic that would never have to touch a gun. However, things don’t work that smoothly in the army, and Desmond encounters opposition to his beliefs at all levels of the military, fighting his own battle before he’s even given permission to serve his part in the war.

For all the hype and opinion around Hacksaw Ridge, perhaps it's best to first address its issues. For a start, there’s an abundance of slow-motion work all throughout, which can come off as pretty heavy-handed stylism. There’s also several moments of surprisingly poor CGI, particularly the explosions and even with things as simple as background compositing. It’s worth noting that the film had significant production challenges, being independently produced by several companies, but in this day and age that’s no excuse for sub-par technical qualms. Though by far the biggest weakness of Hacksaw Ridge is its first act, where it takes us to his childhood, then explains his family situation, explores his enlistment challenges and religious views, all whilst mixing in this extremely ‘classical Hollywood’ love story. It becomes overwhelming and feels like we’re about to watch another ‘this-is-your-life’ rushed Oscars-season biopic. But then everything changes when we’re dumped into the main act; arriving at Hacksaw Ridge, and the contrast between this hour-long cliched opener and the horror that’s about to unfold couldn’t be greater.

The first battle sequence hits you like a brick wall, just as the Saving Private Ryan opener did eighteen years ago - only this time there’s no refuge from nearly an hour of horrific, unbelievably gory action. There’s been a lot of talk about this film glorifying violence, and whilst Gibson might be overly ambitious with his slow-motion coverage and CGI fireballs, anybody that could consider what unfolds as ‘glorious’ needs to have their head checked. This main body of the film is incredibly visceral, it’s where Hacksaw Ridge finally comes together and decimates you with some of the most intense war-scenes ever put to the screen. Subtlety is not a word that should ever be associated with this film but the battle sequences are damn effective.

However, Hacksaw Ridge doesn’t exactly break new ground for the war film genre, in fact it fits in closer with the massive Hollywood war-romance classics of yesteryear than it does to almost any equivalent modern war film. In that regard, Teresa Palmer’s performance feels a bit like a really toned-down Scarlett O’Hara and Rachel Griffiths epitomises the grieving mother who’s family has been torn apart by war. Andrew Garfield is superb in the leading role, and brings gently-voiced compassion to Desmond.

Luke Bracey plays the typical douche-bag semi-antagonist that typically roams the barracks of these sorts of films, but at least it’s a whole lot better than his role in the Point Break remake. Sam Worthington is pretty dry as Captain Glover but he doesn’t receive much screen time, whereas Vince Vaughn makes the most of his role as the stern Sergeant Howell, weaving in just the right amount of humour to what is his most serious performance to date. Hugo Weaving was by far the standout of the film, and whilst he’s only really on-screen in the opening act, his performance as the clearly conflicted, demoralised alcoholic father is up there with some of his extremely difficult to beat previous roles. It was also hilarious to have good ol’ Richard Roxburgh appear briefly as a psychiatrist, trying to hide all the charisma and charm that he has behind a questionable moustache. I see you there Roxburgh...

Hacksaw Ridge might not be fully deserving of the incredible praise it’s receiving - particularly due to a handful of technical issues/stylistic choices and a dreary opening act - but the performances, incredible battle sequences and the heroics of Desmond T. Doss all make this well worth a viewing.

Classic Movie Review: The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

The Lost World: Jurassic Park is the second instalment and at the time of its release it was seen as a very poor sequel to the original film. And while it does live up to comparisons with the original film, it is a very fun movie in its own right and has a cast of great characters and all new dinosaurs to hold up even eighteen years later.

Set roughly four years after the events of the first film, Dr Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) is summoned to the home of John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) where he is asked to lead a team of experts to the second island that contains dinosaurs in Costa Rica. However when Malcolm discovers that his girlfriend, palaeontologist Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) has been sent in advance, the team leaves a little early. However, once the team gets to the island, they discover two things; Malcolm's daughter Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester) has stowed away in one of the trucks, and that a team of InGen scientists led by Hammond's nephew Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard), the current InGen CEO has led a team to the island to extract a number of dinosaurs for a theme park in San Diego.

The Lost World takes no time in getting to the action. This movie relies on none of the suspense in getting to the dinosaurs that the first film did and as a result we can get a lot more fun. Within thirty minutes we are in the middle of a chase of the InGen team and a whole herd of dinosaurs. From this point on it is all action, right up to the thrilling climax which involves a T-Rex rampaging through the streets of San Diego. While this sequence may seem out of place to some, it is a perfect place to show off how big dinosaurs were in comparison to our modern buildings.

This movie has some pretty cheesy, but memorable quotes that are delivered quite well by Jeff Goldblum. The line "Where you're going is the only place on Earth where the geese chase you" is but one of the many wonderful lines. The character of Dr. Burke has some absurd long explanations about different dinosaurs that are fun to sit through as they are quite complex and scientific, but are one of the details that make this film well rounded, but at the same time it isn't taking itself too seriously. The film also has a surprising amount of characterisation for a film of this budget and genre. The leader of InGen's safari team Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite) is a well built character and his relationship with others, especially his second-in-command Dieter (Peter Stormare), is something to write about.

The movie introduces some new dinosaurs into the mix. Every kid's favourite spiky tailed herbivore Stegosaurus gets a lengthy action sequence early on, as well as a new small dino called a Compy that terrified me when I was a kid. The Velociraptors also play a much bigger part in the film and their intelligence is fleshed out a little more (although not to same extent as in the third film. The CGI dinosaur design had developed a lot further than what they were at the first time and as a result the dinosaurs are a lot more mobile. Spielberg however still uses a lot of animatronics that work seamlessly with the CGI and is something that you won't find in movies made today.

Jeff Goldblum really does steal the show in this movie. He is well practiced with his character of Ian Malcolm and his own idiosyncrasies just add to his character. Julianne Moore is superb and was having a couple of good years around this time with both Boogie Nights (1997) and The Big Lebowski (1998). Arliss Howard (of Full Metal Jacket fame) is great as the greedy villain Ludlow. My only criticism is that Vince Vaughn should have stuck around for longer as he disappears two-thirds of the way into the film. Keep an eye out early on for a twenty-five year old Eli Roth playing Subway Man (you'll know the character when you see him).

While this is far from being Steven Spielberg's magnum opus (I think he's still searching for that himself), it is an amazing film to re-watch and rediscover as a fun part of the Jurassic Park series. I know for a fact that I enjoy it time after time.

Unfinished Business

Director Ken Scott and Vince Vaughn team up once again in the comedy Unfinshed Business. With a strong cast, 90-minute running time and following in a similar vein to the Jump Street series, this promises to be another bite-sized fun American comedy, at least that's what I had hoped.

Daniel Trunkman (Vince Vaughn) works for a horrible boss (different movie), Chuck Portnoy (Sienna Miller). One day, he decides to quit and start his own business, going into direct competition with Chuck. He recruits Timothy (Tom Wilkinson), whose just been made redundent, and Mike Pancake (Dave Franco), a special-needs man who just failed an interview. One year later, they're coming close to making a deal with a big client, so they travel to Europe. But things get complicated when it turns out that Chuck's company is also vying for the client.

Unfinished Business was written by Steven Conrad (The Pursuit of Happyness), and unfortunately it has a very weak plot. The unlikely party-goers theme has been done several times before, peaking with 22 Jump Street, but here it's just feels tacked-on and not much fun. I honestly can't even rememeber how they ended up doing all the stupid crap that they did. I would never have guessed that I would see Tom Wilkinson starring alongside Vince Vaughn and Dave Franco, smoking a bong, taking (what I assume is) ecstasy tablets and dancing in slow-motion whilst topless women have a pillow fight around him, but then again, he is having somewhat of a renaissance with unusual roles (an Australian cop in Felony, the U.S president in Selma). Suffice to say, this is his weirdest and worst role in recent years.

Dave Franco plays a mildly-autistic "special" young man, who is often the butt of the jokes, and Franco's quirky performance is by far the best part of the film. Unfortunately though, the comedic elements are lukewarm. It doesn't have the huge volume of jokes that attack you from all angles in similar comedies, and the few jokes that are there often don't deliver. This is the kind of comedy that's good for a mild chuckle but will never have you erupting in laughter, something which I was able to test with the three or four mostly silent other people sitting in the cinema with me. On a side-note, there's a surprising amount of nudity in Unfinished Business, with a comparatively high penis-to-breast ratio of somewhere around 4 to 50, take of that what you will...look I was kinda bored, okay.

Vince Vaughn plays the grounded, sensible one, which also makes his character rather dull, and Nick Frost is surprisingly lively for the badly-written part that he recieved. On almost every level this film is just meh. I should disclose that the American sense of humour exhibited here is definitely not aligned with my own, but that's no excuse, because I've really enjoyed similar films over the years like the Jump Street films. It's somewhat saved by Franco's performance and the situations that Wilkinson ends up in, but that's not enough to make it a good movie.

True Detective Season 2 has cast its leads

Okay so I know I'm breaking the rules with bringing you all TV news, but such is the quality of HBO's anthology series True Detective that I feel I have to report on this. An official casting announcement has been made by HBO as to the leads of the new season.

Harrelson and McConaughey

Colin Farrell and Vince Vaughn have been cast both as 'a compromised detective whose allegiances are torn' and 'a career criminal who is in danger of losing his empire', respectively. From the sound of these characters I'm a bit worried that this feels like a departure from what made the first season so good. But then again, I will probably be completely wrong.

I'm not going to say that Vaughn and Farrell are replacing Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as most news sites will tell you, but rather that this series focuses on a particular story each season. I think that is what was so appealing about the first season, because people liked the self-contained story.

No word yet on when it will air.

Delivery Man

Sometimes a movie comes along that is marketed as a movie of one genre, but really works better in another genre. A great example of this is Kevin James' Here Comes the Boom, it looks like a comedy, but it works better as a light hearted drama. The same could be said of Vince Vaughn's latest film, Delivery Man.

Perennial slacker Dave Wozniak (Vince Vaughn) works as a truck driver for his family's butcher business. He owes $80 000 to some thugs and his girlfriend (Cobie Smulders) is pregnant. Just when life seems like it could get any worse, he finds out that he is the biological father of 533 children from a mix up at a sperm clinic that he donated to 23 years earlier. 142 of the children have filed a class action suit to discover the identity of 'Starbuck', the alias he used. Through his lawyer, Brett (Chris Pratt), David gets the profiles of these children and follows them around, committing random acts of kindness.

Unlike previous Vince Vaughn movies, Delivery Man doesn't just rely on comedic situations. At it's core, there are some really touching themes to do with family and parenting and these themes are extremely uplifting.

Vince Vaughn worked really well as David Wozniak. His charm that he brings to other roles, works exceptionally well here. Chris Pratt (Parks and Recreation) is hilarious as David's best friend and lawyer.

What confuses me about this film however, is that it is a remake of a 2011 Canadian film Starbuck, which was directed and written by the same director as this film, Ken Scott. To me this seems a little redundant, but as I have seen the original, I can't really pass judgement.

Verdict: Overall a funny and heartwarming film about parenthood. A must see for anyone with 533 children.

The Internship

It has been eight years since Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn last starred together in 2005's Wedding Crashers. At the time, I didn't find that film too funny as it did not appeal to me for I was too young and/or naive to get the jokes. The Internship on the other hand appealed to me a lot more. As a member of the Internet Generation, I got all the jokes presented in this smart and funny fish out of water comedy.

Vaughn and Wilson are playing Billy and Nick, two grown man-children, who find themselves out of a job when they discover that their boss (John Goodman) has folded the company they work for as sales reps, without telling them. Down on their luck, Billy manages to finagle an internship at Google over the summer. They are teamed up with a group of young university students and through a set of gruelling challenges, have the opportunity to win full time positions at the company.

This movie is fantastically funny. To see these middle aged men try to navigate around computer based problems from a generation that they are not native to. But to be fair, I am also from the aforementioned generation and I would have difficulty with some of their challenges. It is filled with humourous references that transcend the generation gap for audiences. Everything from music and allusions to things from the 80s, right down the guys participating in a game of Quidditch are involved.

Vaughn and Wilson also have a chemistry that makes them a believable partnership within the world of the film. Vaughn's tough no-nonsense Billy is right out of Old School and Wilson really does have a great chemistry with his fellow actors, particularly Rose Byrne (Two Hands).

A great part of this comedy comes however, from the young actors playing the university students and how each of them play well known (to me, anyway) archetypes of young people in today's world. There is the hardworking, over-achieving Asian, Yo-Yo (Tobit Raphael), the detached, self-involved hipster, Stuart (Dylan O'Brien), the excitable, enthusiastic girl, Neha (Tiya Sircar) and the awkward white guy Lyle (Josh Brener)(definitely me). There is also the cool yet douchey guy, Graham (Max Minghella) and the boss/hard-ass head teacher, Mr Chetty (Assif Mandvi).

For a younger audience, all these characters are relatable. As for an older audience, they fill the shoes of Nick and Billy, and provide an insight into the younger generation.

Verdict: A hilarious comedy that will please both younger and older audiences and will be super relatable in this modern technological world.