Director: James Gray
Writers: James Gray (screenplay)
Stars: Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller, Tom Holland

Synopsis: A true-life drama, centering on British explorer Col. Percival Fawcett, who disappeared while searching for a mysterious city in the Amazon in the 1920s.

[/info]

Some filmmakers are an acquired taste; I welcome James Gray into that category. Up until this point, Gray’s films have been so tedious and meandering in ways that felt fortuitous instead of deliberate, and ultimately emotionally distant. From the mess that was We Own the Night, the fine but uneven Two Lovers, or the empty melodrama The Immigrant, his films are beautifully shot to be sure, but emotionally stirring? That’s debatable. Surely that debate will continue with The Lost City of Z, Gray’s latest project and yet another attempt at a fashionable recreation of old Hollywood (much like The Immigrant). But this time, as the end credits rolled, my initial thought was a simple one; okay James Gray, now you finally have my full attention.

For the first time, a James Gray film finds a consistent and nicely focused through-line, where the journey from beginning to end continually adds emotional and thematic layers to that connective through-line. The Lost City of Z proves James Gray is actually a fine storyteller, something I’ve yet to notice in his previous films (and probably never will). Based on the novel by David Grann, the film tells the biographical story of Percival Fawcett, the British soldier and explorer who made it his goal to uncover an ancient civilization in the Amazon. The journey through the Amazonian jungle is violent, stirring, and unpredictable (many comparisons can be made the Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now), but Gray chooses to make the meditative journey the more interesting one, when Fawcett is not even in the jungle. It’s what grounds an already aesthetically thrilling expedition, but if it’s anything else that holds the film’s drama together it’s Charlie Hunnam’s performance.

As Percy Fawcett, Charlie Hunnam gives a rather cerebral performance, one that communicates without always speaking. With his ultimate goal in finding this lost civilization, one that the English government feels ultimately ignorant toward, Hunnam makes Fawcett into a human constantly at war with himself, battling his own selfish desires for nobility with establishing cultural open-mindedness. His intentions are honorable, but also narrow minded, and what’s heartbreaking is just how much Fawcett himself realizes that. His constant internal struggle (which just may feel like a struggle for some) is fragmented and sometimes messy, and that’s the point; he’s never content or finished in his motives, and Hunnam turns that war into something deeply psychological and heartbreaking.

This makes the film’s finally act so beautifully symbolic, a way for Fawcett to achieve that balance of his obsession without neglecting his family and friends, a realization made apparent while on the trenches of World War I. Both Hunnam and Gray rightfully use that to give The Lost City of Z a natural sense of progression. But credit must also go to Sienna Miller, Robert Pattinson, and Tom Holland as well; sometimes a performance is so good that you are given character history without the use of trite exposition, something the supporting cast wonderfully excels in here. Tom Holland especially, as Percy’s son Jack, whose initial distance with his father is deeply felt and understood simply because of Holland; any other performance may have failed in emulating that.

Perhaps it’s the film’s jungle setting that matches James Gray’s meandering tone; the film deals with doubt and uncertainty, and the sense of feeling lost in time amidst the smoky jungle landscapes feels complimentary rather than contradictory. Whether it was dumb luck or not, James Gray found a rhythm here; The Lost City of Z is a Hollywood epic in the classic sense, one that reminds us why the David Lean’s or Cecil B. DeMille’s of the time are still talked about today. Get lost in it.

Overall Grade: A

[divider]

Here our podcast review on Episode 219:

[divider]

Director: Guy Ritchie
Writers: Joby Harold (screenplay), Guy Ritchie (screenplay)
Stars: Charlie Hunnam, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Jude Law, Eric Bana

Synopsis: Robbed of his birthright, Arthur comes up the hard way in the back alleys of the city. But once he pulls the sword from the stone, he is forced to acknowledge his true legacy – whether he likes it or not.

[/info]

I have a little bit of advice for Hollywood if you want to tell an updated story on classics we grew up with; do not include the word “Legend” in it at all. The Legend of Hercules and The Legend of Tarzan were not met with cinematic praise and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is another to add to that list. Perhaps having “Legend” in the title is irrelevant, but having Charlie Hunnam play King Arthur doesn’t help that matter either.

I did not think it was possible to open a film with a brutal battle where the most cringe-worthy thing about it is the handling of the opening credits. The stylistic flair of director Guy Ritchie and the way he edits this sequence is just the beginning of horrible decisions that plague the film.

After we see the murder of Arthur’s family by Vortigern (Jude Law), we are treated to the quickest human growth cycle that will have the fruit fly jealous. Arthur (Charlie Hunnam) isn’t aware of his royal lineage until he draws the sword Excalibur from the stone. The best thing about making this movie in 2017 among the superhero excess is that Excalibur can get into the fun. Excalibur grants Arthur superhero abilities and the action sequences that follow rival some of the best we’ve seen in modern filmmaking.

Guy Ritchie has a unique style where he likes to have scenes where characters are telling a story and we see that story happen as its being told; but here it just does not work – primarily because Hunnam cannot sell his character. In fact, the acting overall is partially weak. Ritchie is a director that is hit or miss, but due to the uneven dialogue and pacing in King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, it is probably safe to assume there was some sort of studio interface since Warner Bros. loves to do that.

There is something that movies do that annoy me and that is when a certain character withholds a skill that doesn’t logically make sense. For example, in Transformers: Age of Extinction, we find out that Optimus can magically fly and if he would have just done that two hours earlier, none of us would have wasted nearly three hours of our lives. Perhaps that is nitpicky, but if not executed properly, it sticks out like a sore thumb and of course this happens in King Arthur. There is a certain character that does something in the final act, and when it happens, you will sit there shaking your head in shame.

Fun and entertaining are used often to describe certain films, and some audiences may give those movies a pass, but not me. Settling for its fun and entertainment value will hinder quality storytelling and creative scripts. King Arthur: Legend of The Sword is neither fun nor entertaining, and calling it such is offensive to films that are actually fun. And we deserve better.

Overall Grade: D

[divider]

Director: Lone Scherfig
Writers: Gaby Chiappe (screenplay), Lissa Evans (based on the novel “Their Finest Hour and a Half” by)
Stars: Gemma Arterton, Sam Claflin, Bill Nighy, Jack Huston

Synopsis: A former secretary, newly appointed as a scriptwriter for propaganda films, joins the cast and crew of a major production while the Blitz rages around them.

[/info]

Their Finest is a war-time drama about Welsh journalist Catrin Cole, winningly played by Gemma Arterton, who gets seconded to the Ministry of Information film department to write the ‘slop’, or women’s dialogue for the much-derided ‘informationals’ that made up part of a trip to the cinema in 1940. Once there she deals with standard establishment bigotry from likes of Richard E Grant and Jeremy Irons but shows her talent enough to be recommended by Sam Caflin’s Tom Buckley to help out on a possible feature film about two sisters who stole their father’s boat and rescued soldiers from Dunkirk.

Once this film within a film starts, we meet Bill Nighy as Ambrose Hilliard, a gradiose actor past his prime actor who thinks he’s tthirty years old and still awesome. The film makers then have to deal with propaganda demands from the ministry of war (add in a genuine American airman, who naturally cannot act), a constantly shifting script, complicated actors as well as the stresses and strains of life during the war years, and the challenges of finding and holding on to love during the particular challenges of the Blitz.

On the whole I found this film entertaining, but a little uneven. It was frequently quite funny, then sad, then hopeful, then bittersweet, then funny again, which makes it very hard to pigeonhole into a single genre. It is slightly romantic, it is gently comedic, but it is also hard edged and, in places, quite brutal. It is also unable to wholly avoid cliche, which is a bit of a shame.

However, the performances are, uniformly, fantastic. Gemma Arterton combines sweetness and steel in a measured, nuanced performance that is utterly winning. Catrin comes across at times a naive, even downtrodden, but also strong and bloody-minded. She’s a complex, fully rouded character and Arterton delivers her with skill. Likewise Sam Caflin is superb as the ascerbic, sexist even cruel co-screenwriter Tom Buckley. The man is a hard-to-pin down character who is frequently utterly horrible, but Caflin’s performance enables us to find a damaged, even likeable man within the outwardly hideous character without the script needing to telegraph his innate decency. It’s an extremely tricky role, and Caflin pulls it off admirably. Bill Nighy too could have simply cruised through his role, seeing as it effectively just requires him to be the Bill Nighy role he’s performed for years now, but the actor brings more to well crafted character, allowing him to be more than just the light relief. In a film of subtleties, Nighy’s ever so gentle romance with Helen McCrory, and his understated ‘bromance’ with Eddie Marsden’s agent (both supporting roles expertly performed) is amongst the most subtle.

The script, by Gaby Chiappe, delivers these fine actors with plenty of well-wrought lines and subtle characterization, though I do wonder if it would have been better served with a bit more time, despite this being quite a long film. We do sometimes lurch from horror to banality, though it never loses sight of the deprivations of wartime. Sometimes the incongruity of the daily routine is brutally disrupted by the destructive, deadly bombing of the German Blitz. Other times the day-to-day ho-hum routine of sheltering, working and even loving whilst at any moment a bomb could explode and end your life, is beautifully drawn. It just occasionally feels a bit rushed, or a bit ‘paint by numbers.’ One wonders with a bit more running time if these various elements could have been blended together a bit more evenly.

However this is nitpicking. Ione Scherfig, the director, has delivered a fine film, balancing the horrors of wartime, the struggles of women to be accepted in a man’s world where most of the men are elsewhere, and a fine examination of the craft of 1940’s film-making.

By the end of the film, when despite of all the problems that have beset the production and our heroes, we see cinema audiences reacting to the fruits of their labors, you have to posses a hard heart not to feel lifted. It’s a fine film about women shaking off the shackles of the pre-war bigotry, rising to the challenge of the world, and succeeding.

As Bill Nighy’s Ambrose Hilliard says at one point “we only get these opportunities because young men are fighting, and dying, elsewhere.” This is a film about opportunities and when to seize them. It is not a comedy, not a laugh riot, and it is being misrepresented by the advertising. It is, however, a well made, very well acted, wartime drama. And, if you are in the mood for this kind of film, you would do well to look it out.

Overall Grade: B+

[divider]

Director: James Gunn
Writers: James Gunn, Dan Abnett (based on the Marvel comics by) & Andy Lanning (based on the Marvel comics by)
Stars: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Sylvester Stallone, Kurt Russell

Synopsis: Set to the backdrop of Awesome Mixtape #2, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ continues the team’s adventures as they unravel the mystery of Peter Quill’s true parentage.

[/info]

Rest easy gentle reader, for I wish to tell you a story. If you feel the need for some cocoa, go ahead, I can wait. It is 1999, it’s 11th of June, and this 20-something nerd is stupidly excited. Like bouncing off the walls excited. The reason for his excitement is easy to spot. In a week, *just a week*, the first new Star Wars film in twenty years is released and it looks good. There a skinless C3PO, a kid who has his own racing landspeeder thing, some cool looking CGI aliens, lightsabers. Oh this cannot possibly fail.

So I’m excited. Everyone in our shared nerd house in the arse-end of Wiltshire is excited. Pub conversation has been Star Wars focussed for a while now. My flatmate Lori suggested we go to the movies just a week before George Lucas’ newest opus hit the multiplex. What idiot is releasing a film that’s just going to disappear in a whole load of force-related hype?
“Who’s in it?” I ask.
“Keanu Reeves.”
“Is he still a thing?”
“Apparently.”
“What’s this film?”
“It’s a sci-fi thing. I reckon it’s worth a punt.” she said, wisely. Fair enough, I thought, and off we went.

The screen goes dark. A phone rings. Green numbers cascade from the top of the screen, then we plunge though one of the zeros and we’re in a rainy, almost fifties era city. Police are chasing someone, they kick open a door and there’s a woman, dressed in in plastic, standing by a pay-phone, the police raise their guns…

The woman leaps into the air…
… and hangs there…
… as the camera spins, impossibly, around her …
… and I’m sold.

That film was The Matrix, the Wachowski brothers’ ground-breaking sci-fi spectacle that came from nowhere (the pair had only made the good-but-hardly-a-hit lesbian thriller Bound previously) and broke the mould. No-one had ever seen anything like The Matrix before.

Star Wars suddenly looked a little flat.

Going into a cinema with no real idea what you are going to see is a rare experience. Nowadays films seem intent of giving away everything in the trailer, or the hype is so detailed that the film sounds rubbish and you’re not going to see it anyway.

The first Guardians of the Galaxy film was a similar experience. Here was a wacky sounding premise from Marvel: a sci-fi space opera with no known characters, no links to the established Marvel Cinematic Universe and contained a character who was a talking tree with limited vocabulary.

There was no real need to worry, the first Guardians was a highly imaginative, colorful, lively, fresh and funny movie with a robust rolling plot, instantly lovable characters, quotable dialog and, get this, it was fun. Seriously fun.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 is, guess what, the first sequel to the film that introduced us to Peter ‘Starlord’ Quill, Gamora, Drax, Rocket Racoon and Groot and it has a lot to live up to. No matter that all the cast returned, along with writer/director James Gunn, there was always the worry that the first film was a fluke, a one-off never to be repeated. The oft-mentioned threat of rolling this free-spirited franchise into the wider MCU also raised eyebrows (and concerns).

Therefore I am happy to say that Guardians 2 (as literally no-one is calling it) is a worthy sequel to the original film. It is a slick, funny, colorful intergalactic romp that is resolutely like nothing else in the MCU and is just as good as the original. Though not hugely different from the first, who cares when a film is this much fun.

The story of Vol 2 (any better?) sees our heroes battling a inter-dimensional space beast on behalf of Elizabeth Debecki’s race of beautiful gold beings called The Sovereign. One swift double-cross later and a mighty space battle ensues causing our characters to crash on a remote planet where they are finally tracked down by Kurt Russell’s Ego. An ancient god-like living planet who just happens to be Quill’s long lost father.

One of the signature joys of a Guardians film are the snap scenes, scenes that don’t really advance the plot, but provide character moments that are sometimes sweet, sometimes caustic, but nearly always very funny. Other snap scenes are simply extremely stupid – at one point Yondo and Rocket perform multiple hyperspace jumps which wreak havoc on their physiology. A joke so silly that visiting it twice is only natural.

Performances are all excellent, with an particular nod to Kurt Russell as Ego, whose performance is subtle and well delivered, even when he is reduced to CGI for the inevitable climax, and Elizabeth Debecki who, despite being drowned in unflattering gold paint, delivers a performance of frustrated rage and despair hidden under a shell of calm control. See her performance in “the-scene-where-the-carpet-runs-out” for an example.

Visually the film never quite delivers some of the gob-smacking spectacles of the first – there is nothing that quite compares to “Nowhere” in the first film for example. However it is still a luch colorful look at space that is always attractive to look at.

There are other problems, the last 10-15 minutes descends into the CGI slug-fest that marrs so many of these films and swiftly becomes tiresome. Also the whole film differs from the first by not visiting any of the characters and locations we visited in the first film, there’s none of the Novacorp that set up much fun in the first film. The film is, in my opinion, weaker for not having our ragamuffin heroes dropped into and frustrating an icily organised and civilised society, and the Sovereign don’t quite cut it.

However these are minor quibbles. This is a film packed to the rafters with character, comedy bickering, whip-crack dialogue, stupid visual jokes, clever character moments, joyous action and a desperately cute baby tree.

Perhaps the real problem with GotGv2 (nope, there is no shorthand that’s going to work) is that is no longer a surprise, it is no longer that exciting new thing. The flaws of the first film, a weak villain, unclear plotting and over the top CGI climax, are still present here. If anything the plot is a little worse than the original. To beat this James Gunn turns everything up to eleven and, you know what, it works.

It’s a fantastic film, one of the year’s best, and it comes highly recommended. But be warned if you have not seen the first film, you may be a little lost.

Overall Grade: A-

[divider]

Hear our podcast review on Episode 220:

[divider]