Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again! - Review

Where do you begin with a film like Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again? A film which is critic-proof with a guaranteed audience? Is it possible to hold it up to the same standards as other summer blockbusters?
Will simple things such as plot and characterisation matter when this movie will make a ton of Money, Money, Money?
The simple answer is... No!
Here We Go Again is simultaneously a sequel and a prequel to the unexpected smash hit based on the jukebox musical.
The issue with following that is the musical wasn't planning on any follow ups so they cherry picked the best songs first time round. Once you get through classics like Waterloo and Mamma Mia, you realise that they've exhausted the ABBA Gold album and you are left with the likes of I've Been Waiting For You and, er, Andante, Andante?
However the biggest problem with the film is the giant gaping plot holes visible from space.
For example, Donna's mother is referred to in the past tense in the first film but is alive now. How?
There are multiple references to events between Meryl Streep's character and her three lovers in the original that are forgotten about here. It's as if the screenwriters did not go back and watch it before putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboards).

Instead, all they seemed to focus on was shoehorning in ABBA songs into a back story that explains the origins of Donna's dungarees. So it will surprise absolutely no one that there is a character called Fernando in this.
Then there is the timeline. My word the timeline. If fans have issues with the complicated Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) timeline, they are nothing compared to the Mamma Mia Cinematic Universe (MMCU).
Starting off with Donna and the Dynamos at University in 1979, in which they sing I Just Kissed The Teacher that is an incredibly problematic song in that it implies the abuse of a child and would result in expulsion or jail time for the teacher involved.
If Donna meets the three men in late 1979 and has her baby in early 1980, this would make Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) 38 years old in this film set in 2018.
However, in the original set in 2008, Sophie is said to be 20 years old. Meaning that she was born in 1988.
Bit of a head scratcher huh? But it makes sense in order to cast younger versions of their characters with actors in their mid-twenties.
Of the younglings, particular praise goes to Jessica Keenan Wynn and Alexa Davies as the young Christine Baranski and Julie Walters, who absolutely nail it.
The rest of them don't fair so well. They are all perfectly capable actors but you never really buy into them becoming their older incarnations. Why cast Josh Dylan as a young Stellan Skarsgard when you could have actually cast one of his sons like Alexander or Bill?
Oh yeah, and let's not forget the Streep shaped elephant in the room. The main talking point from the trailers before the film was released. Yes. It's true. It's all true and thrown away with a minimal amount of dialogue that it is genuinely shocking and you won't believe it is real all the way through.
But in spite of all of these negatives... it is impossible not to get swept along with it all and leaving with a smile on your face and a spring in your step. And a lot of that comes down to one single reason.
Cher.
From the moment she arrives on the Greek island dressed as Lady Gaga, the whole thing shifts up a gear.
Have you ever been at karaoke with a group of friends, all having a laugh and enjoying yourselves, when one friend gets up and takes the whole so seriously that you wonder why you even bothered showing up?
That is exactly how the rest of the cast musty have felt when she started blasting out Fernando.
She is on a whole other level and like the Ronaldo or Messi of the Mamma Mia ensemble.
The whole gang are enjoying themselves though and director Ol Parker gives it a technical flourish with some editing transitions, particularly in the musical number One of Us, that are superb and seem like they are deserving of a better film.
Some critics have called this The Godfather Part II of musicals. Understandable given its prequel/sequel storyline but also because it makes you an toe-tapping, OTT, enjoyable offering you can't refuse.

3 stars

Magic In The Moonlight - review

A magic trick instantly loses its appeal when you can work out how it's done but it should entrance you and dazzle you so much that you aren't paying attention enough to notice.

Unfortunately the central casting of Colin Firth, as an incredibly obnoxious and unlikeable magician, and Emma Stone, a vapid medium who has less character than the sprits she claims to speak with, fails to create that magic resulting in very little chemistry (not helped that he is old enough to be her father).

Any potential love for this new slice of Woody Allen fades quicker than a non-existent spirit returning to the other side.

2 stars

Before I Go To Sleep - review

In Before I Go To Sleep, following a vicious attack Nicole Kidman's character suffers from amnesia that causes her to forget everything she has learned that day, thus starting from scratch again each morning.

Her only real source of help is a digital camera in which she records important information.

I bet that Memento's Leonard Shelby is really annoyed they didn't have them back in 2000 when he was stuck using post it notes and tattoos!

The story has a great hook of someone trying solve a crime like to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle when you don't know how many pieces are involved or what the final picture looks like.

However you yourself could be suffering from short term memory loss and still be able to work out the twists and turns that appear during the third act.

The irony is that while the movie is an enjoyable thriller, it is ultimately rather forgettable and will begin to fade from memory as soon as you leave the cinema.

3 stars

Devil's Knot - review

It is difficult to know what a film like Devil's Knot, a dramatised look at the 1993 West Memphis Three trial, can bring to the table when there are already four documentaries on the subject including like award-winning West of Memphis.

It plays out like a simple retelling of the courtroom trial based on the transcripts which do little to delve into the supposed Satanic reasons behind the murders and instead just show how narrow-minded and incompetent the police were.

While the main character focus should have Reese Witherspoon's distraught mother, instead the majority of film is spent following Colin Firth's private investigator who is against the death penalty.

With its hot and sweaty camerawork from the Deep South and obsessional quest for the truth in the tangled web behind this true crime, it feels like a cross between A Time To Kill and Zodiac but i'm a-frayed this particular film is sadly not equal to the sum of its parts.

2 stars

The Railway Man - review

Thanks to series of delays and changed trains, railway enthusiast Eric Lomax (Firth) meets Patricia Wallace (Kidman) by chance on the journey from Crewe to Carstairs. He's on his way home to Berwick-Upon-Tweed, she's off for a tour of the Highlands.

Before you can say Brief Encounter, he uses his timetable to meet her at Edinburgh Waverley and a whirlwind romance begins resulting in their marriage.

On their wedding night, Eric suffers a panic attack at the memory of a past trauma. Unable to get through to her increasingly distant and fragile husband, Patsy sets out to find out the root of the tracks of his tears by speaking with former war buddy Finlay (Skarsgard).

Through flashbacks, the truth is revealed that both men were POWs in WWII and forced to work on the railway the Japanese were building in Burma. Young Lomax (here played commendably by Jeremy Irvine) is subjected to further unknown tortures at the hands of a Japanese soldier called Nagese.

"War leaves a mark" Finlay tells Patsy, and Lomax's marks are more than skin deep.

This is not a film where "love" is the thing that offers redemption. This is a film about honour and the knowledge that for some, the war is never over. What they have to decide is whether they live for revenge or forgiveness.

This dilemma is at the heart of the film's third act (and best section), when Lomax returns to Burma to confront his captor after he discovers that he works at a museum dedicated to the railway.

With the story, perhaps unintentionally, falling into three main sections (romantic love story, POW flashback, confrontation), it suffers slightly as certain characters get lost along the way.

Kidman is given little to do for two thirds of the film as the love story is sidelined for the war plot line and Firth doesn't really come into his own until the final showdown with Nagese.

The grown-up Nagese is played by Hiroyuki Sanada, who appears in just about every US/UK film set in Japan or in need of a Japanese character (Sunshine, The Last Samurai, The Wolverine, 47 Ronin). He takes a character who is initially portrayed rather one-dimensionally and develops him into a real person who has also been scarred and changed by the events of the war. The one-on-one confrontations with Firth are the most emotionally charged and moving of the film.

Watching this film in the cinema is rather like a train journey. You initially balk at the ticket price, the refreshments are daylight robbery, the progression is a little stop/start with a feeling like "are we ever going to get there" but ultimately it gets you to your destination and the resulting emotion is enough to forgive any issues you may have had.

3 stars

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - review

In terms of cinematic release schedules and high profile film festivals like Venice and Toronto, September sees a shift from the mindless Summer blockbuster to the potential Awards contenders looking to be on critics' Top Ten lists and winning BAFTAs and Oscars come the end of the year.
And the first major contender has arrived in the form of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Smart women are often referred to as "thinking man's crumpet", and by that rationale Tinker Tailor et all is the "thinking man's spy film". The world of George Smiley is a million miles away from that of James Bond or Jason Bourne. This is espionage devoid of gadgets, car chases, computers, parkour and fist fights.
This is a world where shadowy men meet in smoke filled rooms, speak in codenames and people have to steal paper files, paper ones!
Another name for this film could have been Oldman's Eleven, as it has one of the best casts of recent years, possibly all time, and the common factor is that they all wanted to work with Gary Oldman. This is a cast that includes an Oscar winning King, Dobby The House Elf, Bane, The Elephant Man, Sherlock Holmes and "that guy who is in every British film" Mark Strong.
Out of the supporting cast Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy make the most of their screen time but this is Oldman's film.
He has long been one of Britain's most dependable actors, mixing quality turns (Sid And Nancy, Immortal Beloved, The Dark Knight) with a few paycheck films to afford a new kitchen (The Unborn, Lost In Space, Red Riding Hood). In films like True Romance, Fifth Element and Leon, he can go a bit over the top, "EVVVVVVERYONNNNNE!" but in TTSS, this is Oldman at his most calm and collected. It is a very internal performance and he does so much with just a look or a gesture, procesing all the information until he is ready to make his move. A masterful, understated, unshowy performance.
Tomas Alfredson who directed the wonderful Let The Right One In, has surpassed himself in creating an authentic British period thriller, one that is thankfully devoid of misjudged CGI cats. So much thought and detail has gone into the look and production detail that you can smell the stale cigarette smoke or taste the Wimpy burger being served on a plate... yes there is a scene set in a Wimpy!
Alfredson also resists the temptation to dumb the film down for audiences either. This is a complex and labyrinthe plot (based on the novel by John Le Carre) that has sometimes-difficult-to-place flashbacks so you will have to pay attention so don't mess around with your mobile phone or you'll be completely lost and whatever you do, don't see this with one of those friends who spends the whole movie asking stupid questions like "Who is that guy?" or "why is he doing that?".
It's rare to complain that you wish a film was longer but I could have quite happily sat through an additional 15-20 minutes in order that certain plot elements were developed a bit more. It is harsh to criticise such a well made film but due to such dense and complicated source material (the TV series took 6 hours to reach the same conclusion),but it is difficult to resolve all the plot threads into a neat tidy bundle without feeling like it is over rather quickly, indeed some characters don't get enough screen time to provide credible threats, and this is where a little bit more time could have been used.
But I find it harsh to criticise a film of rushing the climatic reveal and fallout when it ends on such a wonderful sequence set to the tune of "La Mer", the original French recording of what is popularly known as Beyond The Sea. Breathtaking stuff.

4 stars