The Commuter - review

Ah, the daily commute. It can become quite dull and routine can't it? You don't look forward to it but it is necessary for work. Doing the same thing day after day, one starts to hope one day something exciting or different might happen to alleviate the boredom.
But enough about Liam Neeson's film career since starring in Taken.
In The Commuter, Liam Neeson is man who is forced to do everything a mysterious, shadowy group of people tell him to do or his family will be hurt.
But enough about his film career since starring in Taken.
All joking aside, audiences go to these films expecting a certain type of film with a lead actor displaying a particular set of skills e.g. Neeson, The Stath, The Rock, etc.
This has resulted in some reviewers saying that they adjust their expectations and judgement accordingly.
Similar to a journey on Southern Rail, our expectations are deliberately low and with good reason. That doesn't mean however that we should let them off with bad service. This goes for genre films as well.
It is okay to give the audience what they want but there should be a benchmark for quality and they should strive to offer them something they haven't experienced before, or deliver it to them in a different, more exciting way.
So it is a shame that Neeson's character, after being threatened by a mysterious figure, is forced to uncover the identity of an unknown passenger in exactly the same plot as Non-Stop, although instead of a plane it is set on a train.
Also with Vera Farmiga as the one giving the orders, between this and Source Code, she is building a reputation as someone who loves to tell men what to do aboard commuter trains.
Like Non-Stop, there is mileage out of the central Guess Who game of spot the culprit. Is it Mike from Breaking Bad? Is it Lady Macbeth? Is it a stock broker played by Clem Fandango? Yes we can hear you Clem Fandango!
Sadly the film (literally) derails once the bad guy is revealed and that, along with a farcical scene replicating one of the most famous moments from a gladiator film, are moments so clearly signposted and as predictable as the stops along your route home.
Guess now we can look forward to Taken in a taxi in a couple of years so Neeson can complete his unique Planes, Trains and Automobiles trilogy.

2 stars

Planes 2: Fire & Rescue - review

This review starts with a small disclaimer. I have not seen any of the previous Cars or Planes films and I must admit that I could not fully invest in the story of a champion racer who suffers an injury and trains to become a firefighter because I could not fathom the logic of this world.

I know that might be harsh to the Pixar/Disney franchise, especially when I have no problem with a world of talking bugs or toys that come to life when the kids aren't in the room but the idea of a world populated by nothing but talking cars and planes? Too much.

Perhaps the genesis of this world was explained in one of the previous films but for this reviewer, there are just too many questions created by this scenario.

For example who makes the cars and planes?

Do the vehicles get together and procreate, spawning Minis?

Do they assemble each other? If so, how? They do not possess the opposable thumbs required for the manual labour involved in building a complex piece of machinery.

If they are assembling each other, it then leads to the question, why?

There is a world populated by vehicles designed to transport humans but there are none. Is this some weird dystopian future where humans have died out, leaving behind artificially intelligent vehicles?

If it is, then what killed them? How did they die out? Can't have been from a lack of fossil fuels as there still seems to be enough petrol, diesel, etc to power and entire planet full of planes and cars. And who exactly is mining and refining these fuels?

These are just a few of the questions that came to mind and found infinitely more interesting that the film going on in front of me.

No need to call 999 because it sure isn't plane sailing for this turgid animation as there isn't even a spark to start a fire here.

1 star