MCM Comic Con London: Mandy - Review

They say there is a fine line between genius and madness. If that is true then Nicolas Cage has been tightrope walking along that line his entire career. He more than often slips off it and takes a tumble but bless him, he just gets right back up on that line and continues moving forward. Kind of like a shark, he never stops moving forward. It is true that he had made his fair share of absolute stinkers in his time... but every now and then there comes a performance that is worthy of the talent that brought us Wild At Heart, Leaving Las Vegas, Adaptation, Con Air and Kick Ass.
Thankfully Panos Cosmatos's Mandy is very much on the side of genius and showcases Cage at his very, very best.
It was rumoured that initially, Cosmatos offered Cage the role of cult leader Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache) but he turned it down, preferring to play Red Miller instead. It is easy to see why Cosmatos went down this road intially. Watching the character of Sand, it would have allowed Cage to do his bug-eyed, wild ride shouting and screaming act he has done ad nauseum. Instead the character of Red taps into the quieter, more introspective Cage that he has channeled in Joe and Bringing Out The Dead.
A lumberjack who is handy with a chainsaw (this may prove handy later on similar to the way Ripley operated a Power Loader in Aliens), Red is completely in love with his girlfriend, the enigmatic artist Mandy (Andrea Risenborough) but tragedy ensues when she catches the eye of Sand's cult leading to them employing a crazed, demon biker gang to instigate a home invasion. Her abduction is what flicks the switch in Red and allows Cage to slowly dial up his performance all the way to 11 by the final reel.
The entire film is shot like an LSD-fuelled hallucination or fever dream and once it finishes, audiences may indeed question if what they watched had actually happened.
The cinematography is out-of-this-world, using all sorts of tricks, filters and exposures to create the effect that you are under the effect of a waking nightmare. Amplified by Johann Johansson's final score that is full of 80s synth and bass notes so loud they threaten to shake the speakers off the walls of the cinema auditorium.
Mandy is one hell of a trip and certainly not for everyone. At times, it is reminiscent of the work of Nicolas Winding Refn but if someone had taken the pristine sheen of his 35mm print and dragged it across concrete.
As Barry Manilow might have said:
"Oh Mandy, you came and you certainly ain't faking. Those images won't go away, oh Mandy.
Oh Mandy, Nic Cage's performance left us shaking. You need to watch this today oh Mandy"

4 stars

Rampage - review

"Know your role"
This was one of the verbal smackdowns that The Rock would lay down on his opponents during his days as the most electrifying man in sports entertainment. Nowadays, it is a motto that Dwayne Johnson lives by in his career as one of the most successful box office stars of the last decade.
Now not only an actor, but a producer as well, he has an incredible knack of picking projects that entertain audiences. Even if the audience themselves don't even think they need them i.e. Jumanji Welcome To The Jungle which has just become Sony's highest grossing film EVER in the US.
Sure, there is the odd misfire (Doom, Baywatch) but for the most part, Johnson is able to deliver big, dumb action movies better than anyone else in the business.
And speaking of big and dumb, welcome to Rampage which features three supersized creatures attacking downtown Chicago following a genetic experiment gone wrong.
If the plot sounds familiar, then you were probably born in the Eighties and played the video game of the same name.
In the game, players were in control of the monsters and the aim was to destroy all the buildings before you were killed by military forces.
In the film, the story follows Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's Primatologist (just go with it) David Okoye who attempts to save his friend George (a giant Albino gorilla), who has mutated to incredible size, from the army who are determined to take him down alongside a giant wolf and crocodile.
The film wisely spends the first 15-20 minutes building the relationship between Davis and George before the proverbial rampaging begins and the special effects and motion performance from Jason Liles (under the tutelage of Terry Notary) help to convince of the friendship between the two and buy into Davis's mission to protect George from harm and save others in his way.
Johnson's character, along with Naomie Harris's biologist Kate Caldwell, are given backstories to flesh out their characters but to be perfectly honest they are unnecessary because deep, thoughtful characterisation is not why the audiences have bought a ticket.
Out of the rest of the supporting cast, Jeffery Dean Morgan's shadowy government agent who is the guy that "when science shits the bed, I'm the one they call to clean the sheets" is great value and totally gets the tone of what the movie is going for.
Unlike the sequence where Joe Manganiello's special forces team track the wolf through a forest that, if one did not know any better, was Brad Peyton filming an audition sequence for a new Predator movie.
Now Peyton and Johnson's last collaboration San Andreas came in for some criticism for not featuring a scene of The Rock stopping an earthquake by punching it in the face.
Thankfully, no such criticism here as Johnson tools up to fight the creatures mano et monstero... albeit somehow doing all this having taken a bullet to the stomach! Sadly no third act twist where Dwayne is forced to take the same genetic serum to grow to supersize to fight them head on, instead working side by side with George to take them down.
Standing next to the curiously large George, Johnson must have finally realised how Kevin Hart feels every time they appear on screen together.
There is no monkeying around in the final sequence which features more destruction than a Transformers movie and Man of Steel combined as it commits to dialling up the ridiculousness of the situation all the way up to 11 but works thanks to Johnson's character saying exactly what the audience is thinking the whole time.
It would be difficult to say that this film wants to be aping the success of previous video game adaptations because the bar is set quite low but it what it delivers is Prim(ate) Friday night entertainment.

3 stars

Tomb Raider - review

You know that thing were you get stuck on a particular part of a video game and you have to play it over and over to the point that you feel bored at its repetitiveness?
That was the experience of watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Tomb Raider on the big screen.
The film begins with Indiana Jones Lara Croft showing off their reckless side by ignoring orders and authority and engaging in a high-speed chase that ends up with them getting in trouble.
Meanwhile their father has gone missing while searching for the Holy Grail secret island tomb of Himiko. After finding the father's diary secret room containing all their research, they go off in search of their dad, who may have been kidnapped by Nazis an evil organisation who want the Grail Himiko's corpse for their own nefarious ends.
Upon finding the island, Indy Lara is reunited with their father who is relieved to see them and also grateful that they have not brought the diary research with them. There follows the moment where the father expresses disbelief that they have in fact brought the materials right into the hands of the Nazis evil organisation who have now located the whereabouts of the Grail tomb which they will subsequently raid with the help of Indy Lara by threatening the life of his her father.
In order to claim the Grail Himiko, Indiana Jones Lara Croft must face three challenges including the Leap from the Lion's Head cross the Chasm of Lost Souls and The Breath of God that only the penitent man will pass pray to the Face of Himiko.
Alicia Vikander does her best as Indiana Jones Lara Croft. She is certainly more relatable and believable than Angelina Jolie as the British adventurer. Her reactions to the horrors she witnesses on the island feel real and help to build her into the character that audiences are familiar with in the games.
Sadly however she is unable to escape the Oscar curse that has struck the likes of Charlize Theron (Aeon Flux) and Halle Berry (Catwoman) and what should be a fun, exciting experience but is actually as much fun as watching someone else play a video game.

2 stars

2017 - The Year In Review

2017 - A Year In Review

It would be easy to write up a review of the year looking at the big stories of the year but it would make for depressing reading now and no amount of "Now Wolverine can team up with the Avengers" can make up for that.

Instead this will be a bit of a statistical analysis of my year of cinema going along with my picks for the best (and worst) films of the year along with movie moments and performances.

When compiling my list of what I had watched this year, it became apparent that I will need to move with the times in 2018 as I only had kept track of films that I had seen at the cinema and not at home via Netflix, such as Gerald's Game and The Circle.

From 1st January, that will change as there are more and more original films being released via online platforms, including Duncan Jones's upcoming Mute (which will hopefully also receive a small theatrical release).

Films watched at the cinema - 142

New releases watched in 2017 - 115

Repeat viewings of new releases - 9

Classic re-issues watched on the big screen - 18

Worst Films of 2017

1. Transformers 5: The Last Knight
2. Song To Song
3. The Snowman
4. Geostorm
5. The House

Movie Moments Of The Year

1. Luke & Leia (The Last Jedi) - Don't want to go into spoilers but safe to say that when Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher are reunited on screen, it is a scene that would turn even the most hardened Sith back from the Dark Side.
2. Joi, K and Mariette (Blade Runner 2049) - The A.I. Joi melds with a replicant prostitute in order to become physical with Gosling's K and the CGI used in this scene is the most stunning that I have ever seen and blew my tiny human mind as it struggled to comprehend what it was seeing.
3. Epilogue (La La Land) - A beautiful "What If" recap of this stunning, joyous musical which simultaneously becomes the most bittersweet ending to a romance since Casablanca.
4. Spitfire vs the Bomber (Dunkirk) - The airborne dogfight cinematography is the highlight of Nolan's film but the acting and emotion cannot be overlooked during the scene where Hardy's pilot silently decides whether to fly home to safety or turn around to take on a German bomber to save more soldiers, knowing it will leave him out of fuel and probably sending him to his death.
5. The Knock On The Door (Wind River) - When Elizabeth Olsen knocks on the door of a cabin, what happened next completely threw me for a loop.
6. Post-credit Sting (Split) - One comes to expect a twist from an M. Night Shalamyan film and this was no different but when the film revealed where the story would go in the future I properly "marked out" and was astounded and delighted we would see more from the world of *redacted*
7. Bellbottoms (Baby Driver) - The opening bank robbery and resulting car chase is a tour de force of action directing and editing, with all the action set out meticulously to the soundtrack of Bellbottoms by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and sets the tone for Edgar Wright's bold, brash and brilliant Baby Driver.
8. Anything with Korg (Thor Ragnarok) - Taika Waititi's hilarious rock monster Korg was the breakout character of Thor Ragnarok. Always there to undercut the tension with a joke or two, I certainly hope to see more of Korg and Miek in the MCU.
9. Michael Stuhlbarg's monologue (Call Me By Your Name) - Stuhlbarg steals the film out from under the feet of Chalamet and Hammer right at the end with a tender, beautiful speech to his son that earns him the title of best movie parent since Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson in Easy A.
10. "Oh hai Mark" (The Disaster Artist) - Yes it was featured in the trailer but the filming of this scene in The Room is fantastic (as is the spot on recreations of scenes from the film played side by side during the end credits).

Best Performances Of The Year

1. Emily Beecham (Daphne)
2. Tom Hardy (Dunkirk)
3. James Franco (The Disaster Artist)
4. Harrison Ford (Blade Runner 2049)
5. Jessica Chastain (Miss Sloane & Molly's Game)
6. Michael Stuhlbarg (Call Me By Your Name)
7. Rafe Spall (The Ritual)
8. Mark Hamill (The Last Jedi)
9. Hugh Grant (Paddington 2)
10. Jack Black (Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle)

Most Enjoyable Cinematic Viewing Experiences

1. The Room
2. Edinburgh International Film Festival Q&As - This year I was lucky enough to host a couple of Q&As at EIFF including Daphne with a breakout performance from Emily Beecham and a packed house in Filmhouse 1 for The Beautiful Fantastic with Jeremy Irvine.
3. Raiders Of The Lost Ark with live score at Usher Hall - One of the greatest films of all-time with one of the greatest film themes of all-time played live by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. What's not to love?
4. Star Wars: The Last Jedi Midnight Screening 
5. Dunkirk on 70mm & IMAX - Flawless projection from the team at Filmhouse for the gorgeous 70mm print. Sadly there were projection issues at Glasgow IMAX but I did notice the reactions of audience members around me with one girl utterly engrossed with the dogfight scenes so much that whenever Tom Hardy appeared on screen, she moved forward to the edge of her seat. At the end when he opens the cockpit to parachute to safety she started to cheer, only to look around at other people in shock when he closed it to safely land the plane on the beach and burn it so the Germans couldn't use it. It reminded me of the power that cinema can have over people.

Top 17 Films of 2017

1. Blade Runner 2049
2. Dunkirk
3. Wind River
4. Get Out
5. The Last Jedi
6. La La Land
7. A Ghost Story
8. Baby Driver
9. Mother!
10. The Disaster Artist
11. Logan
12. T2 Trainspotting
13. Call Me By Your Name
14. Paddington 2
15. Raw
16. Kaleidoscope
17. It Comes At Night

Honorable Mention: War Of The Planet Of The Apes - Who can honestly say that in 2011, when a prequel/reboot to a Sixties sci-fi film that spawned a number of terrible sequels and remakes would produce one of the greatest film trilogies of ALL-TIME, anchored by an incredible central performance from Andy Serkis as Caesar.