Pacific Rim: Uprising - review

Will a film like Pacific Rim Uprising ever be judged as fine art or highbrow entertainment? No.
Does Pacific Rim Uprising deliver on its promise of giant robots fighting giant monsters? Yes. And then some!
Set 10 years after Idris Elba's Stacker Pentecost "cancelled the apocalypse", Uprising follows his son Jake (John Boyega) who is living the life of Riley. Partying all night and spending his days trading Del Toro's Oscar and stolen Jaeger tech for Sriracha hot sauce.
Fate (and the purposes of the plot) brings him into contact with a young upstart Amara Namani (played with zesty zeal by Cailee Spaeny) who has built her own mini-Jaeger. One CGI-heavy chase later and they are arrested and brought back into the Jaeger pilot programme by Jake's half-sister Mako Mori (Rinko Kukuchi returning along with Charlie Day and Burn Gorman).
Mori needs Jake's help to to keep the programme running in the face of a proposed remote drone programme but before you can say "Kaiju believe it?", evil forces have conspired to reopen the breach and giant monsters are soon rampaging through downtown Tokyo like Godzilla going for a midday stroll.
Uprising doubles down on the action in some genuinely surprising and enjoyable ways, even if they create plot holes wider than a breach in the Pacific ocean.
The main reason that the audience will go with them and keep a silly smile on their face throughout is down to lead actor (and producer) John Boyega. It is a performance that cements his position as a bona fide movie star and he could power an entire fleet of Jaegers with the power of his charisma alone..
Pacific Rim Uprising is a classic Ronseal film in that it does exactly what it says on the tin but Boyega is the Jaeger-Bomb!

3 stars

The Shape Of Water - review

The Shape Of Water arrives on our shores riding the crest of a wave, buoyed by two Golden Globes, 12 BAFTA nominations and 13 Oscar nominations. But does the film sink or swim under the high expectations of all that praise?
Thankfully Guillermo Del Toro's film exceeds all expectations and simply put; is one of the most beautiful, stunning, moving fairy tales ever to grace the silver screen and it is deserving of so many superlatives that, just as the lead character, one struggles to find the words to describe how fantastic it truly is.
Del Toro is a filmmaker who has made his career by taking the monstrous and macabre and finding the beauty and humanity that lies beneath the horrific exterior e.g. Pan in Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy and Jessica Chastain in Crimson Peak.
Often switching between Spanish and English language features (Cronos, The Devil's Backbone to Blade II and Pacific Rim), Del Toro's unique style of visual storytelling can transcend the barriers of language. Pan's Labyrinth remains one of the biggest foreign language films ever to screen in the UK and with The Shape of Water, he proves that the power of language and speech is no barrier to love.
Set in the early 60's, Richard Jenkins's illustrator narrates to the audience a story of a mute woman who falls in love with an aquatic man while working in a top secret government facility.
In some ways, the film feels like it could have been the inspiration for the Creature From The Black Lagoon. In fact, the shadowy government agent played with a menacing relish by Michael Shannon says that they captured it from the Amazon, the same location as the original monster.
The production design of the creature is simply incredible and such a delight to see that it is (practically) all practical effects. Del Toro's lucky charm Doug Jones once again brings the film's beast to life opposite the beauty of Hawkins' Eliza.
The setting of the 60's is no accident, for this adult fairy tale is a story is about love and acceptance.
The four main characters of Eliza, Giles, Zelda and Hoffstetler all have to put up with rejection and persecution due to their disability, sexuality, race and nationality (most often at the hands of the real monster of the piece Shannon's Strickland).  All of them, through their interactions with the creature will ultimately learn to accept who they are and stand up for what they believe in, no matter what the cost.
There is not a single fish out of water when it comes to the performances. Hawkins and Jones have a wonderful chemistry together. Jenkins brings a touching gravitas as only he can to the lovelorn, fatherly figure of Giles and Stuhlbarg makes it a hat trick of Oscar nominated films between this, The Post and Call Me By Your Name.
Just as those two films perfectly captured the era they took place in, Paul Austenberry's production design is simply spectacular. Combined with the cinematography and art direction, it gives the whole thing the look and feel of a Douglas Sirk film or another recent movie about forbidden romance, Carol.
The love story here is just as passionate and sensual as that one and is certainly for adults only. But then what fairy tale, at its heart is not about sexual awakening?
This is one fairy tale that is anything but Grimm and can look forward to a fairy tale ending when it makes a splash at the Oscars.

5 stars

Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark - review

"Guillermo Del Toro presents", a tag that has presided over such quality films as The Orphanage and Julia's Eyes, so Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark has a lot to live up to.
Somewhat ironically, I think it is far to say that I wasn't afraid of DBAOTD, but I was still reasonably entertained by it.

After an effectively creepy opening sequence (teeth + chisel + sound fx = squirm), the film follows your standard horror movie template.
8 year-old Sally (Bailee Madison) comes to live with her dad Alex (Guy Pearce), an architect who has sunk his life savings into renovating a creepy old house, with the help of his new girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes), who Sally takes an instant dislike to.  One day Sally finds a secret basement in the house with a sealed up shaft, which of course she opens after being persuaded to by the voices inside who want to be her "friends".  She is then terrorised by creepy little imps but her father thinks it is all in her head until Kim does a bit of digging into the history of the house and its previous owners.
Whilst you can see Del Toro's fingerprints all over the film, the final product relies far too much on the tired, overused horror cliches (loud music to signify a big jump, poor decision making, "oh it's only the old groundskeeper", etc).  In fact the biggest shock for UK cinemagoers of a certain age will come near the end of the film when Mike and Jim from Neightbours share the screen together for the first time in 20+ years!

Sitting watching this in the cinema, I couldn't help but think that all of it could have been avoided if the protaganists simply followed the instructions laid out in Edgar Wright's terrific trailer for "Don't"...

3 stars

REVIEW: Julia's Eyes - Turn Around Bright Eyes

The Iberian horror renaissance looks set to continue with Los Ojos des Julia or Julia's Eyes to folks like you and me.  Optimum seem to have focused on the jumps and scares in marketing the movie, but in reality it is actually a tense thriller with an tremendous central performance by Belen Rueda.

Belen Rueda was hoping that her Derren Brown routine would get her out of making horror movies

Rueda plays identical twins Julia and Sara who both suffer from a degenerative eye disease that causes blindness.  When Sara apparently commits suicide, Julia suspects foul play and tries to solve the mystery with the begrudging help of her husband Isaac behind her death before her own eyesight fails.
Going into Julia's Eyes expectations were high as the last film to get the 'Guillermo Del Toro' presents above the title was the outstanding The Orphanage, which was one of my favourite films of 2008.
Julia might not be able to reach the dizzying heights of excellence as The Orphanage but director Guillem Morales certainly displays some talent behind the camera, creating a thriller that evokes a similar sense of blindness and helplessness that featured in Wait Until Dark starring Audrey Hepburn as a blind woman whose apartment is terrorised.  He uses various in-camera effects to give the audience a sense of Julia's deteriorating vision, frames the action is obscure peoples faces, and during the film's climax, features a sequence that takes a beat from Rear Window and cranks it up to 11.
It does feel a little too long however and the pacing could have been tightened up once the "invisible man" is revealed.  Plus there is epilogue that some will find far too schmaltzy compared to the tone of the rest of the film, but your acceptance of this will greatly depend on how much you buy into the central relationship between Julia and her husband.  Personally, in a couple of short scenes they provide a complete back story to their relationship and a convincing sense of true love.
As with The Orphanage, the film's true strength lies in Belen Rueda, once again delivering a performance that grounds the film in reality despite the weird going-ons and takes the audience along the journey with her.  The only fault I could find with her was that her impressive and ample bosum kept causing a distraction to me... but that is a problem I'm seeking help with!
Another welcome antidote to the generic thrillers and horrors that Hollywood are producing.  It will be on limited release so "see it while you can" - ha ha ha

4 stars