Tag - review

Tag, as the poster emphasises, is "based on a true story" that sounds too bizarre to be true. It is inspired by a Wall Street Journal article about a group of friends who had been playing the same game of tag since childhood.
Would a big screen adaptation be able to turn this strange tale into something cinematic?
Will Tag be a case of "You're hit!" or "You're Shit!"?
An amusing prologue where Ed Helms' character Hogan "Hoagie" Malloy gets a job as a janitor at Jon Hamm's company for the sole purpose of tagging him while being interviewed for the Wall Street Journal helps to set up the premise.
Every May the friends play an elaborate game of tag that involves pranks, subterfuge and a lot of cross country travel. The film comes at the story from a "men on a mission" angle as Ed Helms character gets the gang back together to join forces to take down one particular man.
Their target is Jerry (played by Jeremy Renner), the member of the group who has never been tagged in 30 years and is planning on retiring undefeated at the end of the season. At least it answers the question of what Hawkeye was up to during Infinity War. Playing tag.
The group see their opportunity with only a few days left in the competition as Jerry is getting married, potentially leaving himself exposed.
However, Jerry is the best to ever play the game and has superhero-level skills and reflexes to help him avoid being tagged and take down the gang. And so begins an all out war that threatens to not only disrupt the wedding but also the group's lifelong friendship.
The tag scenes themselves are well staged. From Renner's spider-sense narration of talking through how he will defeat his enemies to an incredibly effective homage to Predator as Jerry takes out the group one by one in a forest next to the country club hosting his rehearsal dinner.
But deep down, the film understands that this is story about friendship and the plot feels more akin to a high school reunion movie as the group come back home, meet old flames, reminisce about old times and reevaluate their futures.
The ensemble cast have good chemistry together and you have each archetype; Jock (Renner), Stoner (Jake Johnson), Success (Jon Hamm), Sad sack (Ed Helms) and if this was South Park we know what Hannibal Buress's character would be called.
While their on-screen relationship is believable, it would have been good to see more time spent on characterisation. Buress is dealing with some mental health issues and Renner is a recovering alcoholic but the group gloss over this fact to use the meeting to try and trap him rather than help him.
If the characterisation is given short shrift, then the same can certainly be said for the female characters who have nothing really to do expect act as enablers or obstacles to the challenge.
A quote that is repeated throughout the film is "We don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old when we stop playing".
There is certainly a danger that with a feature length film about tag that the playing of it could get old real fast but it has enough charm and heart to keep audiences game for a laugh.

Plus bonus points for bringing Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm by Crash Test Dummies back into the social consciousness.

3 stars

Road to Infinity War - Phase 2 - Avengers: The Age Of Ultron (2015)

You know what? Avengers Age of Ultron gets a bit of an unfairly bad rep.
A lot of that comes from Joss Whedon's split from the Marvel Cinematic Universe following the release of the film where it was revealed that he had not enjoyed the process this time round, feeling that the wider needs of the Universe were getting in the way of telling the story. It also caused him to leave Twitter when fans started hating on him for certain character choices he made (*cough* Natasha and Bruce *cough*).
It is certainly not a perfect film. For one thing it is Avengers: Age of Product Placement with featured shots of Under Armour clothing, Beats headphones, Reebok trainers and, randomly, Gillette shaving cream!
What Ultron does do well is it captures the fun and excitement of having a group of superheroes working together and the wonderful chemistry established by the group of actors who have now been working together for a number of years.
It picks up where it left off, kickstarting the film with an action sequence that features Earth's mightiest heroes in a slow mo one shot again that says "we're hitting the ground running". It also contains the wonderful "language" moment.
There is the party scene where all the Avengers (except Black Widow) attempt to pick up Thor's hammer. The look on Hemsworth's face when Cap makes it wobble ever so slightly is priceless. It also has a wonderful pay off later in the film with Vision.
One of the major criticism's from fans was the middle section where they lay low at Hawkeye's family farm but it allows the movie a chance to breathe and it is a nice, welcome character development for Renner's Clint Barton who spent most of the first film under the mind control of Loki.
Given Whedon's history for killing off characters, it pulls the perfect bait-and-switch building up "one last job", "baby on the way" sacrifice for the hero that doesn't end the way you think.
It also gives him a wonderful moment with Elizabeth Olsen's Scarlet Witch where he delivers a pep talk about becoming an Avenger and how ridiculous it all is that he is just a guy with "a bow and arrow".
It is wonderful to finally see the MCU get another female superhero to add to the mix in the form of Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch (No, Maria Hill does not count!). Olsen is perfect in the role that will develop over the next phase as she struggles to deal with her enormous power and relationship to Vision, the child of Ultron.
Voiced perfectly by James Spader, Ultron is the dark mirror image of Tony Stark. Born out of a need to protect the Earth from attack but ultimately deciding the easiest way to do that is destroy humanity, he is the Monster to Stark's Doctor Frankenstein.
On reflection, now that Phase 3 is nearly complete, Age of Ultron actually fits in a lot better to the overall arching storyline. The final battle in Sokovia has huge repercussions for the group that leads into Civil War, Andy Serkis's delightfully wacky Ulysses Klaue as a plot device to introduce the notion of Wakanda (but worth it for his Cuttlefish speech) and Thor's subplot about going for a dream bath now makes a lot more sense given the events of Thor Ragnarok for example. Again it is about finding that balance between being a complete one shot film versus paving the road to Infinity War but if people were to talk a walk back down this path, they will find much more to enjoy second time around.

Infinity Stone counter = 4

Avengers: Age Of Ultron - Review

In 2012's The Avengers, Nick Fury and Joss Whedon were both faced with an impossible task:

How do you solve a problem like Maria Hill? Just kidding.

No, I obviously meant how do you bring together Marvel's greatest individual superheroes together into one successful and cohesive unit?

Well thanks to Whedon's writing and directing skills, the answer was... "Very easily" because it became the most successful comic book movie of all-time.

It couldn't have been easy coming back to try and achieve the impossible one more time. Particularly when Marvel Studios have really raised their game in Phase 2, with them on their best run of movies so far with Iron Man 3, Winter Soldier and Guardians Of The Galaxy (we'll skip over Thor: The Dark World).

Thankfully Joss is up to the task, delivering a film that simultaneously feels bigger in scale but more intimate in terms of character development.

Following an attack on a HYDRA base, Tony Stark is haunted by a vision of a world (and Avengers) defeated by the return of the Chitauri army.

He creates the Ultron program, designed to be "a suit of armour around the world", but as anyone who has ever seen a movie about artificial intelligence would know, it is not the best idea as any Skynet-esque defence system will soon realise the best way to protect the Earth is to rid it of its most destructive force... Humans.

And so Ultron is born. Brought to life (so to speak) by a fantastic vocal performance by James Spader who brings charisma, humour and villainy in spades.

He recruits two "Enhanced" characters, whatever you do don't call them "mutants", in the form of super fast Pietro and telekinetic Wanda Maximoff to take down the Avengers whilst preparing his masterplan.

As if that wasn't enough for them to deal with, the Avengers all have their own issues going on:

Stark is faced with the Frankenstein-esque guilt of his creation. Black Widow and Bruce Banner are getting close but the Hulk keeps getting in the way, with them sharing one particular exchange reminding us of Whedon's work in Buffy. And it nice to see Hawkeye finally get a proper story arc with a surprise reveal as to his past.

As mentioned before, the action set pieces are HUGE and while at the end it once again falls into the third act trap of people fighting metal men but interestingly there is continuous mention of how Captain America and the gang focus on saving lives and minimising damage.

Was this a deliberate middle finger to Man Of Steel? I for one like to think so.

Every single member (of the ever expanding team) gets a chance to shine with the movie's most crowd-pleasing moment going to new character Vision.

On first viewing there is just so much happening in Age Of Ultron that it seems overwhelming and certain bits can feel lost in the overall mix but it could benefit from repeat viewings.

Overall Whedon has once again assembled a great movie out of Hollywood's biggest and busiest franchise and his absence going forward will be sorely missed.

In the meantime with Marvel Studios advancing to Phase 3 and rumours of the fall-out of this film affecting the plot of Captain America: Civil War does this make Age Of Ultron technically aka Ul-Tron Legacy?

4 stars

American Hustle - review

David O. Russell reunites with Oscar-winner Bale and nominee Adams from The Fighter and Oscar-winner Lawrence and nominee Cooper from Silver Linings Playbook for this outrageous tale of comments, corruption, cleavage and combovers in the Seventies.

With the addition of Jeremy Renner, O. Russell has assembled himself an ensemble cast of superhero proportions with the movie becoming an unofficial Marvel/D.C. crossover featuring Batman, Lois Lane, Hawkeye, Mystique and Rocket Raccoon.

Partly based on the real-life ABSCAM scandals, Bale & Adams play a couple of small time hustlers who are forced into running an entrapment con on Renner's sympathetic mark, the Mayor of New Jersey Carmine Polito.

Starting out as a relatively simple con, Cooper's over-ambitious and quick-tempered FBI agent keeps expanding the reach of the investigation and things soon spiral out of control thanks to the involvement of Bale's wife played by Jennifer Lawrence and a mobster connection with a rather familiar face.

From Bale's committed turn as Irving, with a combover as complicated and elaborate as the cons he's running and Adams's fake English accent and dresses that are so low-cut her cleavage probably deserved its own screen credit, down to Alessandro Nivola's crazy Christopher Walken impression as an FBI boss, there is not a weak link in the whole cast.

However if it was possible to single one standout performance from an entire movie of standouts, it would have to be Jennifer Lawrence.

Lawrence doesn't even bother to pull any type of con, rather she straight up, brazingly steals every scene she is in.
Whether it is cleaning the house while singing Live And Let Die or making sure audiences will be referring to their microwave as "Science Oven" from now on, as younger, unstable New Jersey housewife, it's a role that is likely to bag her another Oscar nomination if not another gold statue.

Despite the fantastic recreation of the period, with particular mention going to Michael Wilkinson's costume design and the hair and makeup team, the film does tend to lose its way as the con becomes increasingly more complicated.

Rumour has it that a lot of the dialogue was improvised from the cast which had an influence on the plot, which has led to a lack of overall cohesiveness.

What it resulted in however is an unexpectedly hilarious movie with much of the comedy coming from Cooper's character and the one of the best running gags in years where he tries to find out the end of his boss's story about ice fishing and its relation to the case.

Like any good con, the performances are top notch and while you'll initially leave satisfied you might be left with the feeling that you've been had.

3 stars