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

A Walk Among The Tombstones - review

A Walk Among The Tombstones, a private detective story based on a novel hence the 1999 setting, spends a lot of time trying to develop Liam Neeson's character by having traits like "doesn't like modern technology", "hero cop turned retired P.I." and "recovering alcoholic" but thanks to a scene which feels shoehorned in, all it does in reinforce the idea that Neeson is at his best when threatening people over the phone.

It also tries to develop a plot line involving a young, homeless sidekick/partner which doesn't entirely convince given the character's loner status.

It starts off promisingly with a credit sequence that evolves from innocent to chilling but this is nothing more than an average thriller, which following The Guest could have benefitted from more Dan Stevens.

3 stars

3 Days To Kill - review

Have assassins and government agents never watched any films about assassins and government agents?

If they had they would know that there is no such thing as "one last job", for just like Michael Corleone "just when I thought I was out they pull me in".

One of the frequent criticisms of modern movie trailers is that they give too much away but another, perhaps even greater, sin is when a film is completely mis-sold by its trailer, usually to its detriment.

This is one of those cases.

Watch the trailer and you be forgiven for thinking that this was a film where CIA operative Kevin Costner wants to quit to spend time with his family but is poisoned and is given 3 Days To Kill a list of people in order to secure the antidote.

Sounds like a reasonable description right? Wrong!

Succumbing to illness on a mission which leads to the escape of a target, Costner is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, given 5 months to live and future endeavoured by the CIA.
Returning to Paris to reconnect with his family, he is recruited by a shadowy agent played by Amber Heard to kill the target he missed in exchange for an experimental drug that could help prolong his life.

That is quite different no?

At first glance this looks to be another case of Taken syndrome where an ageing actor decides that instead of cashing in his pension, he cashes a pay check in order to reinvent himself as an action hero.

Even though it is written and produced by Luc Besson, it never really captures that feeling, despite another strong father-daughter relationship.

The action scenes are few and far between (and all of them feature in the trailer) and actually the film is more akin to Besson's Leon.

There are nice touches in the movie, with Costner returning home to find a group of African squatters in his flat yet unable to evict them due to the law and a relationship develops between them.

There was potential for quite an interesting take on this type of story, especially due to strong performances from Costner and Steinfeld, however an inability to decide what kind of film it wants to be, unnecessarily long running time and bland, uninvolving direction by McG (I find it interesting his name was kept off all the publicity materials) resulting in a bit of a misfire.

Despite mentioning the title in the film (always deserving of a cheer), the urgency behind the 3 Days To Kill is never felt and therefore ends up being a film that few will be Taken with.

2 stars

A Million Ways To Die In The West - review

In A Million Ways To Die In The West, Seth McFarlane's character Albert Stack is constantly going on about how much he hates the West.

By the end of this 116 minute so-called "comedy", I could probably have listed a million reasons to hate this film.

The Old West is a barren, deserted place. Almost as barren as this screenplay is of jokes and punchlines.

Whereas an episode of Family Guy or American Dad can survive the odd humour-based misfire due the frequency of the gags over a short 20 minute runtime, here Seth McFarlane is as alone and exposed as he is during the shoot outs he frequently finds himself in... and his jokes hit as wide of the mark as his bullets, although often he's just firing blanks.

In between all the humour tumbleweeds blowing through the film there is some beautiful vista shots of the West in the opening credit sequence, some truly bizarre cameos (In particular The Cowboy At The Fair and one that raises a smile yet makes no sense whatsoever given the film it comes from) and a mildly catchy song about the benefits of having a moustache.

But even having a moustache won't save you from contemplating a million different ways to die in order to save yourself from watching another minute of this manure... and I hate manure!

1 star

LEGO Movie - review

"Everything is awesome" booms the only song played in Bricksburg 24 hours hours a day and you know what? It is absolutely true.

Everything about The LEGO Movie is awesome and it is easily the most inventive and consistently funny and entertaining film of the year.

With a plot that is very similar to The Matrix, Emmet is a construction worker who lives in Bricksburg and does everything according to the instructions in order to conform and fit in as best he can. One day at work he follows a girl dressed in black, tumbles down a hole and finds a strange object called The Piece of Resistance. Introduced to a sage-like black man called Vetruvius who shows him the true world of Legoland beyond the city limits, he is hailed as "The One"... I mean "The Special" who can fulfil the prophecy and stop Lord Business from unleashing The Kragle from ending the universe as they know it.

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are now three for three as directors of movies which sound like a potential disaster but turn out to be unexpected delights:

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs - an animation about a device that turns weather into food.

21 Jump Street - an action comedy based on an 80's teen cop series.

And The LEGO Movie, a feature-length movie based on a kids toy. As Transformers has proved, it doesn't always work.

There are so many amazing and hilarious cameos and surprises in store that it would do a disservice to reveal them in the review but it is safe to say that Superman vs Batman and Ben Affleck have some way to go to beat this for a Justice League movie and best Batman since Nolan's.

An exciting blend of stop motion animation mixed with CGI, the level of detail is simply astonishing with thrilling action sequences and a multitude of background sight gags that will keep revealing more and more with multiple viewings.

This film is one of the greatest films ever assembled and suitable for ages 8-99 (that's just a suggestion) and anyone who has ever played with the sophisticated interlocking brick system, whether you went exactly by the instructions or let your imagination run wild just as Lord and Miller have here.

The only thing missing is a joke where a construction worker gets mad when another guy puts the final piece on a building he has constructed.

5 stars