Cargo - Netflix review

Shuffling onto Netflix without a huge amount of fanfare this week was Cargo, a zombie film starring Martin Freeman.
Freeman plays Andy, husband and father to Kay and Rosie, who are travelling on a houseboat in an attempt to survive a pandemic outbreak that turns infected people into zombies after 48 hours.
The film puts a new spin on the genre by having Andy infected quite early on in the film and faces a race against time to find a safe home for daughter before he succumbs to the infection and turns into one of the walking dead.
Written and directed by Yolanda Ramke and Ben Howling, this is not your traditional zombie horror in the style of Night Of The Living Dead or even the remake of Dawn Of The Dead.
Just like the Australian outback where it is set, it is very sparse in terms of action or gore.
Instead it is more of a character study of a man faced with impossible choices to make to try and protect his family. It just so happens that this takes place within a zombie pandemic.
Cargo plays its cards close to its chest in terms of the reasons behind the outbreak and doesn't get bogged down in exposition as to when, where and why it happened because that it ultimately not important to Andy's story.
One can speculate from the odd visual clue that the disease was potentially spread from fracking the earth and has destroyed the urban areas on the coast, resulting in people moving inland to escape the epidemic.
Indeed, technology is all but redundant out here. The only technology that works are the FitBit-style wrist bands that count down the hours until the virus takes over.
The only people who seem to have a handle on the situation are the Aboriginals who spend their nights cleansing the land of these lost souls. This is clearly part of the filmmakers' ultimate message of the story where we must protect and cherish our land and heritage or risk losing our way of life.
Along his journey, Andy meets several different people who could potentially offer salvation but often end up showcasing the dark heart of humanity.
These encounters cause him to lose hope and contemplate taking not only his life but Rosie's as well for fear of leaving her behind to an even worse fate.
Freeman anchors the film with a strong, heartfelt performance where you can truly feel his pain, anger, frustration at the situation but also his love for his daughter that keeps him going to the very end.
The film's tagline is "He is her only hope. And her greatest threat". Not only does this describe the relationship between Andy and Rosie in the film but also the relationship between Netflix and these low budget, independent films that they have taken into their care.
Netflix does offer an avenue for filmmakers to get there films out there to an international audience but it all depends on Netflix's algorithms and marketing to ensure that they find that audience because there is a chance they could end up lost and forgotten like a zombie with its head buried in the sand.
Rare gems like this need championed and one hopes that, like Andy's wish for Rosie, it finds the perfect home because this is precious Cargo.

3 stars

Road to Infinity War - Phase 3 - Black Panther (2018)

First thing's first. No Soul Stone here in Wakanda. Just a ton of Vibranium waiting to be turned into a shield or thousands of murder bots. All the Marvel fans were wrong. It isn't there. The teaser for Infinity War showing the massive battle in Wakanda wrong footed us all. It's not the Soul Stone they are protecting but Vision and his Mind Stone.
So where is the Soul Stone? Who cares, for now it is time to discuss the highest grossing superhero film in US history, Black Panther.
For a film that comes directly before Avengers Infinity War, it is surprisingly self-contained and features very few references to the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe beyond the return of the two "Tolkein" white guys Everett Ross and Ulysses Klaue (Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis).
I was slightly indifferent to the film first time round, and you can read that full review here.
Rewatching on the Road to Infinity War, it has improved in some areas but there remain some rather large flaws. Particularly in the final act.
The first half of the film remains very strong as it plays out like a Bond movie with T'Challa as Bond, sister Shuri as Q, with Okoye and Nakia as anything but Bond girls. The entire Busan sequence is the standout highlight of the movie.
Once the action returns to Wakanda and Killmonger has made his play for the throne, that's where things get a little bit... The Lion King.
Think about it. A son mourning the death of his father is usurped to the throne by a treacherous, vindictive relative who believes they should be King. Following a period of self-discovery that involves speaking with his dead dad, returns to fight and claim the throne that is rightfully his. Accompanied by M'Bakku and Ross aka Timon and Pumba.
Joking aside, the final battle is where the film lets itself down. The CGI is not as sharp as other MCU films and the face off between T'Challa and Erik in their Panther suits on a rail track looks like a deleted scene out of Tron Legacy.
There is also the bizarre moment that a war rhino stops charging when Okoye steps in front of it. This plot point was not mentioned previously but it also is exactly the same as a moment involving Elton John of all people in Kingsman 2.
It is a shame that it doesn't nail the landing because the relationship between the once and future kings is fascinating and has parallels to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X (and also Professor X and Magneto). They both ultimately have the same goal but want to achieve it in very different ways.
Still, the performances are fantastic and while Jordan's charisma and swagger threatens to overshadow Boseman, there is purpose to it in uniting some of the Wakandan tribes to his cause, and leads to his powerful speech about how death is better than bondage.
While certainly not a perfect film, the foundations for the Black Panther franchise and place within the MCU are as strong as vibranium.

Infinity Stone counter = 5

Ghost Stories - review

Ghost Stories is *not*, as some may wonder, a sequel to David Lowry's A Ghost Story from last year. It is an adaptation of the theatre play of the same name, written and directed by Jeremy Dyson (The League of Gentlemen) and Andy Nyman (Derren Brown), who also stars as Philip Goodman, a debunker of the supernatural and paranormal.
Goodman is contacted by a former paranormal investigator on his death bed who needs Goodman to tell him that three cases he struggled to explain are in fact not evidence of the paranormal.
Goodman proceeds to interview the three men who had these experiences; A nightwatchman (Paul Whitehouse), a student (Alex Lawther) and a smarmy businessman (Martin Freeman). While initially they seem like separate tales, certain details start to crop up that suggest something more sinister is at play here.
As mentioned earlier, this is based on a play (which this reviewer saw twice and was chilled to the bone both times) and the plot is very similar although the framing device is slightly different (In the play, Goodman was delivering a lecture to the audience).
Given the previous work of the writing and directing duo, one can expect a reverence for British horror, a macabre sense of humour and a film where everything is not what it seems... despite the existence of the lead character.
Shot in the style of Seventies British horror films; static cameras, long shots where your eyes move around the screen looking for something evil, 8mm sequences; the stories are put together deliberately to slowly crank up the dial of terror before releasing all that tension with a jump scare. And it is to their credit that the finished product has the desired effect.
A lot of this comes from the performances from the men reliving these terrifying encounters.
Paul Whitehouse is superb as the angry, bitter, broken Nightwatchman who is plagued by mysterious noises and visions during a late shift in the single most effective sequence. He is best known for his comedic roles but he is even better at the portraying the drama and horror he feels.
Alex Lawther is once again incredibly effective as a young man scared to the point of insanity by something he encountered in the woods but he is in danger of being typecast as the troubled youngster that he has previously played in Black Mirror and It's The End Of The F**King World.
The final tale introduces us to Martin Freeman's smarmy character who is able to get under Goodman's skin to the point that it makes him question his own experiences that leads to a final act that pulls the proverbial rug out from under the audience.
There might not be anything too original in any of the individual stories and the scares are signposted (along with hints and visual clues that will become clearer on second viewing) to anyone who knows their horror but the film plays with this knowledge and subverts these expectations.
Nyman & Dyson clearly know their horror and know exactly when to hold back and when to push the button and execute the scare, resulting in a wonderfully delivered ghost story that will chill you to the bone.

4 stars

Black Panther - review

The road to Avengers: Infinity War marches on with the Marvel Studios' 18th film since the Marvel Cinematic Universe began with Iron Man ten years ago in 2008.
With 18 films under their belts, it could be easy for Marvel to rest on their laurels and produce carbon copies of their greatest hits time and time again. Instead they are taking bigger and bigger risks.
After all, this is the company that gave us a movie starring a talking raccoon and a tree monster and a Flash Gordon-esque Thor sequel from the director of What We Do In The Shadows.
There are only two things they are still to achieve:
1) We still don't have a female-led solo movie yet. We have to wait till 2019 and Captain Marvel for that, and is the only thing that DC can claim they have bettered Marvel at.
2) A MCU origin film that doesn't end with two CGI characters beating the crap out of each other.
While Black Panther might not buck the trend in this department, it represents a huge leap forward in other ways and could be one of the most significant cultural events in Hollywood.
Writer-director Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station, Creed) brings Chadwick Boseman's T'Challa back to his home country of Wakanda for his coronation as King and take on the mantle of Black Panther following his father's death in Captain America: Civil War.
To tell this story, Coogler has assembled an incredible cast of veterans, rising stars and two "Tolkien" white guys. It is truly an embarrassment of riches that include Oscar winners Forest Whitaker & Lupita N'Yongo, nominees Angela Bassett & Daniel Kayuula and Emmy winner Sterling K. Brown.

It is impossible to overstate how important this moment in cinema could be. To have so many people of colour in the leading roles in a mainstream movie outside of Madea marks a welcome change and not only that, it passes the Bechdel Test with flying colours. The four leading women are all strong, independent queens, warriors, spies and inventors who are not sidelined in a wasted romantic subplot.

All this looks to deliver a bumper box office weekend as the audience, often underserved by Hollywood, come out in force. It's just a shame that the final product doesn't quite live up to the hype, instead coming in around mid-tier Marvel and plays out like a standard superhero origin tale.
The early signs are promising with the first half playing out like a Bond movie with Boseman as the gentlemen spy supplied with Vibranium powered gadgets by his precocious little sister Shuri who is a teenage Q and played with gleeful delight by Letitia Wright. The action jet sets around the globe from a daring robbery in London to a casino shootout and car chase in Busan with Martin Freeman's Everett Ross as Felix Lighter and Ulysses Klaue as the accented, maniacal super villain. Having spent so many years hidden underneath CGI and a motion capture suit, he is clearly relishing the chance to ham it up in front of the camera, and get time for a Hobbit reunion with Bilbo.

The issues come when the action returns to the CG heavy Wakanda and the real plot and villain in the form of Michael B. Jordan's Eric "Killmonger" come to the fore and the film switches from a spy movie to Marvel's version of The Lion King, with a prince battling to regain the throne from an evil relative following the death of his father.

The central struggle between T'Challa and Killmonger comes from an interesting place in that both want to advance the fortunes of Wakanda albeit from different perspectives and methods. One wants the country to do more through outreach and development while the other wants to provide arms to have communities rise up against their oppressors. This is Boseman's stoic MLK vs Jordan's charasmatic Malcolm X.

At the heart of it is a fascinating struggle but the power is somewhat lost as it descends into a standard Marvel third act which includes a mass CG brawl involving war rhinos, a one-on-one fight that could have been cut straight out of Tron Legacy and story beats right of the original Iron Man playbook.

It might follow the superhero formula but this is a standalone film with very few references to the wider MCU so the casual filmgoer can enjoy it for what it is without worrying too much about how it sets things up for Infinity War.

This is a superhero film straight outta Wakanda but this reviewer has a feline that Black Panther will, like the lion, find it's roar in the future.

3 stars

The Hobbit: Battle Of The Five Armies - review

The Battle Of The Five Armies is a rather confusing title for the film because even though the eponymous battle takes up the majority of the film's runtime, at the end of it I am unable to tell you who the five armies were!

There were some dwarves, elves, orcs, mention of another Orc army that never show up, a small group of humans that would be difficult to classify as "an army" and then possibly even the Eagles.

Ah the bloody eagles! The Deus Eagle Machina that turns up whenever everything seems bleak in order to help out but ended up reminding us all of that question "why didn't they just drop the ring in Mount Doom?".

The biggest problem with The Hobbit films is that by expanding the story over three films and trying to work in more material to tie it in to the LOTR movies, it feels like a cheap cardboard cutout version with several moments trying to recreate that magic but falling rather short, even provoking unintentional laughter amongst the audience.

There is nothing that has the sense of scale and wonder as the Battle of Helm's Deep or the Ride of the Rohirrim or Gollum's conversation with himself. Indeed the CGI is rather poor in this film and is used much more extensively than the practical effects and fight scenes of the original trilogy.

Is it too harsh to say that The Hobbit films do for the Lord Of The Rings Trilogy what The Phantom Menace and the prequels did for the original Star Wars Trilogy?

The Hobbit is an overlong, bloated mess that was unnecessarily split over three films so I'll save everyone some time and keep it brief.

The original subtitle of this film was There And Back Again. Peter Jackson went there to Middle Earth with huge success with Lord Of The Rings but it might have been best for everyone involved if he hadn't gone back again.

2 stars

The World's End - review

"Have you ever had one of those nights that started out like any other and became the best night of your life?"
Gary King certainly did, and 22 years down the line he still thinks about that night and so he rounds up his childhood friends aka "The Five Musketeers" and they head back to their hometown of Newton Haven to have another crack at The Golden Mile. 5 guys. 12 pubs. 50 pints... 60 pints.
But the times they are a changing and it's not long into the crawl that things turn a bit "Invasion Of The Boddingtons Snatchers" and the lads will have more than a hangover to deal with if they are to make it to The World's End...

The best friendships are the ones where years could have passed without seeing each other but within half an hour, the old camaraderie and jokes are flowing as fast as the beer and its as if nothing has changed at all.
This is certainly the case with messieurs Wright, Pegg and Frost. It has been six years since Hot Fuzz and they seamlessly pick up where they left off with a terrific opening sequence outlining the ill-fated pub crawl with Wright's traditional smash cut and frenetic editing, an eclectic and killer soundtrack and a script that is smart, funny and multi-layered.
However beyond the appearance of a particular ice cream, a fence gag and fruit machine sound effect, this is an all-together more grown up flavour of Cornetto.
Gone are the multitude of pop culture references and the gag-ratio has been toned down in favour of something much more reflective, nostalgic and ultimately bittersweet. Although I can guarantee that a certain line that features the word Legoland will become one of the quotes of the year.
The film makers themselves have admitted that they are older and not the same people they were when they first worked together on Spaced and Shaun Of The Dead so it would be have foolish to try and act that like they were still in their twenties... They just leave that to their main character.

One of the main themes of the film is the notion that you can't keep living in the past, like a shark you have to keep moving forward or die. And with Gary King what we have on our hands is a dead shark.
Gary is unable to realise this at first, even with help from his best friends, and in many ways bears resemblance to one of 2013's other cinematic (and literary) nostalgics, The Great Gatsby.
Nick Carraway says the line "You can't repeat the past" to which Gatsby replies "Why of course you can".
Gatsby has spent most of his life and fortune in one long party, trying to recapture that one perfect moment in his life (his relationship and love with Daisy Buchanan), a pursuit which is ultimately doomed...
Similar to Gary and his attempt to conquer the Golden Mile.
His character can come across as selfish and annoying but we've all had a friend like that yet underneath there is a sadness which makes him a rather tragic anti-hero.
It is a refreshing change to see Pegg & Frost mix up the dynamic by having Frost play the straight man while Pegg gets to play the comical f*ck up this time round. They may have swapped roles but the chemistry is still there and you really get a sense of the history between the two.
There is a scene between them in the final pub which went to places one would never have expected when the trilogy started nearly ten years ago, leaving me with a lump in my throat and is the best on screen work that Pegg and Frost have ever done.

The Cornetto Trilogy has always managed to draw some incredible talent into appearing in these films and once again they have assembled one of the best British ensemble casts outside of the Harry Potter franchise.
A whole host of familiar faces (and voices) pop up in cameos alongside newcomers like Rosamund Pike and Eddie Marsan who fit in perfectly with Paddy Considine rounding out The Five Musketeers along with Martin Freeman who excels in what might be the trickiest role to play outside of Pegg's.
The reason they have been able to continue to attract this level of talent is down to the quality of the script and filmmaking.
Each part of the trilogy has featured at its core, an individual or small group fighting against the homogenisation of an external force, whether that be zombies, the NWA or The Network.
Wright & Pegg have taken genres typically associated with Hollywood (the zombie horror, action blockbuster and science-fiction) and grounded them in a very British reality by having them becoming an obstacle to the protagonist's main goal (Shaun getting his girlfriend back, Angel trying to solve a Midsomer Murder Mystery and the quest to conquer The Golden Mile).
The World's End has just the right level of juxtaposition that allows Wright to deftly move between the ridiculous and the sublime, effortlessly moving between comedy and tragedy. For example, going from a heartfelt confessional moment of pain and regret to a beautifully choreographed bar brawl that combines drunken monkey style Kung fu and early 90s' WWE moves, but never at the expense of character.
Plus the scripts are very densely plotted that there is much to enjoy on multiple viewings with the names of the pubs acting as chapter titles for the action and even subtly hints at how the plot will unfold from the very beginning. This is also goes for the soundtrack which features several classic tracks from the early Nineties that fit the mood perfectly but also contain many lyrics that echo emotions and actions that drive the story.
If there were to be any criticisms, it may lie with the final epilogue which feels just a touch out of place with the rest of the film but it does provide one of the main running gags which helps tie the whole trilogy together.
The World's End might not have been the conclusion to the Cornetto Trilogy that people were perhaps expecting but I've tried to think of another way it could have ended and my mind is drawing a complete "blank".
The best films are the ones that stay with you long after you leave the cinema, the ones that speak to you on a personal level, like the filmmakers wrote it specifically for you and I feel that this one more than the others in the trilogy will grow to fill that place in many cinemagoers hearts (particularly ones of a certain age) as they take stock, reflect on life and get in touch with some old friends for a nostalgic trip back down memory lane to their own Golden Mile.

4 stars