Fyre: The Festival That Never Happened - Netflix Originals Review

If one wanted to use a film quote to aptly sum up the failure of #FyreFestival that went from the "hottest party" to an example of the perils of PR, marketing and poor event management that will be taught in schools for years to come, one need look no further than Jerry Maguire:
"I'm finished, I'm fucked. Twenty-four hours ago, man, I was hot! Now... I'm a cautionary tale. You see this jacket I'm wearing, you like it? Because I don't really need it because I'm cloaked in failure!"
In 2017, the world watched on social media as a group of privileged American "influencers" had a meltdown on Twitter and Instagram as they arrived on an island in the Bahamas for an exclusive music festival only for it to go horribly wrong and quickly turn into a "first world problems" version of Lord Of The Flies as panicked Instagrammers ran around trying to find tents to sleep in and wept about the awful state of a cheese sandwich.
This Netflix originals documentary (one of two on the festival out this month) has been developed by one of the teams who were involved in the marketing of #Fyre so they have behind the scenes footage of owners Billy McFarland and Ja Rule as they plan to put on an event to help promote their music booking app #Fyre but just seem more concerned with having a massive piss up with supermodels on a deserted island than actually planning the logistics of successfully delivering a high-end, luxury event for people paying thousands of dollars to attend.
As the film counts down to the day of the festival, the sheer level of ignorance, ineptitude and stupidity on show is staggering as the team, under the leadership of McFarland, lurch from one disaster to another. McFarland, despite being in the face of an insurmountable number of problems, just keeps moving forward. It was as if he was the captain of the Titanic who could see the "Iceberg, right ahead!" and just continued on his current course, thinking everything will be fine, even to the point he goes down with the ship.
He is the physical embodiment of the dog in the house on fire meme "This is fine" and the festival-goers are Donald Glover walking into the room on fire meme!
The film has been described as a Jaws for millennials and the description is apt because the #Fyre team (including the affable, nice Andy King who has the single most shocking anecdote you will hear this year regarding Evian water) come across like the Murray Hamilton's Amity Island beach. He knows there is a shark that could kill everyone but still lets them in the water. The #Fyre team know the festival will fail, that they don't have enough accommodation and food for everyone (not even getting to the fact the accommodation is not what was advertised) and yet they still let them come to the island!

"I'm pleased & happy to repeat the news that in spite of some rumours, we have plenty of tents & cheese sandwiches for everyone attending. It’s a beautiful day, the beaches are open and people are having a wonderful time. Fyre Festival as you know, means Friendship!"

There is an old adage in Hollywood that "you couldn't make it up" and that the truth is stranger than fiction and this is one of those stories which is so incredulous and unbelievable in how it all unfolded that you will be sitting slack-jawed and shaking your head in disbelief throughout.
It is a fascinating look at the world that we currently live in and a timely reminder of the power that social media can have over our lives and that sometimes we should take a step back and switch off every now and again to avoid getting burned.

4 stars

To All The Boys I've Loved Before - Netflix Originals Review

Netlfix's latest film to hit the streaming service is To All The Boys I've Loved Before is a refreshing, female led take on the high school movie.
Directed by Susan Johnson and adapted from Jenny Han's novel by Sofia Alvarez, it is perfect for anyone looking to achieve the #52FilmsbyWomen challenge this year.
Lara Jean Covey is a shy, high school girl. She has never had a boyfriend but she has had plenty of crushes. Including one of her best friends Josh who happens to be going out with her older sister. Rather than tell the boys how she feels, she writes them a letter and keeps them in a box hidden in her bedroom.
In one of those "only in the movies" moments, these letters (which just happen to be, as Stevie Wonder might say, signed and sealed and stamped) are delivered to the unsuspecting recipients which causes shockwaves through her social life and social standing at school.
Where the film might have taken a High Fidelity-style trip down memory lane as Lara Jean is forced to track down and confront all the boys she has loved before, instead it takes a different path.
Focusing on two boys in particular, the plot veers more towards a She's All That/Pygmalion plot as she forms a pact with high school jock Peter to pretend to be a couple in order to make their exes/friends jealous.
The film might not be reinventing the wheel but that does not matter one single iota thanks to a tight, fun screenplay and a star-making performance by Lana Condor. Previously best known for a small role in X-Men Apocalypse in which she managed to make one of the worst X-Men in Jubilee actually appealing, she is destined for great things on the back of this film.
As Lara Jean becomes to come out of her shell, Condor's confidence shines through as the character becomes more independent and sets out a strong example for young women as she refuses to be treated as the butt of the jokes and catty attitudes to girls at school who are the targets of jealousy and sexual promiscuity.
As mentioned, the ending of the movie is written in the stars before the letters are even posted but that is no fault of these stars Condor and Noah Centenio who are perfect together and have the audience rooting for them all the way.
One minor point though. Are we really expected to believe that teenagers these days i.e. people born in the Noughties are watching John Hughes movies as their guides to growing up? Would they not be watching the likes of Mean Girls or even Clueless? Which themselves are scarily 14 and 23 years old already! Surely the Sixteen Candles and Breakfast Clubs of this world are the childhood movies of their parents who would show the kids these movies and the young people would be bemused as to what makes them classics?
Will To All The Boys I've Loved Before achieve that cult classic status itself thirty years from now? Only time will tell but until then it is the perfect love letter to all the high school romance movies that have come before.

3 stars

Extinction - Netflix Originals Review

Extinction is the latest Netflix Originals film to hit the small-to-medium sized screens around the world and of the science fiction films to land on the streaming platform this year (Annihilation, Mute, The Cloverfield Paradox), it certainly feels the most generic and formulaic to begin with.
The ever-dependable Michael Pena plays Peter, a husband and a father, who is plagued by recurring nightmares of an alien invasion. As the frequency of the dreams increases, it causes him to drift further and further from his family.
Persuaded by his friend to visit a clinic to talk about his issues, he meets another patient having the same dreams and convinced of a conspiracy to wipe them of their memories. Is there something larger at work here?
Just when suspicions of a Body Snatchers-style situation are raised, Peter is unsurprisingly proved correct in his visions as aliens invade Earth in a huge action set piece that sees Pena try to escape their apartment building with his daughters and wife played by Lizzy Caplan (no stranger to alien invasion having appeared in Cloverfield and the Marvel One Shot set after the Invasion of New York).
The scope of the action scenes indicate that it was directed for the big screen but ultimately the budget and CGI make it feel more like a straight-to-DVD sci-fi film from the late Nineties.
It is a shame that the movie feels so carbon copy to others that have come before because with a format like Netflix, there is that danger that they could easily switch over to watch something else.
And in doing so, they would potentially miss out on dramatic plot developments in the second and third acts that flip everything on its head and make you question everything that you have seen before.
It is a fascinating twist that succeeds in temporarily elevating the film above its genre roots into something more profound.
While it is certainly no Annihilation, the twist should give Extinction a chance of not dying out on Netflix in the immediate future.

2 stars

Set It Up - Netflix Originals Review

The greatest back-handed compliment that you can give Set It Up is that it doesn't feel like a Netflix Originals film. It feels like a mainstream Hollywood Rom-Com that has found its way to the streaming site after playing in cinemas.
It might hit every single beat of the romantic comedy playbook but it does it with a slickness and charm, delivered by strong lead performances.
Set in New York, as so many of the classic romantic comedies are, it starts with a montage of assistants being treated terribly by their bosses to the tune of Nowhere To Run by Martha & The Vandellas (itself provoking images of another classic NYC movie The Warriors).
This introduces us to the two lead protagonists, Harper (Zoey Deutch) and Charlie (Glen Powell). They are executive assistants to high powered and extremely demanding bosses (played by Taye Diggs and Lucy Liu), who have clearly learned nothing from films such as Swimming With Sharks and The Devil Wears Prada and live in the Hollywood version of New York where you can still act like a complete dick to your staff and have no recourse from Human Resources whatsoever. Anyway, I digress...
The being-on-call-24/7 lifestyle leaves the assistants with no time for themselves. Harper dreams of being a writer for her boss's online Sports website but cannot find the time to finish an article. Charlie has a high maintenance model girlfriend who is sick of being stood up all the time.
After bonding over a meet-cute involving their boss's dinner orders, they decide to try setting up their bosses into a relationship that would provide them with more time out of the office and able to enjoy their own lives.
From that point on, well no spoilers but you only have to have seen one other romantic comedy to know that; the bosses will get together, working together will cause the assistants to develop feelings for each other, the bosses will split up, the assistants will fight and everything will need to be wrapped up in a big bow by a dash to a public place for a declaration in front of many people...
What sells the film is the lead performances of Zoey Dutch and Glen Powell.
Both have been grafting for several years with bit parts and supporting roles in the likes of Everybody Wants Some, Dirty Grandpa, Hidden Figures, Expendables 3, etc. This is their first mainstream lead role and they carry it off with aplomb. Convincing in their characterisation on their own and generating great chemistry together.
Deutch gets a bit more to do but that it is not too surprising given the film is written and directed by women (Katie Silberman and Claire Scanlon respectively).
Lucy Liu also gets more character development than Taye Diggs, who is rather more of a stereotypical cinematic boss. Liu however is seen as a strong, powerful businesswoman who has made a successful career for herself. Albeit at the sacrifice of her personal life and this duplicitous scheme by Harper and Charlie might just show her that she is worth more than just a career.
If anything, the film tries to show that work isn't everything and it is important to have a life outside of work... or at the very least, find a job/career that makes you happy.
So while relaxing after a hard day's work or typing up that dream job resume, you could do worse that setting up a viewing of this romantic comedy on Netflix.

3 stars

The Most Assassinated Woman In The World - EIFF review

Synopsis:
At the dark and bloody heart of this period film by director Franck Ribière is real-life iconic actor Paula Maxa (played by Anna Mouglalis), the most famous of the Grand Guignol’s leading ladies and the titular woman, who was graphically slain on stage multiple times a day. A young journalist suspects the theatre is linked to a series of gruesome murders. After falling for Paula and learning of her painful past, he aims to save her from a mysterious killer.

Review:

Back in its heyday, the Grand Guignol theatre in Paris became so famous, or should that be infamous, that the name became synonomos with any form of theatre or film that was designed to shock and horrify its audience.
Although literally translated, Grand Guignol actually means "the big puppet". Who were the ones being manipulated though? Was it the actors or the audience? Will it be the same for this audience?

Paula Maxa was the reason that people came to the Grand Guignol and Anna Mouglalis is the reason to watch the film. Delivering a mesmerising performance as the woman haunted by the ghosts of her past and feels that the only way to truly live is to die.
The true story of Maxa is the inspiration for this gleefully gory tale of murder, mystery and intrigue set during a murder spree in the city of lights in the early 1930s. Imagine Theatre of Blood meets From Hell set in gay Paris. Jacques The Ripper if you will.
The Most Assassinated Woman In The World is certainly not for everyone but that is true of any piece of art. Some will call it art. Others trash. Some will be entranced, some will walk out in disgust but this is trash of the highest order and you have appreciate the pure theatre of it.

4 stars

The Most Assassinated Woman In The World has its International Premiere at Edinburgh International Film Festival on Wednesday 27th June, 6.00 and Thursday 28th June, 11.10. To book tickets, click here.

Calibre - EIFF review

Calibre is the debut feature film from writer/director Matt Palmer. Matt has experience directing short films but many know him as the programmer and curator of All Night Horror Madness, an annual celebration of horror movies that takes place at The Cameo.
It is clear that his love of horror and film has given him the tools to craft a tense and thrilling tale.
Childhood friends Vaughn (Jack Lowden) and Marcus (Martin McCann) head up to the remote Scottish highlands on a hunting trip before Vaughn settles down with his fiancee and baby that is on the way.
After a night of heavy drinking with the locals, ruffling a few feathers along the way, the pals set out to stalk deer in the woods. Only the peace of the misty morning is shattered by a tragic accident that will set the friends down a road from which there may be no return.
What can let a horror or thriller down is when it strays too far from believability but this is not an issue here. Every single decision or choice that the two lead characters make comes from an honest and believable place from where they are at that time. It dares to ask the question of "what would you do?" in a situation like that. Would you have acted any differently? We like to think we would but...
Palmer understands the notion of "best laid plans" and slowly dials up the tension and naturalistically placing obstacles in the way of the duo's success and escape.
Yet the note perfect script would all be for nothing if not they had not assembled a talented group of actors to deliver the goods and they are uniformly terrific.
Jack Lowden is fast becoming one of Scotland's finest talents (Dunkirk, England Is Mine) and completely convinces as a young man whose life as he knows it is suddenly over with the click of a trigger. Torn between a need to tell the truth and a desire to be there for his growing family, he allows himself to be dragged further and further into an impossible situation by his friend.
Where Vaughn is quiet and reserved, Martin McCann's Marcus is loud, brash and cocky. The Northern Ireland actor has the swagger of a young Michael Fassbender and his behaviour sets him at odds with the rural locals (played by the likes of Tony Curran and Ian Pirie) and stirs tensions that potentially put any chance of reconciliation off the table.
The film certainly plays on the differences between the rural and city folk. Not to the over-the-top stereotypical levels League Of Gentlemen ("are you local? there's nothing for you here") or The Wicker Man (even though a bonfire is mentioned at one point) but instead coming in this modern landscape where the gulf in wealth and opportunity is as great as the physical distance between the Highlands and the City.
Palmer's debut deserves to be mentioned in the same conversations as the likes of similar genre films Eden Lake, Deliverance and Straw Dogs. Effectively ringing every drop of tension and menace out of this unsettling moral dilemma.
This is Scottish, and indeed, world filmmaking of the truly highest calibre.

5 stars

Calibre has its World Premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on Friday 22nd June, 8.30 with extra screenings on Saturday 23rd June, 3.15 and Saturday 20th June, 3.15. 
To book, click here.
Calibre will debut on Netlfix from Friday 29th June.

To listen to interviews with the cast and crew of Calibre, check out the latest Filibuster podcast on The Nerd Party/

Making Fun: The Story of Funko - Netflix review

Coming off the back of the fascinating Netflix series The Toys That Made Us, comes a documentary called Making Fun: The Story of Funko.
Where the TV series focused on the toys of our childhood such as Star Wars, He Man, Transformers, etc. the subject of this new film is the Funko company, a relative newcomer to the toy and collectable game but one of the genuine phenomenons of the last twenty years.
And phenomenon is really the only word to accurately describe the company that started out in Mike Becker's garage in Snohomish, Washington in 1998.
Even if one doesn't own a Funko Pop, it is impossible not to be aware of them. Just go into any HMV on the high street and there seems to be more space on the shelves dedicated to Funko than there is for vinyl records or CDs.
The film starts by looking at the origins of the company that was set up by a group of friends making "Wacky Wobbler" bobbleheads of Big Boy and how their designs, creativity and fun attitude to the business led to a dedicated fan base called Funko Fanatics or "Funatics" who would help grow the company into what it is today.
In 2005, Becker sold the company to Brian Mariotti who developed key licencing agreements with the likes of Star Wars, DC Comics and Marvel that would take Funko to the next level. Giving them Cate Blanchett to essentially print money with every new item.
In 2011, the company released their very first Funko Pop. These are the iconic toys that everyone will know with the unique shape with the Stewie from Family Guy over-sized head and anime style face.
According to the doc, some original fans were not too keen on the new design, having built their collections on the wacky wobblers but it brought them a whole new audience and the rest is history.
The rest of the documentary spends time with some of the fans talking about their collections, fandom and what the toys mean to them as they all gear up for Funko open their new headquarters and landmark store back in the hometown of the company, Everett Washington.
It is at this point the film feels less like a documentary and more like a marketing puff piece to showcase how great the company is.
It is nice to see people passionate about the toys and collecting but it never delves deeper into the darker world of collecting; such as watching people fight at a comic-con over a limited edition Pop, or the ones who would "flip" the toys i.e. buying them and then selling them online for a profit which is something that happens a lot.
Ultimately, while a sweet starter for 10 look at the company, it feels as empty as the inside of a Funko toy's head and lacks a killer edge to make it really Pop!

2 stars

Ibiza - Netflix Originals review

One has to wonder if the Netflix office were tripping when they greenlit and funded this horrendous excuse for a film.
The signs are not good when the most detailed description of the plot on IMDB is "A young American woman and her two best friends seek out a hot DJ in Spain".
As evidenced by the above poster, the film is clearly aimed at trying to cash into the market that enjoyed Girls Trip, Rough Night, Bridesmaids and Sex And The City.
However Ibiza makes Sex And The City 2 look like Lawrence of Arabia.
Gillian Jacobs stars as Harper, a "young American woman" who works at a PR firm and is sent to Barcelona by her boss to close a deal because she is attractive and the clients will want to sleep with her. Her "two best friends" convince her to swap her business class ticket for three economy tickets (because you can just do that apparently) and join her in Spain. Cue hilarity!
These three friends seem to live in a giant open plan apartment in Manhattan even though one works in PR, one is a dental assistant and the other is freelance.
I would go into more detail about their characters but the opening scene where they discuss taking time off work is as deep as it gets.
Harper's defining characteristic is that she hasn't had sex in a long time. Leah (Phoebe Robinson) has "drug friends" who are into drugs and Nikki (Vanessa Bayer) is the ditzy & wacky as evidenced by the scene where she gets sunburnt.
They arrive in Barcelona and spend 5 minutes setting up a hotel room/blacklight/jizz gag that you can see coming a mile away (pun, intended).
The film then follows the two friends to the beach rather than following main character Harper to her business meeting so we can see if she is any good at her job or not. Up to this point we have only seen her getting hung up on by clients.
To cut a long story short (too late), the girls go out clubbing where Harper meets DJ Leo West (and yes I am having to refer back to IMdb for every single name because they are that unmemorable or hardly even mentioned in the film in the first place). Their meet-cute takes place because he notices that she has a dick drawn on her face. Yes, really.
Leo is played by Game of Thrones Richard Madden and he is using his own Scottish accent which makes it feel like he is playing a Calvin Harris-type superstar DJ (here we go) but if you were to close your eyes when watching (and you really should at times), you would believe that James McAvoy was starring in this stinker.
I know, I know, but if they are in Barcelona, "why is the film called Ibiza?" I hear you all cry out in horror.
Well, the film's second act takes place in Ibiza when Harper's awful friends convince her to fly to the party island to see Leo again at his next gig, thus jeopardising her final pitch meeting with the client which takes place the next day. The meeting is meant to take place in the evening so plenty time to catch an early morning flight back but anyone who has ever seen a movie will see where this is going to go.
I struggle to remember if this film with a majority of female lead characters even passes the Bechdel test because all they seem to talk about is having sex with men and how they seem to prioritise this over their careers.
Anyway they arrive in Ibiza... actually make that Croatia apparently because they did not actually film in Ibiza. This is possibly down to the fact that no one in the film can actually pronounce it correctly. Instead calling it "I-bee-za" the entire time.
Watching the film, one thinks that this could be the nadir of the entire production until you become that drunk crying in the bathroom when you realise that someone has managed to license David Bowie's Life On Mars to appear on the soundtrack.
Immediately following this, the girls ask a taxi driver to take them to the sunset which turns out to be on the opposite side of the island from the club and cue awkward journey back with crazy, stereotypical locals, drinking, drugs, sex, rock 'n' roll, etc.
Well, you can probably guess where the third act goes. She gets the man, has sex, misses her meeting but sends her friend, gets fired but somehow manages to score the client which leads her to setting up her own PR firm just like that. Who knew it was so easy?
So DJ Calvin Harris mark 2 phones and asks her to fly to Tokyo to see him but she declines saying she needs to focus on herself and her work. She can't be chasing around the world after him... only for her to change her mind and decide to go. Go female empowerment!
So what did we learn? What great journey did the characters go on? Did they learn that there is more to define them and their happiness than a man? Apparently not.
Ibiza is one bad trip and rather than going clubbing, this should be clubbed to death.

1 star

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

Kodachrome - review

Kodachrome is a film about nostalgia. Nostalgia for an older, simpler time. Where photographs were taken on a camera and not a phone. Photos of other people and not selfies.
Nostalgia is always better when it has a basis in truth, and this film is actually based on a true story article about the last few days of the Kodachrome development system in America.
Jason Sudekis plays Matt, a music executive who is about to be fired because the music industry is changing the same way as film. Moving from the physical media to digital.
He is the estranged son of Ben Ryder, a famous photographer suffering from cancer, who wants to drive across America to get four rolls of film developed before they stop developing them. Only he needs Matt's help and the two of them take an Elizabethtown/As Good As It Gets-style road trip with Ben's nurse (Elizabeth Olsen) to help administer Ben's medication and keep the peace.
Olsen delivers her usual brand of warmth, charm and compassion just as she did in Liberal Arts. Sudekis proved in Colossal that he can deliver on the dramatic side just as well as the comedic and sparks off the cranky, curmudgeonly Ed Harris.
In a movie like this, it is the journey not the destination that is important and the story takes the predictable route to its destination with the character moments and plot points signposted a mile off and you are left always wishing that something truly special develops from the material but sadly the end result is slightly out of focus.

3 stars

Ready Player One - review

When Ernest Cline's novel Ready Player One was released, it was described as "the holy grail of pop culture references".
It was therefore a bit of a surprise when Steven Spielberg stepped forward to direct the adaptation. After all, not many have done more than Spielberg when it comes to 80s pop culture. As evidenced by the numerous references to his work in the novel.
But really there was no one better to tackle the material of a virtual online world where people go to escape and get in touch with their inner child. Because much of his work is about the innocence and wonder of seeing the world as a child (E.T., Jurassic Park, Hook).
The book and film's detractors, most of whom were ironically "online", have slated the material as nothing more than page after page of mentions of films, TV programmes, music and games allowing multiple opportunities to use this meme:

In fact the only people who worked harder than the visual effects designers on the film were the team tasked with securing the licences to feature all the different characters and images.
Spielberg makes sure their efforts were not in vain by doubling down on the references and begins the story with a drag race around a virtual Manhattan where cars and bikes such as a DeLorean, Tetsuo's bike from Akira, the Batmobile, Ecto-1, etc must dodge dangers including a T-Rex and end-of-level boss King Kong.
It is an exhilarating sequence that shows that Spielberg is still down with the kids looking to take his place on the Summer blockbuster throne.
After that however, he dials it back from 11 and thankfully the references take a back seat to the plot which sees a group of gamers including Wade Watts' Parzival attempt to solve the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory style competition set down by the Oasis creator James Halliday to find three Easter Eggs within the online world in order to win $500 trillion dollars and control of the system.
The film does stay relatively faithful to the book but does streamline the process. Here taking a matter of weeks rather than years as Parzival (Tye Sheridan) and his friends battle against the IOI corporation led by Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn) for control of the Oasis and stop it becoming a monetised, corporate entity instead of the escape, haven (and yes) oasis that it is.
The more obscure nods and references to certain computer games and films that feature in some of the major plot moments are replaced with more audience-friendly choices which leads to one of the most jaw-dropping, audacious sequences that will feature in any mainstream movie this year.
The gamers must enter a movie watched by Halliday on his first date in order to gain one of the keys but to say which film would spoil the surprise. Suffice to say, seeing the characters walk into the film and interact with the characters and environment is something truly special and is undoubtedly the highlight of the film... provided you have the belly for it that is.
The main issue the film has is balancing the real world sequences vs the Oasis.
It does spend more time with the characters when they are away from their online avatars than the book but due to the nature of the beast, the Avatars have more personality within the Oasis than they do outside. Perhaps this is a deliberate choice as they feel more at home there than in the real world.
It is a frustration that more time wasn't spent building up day-to-day life outside of the Oasis to provide more context as to why people are escaping. Instead we just get a couple of throwaway lines of dialogue and glimpses of "the stacks", the towers of mobile homes where Watts stays.
Admittedly when the Oasis is as beautifully rendered as it is, the filmmakers themselves are so enthralled with it they don't want to leave either. They have nailed the look of the virtual reality space with the characters and environments looking more realistic than a computer game but not uncanny valley enough to pass for real.
This movie is going to have a huge shelf life on demand and Blu Ray as film nerds, similar to the ones who trawl through Halliday's Almanac, spend hours going through the film frame by frame to spot all the references in the background. Of which there are probably thousands. On first viewing, people like Freddy Krueger, Chucky, Harley Quinn, Chun-Li, Gandalf were spotted wandering around. Even Sorrento's avatar looks like Jon Hamm playing Superman Red Son (and now I want to see that movie).
Powered by Alan Silvestri's score that amplifies that 80s vibe, and quite often echoes his music from Back To The Future, this is the ultimate trip for fans of nostalgia who ever wanted the chance to live in their favourite media. Although perhaps not quite, as one Twitter user called it, "our Black Panther" as it is fair to say that nerds have been pretty well represented on screen for years now. In fact, every John Hughes film was really their Black Panther!
However there is always a danger to this obsession with nostalgia and living in the past or an online world separate from reality. As Michael Sheen's character in Midnight In Paris said;
“Nostalgia is denial. Denial of the painful present. The name for this denial is Golden Age thinking - the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one ones living in - its a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present.”

As much as Spielberg delivers in creating a world in which it would be incredibly appealing to disappear into to escape the problems and stresses of everyday life, and let's face it we could all use something like that at the moment. He also is careful to walk the line and show that not everything is perfect within this world of pure imagination when viewed through those rose-tinted VR headsets. Personified by the life of the creator James Halliday who is played the perfect amount of eccentricity and sadness by Mark Rylance.

Spielberg knows that the mediums of video games and movies are great as an escape for a few hours. Most audiences growing up in the Eighties would still stick on Raiders Of The Lost Ark or E.T. and immediately be drawn back to their childhood. But he knows that they are still no substitute for the real world and real human interaction.

Unlike the characters in a video game, where the stakes are sometimes life and death, with the fate of the world at stake, Ready Player One knows that it is a video game, a popcorn movie. A slice of entertainment that can be enjoyed and then when it is game over, turned off and you are back in the real world. But it will always be there, on a shelf somewhere, waiting to be rediscovered one day, turned on and ready to welcome you fondly back with those iconic words... Ready player one.

4 stars

Annihilation (Netflix Originals) - review

Annihilation is a film about a team of scientists who enter "the Shimmer", an environmental disaster area of unknown origin, unsure if they will emerge from the other side.
Writer-Director Alex Garland must have felt a bit like that during the post-production process, wondering if the finished film would ever see the light of day.
The much publicised studio stories claim executives at Paramount felt the film was "too intellectual" and wanted Garland to make changes.
He refused and this resulted in them giving it a small, short theatrical run in America but giving Netflix the international rights.
Now this once again opens up the argument over the audience benefits of a non-theatrical release. 

Some are outraged that they cannot watch it on a cinema screen as the director intended. Others claim that by releasing on the streaming service, more people will watch it there than ever would in a cinematic environment.
Who is right? Well, in this particular case, both are right in some ways.
Following his Oscar-winning Ex_Machina, Garland has moved up in terms of scale from a theatrical three-way chamber piece on what it means to be human, to a much grander (wo)men on a mission story where a group of people (possibly literally) meet their maker.
Natalie Portman plays Lena, a biologist who's soldier husband (Oscar Isaac) has been missing in action for over a year. Consumed by grief, she is all but lost when one day he returns to her dazed and confused. Falling ill he is taking to a military base where she learns he is the only person to have returned from "the Shimmer". Wanting to know what happened to her husband, Lena volunteers to join a team heading in to find the source of the Phenomenon.
Inside the all-female team find plant and animal life that should not exist in nature, along with very real and dangerous threats to their existence, including each other. For the deeper they venture in to the area, the more their connection to reality starts to slip.
Annihilation is a film that was shot to be experienced on the big screen. It has some of the most stunning and visually arresting images you will see all year and some of the impact will understandably be lost if watching it on a laptop or iPhone for example. But its power is in no way diminished and the film's imagery and story will stay with audiences days after watching it.
It is certainly not a film that everyone will appreciate on an initial viewing. The trailer entices audiences in with a brief set up of the story and focuses on certain moments of action and horror but in reality the film has much more in common with films like Arrival and Under The Skin, with a hint of Event Horizon.
That is music to the ears of some film fans to be sure. Arrival and Under The Skin are both five star classics (even if Skin took a few viewings to truly appreciate) and Event Horizon is now a cult classic. However these are not instantly accessible films that found big audiences at the cinema. For Event Horizon in particular, it was the home video market where it truly came alive and that is where Annihilation has the opportunity to grow its potential fanbase.
While there will be some people who just don't get it, there will be some who find it akin to 2001: A Space Odyssey in its themes and messages about humanity. They will spread the word and build up its cult status for years to come. Potentially even organising underground guerilla screenings.
It's legacy on the science fiction genre certainly won't be annihilated. If anything, this is just the beginning!

5 stars

Mute (Netflix Originals) - review

When Duncan Jones finally announced that Mute would arrive on Netflix in February, it ended the wait for his spiritual follow up to his debut Moon, one that began back in 2009 and at one point could have become a graphic novel until Netflix came along to allow Jones the opportunity to make the film he had always wanted to make, in the way he wanted to make it.
With the announcement, Jones debuted a poster he had commissioned for himself (above) that evokes the style of a '40s style pulp fiction novel or Warner Bros film noir.
Film Noir is a genre synonymous with men in sharp suits and fedoras, femme fatales, murder, betrayal, mystery and lots and lots of drinking. It might conjure images of black and white but the characters are anything but. Living in a world of more than fifty shades of grey.
But the hard boiled genre that has been transported successfully into other genres throughout the years including high school (Brick), stoner comedy (The Big Lebowski) and science fiction (Blade Runner).
Wearing its admiration for Ridley Scott's seminal film on its sleeve, writer-director Duncan Jones has created a futuristic Berlin that aesthetically feels like it could live in the same universe. Albeit one where Lunar Industries had taken over the Tyrell Corporation instead of Wallace Industries.
The greater influence is that of Casablanca. Just like the classic film, the city exists as a holding pen for the lost and. Those waiting and looking for a way out.

One such soul is Leo (Alexander Sarsgaard), a bartender who is mute due to a childhood accident which went without treatment due to his Amish upbringing. Leo's potential escape takes the form of cocktail waitress Naadirah, a woman who seems to love him for who he is but she has secrets. As all great femme fatale do.

The catalyst for the story is her disappearance which forces Leo to interact with a technological world that he does not understand in order to try and discover her whereabouts and reason for her absence. His inability to interact with technology hampers his search and unable to simply "turn it off and on again", he must resort to blunt (and brutal) force to get answers the old fashioned way.

This ultimately sets him on a collision course with two mysterious characters called Cactus Bill and Duck (played by Paul Rudd and Justin Theroux), a couple of Americans working in the city as doctors and surgeons for the criminal underworld; styled after "Hawkeye" and "Trapper John" in M*A*S*H.
At first, it seems that they are two very different cases. Leo is searching for a girl. Cactus Bill for a couple of permits so he can return to the US with his daughter (just like Viktor and Isla in Casablanca). But as with all great film noirs, the two plot lines eventually converge into a shocking final act.
Mute is like a blend of two Harrison Ford films as Witness meets Blade Runner.
Blade Runner was the film that coined the term Tech Noir, a futuristic blend of the new and old technologies and styles. While it is admirable that Jones has given his character the technological adverseness of an Amish upbringing, to provide more obstacles for our hero there is not enough made of this in the first act to justify his reluctance later on down the line.
In the opening prologue, he has the opportunity to have surgery to fix his vocal cords by this is refused by his Amish parents. Skip forward twenty years and he is living alone in Berlin, surrounded by technology but still remains strict Amish. Why did he move to the city and away from his family but keep his beliefs?
This leads to a situation where the more interesting characters are Cactus Bill & Duck and anytime they are not on screen, you find yourself wanting to go back to them.
One wonders that with a couple of tweaks, the film could have featured Bill as the lead character trying to find a way home for himself and his daughter only to find his plans upended by a vengeful mute bartender.
It could have worked as the prickly customer Cactus Bill is a tour-de-force performance from Paul Rudd, showcasing a side to him that has never been on screen before... along with some epic moustache work.
Rudd has great chemistry with his partner-in-crime Theroux and they spark off each other brilliantly, calling each other "babe" which leaves it open to the audience as to whether they are just two friends and comrades who have served together in war, or if it does hint at something more beneath the surface.
Both actors cope admirably as some startling facts about their pasts are revealed, shocking each other and the audience in equal measure, proving these are not mere carbon copy noir stereotypes.
Speaking of carbon copies, Mute does deliver on Duncan Jones's promise that it would provide some answers to the resolution of Sam Bell's character in Moon. In this Berlin, Lunar Industries is still a major corporation in the world, providing energy, fuel and food products for society. It also seems, if the brief TV news footage is to be believed, is that is tied up in court proceedings as multiple Sam Bells fight for their freedom and rights. There are also "Free the 158" posters dotted around the city adding to the wonderful production design of the film that manages to subtly blend the old and new together with some nice touches such as the Flymeal system that uses drones to deliver takeaway meals to your phone's location.
Unlike a Flymeal that would be delivered in 15-30 minutes, the wait for Mute for both director and audience has been much longer and therefore expectations were incredibly high.
Jones himself has said prior to release that this would be his Marmite film, producing a number of "love it" or "hate it" reactions.
This has certainly been the case since it's debut on Netflix on Friday. Critics reviews have been so savage, this reviewer can't remember this many people lining up to tear something down since the fall of the Berlin wall!
Surely a film that inspires extreme reactions, be that intense acclaim or loathing, is better for cinema than a mediocre film that barely produces a "meh" response.
Mute is far from perfect but Jones wears his heart and references on his sleeve (including an inspired appearance of Chesney Hawkes's The One And Only).
While it doesn't completely work, there is still a lot to admire including a Rudd-y marvellous performance, Clint Mansell's score and some gorgeous production design.

Unlike Leo, one can shout about the positives and as for the negatives, as Ronan Keating would put it "you say it best, when you say nothing at all".

4 stars

The Cloverfield Paradox (Netflix Originals) - review

It could be fair to say that the biggest surprise of Superbowl LII wasn't that the Philadelphia Eagles upset the New England Patriots but Netflix calling an audible and screened a trailer announcing that The Cloverfield Paradox would be released immediately after the game!
With that Netflix scored an impossible hail mary touchdown and won the Superbowl trailer war, receiving the most chatter on social media and sacking the big hitters like Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Mission Impossible: Fallout and the Solo teaser. The only thing they couldn't compete with was #SuperbowlSelfieKid!
The Cloverfield franchise has always managed to surprise. The first Cloverfield stunned audiences with a fantastic trailer that suddenly appeared in cinemas with no advance hype. 10 Cloverfield Lane was announced and released within two months and now this latest stunt.
One can only imagine that Overlord, the fourth Cloverfield movie which has already finished filming, will automatically appear on your computer one day, like a U2 album, whether you want it or not.
While one can applaud the audacity of Netflix's marketing masterstroke (releasing a film during the most watched sporting event of the year), it would only really matter if the film was any good.
The answer? Yes and No.
As a genre B-Movie, The Cloverfield Paradox plays out like a Greatest Hits of science fiction cliches. Or Now That's What I Call A Space Station Sci-Fi Film.

A space craft on a mission which is Earth's last hope but ultimately goes array and cannot be solved by Chris O'Dowd turning it off and on again? Check

A racially and ethnically diverse crew? Check!

A noble captain who will sacrifice themselves for the good of the mission? Check

A shifty, European officer who may or not be out to sabotage the mission? Check

On its own, the film is passable, enjoyable Netflix fare which gains bonus points for having the final hero and villain passing the Bechdel Test. At the same time unfortunately suffers in comparison to 2017's Life as the plot and style is very similar.

This could be why Paramount decided to sell it to Netflix, change its name from God Particle and repackage it as a Cloverfield film.

And this is where the film does fail because it feels like the movie has been retrofitted into the Cloververse.

10 Cloverfield Lane had also started life as a standalone script but it worked as the majority of the film was set in the bunker and you didn't know what was really outside (or who the real monster was). The film only laid its cards on the table in the final five minutes.

Paradox similarly has hints and minor allusions to the other films but it is only at the very end that the audience is given a definitive answer (albeit a very brief one).

While it is a fun final image, it feels like the audience have once again been shortchanged.

One starts to feel that anyone can make a cheap genre film and as long as they tack on a shot of a monster in the final reel, you can banner it under the Cloverfield name.

Let's hope this is not the case and the producers can return to the inventiveness and surprise wow factor that worked so well for the original.

It is certainly the stuff a Cloverfield of Dreams is made of.

3 stars

Bright (Netflix Originals) - review

In my first big change for review writing for 2018, it is time to recognise streaming services original content as part of the film release calendar and review them accordingly.
After all last year brought the likes of the excellent Gerald's Game, Cannes Film Festival competitor Okja and Amazon Studios Oscar-winning Manchester By The Sea.
Following on from the Oscar-nominated Mudbound, December brought Netflix's most expensive original production Bright, at a cool $90 million. Although this has now been surpassed by Scorsese's The Irishman at a budget of $100 million.
It wouldn't have been a Netflix original release with a little bit of controversy and Bright dutifully supplied it. Many critics called it one of the worst films of 2017 and Netflix fired back claiming it was their most popular original release with 11 million views in its first three days.
While its true that 11 million views on Netflix, which is a paid subscription, is not equal to 11 million people paying $15 to watch a film in a cinema during its opening weekend, it was certainly enough for Netflix to greenlight a sequel. Clearly they are banking on a large percentage of those views being people who enjoyed it and not just clicking on it to see if it was as bad as the reviews made out.
This reviewer was certainly in the latter category to begin with but it is not anywhere near as bad as 2017 films such as Transformers: The Last Knight and The Snowman.
Just like Ayer's Suicide Squad, this is a case of poor execution and wasted potential. For there is something at the heart of Bright that could have made for a great limited series with a new spin on the procedural detective/mismatched buddy cop drama.
Instead the result is an End of Watch retread with two police partners forced to work through their own issues with each other whilst trying to stop the end of the world... Oh, that's right, Bright is set in a world where Humans, Orcs and Elves live side by side.
Imagine if Lord Of The Rings had ended with Sauron being destroyed and all the different armies called an uneasy truce until the modern day.
The film begins with very little in the way of world building, instead focusing on Will Smith's police officer returning to duty after being shot while on duty with the very first Orc police officer Nick Jacoby (played with humour and pathos by Joel Edgerton). The rest of the department want Jacoby gone because he doesn't fit in, and before you say it, yes it does feel very similar to the plot of Zootropolis at this point.
There are bigoted fellow cops and underhanded schemes to frame the Orc but before you can say Internal Affairs, the two partners are called to a disturbance where they discover the one ring that will rule them all... wait, no, they find a magic wand which is wanted by every single criminal in the city and it turns into a fight to survive the night.
From here it is a very generic, straight up action film that lacks the wit and charm needed to sell the more ridiculous aspects of the story. For example, at no point does Will Smith witness something crazy and shout "Awwww hell no!". Missed opportunities!
There remains untapped potential that could turn the sequel into something special but Bright is sadly a dim and dull affair with the risk that as it is on Netflix, audiences may not get to the end of their watch.

2 stars

Mudbound (Netflix Originals) - review

2017 was quite the year for Netflix. Not only was it the year that it broke through with its original film programming, it was the year I finally discovered that "Netflix and Chill" was not just about watching movies on the sofa!
They had quality genre hits such as The Babysitter and the excellent Gerald's Game that caused several people, including me, to do this...

But 2017 was the year that Netflix decided that they wanted to compete with the big boys and be taken seriously. Could they do it? "Yes we Cannes!" and Netflix went to France to compete in the Cannes Film Festival with Book Jong-Ho's Okja and Noah Baumbach's The Meyerowitz Stories.
Did it go as planned? Not quite. The French in particular were against the idea of films playing in competition that would not receive a cinematic release, head judge Pedro Almodovar said that the films would never win a prize and the controversy overshadowed two good films and a very rare thing... a great Adam Sandler performance.
Netflix decided they were not going to let that stop them and have doubled down on their original programming; organising a deal with Curzon for limited runs of the films to appear on their screens, financing $100 million for Martin Scorsese's The Irishman starring DeNiro, Pacino and Pesci and now they have gone legit are entered the Oscar race with Mudbound.
Amazon Studios were the first to the podium last year with Manchester By The Sea but Mudbound is the sole streaming film in the race this year and received 4 Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress, Best Song, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Cinematography.
The cinematography nomination is well deserved, and history making as Rachel Morrison became the first female cinematographer to be ever receive one. The film looks stunning and every shot captures the feeling of the Deep South in Forties America.
Mudbound tells the story of two families, the Macallan's and the Jackson's. Linked by land, the film explores their relationships defined by race, class and the fall out of WWII with both families giving their men to the war but find they are treated differently upon their return.
Performances across the board are as strong as the liquor and tensions that brewed in Mississippi, with particular standouts being Garret Hedlund, Jason Mitchell and Jonathan Banks as the deeply racist Pappy.
The film really comes into its own once the war is over and it explores the friendship between Hedlund's Jamie and Mitchell's Ronzell, which will ultimately come to define both families.
The main issue with the storytelling is the decision of director Dee Rees and screenwriter Virgil Williams is the over-reliance on voice-over narration.
Given it is adapted from a novel and this was the structure of the book, it is understandable however as Robert McKee in Adaptation would scream "...and God help you if you use voice-over in your work, my friends. God help you. That's flaccid, sloppy writing. Any idiot can write a voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of a character."
So not only does the audience get one voice-over, it gets six different characters narrating their own parts of the story and at times, the narrative becomes as clear as mud.
Thankfully the narration does not overshadow the performances and the result is a film that shows that if the commissioning team at Netflix continue to fund films and stories like this, they are Bound for glory.

3 stars