(4 / 5)
There are many movies like Atomic Blonde. A sensitive, political situation where a top agent is called in to handle it and what follows is a chase, gunfights, hand-to-hand combat and some sharply worded moments over a bar. Many movies follow the same form, what matters is the effort and result. This decided new film from director David Leitch decided to use a more vibrant colour pallet and attempts to really make you feel the fights going on.
What is the plot? Who cares. Seriously though the movies premise is as simple as I previously described but in order to be professional I’ll elaborate. In 1989 the Berlin wall came down, the city was complicated in terms of it’s politics (to put it simply), spy’s are everywhere, one spy is taken down who has a list of the names of all the active spy’s, there is another man that wants to defect and has committed all the names to memory. So Lorraine Broughton is called in cause she’s the best at all secret agent skills. Honestly this doesn’t matter, the plot is a thin clothing line to take us from one set-piece and character after another.
Charlize Theron has established herself as one of our greatest living actors. Able to handle intense emotional material and be the grand star of a blockbuster. This is a role where she is the Fe-male equivalent of James Bond, stylish, a drinker and very dangerous. She is beautifully shot however the filmmakers don’t just make her a something beautiful, she is a fighter and they give her bruises and cuts.
In Berlin her contact is David Percival (James McAvoy), a British agent that has allowed the corruption and brutality of Berlin to envelop him. McAvoy can handle this kind of role with ease, he is the kind of actor that believes in giving it all or go home. He gives it all.
During the day Berlin is a city of black and white, but at night it comes alive with dark shadows and turquoises and fuchia. The colors are in-keeping with the time and feel of the movie, disco and dance.
The extra layer of style in the movie is the soundtrack. Banging dance tracks that add a spicy tone to the movie as well as make the feel rather tongue-in-cheek. This works, it allows you to get into the rhythmic nature of the movie and know that it’s about the style and experience.
https://youtu.be/8JeU0_1CTdA
Not every movie needs to stir your soul. Others don’t even have to be that original in terms of their premise, but they do need to properly convey their goal. Atomic Blonde seeks to entertain you showing a dank, sexy ride. It does this very well, you are seduced by the aesthetic and engaged by the visceral action.
Tag Archives: Film
Review The Red Turtle by Jonathan Evans
Young Critic Jonathan Evans used Spice Time Credits to access this performance at Chapter cinema. He earned the Time Credits reviewing for Get the Chance.
“What is a man? If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.”
William Shakespeare, Hamlet.
(4 / 5)
The Red Turtle is the kind of movie that doesn’t get made often. A movie that exists, sure of what it is and never attempts to explain itself.
I couldn’t even tell you what the “target demographic” for the movie is. It’s an animated movie, typically for children, but there’s nothing cute or funny happening, nothing scary or brutal either so not specifically for adults. Could this just be a movie for people?
The plot for this movie is so minimal. Man wakes on a shore and finds that he is stranded on an island. What does he do then? Survive and try to get back to civilisation. He tries building a raft but it keeps getting destroyed by a large red turtle (hence the title). This leads to other things and eventually he is joined by a woman and then a son comes along.
This movie exists without any spoken words of dialogue, only movements and images. The lead gives off the occasional huff and puff and a scream here and there, but no full words. This means that the visuals have to ring with absolute clarity, whatever the Man is doing or where he is has to be immediately obvious. Without the dialogue it must fall on the sound and music to keep us engaged on the audio level. Every swish of the waves, footsteps on sand or rock is perfectly clear and adjusted to the right level. Laurent Perez Del Mar delivers an emotional and at other times ethereal score that infuses itself so well with the images onscreen that the two harmonise in the most beautiful way.
The drawing style, particularly with the people, is more European. Like the works of Herge, thick, clear lines with black dots for eyes and vivid colours. The animation is constantly smooth and on-model. It is the backgrounds that have sharpest rendering to them, we are able to see every leaf on the trees and plants that grow on the ground as well as seeing way into the background.
This movie, I admit, a challenge to write for. It is so simple, to experience the product is the most thrilling part but to deeply describe it is indeed the challenge. It simply operates at such a minimal, smooth passe.
Who is this movie for? What was it’s purpose? Well it was beautiful and technically very impressive. But who exactly do I think the marked for it is and how to promote it? But maybe we don’t always need that from this medium that can deliver us so much. Maybe sometimes we are allowed to sit back and see and hear a journey and simply be moved by it.
Review Beauty and the Beast by Sian Thomas
(4 / 5)
Like everyone else, I have my favourite Disney movie and my favourite Disney princess. Beauty and the Beast has never really been one of my favourite tales. Something about the story always seemed to spook me, in a way that made me wary or apprehensive. Also, I was never as bookish as I am now, and I suppose I couldn’t relate to Belle in the way I can, now.
I want to start by saying that the film was visually stunning. It was, in all honesty, gorgeous. This includes the CGI, the minute details, the outfits. Everything. There was so much detail and so much effort put into the intricacy of the entire film that I was blown away entirely. I was in awe, so much so there were times throughout the film I felt that I’d left behind my cinema seat and been somewhere else entirely, somewhere within the story itself.
The story was the same, obviously. Though, there were newer elements added in to account for some of the plot-holes in the animated movie. I think the last time I watch Beauty and the Beast was at least three years ago. I remember that I did like it, I never completely disliked it, but I always had my disdain about the tale. This time around however, I was completely engrossed, and I liked it much more than I remembered ever feeling so before.
The songs were incredible. I don’t have much else to say about them, because in all honestly I just really and truly loved them.
I had already heard a lot about the film including a gay character. Which it did, and I was definitely glad about it. It was a lot more subtle than I had expected, though. And I had thought that the gigantic franchise that is Disney would, for sure, go a little bigger with it. I wasn’t let down, per se, I very much loved that it was included. And subtlety isn’t technically something bad, either. I had just definitely assumed that it would have been bigger. It didn’t meet my expectations, but was still great and wonderful to see on the big screen.
The movie was grand, with some parts that were truly tragic and some completely exuberant. I give it 4 stars.
Review Dr Strange by Jonathan Evans
(4 / 5)
Doctor Strange is a movie that must stand out. It has Strange as in it’s title and the name of its main character. So there needs to be something about it that is unlike the other MARVEL movies, hell at this point, where we may be near the saturation point it needs to distinguish itself from all the other Superhero movies we now have.
What MARVEL now puts before us is a gamble. Just as big or maybe more so than what they did with Guardians of the Galaxy. The straightforward way of telling the superhero has almost run dry, so now they need to give us something new. Can they deliver a movie that captures the psychedelic imagery and mind-bending rules of this character and still make it accessible to audiences?
Our hero is the aforementioned mentioned Doctor Stephen Strange a shrewd, arrogant surgeon able to perform the most complicated operations with ease, he also comes with an encyclopedic knowledge of music. One day wile racing to a soiree in his sports car, believing he can do that and talk on his phone, crashes but survives, except his precious hands have been crushed. He can no longer perform surgeries, he could be a consultant but he cannot accept this and spends his fortune seeking out different treatments, to no avail. His quest eventually takes him to Kathmandu where he finds a new lease on life not in science but through magic.
Benedict Cumberbatch soured to a lot of peoples favourite actors list when he debut as the star of Sherlock. Since then he has amassed a very wide range of roles under his belt. This role requires him to capture the transformation of an arrogant, ego inflated, controlling man and have him broken and rebuild himself in a whole new way. He also sounds like Hugh Laurie in House (though that may just be me).
For his supporting characters we have Rachel McAdams as Christine Palmer, the part of Stephens ordinary life and his grounding force for humility and kindness. When the training begins we are given The Ancient One played by Tilda Swinton, the mentor character, Swinton is an entity like no other, you really do buy her as a character out of this world or at least not of the norm, able to take the most obscene mystical mumbo-jumbo dialog and roll it off the tongue. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Mordo, another but more experienced sorcerer. Ejiofor is an amazing talent and he does indeed have moments to shine in this movie but he really deserves a part where he’s given a fully fleshed-out character that will bring out his amazing talent. Benedict Wong plays… Wong (no really) another sorcerer, head librarian and the classic non-smiling straight-man.
In terms of the layout of the plot this is still what you will have come to expect from most Superhero movies, especially from MARVEL. But what keeps them fresh and able to continue their winning streak is that they perfect the formula, adding the necessary alterations when needed and still giving us something unique. Doctor Strange has been a character that has flourished in its visuals, this movie shows us colours and transitions like we’ve never seen before, there is a scene where Stephen literally has an outer body experience and we get so many visuals that they may have used them all up, but they continue to give us them. This movie is a the psychedelic one of the MARVEL movies. If you enjoy that, then you will find yourself at home in the other worlds this movie takes you to.
Like any fictional world there needs to be rules to establish the way things work and so the audience can understand it. The sorcerers cast spells by abandoning the previously established limitations of time and space, they need to unlock their minds so the normal rules will bend to them. However some acts put too much of a strain on them so they use tools, which allows them to focus their abilities and easily conjure the spells they need to.
Dr Strange doesn’t, and never really has existed in the same realm as The Avengers. His place is a smaller, more neish corner of this universe. He exists within dreams and nightmares, the worlds unseen, but just as important.
The visual inspiration for the movie is very clear. With having a cityscape fold they have obviously taken inspiration from Inception, however that images was taken from a Man With a Movie Camera. But also when we go inside a building it resembles the morphing effect in Dark City.
But what does this matter? Truth is it doesn’t because they use it for their means and make it more complex and intense. But there is also the running theme of the breaking glass, like his hands, his should and his perception of reality, this movie is about the breaking of the this layers we have in life.
In this movie is a chase scene like nothing else I’ve seen in movies (and I’ve seen a lot). It seems straightforward with two people working together to try and get to a portal and they have pursuers. But the pursuers and shift the landscape. They change the angel of the whole city, then bend the buildings and warp the architecture. Eventually the whole things taken on the a shifting rubix cube seen through a kaleidoscope.
Going way back to his first run in the comics Doctor Strange was a character that wasn’t the most powerful but he was smart, strategic and committed to defeating his enemies. Our climax in this movie is not one where two beings hit each-other with lights and sound until the other is knocked out, it is one where what has comes before playing into the end strategy. This is where our hero out-thinks the threat instead of out punches him, a refreshing and important take on to show to the masses in Superheroes.
This movie shows what MARVEL still has. Even with nearly twenty movies under their belt at this point and so many characters used they still have things to show us and different angles and views to take in this genre.
Review Sausage Party by Jonathan Evans
(3 / 5)
So you watched the trailer for Sausage Party and thought that it was anything more that an adult, animated movie telling jokes about the horrors of being the consumed then you would have probably made the safe bet. However you would have lost. Sausage Party actually has quite a bit of with and sophistication. Yes this movie with food products with mouths and large eyes that swear actually has a few things to say about different beings from different walks of life and consumerism.
We open in a supermarket where the food is sentient and awakes every morning to be taken to The Great Beyond. Whenever they’re picked up they rejoice for they will now be in the company of the gods. On one shelf one pack of sausages is next to a pack of buns and one sausage Frank (Seth Rogen) longs to joins his girlfriend bun Brenda (Kristen Wiig). It isn’t until one jar of Honey Mustard (Danny McBride) is returned where it would seem that the Great Beyond might not be so great. While they’re all in a cart on they’re way out Honey Mustard kills himself, which leads to other items falling out. So now begins their quest to get back to their shelf and also discover the true intentions of their gods.
Just like Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs this takes its subject of food and consumer products and does just about everything it can with it. To how one type of products interact with others to having some serve and parallels for real world people. One of the reasons this is able to tell so many more jokes is its not bound by the limitations of being a children’s movie, this can address alcohol, drugs and sex and it makes use of all its resources.
It would seem that the products themselves do not require to consume. They just seem to have their existence. Perhaps they will die when they go past their expiration date? Do any of their manufacturers know that they regularly create sentient being and send them off to their deaths? Such questions are honestly superfluous.
This is not a very good looking movie. This was clearly made with a limited budget, Nearly all the food looks shiny and like plastic. Obvious really, because this is a movie with a very limited audience. Few people would want to see a movie about food swearing constantly and animated no less.
As smart as the movie is it is still overt. Really, really overt. What they have the characters talk about and have serve as their parallels are obvious and not very subtle but they are still addressing the cause and effects of their subject matter. If there’s an example to point to it would be the South Park movie (or south park in general)
Though it is by no means subtle and quite crude it is still addressing big problems in society and has fully thought-out the perspective on food products (even just consumable products). The audience for this movie will indeed be a sausage party, mostly males, but if anyone goes to this movie and gets a little more nutrition in their diet than they were expecting it will have been worth it.