Cats (2019) - Off of the Stage and Into the Litter Tray

Don't worry, you'll still be getting the annual top five, but consider this a Christmas treat: a bonus review. Since it's the opening weekend and thus still very much the hot topic, I was gonna talk about Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker, then I remembered it's Star Wars, which historically has a fanbase best likened to a honey badger trapped in a washing machine, and not only that, I'm one of those freaks who still loves The Last Jedi, and so I decided it might be wiser to avoid getting my eyes gouged out at an eco-friendly thirty-degree heat and turn my sights on the other, more agreeably bad film opening this weekend, Cats. Because frankly, I couldn't think when else I was gonna get a chance to talk about it and I can't let this travesty go uncommented on.

Now as a disclaimer, I'm well aware of the stage musical that this is adapted from, and from what I've researched the stage version is just as problematic story-wise as the film is, so the film has been effectively shot in the knee before it even left the gate. But here's the thing: a big part of adaptation is changing a story so that it will work in a new medium. A loose, barely existent plot might work on stage, where the musical is, in reality, closer to a ballet than anything, but on screen where story is a lot more crucial, you need to add something more for it to work, especially if you're trying to make a mainstream crowd-pleaser for all the family to enjoy.

With all that in mind, Cats is a film almost entirely devoid of plot, protagonists, character development or motivations. The closest thing that resembles a story is that a gang of London cats called the Jellicles have an annual talent show, the winner of which ascends to 'the Heaviside layer'. On stage, this is supposed to mean being reborn as a Jellicle but the film doesn't clarify that very well to my memory, so the Jellicles are essentially the cat equivalents of either a sacrificial pagan cult or Born Again Christians.

In practice, a nearly silent protagonist cat named Victoria is dropped off in some back alley and the Jellicles gang up on her and basically just sing and dance at her for about an hour like she's some kind of talent scout, while she vacantly stares back at them, presumably waiting for an opportunity to run away. Most of the songs consist of her being introduced to random cats like Jennyanydots (Rebel Wilson), Rum Tum Tugger (Jason Derulo) and Bustopher Jones (James Corden) with no real suggestion of why we should care about any of them. And yes those are their real names. Wilson and Corden, in particular, are quite obnoxious, although this is probably just down to them as actors rather than their characters. It might just be me, but I've never really been particularly fond of Corden's comedy, there's a level of smugness to him where he thinks he's a lot funnier than he actually is and it makes him quite punchable. During his song, he gets a "wacky" fourth wall break moment which, to be honest, sounds more like Corden had some kind of breakdown mid-take and they just left it in, like he suddenly just realised he's in fucking Cats. In fact, his line at the end of this moment, delivered with a character breaking level of exasperation, ends with the sentence "you're all......cats!", spoken in such a way that it sounds like the word 'fucking' should be occupying the gap.

You know, that's probably a good a time as any to talk about the elephant in the room: the CGI. This film is somehow rated U, and yet the character design on the cats is child traumatisingly awful. Much has already been said about this when the trailer dropped, and supposedly improvements have been made since then,  but I honestly don't know how any of this made it past inspection. For one thing, I don't know any human that would see an extended shot of Rebel Wilson as an anthropomorphic cat scratching away at her cat pussy, and say: "Yes, this is fine. No problems here. Children will love this." But hey, I guess if you're a degenerate, this film has you covered. In fact, that might as well be the tagline.

The character design is just flat out disturbing, in fact a lot of them remind me of Mike Myers in The Cat in the Hat, and trust me, no one wants to be reminded of The Cat in the Hat. The cats' appearance not only makes it hard to relate to them, but it's also just really distracting. They've made them anthropomorphic and yet rendered them with fur in a somewhat photorealistic way, but anthropomorphism doesn't really look very pleasing when it's live-action and certainly not when they still have human faces and hands, sticking them in this weird fur-lined uncanny valley that just triggers some primal discomfort. Genuinely, if they'd gone all the way and just given them cat faces too, I think the film would have been so much better for it, and people would probably not be slating the CG nearly as much as they have been.

There's also something almost sexual about the way they're designed, and while I'm sure it wasn't intentional, there's this kind of uncomfortable atmosphere where you just know someone somewhere is getting off to it. If the cats had more of a humans-in-a-costume vibe like in the stage show, it would probably be OK, but because they've tried to commit to the cat aspect, there's a lot of attention drawn to the fact that most of them while of human shape and proportion are not wearing clothes, and those that are do not have underwear. So now you're sat watching a film that's seems clearly aimed at kids, or at least families with relatively young children, with a load of essentially naked, although at least genital-less, humans slinking around, lapping up milk, nuzzling each other and just generally acting cat-like in a frankly fetishistic way. Luckily no-one goes uwu.

As far as I'm aware, the film is relatively faithful to the stage version, not that there's much plot to be faithful to, but there is one strange area where the film deviates. Idris Elba, who's clearly accepted the shit he's in and is just rolling with it and enjoying every second, plays Macavity, a villain cat who wants to win the talent show. Again, why this means so much to him is never explained, considering the only reward seemingly of becoming an Evanjellicle is official membership, which doesn't seem like something that would interest him. On stage, he occasionally shows up to abduct his competition, presumably by means of hessian sack or Fulton recovery system or another classic kidnap method. In the film, however, he just sorta vanishes them. He'll tap someone on the shoulder and POOF! Evaporated. Then they reappear on a barge in the middle of the Thames. It's a nitpicky detail I'll admit but it's just kinda baffling; call me cynical but I somehow don't buy that this is a world where magical teleportation exists, let alone a world where it's just shrugged off as something that happens.

It gets weirder though. Eventually, he disappears Old Deuteronomy (Dame Judi Dench, who definitely seems to have an air of 'I need to fire my agent' to her performance), leaving the Jellicles to wonder what to do next. "Maybe we can just magic her back", says Victoria, in one of the only lines she seems to have, and yes that's more or less a direct quote. And so cue Mister Mistoffelees' number, cause he's a magician, and despite him clearly not knowing how to magic Old Deuteronomy back, somehow he fuckin does it! Without any explanation outside of "iT's MaGiC", she's just back, problem solved and the "plot" continues. It's one of the most egregious deus ex machinas I've seen in ages, and the film barely even cares. Not to mention, we then see all the other kidnapees who've been chained on the barge all this time, and since I guess someone told them they need to wrap this trainwreck up, they just conveniently pull off their chains and escape with minimal effort. How did any of this get past quality assurance?!

Speaking of which, the editing is also pretty messy. There are reports that Hooper was still editing the film right up towards the deadline on Wednesday night, which first of all, I feel that. That was me editing my second-year uni film, knowing what a mess it was and desperately tweaking ANYTHING in an attempt to make it better. And second of all, it kinda shows. The moment that stuck in my mind was during Rum Tum Tugger's song, there's a shot of Rebel Wilson delivering a characteristically unfunny quip, and the shot awkwardly lingers on her for way too long, presumably waiting for the audience to recover from their paroxysms of laughter, but even accounting for that it's uncomfortably long. It feels like an editing error more than anything, you can actually see Wilson's character start to break a bit as she presumably waits for Hooper to call cut. In a broader sense, the film is just a bit of a drag. The lack of any real plot definitely doesn't help, but considering it's only about an hour and fifty minutes long, Cats feels about twice that. I genuinely fell asleep probably around the hour mark for about ten minutes, and when I woke up it honestly felt like I had missed nothing at all.

Cats is a bafflingly bad film, but in a way I do feel sorry for it. The idea of adapting the plot-less stage musical to screen in the first place is basically a massive handicap on the film's part, but the character design sealed its fate, and there's no amount of directorial magic that could have probably saved it. That being said, it's not like the film tries its absolute hardest to overcome its issues, and there were definitely a lot of dodgy choices made in the adaptation, casting and direction. I'd almost consider recommending it, not as a film, but as some kind of exhibition piece. Roll up, roll up one and all! Come and see the freak. Marvel at how James Corden gets smacked in the crotch and feels pain, despite visibly having no genitals!

You're right, you probably didn't want to think about James Corden's cat bollocks ever in your life, but this film made me think about them for multiple seconds and that is a crime that I will never forgive it for!

Cats - 2019 - Tom Hooper - USA
Score: 4
Recommendation: Low

Joker (2019) - Glorification or Condemnation?

It's been about two months now since Joker came out, and I think the red mist has descended enough that we can approach this subject with a little more objectivity, unclouded by either the initial release hype or the backlash. To recap, Phillips' origin story about the titular clown prince of crime generated a pretty explosive reaction on its general release, with some people crowning it as a masterpiece, whilst others (an arguably more vocal proportion) despised it, claiming it to be some kind of incel rallying cry that encouraged and condoned the idea of alienated men violently retaliating against society.

Either way, this is certainly not a film that's skittered by unnoticed, and love it or hate it, a lot of people have strong opinions of it. I'll be honest, I put off seeing Joker for a while, partially because this is the same conversation that crops up every time any vaguely controversial media comes out, especially when violence is the subject, and also because while the controversy is at its hottest, trying to form a genuine opinion of a film based on its own isolated merits can be pretty tricky when all you can think about is spotting the points of contention and trying to work out who's side you're going to be setting up camp in. So I gave it a few weeks. I reviewed El Camino, watched some other stuff, tried not to read too much more about it. And by the time I went to see it, my expectations were about as neutral as I could get them: I didn't go in expecting anything more than just to be entertained.

Ok, so let's get to the point. Is Joker good?

Yes.

Is it a masterpiece?

No.

Is it r/gamersriseup: The Movie?

Not really.

Kinda anticlimactic, to be honest. My first impressions were good, but as it started into its second act and I became less sure about where it was headed, I became less sure of myself. By the time the credits rolled, I felt like I was somewhere in the middle of the debate, but the more I've let the film sit with me, the more I've grown to respect it. And when it came to actually writing this post, I realised I actually liked the film a lot more than I'd initially realised.

In fact, and this is probably going to be quite a concerning statement considering the supposed philosophy of the film, but I felt like the film had a definite impact on me. I wasn't quite the same person once it finished, and it had this kinda lingering presence in my head for days to follow, which I would generally say is a good sign. A film's got to be doing something right if it continues to dwell and ferment in your mind long after seeing it like a fine wine.

Having said all that, and I want to stress this, it's not the second coming of Christ. There's nothing here that's particularly groundbreaking, it's really just an old idea well-executed. For one thing, if anyone's seen Taxi Driver recently, then conceptually Joker might ring a few bells. In fact, Joker essentially is a reimagining of Taxi Driver, only with a more generalised, less sexually-focused theme of emasculation. I've heard that The King of Comedy is a more fitting comparison but, having not seen it, I can't personally comment. Regardless, the Scorsese influence is clearly present, made more tangible with the knowledge that Scorsese was originally on board to direct.

Let's get some of the more 'reviewy' bits out of the way. Firstly, and this will probably come as a shock to no one, but Joaquin Phoenix is fantastic as the Joker. There's a kind of eeriness to his performance, a constant sense of something lurking underneath the surface. It's genuinely disquieting and even though we do (initially) sympathise with him when things go wrong for him, we never feel totally comfortable around him either. Honestly, Phoenix's performance is the film's MVP, and without him, I don't think the film would have had nearly the same impact on me. The film's atmosphere has a very oppressive quality to it, and the world of the story feels very distinct and tangible, and I found it all quite absorbing. Aesthetically and technically, everything's on good form, but there was nothing that really stood out besides maybe the sort of muted 80's production design, which went a long way towards establishing the kinda grimy, seedy environment that's essential for a story like this.

I also think it's important to note that I don't think Joker should be treated as a comic book movie. Even though, yes, technically this is a supervillain origin story and presumably counted as part of the DC cinematic universe, I don't think either of those contexts really match the film and what it's trying to achieve. Joker feels very much like its own one-off, self-contained entity, really more of an art-house film that just happens to feature a popular comic book character than anything else, and anyone going in expecting a Batman flick, even something Nolan-esque, I think will be disappointed.



Now, it feels like there's a billion and one things I could say about Joker, and it's definitely a film that warrants discussion and analysis. While writing this post, I've found it almost impossible to write about everything in the film I feel worthy of comment, or at least to enough extent as to do every topic justice, while still keeping this thing focused. So for the time being, I'm just going to concentrate on the key issue that seems to be at the core of all this controversy: whether the film's intention is to glorify or condemn the views and actions of its protagonist.

Personally, I believe it's the latter.

My reading of the film revolves mainly around the way in which the audience is positioned to view the narrative, or in other words, from whose perspective we are seeing the events. Furthermore, I believe the way this perspective changes as the film progresses tells us everything about how the film wants us to judge Joker. Now to talk about this properly, we've got to head into spoiler territory, so if you are still hoping to see Joker for yourself, skip ahead to the end for my conclusion.

At the start of the film, the audience is squarely positioned with Arthur Fleck, our protagonist. We see the world how he sees it, sometimes quite literally, as we are occasionally shown fantasy sequences, where we see how Arthur wishes to be seen or how he has convinced himself he is seen. Most notably of these is one where we see him as an audience member on Robert De Niro's TV show (I know he has a character name, but, ya know, it's Robert fuckin' De Niro), where he is picked to come out from the audience and is garnered with almost fatherly praise and support from De Niro, along with an enthusiastic round of applause from the audience. Now, a fantasy sequence is about as subjective a view as you can get, so subjective it didn't happen, so it is clear that we are positioned quite intimately in Arthur's perspective, where we are invited to sympathise with him as our protagonist.

Reaching what is roughly the midpoint of the film, it is suddenly revealed that the romantic relationship established between Arthur and his neighbour was also a fantasy. And it does this by cutting to earlier shots from the film where the neighbour was present, then showing them again, only now she's completely absent. Not only are we seeing that Fleck's version of reality is untrustworthy, but the way this sequence is edited suggests a transition away from Fleck's subjective point of view towards a more objective, third-person perspective, where we are now invited to regard Fleck from an emotional distance, instead of directly sympathising with him like before.

Scribble forwards to the end. Fleck, now insisting on the moniker Joker, has done some pretty fucked up things, and as his actions become increasingly mean spirited and unjustified, naturally we begin feeling more and more uncomfortable and are withdrawing what sympathies we might have felt towards him.

Crucially, we get to the television interview, and I think there are two things really worth pointing out in the lead up to this scene. Firstly, we see Joker interacting with comparatively normal people, people who haven't met him before, and whose comments and interactions now provide us with a fresh set of eyes with which to look at Joker and see what he looks like to everyone else. A second opinion that kinda makes you reevaluate and think "oh shit yeah this guy's a nutter", in case you hadn't already clocked it. Secondly, Joker has been unpainted for the majority of the film, and only at the end does he dye his hair and put on his makeup (with the exception of his work scenes in the first act) and once it's on, he stays this way for the remainder of the film. Now, surface-level analysis, this marks his final transformation from poor Arthur Fleck to criminal maniac Joker and the end of his arc. Hmm, yes, very insightful. "His eye paint is blue because he's depressed, give me my GCSE, sir". But also, there's something inherently disassociative about disguising one's face. The face is the broadcaster of emotions, so when a face is obscured it becomes harder for an observer to read and thus there's a kinda primal mistrust we have towards masked or painted faces. And regardless of how much effect that has on you personally, there is still a subconscious link present, and so when we see Joker amongst a group of normal people, not only does he obviously stick out as the freak amongst them, but he becomes this kinda inscrutable threat, an interloper amongst humankind who doesn't fit in and should be feared. Again, yes, this seems obvious considering the conceit of the film, but the crucial point is that now our perspective has been shifted to that of an outsider looking in on the Joker, and thus we too begin to see Joker as they do, no longer a protagonist we support and understand, but a threat that we fear. That's audience positioning.

We get to the interview, and Joker begins his 'we-live-in-a-society-esque' speech, that I know some of my friends have ridiculed, and from a certain perspective, rightly so, because the film also ridicules it. And here's kinda the crux of my argument: if Joker was a film that glorified its protagonist and his actions, then this speech would be a perfectly executed monologue, scathingly criticising the world of both the film and reality, leaving every other character speechless in its wake, like some demented alternate-universe Atticus Finch. As Joker finishes, there's a pause before De Niro's character begins clapping. Then some others join in and the room descends into rapturous applause. Or, in other words, pretty much what happened in Fleck's fantasy at the beginning.

But no, now we are seeing things from an outsider's perspective, and resultingly, Joker's speech rightly comes off as the ravings of a maniac. Not only is his point almost incoherent, but he is constantly interrupted by De Niro's character, who criticises his argument, and essentially becomes an audience surrogate that says all the things that we're thinking. Joker is humiliated and verbally defeated, and by a character no less that Joker, or Fleck at least, looked up to and trusted the opinion of, practically idolising him.

Not only does this juxtaposition with the first fantasy highlight how much the audience positioning has shifted over the course of the film, but it also shows how far Fleck's character has decayed, how far he's fallen and that this is not the same character we were rooting for in the beginning, and absolutely should not be rooting for now.

And that, to me, is how this film condemns the actions of the Joker. This sequence is instrumental in understanding how the Joker should be interpreted, and my reading is that he is a joke, ridiculed by those he is trying to intimidate and completely unable to defend his ideology against even light scrutiny.

Now, conversely, one could argue this scene the other way, with Joker being publicly ridiculed by those who can't understand his point of view, and when he finally snaps and shoots De Niro dead, he sort of comes out on top, as if resorting to violence is an adequate solution when someone emasculates or in some way threatens your ego, and that kind of justification is more or less where the controversy is coming from. Not helped by the fact that Joker is then regarded as a hero and a king by the crowds of oppressed thugs tearing the city apart. My only answer to that really is that we see Bruce Wayne's parents gunned down (for like the twelve hundredth time on screen) by one of the thugs inspired by the Joker, and that kinda recentres the moral compass and reminds us "hey, these are the bad guys, by the way."

And about this idea that the film, or any film or media for that matter, is going to justify mass shootings and other terrorist acts is just as flawed and fear-mongering as it's always been. It happened in the nineties with Mortal Kombat and Doom and Natural Born Killers and the counter-argument still hasn't changed in twenty-five years: the people who commit these acts are sick in the head and media is not the thing that pushes them over the edge to become killers. The media is always labelled as an easy scapegoat for politicians to blame so that suburban mothers have something meaningless to protest to make them feel like they're doing something proactive, while the true root causes of the problem like gun control and inadequate mental health care go ignored and the cycle repeats again.

Interestingly, the only moment in Joker that really gave me the school shooter vibe was when Joker tells Gary that he won't kill him because "you were always kind to me", which is such a memey cliché that I'm not entirely sure it wasn't intended as a joke. And I think that about sums up my verdict on the depiction of Joker, there's a sort of knowing cynicism to the way he's presented that makes it seem like we're supposed to be ridiculing him, and certainly not taking him, his actions or his ideologies seriously.

End of Spoilers

Ultimately, there's definitely room for debate as to what extent we are being invited to sympathise with Joker and to what the film is trying to say. While I definitely have my own clear reading of the film, my conclusion is that Joker is a film that can be whatever you want it to be. Those looking for an absorbing and disturbing portrait of a criminal maniac will find it, and those looking for a condoning of incel fantasies will find that too. People will find whatever they expect to find in Joker, and that to me is why the film has been so divisive. When people argue about films, a common phrase that gets uttered is "did we watch the same film?" And maybe through our own subjectivity, perhaps we don't all see the same. It's a cinematic Rorschach test which is simultaneously all and none of its readings and instead positions itself somewhere between all these different ideas, allowing its audience to join the dots in whatever way makes sense to them.

My final word is thus: love it or hate it, Joker is undeniably a work of art. It's admittedly quite a tricky thing to define, but I believe art is, at its centre, about deriving meaning through interpretation. And the fact that so many people have seen this film and yet come away from it with such distinctly different interpretations, along with the fierce discussion it has provoked as to its intent, proves to me that this is a film of artistic merit, and one that I think has certainly left its mark on society.

...Goddamn it, of all the words to end on.

Joker - 2019 - Todd Phillips - USA
Score: 8
Recommendation: High

El Camino (2019) - AKA 'Breaking Bad: The End of Breaking Bad'

I'm trying to make more of an effort with this new run of blog posts to be topical and review newer, zeitgeistier releases. So originally I planned to review Joker this month, which had a nice timely October release and was promising to cause a real stir in the film buff community. "Oh good," thought I, "a nice ol' bit of controversy will make plenty of meat to dig into in the slanderous essays that I attempt to pass off as film reviews."

Fucking hell, Joker. I thought you were going to cause a stir, not a fucking tsunami. It's been a while since I've seen a film release with this divisive a reception, with people on one side showering it with praise as an artistic masterpiece and a refreshing representation of mental illness, while others decree it as incel hate porn just waiting to inspire a killing spree. Even The Last Jedi had a more agreeable reception than this! To write a review would be a brave, but surely polarising move, guaranteed to set someone off no matter what side I come down on and opening the door to fierce and chaotic debate.

...
ahem
...

So did anyone else catch El Camino this month? You know, the feature-length supplement to Breaking Bad that Vince Gilligan's been threatening to make for a couple of years. Breaking Bad, the high-emperor of TV drama, a series often lauded as one of the most expertly-crafted television shows of all time with a solid ending with just the right amount of ambiguity sprinkled in. So how best to disturb the peace than to tack on an extra ending that tries to remove some of that ambiguity. This is like building a worryingly holey but nonetheless stable Jenga tower and seeing if you can balance your pint on top.

El Camino picks up where the series finale Felina left off, with Jesse fleeing the scene of Walt's last stand in the titular car, his goal now to escape from his old life before the law can catch up with him. Breaking Bad was very much the story of Walter White, and so while it's not unreasonable that Felina focused almost entirely on closing his story, Jesse was still the series deuteragonist with an arc arguably just as important as Walt's, and yet on reflection he never really got quite the same closure as he deserved. So in that respect, El Camino is a surprisingly welcome addition to the series, that aims and nicely succeeds at giving Jesse his equivalent ending.

What I like about El Camino is it isn't too ambitious, in no way does it try to overwrite the ending of Breaking Bad, only build upon it. El Camino mainly sticks to filling in the gaps between the final two episodes during Walt's exile, with interesting details that nicely flesh out a bit more of Jesse's time in slavery without retconning anything. In that way, the film is kinda inconsequential, none of the plot has any real grand effect on the ending of Breaking Bad, and only offers additional character insight and world-building, but at the same time that's why the film still works, by deliberately not trying to tread on Felina's toes, it neatly slots in with the series.

Of course, it's pretty much impossible to make a sequel like this without it having any impact on the original, and while El Camino does a good job of avoiding that kind of conflict, we do have to inevitably sacrifice the ambiguity of Felina's ending. Jesse's ultimate fate was left somewhat up to interpretation in the series, and Heisenberg's was pretty strongly implied, but El Camino clarifies both quite indisputably, which might offer some closure to those desperate for it, but I think ambiguity often makes an ending stronger and invites a sense of audience interactivity that can help ensure the longevity of a good story. People still talk about the whispered words in Lost in Translation, and yet a sequel dedicated to revealing them would be ill-advised, to say the least.

And while Breaking Bad's ending wasn't that reliant on ambiguity, El Camino takes away what little it did have. The upshot to this is that since El Camino is really more of an appendix rather than an essential new chapter to the story, a story that has fared perfectly well without it for six years, the viewer can essentially decide how they like their ending. Leaving it at Felina gives them a juicy, open-ended medium-rare while adding El Camino turns it into a complete well-done. And I guess for maximum ambiguity, just stop watching at Granite State and have yourself a rare.

Unfortunately, I've got to put away the Breaking Bad fan hat now and don the curmudgeonly old film critic hat, because really a film judged on its own merits should stand alone, and this is a stand-alone film, not just a bonus episode. It's right there in the rather unimpressive title; El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. A weak blow I'll concede, what's in a name after all, and I suppose it doesn't really matter what they called it, everyone knows exactly what this film is. They could have called it 'Jesse Pinkman's Fantastic Journey' and it wouldn't have made much difference. I guess it's the smugness I object to, the attitude of "yeah, you guys are going to be allll over this no matter what so why even try coming up with a better title".

It's difficult to say exactly, being well familiarised with the series already, but it figures that to a fresh viewer, a lot of  El Camino won't make much sense without any prior knowledge of Breaking Bad. Netflix helpfully offers an optional recap before you play the film for those who haven't revisited it in a while, but those who haven't seen it at all will still probably be confused by characters such as Todd, Badger and a couple of other spoilery ones who appear or are mentioned without any real reintroduction. Ultimately, this is a film made especially for Breaking Bad fans and doesn't have much scope to entertain outside of that audience.

"Really, Nick? A Breaking Bad spin-off movie won't appeal to people who haven't seen Breaking Bad? What an insightful observation, is this you flaunting your film education to it's fullest extent? Do go on."

Alright smartarse, my point is that unlike other TV spin-offs like the Star Trek movies or even something like Better Call Saul, El Camino can't really be enjoyed as it's own entity, and flat-out requires knowledge of the series to understand what's going on to any significant degree, best watched back to back with Felina, while other spin-offs can often be enjoyed in isolation, being a potential entry point for new fans that may eventually be directed back to the original series, whereas El Camino would just confuse them. And while that is usually a frownable offence for a film, I suppose that's asking El Camino to be something it's not, and no-one's really going to be stumbling upon this out of the blue with no concept of what it is. And I mean really, who hasn't seen Breaking Bad in this day and age? Still, it would be remiss of me not to at least mention it, and I suppose the bottom line is I can't see people re-watching this film much outside of the context of a whole series binge.
There's honestly not that much else to say about El Camino. Essentially a double-length episode of the series, it doesn't stand alone but then it's not really trying to. Vince Gilligan' writing is just as good as it's always been, the acting, especially from Aaron Paul, is top-notch, the cinematography has the same ingenuity and beauty the series is known for, and despite what was a longer runtime than I expected for this kind of thing, it's nicely paced and doesn't overstay it's welcome. If you liked the show, it's well worth checking this one out, but if you're not that bothered you're not missing out on anything groundbreaking.
While I was dubious about the premise of a Breaking Bad sequel, Gilligan has pulled it off nicely, but I would advise him to quit now while he's ahead. A series as lauded as Breaking Bad is a dangerous thing to try and make a sequel to. Better Call Saul worked as a prequel, and El Camino was arguably a fluke but I'm not convinced another sequel will work out as well. Let's stop now before this becomes another Star Wars, a bloated franchise with spin-offs and sequels pouring out of every orifice to the point that the original is almost indistinguishable underneath. It would be terribly ironic for a series about greed to be done in by its own, and I'd take no pleasure in having to point out that irony if such an eventuality occurred.
Ha! What am I saying? The day I stop enjoying my own smugness is the day I stop reviewing!

El Camino - 2019 - Vince Gilligan - USA
Score: 8
Recommendation: Medium

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) - Tarantino's Nostalgia Wank

So here's a potentially controversial opening for you all, I think Tarantino is overrated. OK, maybe that isn't a super controversial opinion depending on who you are, but there's certainly at least some small part of the film buff community that seems to worship the ground he walks barefoot on and I've never quite seen eye-to-eye with them.

It's not that I don't like any of his films; on the contrary, I like most of them, and none of them are truly bad films. I'd even consider Inglourious Basterds one of my all-time faves. I just do not understand the pedestal people put him on. I mean, I get why people love his films so much: they're slick, stylish and bathed in gratuitous violence and swearing, appealing to the lizard brain in all us younger film nerds, whilst still being competent enough and packed with references to classic cinema to make us feel like we're watching something worthwhile and of artistic merit.

And there's nothing wrong with that as an auteur style, it clearly appeals and has produced some good films. But come on now, Pulp Fiction's not that good.

Regardless of your thoughts on the Tarantino catalogue, every artist can and does make mistakes, and I think Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is his first true misstep. As mentioned above, Tarantino's work is constantly referencing and calling back to the classic era of Hollywood, so why not cut out the middleman and make a film explicitly set in and concerning the period? Not a bad concept on paper, but when one is in love with the setting to the extent that Tarantino is, it's quite easy to overlook things like plot when you're enthusiastically *ahem* reminiscing about how things used to be.

The biggest issue with the plot is that it's almost non-existent. DiCaprio plays a washed-up actor, with Pitt as his close friend and stunt-double. DiCaprio is the main protagonist and has the most to do, his story ostensibly being the re-birth of his film career after having faded from public perception, trading up the classic TV western for the then-new spaghetti western. There's a hint of conflict with him trying to assimilate back into the world of acting after spending so many years doing nothing but drinking, as well as the realisation that the best years of his career are behind him and he must make way for the new generation, but other than that there's really not much to his story. He pretty much just wants to be in a film, is offered a role, does it well and then he's set. End of arc.

Still, more than Pitt has to do, who basically just bums around doing stuff, most notably getting involved with a bunch of young girls living in a sort of commune on the outskirts of LA. And while this sequence has some nice horror-movie-esque tension to it, it doesn't really have much to do with anything, and the rest of Pitt's scenes are equally inconsequential, if not more so.

The last character of note, though I hesitate to call her a protagonist, is Margot Robbie playing real-life film star Sharon Tate, a fact I did not realise until researching the film afterwards. Not that it matters too much though, since the only thing she really does is watch a film she's in at the cinema, and every time we cut back to her, she's just sitting there, grinning and enjoying herself. But then that's it: nothing else happens, and there's no payoff to her character whatsoever despite just simply establishing her existence for the sake of the ending. We'll get to that.

And that's really about it in terms of plot, it's just a load of characters doing stuff in 60's Hollywood, there's no real overarching story or conflict, it's a surprisingly sedate movie for Tarantino, playing out like a romanticised stroll down memory lane. There's nothing wrong with slow cinema, but there's got to be something driving it and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood just feels like someone stalling for time until they can think of a story that never comes to them.

Then, (Spoiler time!) just past the two-hour mark, as what passes as the story is wrapping itself up, with DiCaprio enjoying his newfound success and everything feeling like it's coming to a close, Tarantino smacks himself in the head and shouts "Shit! I forgot the gratuitous violence!" And so the last sequence of the film becomes a home invasion sequence, where drugged up DiCaprio and Pitt viciously defend themselves against a group of murderers. At the time, this felt incredibly out of the blue, but having since done my research, it turns out that this is Basterds-esque historic revisionism, in reference to Sharon Tate's murder by followers of Charles Manson. So that at least checks out, but what it doesn't fix, and the more pressing of the issues, is that this is an incredibly jarring tonal shift. From the relatively calm and laid-back atmosphere the film had been going for, we suddenly jump to A Clockwork Orange as envisioned by Nicolas Winding Refn. And while the gore is handled as tongue-in-cheek and cathartically as usual for a Tarantino picture, it still feels like we've just watched two entirely different films.

This sequence is also the closest thing to a resolution for the Sharon Tate 'plotline', in that she's introduced just so we know who she is when she is saved by Pitt and DiCaprio in the end. And since the film effectively wrapped up its main plot prior to the home invasion sequence, the Sharon Tate plot in total becomes utterly superfluous. I get the impression Sharon Tate and her being rescued from the Manson murders may have been Tarantino's main interest in the story, and unfortunately, this somehow got displaced from the focal point of the film as it was produced. Basterds shows that when fully embraced, the ultraviolent historical revisionism can work really well, and I feel if the film had stuck more closely to this concept we would have ended up with a much tighter, focused and generally more entertaining product. As it is, this ending sticks out like a sore thumb, and almost reads like a last-ditch effort to make sure the audience is still awake and that the Tarantino fanboys have gotten their fix of gratuitous violence so they don't throw a hissy fit.

End of Spoilers

Ultimately, I think this is Tarantino's weakest film to date, and once that new film buzz starts to die down, I doubt Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will be remembered in the top tier of his work. Not so much a story as an old man aimlessly rambling about the good old days whilst gently masturbating.

Tarantino plans to make one last film before he retires, but with the way this one went, I wonder whether he'll be going out with a bang or a whimper. Odds aren't looking good, but maybe next time he'll at least remember to finish writing his story before shooting it.


Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - 2019 - USA - Quentin Tarantino
Score: 5
Recommendation: Low

Ciné Rambles 5th Anniversary Special - The Lost Aliens Review

Five years ago, I watched Fritz Lang's German classic, M, and was left with a desire to yell my thoughts about the ending at someone or something. After getting it all off of my chest and onto a Word document, rather than, say, write an IMDb review like a normal person, it occurred to me there were actually quite a few films that I could potentially scream my opinion on into the void. So I threw together a Blogger page and decided I was going to start writing on the Internet, as an infant would scrawl their own shit on the wall, maybe under the pretence that this would improve my writing ability.

Well, here we are. Five years later, and I'm still scrawling, and yet have still never covered half the films I originally intended to. And I still haven't rewatched M either, which has been on the frankly daunting list for, well, five years now. I would say my writing ability has improved though, so at least that's a tick.

So how does one commemorate the five year anniversary of a blog? The obvious answer is review my favourite films of all time. But that seems almost too easy an answer, plus I'm honestly not sure what to write about half of them. There are only so many ways you can write "it's good", ya know. Not to mention I'm not even sure where I'd draw the line on favourite films. I certainly couldn't pick one. Would I pick five? Ten? That's the tradition. There's about seventy-odd films I would consider favourites in some capacity, am I going to talk about all of them?

No, I thought. Let's save that for the tenth anniversary (that way I might not even have to do it!)

Instead, let's go back to that whole 'writing' thing. If my writing has improved in the space of five years, let's see what it's done in seven.

A long time ago, I had the idea to start doing movie reviews on my now-dead YouTube channel, starting with one of my favourite films of the time, Alien. You can still watch it to this day. It's utter shit but it's a humble beginning. And while I started work on a review for Aliens, I kinda got bored and figured that me just talking at the viewer all clinically while putting on a slideshow of screencaps from the film wasn't setting the world on fire. And so I canned the project, despite having promised to have it out within the month. But I did at least finish the script.

Digging through some old hard drives recently, I found the original script for the review, last edited 28th April 2012. Yikes. And even then, my reviews were still over the 1000 word mark. Some things never change. So I thought, what better way to commemorate the fifth year of the blog than with a shitty seven-year-old review?

So, I guess I am going to be talking about a favourite film of mine after all. Ladies and gents, please enjoy in all its unedited splendour, my long-awaited review of Aliens! God help you all...

"The original Alien was a great success when it first came out, grossing around $3,527, 88 in the US (for all you Americans out there) and won an Oscar and many other awards. It is still to this day one of the most famous and successful Sci-Fi Horror films of all time. So a sequel was almost inevitable. And sure enough, seven years later, director James Cameron made Aliens in 1986. Originally, Sigourney Weaver was reluctant to star in any sequels, but when she read James Cameron’s script, she agreed to do it. And so, Sigourney Weaver returned to her trademark role of Ellen Ripley. So, on to the plot. But first, spoiler warning. In order for me to explain the plot, I’m going to have to spoil the end of the first movie, Alien. So if you still haven’t seen that yet, click the annotation somewhere on the screen to skip ahead.

At the end of the first movie, Ripley, having successfully flushed the alien into outer space, sets up for hyper sleep and goes into suspended animation. 57 years later, she is picked up by a salvage team who bring her back to ‘the company’ aka Weyland Utani. She is then held responsible for the destruction of the Nostromo. Although she did blow it up, obviously, she explains about the alien and how she had to do it. The company don’t believe her, saying that her description of the alien doesn’t match any life forms they’ve ever encountered and that if there was a crashed ship on LV-426, it would have been discovered by the colony who has settled there. Therefore, Ripley’s pilot license is revoked, making her unable to fly anywhere. The company then lose contact with the colony on LV-426. Suspecting Ripley might be telling the truth, they try to persuade her to go with a bunch of colonial marines as an advisor, even offering her pilot license back. Ripley eventually agrees, wanting to face her fear of the aliens and knowing that the company want to destroy the aliens, not take them back and study them. When the marines and Ripley get to LV-426, they discover the whole complex is over-run with aliens, now known as ‘xenomorphs’. The only human left besides some impregnated people who are stuck to the wall and die very quickly anyway, is a 10 year old girl called Rebecca, or ‘Newt’ as she prefers to be called. Ripley takes her under her care and the rest of the film consists of the marines, Ripley and Newt trying to work out how to kill the xenomorphs, and escape with their lives intact.

Out of all the sequels in the world, Aliens is in that small handful that are actually better than their predecessor, in my opinion at least. There does seem to be a bit of a war over which is better, Alien or Aliens. Personally, I think Aliens is better for its action and fast-pace, but there isn’t a whole lot in it. Either way, both films work perfectly together and complement each other well. The first one is a perfect horror film and the second is a perfect blend of horror and action. It just proves that a sequel that has an almost completely different style to the first one can still be a masterpiece. And that’s the best word to describe Aliens, a masterpiece. There was never a dull moment, not even in the special edition that’s 2 and a half hours long, there’s always something going on to keep you entertained. Even at the start, there’s action as Ripley hallucinates having an alien burst out of her stomach and the film never lets up to take a break for a single moment. And then, by the end, the peaceful music starts playing, you sit back off of the edge of your seat and relax content with what you have just seen. In terms of horror, this film does an equally good job as the first one. There are a couple of jump moments, but otherwise, Aliens goes for something completely different. One of the big contributors are the motion detectors on the side of the guns. Similar to the ones used in the first movie, they track anything that moves, and their rapid beeping, slowly increasing in speed is probably the scariest part of the movie, in one scene near the end, the marines detect a huge amount of aliens moving towards them, they seal themselves in the room and stand back from the door, the motion detector still beeping they then look slowly up at the ceiling and Hicks decides to go check above the ceiling. The pace slows right down to a halt and the tension builds as he slowly pushes up the panel and takes a look. Also, closer to the beginning, the marines have a head mounted camera that links back to the control room thing in the APC. And here, Ripley and Lieutenant Gorman watch what they’re doing through these cameras. These also provide a lot of tension, as you see them being attacked from their perspective and gives a real sense of danger as you just see the bank of TV’s slowly black out. The fore-mentioned action scenes are also incredible. The initial raid on the alien’s den where the aliens first attacked is incredible because it leaves a strong impact on the viewer, to see all these tough soldiers who are the best of the best slowly picked off by the aliens is really quite intriguing to watch. And the previously mentioned scene where they are locked in the room with the aliens coming through the ceiling is brilliant as well. The aliens had cut the power, meaning that the whole room is illuminated by a red backup light and just seeing all the guns blazing and the screeching of aliens and the constant shouts of the marines is so exhilarating to watch.

In short, Aliens is an excellent film and if you love films like The Terminator or Avatar, also by James Cameron, or 80’s action, sci-fi, horror or just good films in general, this is the film for you. It is an incredible film and would go really well with a back-to-back viewing with Alien. The horror and action elements blend perfectly and the fast pace promises not to let up for a second. I know I say this a lot, but you owe it to yourself to see this film. So get some mates round on a Saturday night, really late, turn on the surround sound and prepare to be entertained. I give it a 9.5/10 and a high recommendation. See it now."

Hope you're happy, Andrew.

Hereditary (2018) - The Real vs the Supernatural

Some of you may remember back in December I listed Hereditary in my top 5 films of 2018 but was reluctant to go into any significant detail, as I wanted to save it up for its own post. Some of you may also remember in the second half of my Oscars double bill that I said I would have such a post ready in March or April. If I should be so lucky.

Who'd have thought things would actually get quite busy for me during the final months of my university degree, and while I would have loved to work on my blog, my final assessments had to take precedent, as per. On the bright side, this is officially the last time I can ever use this excuse because, as of May, I have officially finished my degree in Film and Television Production! Hurrah! While I've been studying for the past three years, the blog has been lying nearly dormant so now I've got a bit more free time on my hands, I'm hoping to give it a bit of a revival. I can't promise regular posts, but certainly more frequent than they have been.

So, with Ari Aster's new horror film Midsommar releasing this week, now seems like a very appropriate time to look back on his debut from last year. Maybe, one could argue,  more appropriate than if I were to have just randomly reviewed it out of the blue in the middle of spring. So, ultimately, I see this three-month delay as a deliberate rescheduling in the name of theming that I totally had planned from the get-go. Yes, that's the official story and I'll hear no more questions on the matter.

Now, before we get stuck in (but, you know, after my signature long waffly intro), I need to make a quick PSA. Normally, I try to keep spoilers in my posts to an absolute minimum, but for me to even begin to discuss this film to any major degree, I'm basically going to have to spoil everything. So, this entire post is basically going to be non-stop spoilers. For all of its flaws, Hereditary is still very much worth a watch and I highly recommend it, but to experience its full impact you need to know as little about the film as possible going in. Therefore, if you have not seen this film yet, PLEASE stop reading, go give it a watch (it's on Amazon Prime at the moment) and then return here. This is your point of no return.

SPOILERS AHEAD

We all good? Everyone seen it? Ok, let's get to work.

Hereditary could have been, and for the most part was shaping up to be, one of the greatest, most powerful and even dare-I-say revolutionary horror films of the decade, and even a new personal favourite of mine. The film falls down however upon reaching its ending. And by fall down, I mean it trips over the last hurdle so hard that it smashes its face on the ground and shatters its teeth beyond the recovery of even the most skilled of dentists. What I'm trying to say is, it sucks.

It's not impossible for a film to recover from a bad ending, though. Some films like 10 Cloverfield Lane and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are fantastic throughout and then soil themselves in their final ten minutes. However, both of these films still work because there's enough closure before the fuck-up that you could theoretically just switch the film off at the right moment and be satisfied, and merely omit the real ending. The problem with Hereditary and the reason it frustrates me so much is that it does not have such closure.

The best way to really explain what's wrong with it is to pretty much start at the beginning and just explain my way through the film and my reaction to it. Hence the spoilers. So, with that in mind...

The film starts off with some familiar generic horror tropes: we've got a recently deceased grandma who liked to have control over the family, there's a creepy little outcast daughter who's obsessed with the macabre, there's a stressed mother who's hobby is crafting dioramas, including of her own house and family, and just overall there's a vague foreboding sense that some supernatural shit will eventually go down, presumably in an Exorcist kinda direction. So far, so standard. Until...

About thirty minutes into the film, out of absolutely nowhere, the girl gets brutally decapitated in a car crash. And, I have to say, the presentation of this moment was masterfully horrifying. The impact is barely on screen: just flash cuts, a sickening crunch and then quiet. The camera lingers on the driver for what feels like an eternity, the back seat of the car cropped from view as he stares in empty horror. He comes home, he lies on his bed, the same expression on his face, still we are denied the information. Deep down, we know what's happened, but waiting for the confirmation is torture. Then, from out of shot, the mother screams, discovering the girl. We still don't get to see. The shot lingers on the boy just long enough before, finally, we see the head.

It's shocking, it's unexpected, and the build-up to the reveal is deliciously uncomfortable. The generic, supernatural horror plot crashes to a screeching halt and is replaced by genuine, real-world human horror. It's nothing less than an emotional sucker punch that left me feeling completely drained, with a dark pit in my stomach, like no other horror film had ever made me feel before. Hereditary took all the overdone, supernatural jump-scare-ridden bollocks that is currently choking the genre in titles like The Nun and Annabelle and threw it back in our faces, instead turning its dark mirror towards the cruel and unforgiving nature of reality and the seemingly insignificant choices we make and the unpredictable accidents that spiral out from them through the relentless Rube-Goldberg machine of life.

The fears of boogeymen, ghostly occurrences and bumps in the night are all very well, but there's still a certain distance with which we regard them, as however frightened we might get we know it can never really happen to us in real life. The beauty of Hereditary comes from its ability to craft just as scary and unpleasant a horror out of tangible, real-life tragedy that any one of us can and probably even will experience at some point in our lives, confronting us with the idea that we or our loved ones can be taken in an instant, without reason and without mercy, and what's even worse is we can be unknowingly responsible for it.

And so the film continues, now focusing on the grieving family as they try to cope with the aftermath of their actions. The mother and brother suffer from their intolerable guilt as they try to pass the blame between them, while the father does his best to hold the family together. This culminates in a dinner scene that may be one of the most uncomfortable scenes in all of cinema as the mother and brother viciously argue, topped with a truly gut-wrenching monologue from the mother. Did I mention, the mother is played by Toni Collette? Did I also mention that she deserves a fucking Oscar, for this scene alone, let alone the entire movie?

It was at about this point that I was ready to crown this as my film of the year. One of the most harrowing cinema experiences I'd ever had, not only was the apparent concept of this film so strong and so unlike anything I'd really seen in the horror genre up until that point, but its execution was mesmerising, emanating an oppressive atmosphere of dread that seemed to completely smother me on an emotional level.

I remember the excitement I felt in the cinema as I considered all of this, that thrill you feel when you know you've found something really special. I remember thinking about composing this very review, what I would say, how I would say it, and genuinely got excited by the prospect of telling the world how great this film was. I repeatedly thought to myself  'they just have to get the ending right'...

The warning signs started to appear when the supernatural shit started to creep back into the picture. The mother starts looking into séance and has a couple of mild supernatural experiences, nothing above magic-show level. She even tries to get her family involved, but the father and brother try to convince her that it's all in her head.

I actually don't mind this section at all, as it still nicely fits the theme of grief and refusing to move past death, and especially with the denying of the other family members, the supernatural results can be chalked up to the mother's deteriorating mental state. 'Great,' I thought, 'another point in the film's favour. I wonder how they're going to end it.'

'I really had you for a minute there,' the film seems to crow. 'You thought I'd ceremoniously chucked out all the overused generic horror bullshit in exchange for a more unique and powerful story, didn't you? Let's see what I've got here....oh look! It's overused generic horror bullshit!'

The dead grandma, after basically not being mentioned for about ninety minutes, is back all of a sudden with powers from beyond the grave. Out of the blue, corpses float and possessed family members crawl up the walls like spiders, chasing after the brother.
A cult of headless corpses show up, apparently worshipping the girl's severed head as some kind of new queen of the underworld. And then the film just kinda ends, in a sticky clusterfuck of seen-before horror imagery.

I was in shock. I don't think I've ever seen a film subvert it's genre expectations only to unironically revert them at the end, certainly not to this extent. The chilling, genuine horror of loss had been undermined by spoopy ghosts and some ancient mystical evil, so utterly divorced from the reality that the rest of the film's horror seemed to be placed in.

Now, before I get any angry backlash about how I missed something and have completely misinterpreted the film, I am already pretty certain that I have. I'm sure this film is too good and too smart to misjudge an ending that badly. I'm sure when I give this film a rewatch I'll notice things I didn't before and more of it will fall into place and maybe the ending might make more sense.

In the meantime, this post exists as my initial reaction, how I saw things on the first viewing and from that stance, I was disappointed. What worries me most is if this film really is supposed to be about possession and supernatural meddling all the way through, then that leaves us with an accidentally fantastic horror film stuck within a much less interesting one, and frankly, I don't really know what to make of that.

If that is the case, that does at least leave the criticism that the supernatural element takes way too much of a backseat during the second act. Maybe the horror film I thought I saw and loved never really existed there in the first place: a subjective analysis that picked up on and ignored elements I wasn't supposed to.

Ultimately, I guess that's kinda the beauty of cinema, that different audiences can have such wildly different experiences with a film and find their own meanings within the work, even if they weren't necessarily supposed to be there. Intentional or not, this film certainly had some effect on me, and quite a strong one at that, so does that really make this interpretation any less valid?

END SPOILERS

At the end of the day, Hereditary has some truly outstanding sequences of horror, however intentional they may have been, and Aster and his crew demonstrate a wealth of talent and potential. Even if this didn't entirely come together, it's still one hell of a debut and blows most other horror films out of the water.

Midsommar already seems to be receiving a lot of praise, even so early into its cinema run, so I'm very much looking forward to seeing it this weekend. While I try my best not to get too hyped before going to see any film, I'd be lying if I said I don't expect Midsommar to be one of the standout films of the year. We just have to hope that Aster can stick the landing.

Hereditary - 2018 - Ari Aster - USA
Score: 8
Recommendation: High

Alien: Covenant (2017) - I Have a Confession

It may have been a mistake making my first few posts 1000+ words all those years ago, because now I feel like I can't justifiably write and release an update if it isn't essay-length, and maybe if I hadn't set such a high precedent so early, maybe I would write here more often (if you hadn't noticed, I've already broken my one-a-month streak for the year). As it stands, I've basically set myself the task of writing additional essays in the free time between writing my college essays. Not exactly the best state of affairs, so I think I'm gonna start writing smaller posts like this, and maybe not get quite so caught up with adhering to some kind of imagined word count. This is my blog, after all.

Oh look, a one-hundred-and-thirty-word intro before we even get to the main content. That's probably how I keep reaching such astronomical word counts. Anyway, I've decided today I'm going to briefly talk about Alien: Covenant, the latest instalment of the, now rather qualitatively lop-sided, Alien franchise. I'll give a quick sum-up of my thoughts like a review, but ultimately I'm here to confess a sin, for I feel I have somehow dishonoured myself and wasn't sure what other platform to confess on (I'm sure as hell not going to a church).

So, Alien: Covenant. After Prometheus was released five years ago (it's been five years? Jeez...), being explicitly pitched by director Ridley Scott as not being a prequel to Alien, many fans were disappointed when it turned out Prometheus really wasn't a direct prequel to Alien. I know, shock horror (although I may have been one of those guys). My issue was the ending seemed to be setting up practically a direct explanation for the crashed ship in Alien, then curve-balled at the last moment for no real reason. So now, to make more money, er, I mean, to try and bridge the narrative gap between Prometheus and Alien, Ridley Scott has released Alien: Covenant, the first of two sequels to Prometheus.

Overall, the film isn't great. I was definitely entertained when I was experiencing it, but once I was out of the cinema and I really started thinking about it, my opinion worsened. I think the worst part of the film is its characters: we're introduced to a crew of fifteen, of which only two are 'characterised' enough for you to even know their names. In fact, half of the crew are killed in the space of about five minutes barely a quarter of the way into the film. Not only are the crew made out to be insultingly disposable, they're also complete and total morons. Now, I know there's a bit of a trope in horror films of the main characters having recently suffered some kind of lobotomy, and even the crew of the original Alien had moments of poor decision making, but Covenant is on some other level of imbecility. Here are just some of the stupid things some of the Covenant crew do in this film;

• A man kicks some alien plant, and sticks his face right up to it and takes a big ol' whiff of the pollen-like stuff that it releases. He gives birth to an alien.
• A woman, who's already seen that the planet is full of hostile aliens, goes off on her own for a bit. An alien joins her.
• A man allows an obviously evil android to lead him down to a dark cellar filled with eggs. Upon enquiring about said eggs, the android suggests he should put his face near one, and HE ACTUALLY DOES IT.

The other big problem for me was the special effects; specifically, the alien creatures. None of the creatures seen in this film look even remotely real or like they're in the scene with the characters. CG has come far enough now that this frankly shouldn't be an issue anymore. Now, I know special effects aren't everything, but in a horror film (especially one like this with less-than Shakespearean writing), the believability of effects, especially creature effects, is a massive part of it, because if your film can't convince me that your monster is there, then I will not be scared of your monster and will not feel scared for your characters (especially when they're all such ignoramuses). As it is, the aliens in this film move a bit too fast, are in the light too much and look like they were rendered for a video game.

Ultimately, if you liked Prometheus, you'll probably get something out of this, but if you're not as invested in the franchise, you're not really missing a whole lot. But now, time for the main course. My great confession. The actual reason behind me writing this post. And, just as a warning, I will be discussing Spoilers for Alien: Covenant, so skip to the end if you haven't seen it and care.

So we have two identical androids, Walter and David, one good, one evil, both played by Michael Fassbender (side note: what purpose did that kiss actually serve, outside of just "ooh, look what we can do with the power of technology!"). As the surviving members of the Covenant crew leave the temple, David and Walter are fighting, yet we don't see the outcome, later seeing Walter meet up with the crew and escape with them. But right at the end of the film, Walter reveals himself, just as protagonist Daniels enters hypersleep, to actually be David, and he proceeds to place two facehugger embryos in with the colonists. What a twist.

Now. Apparently, it's blindingly obvious from as far back as the fight scene that David was going to switch places with Walter, and most people I've seen reviews from talk about how insultingly predictable this is. (You may see where this is going)

So, here's my confession: I didn't realise. Usually, I'm great at noticing and predicting these kinds of plot elements, considering how often I write my own stories and how familiar I 've become with traditional Hollywood plot devices, but this one flew completely under my radar.

But wait, it gets worse.

Not only did I not pick up on this switcheroo, one of the most cliched twists of all time, I was still oblivious during the reveal. Yes, even as the android revealed himself to Daniels, and even when he was planting the embryos, I still didn't catch on. I still thought it was Walter, albeit a newly evilised Walter.

It wasn't unitl I was discussing the film with my best friend, several days later, where he mentioned how obvious that scene was that, after a slight confusion, I finally realised what had happened.
So not only was I caught out by the oldest twist in the book, but I'm so unperceptive as to not even realise the twist when the twist was revealed. And I don't even know what to think of myself anymore.

End of Spoilers

Well, now I've soiled any credibility I had as a film reviewer (certainly as a writer), I guess that's as good a place as any to leave off. This has been therapeutic, I feel like a great weight has been lifted. And who else to trust with my deepest darkest secret* than my readership, comprised of strangers on the Internet? You won't make me some kind of laughing stock, right guys?

Guys?

Alien: Covenant - 2017 - Ridley Scott - USA
Score: 6
Recommendation: Medium


*not actually my deepest darkest secret

EDIT: I've since realised this post has managed to exceed 1000 words, despite what I said in the beginning. Maybe there's some weird curse that prevents me from writing less.

Spectre (2015) – A Ghost of its Predecessors

So Spectre has been running for about a week now and has already surpassed Skyfall’s opening weekend, but despite its success it seems to have divided opinion somewhat. With Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and Skyfall, everyone was pretty much in agreement that they were fantastic, bad and great respectively, but now we are at an impasse, and there doesn't seem to be any real consensus as to whether Spectre is good or not. Of course, being British, I have seen the new Bond and so while it’s still hot in our minds, I've decided to summarise my general thoughts on the film and the things I picked up on; my first actual film review, if you like. I'm going to try and keep it somewhat short, so without further ado, let’s proceed.

First let’s establish, I enjoyed Spectre. As an action blockbuster, it’s a solid ride and hits all the marks you’d expect; expensive cars being trashed, attractive women, explosions etc. Compared to other blockbusters like Transformers, for example, this is an engaging and competent thriller. Then again, anything looks engaging and competent when compared to Transformers. Even Alien Resurrection looks competent compared to Transformers, but now we’re getting off topic. Spectre only really falters when you start to look at it as a Bond film, and particularly as a successor to the previously mentioned Casino Royale and Skyfall.

Here’s the problem; Casino Royale and Skyfall set the bar so high for the Bond series, that Spectre had an uphill struggle from the beginning. Compare it to those two films, especially Casino Royale, and of course it’s going to look disappointing; Casino Royale was and still is one of the best thrillers of the 2000s, and it came at a time when the Bond series was in dire need of some defibrillation. While Brosnan’s Bonds were good, and helped transition the classic Bond to a more modern audience, the series was approaching its 40^th anniversary, and the franchise was starting to grow tired. With the rise of more modern spy thrillers like The Bourne Identity, audiences were hankering after something darker, with more realistic violence and less comical villains. Casino Royale was exactly what we all wanted and so it was a major hit. But here’s the thing; Spectre is the fourth entry in this revival series, and so by now we’re expecting a dark, gritty Bond and what’s more we want it to reach the same level, if not surpass its earlier entries. So of course it’s going to seem disappointing when you hold it to those lofty expectations, but if you watch it with a fresh mind, it’s still the same Daniel Craig Bond and it’s still just as dark as ever.

That’s not to say Spectre isn't flawed; of course it’s flawed, that’s why I'm writing a post about it. Primarily, Spectre contains a lot of action set pieces, but the overarching story is loose, at best. The tighter focus and relatively simple plot of Casino Royale aren't present here, and the story sprawls both geographically and narratively. Bond’s in Mexico taking out some dude, then he’s in England where M tells him off, then suddenly he’s off to Italy where he discovers SPECTRE, then he’s off to some other dude who tells him to go to Austria so he goes to Austria and so on, and that’s not even half way through the film. I won’t go into too much plot detail because spoilers, but it really could do with a bit of a trim. It doesn't help that each of these location’s sequences are so brief it feels like we’re watching a best-bits compilation.

Then there’s the gender politics. While I am of course a supporter of equality, it’s rare for me to actually discuss it just because I find it ridiculous that we still have to discuss racism and sexism to the extent that we do. How come we’re creating supercomputers, exploring space, writing messages for extra-terrestrial life and progressively curing cancer yet we still can’t even treat each other right? Regardless, I feel something needs to be said about Spectre. It’s odd that Bond exists so prominently in our modern society whilst still being so old-fashioned in its masculinity. Bond is pretty much about fast cars, hot women and violence, and always has been, but today it seems really out of place. When we had Dame Judi Dench as M, even though Bond was still up to his usual tricks, the gender politics seemed slightly more evened out, and even Vesper from Casino Royale had a substantial role in the plot and Bond’s own character arc. But now we have a male M again, Bond’s questionable attitude to women seems more noticeable. He appears to have his way with three different women throughout the film: one in the opening sequence (supposedly, at least: we never see for sure), a widow of a dude he killed, which seemed very off, almost borderline rape, and the main Bond girl, Swan, who looks about half his age, if that. I'm not sure what to really say about it; it’s such an integral part of the Bond formula that it feels almost wrong to take it out, but it seems really unnatural and backwards in today’s society, especially as this is definitely a more modern interpretation of Bond. Not to mention (Spoilers) the climax of the film is literally Swan tied up and gagged in a building rigged to explode with a countdown timer. (End of Spoilers) Seriously.

And of course, we get the Aston Martin. After all the build-up and release of the new DB10, which was made pretty much for the film, you’d expect a lot from it. It does get a car chase, even with some gadgetry which greatly pleased my inner child, but it’s over so quickly; (Spoilers if you care about cars) Bond just dumps the car in the river after the brief chase and that’s it. Finished. This film, that was supposed to act as the main advertisement for the car, gives it barely fifteen minutes of screen time before trashing it. As a lover of Aston Martins, it was quite a disappointing dismissal of such a great looking car. And I'm really not comfortable with this trend of destroying the Aston Martin; it happened in Casino Royale and Skyfall as well, and I still find the DB5 being wrecked more emotional than M’s death. But then I'm weird like that. (End of Car Spoilers)

Lastly, the violence. It is a grittier more violent imagining of Bond as previously discussed, and now we've secured the 12A rating as a default, the violence wants to stretch its arms a bit, which I fully endorse. And some moments, such as Bond’s torture scene are particularly hard to watch, and Blofeld’s scarred eye looks fantastic. But there’s one particular moment that stands out as not quite hitting the mark. At the SPECTRE meeting, some unfortunate man gets his eyes gouged by a large burly black dude. Of course. However, this act is pathetically tame, to a nearly humorous degree. It probably doesn't help that I saw a similar act in Game of Thrones earlier that week (yes, I'm a little behind; cut me some slack) which was, of course, much more graphic. Just a decent sound effect or two would have helped. Especially thinking of a similar scene in Blade Runner; it’s not on screen particularly (unless you’re watching The Final Cut) but there’s enough information and sound effects to be suitably graphic without being as excessive as Game of Thrones. Maybe they tried to make it worse but were threatened with the 15 rating. Either way, it looks a bit pants as it is, and I can’t help but find it slightly comical, which I'm pretty sure isn't what they were going for.

Well, that about sums up all my main observations. It’s pretty safe to assume anything I didn't mention was generally sound (a good rule of thumb with my discussions). Overall, it’s definitely worth seeing, especially if you’re a fan of Bond, but don’t go in expecting Casino Royale. However, judging by the pattern that’s emerging, the next film (also to be Craig’s last) looks like it’s going to be fantastic, so let’s hope 2018’s entry really delivers. Okay, I think I've definitely exceeded what can be considered a ‘short’ review so we’ll close here for today. Besides, I've got some albums to revisit…

Spectre - 2015 – Sam Mendes - English

Score:   7

Recommendation: Medium

EDIT:  Oh yes, forgot to mention; the new theme song. While it has a decent tune and lyrics, it’s sung awfully. I don’t know who this Sam Smith guy is, but his ‘balls trapped in a vice’ singing style really doesn't do it for me, especially for a Bond song, which generally have deeper vocals. Get Adele back, she actually did it pretty well.