Rock'em sock'em robots: Real Steel

I first heard about this movie about two years ago when people were talking about a rock'em sock'em robots movie, my preconceptions were that this would be Wolverine Origins with robots. I was happily surprised by this film, it has solid acting, good special effects and unlike the last boxing movie I saw that has a boy re-connect with his dad (The Champ) nobody died.

So what did this movie do with my favourite cinematic genre, robots beating lumps out of one another? Actually it did it well, it managed to make the action/plot development balance that was sorely missed in the Transformers movies. The robots look good and the plot makes the film worth watching, this movie may just be the Rocky Balboa of robot films.

Hugh Jackman's deadbeat dad Charlie manages to become a likeable character despite running out on his kid and not wanting to be a father, his preformance reminds me of Drover from Australia in a rough man that tries to do his best for those he loves. Dakota Goyo pulls off the emotionally needy Max, he counterbalances Jackman's cynicism with youthful singlemindedness and workes to achieve his father's dream of boxing gold. 

The movie is essentially a family feel good film with enough to entertain every member of the family from the child to the most jaded parent. It is designed to be entertaining at every point and delivers on this plan, wheither it's the romance, the action  or even the family values parts.


The only issue I would have with this film is that it is very like Rocky Balboa; the romance between jackman and is awkward, it seems a little tacked on and is only shown for one fleeting moment in the middle and again at the end. In fact the reasons I think I liked this film so much is that it is Rocky Balboa if you merge one or two characters then it really is the same.

So my verdict is that this film is worth watching, it hits the buttons and makes you happy. It's flashy looks and tried and tested story works out really well. If you watch any robot fighting movie this year watch this one.

Fright Night - An irishman leaving his mark on impressionable youths

The original film wasn't a favourite of mine to begin with but I am not one to throw the baby out with the bathwater; this film seems to have been a by the numbers film that like the original includes all the clichés but never tries to be original or clever. The main characters are suburbanites played by American teens (or at least the actors that pass for teens these days); they do a poor job of creating any likeable characters so you don't really mind them all being torn apart by Jerry the local undead. The only actors that are enjoyable are from this side of the pond, Tenant’s phoney illusionist with his drunken ranting and diva attitude and Farrell’s vampire who seems to be the biggest dickhead to roam the earth.

Collin Farrell has been in some great movies, some good movies and Miami Vice; this film is a little short of In Bruges or Tigerland. Jerry(Farrell) strides through the film like a casual predator killing for sport while people throw everything they have at him, Farrell has this monster down to a tee and leaves you feeling he’s looking at you like a piece of meat. He toys with Charlie the protagonist and enjoys messing with people’s heads and is unfortunately for all the others easily the best character in the film.

Tenant plays an alcoholic vampire hunter with a score to settle; the thoroughly useless way he goes about his life and fighting the vampires left me holding my sides at times. He bursts into the film with screams of abuse and drunkenly throwing shapes and exits the film in much the same manor. Tenant manages to bring the most tongue in cheek send up of the rockstar lifestyle since Spinal tap when he is heavily adjusting himself while complaining of the rashes his leather pants cause. What I find interesting is that his character’s history with Farrell makes him the most interesting and fleshed out of the human characters.

Anton Yelchin’s Charlie is not much of a character and in fact the as the protagonist wasn’t someone you could relate to, he is the nerd that ditched his friends to date a pretty girl and he doesn’t make me want to see him win, I actually wanted to see Jerry tear him in two. This is probably the first time I have not liked his portrayal of a character I don’t think he is to blame and it may have been directorial issues. He seems to flat and buttoned down and in every scene I am just waiting for him to explode to life.

Christopher Mintz-Plasse (“Evil Ed Lee”) is wasted until the film jumps from trying to be atmospheric to being an action packed gore fest. This is someone we all remember from his iconic McLovin and I know he is an hilarious actor but it seems that he was hired for five minutes of comedic action the in the end seem far too tacked on.

Imogen Poots and Toni Collette play Charlie’s girlfriend and mother and while both do nothing to earn my ire they have both give far better performances in the past. Poots especially seemed very wooden in charged scenes when everyone else was having a force five freak out. Their stillted dialogue and awkward moments are lacking in a way that makes me glad those fleeting moments on the screen are just fleeting.

To close this crypt with the moan of badly oiled hinges; I found that the first hour of the film was dull and lacked pacing and then somebody gave the writer a copy of Blade and said “Make them do this”. The jarring leap from horror to camp action film was enough to propel me to the end of the film like a mainline of adrenalin, in fact if they had done the entire film in the same way this would have been excellent. In the end this film is a fine watch but not for reasons other than blind luck.

The Guard - big trouble in Leitir Móir

When I think of rural Galway, I think of rain, drinking, rain, Gaeilgeoirs, rain and misery. I don't think of action films, lest of all I don't think of an action film with an irreverent garda mouthing off at everyone.

This film has an amazing cast; Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Liam Cunningham and Mark Strong are the main players in this little dance. Gleeson is the stereotypical garda, he throws his weight around curses, insults and whores it up. His off the wall character is balanced by Cheadle's straight man act, which leads to the perfect clash of cultures when the two are in the pub throwing it back and forth. Gleeson manages to be the personification of political incorrectness and to pull it off effortlessly.

Cunningham and Strong play the drug dealers, Cunningham is great as a cheeky Dublin scumbag and himself and Strong are the perfect team both clever intelligent and unable to comprehend the incompetence of the Gardai. The best dialogue belongs to Strong when he is giving a bribe and is choking on his rage at the stupidity of the people he is working with.

This film is a beautifully crafted art piece which manages to make the buddy film work; it isn't just pure comedy and manages to have dark and brooding in places. From the trailer you'd think Gleeson's character is all fun, games and sex; while in reality he is a complicated character who is able to be honest and gentle, he has to deal with serious feelings of loss and regret as the film goes on.

What I was surprised by was how the movie showcases the idiosyncrasies of the west and takes a swipe at the way Irish people deal with certain things. The casual way that Irish people deal with racism in their daily lives; the casual comments about English people when describing Strong's character, the comments about America and the classy lines Gleeson throws out during a briefing. My favourite part of the film shows the parochial nature of some Irish people, the refusal to talk to the "blow-ins"; when answering the door to Cheadle a family of gaeilgheoirs refuse to talk to him in English. Their refusal not to talk is not rooted in a dislike of the duinne gorm but in their genuine belief that being Irish means speaking Irish and that you can go to England if you want English.

I can't describe how good this film truly is, it keeps you laughing and on the edge or your seat for the next quip or jib. The best thing about this film is Gleeson's performance, he is the quintessential guard he may let things slide but he is out to protect the people of the community, he even deals with the IRA but in a way that brow beats them into leaving him be. What I enjoyed most from the performance was the constant question of whether or not he is playing the fool or indeed is one, which face he wears on the inside I’ll leave to you to decide.

The art of getting by - Boy meets girl, girl meets boy, things happened.

I do find the romantic film to be full of clichés, the way you can tell the story completely before you watch it, the characters are laid out and the attraction is seen, the relationship blossoms and then falls apart. The final act shows them despite all the hardships fate (or a vindictive writer) has put in their path getting back together and realising that they do love one another.

This movie at least was a break from that, it has good subplots to the romance that are well done and each leaves you feeling that the characters are more then what you see on the screen, that they are real not just realistic. Freddie Highmore plays the main character with such apathy to the world that seems to have been distilled from an entire generation of teenagers. His character lacks any motivation and seems to be coasting his way through school, so much so that he seems to have few if any friends before he meets the socially adept Sally played my Emma Roberts.

While the love is blossoming George is threatened with suspension due to not having done any homework that year and agrees to a job that leads him to meet his pathetic and kinda creepy foil Dustin the struggling artist. His friendship with Dustin turns sour and leads to the one part of Highmore's performance that I wasn't sold on; his portrayal of depression seems too clinical.

The other important plot that the film covers quite well is George's family life, with his mother and stepfather fighting over money troubles and his problems with school. His mother finds it harder and harder to relate to him and grows apart from his stepfather. This plot culminates in a scene that perfectly captures the mind of a teenage boy where he and his stepfather end up brawling over who is the biggest mess up, I am sure Freud would have a field day on this scene.

Like a couple, five or six years older, George and Sally go for drinks and talk about life and how they see the world. The relationship with Sally has a bittersweet ending and the two characters reconcile their love for one another as George manages to pull it together in the end to finish his high school workload. It feels in places as if Gavin Wiesen has ported a college relationship back to high school due to the maturity that George and Sally deal with their relationship. The moments where they are alone together seemed to be two teenagers playing scenes written for adults, when the characters reconcile they seem to act in a maturity that is beyond their years.

In general this is a good film that maps the hardships of an atypical teenage romance. I found it funny and at times really felt for the characters, definitely worth a watch and will not leave you disappointed even if it seems a little confused about what age the characters should be.

Apollo 18 - Why we shouldn't go back to the moon

Having just watched Apollo 18, this summer's found footage romp in space, I am left ambivalent.

The film itself does have a new take on the found footage idea, the guy's are in space but like previous found footage movies it fails to evolve a suitably scary atmosphere.

*SPOILERS*

The actors do a reasonable job of making their characters believable and sell the paranoia that they begin to suffer from but the monsters are not something I could buy into. Warren Christie's panicked sprint to for escape as Ben Anderson, is well done and you can hear the panic in his voice, his manor in interacting with Lloyd Owen's Walker shows a man desperately trying to deal with the unknown while woefully ill-equipped to do so. His final scene in the film though is poor to say the least, not because of his acting but because the shaken and blurred bleed out while he screams his final seconds away has never been an adequate way of ending a main characters life.

Lloyd Owen manages to do two things in this film, first he pulls off a good American accent the second is to convince you he is losing grip on reality as he succumbs to the deadly space monsters. His freaking out while a creature crawls around his suit comes the closest to unsettling me in the entire film; his words fill your mind with claustrophobic sense of being locked in a room crawling with insects. His decent into madness peaks when he trashes the Lander to "stop them seeing me" is well done but the pacing leaves it isolated as a good scene in a sea of slow moving filler.

 

The monsters are spider-like creatures that hide as rocks and live in the craters around the moon's south pole (don't even get me started on the science problems), it's appearance in Walker's helmet and infecting his body only to burst out of his body at the end is very Alien and left me wondering why they didn't leave walker dead when the monsters dragged him into the dark rather a weak remaking of John Hurt's iconic scene. All in all the monsters couldn't get me scared and I felt they didn't gel well with the atmosphere and the scene of dread the movie tried to provide.

My conclusion of the film is that while the monsters were not very good and the film seemed to be based on the ranting of conspiracy theorists, it was a distracting watch but not something I would ever advise you to watch.