BLITZ- Review

Ali Plumb wrote a blog entry last week on Empire Online, praising Jason Statham. The point that really stuck with me, from that entry, was that "he is his own genre". People know what to expect from a Jason Statham movie, and unless that movie is Gnomeo & Juliet, they're certainly going to get it. Blitz is what happens when the satisfaction of those expectations collides with an adaptation of a Ken Bruen novel.

Statham plays DS Brant, a bullish copper who treats South East London like his very own china shop. His station is currently under scrutiny from the press as a result of Brant's very public displays of police brutality towards criminals. While trying to lay low, a murderer calling himself Blitz begins a killing spree, picking off police officers methodically. Teamed with a strait-laced inspector, Brant seeks to bring Blitz to justice, through fair means or foul.

If regular readers of my reviews are wondering why the name of novelist Ken Bruen sounds so familiar. He's the guy who wrote the novel London Boulevard was based upon, and also serves as executive producer on Blitz. Nathan Parker, who wrote Moon, follows William Monahan in writing a rubbish script that happens to come from one of Bruen's novels, and that's a coincidence I shan't ignore. While I haven't read any of Bruen's work, these two recent films based on his books both have the most threadbare stories, reinforced only by the misplaced talents of the cast and crew.

Here's a Thing, that's happened in superhero movies of late. Back in the days when it was Adam West or even George Clooney playing Batman, it was all very frothy stuff. But now, we have Christian Bale as the Dark Knight. Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man, Edward Norton was the Hulk, Andrew Garfield is going to be Spider-Man- all properly great actors who up the philosophical quotient of these comic book adventures and open them up as more acceptable guilty pleasures to more snobby audiences. And with the arrival of Blitz, I can't help but wonder if London Boulevard marked the start of a similar trend in low-rent British crime movies.

Not that this is unfamiliar territory for Aidan Gillen, whose character is pretty much represented as a poor man's Batman villain, alias and methodology and all. Gillen acquits himself best, having always quite easily crossed between roles in films like this and 12 Rounds, and lauded television like Queer as Folk and The Wire. His character may be written as a cod-Heath Ledger’s Joker, but his performance is much more. Given the calibre of the rest of the cast, their performances are lesser.

Paddy Considine manfully manages the marginalised role of a homosexual policeman who apparently comes to see Brant's way as the correct way- think “the right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power way” again. Ridiculously named "Porter Nash", it's a waste of a fine actor in a role that effectively stops developing once the film's buddy cop movie strand aborts, to make way for more gritty and violent stuff. The particular talents of the always watchable Statham are put to good use, even if it’s in a pretty unlikeable role.

The idea of the archaic cop who gets the right results isn’t exactly untested, having been refined to a high art form by Phillip Glenister’s portrayal of DCI Gene Hunt, but it’s really old hat in films by now. Plus, everyone we meet from the force seems affably corrupt in one way or another in this film, so what is there for Brant to rebel against? As a result, Brant is such a cartoon grunt that it would be out of character for him to have anything more than grudging acceptance of Nash's sexuality and ideological differences, at a point where the film intends to appear all equal opportunities for about ten seconds. Instead, it backfires, coming across with a condescending and surprised inflection that gay men are apparently just as capable as all other men. The very idea!

So this isn't the more enjoyable vehicle for Statham that I wanted to see when I finished watching The Mechanic. The visceral nature of the violence demands that we take it entirely seriously, which makes all the one-liners and trademark Statham moments quite jarring. The plot hares off all over the place, just like London Boulevard, with many abortive plotlines that pad out the running time to where it feels long at a mere 97 minutes. It feels like a too-faithful adaptation of a book in its construction, which I can't confirm because I never, ever want to read any of Bruen's stuff.

While the idea of a Dirty Harry-style series of British cop movies with Jason Statham in the lead role is quite appealing, Blitz ain’t the start of anything. In fact, it barely ends, limping to an unsatisfying conclusion after what feels like an age. The film is also one of those British crime movies that's too much of a British crime movie, as we know them. The tropes are tired, and only the frequently unfulfilled promise of the actors involved is new. It’s violent, it’s dumb and, if you like it, it's the guiltiest of pleasures- but like the other recent Ken Bruen outing, it's far too ugly a film to really enjoy.

Blitz is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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 I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

ATTACK THE BLOCK- Review

Nestled into a cushy niche in the hectic release schedule of summer 2011, Attack the Block arrives in cinemas and immediately announces itself as the film to beat, between now and September. I've made no secret of the fact that I've really been looking forward to this feature debut from Joe Cornish, of Adam and Joe fame, and happily it measures up to expectations.

The bones of the story are essentially like the basis for a Battle: Brixton movie, as an alien spore containing a vicious man-eating beast plummets into the midst of a South London council estate, interrupting a mugging. The muggers, five teenagers who live on the block, are attacked by the beast, but are able to overpower and kill it. As the kids celebrate their trophy, they don't realise that more spores are on the way- much bigger spores.

The immediate problem that some will have with Attack the Block is that we're expected to sympathise with chavs. There's more to them than that, but the characters are still chavs. Nevertheless, there's a case to be made that both the film's detractors and Cornish's script are guilty of simplifying the character types. To those who are too easily reminded of Eden Lake, and of course the yobs they've encountered in real life, the parallel is set up very early on through a middle aged woman calling the kids "fucking monsters". And then the real monsters turn up.

That concept of "inner city vs. outer space" is innovative and interesting enough that the hero yobs never irked me when they weren't supposed to. On the other hand, we do first meet them as they mug the supposed audience identification figure, a nurse called Sam, played by Jodie Whittaker. This is so harsh an introduction that the film spends a lot of time trying to reconcile the muggers and the victim when they're forced to unite, and these are the only times in which the film rings slightly false.

That's really the full extent of the potentially problematic stuff in Attack the Block, which is as bold and accomplished a debut as Richard Ayoade's Submarine, with all the ambition and technical aptitude of Duncan Jones' Moon. Cornish blends easily with that new wave of British filmmakers dedicated to ambitious and commercial projects that don't forsake storytelling, or that British sense of humour. His brilliant work re-enacting popular blockbusters using only toys in his bedroom on The Adam and Joe Show has somehow translated into a live-action visual sense that outdoes most of the film's relevant contenders in the very first shot.

However, virtually nobody else out there is making British films as ambitious as Cornish has. And under the Spielbergian touches, such as that sumptuous establishing shot that opens the film, there's the entirely valid current of social commentary. John Boyega, Simon Howard, Leeon Jones, Alex Esmail and Franz Drameh may not play hoodies you can hug, but they're all rounded and distinctive characters, equally capable of being despicable, as in the beginning of their journey, and heroic. It's only a shame that the portrayal of yobs on screen will conflict so wildly with the cinema behaviour of the audience it will attract.

It comes in at a lean, mean 88 minutes, and it's all muscle. Nothing's gratuitous, as we zip from the streets to the 19th floor of the block at the break-neck pace of a modern Doctor Who episode, while keeping the stakes high and the characters in mortal peril. The 15 certificate isn't merely for strong language and drug references- the violence of these gloriously designed creatures is faithfully represented, blood and guts and all. The film gets away with not probing the aliens too deeply on the strength of that eccentric character design and the sheer brilliance of the action choreography. 

Attack the Block is a curiously difficult film to define. It's not a ribald comedy, but it is funny. It's not a sci-fi film, but it does have aliens in it. It's not an outright horror, but it consistently jolts you out of your seat. Dismissing issues of genre, it's simpler to say that it's a stupefying success from a director who wastes no time proving that he's enormously talented and refreshingly optimistic. Cornish is also a good enough writer to ensure that the characters are accessible to anyone who's willing to take a chance on some unconventional movie heroes, in a film that's as cinematic as British cinema gets. Your move, Super 8.

Attack the Block is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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 I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

13 ASSASSINS- Review

It was announced last week that the director of The Tournament, Scott Mann, who hails from my hometown, has signed up to direct a modern remake of Seven Samurai. Yeah, that Seven Samurai. It's not to say it won't turn out perfectly fine, but it's difficult to discount that we've already had The Magnificent Seven and even A Bug's Life, as well as a period piece set in Japan that owes a debt to Kurosawa's original, 13 Assassins.

Young Lord Naritsugu enjoys a position of privilege above practically everyone else, because he is the younger brother of the Shogun, and so his life is sacred. Unfortunately, he's also a sadistic monster who murders and destroys at will. As the age of the samurai is on the way out, an old samurai named Shinzaemon is hired to assassinate Naritsugu. He discreetly recruits 12 more assassins to his suicide mission and prepare for a confrontation.

The version of 13 Assassins now playing in UK cinemas is 126 minutes long, and it's comprised of one part historical politics and one part balls-to-the-wall, headsploding, sword-slicing mayhem. Seasoned director Takashi Miike has constructed what some are calling his masterpiece, and not without good reason. The plot, with all of its historical implications and faith to the political entanglements of feudal Japan, is deceptively simple. The first hour serves to develop the characters, and all else is a sustained battle sequence that is just awe-inspiring.

Although I maintain that the film owes a very clear debt to the formula of Seven Samurai, it's also a film that throws in a flaming stampede of cows to prefix its centrepiece action sequence. Just to repeat that- the cows are on fire. Samurai films may be nothing new, and this may repeat elements of previous outings, but it has cows on fire. Its surprisingly funny and always innovative moments of spectacle are what set it apart.

It's unfortunate that the titular assassins are less distinctive from one another. Seven Samurai has almost half as many protagonists and it's a much longer film, so it's far more difficult to fully characterise every single one of Shinzaemon's mates. Naturally, the eccentric loon, as played by Toshirô Mifune in Kurosawa's film and by Yûsuke Iseya in this one, stands out. The rest are less lucky, and it's easy to lose sight of who's dead and who's alive in the final melee. On the plus side, Kôji Yakusho makes Shinzaemon a well-rounded character, particularly in his stand-offs with the baddies.

Almost as if to compensate for the vagaries of all those protagonists, Shinzaemon has a conflicted friendship-cum-rivalry with Hanbei, a former samurai who works as an adviser to Naritsugu that's really quite transfixing. These two men strategise against one another with utterly opposed objectives, and it's their story that really comes to the fore. Gorô Inagaki must also be applauded for his deliciously villainous turn as Naritsugu, a villain you really can't wait to see getting his comeuppance. It only makes that extended climax sweeter.

Although you have more to go on from their motivation than you do from the characters of most of our titular 13 Assassins, Miike has made a triumphant tribute to the samurai epic. It is ludicrously enjoyable, inventively choreographed and just an all-around satisfying movie experience. More importantly, it's a film with all the trappings of a modern classic. For a director as prolific as Miike, that's something very special indeed.

13 Assassins is now playing in select cinemas nationwide. It will also be released on DVD and blu-ray on September 5th.
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I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

HANNA- Review

Hanna may be seen as an unusual outing for director Joe Wright, who has in recent years given us Pride and Prejudice, Atonement and The Soloist. But nevertheless it's an action-packed antithesis to several recent rubbish films that purportedly had themes of female empowerment and independence, like Sucker Punch and Red Riding Hood.

It’s a modern fairytale that sees a young girl rescued from a wicked witch by her kind father. The modern part is that they hide in the North Pole. And the witch is ruthless CIA Agent Marissa Viegler. And the kind father, Erik, has been training Hanna’s body and mind to be the ultimate killing machine, to wreak revenge upon "the witch". When she's unleashed upon the world, and Marissa and her cronies begin to hunt her, she begins to adapt to life outside of her spartan existence to discover culture and companionship.

First and foremost, Hanna is a character-driven drama, which suits Wright's palette a little better than, say, The Expendables would have. But it's also a character-driven drama that happens to have an awful lot of kick-ass action sequences. In a way that is entirely unexpected, Wright announces himself as an action director to be reckoned with, fully capable of developing strong and empathic characters and shooting fight scenes that aren't shot two inches away with a shakycam, a la Bourne.

As we understand the story, Hanna views the world, and her revenge mission, through the prism of the stories of the Brothers Grimm, one of the few indulgences that her father seems to have allowed her as he constantly sneak-attacks the girl to prepare her for the future. The fairytale elements of the story are not always subtle, but they can always be appreciated. Unlike the grand histrionics of Red Riding Hood, it actually does bring an implicit coolness to the modern fairytale approach, with a script that’s strong regardless of how blatant the Grimm references may be.

Hanna also supersedes Sucker Punch by empowering a character who just happens to be female, without sexualising or objectifying her to remind us that she's only a silly woman or anything like that. Saoirse Ronan is an actress I really enjoy watching, and she’s on stunning form here. By turns, she's Hit Girl from Kick-Ass and Daryl Hannah in Splash adjusting to the complexities of the world around her without even having to don burlesque outfits or retreat into some imaginary bordello. Even Hanna’s partial sexual awakening as she encounters her first true friend is remarkably tasteful and heartwarming.

Eric Bana shows off his seldom aired action chops and Cate Blanchett makes for a despicable witch. As Ronan, Bana and Blanchett orbit around one another on their respective missions, the film’s 111 minutes flies by. Its pace is abetted even further by the work of Tom Hollander, who is equally camp and sinister as the tracksuited German henchman, Isaacs. His whistling of his character's leit-motif is both creepy and jaunty at the same time, and he injects some fun into the drama.

There’s also a soundtrack from The Chemical Brothers that stands out as one of the best scores since Daft Punk’s efforts on Tron: Legacy. Like that score, this one has been much discussed in the initial hype around Hanna, to the point where even I had bought the album and listened to it all the way through before seeing the film. Perhaps that's why I noticed how Wright wisely holds back that score until Hanna blazes into civilisation. In early scenes, she professes an interest in music that is meticulously paid off throughout the rest of the film as she discovers the rest of the world that has been kept from her.

Hanna isn’t without minor flaws, but it’s astonishingly well-executed, considering the recent raft of lesser films with similar themes. Hanna's simple interest in music and culture might go over the heads of some popcorn-munchers, but it's a deeply arresting and intelligent action drama in which the character is placed paramount, above the fisticuffs or the spectacle. It's surprising enough that the film got out with a 12A, considering some of the strong violence on show, but it's more surprising as a reinvention of Joe Wright the period drama director, into Joe Wright the action director.

Hanna is now playing in cinemas nationwide.
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I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

SUCKER PUNCH- Review

I like Zack Snyder. I don't think he makes guilty pleasure films, except for maybe 300- I think he makes visually exciting and generally very well-made adaptations. Dawn of the Dead, Watchmen, Legend of the Guardians and yes, 300 too, are all fine adaptations from what you could call difficult source material, in terms of their baggage if not in terms of their suitability for the screen.

While Snyder might be amongst the best in the business for adaptations, his new film Sucker Punch is all his, and so his visionary side takes a lemming-like leap into the depths of narrative incoherence. Baby Doll is a 20 year old girl who is left with her younger sister and her abusive stepfather when her mother passes away. When the stepfather attempts to rape the sister, Baby Doll snaps and he commits her to an insane asylum, on the fast track for a lobotomy. She then retreats inside her own mind in order to go on an epic quest to secure her own freedom.

Not everyone hates Sucker Punch. That's gonna surprise certain film fans, who should by now be familiar with the vitriol that has greeted this film since its release in the States a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, the audience with whom it's most successful is made up of males aged 13-25, an audience who are not exactly poorly served by the cinema of delights such as Transformers. Worse still, Zack Snyder has been telling anyone who'll listen that this is a story of female empowerment.

Female empowerment is a thorny subject. Last week, I read a blog post by filmmaker and Nostalgia Chick Lindsay Ellis, who speculated that even women now find it difficult to write their own gender because female characters are judged more stringently than male characters. Ellis contrasts Robert Langdon, a vacuous mush of a character created by Dan Brown, with Bella Swan, a vacuous mush of a female character created by Stephanie Meyer. The gender distinction is there in popular criticism, and as I'm not a woman, it makes it all the more difficult to talk about why I don't think Sucker Punch works from a position whereby certain women won't get angry and certain men won't call me some kind of Democrat.

Here's the very simple maths of why it lost me. Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens and Jamie Chung are our leads, and they're all very attractive young women. I don't phrase it like that from the position of someone trying to be diplomatic about gender equality, but from the position of someone who was utterly disinterested in the film. The reason? Their characters are all objectified by Snyder's lens, and it's as objects that they're on a par with Charles Foster Kane's sledge, or the One Ring, or any other narrative object that would be as difficult to root for if we were expected to empathise.

And so as these sexy young ladies plough through a cavalcade of admittedly gorgeous action sequences, involving undead Nazis, robots, samurai, dragons and fighter planes, it's deceptively boring. It's like a picture of a beautiful woman- a representation of what is good looking about that person, but without any personality. More than that, it is extraordinarily contrived, taking on a fetch quest mechanic that really would have made it more suitable for a video game endeavour by Snyder rather than a movie.

The imagined reality angle has led some to compare the film to Inception as both a negative or a positive comparison, depending on if they disliked the film or if they're 13 years old. To me, I was reminded of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, if only because this is a succession of video game setpieces, but sans any hint of humanity. It is lifeless in a way that Edgar Wright's film was not, and the distinction between them should be greater than it will probably end up. This one's really more like Repo! The Genetic Opera, an overrated film with a much greater cult following than Sucker Punch will ever accrue.

In all fairness to Snyder, his film was hobbled slightly by poor test screenings, which led to studio interference with the final cut. Although an even longer musical version of this film doesn't sound too appealing to me, I can at least appreciate that this ain't entirely what Snyder wanted to do. For another thing, movies have more financial taboos about their ratings system than video games, and Sucker Punch is further crippled in its grislier aspects by the 12A certificate. There are about five or six attempted rapes in the film, and in order to avoid a higher rating, that's an act which only becomes as threatening or as damaging as walking towards someone slowly with a creepy grin.

There's only so much damage that could have been done to Sucker Punch by the studio, because I struggle to pinpoint the salvageable stuff in this indefensible folly. The cinematic visuals can only make for a plot as absorbing as a music video, when combined with shonky dialogue and plot twists and dreadful sexual politics that are nigh on unforgivable in a film trumpeted as a piece of female empowerment. It's a piece of something, alright. It's a catastrophic misstep that, whether intentionally or not, values upskirt shots far above character development, and it's an embarrassment to all concerned.

Sucker Punch is now playing in cinemas nationwide.
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I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

SOURCE CODE- Review

Duncan Jones properly makes a name for himself with Source Code- and goodness knows it's not easy to make a name for yourself when your birth name is Zowie Bowie. After his astonishingly good debut Moon in 2009, he takes on a bigger budget to direct Jake Gyllenhaal as an Air Force helicopter pilot who's drafted into a top secret government science project.

Captain Colter Stevens wakes up on board a commuter train, in a body that is not his own. Everyone else sees him as the man he appears to have inhabited, a teacher called Sean Fentress, including Sean's colleague Christina. Eight minutes later, the train explodes, bombed by an unknown attacker. In a cramped capsule at a government facility, Colter is repeatedly put through those eight minutes by a technology called source code, with the goal of discovering the bomber's identity before he strikes again in the real world.

Following The Adjustment Bureau and Limitless in recent weeks, Source Code presents itself as another more intelligent sci-fi, driven by characters and generally very well executed. Duncan Jones is once again directing from a script that is not his, but he still indelibly makes it his own film. It shares some of the same themes as Moon, and some selected shots of Jake Gyllenhaal in isolation that echo those in the earlier film.

Of the script however, it has to be said that the wrong director could have easily gone off the rails with it. Imagining Tony Scott directing this script is a concept that... well, it's actually remarkably like Deja Vu, a Scott film in which frequent collaborator Denzel Washington plays a cop tasked with travelling back in time to prevent a terrorist attack. The easy distinction to make here is that Source Code does not uphold the idea that the past can be changed, instead opting for a multiversal approach.

Each time Colter attempts his mission, it creates a new reality, and there's always the sense that those realities go on even after Colter reawakens in his capsule. It's a fascinating conceit, and one that leads to the maximum amount of emotional turmoil for the pilot as he falls in love with Michelle Monaghan's Christina. Monaghan is a vastly underappreciated actress, and she makes the most out of what is essentially an underwritten character, getting the audience on-side from the offset.

Gyllenhaal is less distinctive but no less accomplished in the lead role. Jones' leading man from Moon, Sam Rockwell could arguably have pulled it off better, but it's certainly not bad casting. It pains me to say that the single instance of bad casting, which almost pulled down the whole movie for me, involves the usually reliable Jeffrey Wright. He channels Shatner as Professor Rutledge, hamming it up in a performance that really belongs in another movie. By contrast, Vera Farmiga, with whom he shares most of his scenes, is the very picture of restraint and consideration.

The best thing to say in the film's favour is that it never seems repetitive, even for a moment. This is a plot that is predicated upon a character repeating the last eight minutes of a man's life ad infinitum, doing things a little differently each time, and it always feels fresh. The premise reminded me a little of Quantum Leap, and to that effect, Jones cast Scott Bakula in a short cameo. That's just one example of the intertextual nous at Jones' disposal, which complements and enhances his visionary approach.

It's a nimble watch at 93 minutes, and as far as its denouement, it seems to occupy the same headspace as Back to the Future. Neither that film nor Source Code particularly bothered to ground the mechanics of their central apparatus in actually established scientific knowledge, and both films circumnavigate their plotholes by being accessible and hugely entertaining. Duncan Jones continues to be an exciting filmmaker, and long may he continue to exhibit his beating heart as much as his brain, in clever and touching sci-fi features like this one.

Source Code is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

BATTLE LOS ANGELES- Review

The makers of Battle Los Angeles have intimated that the Brothers Strause, the directors of Skyline, bailed out of their jobs as special effects artists on this one to make that one. It's an interesting story if true, but now that Battle Los Angeles has been released, it reveals that it is in fact on quite shaky litigious grounds. Skyline might be a little bit like Battle Los Angeles, but then Battle Los Angeles is a lot like many other films.

Aaron Eckhart plays Staff Sgt. Nantz, a Marine who's just handed in his resignation after 20 years of service and has a bad reputation after his last tour of Iraq went badly wrong. Before Nantz can say his goodbyes, however, a meteor shower in close proximity to the coast of Los Angeles prompts a military evacuation of the city, and he's drafted in to help out. But similar meteor showers have occurred all over the world, and it soon transpires that the meteors are cover for an invasion of Earth.

It's unusual for me, to hear a film's music score speak so comprehensively of not only the film's content, but of the film's quality. Brian Tyler, a composer on the likes of the Fast and the Furious franchise and the Final Destination franchise, has turned in the most generic and lazy assault my earholes have endured in a long, long time. We've recently seen a score elevate a film just by its presence, seeing as how Daft Punk's soundtrack to Tron: Legacy was the best and only reason for that film to exist, but Tyler actually creates a problem that brings the film down.

My hatred of the score is the most prominent thing to mention about Battle Los Angeles, because it's really just a big, loud and disengaged disappointment of the worst kind. I went in with a fair bit of anticipation for the film- I had liked the trailers, and I like Aaron Eckhart, and I was absolutely in the right mindset to enjoy it. My experience of watching the film was like constantly running after it and trying to get involved with it, but always being left some distance behind.

It's not that it's an especially complicated film, although its subplots tend to convolve the action, but it was like I was sitting in orbit of the action rather than ever becoming involved with it. There are films that have been likened to watching somebody else play a video game, and to me at least, this film is absolutely that. The cascade of disposable war movie characters are trotted out from the outset, to the point where it's impossible to tell who's getting killed off as the death toll ramps up, at least until the ending where there are only a handful of Marines surviving.

The Battle of the title is definitely the operative part, because the action is near enough relentless, in true video game style. As usual, we're siding with the humans in this battle, even though we get a very interesting aside at the outset of the action. Two snipers sitting atop a building and watching the encroaching aliens mutter about how they don't seem so different, pondering the thoughts and feelings of their opponents, which shows something of the war film the filmmakers were hoping for. The film then drops that thread as though it's a matter of total disinterest to the viewer.

Instead, we're asked to find some kind of relatable quality with characters who bitch about their personal issues with Nantz at a point in which the entire world has gone to hell. These remarkably self-centred characters are utterly ignorant of the huge world-changing events happening all around them. Just as soon as they're not shooting at them or blowing them up, that is. Aaron Eckhart gives a classy performance in a role that fits him like a glove, but Nantz is the only character whose name I wouldn't have to look up afterwards- that's how poorly these characters are developed.

The disinterest in the aliens is staggering. Some might like the way that we never get what anyone would call a satisfactory idea of what these adversaries look like, because they're only ever seen in long shots or extreme close-ups. I can see how some would appreciate being distanced from the aliens in that way, and left to come up with their own idea of what these world-invading bastards look like, but I can appreciate that someone, somewhere, actually gave some thought to the design of these things. So it's all the more maddening that we're supposed to be more interested in the human characters, who all come from Michael Bay's US military porn stock, Nantz excepted.

Battle Los Angeles has a couple of bits of properly exciting action and a decent performance from Eckhart, but all else seems so obnoxiously loud as to actually become quiet. Maybe that's what the excellent trailers were hinting at all along, because there's little of the implied subtlety of the Johann Johannson-scored trailer in the final film. The score is horribly incompetent, the camerawork is shaky and Bourne-like even in supposedly subdued moments and the character development is so negligible that you start to root for the aliens. However this battle turns out, everybody lost in the battle between this film and Skyline.

Battle Los Angeles is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

UNKNOWN- Review

It's been noted that our action stars today are largely Serious Actors. Although you do occasionally get a modern Schwarzenegger or a Van Damme, it's far more common to see a Matt Damon. Someone who nicely crosses between both now and, contrary to common misconceptions, ever since he started in this business, is Liam Neeson.

In Unknown, Neeson is Martin Harris, a professor of biotechnology. Or is he? While attending a summit in Berlin, he's involved in a painful car accident, which leaves him slightly less certain. His confusion is only exacerbated by the fact that his wife Liz doesn't recognise him, and there is another Martin Harris in his place. So it's off around Berlin for the absent-minded professor, with shootouts and fisticuffs aplenty through his quest to recover his identity.

As mentioned, Neeson hasn't just started doing this recently, though Taken was the surprise hit that made him a bankable action star. Although he is arguably most famous for Schindler's List, he's continued to pepper his CV with roles in films like Darkman and Rob Roy. If you do only know Neeson from Schindler's List, it would be wrong to expect anything as serious. However, the film does have a supporting turn from Bruno Ganz, better known for playing Hitler in YouTube rants than for playing Hitler in Downfall, by which logic, you get to see Oskar Schindler pal up with Adolf Hitler.

But the benefit of Neeson's experience is that he goes for roles in which he seems to genuinely find depth of character- he is an actor of great prestige, and his presence alone can really elevate genre films. I'd say that he's good as an action star because he's acquired his skills over a very long career, but I can't be that guy. Reading the interviews he's done to promote Unknown, his reasons for taking this role are related to inhabiting the psychological state of a character who has lost his identity in the most traumatic way imaginable. He's a reliable talent, so once you've pay up and sit down in your cinema seat, you could be forgiven for only then realising the emperor is not wearing any clothes.

Granted, some might say that it's actually over-dressed, but whichever extreme you lean towards, that's problematic for me. The cast are good, not least because it's refreshing to see European actors like Diane Kruger and Sebastian Koch being cast in films like these, rather than accented Americans. Neeson's own American accent isn't exactly the best in the business, but you can see his dedication to the role in his portrayal. Anyway, the competent cast all play characters, and I'm not sure an action film like this works as a character-driven piece- the film is based around Martin Harris and Martin Harris only, and you're not even allowed to forget that when they throw in an arbitrary nasty plan for the eventual baddies of the piece, right before the big climax.

I say all this not because it's a bad film, but because it wasn't engaging enough to distract me from all of the stuff that it had borrowed from other films. It's nothing like the woeful I Am Number Four, not by any stretch, but the film it sounds most like is The Bourne Identity, and it completely conforms to any expectations related to that. Although it has shootouts and fisticuffs and car chases and other interesting stuff, but they all come from Bourne too- the influence of that trilogy on modern action cinema cannot be overstated. Because the regular action sequences are just so regular, there are things I couldn't overlook, and the first was the likeness to Bourne.

The second was the way that this is another film where Liam Neeson has a bone to pick with Europe. In Taken, he tortured every other person he could find in Paris in search of his daughter. Here, he's behaving himself enough that the film gets a 12A rating, but the xenophobia is still there. I know the film's based on a book set in Germany, written by a German author, but I still found it amusing that someone thought of Neeson's name after Taken made a hit out of an (alleged) American going to Europe and causing mayhem.

Unknown would be kind of forgettable- and that pun cannot be avoided, intended or not- but it's bolstered by the presence of Liam Neeson, and some smart casting that doesn't favour whichever US TV actors are waiting around for their next season to start. It's a functional action drama, but the action's a little too derivative to be really exciting and the drama is just a bit predictable after enough time. If nothing else, it keeps Neeson in shape for the upcoming Taken 2, which promises more Euro-phobic hi-jinks, but in the meantime, this is a handy and enjoyable stop-gap.

Unknown is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Unknown, why not share your comments below?

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

DRIVE ANGRY- Review

Last Friday, we figured out that there is no type of bad movie that I hate more than a bad comedy movie. And today, we rediscover the fact that there is nothing in cinema that disappoints me more than when Nicolas Cage just doesn't put the effort in. And in a trashy grindhouse flick like Drive Angry, when everyone else is doing their best, that's just sad.

Cage dons another of his famous wonky hairpieces to play Milton, a dearly departed soul who has broken out of Hell itself on a mission. Cult leader Jonah King and his followers murdered Milton's daughter, and plan to sacrifice her orphaned baby to Satan. So Milton arrives back in the mortal realm, recruits pissed-off waitress Piper and blazes a trail of destruction as he goes after King, for his granddaughter and for his revenge.

The plot is the kind of thing that usually makes for a better trailer than a whole feature film, as was the case with the recent Machete. And it's the kind of thing that really requires a crazy bastard like Nicolas Cage to actually invest in projecting something for the audience to enjoy. There's a case to be made that he's effortlessly cool. I don't know about you, but I found his turn in Drive Angry to be merely effortless.

Luckily, there's a guy on hand who is effortlessly cool, and frankly, he's everything you want Cage to be in this movie. He's William Fichtner, and he plays Satan's right hand man, the Accountant, who's sent after Milton after he breaks free from damnation. Fichtner is a long-serving fixture from various action movies over the years, and he's more than able to give it all he's got in a larger role like this one, elevating the film in times when it seems like Cage didn't really want to be there. He makes this movie

Likewise, I enjoyed Billy Burke's histrionics as Jonah King- if you're wondering where you might know Burke from after seeing him in the trailers, he's Bella's dad off of Twilight. He breaks out of that more well-known character very well as the over-the-top villain of the piece here. It would also be remiss of me to overlook Amber Heard, who's doing a great job with the least of roles. Piper is another of those strong females who you wish could break the fourth wall and kick the cameraman's arse, as any strong female would in reality, if a guy followed her around leching over her good parts with a camera.

We've been into this murky territory before with me bitching about the alleged appeal of Megan Fox in the Transformers movies, and it follows here that Piper is into cars in a big way. My contention here is that Heard is not only much more attractive, but doing a much better performance, giving it her all in a way that most objectified bimbos in action films can't muster. She's the biggest thing on the poster for Drive Angry, obscuring a bored Cage, so it's a shame that the filmmakers were happier to use her looks to market the film than to use her name. Hopefully, she'll get some fame out of this and get some better roles, but I don't think that's how Hollywood works.

Wow, that's more than I would ever have expected to write about the actors in a film called Drive Angry, but what else am I going to talk about? The 3D? In this instance, I suspect the cinema messed up the projection, because despite all of the marketing trumpeting the fact that the film was "Shot In 3D", it looked like the worst of conversions. Lots of ghosting, which got very annoying, and as I haven't heard these complaints anywhere else, I imagine it's the cinema's fault. It demonstrates that multiplexes are making a killing by charging a premium for shoddy 3D, but should it entirely reflect upon the film itself?

Director Patrick Lussier had one of the first Real-D 3D films out of the gate in 2009, with My Bloody Valentine, so he's developed a box of tricks that he uses to full effect here, continuously chucking things at the audience as he did in his previous film. It's a small shame that he dips into Shoot 'Em Up's toolbox too by ripping off that film's raucous sexfight. More pertinently however, he goes back to the same well as Rodriguez and Tarantino have done with their own grindhouse throwbacks, and doesn't end up with a bucket of shitwater. It does have a mild odour to it though- I'd recommend you boil it before drinking it down.

It's a requirement of viewing that you know what you're getting into with Drive Angry, not only in terms of the goofy and old-fashioned plot and the prehistoric attitude to women, but also so that you're not too disappointed when you see Nicolas Cage sleepwalking through it. Amber Heard struggles against the casual misogyny to prove herself as a likeable action heroine, and William Fichtner just owns the entire film whenever he steps on screen. There's already talk of a sequel to this film, but what we really need to see is a spin-off for his character. This one was enjoyable enough, but more of the same would try my patience.

Drive Angry is now showing in 3D at cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Drive Angry, why not share your comments below?

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

THE MECHANIC- Review

Do we have a nickname for Jason Statham yet? I know there's "the Stath", but Van Damme was "the muscles from Brussels" and Schwarzenegger was "the Austrian Oak"- there has to be a better name out there. He's probably done enough to deserve a proper action hardman nickname by now, so someone assign Guy Ritchie, or else send your answers on a postcard.

Statham's latest is The Mechanic, a remake of a 1972 action thriller starring Charles Bronson, and he takes on the title role, as Arthur Bishop. Arthur is a hitman, or "mechanic", who fixes assassinations to look like accidents, and better still, to look like he was never even there. When his mentor is named as his next assignment, he carries out the job, only to feel guilt and responsibility for the guy's slacker son, Steve. Arthur takes on Steve as a protege of his own, trying to give him a direction in life by teaching him how to follow in his father's footsteps.

As with any remake, the first question to ask is why it needs to be remade. Is there anything new to add? Certainly not in The Mechanic, unless you count the presence of the Stath (I'm using that nickname as a placeholder) and a severe dumbing down of the main themes and plot turns of the original film. The result is a film that goes halfway towards existential musings about the stereotypical hitman before plunging off the edge into some diluted version of the stuff with which we normally associate Jason Statham.

I'm a fan of the first instalments in both the Transporter series and the Crank series (haven't seen the other sequels and didn't like High Voltage that much), and so I have a healthy appreciation for Statham's usual OTT action-packed antics. The fun of those films is what The Mechanic lacks in its duplication of that formula. It never goes far enough in one direction or the other to distinguish it as an action-packed character study or as a noisy and enjoyable romp of a thriller.

I seem to remember a time when Ben Foster was touted as the Next Big Thing, but looking at his filmography, I wonder if I might actually have imagined that. He's a good actor, and it's not that good actors are above the likes of Pandorum or 30 Days of Night, but they're the films that Next Big Things do in between the films in which they really, properly get a chance to shine. He's fine in this, but his effectiveness is dulled considerably by playing second fiddle to a meaner, balder and stubblier leading man.

The difficulty with this remake is that it's really difficult to tell why Arthur would carry on teaching Steve what to do after certain mistakes that he makes. After playing Frank Martin and Chev Chelios in separate franchises, Statham's Arthur crystallises somewhere between those roles; between organisation and meticulous attention to detail, and outright fucking insane recklessness. It's also a departure from the cool and disaffected way in which Bronson portrayed the character.

It reminds me of Tony Scott's version of The Taking of Pelham 123, in how that it disassembles its source and puts it back together with automatic deference to every movie cliche that has come into being since the time it was made. This is where much of the story is dumbed down. While the original was hardly what you'd call a women's picture, this new version seems rooted in misogyny, hiding behind the time in which the original was made as an excuse to avoid having to reconstruct female representation as most other films in the last 40 years have. Women are either bargaining chips in testosterone-fuelled stand-offs, or subservient to the men whenever they appear, and that's kind of depressing to see in 2011.

The Mechanic goes by the appearance of having reconstructed the original, but it doesn't actually change enough of what we've seen, and the changes that are made only weaken its standing. A laughable diversion from the original ending just caps off a film that's just not fun enough on the whole to get away with all of its gaping mistakes. The last 12 months or so are what I would call a disappointing year for the Stath, and I hope to see him reaffirm his action hero status with something more enjoyable soon.

The Mechanic is now playing in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen The Mechanic, why not share your comments and Jason Statham nickname suggestions below? It's been a bit of a downer week, this week- I promise tomorrow's review is a positive one.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

The Railway Bastard- UNSTOPPABLE Review

Last week, I likened the writers and director of The Tournament to action maestro Tony Scott. The comparison was meant as a compliment, given how they showed the same technical flair in their very first film, bolstered by hunger for the craft, that so often goes to waste now that Scott himself is at such an advanced stage of his directorial career. Right on time, Unstoppable rolls into the station to show once again how he's really just working on auto-pilot.

On his first day at work, conductor Will is paired with veteran engineer Frank and sent out onto the rails. Coincidentally, today is the day that an unmanned freight train carrying gallons upon gallons of molten phenol, (which might as well be labelled "Chemical X") pounds its way along at over 70mph into a population centre in Pennsylvania, where it will surely cause a terrible disaster. Frank has some ideas about how to stop this railed behemoth, and the two mismatched men must work together to avert railway-related catastrophe.

It's fair to say that Unstoppable is the film I wish Tony Scott had made last year instead of The Taking of Pelham 123, his deplorable remake of one of my favourite films of all time. That's not to say that this film's any good, it's just a hell of a lot more watchable than The Taking of Pelham 123. And I can't tell you what he has against trains, either. It's like watching 98 minutes of an advert for Brawndo, the Thirst Mutilator. It never builds or sustains the kind of tension it's angling for, but it remains an exhausting viewing experience, even for its relatively short length.

Evil! Evil! DIABLO!

The idea of the film is much like the train it centres around. It's essentially a low-grade action thriller that's gathered steam from its inception to its realisation. A monster movie wherein a train is partly personified becomes a much bigger deal when it hoovers up a director of Scott's standing, an Oscar-winning actor who likes to work with that director, a young actor freshly laden with plaudits from his big breakout role and of course, a presumably enormous budget.

And likewise, any given Tony Scott film always feel like an unmanned train in danger of exploding violently. He's directed enough action films- you would hope by now that he would have recognisable flourishes, or little visual cues that distinguished him from any number of much younger directors trying to break out of music videos or reality TV highlights reels. There's none of that, and there's no technical aptitude in the editing either- so much of the film takes place through the lens of Fox News (guess who produced this film?), and there's no verisimilitude in the dizzying arrangement of shots. The editing is just highly haphazard and hugely distracting.

Particularly annoying is the old trope of films like these, is to deploy on-screen sluglines whenever we cross an international border or enter a top-secret facility of some description. If all of these sluglines were removed from the film, all you'd need to know is this- Unstoppable takes place in Pennsylvania. If you're keeping track of thrilling locations within Pennsylvania, such as "Fuller Yard" and "Zinc Plant", then I suspect that you're missing the point of the film. That's perfectly excusable though, because so has Scott.

Oddly though, Scott always seems to get his cast to take it seriously. Not that you'd know it from the amount of times Denzel Washington and Chris Pine are reduced to laughing at nothing in a weak attempt to build camaraderie between them. Both actors are individually fine though, and I also give kudos to Rosario Dawson, who gets some really risible dialogue to chew on, like the much-parodied line about the length of the Chrysler Building.

Unstoppable almost works as a comedy purely because the cast are able to convince. It's a film where a train is a monster! People actually try shooting it in order to stop its inexorable momentum! The train is arguably a more comfortably established character than any of the actual people. It should be more bonkers than it actually is, but crucially, it ought to be more fun too. Instead, it's too condescending and headache-inducing for me ever to consider it as fun. Tony Scott once again proves himself to be the master of the adequate actioner.

Unstoppable is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Unstoppable, why not share your comments below? If anyone else wishes that true events were as goofy and bonkers as films that are "Inspired By True Events", join me by the railway tracks tonight, we'll see if we can shoot a train to death, like they do in the film.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

RED (Review= Easily Dismissed)

Every now and then, an otherwise "prestige" actor will do the kind of action flick they would never normally bother with, to help pay the bills. John Malkovich did Jonah Hex, Helen Mirren was in National Treasure 2 and Morgan Freeman had more success with Wanted. Now that Bruce Willis has suddenly become an old guy in the estimation of someone or other at the studio, he teams up with these three for another "team" action movie, RED.

These initials stand for "Retired and Extremely Dangerous", the CIA's tag for its old alumni. Frank Moses is one of these men, and when he entertains a squad of assassins in his home late one evening, he goes on the road to find out why his former employers want him dead. He recruits three R.E.D colleagues and a call centre worker who's also got a hit out on her due to her connection with Moses.

Do we consider 55-year-old Bruce Willis as an old man now? I'm not delusional, so I realise he's aged since Die Hard, but really? Maybe it's just because he's alongside older actors like Freeman, Mirren and Malkovich, but I didn't really see it. One thing I will say is that I think he's been making slightly poor choices these days. Surrogates and Cop Out were both missteps and although he probably came off best out of The Expendables, that's because The Expendables wasn't very good.

You can see the appeal for him then, in a film where he's perfectly cast as a retired secret agent who's a lot like... well, Bruce Willis. The problem is that this is pitched as another of those "team" movies that have been so popular in 2010, like The Expendables, or The Losers or The A-Team. This film, like those other films, focuses less on why these guys work together and more on individual moments of awesome. So like all of the other team movies of 2010, it feels disparate.

The other three agents are all very good of course. The lateness of my review for RED means that Bob Chipman has already coined the perfect pithy review of the team dynamic on The Escapist, by comparing the characters to their younger counterparts. It's difficult to extricate Malkovich from the comparison to Jason Bourne, making a comic relief character all the more funny with his wide-eyed paranoia and fearless abandon. Helen Mirren is also great, but you kind of wonder where else Morgan Freeman had to be that meant his presence was so fleeting in this one.

The supporting players come across nicely too. I'd never really heard of Mary Louise Parker until I saw this, but I gather that she's great in TV roles too, reminding me once again that I really need to catch up with The West Wing. Karl Urban is at his scene-stealingest best too, especially in a centrepiece throw down with Willis himself that's brutal and well choreographed and, unfortunately, the only really memorable thing about RED.

Don't get me wrong, it's good enough, but it rambles on like Grampa Simpson about chasing the Kaiser- you don't really know what these people are aiming to achieve, but you're just meant to sit back and laugh. I didn't find it consistently funny enough to entirely cover the lack of plot, and there are a couple of irritating augmentative touches that grate all the way through. For instance, the score comes from a shoddier action comedy than this, and it's obscenely obtrusive. This makes the film sound like Cats & Dogs, of all things.

The hierarchy of team movies in 2010 would go, in order of increasing quality, like this- The A-Team, then The Expendables, then The Losers and then RED. It's the best in a very weak field, and you wonder where these four films came from, to arrive within months of each other as they have. It's directed well, and the actors are clearly having fun without annoying the shit out of the audience in the process. It's Routine, Entertaining, but Disposable.

RED is now showing in selected cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen RED, why not share your comments below? If you're waiting for Willis to do another role like The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable, then believe me, so am I.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Rambo 5 (And Friends!)- THE EXPENDABLES Review

As something of a regular disclaimer, it's only my opinion here- others are available. As ever, mild spoilers may occur in the process of reviewing, but never so far as to spoil any major plot developments.
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Action fans can scarcely have missed this, because the most anticipated throwback in cinemas this summer is The Expendables. The titular mercenaries are played by Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews and Randy Couture, so it's a big old clusterfuck of a team-up. They're dispatched to a somewhat fictional South American island to overthrow a dictatorship. No, really, that's it.

If you've been paying attention to the trailers for this film, you'll have noticed the advertising hasn't been heavy on plot. That could mean that it's not giving anything away, which would be good, or it actually means that there isn't much of a plot. I'm sure you'll tell me if I'm wrong, but I thought this should be to action fans what The Five Doctors is to Doctor Who fans, or what the highly anticipated film version of The Avengers will be to Marvel fans. A plot with a central threat and motivation that no single one of these action heroes could have solved on their own, even in their prime, hence the massive collaboration.

Instead, there's a screenplay that bears more than a passing likeness to Rambo, territory we entered just two years ago. Even with a character we knew very well, that film wasn't all that good. And this new one that reminded me as much of Son of Rambow as of Stallone's last outing- the story is the kind of adolescent flight of fancy played so well in that film, but taken much more seriously and done without a flying dog or evil scarecrow.

The difficulty of reviewing The Expendables is in the fact that I'm not going to use the word "awesome" throughout, and that will already get this film's target audience shaking its head and asking what the hell I know anyway. Yeah, it's pretty much review-proof, but hey- I wanted to like this a lot more, so I'll just explain the parts that brought it down for me, and see how that sounds to you.

The violence, which this 15 certificate film was apparently destined to bring back to cinemas in a big way, is pretty routine. I can't deny that the last half hour is a hardcore head-sploding orgasm for action fans, but that's more in choreography than in the actual gore. The gore is cartoonish and, much to my chagrin, CGI. Certain things are done to hundreds of nameless bad guys that you obviously can't do to an actor just to make the film look cool. When have you ever seen CGI fluid dynamics- particularly when blood is involved- done well in live-action? Don't expect The Expendables to be a game-changer on that score.

As you'd suspect from the under-powered plot, it's better in concept than in execution. The promise of bringing a bunch of big action stars together isn't entirely delivered upon, and in any case, there isn't a villain to match up to their combined might. What this needed was a Vernon Wells in Commando or some other over-the-top crazy bad guy right out of the films this is supposed to homage. Crucially, if this had been made in the 1980s or 1990s, it wouldn't be remembered in much higher regard than say, Nighthawks or The Specialist.

And the list of stars who declined to appear is greater than those who consented- bet you miss Jean Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal and Kurt Russell here, for starters. The arguable highlight is the union of the three properly important action stars of the 1980s- Stallone, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'm going to tell you in advance, so you're not disappointed- you've seen the most part of Arnie's cameo in the trailer. What remains isn't special. Never fear though, there's still plenty of Randy Couture! No, me neither. There's  already a sequel mooted, potentially with more action stars along for the ride, but Stallone should really think about utilising them better than he did here before he puts pen to paper.

If you're still shaking your head, you can stop now, because it's really not all bad. Jason Statham is relentlessly watchable in any action film he turns his hand to, and regularly upstages the supposed legends, while Jet Li excels in the position of Stallone's old favourite- the underdog. Any fight scene either of these guys appear in is pretty superb, with Li busting out the martial arts and Statham flinging knives like a man possessed. It's also nice to see Eric Roberts. Not that I want to see him in a film next month, or even next year, but it's good that we get him in small doses, in films like this and The Dark Knight.

Mickey Rourke is the real underused talent in this one too, getting the dialogue that's closest to defining any actual character in this thing. It doesn't help that he shot this at the same time as Iron Man 2 and thus still looks like Whiplash, because it only makes it more obvious that Stallone now looks like someone left Tony Stark out in the sun for too long.

We've seen Stallone act better than this, and he's also written better scripts than this one. Just see how many of the excruciatingly unfunny scenes of camaraderie you can withstand. His direction has its faults, as shaky-cam sits entirely uncomfortably with his brand of action cinema, but I can't fault certain parts of the action choreography. Watch out for the scene that's already being acclaimed as Jason Statham's R2D2 scene.

It's a film where Dolph Lundgren is fourth-billed, showing in cinemas, so to many fans of its stars, the flaws will be the minor part of a gory, hyper-masculine flashback to the films they grew up with. Fewer will notice that Lundgren's character has a patently ridiculous character arc that reaches the absolute apex of stupidity that an action film can reach, with Stallone wanting to feed that character his cake as well as just giving it to him.

For me, The Expendables could have been better. Maybe I just need to quit bitching about a film that's actually pretty substantial and entertaining, but it's a film that I think will suffer from repeat viewings, and which will find a backlash on DVD, once people get over the thrill of seeing violence of this pedigree on the big screen. Especially once they realise there's CG-gore in it.

Then again, the inverse will be true for me. In around three or four years, I'll come in from a night out drinking, complete with takeaway pizza, and this will be on TV. And I bet when that night comes, I'll enjoy the shit out of it.

The Expendables is showing at cinemas nationwide from 18th August.
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If and when you see The Expendables, why not leave a comment on the film and/or my review? Why was I so disappointed? Well, because this trailer gets me more excited than the actual film did!



I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Where The Grass Is Greener

Following the quite fantastic step-up in quality that Paul Greengrass brought to Jason Bourne with the latter two films of that trilogy, he's teamed up with Matt Damon once again to bring us Green Zone, an action thriller set around the conflict in Iraq and the search for weapons of mass destruction.

Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller is getting fed up with the unreliable intelligence his investigation is being hindered by. In questioning the veracity of the source, mysteriously named Magellan, he uncovers the political machinations behind the war and goes rogue to uncover the truth. As something of a regular disclaimer, it's only my opinion here- others are available. As ever, mild spoilers may occur in the process of reviewing, but never so far as to spoil any major plot developments.
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Last week's I Love You Phillip Morris opened with a title card saying "this really happened, it really did", yet somehow this sentiment is more desperately emblazoned across Green Zone. Of course the presumably unforeseen difficulty in bringing the subject matter to the screen is that we don't know everything that happened in the war just yet.

Indeed, the conflict is still ongoing. As yet, it does not have any historical weight, and so as a statement of "this really happened", it has approximately as much value as Titanic.

To say this feels a little harsh on what is essentially a taut and competently realised action thriller, as is expected from Greengrass, but in the wake of The Hurt Locker, it can only be seen that films about the conflict in Iraq are better when they're divorced from the politics.

Moreover, it does border on becoming visually incomprehensible at times. The shaky-cam aesthetic that was so acclaimed in the Bourne films becomes grating here, and certain action sequences are as obscured as watching through the lens of a hyperactive five-year-old jumping up and down in their seat.

This at least is a little more immersive than any 3D film yet released, because if you're really in the middle of a car-chase, there is no tripod holding your head still to calmly take in the action. Nevertheless, using it every time someone walks across a street or gets into a car gets tiring.


There are still some excellent action sequences, particularly the final scramble to extract Magellan from a Baghdad in the midst of a shock-and-awe campaign.

The worst you can really say about Green Zone is that Paul Greengrass makes the best film possible out of a less than inspired concept. The conspiracy element is at its most clunky when it deploys footage of Bush's "Mission Accomplished" fiasco, and it's less a thinking man's action film than a disengaged political statement that often reaches further than it can grasp.

Still, it's technically adept and is bolstered by a number of great performances from Matt Damon, Brendan Gleeson and Greg Kinnear. Jason Isaacs nearly steals the show with some magnificent facial furniture and a flawless American accent.

I have to admit, it's always satisfying even to see a less than brilliant film from Greengrass, whose penchant for realism always results in films that are high in adrenaline and thrills, even if this one is low on actual substance behind its admonitions.

Green Zone is still showing in cinemas nationwide, so if you've seen it, why not share your comments on the film and on my review below?

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.