THE HANGOVER 2- Review

'Four friends go and have a bachelor party ahead of (Name)'s wedding, and wind up having a wild drunken night in (Location). When they wake up the next morning, they have the mother of all hangovers, and find some gangsters are after them, looking for their (Noun). Worse still, they've managed to misplace (Name) and have to find him before the wedding. Oh, and there's a (Animal) in the bathroom.'

The Hangover Part II is, in every respect, mad-lib filmmaking. The structure of this sequel is practically identical to the original film, but this time it's mild-mannered dentist Stu, getting married in Thailand. He reluctantly invites along his best friend Phil and giant man-child Alan, and lives to regret it when they all wake up in Bangkok. Stu's future brother-in-law is missing, and apparently, "Bangkok has him now."

Part of what made The Hangover so enjoyable, for me at least, was how unexpected it was. Some fans are already saying this sequel is better, if the midnight screening crowd at Cineworld in Middlesbrough is anything to go by, and I fully anticipate that those people will say that it's unfair to compare to the original. Worse sequels have had this defence applied, but the similarities are so intrinsic here that it's impossible not to compare.

If this film itself were a hangover, you couldn't have had too much to drink, because prior events in these characters' lives are all too sharp in the viewers' memories. Of course you have to compare this to the original! Expecting otherwise is like expecting someone to like your dog better than any of the other dogs they've ever encountered. If it wags and chases its tail, barks, and has a wet nose, it's still a blimmin' dog. The Hangover Part II is pretty much of the exact same breed as its predecessor, but it's considerably more aggressive.

Director Todd Phillips has been promising that shit gets real when the Wolfpack reaches Bangkok, and that the sequel is wilder, darker and meaner than the original. The middle word there is a particular favourite as abstract concepts go. In all of the things that this one goes further with than The Hangover, it's not really funnier. As mentioned, I enjoyed that film because it was unexpected, but the whole rehash of the original is what lets the comedy down in this one.

The Hangover, in addition to all of its enjoyable performances and quotable dialogue and surreal twists, was a detective story. Our detectives, ably played by Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms, were all hapless and recovering from the biggest night out of their lives, but watching them pull together to solve the mystery worked so well for me because I didn't know where it would go next. Cooper, Galifianakis and Helms are all equally as good here, but in this instalment, I could easily guess where the plot was going.

If your viewing experience is anything like mine, you'll realise this in one of the film's more inventive moments, in which we see a flashback of events up to that point in the film, as re-enacted by young children. It's different, and surreal, and well-executed, but it didn't make me laugh. Some of the best gags are frittered away in the marketing too, like Alan's baldness and Stu's tattoo and the return of Ken Jeong as flamboyant gangster Chow. But the boldness of the film is almost all bravado and no real innovation.

Without the ability to surprise, the film goes in for shock tactics instead. It's harsher, alright, to the point where some will actually be offended. There was no danger of that in Vegas, which is somehow exponentially safer than Bangkok. Also, I know for a fact that a second act twist is lifted wholesale from an early draft of the first film, meaning that the sequel actually mined stuff that wasn't good enough to make it into the original. It's not all bad news though- one of the welcome reprisals of the first film comes in the closing credits montage, and that's easily the funniest part in each film.

The Hangover Part II is remarkably zippy, for a film in which all of the path laid ahead will be predictable to anybody who has seen the first film. I think that comes down to the fact that the performers are still on top form, their camaraderie preserved best of all, alongside just about everything else from two years ago. If Phillips and these guys want to make Part III, more power to them, and I'll see it. But I'd really, sincerely hope that they bring something different along next time. It's More Of The Same, capital M, O, T and S, but if you still really love the first one, I doubt you'll object too strongly to revisiting the Wolfpack.

The Hangover Part II is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen The Hangover Part II, why not share your comments below? I'm taking a week off next week, but I'll return on June 6th with my review of X-Men: First Class.

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

WIN WIN- Review

While smaller British movies about family situations seem to range between the televisual and the brand of urban cinema sent up in Attack the Block, American movies somehow seem to make such stories wholly cinematic. Without getting into cultural differences, that cinematic quality is part of why I quite enjoyed the simple story of Win Win.

Maybe simple is the wrong word, because the plot kind of centres around an escalation of circumstances. Paul Giamatti is Mike Flaherty, a private practice attorney who's having financial difficulties and health problems involving stress. To ease the strain on his bank account, Mike takes on paid guardianship of an elderly client, who he promptly deposits into a care home. However, matters are complicated when the man's troubled grandson, Kyle, turns up on his doorstep.

As studios only seem to know one way to market each type of film, Win Win could easily have been edited into a trailer that pitched it as either a sports movie or a legal drama, when its actually something a little more complex than either. Handily, it very much fits into Fox Searchlight's remit, as an undemanding indie dramedy. Giamatti's starring role sees him looking a little more paunchy that I remembered, but the type of schlubby everyman he has perfected is still present and correct.

The film comes to life with the arrival of Alex Shaffer as Kyle. Although the performance is intentionally uninflected or blunt for the most part, the entrance of his character is the catalyst for a great deal of character development, not least with Mike's wife Jackie, played by Amy Ryan. Jackie serves a plot point in insisting upon putting a roof over Kyle's head despite the family's financial bother, but the scenes between Ryan and Shaffer really develop the relationship between them. There's a great sympathetic chemistry that always kept me interested.

The relationship between Mike and Kyle is a little simpler- Mike coaches the woefully bad high school wrestling team, and Kyle happens to have been a runner-up at a previous state championship. Mike snaps up Kyle right away, and so at first, they're uniting through sports in typical male bonding fashion. Where that develops Mike's character is in how we slowly see him realising the error of his ways with Kyle's grandfather, affectingly played by Burt Young.

What's so simple and yet honest about where Mike begins in this story is that he's not exploiting Kyle's grandpa for selfish reasons. He's a father figure, and like so many Hollywood father figures, he's flawed, but Giamatti is always a very involving screen presence. And so the generic aspects of the sports drama and the legal drama, each of which cross into the narrative as Mike heads towards the heats for state wrestling championship and a legal to-do with Kyle's errant mother, serve the drama that they're taking place in rather than tipping the film in one direction or the other.

In Win Win, we have a film as balanced as its title. It's a film that is typical of Tom McCarthy, who previously directed The Station Agent and The Visitor, but there's nothing old-hat or dull about his humanist approach. Its only failing is its readiness to end so hastily, which suggests that the closing point for the character of Mike pre-empted the process of actually getting him there. But the film is nothing if not a warm, forthright and relatable film about a good man doing the wrong thing, and how that affects his relationships.

Win Win is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Win Win, why not share your comments below? Paul Giamatti and Jeffrey Tambor will return, in The Hangover Part II...

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

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.

ON STRANGER TIDES- Pirates 4 Review

There's a strong argument, mostly being made by myself, that Pirates of the Caribbean- On Stranger Tides is the sequel we always should have had to the 2003 swashbuckler that started it all. I don't mean that it's the best sequel possible, but that it's following the formula of the Indiana Jones films by bringing back one or two characters from previous instalments and telling a new adventure, rather than going for cod-epic storytelling.

It's not completely without ties to the impenetrable mush of At World's End, as it picks up with Captain Jack Sparrow having seemingly given up on his search for the Fountain of Youth, on which we left him sailing into the sunset. As he arrives in England, it's revealed that an impostor is posing as Jack, with plans to recruit a crew and mount a search for the Fountain themselves. Jack is soon drawn into a race for eternal life, between a Spanish Armada, his old foe Captain Barbossa and the legendary Captain Blackbeard.

It's after watching this latest instalment that I realise I have a strange affinity with the series. The first one is unabashedly enjoyable, but there tends to be more debate on the quality of the two sequels, and with good reason. Heard of "Six Characters in Search of an Author"? The first three Pirates of the Caribbean films serve as "Three Films in Search of a Trilogy", with the convoluted ties to the first film and over-plotted action outright ruining the series for some point.

As for my own affinity, I don't dislike the series as certain other reviewers do. I recognise that At World's End is a load of bullshit, concerned with such contrived devices as "the ninth Piece of Eight" or whatever the hell that film was about, and that Dead Man's Chest didn't so much end as trail the third instalment. But on their own merits, I found things to enjoy in each of those movies. And so I suspect that while the consensus will be against On Stranger Tides, I found more to enjoy here than in the previous sequels.

That said, it still doesn't hold itself very well. It's a good half an hour shorter than the previous instalment, but that still makes it 137 minutes, when there's a much more enjoyable 100 minute film sitting within, waiting for an editor to piece it together. The action takes about 45 minutes to get going, and when it does, there's no real drive or thrust to the plot. My earlier comparison to Indy earlier on works here, as the hunt for the Fountain of Youth resembles the plot of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade at times, but while that film has one group of characters to root for, screenwriters Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio plump for a sprawling cast. Again.

Another of the problems carried over from its immediate predecessors in the series is the lack of a villain. Geoffrey Rush is the best thing in this one, but his Captain Barbossa, so brilliant an antagonist on the first outing, has long since become more of an anti-hero. In this one, he's even a privateer for the English, albeit with ulterior motives. I suppose the de facto antagonist here is Blackbeard, played by an underused Ian McShane. As usual then, it resorts to having the characters argue a lot and double-cross one another.

Rob Marshall replaces Gore Verbinski in the director's chair, but it's Elliot and Rossio who need to be ushered out, because they just never seem to get to the point. For instance, there's a scene in which a character is forced to jump off a cliff, to an uncertain fate. Before that character eventually jumps, we have a refusal, some argument, emotional blackmail, a ridiculously redundant Russian Roulette set-up and a bit of hoodoo, before the character just jumps anyway. And don't get me started on Keith Richards.

They also seem to have no sense of timing, as writers. If you pay attention to the dialogue, you realise that the plot takes place over a fortnight. After a great opening sequence set in London, the progression of time is thus- one scene in daylight, and then an extended setpiece at night. Most of this movie takes place in the dark, which not only makes the sunny Caribbean settings pointless, but also probably makes for great viewing in super-dim 3D. I stuck with 2D, personally, though I concede I was sort of impressed by the 3D in the trailers for the film.

I enjoyed On Stranger Tides enough that I really want to say good things about it, so I shall. Johnny Depp shows no signs of getting bored in the lead role, and if you're not bored of him playing it either, he's still a lot of fun to watch as Captain Jack. Some of the action is a little repetitive, four films in, but there are two really good setpieces at the beginning and at the midpoint. I think I'd personally have opened the film on the latter, which is an excellently constructed scene that establishes the film's take on mermaids. Then again, I'd also have got it done in 100 minutes.

Pirates of the Caribbean- On Stranger Tides marks a partial return to the entertaining form of The Curse of the Black Pearl, but as with latter instalments, it is still slightly discordant. To refer to Pirandello again, it's like Six Subplots in Search of a Movie, because there's not much to the McGuffin that's supposed to actually unite the strands. I found it enjoyable, but it did string out my enjoyment across the laborious running time. For some, it will be a step too far, if your enjoyment has been strung out since the first film, but it's still a step in the right direction. Let's have a change in the writing department next time though.

Pirates of the Caribbean- On Stranger Tides is now showing in 2D and 3D at cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Pirates of the Caribbean- On Stranger Tides, why not share your comments below?

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

JULIA'S EYES- Review

The thing about appreciating foreign films like Julia's Eyes is that my enthusiasm is immediately tempered by the dread of a boneheaded American-language remake if it becomes any kind of box office success. We're fortunate that Pan's Labyrinth and The Orphanage, which also had Guillermo del Toro involved in some capacity, haven't yet been dumbed down for the PG-13 crowd, but I can't help but wonder if his latest production will be pillaged.

Perhaps the rubbish Jessica Alba flick The Eye will put them off, as this one also gets under the eyelids of sight-related horror. Twin sisters Julia and Sara share a degenerative sight disorder, which has already made Sara 100% blind. At the opening of the film, Sara hangs herself in her basement. Julia isn't convinced it was suicide, as Sara was optimistic about an eye transplant operation, and much to the chagrin of her doting husband, she needs to find answers.

Relatively early on in the film, it becomes apparent that it could go in one of two ways. As per usual, that means Sara's suicide could have been influenced by supernatural forces or simply by worldly bastards. The film is a little overlong at 112 minutes, but refreshingly, Julia's Eyes refuses to rely on that ambiguity of nature for too long, and it's a film that constantly shifts its terms slightly with each subsequent twist, to keep you intrigued throughout.

In all honesty, it would be quite a typical horror film, but writer-director Guillem Morales never quite lets it settle that way. For one thing, it's wonderfully shot, with some excellent use of POV shots as Julia's sight begins to deteriorate in the second act. Morales gets to the core of the loss of control that comes with the loss of Julia's sight, spending a number of scenes that introduce new characters showing only Julia's face. She can't see them, nor can we, and somewhere out there, a monster is prowling.

I can't pretend that I didn't second-guess that particular revelation, even with the impressive seclusion of the viewer to heighten the tension. It's clumsily foreshadowed at one point, in a way from which lesser films would have difficulty in recovering. But when that revelation comes to pass, the tension goes right through the ceiling five seconds later. The offending twist becomes almost like a non-event in the new disequilibrium that we're confronted with- you might have seen it coming, but move on, now this is happening.

This is what supports the film past the potentially more concise 90 minute running time, and I can't say I was ever bored with the film. Its principal strength is in its loving development of characters. Belén Rueda really makes Julia a character worth caring about, because she's experienced and expressive in her performance. There's none of the leering misanthropy that Hollywood horror cinema has towards much younger heroines, and subsequently, you're just as invested in the character's fate as you should be.

I was also impressed by Lluís Homar's turn as Julia's husband Isaac, a carefully constructed character who's well established early on so that his arc with Julia packs the most profound emotional punch later on. It's a film that prizes the emotional value of fear rather than the adrenaline rush that accompanies a jump scare. Compared to the one-note jump-scares of Platinum Dunes' output, Julia's Eyes is a symphony of terror. Somehow, everyone in the world seems to understand that, except Hollywood.

Julia's Eyes isn't going to shock more jaded horror fans into acclaim, but it is classy, beautifully assembled and never, even for a moment, any less than intriguing. It could probably use a good edit, to take out some of the running time, but it's always taking care to build the characters and build the story in a way that's all too rare in the genre these days. Its devices may be those you have seen before, but it ticks so many of the right boxes in its execution that it's hard to begrudge its excellence.

Julia's Eyes is released on Friday, in selected cinemas nationwide.
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I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

BlogalongaBond- YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE Review

This is at least as funny as looks.

After the soggy escapades of Thunderball, this fifth outing for James Bond goes back to basics. This would be a good thing, if it weren't for the fact that it goes back to basics by lifting plot points out of From Russia With Love wholesale. And so You Only Live Twice is where the Connery era finally slumps into an unyielding formula.

As in From Russia With Love, we open with the sight of Bond being assassinated. Once again, he's not really dead, but this time, it's in order to restore Bond's effectiveness as a secret agent by faking his death and convincing his enemies that he's no longer a threat. This allows him to operate with the Japanese secret service as they investigate the inflammatory actions of SPECTRE that has led to a diplomatic crisis between America and Russia.

More than most of the James Bond films I've watched so far, You Only Live Twice is a film that is entirely of its time. It's infused with both the technological optimism of the 1960s, and the general anxiety that came out of the Cuban missile crisis. The film presents a battle bolstered by the progress of technology, and simultaneously made into a political minefield as SPECTRE makes efforts to escalate the space race into an outright conflict.

Without vivid memories of the subsequent instalments, I'm also going to guess that this is the last time the filmmakers could really get away with representing Great Britain as a superpower in the way they do this time around. With no signs of the nation's post-war decline in sight, the United Kingdom is portrayed as the rational mediator in a petulant feud between America and Russia, America being more prepared to push the button and go for all-out war than the UK was in From Russia With Love.

Also privileged on the political side of things is Japan, in which the film's interest is more than enough to match Thunderball's fervour for all things aquatic. It's Japanese intelligence agents who are Bond's main allies, but unknowingly, a rogue Japanese element serve as SPECTRE's clients, engineering the war between the rival superpowers for reasons that are only inferred. Largely though, it's more of a fascination with Japan's heritage and culture that plays out in the gorgeous aerial establishing shots and loving cinematography.

There's a less savoury part of privileging the rationality of the UK over Japan's division of loyalties within the narrative, and it naturally involves some cringeworthy and outdated racial attitudes. Bond's very first line in the film has him muse over why Chinese girls taste different to all other girls. What a charmer, eh? Although the quintessentially British 007 appears to take on the best part of Japanese values later on in the film, the best part as portrayed here is the men's values. But then all the women are under-developed in this one, even by the standards of the series so far.

That's quite enough political analysis for this review- it's a James Bond film, fer cryin' out loud. That does mean that there is nothing uniquely Roald Dahl in the Roald Dahl-penned screenplay, with the producers preaching the tried-and-tested formula as a guideline. Dahl had already written a Bond villain by that point, in the guise of Willy Wonka. In the elaborate death trap stakes, "accidentally" disposing of unspeakably bratty children on a tour of an eccentrically designed chocolate factory is second only to Blofeld's collapsing bridge over a pool of ravenous piranha.

Speaking of whom, You Only Live Twice is arguably best remembered for the moment in which the face of SPECTRE's Number One is finally revealed. Granted, it's Donald Pleasence's only outing in the role of Bond's arch-nemesis, who then regenerated in every single film thereafter, and he's only in it for about ten minutes overall. And for those ten minutes, there's no real banter between him and Connery- Bond just seems bored. Still, it's worth it for the stunning hero shot Pleasence gets as ninjas bust through the roof of his headquarters to wreck his shit. It's an expression that subtly screams "Ninjas. Damn!", which was nice, given how that was approximately how I reacted too.

The silliness of the Ninjacademy, which Bond attends for about a week before emerging as an apparently valmorphanised Japanese ninja, is just par for the course in this series by now. The film feels surprisingly padded out, with the entire turning Japanese sequence being eminently cuttable. This is mostly because it's stressed that ninjas are masters of stealth and subterfuge, and that's why Bond needs to learn their ways too. At right about the time we cut to Pleasence's great reaction shot, Bond and the ninja army have crashed into the complex with all the stealth of a drunk coming home from a night out.

You Only Live Twice is better than Thunderball, by the virtue of being more interesting and having some truly outstanding action sequences. But across the first five films alone, the basis for every joke in the Austin Powers series has already been entirely laid out. No matter how repetitive you think Mike Myers got by the time of Goldmember, the series was already repeating bits from its second film at this early point. It has an appreciable affection for all things Japanese and an inherently whistle-able title tune, but at this stage in the 007 marathon, I think some kind of change is needed...

#5- A valmorphanised "Japanese" Sean Connery looks awfully like a Vulcan Sean Connery. Live long and proshper!

For a full list of everyone's work on BlogalongaBond so far, click here.

The Mad Prophet Will Return, With On Her Majesty's Secret Service... in June.