MOVIE REVIEW | The Revenant (2015)

“As long as you can still grab a breath, you fight. You breathe… keep breathing.”

I’m a big fan of Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy, and will see pretty much anything either is in.   I may not think Birdman was necessarily the best movie of 2014, but I liked it and generally dig what director Alejandro Gonzalez Innuritu does.  And the stories around the making of his latest movie are nothing short of incredible.  But it’s those stories that made me a tad reluctant to see it.  I’m always wary of a movie where the most interesting thing about it seems to be its intense, or harrowed, or insane shooting process.  Shouldn’t the finished product be the thing that gets people talking?  Well, The Revenant did go through an intense, harrowing and insane shooting process, but the good news is, the end product is good enough to outshine that stuff and more than stand in its own.

After six long months in the snowy wilderness, a group of fur trackers a readying their haul and thinking about what they’ll all do with their share of the profits. But a raid by some Native Americans sees their furs stolen and over 30 of their party killed.  The dozen or so who survive only do so thanks to the quick thinking and local knowledge of their guide, Hugh Glass (DiCaprio).  But not everyone is thankful for, or believes in, his expertise.  Fellow trapper John Fitzgerald (Hardy) second guesses most of Glass’ decisions and is always looking for the quickest way home, rather than the safest or smartest.

MOVIE REVIEW | Legend (2015)

“I come here for a fucking shootout. A proper shootout with some proper men. Like Colonel Custer and Geronimo, you ever heard of them?”

Over the last few years, Tom Hardy has made a habit of not only picking great movies, but also insisting on being the best thing in them.  Even in a mess likeThe Dark Knight Rises, Hardy’s Bane was a big part of what made it watchable.  He somehow managed to outshine James Gandolfini in The Drop and was a one man powerhouse in Bronsan.  Even when taking a back seat to Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road, his take on the titular character still made sure it was a Mad Max movie.  He is possibly my favourite actor to have emerged in the last decade.  So when I heard there was a movie with double the Hardy, I knew I had to see Legend.

Reg Kray (Hardy) is the king of East End crime in 60s London.  He owns a successful casino  and meets the perfect girl next door (Emily Browning as Frances).  Reg’s literal partner in crime is his identical twin brother, Ronnie (also Hardy).  With the aid of a little strong arming, the certifiably insane Ron is released from a mental hospital after an assault charge and is back by his brother’s side in time to fight off an attack from rival London gangsters.

***2015 RECAP*** MOVIE REVIEW | Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

“I am the scales of justice, conductor of the choir of death!”

The original Mad Max was a bit of a touchstone moment for Australian cinema.  It launched the career of director George Miller, and it launched the career of future mega star and future known anti-Semite nut bar, Mel Gibson.  But it also gave Australian cinema in general a bit of a boot in the ass.  I’ve complained before on Bored and Dangerous about Australian cinema’s inferiority complex making the industry feel like they have to make important (ie. pretentious) movies.  But Mad Max showed that we could make low brow genre fare with the best of them.

I like the original Mad Max, and I Iove its sequel, The Road Warrior. But when I heard  Miller was rebooting the series, I was skeptical.  Had it really been that long since he had a hit that he had to rehash this old chestnut? But as buzz grew and trailers were released, and I found out man crush #1 Tom Hardy was involved, it seemed liked Miller might be returning to the well for the right reason…  He actually had a new story to tell.  By the time I saw Mad Max: Fury Road, it had been out for a week or two and had received more over the top, crazy praise than any movie I can think of in recent memory.  In the space of a year or so, I had gone from dreading this movie, to being more excited about it than anything else coming out this year.  Even Star Wars.  So, did Mad Max: Fury Road live up to the mega hype?

MOVIE REVIEW | Valkyrie (2008)

“The Fuhrer’s promises of peace and prosperity have fallen by the wayside leaving in their wake a path of destruction.”

In the 90s, Bryan Singer was the next big thing. The Usual Suspects was the cool little movie that broke big and helped launch the career of Kevin Spacey. And along wih Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, Singer’s first two X-Men movies pretty much defined what comic book movies have been ever since. Then he gave up a lot of his goodwill by making Superman Returns, a truly terrible, boring movie. These days, he’s a little all over the shop. X-Men: Days of Future Past is pretty great, while Jack the Giant Slayer looked like a colossus mess of terrible CGI and little else.

In between, is Valkyrie. I remember a lot of buzz before it came out, then it just kind of fizzled away. No one loved it, but no one hated it either. How could a movie about a plot to kill Hitler, starring Tom Cruise, directed by Singer be a fizzler? I could understand it being amazing, I could understand it being amazingly bad, but I couldn’t believe it fell in that boring, middle ground. Although, the fact that I’m only now getting to Valkyrie, seven years after its release, is a sign of how little an impact its release obviously made on me.

MOVIE REVIEW | Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

“I am the scales of justice, conductor of the choir of death!”

The original Mad Max was a bit of a touchstone moment for Australian cinema.  It launched the career of director George Miller, and it launched the career of future mega star and future known anti-Semite nut bar, Mel Gibson.  But it also gave Australian cinema in general a bit of a boot in the ass.  I’ve complained before on Bored and Dangerous about Australian cinema’s inferiority complex making the industry feel like they have to make important (ie. pretentious) movies.  But Mad Max showed that we could make low brow genre fare with the best of them.

I like the original Mad Max, and I Iove its sequel, The Road Warrior. But when I heard  Miller was rebooting the series, I was skeptical.  Had it really been that long since he had a hit that he had to rehash this old chestnut? But as buzz grew and trailers were released, and I found out man crush #1 Tom Hardy was involved, it seemed liked Miller might be returning to the well for the right reason…  He actually had a new story to tell.  By the time I saw Mad Max: Fury Road, it had been out for a week or two and had received more over the top, crazy praise than any movie I can think of in recent memory.  In the space of a year or so, I had gone from dreading this movie, to being more excited about it than anything else coming out this year.  Even Star Wars.  So, did Mad Max: Fury Road live up to the mega hype?

MOVIE REVIEW | The Drop (2014)

“Are you doing something desperate? Something we can’t clean up this time?”

There are a few things that can make a movie seem like it’s worth seeing. Sometimes it’s the director or writer. Sometimes it’s the subject matter. I’d say for most people, it’s the actors involved. But it’s very rare that you get a couple of those things in abundance. When I first saw a trailer for The Drop, I’m not sure what got me more stoked, the involvement of Tom Hardy and James Gandolfini, or the gritty, street crime story. But I knew I had to see it.

Bob (Hardy) and Marv (Gandolfini) run ‘Cousin Marv’s Bar’, a place where illegal book makers often leave their day’s take, for it to be collected later by the local Chechen mafia bosses who run the neighbourhood. One night, the daily drop is stolen at gun point, and it’s up to Bob and Marv to pay it back, since it was stolen on their watch. Meanwhile, Bob finds a badly beaten pitbull puppy in a garbage bin and takes it in, leading to slowly growing relationship with Nadia (Noomi Repace).

MOVIE REVIEW | ***TREK WEEK*** Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

So it all comes down to this.  After 6 movies with the cast of the original series, 4 with the Next Generation cast and the big JJ Abram’s reboot 7 years away, this version of the series limps to a pretty lame ending.  While there’s a nice send off for Picard, the death of a major character and some real attempts at closure, Star Trek: Nemesis is just too much of what’s come before, trotted out one last time, delivering diminishing returns.

The movie opens with a wedding between Riker (Jonthan Frakes) and one of the female characters who all look, act and sound the same.  Of course, with such a happy beginning, you know things will quickly go south.  When they do, it’s due to a conflict with the Romulans.  Over the course of these movies, ‘Romulans’ is a word I’ve heard a bit, but I think this might the first time they’re kind of central to the story.  Long standing enemies, they want to make a truce with the Federation, but when the Enterprise gets there, there’s a double cross and we meet Shonzon, a clone of Patrick Stewart’s Capt. Picard, played by a very young Tom Hardy in one of his first major roles.  Even young and fresh faced, Hardy makes a menacing and effective bad guy.

He’s hooked up with another group of baddies called the Remans.  Picard and his mates find a robot, identical to their own resident android, Data (Brent Spiner).  Again, his robotness and desire to become more human results in more of the same crap we’ve seen from Data before, and it doesn’t get any more entertaining the more times we see it.

For me, a sign of a boring movie is how quick I resort to reading its Trivia section on IMDB.  For Star Trek: Nemesis, I reckon that took all of about 10 minutes.  It also proved more interesting than the movie itself.  This entry in particular explains a lot about the finished product…

“The film’s cast… have levelled fierce criticism at director Stuart Baird over his direction of the film, claiming the director hated the Star Trek universe and knew nothing about it.  Baird…  Expresses his frustration in the DVD commentary at having to tell a story in an established universe with pre-existing design and character relationships, hated having to utilize recycled sets and props and has trouble remembering the names of the main cast.”

When you’re dealing with a beloved, cult franchise who’s fans are possibly the most dedicated and obsessive of any fan sub culture out there, maybe get a director who knows the characters and at least a little about the world he’s working with

The second piece of Star Trek: Nemesis trivia that I found way more interesting than the movie ?…

“Jonathan Frakes refused to shave his back for the love scene, turned rape with Troi. The hair on his back was digitally removed by an effects house.”

Yep, that’s the kind of movie you’re dealing with if you decide to watch Star Trek: Nemesis.

Star Trek: Nemesis
Directed By – Stuart Baird
Written By – John Logan