Film review: Jurassic Park Fallen Kingdom

When word came out that there was going to be a reboot/sequel of Jurassic Park, I dusted off my well-worn sceptical hat and sat, arms folded, waiting for a raptor to disappoint me with a predictable attack from the side.  The law of diminishing returns had surely sent the franchise the way of its subject matter after Spielberg low-point The Lost World and the forgettable bollocks that was Jurassic Park 3. 

As frequently happens, I was wrong and 2015’s Jurassic World turned out to be loads of fun.  They took a chance on director Colin Trevorrow, a man with one cinematic release to his name at the time, and he engineered something both enjoyably familiar (Jurassic Park’s legacy woven into the DNA rather than in cheap callbacks) and surprising enough to offer thrills.  The best thing about it was the characters: Chris Pratt cemented his place as a leading man with roguish dino trainer Owen, and enjoyed good odd couple chemistry with Bryce Dallas Howard’s uptight Claire.  Both were likeable and fun, and even the imperilled kids weren’t huge irritants like in previous films.  Ifran Kahn was quietly charismatic as the Richard Attenborough proxy.  Bad guy duties (the human ones, anyway – think mayor from Jaws) were handled by the immense talents of Vincent D’Onofrio, who made his military stooge more than a one-note raptor snack.

Naturally, huge success whetted studio appetite for sequels and with Treverrow decamping to join (and the leave) the Star Wars galaxy, J.A. Bayona was drafted in to marshal the carnage.  A hugely disappointing trailer set internet tongues wagging, their main subject being “why didn’t they know the island was a volcano?”  This detail is brushed aside in the film, but the volcano provides a decent ticking clock for the first half, in which Owen and Claire (and a couple of hugely annoying helpers with silly job titles) are drafted back to the island as part of a rescue operation which to the surprise of absolutely nobody turns out to be a flimsy excuse for making weapons out of dinos, and more genetic tinkering.

Rafe Spall’s character, Eli, is looking after Ingen’s interests for the infirm James Cromwell, who was Richard Attenborough’s silent partner.  We find out that he’s a wrong ‘un early on when he shouts at a child, and he’s a dial-a-villain throughout.  Spall is a charming and charismatic actor but he doesn’t have a lot to work with here.  Doing more with less is Toby Jones (a man genetically incapable of playing a nice guy), whose smug auctioneer is particularly hateable and the film seemingly takes sadistic glee with his fate.  The scumbags’ gallery is rounded off by Ted Levine, playing a greedy ex-military man.  Levine brings authority and that voice but is a little underused, marshalling what looks like the same group of muscly mercenaries from Logan and being all gruff and stuff.

If you’re wondering why I haven’t bothered with Owen and Claire much throughout this review, it’s because the film isn’t really bothered with them either.  Their relationship, so well established in the first (or is that 4^th) film, is undercooked here and despite a few hints of what happened between the films, it’s as if Fallen Kingdom doesn’t really have room for them.  The strength of Jurassics Park and World was in the main characters; likeable and able, yet only really able to run away from danger, occasionally protecting a child.  Goldblum, Neill, Dern, Pratt, and Howard all give us something to root for among the chaos.  Here, we have some bants and a bit of peril, but they feel like an afterthought.

Plot-wise, it’s somewhere between a juggernaut and a clown car.  There is so much going on at such a high pace but so little of makes any narrative sense – a churlish argument when discussing a film about genetically engineered dinosaurs, I know – but it’s not as satisfying as the imperilled kids motif that drove the best parts of the previous films.  Eli wants to ‘rescue’ the dinosaurs, sell them on to generate seed money for a project to engineer a new weaponized dino, which is already mostly complete, but needs super Raptor Blue as a kind of mother figure. 

While they have admirably tried to build on and deepen Blue’s relationship with Owen, they have somewhat retconned Blue into a more empathetic and intelligent creature than she was before, and this doesn’t quite work.  And ultimately, the Indoraptor , a hybrid of World’s Indominous Rex and a velociraptor (strange, considering that Indominous was part raptor to begin with), isn’t much of a threat.  Not showing up until more than half way through, it’s smaller and spikier than the previous film’s new dino, and it isn’t as well developed.  Its first kill, spotted from a mile off, shows off some possum DNA in the mix, and there’s an underused laser targeting motif.  It looks pretty cool, but feels like a step down from the previous film, in which T-Rex and raptor alike were no match for the Big Bad.  Here, somewhat predictably, it’s Blue to the rescue and this feels cheap.

Despite all the negativity there are plenty of things to like about Fallen Kingdom.  It works nicely as a horror film, it’s loads of fun, and there will always be a piece of childhood glee which wakes up whenever I see a dinosaur chasing an asshole.  However, while World wore nostalgia on its sleeve, but gave you enough new thrill, Fallen Kingdom hopes nostalgia alone is enough to carry a whole film.  This is going to be disappointing and predictable, but I’m going to say it anyway because it’s apt: Fallen Kingdom lacks a bit of bite.

Murderthon! An afternoon on the sofa with random horror films.

Picture the scene: it’s a Saturday afternoon, the morning of which has been spent at a 4-year-old’s birthday party.  The rain, constant and grim, has killed any desire to leave the house for the foreseeable and our sloth is compounded by comfortable sofas, huge bags of crisps, and the choice of 3 separate streaming services.  Making a hasty decision before option paralysis robs us of too much time, we decide to embark on a day of horror films.

Being a lily-livered coward, I am not a massive fan of horror films.  My wife, being much harder than me, doesn’t mind the gore so much.  We start with recent Scandinavian-set Brit-flick The Ritual on the strength of solid reviews and Rafe Spall, who is ace.  It opens with a group of friends bullshitting in the pub, before one  of them dies in an off-license robbery while another cowers in hiding instead of helping.  We then have an interesting twist on the ‘lost on the woods’ horror staple; add the volatile elements of post-traumatic stress, guilt, and suspicion to a group of backpackers lost in Swedish woods and you have a great premise.  Occult markings, Predator-like corpses in trees, and an ill-advised stay in a creepy abandoned cabin lend the film a heavy dose of atmosphere.

As one might expect, the group argues, splits, all very organically, and is picked off one by one before the Wicker Man-inspired titular ritual becomes clear.  As with most horror films, it’s always better when you don’t see the creature, and I can’t help but feel some disappointment when all is revealed.  The Scandinavian occult angle is fresh and different, but the film can’t escape from its own trappings.

I think it’s at this point where we start drinking and search through a seemingly endless list of films I’ve never heard of for one that isn’t absolutely dire.  We settle on a found footage joint called Hell House LLC, which has a (relatively) decent IMDB rating of 6.4.  Another good premise (documentary team investigates the mystery behind the deaths of 15 people at a haunted house), and presented in the style of a documentary rather than just a series of scenes bookended by lines like “This footage was recovered from blah blah blah…”, Hell House LLC is surprisingly good.

We find out early on about a mysterious disaster at the house, see some footage of the event, discover that nobody wants to talk about it, and then see the events leading up to the fateful night.  There are horror clichés aplenty, including the house being cursed by previous deaths on the premises, and tropes which are played for maximum scares: dummies dressed as clowns, which move when nobody is looking, a piano playing itself, things moving in strobe lighting, a creepy girl who gets closer whenever you look away, and an increasing sense of dread through the characters.  It’s nothing you’ve not seen before, but it’s presented in an interesting way, and primed for maximum scares.  Actually not bad at all.  We keep the drinks flowing and dive back in for something else.

Mother’s Day (2010) is our choice.  Despite sharing a name with a 2016 Jennifer Aniston/Kate Hudson “comedy/drama”, this is actually a quite unpleasant home invasion movie.  Thoroughly implausible and about half an hour too long, it boasts a good B-movie cast (Rebecca DeMornay is brutally cold as the eponymous mother, Frank Grillo, Shawn Ashmore, and Deborah Ann Woll are all dependable Marvel veterans).

A family of fugitives (one of whom has been shot), arrive at their former home to find a nice middle class family entertaining their guests.  A hostage situation ensues, during which the residents (one of whom is, helpfully, a doctor) are beaten, tormented, killed, and threatened with sexual assault.  The plot is absolutely preposterous, presenting increasingly flimsy reasons for keeping everyone in the house, before bumping people off left and right.  It’s impressively brutal, quite distasteful, and not something |I’d rush to watch again.  But in our increasingly drunken states, now supplemented by Chinese takeaway, we were thoroughly entertained.

Speaking of brutal and distasteful, the conversation turned to Eli Roth’s charming Hostel films and we decided that neither of us had seen either of the sequels.  Much like the equally family friendly Saw films, it’s hard to remember which you’ve seen since they all blur into one.  So, Hostel: Part 2 gets an airing.  A further development of the premise of the first: wealthy businessmen pay shady company Elite Hunting to torture kidnapped tourists in a grotty Eastern European warehouse, and Part 2 treats us to the lovely auction and victim selection processes, and focuses on a group of female travellers this time. 

While the first film built steadily up to a gory climax, this gives us some hideous scythe-related action midway through. As well as the power tool-fodder tourists, we also see the two American businessmen, who have bid on their lives.  The arrogant and brash Todd, and the timid and reluctant Stuart are subtext personified: American wealth and its nonchalance towards the rest of the world; alpha male entitlement taken to its extreme; the elite at play when golf gets boring.  It’s obvious and as subtle as a drill to the forehead, but not really a stretch to imagine Trump and his cronies using a service like this.

Anyway, Roth turns the premise on its head when Todd has an implausible crisis of conscience mid-scalping and decides he doesn’t want to kill his prey, and Stuart decides that he can use Beth to act out his misogynist fantasies of killing his wife.  It ends badly for both when it transpires that Beth is richer-than-thou and outsmarts then outbids him, before leaving his genitals for the guard dogs.

Roth pulls off some inventive kills, some nice shots, and otherwise hits you in the face with a rusty hammer made from subtext, but it’s not something you’ll want to see more than once.  As inventive as Roth’s kills are, they are nothing compared to what comes next.  It’s getting late and we’re pushing the drunk envelope somewhat, but I make the executive decision to keep it going with The ABCs of Death 2.  Possibly the strangest choice for a sequel since The Last Exorcism’s title turned out to be a lie, the first film was 26 vignettes, each representing a letter of the alphabet and an aspect of death.  It was, to put it mildly, strange as fuck (F is for Fart, and L is for Libido are two you will not want to revisit).  This anthology is more of the same, from 26 different directors.  It opens well, with Amateur, Badger and Capital Punishment being both messed up and hilarious.  D is for Deloused is a Robert Morgan claymation piece and one of strangest things I’ve ever seen.

Special mention goes to Grandad, Invincible, Jesus, Nexus and Questionnaire, for being brilliant and terrible in their own special, inventive way.  It runs out of steam somewhat and a few are forgettable where they really should be seared onto your psyche.  It often feels like watching 26 short episodes of Inside No. 9 without the quality control, however a film featuring a scene as outright wrong as X is for Xylophone can’t be all bad.

We call it a night with our heads spinning from a combination of gore, Chinese food and rum, but satisfied with a day well spent doing absolutely nothing.

Mission: Imposspielberg Vol. 10 - Horses and Presidents

After a 3 year gap, Spielberg turned to an adaptation of a play about a horse. At the time, this was one of the rare occasions where I was not interested in seeing a Spielberg film at the cinema and War Horse remains a film I find it hard to care about.  After a recent re-watch, I still think there are good things about the film (for example, nobody stages a war scene like Spielberg), but a lot of ‘meh’ and overwrought sentiment and a hideous John Williams score signposting every emotion.

I’ll start with the negatives.  The film’s non-equine protagonist, Albert (Jeremy Irvine) is terrible.  Doe-eyed, insufferably optimistic, and with a horrible Devon accent, 20 minutes into the film you’re practically screaming at him to get laid.  He also vanishes out of the film for a good while, replaced initially by Tom Hiddleston’s army captain, who at least injects some charisma, then a nondescript group of German soldiers, and then a nondescript French family, and then some more Germans.  This is a strange move, Spielberg ditching his human protagonist and instead relying on the audience buying into successive characters’ mystical obsession with a horse.

The film’s climax, which reunites boy with horse, ties everything together a little too neatly, as the French farmer, having bought the horse for his beloved grandchild, bizarrely returns it to Albert. After War Of The Worlds and Minority Report both erring on the side of saccharine, War Horse fits into the pejorative category of a ‘Spielberg Ending’.

On the positive side it’s a technically amazing film, featuring some incredible cinematography courtesy of regular Spielberg collaborator (and full-on artist) Janusz Kaminski.  It also benefits from a largely brilliant cast, including Emily Watson and Peter Mullan as Albert’s parents, David Thewlis, Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Toby Kebbell who manages one of the few non-awful Geordie accents produced by a non-Geordie.  The familiar faces make the horse’s odyssey easier to follow.  The Somme scenes are incredible, Spielberg wisely refusing to make German soldiers outright bad guys as he does with his WW2-set films.  It’s not a criticism to say that War Horse has heart and is unashamedly sentimental; this is deliberate and the film fully commits to it, it’s just that while the world has become more cynical over time, Spielberg seems horribly naïve when he rose-tints the past.

Released the same year and envisioned as the first in a trilogy (with Peter Jackson taking over the reins of the follows ups), The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn is, for me, everything that the fourth Indiana Jones film should have been.  I’m not 100% sure how much ‘directing’ is involved in directing a cartoon and the third film running, I was questioning Spielberg’s choices.  Having been a fan of Herge’s comics as a kid, I had my worries that it would be ruined, but these turned out to be unfounded, as Spielberg delivered probably his most outright enjoyable film of his late phase.

Tintin himself (a motion capture an voice performance by Jamie Bell) isn’t perfect.  Too clean and too innocent, he would be an insufferable goody-two-shoes were it not for Spielberg and Bell fully committing to the character and the OTT nature of the story without so much as a wink to the camera.  I don’t think characters look particularly brilliant, falling uncomfortably with feet in both photo-real and comically unreal.  While Herge sold it time and again, it’s also hard to believe on film that a slender character (who looks about 14 years old), could carry out such amazing feats (and knock out a burly sailor with one punch).  Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s Thompson Twins are just the right side of incredibly annoying, but only just.

Despite that, Tintin is a very enjoyable film, never more so than when it follows Tintin’s dog Snowy.  Immune to the effects Mo-Cap has on human characters, Snowy allows Spielberg to have some real fun, with small pockets of suspense, wonderful grace notes and flourishes which give the film energy and a caper-ish quality.  In fact, the whole medium gives Spielberg fantastic license to up the ante on impossible set pieces and impressive long takes, none more so than Captain Haddock’s alcohol-induced ancestral flashbacks and the wonderfully ridiculous tank-bike-bird chase.

Andy Serkis’ Captain Haddock could easily have been a John Candy-like blundering irritant but he is given an arc, a story, and some genuine emotional heft.  Spielberg keeps the pace high throughout, the action suitably OTT and is faithful to the spirit of the comics.  So yeah, everything Crystal Skull should have been.

Since Schindler’s List, one theme Spielberg has returned to time and again is a moral man in immoral times.  Amistad, Bridge Of Spies and The Post all tell tales of men trying to do the right thing in the face of the powers of the time.  Lincoln continues this theme, telling the story of the passing of the 13^th Amendment, which precipitated the abolition of slavery in America. 

Here, despite the title, Spielberg does not opt for standard biopic fare, showing Abe’s youth, struggles, formative political years, elections etc.  Instead we join him in his mid-50s amid the Civil War and the film charts his dilemma: push legislation through that will forever end slavery but prolong the war, or seek peace with the Confederate states end the war and save thousands of lives, meaning slavery will continue.

When it comes to actors, there are two categories: Daniel Day Lewis, and everyone else.  Only clocking up 6 acting credits since the year 2000, he is picky about his projects and never less than brilliant.  Here, he makes Abe Lincoln a magnetic character: tall and deliberate, moving uneasily, and speaking calmly in a high register.  The rare occasions where he is given cause to raise his voice are devastating, including his “clothed in immense power!” speech, preceded by a frustrated, authoritative open hand hitting a table.  He is the epitome of grace, dignity, and confidence in his actions.  The one moment where he is forced to make his moral choice, push for the amendment or meet with the Confederate delegation to discuss peace terms, is the moment which stays with you, such is your faith in him.

He’s ably supported by a remarkable cast, including David Strathairn, Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Jackie Earl Haley, Jared Harris, and a powerhouse Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens.  Casting recognisable faces across the board is a wise move (Oliver Stone did as much in the labyrinthine JFK) as it helps the audience follow difficult subject matter, and Lincoln is certainly not the easiest film to follow.  Unless you take a close interest in the mechanics of the American legislative process (in 1865), this is very dry material. 

The dialogue appears authentic, Aaron Sorkin this is not, with politicians hurling insults at one another in congress before making shady deals in back offices.  While the outcome is a good one, it’s not the most engaging or cinematic journey to get there, essentially amounting to politicians doing deals with and coercing one another, manipulating the media, and trying every dirty trick to push forward their agenda.  This is drama with conversations, not chases.  While, like Schindler, the character of Lincoln is probably somewhat whitewashed, Spielberg does well to keep him from being a saint.  For him, the end justifies the means, and the means include threats and lying to Congress. 

In a beautiful moment, Spielberg’s trademark ‘God Light’ floods into Lincoln’s chambers as he entertains his child, not betraying any nerves about the outcome of the final vote.  Spielberg shows relative visual restraint through, letting Kaminski’s luscious cinematography do the talking.

The main fault I had with Lincoln himself was that he spoke entirely in speeches and parables (it’s joked about at one point), and this becomes wearing by the end.  It’s also not really necessary to show that he died shortly after the result.  For me, a more fitting ending would have been seeing him walk away from his servant in that stooped gait of his, cutting back to the look of admiration on the servant’s face, but I suppose killing your main character by default stops this from being a ‘Spielberg Ending’.  That can only be a good thing these days.

Gig Review: Jamie Lenman, Newcastle Academy, 01/02/18

I was gutted when Jamie Lenman’s former band, Reuben, broke up.  Brilliant, endlessly inventive, but unfortunately not successful enough to sustain themselves, they called it a day after 3 studio albums.  Lenman apparently, to quote his own lyrics, “got a real job in the office.”

He returned in 2012 with ambitious double album Muscle Memory; a patchy mix of aggressive, abrasive songs, showcasing the scream heard in Reuben’s heavier moments, and gentler, folk-y tunes.  The heavy stuff neglected the melodic flourishes that made Reuben so special and the folk album did little for me.  Jump to 2017 and out of nowhere he returns with the stunning Devolver album, which is a riff-driven juggernaut where it needs to be, gentle in places, and unafraid to dabble in bold new sounds. And that about brings us up to date.

I realise how infrequently I visit the Academy these days as I walk into the sparsely populated upstairs venue.  A quick look at the listings shows why: at least half of the acts are tribute bands, and one of the upcoming original bands is the Insane Clown Posse.  There is still barely anyone in when opening band Loa Loa start playing.  The singer is wearing a Sonic Youth t-shirt, and this tells you everything you need to know about them.  He sings in that gobby, tuneless manner that Britpop singers used to use, and I remember almost nothing else about them.

The place is filling up nicely when Gender Roles come on stage.  Looking like an in-their-prime Nirvana (tiny, bleached-haired guitarist, tall bassist, and energetic drummer with lank hair), they sound not unlike Seattle circa 1991, with moments of Dinosaur Jr., Mudhoney, and indeed Nirvana themselves.  They make an impressive noise and over the course of a 30 minute set, I’m sold.

It’s clear that there are some serious, hardcore Reuben fans in the venue, which has now filled out but nowhere near to capacity.  This doesn’t deter many from indulging in a moshpit as soon as Lenman walks on with the palm-muted staccato guitar that opens ‘Hardbeat’ playing over the PA.  Band-wise, it’s just Lenman and drummer Dan Kavanagh.  Both are dressed in white shirts and trousers, Lenman sporting the same faux-vintage hairstyle-moustache combo from his album cover.   He looks like one of the bartenders in those insufferable ‘shabby chic’ bars who call themselves mixologists but are actually just cunts.  I don’t like this kind of gimmickry, especially from a songwriter as good as Lenman, but if it helps him get noticed then fair play to him.

He starts the rhythmic, almost whispered verse to ‘Hardbeat’ and the place goes wild, adding flourishes with his guitar as the song builds.  It’s akin to an upbeat Nine Inch Nails song, eventually reaching a drum break, at which point Lenman joins Kavanagh on a 2^nd drumkit, adding fills galore before taking over the beat which Kavanagh takes his guitar to end the song.  Technically, we have a drum solo in the first song, but the whole thing is done with such charm and enjoyment, they get away with it.

‘Hell In A Fast Car’ follows, with its killer riffs and infectious chorus, and then – yes! – Reuben’s ‘A Kick In The Mouth’.  He dips into Muscle Memory for a brutal ‘One Of My Eyes Is A Clock’ and later ‘Tiny Lives’ but the set is mostly derived from the excellent Devolver.  ‘Waterloo Teeth’, ‘All Of England Is A City’, and a funky ‘I Don’t Know Anything’ are all aired before Reuben classic ‘Every Time A Teenager Listens To Drum And Bass A Rock Star Dies’ and an epic ‘Mississippi’ close the first set.

Lenman is in good form between songs, his banter ranging from genuine appreciation to mock arrogance, and all is supremely good humour.  The man is a fine singer and a human riff machine, but for the latter part of the show he returns to the stage alone to reel off renditions of ‘Devolver’, ‘It’s Hard To Be A Gentleman’, a wonderful ‘Bodypopping’ and ‘Pretty Please’ before signing off with a tongue in cheek ‘Let’s Stop Hanging Out’ to send the crowd away.

Lenman is one of England’s finest songwriters, a fantastic performer, and has a small but extremely dedicated army of fans.  We all leave thoroughly entertained by both nostalgia and a selection of sublime new songs.  He’s back, and you should take notice.