Never Let Go

Rope Burns

Never Let Go
Directed by Alexandre Aja
USA 2024
Lionsgate (thought they’d
pulled out of UK distribution)
UK Cinema Release Print.

I was going to say I have a bit of a hit and miss relationship with the films of Alexandre Aja but, then I refamiliarised myself with his filmography and it would be fair to say, I think, that it’s more of a miss and miss track record. I have this idea in my head that he starts off each film really well, setting things up for an intense ride which tends to peter out around halfway through and, yeah, that’s kind of what he does here but... I’ll get back to that in a little while.

Never Let Go does have a great idea behind it. Surviving, it’s implied, some apocalyptic influx of evil into the world, a mother played by Halle Berry and her two young boys, played absolutely gob-smackingly amazingly by Percy Daggs IV and Anthony B. Jenkins live in a remote cabin in the woods. They cannot leave the house, however, because it has magical religious properties protecting them from evil. So they have to wear these long ropes around their waste when they go out of the house scavenging for grubs and squirrels to eat. However, as these kids, who are maybe just pre-teen or early teen aged, start to question their mother’s wisdom about the evil that only her and the audience can see... things start to go pear shaped.

And yeah, that’s a nice set up for the plot and it’s mostly all I’m saying about the story here. Other than... not all the three main protagonists survive until two thirds of the way into the movie... so the tension does keep ratcheting up.

What I will say is that the performances by all three of those actors are absolutely amazing and that they manage to carry the film quite nicely. Added to this, the make-up job and CGI work on the ‘evil’ snake tongued people is excellent. And, of course, since it’s the main hook, a good deal of the tension and drama of the story comes from... you know... letting go of the rope.

However, once again the director fails to land a good, solid ending for this film. There’s a set up revolving around what is possibly ‘the last polaroid camera on Earth’ with one shot left in it which, when used towards the conclusion, really contributes to making no sense of just what has been going on by the end of the movie. I mean, it’s like, without giving away anything, it’s an ‘is it or isn’t it?’ kind of deal with the mechanics of the story and how it plays out and, by the end, the director maybe didn’t want to commit to either one of them... instead favouring the idea of having his cake and eating it at the same time. Which, for me, negates and drains all the tension and good work he’s been consistently running with up until around the last ten minutes. I was left there sitting in the mostly empty cinema (it was a Sunday evening) thinking... this makes absolutely no sense.

So, yeah, whether the fact that he managed to keep the tension and be really scary up until that point counts as a good time at the cinema or not is something I can’t really judge. It just feels like Never Let Go really fumbles the ball at the end and takes the ‘lazy story writers’ way out (there’s even one of the actors promoting it in interviews as a strong point, I think, where the audience brings their own baggage as to the ending, so to speak). Nope. This movie clearly doesn’t work for me and it’s a shame because it is quite intense, atmospheric and has some great photography. But, no, I won’t be recommending this one to anybody when all is said and done so... yeah... still waiting to see that great Alexandre Aja movie, I reckon. It’s got to be coming one day. This one just seems like Aja trying to channel M. Night Shyamalan with, sadly, similar results.

John Wick Chapter 3 - Parabellum

John Voyage

John Wick Chapter 3 - Parabellum
2019 USA Directed by Chad Stahelski
UK cinema release print.

I have to say up front that I really like the John Wick movies, the previous two installments of which I reviewed here and here. Stunt coordinator turned director Chad Stahelski brings a certain flair to these films which contain large, balletic flights of violent carnage as lead actor Keanu Reeves uses bullets, knives and his fists to defend himself from a number of opponents over the course of the running time. After an astonishing second installment which kind of left things on a very worrying cliff hanger for the lead character, I would have to say I was pretty much desperate to see how things would be progressed in the next movie and I have to say that, while I was a tad disappointed with this new film, John Wick Chapter 3 - Parabellum, it certainly lived up to its predecessors and didn’t drop those all important story beats which are, in the first two movies at least, used as punctuation between violent set pieces as opposed to the other way around.

This third movie kind of does the opposite of that and though there are the usual swathes of extended bloodshed, I got the feeling it was there in service of a film more interested in both story and character development this time, which is perhaps jettisoning a little of what made those first two films a little different from most of the other movies that are similar in style. That being said, this is very much a worthy sequel and I did enjoy it a lot.

The film continues within 20 mins or so of the last installment, with John having been driven to committing one of the greatest sins in the almost surreal ‘international assassin’ world in which he operates... spilling blood on the grounds of his local branch of The Continental, the hotel way stations which are a temporary home for assassins about their business. At the end of John Wick 2, Winston - the manager of this particular branch of The Continental, played by Ian McShane - had been forced to declare John Wick ‘ex communicado’ but generously gave him an hour long head start as this means that every assassin in the world will be after him. This film explores how John Wick gets himself out and, of course, back into danger as he and his loyal dog try to survive this latest blow but, also, shows the consequences of the actions of those who have helped him when an ‘Adjudicator’ sent from The High Table (who run this ridiculous underworld), played by Asia Kate Dillon, is sent to various people to ‘adjudicate’... including both Winston and the Bowery King, played once again by Laurence Fishburne. This sets in motion events that will change this corner of the assassin’s world considerably. A chain reaction of Russian Dolls which keep being opened and layered on since John Wick’s puppy was killed in the first movie.

Helping her to... ‘adjudicate’ is Zero, an assassin with considerable, deadly skill played here by Mark Dacascos, who I loved in a truly great and unusual movie from years ago called Brotherhood Of The Wolf. Here he also plays a fan of the title character but, along with his ‘students’, is not going to shirk his duty to help the adjudicator conduct her business... as various characters in the movie find out to their cost. Actually, since there are so many deaths in public places happening with alarming frequency here... I was wondering why the police never seem to show up at any time in these films.

Meanwhile, John Wick is calling in a lot of old markers and goes to get the help of an assassin he once helped called Sofia, played really well here by Halle Berry, of all people... perhaps finally fulfilling the idea that she could be an action hero after her turn as the wonderful character Jingo Jinx in the otherwise truly terrible Bond movie Die Another Day, when she didn’t get the spin-off movies that this character was earmarked for originally.

So, yes, we have a slightly more convoluted story in this one and you even find out a little more about John Wick’s past... and real name... as the film progresses. And yes, there is a fair amount of action but not, as far as I can recall, as much as the previous movies and although one relatively early fight scene in it is even more graphic than what we’ve seen in past installments, I felt that it never really matched up to the previous film’s set pieces. Although, I have to say, one of the ways John Wick uses a horse in this film... and I’m not talking about when he rides one... was a fresh twist I didn’t see coming. In fact, the films creators seemed as impressed with their ‘action horse’ cleverness here that they did the same stunt twice in quick succession... which was fine by me.

In terms of that action, the director’s ‘Wickian’ trademark fingerprints are all over this movie... the style of fighting, bashing knives and swords repeatedly into bodies, up close head shots to punctuate the hand to hand combat and a sequence which, in many ways, resembled the art installation mirror room from the last episode, are all present and correct. I also like the way Wick’s lines are kept to a minimum again and this allows Keanu Reeves, who is really a great actor and a much loved (deservedly so) personality, to be able to play with these and time them for maximum comic effect in some places. I won’t be spoiling it here because it’s out of context but really simple lines like... “I get it” got a big laugh from the audience I saw it with but you need to go and see the movie to find out why that line is funny (and also a big shout out to the short history of the franchise). Like Arnold Schwarzenneger, Reeves proves himself really remarkable with minimal dialogue and shows, once again, that he can be as much of a visual performer as anything else. A true, all rounder cinematic artist, for my money.

My biggest disappointment with this movie, though, was the cinematography. I loved what Dan Laustsen did with the second film and the way he pitched primary colours against each other on the screen in a truly Bavaesque fashion. Astonishingly, it’s the same cinematographer here and yes, especially in the final fight of the film in ‘deconsecrated ground’ (no, I’m not going to explain that reference, go see the movie), you can see he is going for the same kind of lighting style but, it has to be said, I found the greens, reds and purples to all be looking a bit wishy washy in this one... whereas before they had been rich and violent gialloesque hues befitting the kind of kinetic bullet ballet that these films do so well.

That being said, John Wick Chapter 3 - Parabellum is still a joy to watch and with wonderful little cameo characters played by the likes of Anjelica Huston and Saïd Taghmaoui (who was so good in Wonder Woman, reviewed by me here), the audience is surely never likely to get bored in this one. I’d certainly recommend this to any fan of the franchise, with the caveat that it’s not a jumping on point by any means. I’m hoping a fourth installment will be forthcoming too because... well, you’ll see why if you see this movie. Keeping my fingers crossed that certain actors and actresses can be persuaded to come back for another chapter at some point soon. I didn’t think the ending of this one was all that satisfactory in terms of finishing off the story arc, to be honest.

Kingsman - The Golden Circle

Kingdemonium

Kingsman - The Golden Circle
UK/USA 2017 Directed by Matthew Vaughn
UK cinema release print.

Disclaimer: The only real spoilers you will see in here can all be easily gleaned from the trailer. However, if you haven’t seen the trailer then I would urge you to go in blind.

So the time is already upon us when we get the first and, possibly, not the last sequel to Kingsman - The Secret Service, a film which I loved and reviewed here. Now, it has to be said that I was was really not looking forward to a sequel to that first movie because, while Taron Egerton as Eggsy and Mark Strong as Merlin were bound to be back for the next one, I thought that Colin Firth’s stand out role of Galahad (aka Harry Hart) was an important ingredient in making the whole thing work. Well Vaughn and co-writer, the often quite wonderful Jane Goldman, obviously thought so too because they managed to find a way to bring Firth’s character back which, while utterly implausible in real life, doesn’t really stretch the credibility of the hyper-real world of the ‘Kingsman universe’ too much and... a little more on that later. That being said, I have seen a lot of negative comments about the film being either dull or unwatchable from several quarters on Twitter and the like over the last couple of weeks so... yeah... I wasn’t exactly holding my breath to wait and see this one.

However, as it happens, it’s my firm belief that the bad criticism I’ve heard of it is, for me at least, quite wrong. Not only does Kingsman - The Golden Circle live up to and honour the spirit of the original movie, it also builds on that world fairly successfully and, to boot, is another fun ride. It’s quite true that it isn’t quite near as good as the first one but, honestly, that would be a pretty tall task. However, what the cast and crew have delivered here is a solid, action comedy super-spy thriller which, although I’m sure it completely strays from the comic book source as much or, posssibly, even more than the original movie did, is a nice slice of cinematic spectacle and, I would have thought, a bit of a crowd pleaser. There are, it has to be said, quite a lot of what I would call minor problems with it but, ultimately, these don’t add up to a significant movie killer and the film coasts along quite nicely with, as the first one, a real feeling of empathy and good will conjured up for the main protagonists to succeed in their mission.

Okay so, the three cast I’ve mentioned above are supported by a very strong, somewhat misused in cases, cast which boasts several big names. Julianne Moore is excellent as Poppy, this film’s super-villain, although I believe she is written quite badly and it does hurt the film a little, I think, that Eggsy and Harry don’t actually get to meet or interact with her until their final confrontation scene. So, excellent as she always is, she does tend to feel like she’s been plonked into the film in a corner to just cut back to every now and again in an effort to remind us that there is an evil mastermind making all these things happen in the film. Which is a shame.

Similarly, Channing Tatum is in this but you’d barely know it. His role is quite small and, although he stays the course of the film, the plot line treats him as just an example of how deadly the super-villain’s plan is... like he’s an egg timer so you know how crucial the mission is getting. Jeff Bridges is similarly wasted as the boss of Statesman, the US counterpart to Kingsman and Halle Berry is also not given much to do as the US version of Mark Strong’s Merlin character. I was surprised to see an excellent singer, Tara Hugo, in a little cameo as a bar maid. I don’t know much about her or even, to be honest, that she was also an actress but she brought out a truly great album of Philip Glass songs a year or two ago which is worth giving a listen to. And talking of singers, I was similarly caught unawares to see that Elton John has such a large and crucial part in the story. He’s like ‘the cameo that never goes away’ and he has some nice little moments during the course of the film. There are quite a few more ‘name’ actors putting in appearances in this one but if I list them all I’d be here all day and this would be the longest, scroll hungry review ever... so I won’t.

These people are all good, of course but, it was the surprise reappearance of a number of characters and actors from the first film which really helped pull this one together. A couple of main players are back but I don’t want to spoil the surprise if you haven’t seen this one yet. That being said, as in the first movie, the writers are not afraid to kill off well loved characters and, by the time this film is done, I found I wasn’t eyeing any further sequels with much anticipation after the loss of yet another main ingredient of the series... at least in my eyes.

The film is a joy to watch, though, for the most part and the director has got this really nice thing going with scene transitions which are reflected from the end of one scene into the next... so a pile of drugs will be the side of a mountain next to Poppy’s secret lair, a hole punched through a wall in that lair will be the hole left on the bomb site of the Kingsman shop in London and a bottle of whiskey would morph into a big building in Kentucky shaped like the bottle of whiskey, etc. It’s a nice touch and it really works through the movie without being overdone to the point that it begins to wear thin.

The stunt work and action in this is also great and there’s the usual strong humour undercutting things as it did first time around. Colin Firth’s resurrection is handled particularly well in that he doesn’t immediately snap into mission mode and a lot of scenes of him not being able to remember who he was are not rushed unduly. The way he is brought back into himself, as it were, hinges on the credibility of an ‘expanded’ flashback to part of the original film that everyone remembers and it’s done very well. Even the scene where he goes into a deliberate parallel scene of his famous “manners maketh man” moment from the first doesn’t go as you’d expect it to, being used to simultaneously show that the resurrection isn’t completely taken, as yet and also used to try, not all that successfully, to up the stakes with another character to give the final quarter of the film a little more edge... but, again, I can’t say anything more here because it’s quite definitively in spoiler territory (although a certain plot twist could be deduced from the trailer and I was wondering about a certain possible reveal before I even started watching the movie, to be honest). And even the resurrection of another character (who appears in the film right from the start) is pretty well accounted for and makes total sense, in all fairness.

All this being said, though, the film does have a fair few problems too. For one, a cable car sequence relies on having the car fitted with something which is both completely useless to anyone, super-villain or not, and makes absolutely no sense. Nobody would have a cable car that could do what it does here and, especially, for absolutely no good reason or practical use as it is portrayed during this sequence. Similarly, a character who is branded as part of ‘The Golden Circle’ would surely not let themself be played in the way that Eggsy plays that person in this movie. You can’t claim that a specific character is a naive person if we’ve already been shown how rigorous a ritual it is to be allowed to be a member of The Golden Circle. It makes no sense.

Another big problem is the quality of the action. Like I said, it’s all great but it also feels a little anti-climactic at times because the opening action sequence of the film which involves a fight and chase in a Kingsman cab (as seen on the trailers) is so blisteringly good and makes for such a strong introduction to the film, that nothing else in the movie really feels as intense as that again. Great opening though. However, for a film that does a lot to link in with the first to the point of both replaying scenes and setting up parallel versions of some of those set pieces, then I was bemused that the two most talked about orgies of violence from the first - the blood rage church sequence and the head exploding sequence - had no alternate versions explored in this one and... I felt it really needed something as extreme as those towards the end of this one to keep the feel a little closer to the first.

The film is probably, I suspect, not all that great as a stand alone movie either. There are a lot of jokes and nods to the first one but some of them are quite subtle and rely on knowledge gleaned from that movie. For instance, when an exchange between two characters goes to saving the world, unless you’ve seen the first one then you won’t know what that little hook in the conversation is all about and no idea that they’re really talking about anal sex. Similarly, when we are shown Eggsy’s Kingsman office in his flat, people who haven’t seen the first one may not understand why three, completely unglamourous newspaper front pages are decorating the wall. Even when Colin Firth’s character is being questioned by Merlin about the exact same thing, unless you know what Firth’s explanation of the newspapers is in the first film, you may find yourself scratching your head as to the significance of these questions. So this really is a film for people who are familiar with the first... not least because so many scenes from the first one are ‘given away’ here. That’s not particularly a problem, mind you and I prefer it like this but... I can see how some people might get lost in this one.

However, even with all the minus points, the film still manages to be a cut above many others which have tried... and failed... to do this kind of thing properly. They've also convinced me that the time is right for somebody to have a crack at a movie version of The Ballad Of Halo Jones at some point soon please (anybody who remembers Toby will know exactly what I'm talking about when they see this).

And the score, once again by composers Henry Jackman and Matthew Margeson from the first film, creates the all important musical continuity which so many big screen franchises (Marvel, DC, Alien, Star Trek etc) get wrong. The Kingsman theme is used more, has instant recognition value here and I suspect I’m going to be playing this score a lot more than the first one when it comes out on CD at the end of next month. It even, apparently, has some of Jackman’s score for X-Men - First Class deliberately used for a certain scene here.

All in all, then, Kingsman - The Golden Circle is a great night out at the movies. Not devoid of problems but definitely one which I think fans and admirers of the first film will enjoy a lot. Like I said earlier, I can’t see how a third movie would be able to work without a certain ‘ingredient’ in the mix but, hey, there’s at least a possible replacement character already lined up for that role here, I suppose, so... lets see how the box office on this one goes before we write off another sequel.

Cloud Atlas

Cloud Control

Cloud Atlas
2012 Germany/USA/Hong Kong/Singapore
Directed by Tom Tykwer & The Wachowski Siblings
Warner Brothers Blu Ray Region B

I remember wanting to see this, kind of, at the cinema when it came out in the UK in February of 2103 but there were too many demands being made on my time around then so I was forced to give it a miss. That’s okay though... this is why we have Computer Exchange stores across the land. So we can buy Blu Rays of the movies we missed at dirt cheap prices many months after the initial home video release has passed us by.

Cloud Atlas is one of those movies that is extremely impressive and full of mystery when you watch it. It’s a long film, nearly three hours, and it managed to hold my interest throughout the running time in a way which subsequent viewings possibly wouldn’t. That is to say that the intrigue generated from the initial conceptual set up is the driving force behind the narrative path, if it can be said to indeed have a narrative path, and once the intricacies of the connective tissue turn out to be, maybe, a little bit like the Emporer’s New Clothes in terms of its ultimate message... the film ends up being a little flat and without any real meaning to it by the finish of things.

On the other hand, a similar case could be made for such masterpieces as Citizen Kane, among others, so let’s not count this one out of the running either.

The film walks a very delicate and difficult path in that it maintains a cross cutting narrative that spans at least five, by my count, separate time zones in Earth’s history... past, present and future. How it does this is a remarkable achievement in terms of allowing the audience to keep everything in their heads without losing the plot and the film makers should be congratulated in this task. This couldn’t have been an easy film to shoot and, frankly, probably even less easy to edit.

It helps though that the colour palette on each segment is just a little different without being too at odds with the prevailing style (there’s a heck of a lot of deep focus photography in this thing) and the various directors use every visual and aural trick in the book to guide the audience into a cross cut jump from one time zone to another while trying to assure said audience don't, at first, notice that transition.

One of the most helpful things is that the ridiculous idea of having a heck of a lot of characters with several members of the cast playing several roles in different time zones, helps with familiarity through the actors, becoming a kind of visual cement to enhance the idea that life is all about ripples in time and connections between eras.

It helps the various directors in their visual chicanery quite well, in fact. For example, the director might use a cut on a shot, bringing to the main part of the screen a specific visual key point like an actress’ hand, with the camera panning around and holding it at the centre of one’s focus. The following shot might, for instance, mirror the speed and direction of the shot and continue with highlighting the same thing, sometimes with even the same actor, but after a while your brain catches up and you realise the transition has gone from the hand belonging to one character in the future to the same artist portraying someone in the past. It’s disorienting but, because there’s a lot of detail and visual indicators kicking in as a kind of aftershock on the consciousness, the transitions become seamless while your head catches up to the on screen action.

Similarly, the sound design is used in a manner which will help the brain cope with the various interpenetrating story transitions, such as the sound of horses hooves pounding against the ground metamorphosing into the rhythmic rumble of a steam train as it continues on its journey in a different chronological setting. These are all good tricks to use and the technical aspects of the film are all pulled off brilliantly.

What this does, of course, is allow the viewer to seamlessly cut between, not just different scenarios in time but, also, different shifts in tone. For instance, while most of the stories that play out in this movie are all quite serious and, for the most part, quite downbeat, the screenplay manages to juggle a kind of modern comedy routine of a setting and integrate it into the rest of the scenarios without shifting the tone of the various individual narrative threads, perhaps even enhancing those by contrast and their place within the overall structure of the film.

Asides from the tremendous acting performances and the amazing editing which often cuts on movement, the set design and overall art direction is absolutely brilliant. I found this especially noticeable in one of the “realms” dealing with earth in the future, where animated, interactive, desktop-style background wallpapers are used in the interior of buildings on the walls and floors. Animated fish can swim under foot, for example, and when a foot is put down a virtual splash of water accompanies this action. This is all great stuff and another impressive layer to the movie.

What wasn’t so impressive to me, in the context of the film itself, was the score by Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek and Tom Tykwer... at least not as it is used and lost in the mix. And while the score is probably stronger than I at first perceived, from what I hear of the on-line samples, it seems a pity to me that, for a film where a specific musical piece is used as a major thematic and transitional glue, the score should be so buried under the sound mix for a lot of the time. So that’s a bit of a shame (I'm actually listening to the freshly arrived CD soundtrack as I ready this review and can confirm that the score works very well as a stand alone listen).

My other main problem with the film, and I touched upon this in my opening remarks, is that it doesn’t really seem to be going anywhere. Okay, so we’re hooked in on the fact that various characters from different time zones are played by the same actors from the other parts of the movie and that certainly gets one’s attention. Similarly the concept of a running, comet shaped birth mark through the decades is also an interesting hook. However, at the end, there’s no prevailing explanation as to why any of these things are actually put in place in the first place. Some characters do share a certain connection but not enough to warrant the exploration of these ideas in the first place, it seems to me. The film doesn’t seem to have any real, underlying, central idea it’s trying to convey other than, maybe, everybody should love each other and all start trying to get along. There’s no attempt at anything like closure in the movie in terms of anything other than the conclusion of each, individual story within the narrative... no real effort is made to tie everything in other than by the use of random chance... at least that’s the way it seemed to me.

As an answer to that particular expectation of mine, which was the reason for my investment in the narrative in the first place, you might want to take the tack that a big screen entertainment is just that.. a big screen entertainment. I couldn’t really argue about that myself, other than to recall that the movie had maybe set up my expectations to expect something which had a specific point to make by the end of it. Now I’ve not read the original novel on which this movie was based (as yet), so I’ve no idea if the source story had a more concrete narrative goal and this maybe got lost in translation when it came to the movie adaptation of it. However, in terms of investing my time for almost three hours... I felt the film was a little flat and unsatisfying towards the end. Again, though, whether a movie is required to give this level of closure or whether it should be merely an empty spectacle is an argument for another time. I think there’s room in the world for both types, personally.

So there you have it. Cloud Atlas is a spectacular, attention grabbing film which manages to give a great deal of emotional empathy to the various characters and their situations, while still seeming a little bereft of anything really concrete to say about any of the issues it brings up, it seems to me. That being said, it is a great movie and if you can forget about the “puzzle solving” and reward aspect of the particular journey the filmmakers lead you on with, it’s a stunning piece of cinematic art, worthy of your time.  One thing’s for sure... you won’t find it boring.

X-Men - Days Of Future Past

Future, Past Caring

X-Men - Days OF Future Past
2014 USA/UK
Directed by Bryan Singer
Playing at UK cinemas now.

Warning: Big spoilers in this one and I’m not even going to apologise for them... this is no more than this dreadful movie deserves to “call it out” to people.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote that, “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” It’s strange but, I’ve only ever heard that quoted, usually incorrectly (from people who have remembered it wrong), by film-makers trying to defend the outrageous continuity errors evident in their films which their audience has had to point out to them. I have to say that, in terms of the context within which people quote this about their big screen stories, I have to disagree and bring my own inner hobgoblin to the table, in this case.

I believe that a film franchise succeeds or fails on a lot of different factors on a film by film basis but, one of the things which is really important, and which can kill a whole franchise if you let it, is consistency... in this case, the consistency of continuity. And, unfortunately, the X-Men franchise has now, as far as I’m concerned, sacrificed itself for a quick buck on the altar of the hobgoblins who were really only interested in having a good time at the movies but, instead, are forced to hold a mirror up to the movie and say... “Seriously? You think your audience are all this stupid?”

Before I rip into this awful mess properly, I just want you to know how I stand on the previous films in the franchise, so you can see where I’m coming from and judge my thoughts on X-Men: Days Of Future Past (or X-Men: Days Of Screwing The Continuity Even Further While Pretending To Solve It And Hoping Your Audience Doesn’t Think About The Movie For Too Long, as I now call it) so you can either agree or disagree with my thoughts in terms of this movie’s place compared to the others.

X-Men: Bryan Singer’s first movie was pretty much the first movie based on a Marvel comics property that was actually any good. Not just good, pretty damned brilliant, as it happens. It almost made up for not having the proper characters from the 1960s in it and changing the costume design... well... yeah, almost makes up for it. Something to note: Professor X and Magneto built Cerebro together, when they were friends, in this continuity.

X2: X-Men 2: This was at least as good as the first movie. Another brilliant piece of modern fantasy action from Bryan Singer with a strong opening and a strong ending leading into something very dark and with a consistent tone throughout. Basically, an epic feeling movie to set up the Dark Phoenix character arc.

X-Men: The Last Stand: This was awful. Brett Ratner took over the franchise and basically used every great set up from the previous films and managed to make them pretty boring and unwatchable for, pretty much, most of the film. A lot of people haven’t forgiven this movie for being so bad, as far as I can see. Something to note: Young “bald” Professor X and his friend, Young Magneto, go to recruit Jean Grey together. Professor X can both walk and simultaneously use his mutant powers. In this movie, Charles Xavier is killed/disintegrated, although his mind seems to have jumped into a “different” human being... if the post credits sting is anything to go by.

X-Men Origins - Wolverine: A lot of people didn’t dig this movie but I thought it was okay. A lot of fun and very much like an old 1980s or 1990s “straight to video” kind of B Movie.... but with an A Movie budget to play around with. Thought this was much better than the reaction it got. Things to note: Professor X is in this one too, at the end. My review is here.

X-Men: First Class: Absolutely brilliant. Had a lot of continuity errors which could not be explained as a hangover from the previous films but since it was technically a reboot of the franchise, I was happy with this when treated as a stand alone sequence of movies. Things to note: In this timeline, Magneto and Professor X did not build Cerebro. Professor X is crippled by the end of their first big adventure and way after he and Magneto were still friends, confounding the opening of X-Men: The Last Stand totally. My review is here.

The Wolverine: Nice little movie. Not as fun as the last one but different and kinda interesting. Things to note: Wolverine's adamantium claws are severed and are no longer something he has in this “continuity”. Instead, he has reverted back to the bone claws he was born with as a result of the events depicted in this film. Jean Grey haunts his dreams after he killed her in X-Men: The Last Stand. Also, Professor X and Magneto confront Wolverine in an airport in the post credits sting of the movie. Wolverine looks shocked because, obviously, Professor X is dead, isn’t he? At least, his body was destroyed. My review of this one is here.

Okay. Recap over.

So here we have X-Men: Days Of Future Past. And all I wanted from this movie right now is for it to fix all those stupid continuity holes from the clashes between the awful X-Men: The Last Stand and the amazingly cool X-Men: First Class... and in a fairly fun manner, if possible. And, if only the writers would have thought about it a little more, maybe they would even have nailed that because, frankly, while a bit silly, the central premise they use to wipe out the history of the characters in this one really works well... except it fails before they even start using it.

I can see how the idea here was maybe “borrowed” from the rebooted Star Trek films from a couple of years ago. In the first one (reviewed here), the Spock of the regular timeline is catapulted back into his past, which then changes the future of the younger versions of himself and his friends... thus giving the franchise new life to go back to the days of Kirk, Spock and McCoy in their prime for a movie series without having to worry about contradicting anything that came before. Revelling in that, in fact, by having a half remake of Star Trek II - The Wrath Of Khan for their sequel (reviewed here) and totally having their cake and eating it at the same time. And why the older version of Spock didn’t just wink out of existence because his timeline didn’t actually happen anymore, I’ll never know. Oh, yes I do... because they don’t care about the logic at the heart of the theory of time travel. Okay, whatever.

Singer’s approach in X-Men: Days Of Future Past is to have Wolverine’s “mind” sent back to his younger body in 1973 and get him to change the past then, to split everything off into a new timeline which doesn’t result in the death of mutant kind... and you know what? That could have worked out really well, and the film-makers obviously seem to think it did.. or they never would have released this shambles into cinemas in this form. But the thing is, to have someone sent back from the future to change that timeline... you need to have that future actually be a possibility in the first place. That reality has to have existed before you go back and change it... and there’s no way the point in time that Wolverine is sent back from could actually have happened within the continuity of the previous films without a lot of explaining away of certain things... and there’s absolutely no concession to this, nor concession to audience intelligence, in the movie.

It starts off well enough with concentration camp imagery of imprisoned and dead mutants (and potential mutants) and this is, of course, a nice echo of the World War II Nazi concentration camp sequences which open both the original X-Men and X-Men: First Class. So a really nice idea there from the director. Then we have a fairly cool fight which is basically just a set up to explain the major time travel element  in the film. And then we see the last surviving mutants holed up together, awaiting the coming of the deadly Sentinels. Among these mutants are Kitty Pride, Ice Man, Professor X, Magneto, Storm and Wolverine. They are, of course, the X-Men... well... err... X-Men and X-Women... except... woah... hold on a minute... who’s in that line up again?

I got really excited by the post-credit sting at the end of The Wolverine because the story confronted us with something that was just so impossible within the actual X-Men timeline... Professor X and Wolverine existing in the same continuity after the events of X-Men: The Last Stand... that I figured they must be really confident about undoing the mess they’d made of the consistency between the movies. If they could throw something like that in to be explained away in the next film then... hey... they could do anything.

But that’s the thing, guys and gals. This opening set up is why the whole premise of this movie fails totally. Not only don’t they explain it... they don’t even refer to the events depicted at the end of The Wolverine in any way, shape or form. They just act like the third film didn’t even happen... kinda. Stay with me here because it’s an important concept to get over. Wolverine’s claws in this version of the timeline are back to being adamantium claws. Yep... that’s right... it’s like the events of The Wolverine, released only last year, didn’t even happen. Except... here’s the rub... The Wolverine refers all the way through to Logan’s guilt at having to kill his beloved Jean Grey to save humanity and... err... mutantanity from certain doom. So we know that happened in that continuity. However, in this film, Wolverine also has painful memories of killing Jean Grey (or Dark Phoenix or even, my favourite, Marvel Girl) in that third movie... they actually use clips from it as flashbacks in this one. So then... Professor X is dead isn’t he? This makes no sense. And you can’t try to justify/explain this version as being a version in which the events of the third movie never took place, because they refer to that movie a number of times.

And that’s basically why this movie is screwed before it’s even started. Because the point in time from which our intrepid hero is travelling back from in his mind is absolutely not a reality which could have happened and no attempt is made to explain this. What, they thought we were going to be all overjoyed that most of the old crew were back that we wouldn’t notice the thing has no logic or reason to it at all?

Not only that but, at the end, Wolverine’s mind snaps back to the version of himself fifty years later in a timeline we haven’t seen and all his memories of those fifty years are replaced by his old ones (which is why he’s astonished to see people like Jean Grey and Cyclops back in his timeline). This also makes no sense... his mind didn’t have anywhere else to snap back to... his timeline was destroyed. Serious clangers all round here folks.

Okay, so now I’ve reiterated why the film just totally falls apart and screws the entire franchise sideways into a cocked, adamantium hat... what’s the movie like apart form the huge plot holes?

Well... it’s kinda okayish, in some ways. It’s got a good buzz about it early on but, ultimately, it all just felt a bit “by the numbers”. Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry and Ellen Page were all fine... but that was it for them. They were all just fine... and who can blame them in some ways. Their dialogue wasn’t exactly special. Ditto for most of the First Class team. Michael Fassbender is always damned watchable but he honestly didn’t seem to be present in most of his scenes, apart from when he loses it at Charles Xavier on the plane... that was pretty good. Jennifer Lawrence’s take on Raven/Mystique was okay too but she’s flying more or less solo in this one and, although she’s a bit of a stand out character, she’s mostly just seen beating people up.

James MacAvoy is fantastic and just like his Xavier character in X-Men: First Class. Absolutely a consistent and brilliant performance. However, asides from the cool acting, theres another basic continuity problem with this one. We saw him crippled at the end of the last movie but, in this one, Hank/The Beast has made him a serum which gives him his legs back every time he has his fix. However, this also has the side effect of relieving him of his mutant powers... further highlighting the absolute impossibility of the opening sequence of X-Men: The Last Stand as a path from this reality... except we know all that must have happened because Wolverine’s mind was just sent back from that future reality. Not very well thought out, is it? It’s like the writers kept painting themselves into a corner and then were trying to distract you with things to cover up the fact that they couldn’t address the issues this throws up. But hey, who cares, the audience won’t be paying attention will they? Um, whatever dudes.

There were some other nice things about the movie. The idea that Magneto was implicated in the murder of JFK but was actually trying to save him because he was a fellow mutant was nice. Some, not all, of the action sequences were nicely handled too, the really good ones being the opening fight scene and the sequence where Quicksilver saves them all in the Pentagon jailbreak scene. Which is a pretty great scene... except... oops. Now that’s another confusing thing for audiences who don’t understand that the rights to certain Marvel characters reside with more than one company...

So here you have Quicksilver who is played by Evan Peters in X-Men: Days Of Future Past.... which is a Marvel/20th Century Fox picture. However, we just saw him portrayed by Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the first mid-credits sting at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (reviewed here), made by Marvel/Disney, and will see him portraying that character again in The Avengers: Age Of Ultron next year, also for Marvel/Disney. What’s worse is, the 20th Century Fox version of the character and the Marvel/Disney version of the character are not allowed to share the same history, The ones locked into the S.H.I.E.L.D timeline is not even allowed to mention “mutation” apparently. This is going to confuse a hell of a lot of audience members who don’t know the ins and outs of the situation, folks. All they’re going to know is you’ve got the same character played by two different actors with contradicting histories co-existing at the same time in cinema history. Probably not a great idea guys.

Okay, what else. Well, the music is okay. This one marks the first time that an X-Men movie has had the same composer twice and John Ottman’s score here reuses the X-Men theme he used for X-Men 2. Wait, what? Yeah, you can see the problem here, right? Even the music is, for one of the few rare times in a Marvel movie, insisting on a continuity which is already shot to hell. Which is a shame because Ottman’s score does the job here. It’s not as cool as his earlier X-Men 2 score, or even his two Fantastic Four scores, but it does it’s job and I’ll be grabbing a copy when the CD comes out in a couple of weeks.

And... what else? Um... the special effects are okay, if you like that kind of thing, and the film is competently shot and edited. So, some nice work there... but none of this goes anywhere near making up for the fact that this movie screws up the continuity even worse than X-Men: First Class did.

When the four sequels to Universal’s The Mummy were released in the 1940s, these sequels formed what was supposed to be a single continuity. However, some of the films took place decades after the previous one and in all that time, they were all set in contemporary America, give or take a few years. Worse, in one film, Kharis The Mummy gets buried in a swamp in one country and, when he rises from the swamp to live again in the next movie, it’s somehow relocated to another country. Now, it’s my belief that the majority of those 1940s audiences didn’t question these huge plot holes because, frankly, these were the decades well before anything like commercial home video viewing could even be imagined and re-release cinema screenings were less of a thing then. The movie played, you saw it, and it wasn’t until commercial television started out in the 1950s that these movies would get shown enough again to be able to spot stuff like this. However, note to people in Hollywoodland expecting a gullible audience to swallow the scripts they turn out with more holes in them than a Swiss cheese... your audience is no longer living in the 1940s. It’s not like somebody isn’t going to notice all this stuff somewhere along the line. You need to write smarter than this!

When I went to buy a ticket for X-Men: Days Of Future Past, for a performance a few hours later, there were a lot of firemen in the cinema and when I got to the front of the queue I was told that they were only giving out refunds. It turns out the cinema in question had been struck by lightning less than ten minutes before I’d arrived and it had knocked all the projection rooms out. When I tried again a few hours later, they’d literally just managed to get the cinema rebooted up and were selling tickets again. All I can say is... I should have taken this as some kind of omen, maybe? X-Men: Days Of Future Past is my joint, least favourite X-Men movie, tying with X-Men: The Last Stand in last place. This was not how I was hoping the latest film in a, mostly, fairly strong film series would play out and the only audience I could possibly recommend this to is an audience who haven’t seen any of the previous movies in the franchise because, honestly, this one just makes no sense. And it’s such a shame. It feels like Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (reviewed here) all over again. It just didn’t address the issues it needed to address... and these directors/writers/producers need to make a smarter product to keep the percentage of their audience interested in these things satisified, I’m afraid to say. The hobgoblins are loose... and their small minds are out to tear apart your inconsistencies.

Die Another Day

Frosty Reception

Die Another Day
2002 UK/USA
Directed by Lee Tamahori
EON Blu Ray Region A/B/C

I looked at this again the other week and thought to myself, once more, that it was such a shame that the remarkable Bond actor Pierce Brosnan had to exit the series with such a terrible movie. I am looking back on it now and I’m still stunned as to why half of the decisions on this film were made.

Okay, so lets get started on this mess.

Unlike the previous three Brosnan films, all of which had very strong pre-credits sequences, Die Another Day starts off with what seems to me like an overly dull, couldn’t-care-less series of action sequences, ultimately involving hovercrafts in a jungle setting. It still doesn’t hold my interest and as Bond is caught by his enemies at the end of this sequence (which is a first for the series I think), we go into a truly nasty opening credits sequence which actually functions as part of the narrative (again a first) and tells the story of Bond being tortured for over a year. It’s kinda ugly and, well, kinda unremarkable really. And just to add insult to injury, there’s an opening song by Madonna with truly unhelpful sound dropouts (done deliberately) which is okay, perhaps, as a song in its own right, but truly not really a Bond song. I don’t know what they were thinking when they accepted this as their song on the film but I don’t think the good of the movie came into it. Probably more about dollars and pounds.

This was the 40th anniversary film for the series and there are a lot of references to Bond’s past movie exploits in it, but it all seems to have been put together in a really clumsy manner and it seems more about getting everything in than truly paying homage to the film’s distinguished ancestry. They even throw in the ornithology book that Ian Fleming looked at to get the name of his super spy but, they’re not exactly subtle in doing it.

Everything about this film seems unbelievably over the top and, even the one saving grace of a fine set of actors doing their best with the material they have, does not go nearly far enough towards saving this picture. Even Brosnan himself, still completely in character, has to deliver lines of dialogue which are really just a big long series of polished one-liners. The dialogue and sexual innuendo had been creeping up quite a lot in the last couple of films but they still kept it to manageable and somewhat Bondian levels. Here they over indulge themselves and the consequence is that you can’t take anything anyone says with any degree of seriousness. It’s all just a knowing quip as far as the script goes.

The thing which really helps ruin this film, though, is the over the top science fiction aspect to it. There’s often been an element of sci-fi in Bond but in this one he has an invisible car. I’ll say that again so you can let that meander around in your brain for a while and figure out a reaction...

Bond has an invisible car!

Yeah, I know, I know. It’s all based on stealth technology, I’m sure, but I really don’t think this has a place here and the special effects are such that you really can’t see the thing. Seriously, whether this stuff was in the realms of possibility or not at the time, the inclusion of this kind element just knocks the film’s credibility for six and really doesn’t do it any favours. He’s not Wonder Woman with her invisible jet... he’s James Bond.  And, by the way, an invisible jet is easy to get away with when you’re a character existing in a world which allows for both men and Gods. Here it’s all scientified and, basically, just mocks itself.

And, of course, in addition to this... Bond can stop his heart at will.

No seriously. Want me to repeat that one too?

Bond can stop his own heart just by thinking about it.

He uses this technique to create a distraction when he’s trying to escape his own people. But it’s preposterous... and it’s not how it should be. He’s not Derek Flint. Derek Flint was a spoof character and, as such, can live in a world where he is so far advanced he can stop his own heart. James Bond is not that character and it’s yet another blow to the believability of this movie. I really don’t know why the writers and producers thought they could get away with this stuff. I remember coming home from the cinema at the time and thinking, “Wow. I’d almost rather be watching Octopussy than that.” Seriously, it is that bad.

Which is a shame really because there’s a lot of talent both on and off the screen in this one but... they just can’t conquer a preposterous script, I’m afraid. And I really could have done without the terrible joke scene near the end were it appears Bond and Miss Moneypenny are finally “getting it on”. Awful, embarrassing stuff.

Of course, one of the main talents in the crew is composer David Arnold, who really knocked it out of the park with some of the best music in the Bond series in the last two films. Here, he really does try but the music seems a little less stimulating than before and even though he throws the Bond Is Back musical phrase in there and also the famous bass line from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the music is mostly a dull affair and this is reflected in the compact disc stand alone listen too, as far as I’m concerned.

And that’s about it, I’m afraid. I really haven’t got a whole lot left to say about this one. Die Another Day is a terrible Bond movie and both Brosnan and his audience deserved much better than this shabby treatment. One to avoid if you want to remember Brosnan as one of the better Bond actors.

EON James Bond Movie Reviews on NUTS4R2

Dr. No

From Russia With Love

Goldfinger

Thunderball

You Only Live Twice  

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Diamonds Are Forever

Live And Let Die

The Man With The Golden Gun  

The Spy Who Loved Me

Moonraker

For Your Eyes Only

Octopussy

A View To A Kill 

The LIving Daylights 

Licence To Kill  

GoldenEye

Tomorrow Never Dies

The World Is Not Enough  

Die Another Day 

Casino Royale

Quantum Of Solace

Skyfall
S.P.E.C.T.R.E