Ahsoka

Gesundheit!

Ahsoka
Streaming August - October 2023
8 episodes

Warning: Spoilers within.

Okay, so of the messed up Star Wars TV shows that Disney has so far put out (and I’ve still not seen them all quite yet), Ahsoka is probably the best and most consistently entertaining one. Now, there’s a lot going on here which I don’t pretend to understand fully because, one thing I’ve not seen is any of the Star Wars animated TV shows (apart from the cartoon feature film which got released theatrically in the UK and I can’t remember much about it). That being said, there are a lot of flashback references to what one assumes are the important parts needed here, just remade into live action variants so... yeah, I think you can mostly get through this without having sampled the animated fayre, to be honest (and I’ve no real desire to finally catch up to the Droids or Ewoks TV shows, which I guess would have to be the first port of call if I was to do it properly). 

This one follows the complicated exploits of Ahsoka, Sabine Wren (a kind of Mandalorian Jedi-in-Training, played by Natasha Liu Bordizzo) and Hera Syndulla (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, no stranger to the fantasy and science fiction genres, for sure). 

Now, apart from wanting to see this before the new Star Wars movie is out soon (or possibly at time of publication of this blog review) the other big draw is, like the appearance by Ahsoka in the ‘almost pretty good’ series The Book Of Boba Fett (reviewed here) and The Mandalorian (reviewed here), the title character is played once again by one of my favourite modern actresses, Rosario Dawson. Now, admittedly it’s hard to see the Rosario for the Lekku here but, well, make up and prosthetics (and CGI) aside, it’s another role which shows the range and diversity of the actress. 

The story is basically a side quest to find an old friend of these characters, Ezra, but in the process, endangering the future of the ‘Empireless’ Star Wars universe by risking the return, as a side effect (or vice versa, actually), of a rather famous bad guy from the Star Wars novels who I had no idea had made it into any of the various TV shows over the years. Now I’ve only ever read, maybe less than 20 Star Wars novels in my life but, one of the three trilogies I read was Timothy Zahn’s sequence of novels which were, when they were being marketed in the early 1990s, being touted as the official sequel to the original Star Wars trilogy of films. And the bad guy in that series, being chased by Luke Skywalker and co, was Grand Admiral Thrawn... who returns, after a stint in some cartoons, in this show. I guess it’s a case of Thrawn but not forgotten. 

Story beats and mechanics aside, it’s a nicely put together show with good chemistry between all the many characters (including David Tennant voicing Ahsoka’s droid Huyang) and some nice cameos by the likes of Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker (who somehow found time to train Ahsoka when he was in the land of the living, before he became Darth Vader) and C3PO. 

I have a few minor complaints about the show but the only one I’ll highlight is my disappointment with the text recap on the first episode. For some reason, the producers have decided to veer away from the one point perspective style scrolling text adopted by the original Star Wars movies and which were an obvious reference to the recaps on some of the 1930s and 1940s Universal theatrical serials, specifically the third and final Flash Gordon serial, Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe (reviewed here). That being said, the vision Ahsoka finds herself in during episode five certainly reminded me a little of the aesthetic of the light bridges used in Flash Gordon’s Trip To Mars (reviewed here). 

But there were also some really nice things in the show too. Two I’ll highlight are...

The use of violins or, in this case, ‘fiddles’ in the last episode to highlight the antics of four witches... honouring the time old tradition of iterating this kind of orchestration to accompany witches throughout the history of cinema. Indeed, I’d have to say that the scoring on Ahsoka by somebody called Kevin Kiner is much more in keeping with John Williams and George Lucas’ vision of using the kind of writing style of the golden age of Hollywood than any of the other Star Wars shows so far. 

Okay, the other thing is going to throw people who don’t know the rich history of the character but, there’s a ‘blast shield’ Jedi training scene and, yes, I get it, it’s a reference back to the original film (called Star Wars on its first release) when Luke is training in the Millennium Falcon... but it’s, oh, so much more than that and also comments on the title character’s fighting style throughout the series too. 

To explain... at one point during Wren’s training, Ahsoka asks her droid if he’s tried her in the Zatoichi style. As soon as she said that, I knew she was going to stick a helmet on the pupil, effectively blinding her (and there’s more, give me a minute)... 

So Zatoichi is a long running series of films, initially starring Shintaru Katsu, who played the blind masseur/gambler (and greatest swordsman in all of Japan) in 26 movies made between 1962 and 1989, not to mention in a hundred TV episodes in the 1970s and, after Katsu, at least three other Zatoichi films have been made to date (you can read my review of the first Zatoichi film here, with more to follow as I will be returning to that series of films shortly). I’m sure he’ll be back before too long as he gets rebooted for yet another generation. He had a sword cane and, if you want to see what looks like pretty much an exact replica of that sword cane, it’s in this show as the weapons Ahsoka gives herself and Wren to train with in that particular scene. The Zatoichi fighting style with the backwards sweep of the blade is also something which Ahsoka seems to adopt for the show. So I was really pleased with this. 

Of course, this is not the first time Zatoichi has been used in the modern Star Wars franchise. Donnie Yen’s character Chirrut Îmwe in Rogue One was literally a version of Zatoichi himself dropped, into that story and it of course prompted many people on social media at the time to ask why Yen hadn’t officially played Zatoichi in a film. The time will come, is my guess. He’s already played yet another blind killer heavily based on Zatoichi in John Wick 4 (and its soon-to-be spin off, Cane). 

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, that single stroke victory after a Mexican standoff against a light sabre wielding droid is, I believe, a reference to the influential last scene in the Yojimbo sequel Sanjuro (reviews of both those Kurosawa films coming soon to the blog)... so that was another nice touch. 

The series ends on a kind of cliff hanger and I’m seeing the second season is due this year... so yeah, I probably will give that one a go too, as a voluntary thing because I thought this first season of Ahsoka was easily the best of those Star Wars shows I’ve seen so far and, well, there was never a dull minute. I’m now glad I reluctantly gave this one a chance. Maybe I should give Andor a quick look next?

Clerks III

Dante’s Inferno

Clerks III
USA  2022
Directed by Kevin Smith
View Askew
UK Cinema Release Print.

Warning: Some spoilerage may occur. Snoogans.

Wow. What can I say? I was expecting to have a reasonably good time with Kevin Smith’s new movie, Clerks III but I wasn’t expecting it to be as great as this. For starters, it’s an absolute belter of a movie which is going to be lapped up by Smith’s many fans and... rightly so. But there’s so much more to it than the expected rush of comedy gold when you are watching this one...

Clerks III is actually the eighth film in the Jay and Silent Bob series of movies (not counting the various animated entries) which began back in 1994, with the original Clerks. That debut film was shot in black and white over nights at the Quick Stop grocery store where Kevin Smith worked during the day, making the movie on credit cards for a very small amount of money and lots of good will (I would imagine). Clerks had one of the lowest budgets of any independent film at the time (probably still holds some kind of record) and it went and won first prize at the Sundance film festival before Smith continued to entertain many people with a series of films based on the ‘side characters’ Jay And Silent Bob, who are sometimes the main protagonists of the films and, in one instance, only appear in one scene. Jay is played by Jason Mews and Silent Bob is played by Kevin Smith himself... who also writes and directs all of these movies. If you want to see the movies in the order of their release, the eight of them are (again, not including various animated incarnations)... Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy (the first one I actually caught at the cinema, after seeing the first two on TV), Dogma, Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, Clerks II, Jay And Silent Bob Reboot (reviewed here) and, now, Clerks III.

For Clerks III, Brian O'Halloran returns to reprise the role of Dante Hicks and Jeff Anderson reprises his role of Randall. Also, the brilliant Rosario Dawson, who made her entrance into the View Askewniverse (named after Smith’s production company) in Clerks II, returns but she returns in such a way that... well... all I can say is that Smith once again continues to surprise me as a writer, because what might seem like a cop out of necessity in any other film seems like a really well thought out way of using a returning character in a different way... and that’s all I’m saying about Rosario’s return in this.

It would be true to say that this film isn’t really a jumping on point for people who have never seen a Jay and Silent Bob movie. Smith’s films are all slotting into their own linked up universe with characters from others of his films constantly turning up in cameos and crossing over in joyfully convoluted metatextual events... Clerks III is no different in this matter but, even more so in that the plot of the movie actually centres around a huge piece of self referentialism.

Near the start of the film, Randall has a heart attack in the Quick Stop (which long time watchers of the film series may remember has been rebuilt after fire and is now jointly owned by Dante and Randal after Jay and Silent Bob helped them out financially... it’s a long story, watch it all for yourself). Dante gets him to hospital and his life is saved (mirroring somewhat the director’s own real life experiences with a near fatal heart attack a few years ago). This forces Randall to realise how he’s wasted his life working in a Quick Stop for his whole working existence and so he decides to make a low budget, independent movie based on his life with he, Dante, Jay and Silent Bob... and a whole host of regular returning guest actors and returning real life customers... all playing themselves. Which of course, is what Kevin Smith initially did in real life to get him to where he is today.

Ad so the film is an absolute blast as it references a gazillion scenes and faces from prior View Askewniverse movies, basically saying many of the same lines as they did in the first two Clerks movies (primarily... with a few other movies thrown into the mix) and giving us, kind of, rebooted scenes, shot lovingly in black and white, to punctuate the new shenanigans these characters are all getting themselves into. Yep, the egg man (Walt Flanagan), the ‘cunning ruse’ lady, the Salsa shark scene... loads of stuff gets packed in here. There’s even a big reference to the original, cut ending of the original Clerks (which you can see as a deleted scene on many home video releases over the years). It was great seeing a lot of  these people back, including guest cameos from the likes of Danny Trejo, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Askewniverse regular Ben Affleck... but perhaps the nicest inclusion from me (along with the cameo characters played by Smith’s wife and daughter) was the return of Marilyn Ghigliotti as Veronica... Dante’s original girlfriend for whom fans of the original will remember for her association with the number 37.

But that’s not all folks... it turns out that Clerks III is not just a comedy... it’s also a really moving movie with the third act really going for the jugular in terms of emotional impact. It goes to a place I wasn’t quite, expecting and, what happens after the initial set up seems almost so out of left field as to be unfair... which stokes that drama so well. All I can say is I wish I’d taken more hankies with me because I was crying a little in the cinema and I was still in... lets call it a high state of sadness... 20 minutes later when I got home. This is a truly phenomenal entry in the series and yet another great Kevin Smith movie. Without giving it away too much... he could easily make another Jay and Silent Bob movie (and hopefully this isn’t the last) but, while he could still make another Clerks movie... well... what would be the point? I suspect that this is the last time that we’ll be seeing that specific iteration of the View Askewniverse headlining its own film.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about Clerks III... primarily because I’ve pretty much said all I wanted to but, also because I’ve now started tearing up again remembering it and it’s hard to see the screen when your eyes are all smeary. If you are into Kevin Smith’s movies... and you really should be, they’re a shot of pure joy... then you should really love and, will probably be very moved, by this latest installment of the franchise. And do yourself a favour and stay through the end credits to hear more, heartfelt ramblings from the writer/director.

The Mandalorian Series 2

Bounty Lines

The Mandalorian Series 2
2020 USA Created by Jon Favreau
Eight episodes.

Warning: Loads of big spoilers.

Well... I’ve been holding off from writing this review for a week or so* because... Series 2 of The Mandalorian was okay. And that’s all. And that’s pretty much the problem here. When I was a kid and later a teenager, Star Wars was a hallmark for something really special (even the two not so good movies, Attack Of The Clones and Revenge Of The Sith). If there was a new piece of the franchise coming then it was something to be looked forward to. It was something to set your sights on to get you through the year. And then George Lucas sold it to Disney. For, I’m sure, the best of intentions actually but, well, here we are.

The Disney treadmill got under way with a good start on The Force Awakens but then managed to turn out the somewhat ‘out of synch in terms of continuity’ Rogue One and the disastrous The Last Jedi (which looked really great but completely managed to screw the franchise up completely). When we got to the Star Wars film which did capture a lot of the things which made the originals special without being too ‘in awe’ of the lineage, Solo, the film under performed at the box office... something I personally believe was solely to do with stepped up bad timing and the lack of studio recognition as to how badly people thought previous release was (The Last Jedi). The last movie, The Rise Of Skywalker was pretty good but it spent most of it’s time trying to take away the bad taste of The Last Jedi to the point where it just seemed to jump the shark a little and swerve in a bit of the wrong direction.

And then there’s The Mandalorian. The first season followed it’s old TV western formula and managed to have some really good episodes, tempered with some less than stellar ones. Series Two is, I have to say, more consistent in its tone but, alas, somewhat straddles the line between great and terrible and seems, I dunno, just a little bland and mediocre. It’s a nice thing to watch and that’s no bad thing... but it’s not a great thing to watch, I’m sad to say.

The two main highlights which actually got me bothering to tune into this thing again were the return of two key characters from the main film franchise... Bobba Fett and Luke Skywalker. Alas, although Bobba Fett was played by the actor Temuera Morrison, the person who played Bobba’s father Jango Fett in the aforementioned Attack Of The Clones, he doesn’t make too much of an impact here. Granted, he elevates a couple of the episodes with his presence but ultimately, doesn’t serve much purpose other than to draw the audience interest from the original movies and to have a post credits sequence at the end of the last episode where he sets up a new Bobba Fett TV show.

His sudden reappearance from the dead is never really explained (I think it might have been already explained in some cartoons) and, due to some fast thinking from the writers in terms of the way the story goes in the last episode, he never gets to meet Luke Skywalker so Luke can kick his backside for what he did to Han Solo in The Empire Strikes Back. I’m guessing that would have taken too long out of an episode to write in and so, yeah, they don’t even try to cater for that confrontation.

And as for Luke Skywalker... well. I’ve got a lot of respect for Mark Hamill but this is the worst return of the jedi I could have imagined. They keep his black hood up when he’s lightsabering to death a new squad of battle droids which, frankly, look like they’ve been cribbed from Hammerstein wearing his old war head from The A.B.C Warriors strip in 2000AD comic. Presumably this is to give the effects team less CGI because, when he does reveal his face, they’ve used that technique which is sometimes successful and sometimes not, of making people look like they did decades ago. Alas, here it just looked as fake as the CGI generated Grand Moff Tarkin and Princess Leia from Rogue One. Also, despite ‘The Child’ being an obvious Force user, Luke just seemed somewhat out of place in the world of The Mandalorian, truth be told. At least that’s how it felt to me.

Pedro Pascal and his semi-regular companions were all on top form again but even special guest appearances such as Rosario Dawson and Katee Sackhoff, two very fine actresses, didn’t really distract from the ‘lack of special’. It was a nice and somewhat entertaining show, for sure but... yeah, it feels like Star Wars has really lost its magic since the Disney deal and I do believe that they are going to disprove the old adage “nothing succeeds like excess” next year with a whole host of Star Wars TV shows and another movie which, I suspect, will dilute the brand down even more. I’m trying to stay positive here because Star Wars has been in my life since I was nine years old, when I first saw the original movie in cinemas at the tail end of 1977 but, yeah, it feels like its almost becoming a chore to watch, in some ways. And now that The Child, aka Grogu, looks like he’s departed the series for good (possibly to be slaughtered by Kylo Wren in a decade or so after the setting of this show), it seems to me that the powers that control the current version of the Star Wars universe may be pushing their luck a bit if they are thinking of continuing this for a third season. I guess we’ll see what happens but, believe me, I am sorry I couldn’t be more positive about this latest show. But it just feels like more counterfeit Star Wars to me.

*At time of writing, last year sometime. Sorry, if I could get more excited about it I’d have got it up sooner.

Zombieland - Double Tap

The Tappening

Zombieland - Double Tap
Directed by Ruben Fleischer
2019 USA
UK cinema release print.

Wow. it’s been ten years already, to the month apparently, since the first Zombieland hit cinemas and received a warm welcome from audiences across the globe. It had a certain easy charm and a lot of gut wrenching humour in the movie but it’s taken a while to get to this sequel, which is also set quite a time after the first film, with the four main actors reprising their roles... Woody Harrelson as Talahasse, Jesse Eisenberg as Columbus, Emma Stone as Wichita and Abigail Breslin as Little Rock. Normally when a sequel takes a long time in its gestation period, the cast and crew are always quick to say that they were waiting until the script was properly developed and right and, you know what? I wouldn’t have minded it a bit if they’d have claimed the same thing about this one because, if anything, Zombieland - Double Tap is even funnier and at least as smart and self aware as the first movie.

This film starts with our four friends making their way through the post apocalyptic Zombieland and using The White House as their home before things get messed up and the two girls take off again. Columbus re-finds love... okay, re-finds sex... when he discovers the hilariously airheaded Madison, played by Zoey Deutch and things get even sillier as the writers do not use her as a throwaway character and she has a role to play in this... including making Wichita jealous when she regroups with the other two.

Why does Wichita come back? Well, Little Rock has found love with a peaceful but impossibly naive pacifist who is taking her to the ‘safe haven’ of Babylon, populated by peace loving folk who burn all their weapons and turn them into jewellery. Trouble with that is... things are getting even more dangerous out there in Zombieland, with a new breed of hard-to-kill zombies beginning to appear. So the remaining four go on a road trip to catch up with her and, on the way...

... they meet a few new characters, in addition to Madison. There’s Luke Wilson and Thomas Middleditch, for example, playing bizarrely similar characters to Talahasse and Columbus, which may seem like a bit of an obvious ploy for comedy antics and, indeed, it is... but like the first film, the writers are well aware of what they are doing and make sure the audience know they are not trying to dumb it down for the viewing public. The scenes with these two are actually very funny and they don’t outstay their welcome. Also, one of my favourite actresses, Rosario Dawson, gets a pretty decent role here as another new character, Nevada... so I was happy.

There are quite a few shout backs to the original movie in this one... so if you haven’t seen it in a while, you might like to re-watch it quickly before going to see this... like a wonderful scene where our main protagonists find out that Columbus’ accidental killing of Bill Murray (playing himself) in the first movie has spawned a verb amongst the surviving human population in those areas. There’s also Columbus’ rules and various typographic shenanigans lit up on screen via the use of CGI which really move the film along and tug at the funny bone in some cases (try and read them all because there are some great throwaway lines hidden in the words here).

Now, it would be true there are no real surprises in the movie... a ploy where something happens to one of the characters halfway through the story to cause their hasty exit from the film for a while didn’t fool me one bit, for example, with exactly what I thought was actually going on (down to the specific manifestation of symptoms... trying not to spoil it here) actually turning out to be the case. However, because the script is so intelligent in terms of the dialogue and the way that dialogue functions, which seems to be a trait built into the cynicism of the characters, thus allowing the audience to know that they are ‘in on the joke’... means that even the ‘not so surprising surprises’ are not exactly disappointing and, honestly, just add to the fun here. In fact, I rarely laugh at comedies (even when I love them) but this one did get a good number of chuckles from me during the screening.

Also, like the first one, the film doesn’t skimp on the goriness normally associated with the zombie genre (even zombie comedies like this one) and, although it does kind of 'normalise' the violence somewhat... in a non-jaded manner... it does also get a few laughs on occasion, especially when Columbus is running us through the zombie-types which they have now become known to the group as.

And, this was a near perfect movie for me. If I had to say the one thing that disappointed me about this one, then I’d have to say it’s that there are no references to Twinkie Bars in the sequel, given that they played such an important role in the first film. Honestly though, it doesn’t really matter here because the quality of the script is such that I’m willing to forgive small character continuity traits like this and, as Columbus points out in his running voice-over narrative at the start of the film, the characters have moved on a little since the first one. There was even a true moment of suspense towards the end of the film when the fate of one of the main characters hangs in the balance... which was pretty good going from the director here, since it’s a comedy.

So there you go. That’s me more or less done on Zombieland - Double Tap other than to say, if you liked the first movie then you’ll probably really like this one and, a quick word to stay around past the credits... there are mid credits and post credits extra scenes, both a shout out to a specific, audience pleasing sequence in the first film so, you know, don’t run for the exits when the end credits start playing out. Also, if you do stay, know that it’s actually Woody Harrelson covering a song over the end credits too so... you know... stay in your seat for a bit.

The Lego Batman Movie

Brick Grayson

The Lego Batman Movie
Denmark/USA 2017
Directed by Chris McKay
Warner Brothers
UK cinema release print.
Warning: Some spoilers, of sorts.

I was pretty surprised when, a couple of years back, Warner Brothers allowed their Batman character (plus a load of other licensed characters from various franchises) to be diluted, just a little, by having a version of him in The Lego Movie (reviewed here) while the franchise and their film rights were still very much active in the current cinematic landscape. It was a great idea and I welcomed it heartily but I think it was quite brave of them to lampoon their own characters like that and they’ve done it again now with this spin off film, The Lego Batman Movie.

What this means is that they’re allowing a movie with a major character in ‘comedy mode’ out in the very same year that at least one movie also featuring Batman (as played by Ben Affleck) is coming out at our cinemas in the Justice League movie. It remains to be seen whether his character will also make an appearance in a cameo at the end of the new Wonder Woman movie too, to remind the audience what they are building up to but... I wouldn’t be surprised.

However, I’m pretty glad that this movie here is in existence because frankly, and I’m sure most people would probably agree on this, it’s way more of an interesting and engaging film than the current crop of dark DC movies that are being inflicted on audiences and this one really captures certain, albeit exaggerated, truths about the characters in a direct and effective way which the other cinematic representations we’ve had lately just aren’t able to compete with on a similar level.

So, this weekend, I armed myself with a kid, being as I went to the cinema with my friend, his lovely wife and their cute child... and took in the new Lego movie myself and, although there was exactly the ‘first showing overload’ problem I expected to have with it on this one (yeah, I’ll get to it soon enough), I overall had a good time with this movie and it even got me to smile at some moments, a facial expression which is fairly out of character for me, it has to be said.

The first thing prospective audience members may want to know about this one is that you absolutely do not need to see The Lego Movie to watch this. In fact, I couldn’t find any reference to the events and characters of that film anywhere in this one. They might be in there but I certainly didn’t spot them on first viewing so, yeah, this can very much be seen as a stand alone film. Well, other than the fact that Batman is in it, of course... totally not referring to his previous brick-based adventures in any way shape or form. There are, however, quite a lot of references to the previous incarnations of The Batman, both on screen and off, as there are about the DC universe in general... and they do come thick and fast. It was nice, for example, seeing a clip from the 1960s Adam West Batman on the big screen again (there are at least six homages to the Batman TV show and also the film spin off that I could count) and it was also nice to see a brief reference to the 1940s theatrical serials at one point.

And it doesn’t stop there either... the DC universe isn’t the only thing that gets furious referencing here as this follows the same modus operandi as The Lego Movie in that characters from a whole host of other Lego licensed franchises are also seen on screen. I was disappointed that a lot of the DC Universe characters were sidelined in this movie but it was nice to see The Superfriends mixing it up with their Justice League buddies in a party scene. It’s in this sequence that Batman and his newly acquired sidekick Dick Grayson, aka Robin (or Reggae Man... nah, you watch the film to find out) steal The Phantom Zone projector from Superman’s Fortress of Solitude so they can banish The Joker there. Of course, that’s exactly what The Joker wants and it’s here that he teams up and unleashes various Lego versions of their licensed characters (and some unlicensed, as far as I know) and teams up with them to destroy Gotham City. So yeah, we have Voldemort from Harry Potter, the Eye of Sauron from Lord Of The Rings, the Gremlins from... um... Gremlins, King Kong, the DALEKS from Doctor Who and the Wicked Witch of the West with her flying monkeys from The Wizard Of Oz, all involved in an all out attack on the brick city where Batman lives and... it’s pretty much as fun as you would expect.

There are a couple of problems. The main one being that there is so much going on in the movie, both in terms of cramming in a heck of a lot of laughs and action and also in terms of the dialogue/visual referencing that it does get a little difficult to process it at points. Some of the action sequences... especially when Batman, Robin, Batgirl and Alfred (as voiced by Ralph Fiennes) team up with all the supervillains The Joker left behind in Arkham Asylum and go head to head against the aforementioned army of evil... are a little hard to follow at certain points, to be sure. Of course, it could be argued that the choppiness, albeit often inventive action sequences, coupled with the sheer randomness of the assorted roll call of non-DC universe character mash ups are an homage to the free imagination of a child and, well, who am I to argue with that.

Another thing that irritated me a little was Batman’s description of the un-named DALEKS as ‘British Robots’. Okay, British is fine (even though they were created on the planet Skaro) but robots they are not. If anything, they are living creatures driving personal tanks, to some extent. So wasn’t that impressed with the almost derogatory way in which they are referred, especially when they are in the movie a fair bit.

And I also found it strange and somewhat disappointing that in a movie which has Ralph Fiennes doing one of the voices, he wasn’t also asked to voice his recurring Harry Potter villain Lord Voldemort, since he plays a big part here, instead choosing to have Voldemort voiced by Eddie Izzard instead. Don’t know what they were thinking there, to be honest.

However, these are all pretty minor things and it’s a quite fun movie most of the time. Like a lot of these kinds of films these days it also pitches its humour on two parallel levels. You’ve got all the slapstick and stuff for the kids but there’s also an adult level hidden but quite easily decryptable in the movie too... so if you’re an intelligent member of the 'grown ups' race (and not just a man-child like me) then you have something which you can hook into too.

And that’s about it for The Lego Batman Movie. Oh, apart from a quick shout out to Lorne Balfe who provides an excellent, Batman-esque score for the proceedings (the CD is in the mail) and a quick note to say that Billy Dee Williams finally gets to reprise his role of Harvey Dent (aka Two Face) from the 1989 Batman movie, albeit briefly. Other than that though, The Batman Lego Movie is not full of interesting shot set ups or mind-blowing visuals but it does have a huge sense of fun and, like the previous movie, a whole brickload of heart. This is almost certainly going to be more interesting than any other Batman related movie released this year (I’m just guessing here but we’ll see if I’m right) and it’s definitely worth a look... especially if you know your comic book history and like spotting all the references. There’s a lot here to hold your interest.

Ratchet And Clank

Clanks A Million

Ratchet And Clank
2016 Hong Kong/Canada/USA
Directed by  Kevin Munroe and Jericca Cleland
UK cinema release print.

Hmmm... well this is going to be a painful one to try and review.

Regular readers of this column might wonder why I chose to go and see this one. Well, it’s like this...

Back when I had time to do such things, before I started writing this blog, I used to play computer and video games. Starting from 1982 when I got my ZX Spectrum computer and, years later, when I graduated onto the Playstation, and then Playstation 2, games consoles. Being as I was brought up in a time when the highest tech computer game was two lines and a pixel representing a ball, in the mid 1970s, before the even more jaw dropping Space Invaders came out, I think many game players today might describe my taste as ‘old school’ at best (or maybe just ‘old’, I dunno).

So it would be true to say I prefer the simpler games and the old 2D platform games were something I definitely liked playing. So when everything got into something a little closer to what is now considered cutting edge, my favourite games on the Playstation were probably those aimed at the younger end of the market, because the sheer addiction and playability of those reminded me of the great times I had playing stuff like Manic Miner and Chuckie Egg back in the 1980s. So games like 40 Winks, Ape Escape and Spyro The Dragon were the order of the day. And, of course, Ratchet & Clank... which was pretty much just another variant on those ones I just mentioned. So, when I found out, literally a week before its release into cinemas, that a movie version of Ratchet & Clank was coming out, I leapt into action and asked my friend if he could bring his young ‘un with us to the cinema so I had a legitimate excuse to go and see this thing.

And I’d like to say, “A good time was had by all!”... but I can’t because it’s neither a great movie nor, as it turns out, the most interesting or faithful adaptation, from what I can remember of the original game. Furthermore, the young ‘un was so interested in the on screen antics of the much loved duo that he spent a lot of the time asleep... as did his father, it turns out. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t drifting off in places too, as it happens.

So, anyway, what we have here is a partial remake, to some extent, of the original game. However, things seem to be less exciting and interesting in the movie version than I would have expected them to be. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a terrible movie by any stretch of the imagination... it’s just not a good one and I’ve been trying to figure out why it failed, in my eyes, to hold much interest.

Well, you know how some movies are just set ups for various set pieces and the story moves through the action, peaking and troughing to give you a build up between sections? Well this movie just doesn’t seem to have that kind of 'up and downtime' structure, it seemed to me. It was almost all just peak (or trough, take your pick), with no real uplift or build up to give the action any meaning. I mean, sure I was rooting for the good guys as they tried to foil the evil villain’s plans but somehow it all just felt kind of flat. Like the film was trying really hard to just offer up constant dessert without letting you appreciate that dessert in the context of a main meal. It just seemed really ‘even’ and, consequently, any emotional context was kind of lost in translation.

Also, in terms of adaptation, there are a couple of things which stood out for me when I used to play the old video game on my games console. One is Ratchet’s trusty hydro spanner (or wrench, or whatever you want to call it) which he would fling at various objects and which would return to him like a boomerang. Well, since that weapon is such a basic constant in the game, I could have done with it not being stripped down to a single token appearance near the end of the movie, where Ratchet just hits somebody over the head with it. Especially given its prominence in the posters. It was a bit of a letdown, to be honest. The other thing which I used to like about the game was when Ratchet would don special boots and ‘ride the grind rails’ found on various worlds as the game unfolds. Alas, there’s no grind rail chase or even a nod to them in this version.

There was one bright spot with a movie ‘in joke’ which highlights, in no uncertain terms, the use of the old ‘Wilhelm scream’... a specific sound sample which has been used in movies for many decades. This time it actually gets a shout out on screen and, if you’re in the know about this one, it’s quite a funny moment... at least I thought so. Although, I think most people in the screening I went to didn’t realise why one of the characters name checked someone as ‘Wilhelm’ after he’d fallen screaming from a structure. But, hey, I liked it... and by that point in the film I was ready to laugh at anything funny, should it decide to turn up on screen.

The film has an impressive voice cast. Among them are Paul Giamatti, Armin Shimerman, Rosario Dawson, John Goodman and Sylvester Stallone... but it’s a shame that such talent was held back somewhat on a script that, while it does have it’s moments, just doesn’t have enough emotional weight to pull the audience in, so much. They all, of course, do a wonderful job, but they really could have been anybody saying the lines, I felt.

The film’s score, by Evan Wise, was a competent and appropriate job but, I have to say, it didn’t really stand out as much as I would have liked. It certainly supported what was there on the screen but, again, when the score is supporting much the same kinds of scenes over and over throughout the movie, it gets a bit ‘bland’ after a while. That being said, it does what it does quite well and I think this may well be a composer to watch in the future, if he manages to get some bigger and better projects under his belt. I’m toying with the idea of buying the stand alone CD when it’s released in a couple of days because it’s a very competent set of compositions, it seemed to me, and I suspect a lot of it got buried under the noisy sound mix in the movie itself. So yeah, I’ll probably give that one a go sometime soon.

Other than that, though, I’d have to say that the movie version of Ratchet & Clank definitely doesn’t live up to its potential. However, saying that, not all the kids in the audience were asleep through it... although some of them seemed rather restless. Probably something which is more appreciated by youngsters, though, I would imagine, rather than adult game players of years gone by. One of my least favourite movies of the year so far but, again, not a completely terrible one.

Sin City - A Dame To Kill For

Miller’s Kiss

Sin City - A Dame To Kill For
2014 USA
Directed by Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller
UK Cinema release print.

Warning: One slight spoiler to kill for here... although if you’ve not read the original comic then you may not even realise there was a twist reveal in this movie at all.

Okay, so I’ve not been to Frightfest much since it first started to be “a thing”.. I think I’ve been maybe four or five times only and two of those were for UK premieres of Dario Argento movies The Card Player and Giallo. The other one that sticks in my mind was back in 2005 and it was the first and last time, to date, I’d ever booked a ticket for a “surprise movie” at any festival. I hate the uncertainty of those kinds of screenings and on that one time I took a gamble that the surprise movie would be some kind of UK premiere of Sin City and... I’m happy to say I was right. It blew me away too. Sin City was a great movie and a faithful adaptation of Frank Miller’s original source material. A film I can watch over and over again throughout my life without getting bored.

I was kinda worried about the new film for many reasons, one of which is the fact that it’s now nine years since the last one and audiences seem to have short memories these days. I was also aware that some of the original cast had died, far too young (Michael Clarke Duncan, Brittany Murphy), and that it would be a shame having to see their characters played by different people. As it happens, that wasn’t as distracting as the one character I wasn’t’ that worried about having a change of actor for... basically because the original Frank Miller comic book it’s based on kinda dictated it. However, the way the “reveal” in the comic book is dealt with here is one of the very few false notes in an otherwise perfect second helping of the beautiful union between the semiotics of comics and movies that is the Sin City franchise.

Yeah, that’s right. Near perfect. I know this has done really badly at the box office already and I’ve astonishingly seen some bad word of mouth tweets on the film by people whose verdict on all things cinema I would normally trust. I really don’t know why this incredible wave of negativity is happening with this film though because, frankly, I had a blast with it.

It’s been said that the language of cinema and the language of comics are very similar. Both deal with the telling of events and incidents in a fashion perceived as linear, with comics using a series of static panels to do the same thing as films... but personally I think that’s a little too cut and dried. After all, what is film other than a series of static images projected at a rate the human eye can perceive as motion? It’s not a great leap from 24 frames a second to 24 panels a second. I think, for me, the rich visual language of comic books, much like the edgy subject matter they can sometimes tackle head on in a way that a commercially conscientious movie cannot, is far superior to the visual styles used in the majority of movies. You think it’s a case of film being like a comic book but actually it’s more a case of comics being visually closely allied to film... and then pushing that collision into other realms which aren’t necessarily the most expressive or appropriate ways to explore the territory they are trying to understand. Ang Lee’s Hulk movie, for example, is a perfect example of a film trying to be more like a comic book in the way that it encompasses a very similar visual language by using the background organisation of the printed comic page being split into panels and then finding a way to, sometimes very cleverly, use those panels to make a narrative which can speed up or slow down your perception of time as required by the confines of the story.

The first Sin City film followed the stark black and white colouring shot through with odd, bright colours highlighting various characters and objects which was used in some of the issues... although I seem to remember the original A Dame To Kill didn’t actually use any colour in it (if memory serves me correctly). Like the first movie, though, it serves to enhance the overall look of the Sin City branding and it’s certainly used very effectively. This film looks every bit as spectacular as the first movie in the franchise and, once again, Rodriguez and Miller have done a fine job of adapting this masterwork, even going as far as to graphically bring many of the comic book panels to life as almost “animated moments” like they were in the first movie.

I have very few complaints but one of them would be Jessica Alba in the role of Nancy. Don’t get me wrong, she’s an incredible actress and does a fine job here but... again, in Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, we see her obviously reluctant to take her clothes off like the character does in the comics and this really does kinda blow the credibility of Nancy on film in terms of someone who is an infamous stripper dancing in one of the sleaziest bars in Sin City. I love Jessica Alba as much as the next warm blooded guy or gal but, for such a crucial part, there really needs to be a lack of clothes, I feel.

My other complaint would be the character of Dwight, as played by Josh Brolin, who does very well in the part and bounces off of Mickey Rourke’s exquisite return engagement as “the tough guy’s tough guy” Marv in just the way you need him too. I wasn’t too worried about Brolin replacing the already excellent Clive Owen in the role of Dwight for the simple reason that, if you’ve ever read A Dame To Kill For, you’ll know that they would have had to have used a different actor for the majority of it. The story is set before most of the events that took place in the previous movie and so you get to find out why Manute has a bright yellow eyepiece and why Marv, and Goldie and her sister, of course, are all alive in this one. In the original A Dame To Kill For, Dwight gets his face changed after sustaining some fairly fearsome injuries and, when the bandages come off, he is revealed as the later version of the character which he was portrayed as in the previous comics/films. This is a great reveal and I was really looking forward to Clive Owen coming back for the last part of this movie as the Dwight we knew and loved in the first film.

Alas, it wasn’t to be.

Apparently Owen’s schedule would not let him return for his part of the role in this one. Now, personally, I would have waited him out because, although they’ve tried their best with prosthetics to make Brolin look like the version of the character Owen played earlier, when the bandages come off in the movie it kinda just looks like Brolin with a haircut that... really doesn’t suit him. This is the one thing that fails the movie big time, I reckon, because... if you haven’t read the comic, and most of the audience wouldn’t have... it doesn’t come across that Dwight’s face is supposed to be as it was in the first movie. Without Owen there to sell the illusion, the fact that there is even supposed to be a reveal here... rather than just Brolin with a scruffy mop top... is probably not something most people are going to pick up on. So that’s a real shame and, like I said, I wish they would have just delayed the film again and waited for Owen’s schedule to clear up. It wasn’t, after all, the first time this particular sequel had been delayed.

Aside from that though, Miller’s beautifully written noir dialogue and the heavy blacks and bleached out whites colliding with the reds, blues and yellows makes for another Sin City film which is pure visual poetry. And added to that you’ve got Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing a brand new character to the Sin City universe, Rosario Dawson back as Gail (although not nearly enough of this gorgeous actress as I would have liked to see... she’s always fun to watch and listen to) and the always stunning Eva Green playing the title character Ava, literally A Dame To Kill For. And I’ll tell you people who have an interest in this kind of thing up front... Eva as Ava goes through most of the picture not wearing much of any clothes at all, for the most part... so in terms of the celebration of naked femininity on screen, she more than makes up for the lack of Nancy strutting her stuff like she does in the comics... although I still think it’s a bit of a heavy credibility issue to have a stripper who doesn’t strip, to be honest.

The music to the first film was supplied by Rodriguez himself, working with composers John Debney and Graeme Revell. For this one, however, he’s working with a composer called Carl Thiel but, honestly, you wouldn’t notice any change because the music uses themes and orchestration which are the dead spit of the style of the first movie in the series and the continuity between the two of them is completely copacetic, I’m happy to say. I can’t wait for the release of the CD of the score in September so I can give it some play.

One last thing I will say though is this... I don’t know why this movie has had such a disappointing weekend but I do know that the Sin City films are absolutely the kinds of films that are meant to be seen at the cinema. They are what film is all about and they are little masterpieces of modern art that, if ignored now, will resurface and be reappraised in decades to come and your support for films like this is badly needed so future generations don’t turn around and ask us all, through the mists of time, why only two of these movies were made. Minor gripes aside, Sin City: A Dame To Kill For is an absolute corker of a movie and should appeal to true cinephiles the world over. Go and soak it up in all its 3D goodness on a big screen while you still can.

Trance

Smooth EnTrance

Trance
UK 2013
Directed by Danny Boyle
Playing at cinemas now.

I’m not the biggest Danny Boyle fan, it’s true, but having said that, I almost always appreciate his films on some level and I very much liked his 28 Days Later. That being said, my main reason for going to see this movie was not the director, nor the majority of the excellent cast he has assembled to make this mesmerising thriller. I went to see this gig because of the always brilliant Rosario Dawson, who I first became aware of in the underrated and really quite phenomenal Josie And The Pussycats (seriously, if you want to see a really entertaining and subversive piece of propoganda about the current state of the music industry and the teenage audience it pretends to support, go see Josie And The Pussycats... such a great movie).

Trance is an ensemble piece when it comes to the acting but Rosario Dawson is, once again, the main attraction of this film, for this jaded audience member anyway, and it would certainly be true to say that she has a very “smooth entrance” in this movie... I just can’t tell you why without giving away one of the nicer surprises of the visual splendour of the film.

And visual splendour cut sharply like a diamond with some great editing is exactly what you get from Boyle here and it’s certainly one of the more addictive of the movies he’s made. Unfortunately, the main shaker and mover behind the plot is probably going to be obvious to the intended target audience even from just watching the trailer but, once you get over the fact that this film isn’t really going to surprise you all that much in terms of the deliberate and, sometimes quite elabourate, visual red herrings Boyle plugs you into in order to redirect your attention away from the truth of the plot, then you can start to watch the sometimes quite visceral image/sound poetry purely on its own terms. And frankly, the sooner in to the movie you do that, the more likely you are to have a better time with it.

Boyle uses a variety of techniques from longer, swooping visuals to hand held camera, fast edits, mixed stock treatments and differing rhythms... that he manages to make all that work without losing the interest of the viewer is a good indication of his particular talents in being able to put together a coherent entertainment for the screen. The transitory nature of the little story scenarios he builds up, before pulling them down before you, maybe gets a little tiring and just plain expected even from the outset, but this doesn’t stop there being some really nice little moments including a scene which, although you suspect it’s just a fantasy sequence already, reveals itself through such a nicely surreal and gory effect that you won’t feel cheated by the various redirection tricks going on around you as you watch.

Like a good Italian giallo (which it in no way resembles or tries to be) the deliberate blurring of the audiences focus to be able to bother following a specific line of enquiry makes for a movie where, in the end, you just won’t care who has done what... and like I said, if you saw the trailer then you probably guessed just who is on control here right from the word go anyway. Unfortunately, it’s one of the problems of the subject matter that it almost always tips itself off by its very nature but the director’s “sleight of hand” in some sequences is quite artistically and refreshingly achieved and most viewers who have an eye for visual opulence will not be too worried by the perhaps less than revealing nature of the solution to the mystery (and talking of revealing nature, there’s so much more I could say about the glamorous Ms. Dawson’s contribution to the film, especially in reference to my post title... but it’s probably best I don’t).

Trance is not a really great movie... but it’s certainly a good one and definitely one of the better distractions at the cinema right now if you want to go and see a movie which doesn’t rely totally on blowing things up (although there is some gun play and some quite raw scenes of violence on show here, to be fair). If this is your thing then Trance is probably one of the better options you’ve got at the cinema right now. Definitely something you should sample if you call yourself a fan of the medium and you want to support something British.  Who knows, it might inspire you to try to  give yourself a bit of a smooth entrance every now and again yourself.

Men In Black 3

Spare MIBs


Men In Black 3 USA  2012
Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld
Playing at UK cinemas now

Men In Black 3 is not a roller-coaster ride of a movie.

Nor is it high octane, pulse pounding, thrilling adrenalin rush of a cinematic experience... and if that’s what you’re hoping for I think you may find yourself a little disappointed. And I think that may be the case with much of what the studio thinks is its target audience.

On the other hand, Men In Black 3 is exactly what I was hoping to get from another installment in the franchise...

A decent movie.

A film.

Something with a little story and a warm heart rather than just a whole flying saucer load of mind-numbing set pieces fused together with a storyline tagged on around it. In other words... it’s a nice, pleasant time at the cinema and not a confusing one.

Now I loved the original Men In Black movie when it hit cinemas back in 1997. It had a darkness and a downside to it that gave the movie a certain amount of warm fuzziness while still being a nice bit of a sci-fi adventure yarn. I even watched it once again when it was released on video tape. Men In Black 2, however, was a whole different ball game. It was competent enough and had some nice bits in it but, ultimately, I felt like that one was just a load of set pieces shoved together and tied up with a bow. It wasn’t terrible, how could it be when Rosario Dawson was in it (she is hot!)? Ultimately though, it didn’t provide what I was looking for and I never was tempted enough to look at it again when it hit the home video market.

It’s been ten years since that misfire (I’m sorry, that’s just how I see the second one) but the trailer to MIB3 looked pretty good and I’m always a sucker for time travel stories so I decided to check this one out... besides, my mum loves Will Smith so it was a shoe in I’d have to take her along to it anyway. Like I had a choice.

As I said above, MIB3 has a solid storyline and some genuinely funny moments. The banter between the warm Agent J (Will Smith) and his dead-pan senior partner Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) is all in fine form but after a major set piece or two at the start of the movie... yeah, okay, they put some major set pieces in, it’s not like they didn’t try to turn it into a roller coaster, they just didn’t succeed enough on that level to let it ruin the film okay? Anyway... as I was saying... after a major set piece or two at the start of the movie, Tommy Lee Jones goes missing in action. Quite literally missing. Missing from the present day time/space continuum, in fact, when a psychopathic alien (who reminded me a bit of Charlie Manson, it must be said) escapes from his lunar jail and goes back in time to the launch of the famous moon landing mission of 1969 at Cape Canavrel, killing Agent K and thus changing history. The only one who can remember K is Will Smith’s J... and with the world in peril from marauding alien invaders, J has to go back in time to 1969 to prevent the moon escapee, Boris The Animal, from killing Agent K and thus allowing the older Boris to succeed where he, in the past, failed.

And pretty much the rest of the movie’s short running time is spent with Agent J and a younger version of Agent K, played expertly by Josh Brolin in a performance which is a brilliant echo of Tommy Lee Jones own take on the role, as they do the whole “tracking down alien Men In Black” thing and we see some great moments in American history recreated to boot... including a nice series of moments in Andy Warhol’s factory (Andy Warhol, of course, turning out to be an undercover MIB). There were some nice little nods to the time and place the movie inhabits and I even, at one point, saw a blink and you’ll miss it cameo of a guy dressed up as a Metalunan Mutant from This Island Earth. That one really made me smile.

There’s some stuff towards the end of the movie when the two agents and their friend, who can see all the possible future events of the universe, are put in a situation when you realise there’s a good chance that nobody is going to get a very happy ending out of this one. You already know that the reason Agent K has looked miserable all these years is because of what happened the day that the movie is working itself up to and with both agents taking on a different version of Boris from two crossing time streams at once, the chances of them both surviving don’t look very good... and I’m happy to say that my best guess on this one was wrong. I expected this to be an exit for one of the characters, and not necessarily the one who it’s all set up to be the last exit for... so I was really glad that the movie wasn’t as obvious as I’d expected it to be in this area... although that outcome would have been a pretty bleak proposition. There’s also a bit I didn’t really understand with a little bump/bounceback in time happening with no apparent explanation... can anybody who’s seen the movie please explain that one to me?

I can, however, reveal one tiny thing without actually spoiling your viewing experience of the film. All I’m going to say is that Boris isn’t the only person who shares some simultaneous timeline with a younger version of himself... and I’ll leave it at that. You might have a suspicion from that but I’m guessing you’ll be wrong. There’s a nice little surprise before Agent J returns back to his own time stream. And when I say nice I mean the moment is tragic and dark and explains just why K is not the most cheerful person whenever we see him... and I really can’t say anymore. Suffice it to say that the movie is quite moving towards the end and gives a nice understanding of certain things that happened in the first movie... although I’m going to have to check that first movie again now to ensure that the third movie hasn’t created some glaringly new, timey-wimey continuity errors in the trilogy.

This film is well shot, well acted, has some nice visual effects, some gentle comedy, a villain you really won’t like too much... plus music by Danny Elfman riffing on his original baseline for the series, so what’s not to like on that “score”? It’s not a perfect movie, by any means. I would have liked to see more of Tommy Lee Jones in the movie, since he gets kind of jettisoned from the film about 20 - 30 minutes of the way in and then only comes back for about a minute or two at the end... that was a shame... but it’s not about the cast it’s about the overall effect and Men In Black 3 is a nice, respectful companion piece to the previous two movies and certainly doesn’t let the high standard set in the first one drop any. The 3D in this one wasn’t nearly as distracting either, I would say. Completely pointless and unnecessary, of course, specifically because of that reason... but not distracting.

If Men In Black is your thing then you shouldn’t find yourself disappointed by the third installment... it’s a really solid piece of movie making. Go see it.