Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written August 25th, 2017*

"What a trip"

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas isn't a film, it's a trip. In a way, it's pure cinema. Pure unfiltered insanity into the worst place in America. There's no real story, but that's the point. Raoul and Gonzo are just our portal into this world of depravity and filth. You just gotta take a deep breath and take this all in. It's chaotic, messy and disorganised. Like a real drug trip. 

Hunter S. Thompson is an infinitely interesting character (I really need to read the book) and I take no hyperbole here when I say this is the best performance of Johnny Depp's career. I know he's known for his campy, weird roles, but in 1998 he peaked, delivering a never ending quote machine and iconic Raoul Duke. 

Gilliam's a director I've never got on with, but his style here shines. Painting Las Vegas as the centre point of everything wrong with America. It's vile, grotesque and just a bit terrifying. The tripping sequences are handled with pure disorganized chaos and cinema still has yet to see a better portrayal of drugs on screen. Well, maybe 2013's Filth. 

I sound very positive about Fear and Loathing, but as much as I do like it. I find it very hard to digest and sit through. At two hours with no real story, it drags and gets a little on my nerves. You can grapple onto a performance all you want for 120 minutes, but for me, it just gets a little too much.

I do love the ending though and I plan to get a "Too Weird to Live to Rare to Die" tattoo at some point in my life. 

I chose to watch this as a silly little bit of prep to my trip to Reading Festival in the morning, where I hope to be equally as off my head as Johnny Depp in this.


Now get out of here, this is Bat Country.

6/10 Dans

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written December 8th, 2016*

"Magic prequel"


I had my reservations going into this Harry Potter prequel series (Which is the first of a planned FIVE). I felt it might be a CGI heavy and soulless cash-in that would remind me of the enjoyable, but hollow Hobbit films. Luckily, this wasn't not the case, and while Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is far from perfect, it's an enjoyable ride and it feels great to be back in the Harry Potter universe.

It follows a new protagonist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) as he arrives in 1920's New York with a suitcase full of magical creatures, which break loose and he has to find them with the help of Tina (Katherine Waterson), a witch who works for the 'Magical Congress of the United Stares of America, and a muggle Jacob (Dan Fogler) who gets caught in the middle of all this. At the same time a new evil is rising in the form of Percival Graves (Colin Farrell).

What I am happy to say about Fantastic Beasts is that it is a lot of fun, if a little long, I'd say a good 20 minutes could have been trimmed for a more smooth run-time. Aside from that, this was one of the more enjoyable blockbusters I've seen this year. It has its moments of surprising darkness, but it is pretty lighthearted for the most part. It balances its tones fairly well.

Things are messiest in the story department. Fantastic Beasts is at its best when we're spending time with the creatures, which have a variety of cool and extremely cute designs. The CGI might have been a bit hit and miss, but the creativity is there. When we go to the parts with Colin Farrell, things get a bit muddy. Things aren't explained very well and the stories don't really connect until the final act, and I'm not entirely sure what was going on.

The casting at least is great for the most part. I'm not entirely sold on Eddie Redmayne's Newt, who in all honesty, is a non-character. We don't learn a thing about him, aside from the fact he's writing a book about the animals and is really awkward. His performance felt very similar to The Theory of Everything in the scenes before Stephen Hawking's disease got worst.

Redmayne is outshined by the supporting cast. Especially Dan Fogler as the muggle, who is the vessel for the audience. He is the heart and soul of the film. His character arc also had the biggest emotional impact. By the end of it, I really did love his character. I'm not entirely sure if we'll see him again in the series, but god, I hope so. Katherine Waterson as Tina was decent as was her Alison Sudol as her sister Queenie.

It's hard to say about Colin Farrell as the villain, because in all honesty, he isn't given a lot to work with. He just looks broody and miserable all the time. It doesn't really matter though because he won't be in any more of the films as he's replaced by Johnny Depp. Who manages to be the worst part of the film with only 10 seconds of screen time. It's easy to hate on Johnny Depp these days, but I burst out laughing when his character made it on screen. The design was ridiculous and only further shows he hasn't moved on from these laughable, zany and over the top characters that have become a parody of themselves.

David Yates is directing all 5 entries in this series, which I think I'm okay with (He's directed every Harry Potter from Order of the Phoenix onwards). I like his visual style and the look of 1920's New York is recreated extremely well. I just wish the film was a little lighter, I don't mean tonally, I mean literally. This was such a darkly lit film and I'm not entirely sure why.

I also appreciated the fan service, which didn't feel too obnoxious. There are a few name drops and mentions of Hogwarts, but it never feels like it was living in the shadow of Harry Potter and felt like it's own thing, which is a good thing. That said, this film really feel like set-up for a bigger picture a lot of the time, which is a problem I've had with a few of the Marvel films.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them isn't entirely succesful, but it's a lot of fun and a decent start to this new set of films set in the Harry Potter universe. Either way, it's just nice to revisit this world.

7/10 Dans

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is out now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge (2017) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written May 25th, 2017*

I've not been a huge fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean series overall, well, the last two instalments in particular. The World's End being an overblown bore and On Stranger's Tides being the worst of the lot as the series fell into a boring parody of itself.

My hopes for Salazar's Revenge or 'Dead Men Tell No Tales' if you're in the US were pretty low. Johnny Depp has been the centre of attention for all the wrong reasons lately, the film has two fairly no-name directors at the helm and the marketing for this film has been pretty bad. Its strangely been billed as 'The Final Adventure', which is weird considering there is nothing to give this indication and the sixth film is very much planned and will no doubt happen unless this strangely flops.

Salazar's Revenge itself... was actually a lot of fun. It's not amazing by any means, but for a big-budget summer blockbuster about pirates, it's perfectly acceptable. It doesn't quite capture the magic of its fresh and wonderful original, but it avoids the pitfalls of its dismal sequels fairly well. So I'll go on record and say this was the best one since the first.

Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow

There's nothing too amazing about it though. It walks this fine line of acceptability and fun that is pretty lacking in recent blockbusters. It never really takes itself too seriously and while forced it times, it did have some heart underneath the surface. A lot of the jokes hit pretty hard, but there are a few misses here and there, but nothing offensively awful.

I really liked that this felt like more like a direct sequel to The World's End and completely ignoring On Stranger Tides, more or less. It some ways it feels like 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Generations' too, every new cast member is related to a previous character in the series. Which was unnecessary, but brought things full circle at the end, and did bring some emotion to the film.

Johnny Depp was also the best Captain Jack Sparrow he's been in years. It's hard too tell if he was trying, but for the first time in a while, I actually enjoyed seeing Jack on screen again. He doesn't capture that lightning in a bottle effect he brought to the first one, but he does at least seem to be trying a bit more than he usually does.

For the new characters to the series, no one was massively memorable. Kaya Scodelario was decent, if not given a massive amount to do, but she was far better than Brenton Thwaites, who is pretty bland and forgettable. Oh, if you were expecting a lot from Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, then don't. Their screentime barely amounts to 3 minutes. It will still nice to see them return though, and maybe bring them back for further films?

Javier Bardems' villain was by far the worst part of Salazar's Revenge. His crew retread a lot of the same ground that The Curse of the Black Pearl did, another cursed crew looking for revenge on Jack Sparrow. On top of that, the designs are pretty horrific and outmatched by CGI from 14 years ago now, which is a shame. Bardem's performance is also kinda embarrassing. He does this annoying raspy voice where I could barely tell what he was saying and he rarely gets to do anything where he gets to shine or show his evilness.

Javier Bardem hamming it up as Captain Salazar

While I was worried about these fairly in-experienced directors doing a film like this, Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg do a fairly solid job at crafting some fun and creative action scenes. They're not as good as Gore Verbinski's fluid direction, but I was surprised at the creativity on display. The highlight being a bank being dragged across a town early on and I really loved the design and look of the finale. Geoff Zanelli also delivers a solid score, not as strong as Hans Zimmer, but I'd say it was a worthy addition.

Salazar's Revenge doesn't reach the heights of the Pirates series at its best, but it is a hell of a lot better than its previous two entries and more or less and return to form and a step in the right direction for the franchise.

7/10 Dans

Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge is out now in cinemas in the UK
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