Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again (2018) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written July 24th, 2018*

Call me miserable, call me dead inside, I won't argue, but these Mamma Mia films clearly aren't made for me, a person who is adverse to most musicals and that sense of "Let's just have some clean fun". I don't know why I went to see this. I despised the first, a dire mess of screechy old banshees poorly singing along to Abba. It had a certain novelty of how stupid and tacky it was (Pierce Brosnan's singing voice has to be heard to be believed).

10 years later, the sequel "Here We Go Again", is pretty much exactly what people loved about the first one, it's loud, cringe-worthy and if you have any taste in cinema, it will make you throw up in your mouth. Despite this, I hated this one less than the first. There's a definite improvement in quality overall. Lily James is impossible to hate and has a far better singing voice than the older cast.

There was an interesting idea by going "The Godfather: Part 2" route with this and splitting the film in flashbacks and present day story. The flashbacks with Young Donna (Lily James/Meryl Streep) are far more watchable than the present day sequences, but are still filled with eye-rolling cringe and just awful characters. These characters say and do things that make me want to want to slam my head into a wall. It's painful to watch.

I was actually impressed by some of the casting of the younger characters. They did a great job finding people that emulated a younger Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgard and Meryl Streep. It was weird just how little some of the original cast are in it. There's such a strange choice made with Streep's character that is hinted at in the trailers, which may lead to a genuinely emotional scenes if you're into this absolute farce of a musical. 

Despite her prominent role in the trailer, Cher shows up for a generous 5 minutes and manages to ham things up even more, by playing Donna's estranged mother and proceeding to sing Fernando. I have very little memory of the first film, but I felt this was just rehashing a lot of the first films song, which is understandable, as the first more or used all of Abba's most famous songs. Some new stuff here and there might have gone a long way.


Yeah, I hated this, which is no surprise, but I'm far from the target audience from this. I'll also add this was barbarically overlong at nearly 2 hours, there is no reason this had to be over 90 minutes long. If you enjoy this, I get it. I suppose this is a middle aged woman's version of The Expendables, I guess. Whatever, each to their own. I'll still watch a third.

2/10 Dans

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again is out now in cinemas in the UK. With a 4K UHD steelbook available to pre-order in the UK from HMV

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Incredibles 2 (2018) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written July 17th, 2018*

It feels so weird to have just seen a sequel to The Incredibles, a film that I hold close and dear from my childhood and also my favourite Pixar film. I wasn't sure what to expect from a sequel 14 years on. Hell, I didn't even know what I wanted myself from an Incredibles sequel, but now that it's here, I am more than happy to say Incredibles 2 was everything I could have hoped for and filled me with so much joy.

Superhero films are getting a lot of flack recently. It's easy to see why. We get so many of such contrasting quality. Marvel are doing fine, they rarely do anything interesting, but they're mostly just coasting through a fanbase of people who know what to expect from their films at this point, good or bad. Having seen more or less every comic-book film from the past few years, Incredibles 2 is such a blast of fun, refreshing and gorgeous animation.

Taking place instantly from the events of the first, we find the Parrs forced into hiding once again as being a Superhero is outlawed in this vision of 1960's America. Helen (Elastagirl) finds herself hired by a rich fan of superheroes, wanting to see them legalised and put back into the mainstream while Bob (Mr. Incredible) has to stay at home to look after the children.

To put it simply, Incredibles 2 is a crowd-pleaser and another excellent piece of art from Pixar. After watching the first Incredibles a couple of weeks ago, it is insane just to see how much the animation has improved over 14 years. Technology and talent has been to to incredible use here to creative gorgeous and impressive animation that constantly had me impressed. Every time a Pixar film has come out I say this, but they've outdone themselves once again with the animation.

With most superhero films these days, the use of the characters powers are usually wasted and not a lot interesting is done with them. Here however, there is so much happening with mixing up the powers. Seeing the Parr family mix their different variety of powers is so creative and a joy to watch. Brad Pitt really is a talented director when it comes to animation and it's great to see that time and effort that went into this has paid off.

It's not just the action that's great too. All the family focused stuff is interesting and has a lot of heart. I rarely find big releases like this funny, but everything with Bob at home trying to do a Mr. Mom thing was extremely funny and fun to watch. Easily some of the funniest content Pixar have released and it's all due to character work. A lot of the comedy comes from Bob's facial expressions and Jack-Jack's powers being put on display (And they do a lot with that). 

While the plot is excellent and sets up the series for more adventures, all while feeling stand-alone, where Incredibles 2 lacks a little is within its villain. It's fairly obvious who the villain is going to be quite early on, and while there is some cool stuff with 'Screenslaver's' powers, which are trippy and lead to a genuinely intriguing piece of animation, I was left extremely cold by the motivations. I just wasn't convinced it was enough for this character to out on a villainous scheme. It was a far cry from the excellent Syndrome from the first film, who gets better with each watch.


I'm not entirely sure if I preferred this to the first one or not, but this comes extremely close and that's more than I could ask for with a sequel that took 14 years to come out. It's a gorgeous, funny, heartfelt and creative win from Pixar. Cinema is alive.

9/10 Dans

Incredibles 2 is out now in cinemas in the UK
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Skyscraper (2018) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written July 17th, 2018*

I'll admit, I never went into Skyscraper with any kind of expectations. The trailers did nothing for me, it just looked like a CGI heavy Die Hard clone with Dwayne Johnson. Which is exactly what it was, but it never managed to be fun or entertaining. I just felt bored and depressingly insulted by every moment of this complete farce.

Dwayne Johnson plays a security expert/a mixture of ex special forces and police cliches. Seriously, they couldn't settle on one, so he's a bunch of different things I do not care enough about to check or remember. He's hired to run security on the tallest skyscraper in the world, a high-tech, mile high palace still under construction. Terrorists get involved and he has to save his family who are trapped inside the building.

It's as lazy and cliched as it sounds, it wants to be Dwayne Johnson's Die Hard so bad, but never once has the wit, fun or creativity to hold a candle to the action classic. I was just so disinterested by everything unfolding onscreen. You can predict where everything goes and how it wraps up within the first ten minutes. There are no surprises or subverting expectations, you know everything you're getting from the trailer.

Which can be fine, some action films of recent years don't need to do anything special to be fun, Gerard Butler has built a career on this. It's just a shame Skyscraper constantly takes the lazy route every chance it gets. Everything is telegraphed from the get go, you can tell who is going to turn bad later in the film based on their accents. There are so many seeds set early on that have such cringe worthy payoffs at the end that I just put my hands on my head and groaned. It was painful.

Even as an action film, Skyscraper has no creativity for it's set-pieces, it's stupidly over the top and knows it, but feels like a mess of poor CGI and bland direction (I really expect better from the director of Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story), no action scenes had any sort of tension or fluidity to them. Despite the huge CGI explosions happening around the characters, it all just felt hollow and depressing. 

The most interesting thing here was the inclusion of Dwayne Johnson's characters having one leg, but that only really comes into play at one moment and serves no purpose, although I do like the idea of a disabled action hero. It was just strange to have a character with one leg, but is constantly impervious to injury at any point during the film after the opening. If they were trying to make a Die Hard homage, they could have had the hero actually feeling what was happening to him.

Johnson himself is fine as he usually is. He's impossible to hate, but I'm getting a little tired of his act now. He is so watchable, it's just a shame he wastes himself in such boring, action films. It feels as if he takes any role he is offered, despite the quality. Almost like the Nicolas Cage of big budget films.


There's so little else to say about Skyscraper. It fails on pretty much every level. A boring, cliche mess of a film that lacks any kind of impact, fun or thrills. With the almost as boring Rampage and now this, Johnson is really not having a good year for films. Cinema is dead.

3/10 Dans

Skyscraper is out now in cinemas in the UK
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Southpaw (2015) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written August, 2015*

Boxing films are not made that often these days, after the success of Rocky, there's not much more you can do with the subject, so I guess that's why you rarely see them about. While Southpaw brings nothing new to the sports drama genre, its powerhouse performance from Jake Gyllenhaal, engrossing story and sense of style elevate it above its clear cliches.

Gyllenhaal's boxer Billy Hope is a successful boxer on the top of his game when he his cut down by a tragedy and forced to care for his daughter while grieving and training for a lightweight championship belt. It's a cliche story that you would have heard before or similar, but that doesn't mean it is a failure. Things don't need to be original to be good, Southpaw proves that.

Jake Gyllenhaal here further shines his talent as one of, if not the best actor working today (His performance in last years Nightcrawler is one of the best examples of acting ever). He is an absolute work of raw fury here, the dedication he puts into his role is incredible. He handles the boxing scenes extremely well and pulls at the heart strings with the smaller, more emotional moments with his daughter. I was also very surprised by Oona Laurence who plays the daughter Leila, good child actors are hard to come by and she did an excellent job here, especially during the one on one scenes with her and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Forest Whitaker appears as a trainer who runs a gym for dis-privileged children. He was good, nothing amazing, his character might have been a walking cliche, but he was fine. The gorgeous Rachel McAdam's was great in her short role as Billy's wife Maureen.

Antoine Fuqua directs the boxing scenes with raw brutality and realism and keeps the film rolling at a decent pace. I was surprised to see the film was written by Kurt Sutter (Creator of the biker drama Sons of Anarchy), the script may have had a few cheesy and cliche lines here and there, but it worked. The music was also composed by the late and great James Horner, who sadly delivered a very forgettable soundtrack.


It might not be the most original film, but Southpaw is an extremely worthy addition to the sports drama genre with its Oscar worthy performance from Jake Gyllenhaal, Fuqua's direction and excellently paced story of redemption.

8/10 Dans

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Ant-Man (2015) - Film Review

Review:

*originally written August 1st, 2015*

Compared to Marvel's last film, an overblown and dull display of special effects in a genre that is reaching serious levels of fatigue, Ant-Man is a pretty refreshing change of pace.

Giving us the origin story of a lesser known superhero was a pretty risky move for Marvel, especially with a character that is so easy to mock, but thankfully Ant-Man works far better than it should.

Paul Rudd as Scott Lang was extremely likeable and carried a lot of charisma, more so than most of Marvel's characters. Kate from Lost was fine, even if her character isn't given much to do for most of the film. Michael Douglas was a nice surprise, having a role that is a lot more fun than the usual stuff he does.

Ant-Man had a long, troubled production, which is even more commendable that the end product turned out so well. There are clearly flashes of Edgar Wright's touch here and there, I just wish Marvel would have let him do the film how he wanted, I'm sure that would have made Ant-Man one of Marvel's best and unique films.

It's becoming a joke the blandness of Marvel villains. Yellow Jacket is yet another forgettable villain to throw on the pile. It's not that the guy from House of Cards did a bad job, it's just that the motivation is poor and you really don't care about him or what he does. I'm honestly struggling to remember a moment he stood out and did anything interesting.

The action scenes were easily Ant-Man's highest point. Although all the action doesn't happen till the last half hour, what they do give us more than makes up for the lack of set-pieces in the first 2 acts. The use of mundane household objects being used as the centrepieces of the action was a stroke of genius. A scene that takes place on a railway set with Thomas the Tank Engine, gold. 

There is a heart in the middle of Ant-Man too. With Scott Lang's motivation being to see his estranged daughter and the relationship with the actual ants themselves, which are also used pretty creatively in set pieces.


Ant-Man is a refreshing and smaller film which doesn't hinge on being part of this wider universe, telling its own story with some creative set-pieces that nearly outweigh its been there, done that plot.

7/10 Dans

Ant-Man is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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Sicario 2: Soldado (2018) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written July 4th, 2018*

Of all of the films to be released in the past few years, the original Sicario did not demand a sequel. It was a pretty open and shut film with everyone's story told and wrapped up. But since Hollywood is the way it is, we not only got a sequel, but it looks like we're also getting a trilogy dedicated to this world of shady government agents vs the Mexican Cartel. 

The warning signs of this being a lazy, possibly direct-to-DVD quality sequel were all there. Emily Blunt didn't return (Although writer Taylor Sheridan does have plans for her return in the potential third instalment) and neither did original director Denis Villeneuve. Not even the god of modern cinematography, Roger Deakins return. The only returning players were Taylor Sheridan and stars Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro.

Despite all this and the general unnecessary feeling of Sicario having a sequel, they've cracked out a mostly successful crime-action-thriller. It never reaches the heights of the first, but it comes close at times, giving us a brutal, entertaining and tense experience. Tonally it gets everything right, it's the same violent world where people are killed without any Hollywood over the topness, characters are very moral grey areas, I was genuinely thinking this was on par with the first, until the last act nearly derails the entire thing.

Director Stefano Sollima is not a director I'm familiar with, but he does a damn good job and holding the tension of the original, a scene in the second act with a convoy comes very close. It lacks Deakins gorgeous cinematography, but it still has a nice looking and cinematic feel that makes the most of the beauty and ugliness of Mexico. Del Toro and Brolin still do great jobs in their roles. Del Toro is sympathetic, despite being a complete psychopath  and it was nice to see his character explored a bit more. 

Where it mostly all falters is in its script. The last act is a complete mess that nearly destroys everything that came before it. Characters we know make insane decisions that are against what we know of them from two films now and it was bizarre. It just felt very out of place for this universe and made way for one of the most insane endings that felt like a borderline spoof. The last shot that's a Godfather homage also features one of the worst lines of a dialogue of the year and blatant sequel bait. I will give praise to the score for the final scene, which echoes a lot of the ominous music from the first.

I'd be much more against this if the first two acts weren't as good as they were, I was pleasantly surprised by the simplicity of bring these characters back into the fold for another run at the Mexican Cartel and I was happy this just wasn't a complete rehash of the first. They actually told a new and interesting story that had a number of surprising twists.


I wish I had more today about Sicario 2: Soldado or Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Depending on where you're from, but it fails to live up to the first, but is still a competent and extremely watchable crime film with solid performances from Del Toro and Brolin. It's just a shame about that last act, but I'm still keen for Sicario 3.

7/10 Dans

Sicario 2: Soldado is out now in cinemas in the UK
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Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written June 12th, 2018*

Insidious: Chapter 3 is a pretty pleasant surprise. I wasn't a huge fan of the first two films in the series, I felt that they relied too heavily on cheap jump-scares and an over-reliance on insanely loud noises to make you jump.

While Insidious Chapter 3 still has all these things, I enjoyed it a lot more than the other two. The cast were more likeable and interesting than the Lambert's (It might be because the daughter wore a Pixies T-shirt and was reading A Clockwork Orange).

The story was the same old. Girl tries to contact her dead mother, gets haunted, stuff starts to go down, being attacked and dragged around at night, seeing things that aren't there then look back and it's right in your face, the dad doesn't believe it till the third act etc.


It's generic and a little bland, but its breezy pace kept it from being as boring as this years Poltergeist remake and somehow managed to be the best entry in a series with the odds a against it by not just being the third in a horror series, but a prequel as well.

6/10 Dans

Insidious: Chapter 3 is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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