The Hitman's Bodyguard (2017) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written August 20th, 2017*

"Wind beneath my wings"

The Hitman's Bodyguard is more or less exactly what I expected from the trailers, no better or worse. It's a merely passable and watchable action comedy that thrives on Samuel L Jackson and Ryan Reynolds chemistry.

The biggest problem is easily the film's tone. It goes a little too serious and sometimes quite horrific (Seeing a man's family get gunned down by a very out of place Gary Oldman doesn't make for good material in a stupid action comedy). Gary Oldman does seem like he's in a completely different film, a genocidal dictator who takes things far too seriously. It was just bizarre and not in place with the rest of the film at all.

Everything is just fine for the most part. Things shine most when it's just spending time with Jackson and Reynolds. These guys work insanely well together. Jackson has the time in full "Motherfucker" mode. Honestly, he says "Motherfucker" more times than I think he ever has in his entire career. While Reynolds does his sarcastic thing. The balance between the two works well. Jackson's character never takes anything seriously, mocking any kind of moment close too seriousness. Him undercutting Oldman towards the end was one of the highlights.

The film stretches its two run-time to breaking point. This easily could have been a 90 minute film, but instead they pad it out with a lot of unnecessary detours than easily could have been trimmed for a leaner and tighter film.

Patrick Hughes at least directs some solid and violent action scenes. He's not hampered by that PG-13/12A rating he was forced to work with on Expendables 3, so there is some at least very violent and dark gallows humour thrown into here. It feels very much like a homage to the films of the '80s and '90s. Midnight Run and 48 Hours being the most obvious that come to mind. I have yet to see The Bodyguard, so I'm not entirely sure if this is a straight up spoof of that, which the trailers and posters made it out to be.


The Hitman's Bodyguard really is what it is. A fun, passable summer action comedy that suffers from a tonal identity crisis and it's a bit too long, but Reynolds and Jackson really shine together.

6/10 Dans

The Hitman's Bodyguard is out now in cinemas in the UK
Watch the trailer below:

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Deadpool (2016) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written February 10th, 2016*

"I'm touching myself tonight"

Here it is, in all its foul-mouthed, violent glory, my most anticipated film of the year. I really did wonder if they could live up to the insanely high standards set by the genius marketing campaign. I am so fucking happy to say that I had a motherfucking blast with Deadpool.

Part origin story, part revenge story and part love story, Deadpool brings the merc with a mouth to the big screen in all his meta glory. The film opens with the action scene shown in all the trailers and goes back and forth between present day and how Wade Wilson becomes the deformed psychopath Deadpool. I was extremely surprised at how all this was handled, despite being really bored of origin stories, like really fucking bored, Deadpool tries and gets all that out the way as fast as it can to make way for Deadpool's revenge mission. During all this we see his relationship with this hooker with a heart of gold, which was actually quite sweet and gave a heart to the core of the film.

Aside from the game I played on PS4, I really have no other point of reference to Deadpool, aside from X-men Origins: Wolverine, which was mocked and referenced a few times. I felt that character was put on the big screen to great success, Ryan Reynold's gave an incredibly charismatic performance that brought charm and humour to this completely violent man child. He could even be quite sweet at times, giving his view on love which was "Finding someone who brings out the best in you and never letting them go", it was a cheesy line, but I agree.

 I also thought Deadpool's constant fourth-wall breaking would get irritating, but it was nowhere near as relentless as I thought it would be and every moment he does was gold, in fact every line that comes out of his mouth was pretty much laugh out loud hilarious. I relate to Deadpool in some ways, much to the annoyance of my friends, I break the fourth wall in real life, which makes me sound insane at times, but it's who I am and I embraced it, so fuck you.

I was a bit disappointed by the lack of major X-Men cameos, if you were expecting an appearance from Wolverine, then don't. I did like the two X-Men they did use though, Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, both of which are annoyed by Deadpool's antics, but do eventually join him on his quest for revenge.

It was also a shame that Deadpool also fell into the same trap that all comic-book films that aren't DC fall into.... bland villains. Ed Skrein did a better job than he did in the awful Transporter Refueled, but his character was just a big piece of meh that was only there to serve as a plot device for Deadpool to battle. Gina Carano was serviceable as the main villain's henchman, but still very forgettable.

The biggest thing that Deadpool does different from most other comic-book films is that R rating, and it did deserve it. We get constant F-bombs, graphic violence, including dismemberment's and even some T and A, which is where we get Stan Lee's cameo. It doesn't make the film more mature than other superhero films (far from it), but it does give it an edge over Marvel's other films and makes it far more fun. I think I'll happily put Deadpool alongside the first Kick-Ass, Kingsman and Dredd in a hopefully growing list of excellent R-rated comic-book films.

Being a first time director, I was interested to see how Tim Miller would handle this, and he did a great job. The 100 minutes run at a crazy pace, I was never bored for a second. The few action scenes were all excellent, loved the mix of gun-play and sword-play which was extremely well choreographed. It also must have been a tricky job to make such an insane character such as Deadpool accessible to mainstream audiences, from what I know, they obviously had to restrain Deadpool's more abstract plotting and actions to introduce him for the first time, but I hope with the sequels, they explore Deadpool's chaotic and rampant journeys. What makes Deadpool so interesting is his mind, even he doesn't know who he is, everything is a joke to him, he does insane shit, he even got bored once and decided to kill everyone in the Marvel universe. I got why they played it safe and fair enough.

Deadpool is Fox's gamble and it paid of better than I could have hoped, it's fast, funny, meta, violent and featured what might be the best performance of Ryan Reynold's career. Deadpool 2 has already been announced, I cannot wait.

Oh, and wait till after the end credits if you wanna see Deadpool's homage to Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

9/10 Dans

Deadpool is out now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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Life (2017) - Film Review

Review:

Life isn't a particuarly new or even interesting film, I had not much hope for it, but it thankfully turned out to be a very fun film that does what it does very well. A really pleasant surprise and an insanely breezy and entertaining genre film.

There's obvious elements from other films, Gravity, Sunshine and most of all, Alien. It's a fairly simple B-movie concept, a team of scientists on a space station discover a new form of life that they name "Calvin", the new life form quickly becomes a vicious killer and sadistically hunts them down one by one.

Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal

Bar its surprisingly dark and nihlistic ending, Life lacks originality and is quite predictable, but at the same time it's all done extremely well due its cast, fun script and sense of urgency in some really intense scenes of space claustraphobia. Like, I said, it borrows heavily from Alien, but that doesn't mean Life doesn't stand on its own as an entertaining genre film.

The characters are underdeveloped, but the cast do a good job at bringing life to their personalities. Ryan Reynold's does his usual smart-ass routine, which works, although they go a direction with his character I did not expect. Rebecca Ferguson and Jake Gyllenhaal fare better as the stars of the film.

Rebecca Ferguson

But the real star of Life is "Calvin", who really is a terrifying force of nature. Designed to look like some sort of sea creature nightmare, almost like a jellyfish or stingray. When Calvin starts his killing spree, it really is nasty and sadistic. I did not expect the violence to be this grizzly or disturbing. 

There was some violence here that even got a reaction from me, and that honestly takes a lot. I really do hope to see a franchise based around Calvin's race. Maybe a sequel that goes in the way of Aliens and bring a lot more Calvins into the mix?

It's worth noting that there were some rumours going round that this might be a prequel to Sony's upcoming Spider-Man spin-off 'Venom'. This was complete nonsense and has nothing to do with that. The producers refusing to confirm or deny it was purely to create some sort of promotion for the film.

Life is nothing new, but it is a lot of fun, a dark, violent sci-fi horror with some really grotesque body-horror and a pleasantly surprising ending.

8/10 Dans

Life is out now in cinemas in the UK
Watch the trailer below:

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