I've been so busy that these reviews are coming a week late.
So, this could well be my last batch of rentals from Xtra-vision. Nearly every 2013 release that I've rented so far has been either bad or just mediocre and underwhelming. And, if this really is the end… it's certainly not a brilliant bunch to end on, but at least this week's three are somewhat superior to most of the other shit. Nothing great, but nothing terrible.
The premise of Oblivion would take far too long to explain, but here it is in a nutshell… In 2077, Earth has been devastated after an alien invasion destroyed the moon. Now mankind is being relocated to Titan, with only a crew of two left on Earth. They're in charge of maintaining the power stations that harvest energy from seawater for the future of humanity.
There's a tonne of other stuff going on besides; I could literally spend this entire review just talking about plot details! But obviously I won't. :) So let's get down to some of my own personal thoughts.
One thing that bothered me was how long it took to get to the actual story. In the first act, there are two fake-outs that lead you to believe it'll be about Jack stranded on the ground.
While the plot did keep my interest and I wanted to know where it was going, a lot of it is very predictable. For example, the true identity of the alien bandits, or "Scavs", can be seen coming from a mile away. Plus, spoilers here, but there's a scene where Jack meets a clone of himself, and all I could think about was Duncan Jones' Moon.
And the last thing I'll mention is the music. It's all wrong. A lot of it's just the same melancholy piece that sometimes sets completely the wrong tone.
So my overall impression is that it's interesting but sadly lacklustre.
My rating: 55%.
The Place Beyond the Pines starts out following Luke Glanton, a stuntman who turns to robbing banks to support his former lover and her baby. Then, for the second act, the focus abruptly shifts to Avery Cross, an ambitious detective in a corrupt precinct. And then the third act follows Avery's son fifteen years later.
When I first read the plot summary for this movie, I was expecting the stories of the detective and the criminal to be told in parallel. But instead, it tells three entirely separate stories one after the other. So imagine my confusion when Ryan Gosling's storyline ended abruptly early in the film, and Bradley Cooper's storyline was then resolved equally quickly!
It may be because of this story layout that the movie felt very long indeed. It's 134 minutes, but it feels more like three hours! It has a rather slow, methodical pace, so each section feels like a whole movie in itself.
Not to mention, each story is less interesting than the last. Despite Ryan Gosling's characteristically wooden performance, his character is such a good parent that I really did start to root for him and felt he should absolutely be a part of the baby's life. But, on the other hand, I couldn't care less about Avery's son's story, centred around drugs.
In short, while it's well written and does have its moments, on the whole, its jarring narrative structure makes it seem increasingly longwinded.
My rating: 60%.
And in Trance, Simon, a fine art dealer, double-crosses a gang during the theft of a highly valuable painting, and ends up with amnesia so he can't remember where he hid the picture. They send him to hypnotherapist Elizabeth Lamb to try and get it out of him.
So you can probably guess from that premise that Trance is equal parts psychological and straightforward thrills – and director Danny Boyle has always been brilliant at that. The depictions of Simon's mind always ring very true, especially in how Elizabeth sometimes appears in the rooms he imagines as she talks to him. And later on, after Elizabeth finds out about the gang and has them sit in on the therapy sessions, they too start to appear in Simon's mind, making it clear that he feels crowded and can't concentrate with them around.
The movie does take a very predictable turn by suggesting that Elizabeth may have ulterior motives, but to be fair, I was still interested in how it would all be resolved.
Sadly, though, the last act is where the movie really falls apart. Obviously I don't want to spoil any details, but the climax throws first one plot twist at you, then another, and another – almost to the point of lunacy! Not to mention, one particular reveal is a ridiculous lapse in logic.
In conclusion, while it's not Danny Boyle's best work, this is still an interesting psychological thriller – and probably the best 2013 release I've rented so far.
My rating: 70%.
So thank you, Xtra-vision, for serving me so well for the past few years. I'm really sad to see you go, and I know I'm not alone.
Looking ahead, there's not much coming out on DVD for quite a while. So either this week or next could well be my last set of rentals from Xtra-vision.
So, the Evil Dead remake. It was a long wait for this one! :) Way back in 2007, I heard this was planned. But anyway, it's finally out, and in some ways, it exceeded my expectations. But in a lot of other ways, it's just kind of mediocre.
I'm not the biggest Evil Dead fan myself, but I still like the movies enough. And the filmmakers here also clearly have a great deal of respect for the franchise. There are several homages to the second movie as well as the first one, and they're pulled off well enough that they're recognisable but still different enough that they fit perfectly within the context of the new story. I'm usually flat-out against horror remakes, but that's how you do one properly. :)
But sadly, the reimagining itself is where the movie falls flat. The characters are boring (Natalie in particular is completely superfluous), and the new plot is so much more involved than the original. It revolves around a demon who needs to claim five souls before dawn, so that… actually, I have no idea what his goal is! It's so drastically different from the original idea that, in a way, it doesn't deserve to be called a remake.
To sum it up, as its own horror movie, this does very little to stand out from the crowd (aside from being gleefully gory!), but as an Evil Dead remake… it's a mixed bag, but you may find it's a pleasant surprise.
My rating: 55%.
Now, Passion.
This remake of the French-language film Love Crime revolves around manipulative advertising boss Christine Stanford and her talented protégée Isabelle James. The rivalry between them starts out as Christine simply taking credit for one of Isabelle's ideas, and soon escalates to the point of insanity.
You know, I did imagine myself saying, "I haven't seen the original, but it can't be this bad," to describe this movie, but I didn't think it actually would be that bad! I mean, wow! This is one of the shallowest movies I've ever seen.
Christine is a completely one-note character: a smug manipulative bitch that I despised not for her actions but because there was nothing more to her. That just makes the escalation from stealing credit to public humiliation all the more ludicrous.
With the entire basis for the story being so one-dimensional, it's like this movie was purposely made just to annoy me! In a good story, you're angry at the villain. But in this case, I was angry at the creative team because I felt like I was being manipulated, expected to take such despicably bare-bones rivalry seriously.
The only redeeming factor is Dani, the only sensible character in this entire travesty.
So yeah, indeed I haven't seen the original, but it must surely be more fleshed out than this! This is right up there with Movie 43 and Die Hard 5 as one of the worst movies of the year so far.
My rating: 20%.
And finally, Welcome to the Punch.
Former criminal Jacob Sternwood is forced to return to London when his son is involved in a heist gone wrong. This gives Detective Max Lewinsky a second chance to take him down.
Wow, I've finally rented a 2013 release that I actually kind of liked! :) And I think a lot of that comes from the character of Jacob Sternwood. Not only does Mark Strong give an expectedly top-notch performance, but the character is cunning and ruthless, but sympathetic; he is trying to help his son, after all. I just love the scene at the hospital, where he finds a way to test the police's defences.
The film itself does a terrific job at playing detective and criminal against each other: how the criminal always manages to slip through the detective's fingers. But I think the second half is where it starts to lose its footing. The conspiracy ends up becoming a little too complicated, perhaps one too many people involved.
One major disappointment was Andrea Riseborough. She's a great actress – one of my favourites – so I couldn't help feeling that her character being in so little of the movie was kind of a waste of her talents.
Still, of all the movies I've rented so far this year (not counting Silver Linings Playbook), this is the first one that I actually feel inclined to buy. It does have its problems, but it at least has the makings of a solid action thriller.
My rating: 65%.
Now, because Xtra-vision will soon be closing down, I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to keep renting movies in batches of three like this. There is another rental store in town, but I think that one only lets out two movies at a time.
Anyway, let's start talking about this week's trio. :)
Needless to say, I went into The Host expecting to hate it. And… I knew this would happen! I expected the absolute worst, so I didn't get it! I mean, don't get me wrong – it's bad – but I was expecting it to be potentially the worst movie of the year.
The premise is that mankind has been almost completely taken over by parasitic aliens. Melanie Stryder is the latest victim, but her own mind remains intact and starts to fight back against the foreign entity in her head, so she's always in two minds.
Now, that sounds like an intriguing sci-fi premise. But the reason Melanie clings on is for the people she loves most. So yes, the aliens are foiled by the power of love! Oh, fuck off!
Another big problem is that, just like Twilight, the characters are all flat as pancakes. So, for instance, we're told that Melanie and Jared are in love, but we never see their relationship develop, so we don't believe it.
You want to know the moment this movie died for me? Early on, when Melanie's fighting for control of the car, the car suddenly leaps into the air just so it can roll off the road. Uh, bullshit! That road was perfectly even; there was no reason for the car to leave the ground!
To sum up, while I didn't hate this movie (again, because I was expecting to), it's still shoddily written and about as sappy as it gets.
My rating: 25%.
Now for Jack the Giant Slayer.
In this take on the classic fairytale, Princess Isabelle runs away from home and takes shelter from the rain in Jack's house. Then the beanstalk grows up through the floor, pinning the house on the top, so Jack joins a team sent by the king to rescue the princess.
In the opening scenes, the movie was just what I thought it would be: a predictable but still interesting story with straightforward fairytale sensibilities. They play the adventurous princess who's being forced to marry card, which had me calmly thinking, "Yeah, yeah. Get on with it." But the villain is painfully obvious right from the start; he is straight-up boring.
The CGI looks just as fake as I thought it would. And, as the film progresses, it just seems to get worse and worse. There's one moment in the final battle where a boulder sails over the battlements, which looks laughably bad.
I did like parts of the movie, though, like when the beanstalk's coming down and it really simulates a plane coming into land.
Ironically, for a movie called Jack the Giant Slayer, he hardly slays any giants at all!
But overall, I don't have that much to say about this movie. It was entertaining, but nothing special.
My rating: 50%.
And finally, Side Effects.
The plot revolves around Emily Taylor, as she's prescribed a new experimental medicine for her bouts of depression – and at first, it seems like it's going to be a straightforward tale of her trying to live with it. Then, after she kills her husband while sleepwalking as a side effect of the drug, it becomes a completely different movie: a legal drama first, as it's debated who should be held responsible for her actions, and then a conspiracy thriller, as her psychiatrist, Dr Banks, tries to uncover the truth.
I have to admit, this is a tough one to review. It's definitely well written; I can't see any plot holes or loose ends in the mystery. The acting, for the most part, is solid, especially from Rooney Mara.
But I wasn't totally impressed. While I got the basic gist of how the mystery was unfolding, the conclusions that Dr Banks comes to – or rather his explanations for how he came to those conclusions – went right over my head. So his various attempts to get information left very little impact on me, because nothing that was being said really earned my interest until the very end. And, without actually giving away the final revelation, let's just say it's clear why those involved would want it covered up! :)
To sum up, I can understand perfectly if you were fully invested in this movie. It's just that, personally, I wasn't. Honestly, I found myself wishing for the conclusion to just hurry up.
My rating: 60%.
Time for another trio of rentals.
First up, GI Joe: Retaliation.
As you may remember, I saw GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra a few weeks ago, and it was one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life. So, with the sequel, I figured the only way it could go was up.
Zartan, under the guise of the US President, wipes out the GI Joe team, but three Joes who survived are out for revenge. Meanwhile, Cobra Commander is sprung from jail and plots to take over the world via nuclear weapons.
Well, at least this sequel is better paced than its predecessor! :) It doesn't rush along like a runaway train; it plays out very naturally. But it also plays out like a very typical action movie; pretty much every beat is predictable. The plot is much easier to follow than the first movie, and it almost works. But the action scenes are over-edited (though not torturously so), the CG effects look like shit, and it's a continuation of a story I never cared about, so I was sitting there indifferent for most of the movie.
The inclusion of Storm Shadow did confuse me, though: I seemed to recall he died in the first one. And yes, I checked: there's no way he could have survived!
In conclusion, this movie's way better than the first one, but it's still a below-average action movie. I wasn't mad at it; there's just nothing remarkable about it.
My rating: 40%.
Beautiful Creatures is basically Twilight with witches. Ethan falls for Lena, the mysterious new girl at his school, and soon discovers she's a witch – or rather a "caster". And her sixteenth birthday is approaching, when she'll definitively become either good or evil.
Now, perhaps equating it to Twilight was a bit harsh – this one does have more of a story and actual stakes to it – but, as it's a supernatural love story that came out in the wake of Twilight, the comparisons are inevitable.
At first, I really thought I was going to hate Ethan, because he does nothing but quote pretentious poetry. But I did kind of buy into his relationship with Lena: he's the only one who's nice to her, and they do bond over their shared interest in poetry; that at least gives them more of a foundation for a relationship than Edward and Bella!
Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson's southern accents are really distracting, though, Irons in particular.
One thing I really hated was the Emily character. She does nothing but chastise Lena for religious reasons. She's that clichéd one-dimensional asshole that I hate for all the wrong reasons!
But my real issue is that the movie has no regard whatsoever for pacing. Spoilers here, but the plot just meanders to the point where I honestly thought the mind-wipe scene was the end.
Overall, this movie is terribly flawed, with bad visual effects and inconsistent pacing… but it's still better than Twilight! :)
My rating: 45%.
When I first heard the plot to Stoker, I thought it sounded like a rip-off of Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt – right down to the uncle being called Charlie! But here, instead of fearing that he's a murderer, our main character, India, just sort of mistrusts him.
Now, don't get me wrong: I was still looking forward to this movie, since it is Chan-wook Park's first English-language film. Alas, I didn't like it. But not for the reasons you might be thinking.
The opening scenes really set the tone for everything to follow. Remember how I thought the beginning of Beautiful Creatures was pretentious? I'd seen nothing yet! Not even the most talented actors could make these lines work; a lot of them state the obvious.
And I hate to say this, but the movie is at times pretentious in a technical sense as well. For example, that weird thing with the light in the basement.
It's a shame, because the story itself does have potential. The whole narrative is basically about how the homicidal Uncle Charlie gradually influences India. Though I think that scene where she masturbates to the murder he committed in front of her was a step too far; that was just plain fucked up!
In conclusion, no other movie this year, and probably none of the ones to come, left me so crushingly disappointed. I'm just going to go and watch Oldboy (and Shadow of a Doubt) again.
My rating: 35%.
