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Wednesday 15 August 2012

Brave

We all love Pixar. If anyone were ever to come to me and say "But Joe, I really don't love Pixar" well I would have a little chortle pat you on the back and say "Golly you are a funny one, come on now and we will watch Finding Nemo". Why is Pixar so wonderful? Cause they're wonderful. End of. Sure Cars is smeh and Cars 2 is triple shmeh but that's it. I'd say two duds out of twelve ain't bad. But wait, Brave is the thirteenth feature film out of Pixar and you know, some people find the number thirteen a bit fishy. So will Brave succumb to the unlucky numbers all consuming power or is it just crazy awesome?

The first thing that every review of this film should say is, that freakin' hair. Jesus, it is beautiful. The most spectacular head of hair seen in any film, ever. If you can think of any hair, real or animated that is better that that most splendid web of red, please share with the group. But really, just look at it. I literally can't stop. I am typing right now on pure faith alone as I stare at that wonderful picture. A film no matter how poor it is deserves at least some commendation for letting me stare at that hair for an hour and a half. But it's not just the hair (seriously, that hair) everything in this film looks spectacularly beautiful. I don't want to say it's the best looking Pixar film ever because I love staring into space more than roaming the glens but it is at the very least (by that logic) a close second. It's not just the scenery that looks quite magical and surprisingly photo realistic at times, and it's not just the luxuriously bountiful hair but also the gosh damn terrifying bears. I suppose if there is a bad guy in this film, it's the epicly imposing black bear Mordu. It's reminiscent of that terrifying scene in Fox & the Hound but ten times worse. In one scene Merida falls into the ruins of a castle and... well I'll just say I really don't scare easily and that bit kinda creeped me out. Also shout out to generic and yet pleasant Scottish music.

So if this film is to me essentially hair-porn then rating it on that front this is a 10/10, but for you normal none creepy people you probably want to know story and entertainment wise if it is equal that hairy lust...


Merida (hair) is a feisty young princess who is being prepared by her overbearing Mother to be married of to one of the eldest sons of one of the three clans that her Father (voiced charmingly by Billy Connolly) governs. Merida being the adventurous lass she is has no ambitions to be tied down to a man she has never met, if a man at all, and would much rather run off on her utterly massive horse and shoot arrows at trees. Of course this boisterous attitude comes at a high price and it's not long before she makes some bad life choices and regrets all of her hot-headedness, swiftly learning some life lessons before the film is over. Somewhat like Up I really had only the smallest idea of what this films story was about until I sat through it however unlike Up this isn't due to charming originality and more advertising that focuses on Scotland looking awesome. Fair enough really. The story is perfectly workable and well put together but you could say it lacks the polish Pixar usually give to it's predictable arcs. Sure the story of rejection in Toy Story is a familiar one but there is a little extra zing to make it special. Here the zing doesn't come from a place of warmth and honesty but a more Shrek-like anachronistic home which may work perfectly for that brand of humor, but it's always been a style I've found lazy, cheap and ultimately tacky as all hell. There are only a few examples but enough to sour what is otherwise a moderately period appropriate film. Usually when Pixar come to make a film on a subject matter they have a little something to add, here it feels more like that special addition was torn out leaving a rather generic family film.

That aside it still doesn't try and pick up the slack in the emotional department Coming out of Brave I realized that (and this is excluding Cars 2 which I didn't go to with a Pixar mind anyhow) it has been a long time since I came out of a Pixar film without a tear in my eye, or more likely, reams of tears streaming down my face. It's a really dull thing to be said but really this film is good but it's not Pixar good. It's simple and quite lovely at times but it feels closer to Tangled than anything else. Not that that is a bad thing by any means, I did enjoy Tangled and actually Disney has been picking up their game as of late but there is no real heart to it. Like the new Disney films it seems to be trying too hard where films like Up and Monsters Inc felt almost effortless. They flowed.

I'm not really sure if I can really put across why this film just isn't quite up to scratch. I think the best way for me to say it is that a week ago when I was stuck in an incredibly hard bed, in an unbearably hot room finding it impossible to find a restful moment, I watched Toy Story 3 on my iPhone twice, consecutively. Then the next day I was looking at what was on TV and the last forty-five minutes of Toy Story 3 was on....so I watched it again. Brave it yet to hit DVD or iPhone or even TV but I can tell you now, I have no desire to sit and watch Brave over and over to ease a horrible night. I won't think of it and stop if only to hold back tears. It hasn't effected a chapter of my life like Monsters Inc or Toy Story and I find my nonchalance about it somewhat more distressing than the pure crap of Cars 2. Still... Brave is good....

   
JO

Thursday 2 August 2012

The Dark Knight Rises

I want to say this now before I start talking about the conclusion to The Dark Knight trilogy, this thing I'm about to write (or as now is the case you are about to read) is completely riddled with spoilers and really is only for the eyes of folk who have a, already seen the film (which at this point is, I assume, everyone) or b, people who never intend to see it and just love to read which lets face it is probably very few (not the love to read part, we all love to read or at least should and if you don't love to read then *spoiler alert* this is a text based blog and I think little of people who hate reading.


What can I say about The Dark Knight that hasn't already been said by at least 333,000,000 people all over the internet (that figure being based on Google entries when I search The Dark Knight). It was one hell of a film. It was everything Batman had been waiting for ever since it went into hiding after Adam West proclaimed that some days you just can't get rid of a bomb. maybe if I watched it now a good 5 years after the fact I would think differently of it but I'll just stick to what I though when I came out of the cinema way back then which was 'F**k'. You may find it odd then that my expectations for The Dark Knight Rises were relativity low. Maybe it's the big gap that lead me down the path of nay saying The Dark Knight, hardly believing it was as good as it was and getting tired of people going on about it or maybe it was the fact that Sam couldn't stop harping on about how awesome it was or maybe it was how little I cared for Inception or how Nolan learned to stop writing stories and love the dumb but I can tell you one thing for sure, I was not all that excited until lets say an hour before entering that IMAX screen. What followed though was, to my mind, an hour of noiry sadness and then two hours of pure film that just never ever ever lets up. If you think about the basic structure of most comic book movies, even when the shit hits the fan you still get mellow moments to relax before getting taken back to the madness but once this film gets going it never stops and the brief moments of quiet are like trying to slow down a bullet by putting a piece of toilet paper in front of it's path. Not to say that's a negative, it's refreshing to watch a film that doesn't let you off the hook until the very last moment. 

So Bruce Wayne has retried as the Batman after taking the blame for all the bad things Harvey Dent did and is pretty much a hermit. His only real human contact is from Alfred. He meets Selina Kyle (Catwoman) and gets involved in Bane's underground evil empire. Before long he has unraveled a plan to essentially blow up Gotham and Gotham is his baby so he ain't having that. The story is deceptively simple and yet endlessly epic ending in a city siege and a policed state with twisted one sided trials ran by the greatest cameo since....well same guy just in The Dark Knight. One negative point that really was in The Dark Knight too but has always bugged me, Gotham is just New York, say what you like about Tim Burton's Batman but that dude made a city and that city looked like Gotham. Really they should be shooting this in Detroit or something along those lines but it really bugs me when they do big sweeping shots and you see the Empire State building and other big landmarks. Sure it plants it in a great reality but it also feels lazy.

The Joker was really what made The Dark Knight what it was but an unfortunate side effect of having such a powerhouse villain was that Batman took a back seat. Bane is a superbly realised character and the way they integrate him into the Dark Knight's past is seamless but he is less of a spectacle giving this film to the Bat which is of course what we all want if this really is his last hurrah before retirement. Speaking of Bane and Batman the two fight scenes between them are ridiculously awesome, in fact if this was a different film the first fight scene would have ended the movie (of course without the broken spine) but that only serves to illustrate how big this movie is, many other films would not attempt to match the scope of this finale and this first fight almost feels like the end of part one before the second film starts. And also Catwoman is pitch perfect and this trio of main characters feels like less of a last ditch attempt to fit them all in before the end (see Spider-Man 3) but rather three characters that fit perfectly into the story.


One issue I have with TDKR though is the rest of the cast and where the story goes. Now they are both very good if a bit simple at times but for the most part it all comes as no surprise. Joseph Gordon Levitt as Robin was a twist that I almost felt we had already been told about and then they do the silly reveal and I realized this was supposed to be a surprise. Continuing down that prior knowledge road, Miranda turning out to be Ra's Al Ghul's daughter is something that requires so little Batman knowledge that I feel it's unlikely a lot of people saw this coming. But then that leads me to a thought I had after the films showing with my girlfriend who knows only about as much as this trilogy has taught her. Does that really matter? These two moment weren't the things that she really cared that much about, rather the whole three hourish journey you go on. I don't think the film relies on these twists to carry the film in any way and even though you may see them coming it doesn't lead to this frustration that can happen in other less talented film adaptations. So thanks Rebecca for removing me from that snobby geek throne and bringing me back down to a more reasonable point of view (I secretly hate you for that). And how can you talk about a Nolan Batman without talking about Gary Oldman (great emotional weight in the later parts) Morgan Freeman (the only character that tries to lighten things up) and Michael Caine (who's only mission in this film is to try and make you cry every time you see him).

You probably want to know if I think this film is better than the film that preceded it, the simple answer is no but the longer answer is that it doesn't really matter either way. If we are to except that this is the end of The Dark Knight then this film really does cap it off perfectly. It's an all out attack that still feels steady, well thought out and considered. It's also a hell of a film much like The Dart Knight. But in a way this film's less of an event, you can't really recapture that magic they made in The Dark Knight. It's a great thing though and you couldn't really have made a better film to end it on. Now can someone please make a Robin film we can be proud of, remake Green Lantern so it's good and tell Zack Snynder not the mess up Man Of Steel and I think I will be happy for at least another year.

JO