The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 – they threw it all away

Where did it all go wrong? The Hunger Games got off to a brilliant start with two of the best films you could hope for in a franchise. Unfortunately last year’s Mockingjay was a problem with what we can only assume to be greedy studio heads splitting the film into two despite it being based on by far the weakest book of the trilogy. Alas it wasn’t very good, and unfortunately the finale is even worse, ruining what could have been an exceptional film series.

Following on from Part 1, Part 2 picks up exactly where we left off with the rebels from the poor districts edging closer to the Capitol in the hope of bringing an end to the tyranny of President Snow (Donald Sutherland). Our hero Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is marketed in propaganda videos by rebel leader Coin (Julianne Moore) who has hopes for leadership of the new world when the war is over. Katniss just wants to get on with it though and put an arrow in Snow’s heart, taking her and a team of soldiers on a mission to a booby trapped Capitol.

It’s awful, no other words to describe it. Once this series left the arenas of the first two films it collapsed. They had a tougher challenge with a less solid book to build upon but they didn’t try too hard judging by Part 2, in which a lot of characters we spent time with pop up for a sentence here and there without ever really adding to the story or making an emotional impact. People walk around tunnels for half the film waiting for a set-piece we know is coming, speeches are made that are just awful, it’s just terribly ill-paced badly structured filmmaking. Acting wise its fine but as the quality of film is so insulting the performances are lost on us.

The only part of the film that is unique and interesting is rushed over. Bad as the third book was it still made some interesting observations about war and the lack of black and white good guys and bad guys. The film should have built on this but it doesn’t, instead giving us dumb conversations about our hero who we don’t really care about anymore, instead of something meaty to get thinking about.

I liked the first film, loved the second, but they are ruined now by awful closing chapters. Avoid and pretend it didn’t happen.

1 out of 5

Terminator Genysis – why did we even hope?

Learn from your mistakes lads, you’d think. After the disaster of the last two films in the franchise Terminator returns with the final nail in the coffin, an embarrassingly bad film that shows no respect for what came before and instead seems to be a hate-letter to fans.

Judgement Day has happened and Skynet has unleashed an army of machines to enslave mankind. Luckily John Connor (Jason Clarke) has a wealth of future information to keep the Human Resistance one step ahead in the war. Knowing what has to happen, Connor sends soldier Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back in time to 1984 to protect his mother Sarah (Emilia Clarke), ensuring his own survival, only this time something went wrong, and Reese finds himself in a very different 1984.

The trailer has already revealed every plot twist and turn so I won’t bother. Needless to say we meet Arnie, who now seems to fancy himself as a comedian instead of an action star, with some god-awful jokes put in the script to try give him some likeability. More of that failed likeability could have been tried on Jai Courtney, whose Kyle Reese is one of the worst heroes seen on screen, with zero personality and as much fun to be around as Jar Jar Binks. You can blame the awful script too, but how this qualifies as acting I have no idea.

Emilia Clarke doesn’t fare much better but out of them all probably escapes the least damaged. If there are sequels, which there probably won’t be due to the lacklustre box-office, she’d be wise to jump ship.

Jason Clarke is decent as a new take on John Connor, but the script is just so awful and the direction so poor that it’s lost.

Yes I knew it was never going to be near the quality of the first two, but the things that usually deliver in blockbusters, action, effects, sound, all disappoint. This feels made for TV, a TV you hate.

In case you failed to see it clearly above, yes, this is just that bad. Destroy all copies.

1 out of 5

Godzilla – Godawful

What a disappointment. A giant monster destroying cities, a fantastic cast and a director with some serious potential, surely this should have been the most fun cinema could be this summer. Disaster. One big massive disaster. Godzilla is an absolute turkey, somehow managing to get what should be an always fun concept and making it an absolute unenjoyable mess, leaving the 1998 version looking like a masterpiece.

Don’t believe the trailers; the film is full of cameos, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the only real main-role. Taylor-Johnson plays all good navy officer Ford, happy to be home with his wife and kids after a tour overseas. He is soon called to Japan, where his father (Bryan Cranston) has been arrested thanks to his obsession with a nuclear conspiracy. Conspiracy soon turns to truth, as giant monsters feeding off nuclear power emerge from the ground to wreak havoc on the world’s major cities. Luckily for us there’s an even bigger giant monster ready to jump to our defence.

Imagine Transformers, with even more needless military intervention, and even worse, and you’ve got Godzilla. The characters are bland and needless, the transition of the plot as awkward as a kick in the face, and direction that’s barely TV quality. Maybe it was studio interference, but director Gareth Edwards has failed to live up to the hype delivered by his debut Monsters. There’s a brief moment in a Hawaiian airport and a set-piece on a railroad that satisfy in the action stakes, but other than that there is not a single moment of this film worth your money.

I will say no more cause you’ll go see this anyway, and I don’t blame you as it looks fun. As someone who was really looking forward to this I regret to say it sucks.

1 out of 5

 

Captain America: The Winter Soldier – Homeland but even worse

It’s no secret I’m not a Marvel fan, but the first Captain America was a rare treat and even the latest Thor film I secretly enjoyed. I went into this hoping for two hours of fun and that Marvel may deviate from their overused formula of set piece – talking –set piece – talking – fight that destroys a city – end. That they did; with a storyline and tone more difficult than previous. Unfortunately they fail to achieve that tone comfortably, leaving Captain America: The Winter Soldier a rather confused and unenjoyable affair.

Still adapting to modern times, Steve Rogers aka Captain America (Chris Evans) is becoming concerned at the level of world policing agency SHIELD are doing. When mutiny starts in the agency, Captain America is left with only one person to trust; Agent Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), and together they must stop a strategic genocide.

The film has a great opening twenty minutes, with a still-adapting to modern times Captain involved in a mission to save hostages on a ship taken by pirates. This set-piece is fantastic, with the athleticism and speed of the Captain conveyed in a covert mission with little effects. Unfortunately this is where the film peaks, and from them on it becomes a mess with no narrative as underwritten bad guys (what were you thinking Robert Redford?) do a lazy job of being evil.

Maybe it was the World War II setting of the first film that made it more appealing, but in modern times this just comes off as a bad episode of Homeland, and that’s pretty bad. Avoid.

1 out of 5

The Flu – don’t do

Usually when a subtitled film gets an Irish cinema release it’s due to critical acclaim or controversy. Lately more and more Bollywood films have been released in the cinema in Ireland due to a cult interest and Indian population boom, but it’s hard to see why Korean film The Flu made it onto UK and Irish screens. Not good enough to receive acclaim or culturally significantly enough to attract the Korean contingent, there’s nothing cult about this release. Its Sharknado meets Contagion, but not near as fun as that sounds.

A container full of illegal Chinese immigrants arrives in Korea with a deadly strain of flu that spreads through the Korean city of Bundang. Under lockdown the heavily influenced by America government decide how best to deal with the carnage that ensues through mass hysteria. Luckily (and conveniently to the point of ridiculousness) Ji-Goo (Jang Hyuk), In-Hae (Soo Ae) and her annoying as fook daughter are there at every important plot point to assist.

Jang Hyuk as Ji-Goo is extremely likeable despite the disaster that is the script and director. He escapes unscathed and is always watchable, with a fun opening scene. Unfortunately the rest of the cast are in a z-movie and don’t know it, delivering terrible lines with cringe worthy direction. It’s a mess, and not a fun one.

If you’re Korean and desperately homesick, maybe. Otherwise absolutely not.

1 out of 5

The World’s End – so bad it hurts

Somebody really should have killed this before it went anywhere close to production. The World’s End is a film that just does not work. An intriguing concept, but the first draft of the script should have been enough to show that the concept was not going to translate to a fully fleshed out film. The World’s End is made by a talented team who proved themselves worthy of our cinemas with Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, but the trust has been lost with this diabolical two hours of cinema.

Gary King (Simon Pegg) organises a reunion pub crawl with four of his unenthusiastic childhood friends in a desperate attempt to recapture his youth. Hitting 12 pubs over one night in the quiet town of Newton Haven the group soon become aware of changes in the town, from the chain takeover of the pubs to a possible alien invasion.

Pegg at least is trying something different but Gary King isn’t a very likeable character, not very funny and selfish. His friends at least are somewhat likeable but before their characters can be developed the aliens appear, at which point the film stops being a film and just becomes an absolute mess. Characters we don’t care about get into situations we don’t believe, and not a single joke worth remembering.

Director Edgar Wright makes a decent action scene when the gang are attacked by youths in a pub bathroom, but it feels more like a show reel than having any context to this film. Avoid avoid avoid.

1 out of 5

This is the End – painful to watch

This is the End starts off promisingly enough, and even the least subtle bit of product placement ever in the opening five minutes is forgiven due to the fact you get the feeling this might be a fun two hours. It maintains good momentum as we meet celebrities playing themselves, but then the apocalypse happens, both on camera and behind.

Playing himself Jay Baruchel (you’ll recognize him from bit parts in Knocked Up and Tropic Thunder) arrives in LA to spend the weekend with best friend Seth Rogen. Jay is wary of the glamorous LA lifestyle and Seth’s new friends, and is reluctantly dragged to a party at rival for Rogen’s friendship James Franco’s house. Every celebrity under the sun is there, from Rihanna to Emma Watson, making fun of themselves and their lifestyles in an amusing enough way, until all hell breaks loose. People ascend into the sky and holes open up in the ground all around, sucking people away. Jay, Seth, James and a few others find themselves bared up in James’s home defending themselves against the end of the world.

The problem with This is the End is the middle; the very long middle, when the group have seemingly endless conversations in the same room over and over again. It’s not as quirky or funny as it thinks it is and very quickly becomes irritating. Playing themselves is a novelty for a bit, but soon becomes dull and not a very interesting or entertaining bunch. Franco as always is great but even his performance becomes repetitive. Worst of all Jay Baruchel is just annoying and not likeable. It picks up towards the end with a bit of energy but what comes before really is painfully dull to watch.

A disaster. Some great talent given too much freedom by the studio resulting in self-indulgent repetitive nonsense. Avoid.

1 out of 5

Man of Steel – Man of no appeal

I don’t know how it’s possible but the makers of Man of Steel have managed to spend every penny of a $225 million budget and not produce one minute of good cinema. If this were an indie film where filmmakers had struggled the almost impossible of securing some small financing I might give them 2 out of 5 for effort, but this is a film made by Warner Brothers based on an already established character with some great literature to choose a story from. Added to that a budget that could finance a hundred Donnie Darko productions and Man of Steel is nothing short of criminal. Filmmakers Spielberg and Lucas complained this week that cinema is struggling due to people turning their backs on it for TV. With great shows like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones versus rubbish like Man of Steel and Oblivion who can blame us? We didn’t give up on cinema, it gave up on us.

Opening on dying planet Krypton, Jor-El (Russell Crowe) is forced to send his illegally born son Kal-El to Earth to escape genocide by General Zod (Michael Shannon), a man bred solely to keep the Kryptonian race alive. On Earth Kal-El finds himself raised by human parents in rural Kansas and from an early age becomes aware he may be a bit different to all the other kids when he starts lifting buses and seeing through walls. Approaching middle age Kal-El, now known as Clark Kent, finds himself wandering America hiding his powers, before reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) tracks this mysterious hero down. Unfortunately Zod has tracked him down too and is adamant Earth is destroyed to accommodate a new Kryptonian home planet.

As expected there are a lot of special effects, and their fine. But this isn’t a tech convention, a film can’t have merit on effects alone, this is still a medium for storytelling. The effects are so fast and manic that the fights turn into video games, and who’s who or what’s going on is lost, as is any excitement or tension. It always seems to be CG instead of an actor speeded up, once Superman goes in the air he’s just a graphic, and any sense of knowing this guy is lost.

Newcomer Henry Cavill doesn’t make much of an impact as Superman. He has very little to play with as the Clark Kent we know doesn’t really exist yet, but even still there is a huge lack of personality, humour or likeability to his performance. He just comes across as dull. Amy Adams is a fine actress but her Lois Lane is underwritten and weak. I hope she got well paid. Even the always great Michael Shannon as General Zod is only ok here. He gets the odd good line but never a long enough scene to really impress us. Russell Crowe does a good job as Jor-El, and the opening segment is probably the films best as we follow him around Krypton. It’s only a small part but German actress Antje Traue makes the most impact as one of Zod’s foot soldiers, more knife fights with her could have benefited the film.

The film doesn’t know what it is. It feels like Transformers with Superman filling in for Optimus Prime as cars are thrown and buildings destroyed. One minute we’re in space having a conversation, the next were in a military base in America, then a flash back to a daddy moment. The military is extremely overused. They’re useless against Superman and Zod as their bullets bounce off their skin, yet cuts to officers watching satellite images of objects flying around Earth is half the film. They create more plot holes than they cover, and when they use Lois Lane to help them save the day it descends into stupidity.

Stupidity is in overflow here, whether it’s Kevin Costner and a tornado or Lois Lane failing to connect a device and shouting ‘I can’t get it to go in all the way’ (‘that’s what she said’ could be heard from all corners of the cinema), stupidity is the product of a $225 million budget. Director Zack Snyder doesn’t know what he’s doing with this weak script, and it all shows. Forget about Christopher Nolan’s production credit too, Man of Steel makes Superman Returns (2006) look like a masterpiece.

People are being too kind to Man of Steel, saying it’s grand. This cost $225 million, this is shameful. Save your ‘grands’ for something that deserves it. This is rubbish. A few months ago the internet leaked that Man of Steel was rumoured to be the film of the summer. Of course that was the rumour, only Warner Brothers had seen the film and they needed to make their money back so of course they’re going to spread positive word. Unfortunately this will make a tonne of money and there’ll be a sequel, but this is genocide on all the more worthy films that could have been made with that budget.

1 out of 5

Oblivion – Universal owe me a refund

(WARNING SPOILERS – although its hard to spoil a film this bad)

If you’ve seen Moon (2009) you’ve seen Oblivion; albeit a more expensive version. In the opening minutes when Tom Cruise’s character announces casually that he underwent a wipe of all his memories five years ago to qualify for his job; my alarm bells rang. Subsequently every twist was as obvious as they come. Oblivion was filmed in 2012, three years after Moons release. Yes a lot of films borrow story threads from others but Oblivion is so blatant it looks like a mash up of Independence Day, Moon and Wall-E. It looks beautiful, but has zero originality.

Set in 2077 Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) and his partner Victoria (Andrea Risenborough) live in a giant iPod in the clouds, watching over a destroyed Earth after an alien invasion 60 years earlier. Mankind won, but humanity has been moved to Saturn’s moon Titan. Jack is in charge of maintaining drones that patrol Earth killing scavenger aliens left behind after the war. Nearing the completion of his mission Jack and Victoria will soon join the rest of humanity on Titan, but a mysterious crash on Earth unlocks memories of Jacks past.

Director Kosinski knows his visuals. His debut Tron Legacy in 2010 looked amazing but was unforgivingly empty. Unfortunately Oblivion continues this trend. Everything looks fantastic but bar Risenborough there’s not a compelling character on screen and we’re left not really caring about any of them. Cruise is always watchable but he’s on autopilot here, there is zero challenge in this role for him. For a man who gets paid what he does that’s a waste of a day at work.

I’ve paid to see this film before; Universal Pictures owe me a refund. There is nothing original here, from the story to the Independence Day finale. Alien races conquer us but they never take note to not let us fly a bomb inside them, an absolute insult of a resolution to paying audience members. Avoid, stay at home and watch the much better Moon instead.

1 out of 5

The Amazing Spirderman – The Amazing waste of money

Make it or lose it, that was Sonys ultimatum. They must make a Spiderman film every couple of years or the rights go up for auction and Marvel Studios will be all over it like Captain America on a Nazi. Instead of carrying on with the costly team of Sam Raimi and Tobery Maguire they decided to ‘reboot’ the series with a fresh start. You wouldn’t ‘reboot’ Schindlers List, but we live in a world where films follow one set of rules and comic book films follow another. You can tell the same story in the same style with miniscule variations and zero new imagination. This is not filmmaking, shame on you Sony. This is one of the most cowardly films of all time. Nolans Batmans approached the character from a different angle and are most definitely a different story to Burton and Schumachers films. With Spiderman Sony have stuck their fingers up at cinema goers, give them more of the same and those idiots will pay for it.

I went into this optimistic, I enjoyed Raimis Spiderman films but was aware of their shortcomings. In the hands of Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer) this could be a whole new adventure with some genuine raw superhero emotion. Webb does what Sony want him to do fine, why he signed up to make this I’ll never know (well maybe the barrels of cash). Looking at what he’s created he cannot possibly feel any sense of accomplishment, this is not his film. He slyly injects small aspects of his own style, hot chocolate conversations and indie soundtrack, but it’s little and far between, everything in between may as well have been made by ‘generic superhero film director guy’.

Andrew Garfield (The Social Network) plays hi-school outcast Peter Parker. Why he’s an outcast we don’t know, not a pimple in sight and a healthy head of hair on a skateboard he is anything but. Investigating his parents mysterious disappearances he finds himself at the headquarters of OsCorp, home of one armed scientist Curt Connors and his genetically modified experiments. Wandering pointlessly into some dangerous looking but security lacking rooms Parker is bitten by an experimental spider, giving him super human abilities. Luckily he has cause Connors has since turned himself into a giant lizard intent on experimenting on the entire population of New York. Add to the mix a school bully, his pestering Aunt and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) whose dad happens to be the head of New York City police intent on tracking down this mysterious ‘Spiderman’.

Let’s get it out of the way first. The Lizard. Awful. One of the dullest bad guys ever to grace our screens. Rhys Ifans does what he can but this is as dull and boring as bad guys get. Will someone please approach the bad guy plot from a new perspective because this is getting ridiculous. Give them a new angle, a new structure, break the mould please! Likewise Garfield is fine as Spiderman but there is no sense of adventure in him discovering his abilities, making it very hard to root for the guy. We know he’ll survive for a sequel so there’s never any real peril. Garfield plays well against Stone but it feels like it’s from a different film and this plot never intertwines well with the Spiderman versus Lizard plot. He’s old too making the point of a ‘reboot’ confusing. By the time the sequel is made he’ll be in his thirties and the hi-school plot well and truly exhausted. What then? A re-reboot?

The biggest disappointment of all is in the style and tone of the film. Raimis were firmly New York films, Webbs take acknowledges New York but tries to keep it as generic a city as possible, meaning like the recent Avengers film there is never any feel for the location or its inhabitants and the threat their under. He directs the action almost identical to Raimi, nothing new in the web swings and jumps. Spiderman moves as he always did. Unique it is not.

If you haven’t seen the film from ten years ago this will be a fun two hours, but for anybody else this is nothing new. There will be sequels and hopefully then they might change the formula, but for now this is nothing more than a pointless waste of money.

1 out of 5