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Movies on My Mind

Week Ending July 9 2016

Box Office

It’s the sure sign of a piss-poor movie summer (not that there’s been much sign of seasonal splendour in the firmament either) when you find yourself casting about for prospective movie offerings and coming up short. I’m clearly not alone, as aside from Finding Dory audiences have been determinedly unpersuaded by the slew of suckage at the US theatres, and internationally the prospects aren’t all that much rosier.

There’s a roster of movies that will have to settle for the $200m+ mark globally, nothing to be sneezed at if you’re reasonably budgeted, but something of a disaster if you’re a costly pic and one following a predecessor that made twice that amount (or more). So Alice Through the Looking Glass, Now You See Me 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Closet, follow The Huntsman: Winter’s War as more than a tad disappointing.

What isn’t so disappointing is that crap originals aren’t tempting cinemagoers to flock obediently to the follow-ups (anyone would think the great unwashed had taste, right?) It’s gratifying to see Seth Rogen’s boorish oaf failing to appeal in Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, which has barely scraped $100m, and won’t finish up with half the original’s tally. Independence Day: Resurgence may top $300m, but that’s still half a billion less than its two-decades-old predecessor, while X-Men: Apocalypse comes in a good $200m short of Days of Future Past. Of those tarnished jewels, I’ve only seen the latter two, because none of the originals, or the advance word for their follow-ups, remotely enthused me.

And it isn’t just the sequels this summer, with Warcraft managing to provoke column inches over the power of the Chinese dollar (well, yen) but still looking too costly to merit further unexciting adventures in unMiddle Earth ($400m and stalling). Elsewhere, a property that might reasonably have been expected to double its total, given its brand recognition, Angry Birds Movie is only in the $300+ range, a modest result for an animation in the current climate.

Add to those ranks The Legend of Tarzan, the one I was mulling a look at during the last week and elected to refrain. It appears even less captivating than Greystoke, which at least had the unlikely prospect of serious, heritage-minded movie going for it. What Tarzan needed was to have the loin-clothed one fight dinosaurs, or troglodytes or some such. Give him something whacky to do, and pulpy, as that’s what he is, whacky and pulpy.

The BFG has also taken a bath, provoking some to suggest Spielberg has lost his touch. That may partly be it, but he also needs to get with a cinematographer who can provoke a childlike sense of wonder, rather than one who wants to get back to that serious-minded fare.

In weeks to come there’s the femme Ghostbusters, which I can’t get too excited about, although I rather like Kate McKinnon’s general turnout. I’m far from outraged over the gender swap; my nonplussed-ness is entirely down to finding the last one, 33 years ago, a bit of a snooze, and (sacrilegious to say) I didn’t actually LOVE the original. So this one doesn’t necessarily have to do a lot to win me over, other than actually muster me to go see it.

And then there’s Star Trek Beyond. Has a rousingly rejuvenated franchise ever soiled its goodwill so quickly? Simon Pegg (who is suddenly a Trekkie, but I could have sworn Doctor Who was always his bag, when it wasn’t Star Wars; it definitely wasn’t Babylon 5, which as we know was a big pile of shit) seems more fixated on Sulu’s sexual preferences than whether he’s concocted a decent story (interrogating the nature of the Federation may sound like a worthy subject to tackle, but you have to remember this comes from someone whose last writing credit was the underwhelming The World’s End and that the last serious minded Trek was one no one can recall despite having the estimable and Oscar-winning F Murray Abraham as the main villain). So while I’d really like Beyond to be beyond average, I’m not holding my breath.

The only bona fide big hits of the summer are the unstoppable Pixar and The Conjuring 2, and the latter looks to meet the first one for gross rather than turning into a latter-day Exorcist. The biggies (The Jungle Book, Civil War, Zootopia) all came during the spring season, and it rather speaks to a continued crumbling of traditionally carved-up periods where a designated box office sensation could berth.

The Secret Life of Pets looks to do reasonably well, but perhaps not as well as it might have if it had been truly inspired (although that hasn’t stopped Illumination before). Ice Age 5 may become another near-billion grosser or a take bit of a dip; I haven’t really familiarised myself with the fatigue factor of the franchise, but since this one has brought in UFOs, it may be that it’s getting into Police Academy desperate straits. And Ben-Hur is going to stink the place out. Pete’s Dragon may yet be the hit BFG wasn’t, but why would one appeal and the other not (everyone has nostalgic memories of the slightly rancid original)?

Which leaves some ifs (Nine Lives, The Founder) and a couple of sure things. Jason Bourne should rule August, unless it’s somehow rubbish. As for Suicide Squad, it has certainly made a dent in terms of public awareness, but David Ayer’s ability with material, tone, and general taste and flair is reliably variable. I’m expecting it to be rather a mess, which won’t necessarily preclude it from becoming a big hit. After that, it could easily be November (Dr Strange, Fantastic Beasts) before anything really tickles the public’s fancy.

Alien 5-ish

Given that Sir Ridley is firmly back in the land of aliens with Covenant, I’d have liked to think he had good sense and taste enough to send young jock Neill Blomkamp packing when he came in suited up in his replica Aliens power loader (he’s been redesigning it every movie he’s made), shouting about how he’s on an express elevator to xenomorph heaven, and mostly intends to make a sequel to Cameron’s not-quite-classic, mostly. Unfortunately, Sir Ridley has been deficit an ability to see a good screenplay for decades, even when it Glaswegian kisses him, and besides, Blomkamp probably had the ear of the same Fox bean counters who greenlit those AvPs.

Because this is a really bad idea. Not only to sweep two sequels under the carpet which, whatever their deficiencies, at least dared not to follow generic courses, in stark contrast to Blomkamp’s desire to do a direct, diligently bereft follow-up to a movie he still wakes up all sweaty about 30 years later. He risks alienating the very fans he’s trying to appeal to, the ones who wrote fanfic (or Dark Horse comics) about canoodling Ripley and Hicks, and grown-up Newt. The whole thing’s quite horrible really. And, while Sigourney’s in good shape, she is also in her mid-60s. As was Harrison when he proved returning to Indy was a bad idea, with a young inheritor who was an even worse one.

Blomkamp got lucky with District 9, basically. He’s a proficient technician but a dreadful scenarist, and Alien 3.1 stands to be as eviscerated as the AvPs and (slightly unjustly) Resurrection as yet another stillborn in the saga. Thank goodness (relatively) we have Scott unaccountably still carrying the torch for the franchise. He must just love Fassbender.

If you’d told me in 1988 that a talented action director would be steering a direct follow up in which Ripley’s new family packed punches against an alien hoard, I’d have been ecstatic. But I was young then, and knew no better. It seems Blomkamp still knows no better, but then that’s self-evident if you’ve seen Elysium or Chappie. We can but hope the audible backlash over this finds its way back to Fox, but they’ve never been a studio with professional pride, at least not since Murdoch’s been running things.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

Comments

She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

Your honor, with all due respect: if you're going to try my case for me, I wish you wouldn't lose it.

The Verdict (1982)
(SPOILERS) Sidney Lumet’s return to the legal arena, with results every bit as compelling as 12 Angry Men a quarter of a century earlier. This time the focus is on the lawyer, in the form of Paul Newman’s washed-up ambulance chaser Frank Galvin, given a case that finally matters to him. In less capable hands, The Verdict could easily have resorted to a punch-the-air piece of Hollywood cheese, but, thanks to Lumet’s earthy instincts and a sharp, unsentimental screenplay from David Mamet, this redemption tale is one of the genre’s very best.

And it could easily have been otherwise. The Verdict went through several line-ups of writer, director and lead, before reverting to Mamet’s original screenplay. There was Arthur Hiller, who didn’t like the script. Robert Redford, who didn’t like the subsequent Jay Presson Allen script and brought in James Bridges (Redford didn’t like that either). Finally, the producers got the hump with the luxuriantly golden-haired star for meetin…

He mobilised the English language and sent it into battle.

Darkest Hour (2017)
(SPOILERS) Watching Joe Wright’s return to the rarefied plane of prestige – and heritage to boot – filmmaking following the execrable folly of the panned Pan, I was struck by the difference an engaged director, one who cares about his characters, makes to material. Only last week, Ridley Scott’s serviceable All the Money in the World made for a pointed illustration of strong material in the hands of someone with no such investment, unless they’re androids. Wright’s dedication to a relatable Winston Churchill ensures that, for the first hour-plus, Darkest Hour is a first-rate affair, a piece of myth-making that barely puts a foot wrong. It has that much in common with Wright’s earlier Word War II tale, Atonement. But then, like Atonement, it comes unstuck.

Who are you and why do you know so much about car washes?

Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
(SPOILERS) The belated arrival of the Ant-Man sequel on UK shores may have been legitimately down to World Cup programming, but it nevertheless adds to the sense that this is the inessential little sibling of the MCU, not really expected to challenge the grosses of a Doctor Strange, let alone the gargantuan takes of its two predecessors this year. Empire magazine ran with this diminution, expressing disappointment that it was "comparatively minor and light-hitting" and "lacks the scale and ambition of recent Marvel entries". Far from deficits, for my money these should be regard as accolades bestowed upon Ant-Man and the Wasp; it understands exactly the zone its operating in, yielding greater dividends than the three most recent prior Marvel entries the review cites in its efforts at point scoring.

Dude, you're embarrassing me in front of the wizards.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
(SPOILERS) The cliffhanger sequel, as a phenomenon, is a relatively recent thing. Sure, we kind of saw it with The Empire Strikes Back – one of those "old" movies Peter Parker is so fond of – a consequence of George Lucas deliberately borrowing from the Republic serials of old, but he had no guarantee of being able to complete his trilogy; it was really Back to the Future that began the trend, and promptly drew a line under it for another decade. In more recent years, really starting with The Matrix – The Lord of the Rings stands apart as, post-Weinstein's involvement, fashioned that way from the ground up – shooting the second and third instalments back-to-back has become a thing, both more cost effective and ensuring audiences don’t have to endure an interminable wait for their anticipation to be sated. The flipside of not taking this path is an Allegiant, where greed gets the better of a studio (split a novel into two movie parts assuming a…

The simple fact is, your killer is in your midst. Your killer is one of you.

The Avengers 5.12: The Superlative Seven
I’ve always rather liked this one, basic as it is in premise. If the title consciously evokes The Magnificent Seven, to flippant effect, the content is Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, but played out with titans of their respective crafts – including John Steed, naturally – encountering diminishing returns. It also boasts a cast of soon-to-be-famous types (Charlotte Rampling, Brian Blessed, Donald Sutherland), and the return of one John Hollis (2.16: Warlock, 4.7: The Cybernauts). Kanwitch ROCKS!

I freely chose my response to this absurd world. If given the opportunity, I would have been more vigorous.

The Falcon and the Snowman (1985)
(SPOILERS) I suspect, if I hadn’t been ignorant of the story of Christopher Boyce and Andrew Daulton Lee selling secrets to the Soviets during the ‘70s, I’d have found The Falcon and the Snowman less engaging than I did. Which is to say that John Schlesinger’s film has all the right ingredients to be riveting, including a particularly camera-hogging performance from Sean Penn (as Lee), but it’s curiously lacking in narrative drive. Only fitfully does it channel the motives of its protagonists and their ensuing paranoia. As such, the movie makes a decent primer on the case, but I ended up wondering if it might not be ideal fodder for retelling as a miniseries.

Everyone creates the thing they dread.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
(SPOILERS) Avengers: Age of Ultron’s problem isn’t one of lack. It benefits from a solid central plot. It features a host of standout scenes and set pieces. It hands (most of) its characters strong defining moments. It doesn’t even suffer now the “wow” factor of seeing the team together for the first time has subsided. Its problem is that it’s too encumbered. Maybe its asking to much of a director to effectively martial the many different elements required by an ensemble superhero movie such as this, yet Joss Whedon’s predecessor feels positively lean in comparison.

Part of this is simply down to the demands of the vaster Marvel franchise machine. Seeds are laid for Captain America: Civil War, Infinity Wars I & II, Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok. It feels like several spinning plates too many. Such activity occasionally became over-intrusive on previous occasions (Iron Man II), but there are points in Age of Ultron where it becomes distractingly so. …

I take Quaaludes 10-15 times a day for my "back pain", Adderall to stay focused, Xanax to take the edge off, part to mellow me out, cocaine to wake me back up again, and morphine... Well, because it's awesome.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Along with Pain & Gain and The Great Gatsby, The Wolf of Wall Street might be viewed as the completion of a loose 2013 trilogy on the subject of success and excess; the American Dream gone awry. It’s the superior picture to its fellows, by turns enthralling, absurd, outrageous and hilarious. This is the fieriest, most deliriously vibrant picture from the director since the millennium turned. Nevertheless, stood in the company of Goodfellas, the Martin Scorsese film from which The Wolf of Wall Street consciously takes many of its cues, it is found wanting.

I was vaguely familiar with the title, not because I knew much about Jordan Belfort but because the script had been in development for such a long time (Ridley Scott was attached at one time). So part of the pleasure of the film is discovering how widely the story diverges from the Wall Street template. “The Wolf of Wall Street” suggests one who towers over the city like a behemoth, rather than a guy …

Gloat all you like, but just remember, I’m the star of this picture.

The Avengers 5.11: Epic
Epic has something of a Marmite reputation, and even as someone who rather likes it, I can quite see its flaws. A budget-conscious Brian Clemens was inspired to utilise readily-available Elstree sets, props and costumes, the results both pushing the show’s ever burgeoning self-reflexive agenda and providing a much more effective (and amusing) "Avengers girl ensnared by villains attempting to do for her" plot than The House That Jack Built, Don't Look Behind You and the subsequent The Joker. Where it falters is in being little more than a succession of skits and outfit changes for Peter Wyngarde. While that's very nearly enough, it needs that something extra to reach true greatness. Or epic-ness.

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