Captain America: Civil War

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CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR

Director : Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Cast : Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Rudd, Chadwick Boseman, Emily VanCamp, Daniel Brühl, Frank Grillo, William Hurt, Martin Freeman
Genre : Action/Adventure
Run Time : 2 hrs 27 mins
Opens : 28 April 2016
Rating : PG (Some Violence)

Earth’s mightiest heroes are torn asunder in this, the 13^th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Following calamitous incidents in New York, Washington D.C., Sokovia and Lagos, the politicians of the world seek to establish a governing body to supervise the actions of the Avengers. Tony Stark/Iron Man (Downey) agrees to sign what becomes known as ‘The Sokovia Accords’, while Steve Rogers/Captain America (Evans) refuses to comply. Sam Wilson/Falcon (Mackie), Wanda Maximoff/Scarlett Witch (Olsen), Sharon Carter/Agent 13 (VanCamp), Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Renner) and Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Rudd) take Rogers’ side. Backing up Stark are Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Johansson), James Rhodes/War Machine (Cheadle), Vision (Bettany), and new additions T’challa/Black Panther (Boseman) and Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Holland). In the meantime, Rogers is still tracking down Bucky Barnes/the Winter Soldier (Stan), his childhood friend who was brainwashed into becoming a ruthless killing machine. Then there’s the enigmatic Dr. Helmut Zemo (Brühl), who seeks details on one of the Winter Soldier’s past missions to enact a treacherous scheme. If the world’s heroes are too busy fighting one another, who will protect everyone else?

             It’s generally agreed upon that 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier is among the strongest entries in the MCU thus far. It’s an intense political thriller with lavish action spectacle and a resonant emotional component woven into a concinnate whole. With that film’s directors Joe and Anthony Russo and its writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely returning for Civil War, we had appropriately high expectations. Civil War is not so much a standalone Captain America movie as it is Avengers 2.5, packing in quite a number of characters from the MCU and introducing a couple of new ones. There are lots of moving parts and the story comes off as disjointed. The film gets off to a wobbly start, lacking particularly striking imagery or an impactful action sequence to open with. The source of the conflict at the heart of the film is established clearly enough, but Rogers’ and Stark’s resentment for each other doesn’t get enough room to really simmer to a boil.

            In the comics, the Civil War event centred on secret identities and superhero registration. Since secret identities have largely been a non-issue in the MCU, collateral damage has become the catalyst for conflict. There are some pretty high stakes and the film wants us to take the rift between the MCU’s two biggest heroes very seriously, but not at the expense of quips and general joking about. There are many humorous moments that do land and a reference to Empire Strikes Back had this reviewer doubling over with laughter. Cap, Falcon and Bucky also share a real ‘bro’ moment that’s quite endearing. However, there are several instances where the one-liners result in a sense of flippancy, undermining the gravity of the situation at hand.

            Both Evans and Downey have become very comfortable with their roles as Captain America and Iron Man respectively. There is a valiant attempt at having both parties make valid points, though the film tends to side with Cap because, well, he’s in the title. There’s plenty of snarky back-and-forth jibes, but the ideological disagreements get no room to breathe. There’s not very much to say about the performances of all the returning cast members, since the characterisation is generally consistent with how they’ve been drawn in previous films. Stan continues to be eminently sympathetic as Bucky – half puppy, half killing machine. Vision and Scarlet Witch share a few scenes together, as a nod to the characters’ romance in the comics, but these come off as superfluous. The budding romance between Cap and Agent 13 feels extremely tacked on. There are plenty of references to previous entries in the series, with an emphasis on Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron, so one wouldn’t quite be able to make head or tail of this going in blind.

            Fans will be pleased to know that both Black Panther and Spider-Man are handled as well as possible. Boseman brings a stern dignity to the role of the Wakandan prince who is both royalty and costumed crime-fighter, the requisite outsider with no prior link to the Avengers. Stark ropes in teenage science whiz and vigilante Peter Parker. Holland’s portrayal of Spider-Man feels very true to the spirit of the character: the wisecracks, the wide-eyed awe, the pubescent awkwardness, it’s all there in the right amounts. Marisa Tomei briefly shows up as Parker’s Aunt May, and the Spider-Man scenes have increased our anticipation of the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming all the more. The design of the suit is divisive: while it harks back to the more traditional artwork of the likes of Steve Ditko and John Romita Sr., the slightly old-fashioned spandex look doesn’t quite fit in with the established MCU aesthetic, especially since it’s established that Stark designed the suit for Parker.

            The “villain problem” that has plagued most MCU movies continues here. Helmut Zemo, who is markedly different from the costumed supervillain of the comics, is portrayed as a sly manipulator lurking behind the scenes for his own ends, pulling the marionette strings and fanning the flames of internecine strife. Unfortunately, Brühl makes so little of a mark that this reviewer had to go back to write this paragraph after completing the review, initially forgetting the need to elaborate on the villain.

            The standout action sequence is, naturally, the full-on clash between the two factions set at an airport in Leipzig. The scene is packed with fun visual gags and moments engineered to get the audience on their feet, cheering. It’s quite a shame then that the rest of the action sequences, perhaps barring the climactic brawl, are generally unmemorable. The heavy use of shaky-cam and breakneck editing means we can’t take in the choreography or get a good sense of who’s doing what in the middle of a fight.

            There’s a lot in Civil War that works fine and the people making these movies have enough experience under their belts to not make a complete fumble of things. However, because many of us are experiencing comic book movie fatigue, it takes a lot more than general competence to get us truly excited. There’s ultimately very little in Civil War that’s actually truly novel. It’s a victory, but far from a flawless one.

Summary: The introduction of Spider-Man and Black Panther into the MCU are highlights, but Civil War’s lack of cohesiveness and the hard-to-follow fight sequences prevent it from being the earth-shattering event it’s pitched as.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

            

Legend

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LEGEND

Director : Brian Helgeland

Cast : Tom Hardy, Emily Browning, Christopher Eccleston, Taron Egerton, Paul Bettany, David Thewlis, Chazz Palminteri

Genre : Drama/Crime

Run Time : 132 mins

Opens : 12 November 2015

Rating : M18 (Violence and Coarse Language)

After going Mad earlier this year, Tom Hardy’s going Kray-zy in this gangster biopic. Hardy plays both Ronnie and Reggie Kray, identical twins who ruled the London criminal underworld in the 60s. Reggie is the savvy businessman while institutionalized Ronnie is the unhinged, unpredictable loose cannon. After threatening a psychiatrist into declaring Ronnie sane, the pair rise through the ranks, running protection rackets and buying up nightclubs. Reggie falls in love with Frances Shea (Browning) who eventually marries him, much to the disapproval of her mother (Tara Fitzgerald). In the meantime, Ronnie openly pursues a relationship with Teddy (Egerton). The twins become business associates of Philadelphia crime family don Angelo Bruno (Palminteri) and are pursued by Scotland Yard Detective Superintendent Leonard “Nipper” Read (Eccleston), intent on putting an end to their reign of terror. 

Legend is based on John Pearson’s biography The Profession of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins. The twins were the subject of the 1990 biopic The Krays as well as the straight-to-DVD 2015 film The Rise of the Krays, the latter apparently made to ride the coattails of this film. Writer-director Brian Helgeland earned his crime movie bona fides with 1997’s Oscar-winning L.A. Confidential and the Kray twins’ colourful history and trail of violence makes them attractive true crime biopic subjects. While Legend is a superb showcase for its star, it falls short in almost all other departments. Like many period gangster movies, Legend all too frequently invokes the classics of the genre while feeling like a mere echo. Its portrayal of 60s London is at once stylish and slightly artificial, Helgeland never achieving the authenticity he strives for. 

The film falls into a pattern of Ronnie doing something despicable and outrageous with Reggie cleaning up after him, the twins often coming into conflict with each other and those around them. It’s odd: even though the film spends a lot of time with its central characters, it doesn’t dig very deep into the psychology of the twins and by its conclusion, we only actually understand very little about them. It is eventful, but sometimes difficult to follow, everything tied together with a voiceover by Browning’s Frances. The voiceover is often heavy-handed and there are some clumsy attempts at breaking the fourth wall. In the end, it feels like the main purpose this voiceover serves is to give Frances some semblance of agency, since for most of the film, she is just there, just “the wife”.

Hardy has emerged as an A-lister who can headline big-budget blockbusters and prestige dramas with equal ease, and his dual role here is plenty impressive. Of course it’s gimmicky, but it’s a gimmick that works. With the help of body double Jacob Tomuri (who was Hardy’s stunt double in Mad Max: Fury Road and the upcoming The Revenant) and some clever visual effects trickery, two distinct versions of the actor co-exist and after a while, the sleight of hand becomes truly seamless. When Ronnie and Reggie come to blows during an especially heated argument, the fight is spectacularly convincing. Affecting an East End dialect, Hardy is able to play both twins as distinct characters, the end result far less stilted than when Armie Hammer’s head was duplicated and pasted onto Josh Pence’s body to play the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network. Reggie is the tortured antihero and Ronnie is the wild-eyed, mal-adjusted psychopath. In very loose terms, Reggie is the “good” twin, though that is of course relative. 

The afore-mentioned Browning looks gorgeous, appropriately retro-chic in a selection of 60s ensembles, but is given little to do beyond fretting over her husband’s illegal activities. Christopher Eccleston huffs and puffs as the cop on the Krays’ case, but Helgeland doesn’t seem too interest in the cat-and-mouse cops vs. criminals aspect of the story. Egerton, having made a splash in Kingsman: The Secret Service earlier this year, is also underused as Ron’s boy toy. Paul Bettany pops up very briefly as rival gangster Charlie Richardson. The British character actors who make up the Krays’ criminal posse come off as sufficiently tough and unsavoury, with Palminteri adding a touch of American mob movie cred. 

Given how Legend has been positioned as an awards contender, the film ends up surprisingly superficial. Even more so than other gangster films, it revolves around relationships, given its main characters are twins, but few of those relationships are satisfyingly developed and explored. Slick but formulaic and often unfocused, Legend offers very little real insight into the lives of the fascinating Kray twins. 

Summary: Tom Hardy’s dual role is dynamite stuff, but Legend is hampered by its heightened glossiness and is ultimately too shallow to pass as a gripping biopic. 

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars 

Jedd Jong 

Mortdecai

For F*** Magazine

MORTDECAI

Director : David Koepp
Cast : Johnny Depp, Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Bettany, Ewan McGregor, Olivia Munn, Jonny Pasvolsky, Jeff Goldblum
Genre : Comedy
Run Time : 107 mins
Opens : 29 January 2015
Rating : NC-16 (Sexual References)

He’s debonair, he’s dapper, he’s dumb – very, very dumb. Johnny Depp is Lord Charlie Mortdecai, an art dealer who finds himself embroiled in some very troubling business. When he is roped in by Inspector Martland (McGregor) of MI5 to assist in the case of a missing Goya painting, Mortdecai runs afoul of the Russian mafia and international assassin Strago (Pasvolsky). With his loyal valet Jock (Bettany) by his side, Mortdecai traipses across Europe and to Los Angeles to crack the case. To complicate matters, he is in crippling tax debt and a rift develops between him and his beloved wife Johanna (Paltrow) – brought upon by Mortdecai’s decision to grow a moustache.

            Mortdecai is based on Don’t Point That Thing At Me, the first in late author Kyril Bonfiglioli’s series of comic thriller novels. Film critics often describe action comedies as “romps” – there is no better way to describe Mortdecai other than a “romp”. This is a lowbrow movie gleefully prancing about in a highbrow movie’s clothes, tongue ever so firmly planted in cheek from start to finish. The plot features such hoity-toity elements as a priceless Goya painting, art auctions, a Rolls Royce, manors and manservants, yet almost all of the jokes are derived from unsubtle “nyuk nyuk nyuk”-style innuendo. For example, when Mortdecai is informed that he owes £8 million in tax debts, he remarks “I had no idea I was so deep in Her Majesty’s hole.” If you’re rolling your eyes just reading the line, then you should give Mortdecai a wide berth. But if you’re chuckling at it, you will find it easy to go along with all that silliness, and to the film’s credit, it isn’t all that hard to.

            Johnny Depp was once praised for being “daring” and “unique”, embracing oddball roles and shunning typical Hollywood leading men parts. Now, it’s hard to find anyone who takes him seriously but in Mortdecai, Johnny Depp wants to assure you the viewer that he doesn’t take himself seriously either. This is simultaneously a self-aware nod in the direction of Depp’s critics and an act of defiance, a “haters gonna hate”-type deal. Even if you dislike Depp’s shtick with all of your heart, you’ll have to admit it is pretty fun to see the actor dive so deep into the self-parody pool and with such conviction. That said, between the accent, the eyebrow-raising and that sound he makes that is somewhere between a grumble and a whimper, we understand why some viewers might find him all the more annoying after this.

            The rest of the cast do seem to be having a ball. It isn’t a stretch to buy Gwyneth Paltrow as a privileged, cultured aristocrat who has her husband firmly under her thumb and thankfully, she and Depp do share considerably more chemistry than Depp and Angelina Jolie did in The Tourist. Paul Bettany channels Jason Statham as the gruff, faithful sidekick named “Jock Strapp” (see what we mean about this being a lowbrow movie in a highbrow movie’s clothes?) There’s a running gag that the character is libidinous but largely manages not to let his dalliances with assorted buxom women get in the way of his work. Kinda funny. Ewan McGregor, reliable as always, is the straight man in all this. Unfortunately, it seems that the scenes featuring Oliver Platt and Aubrey Plaza have been left on the cutting room floor.

            Frothy and light-hearted, Mortdecai knows what it is and rejoices in that. Sure, it often seems like director David Koepp is attempting a bad Wes Anderson impression and that opening sequence borrows too liberally from that of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but as entertaining fluff, Mortdecai passes muster. Screenwriter Eric Aronson’s adaptation is comically verbose, the linguistic equivalent of a slapstick comedy routine – never mind that Aronson’s only other produced script is the execrable Lance Bass-starring 2001 rom-com On The Line. Lionsgate is planning a franchise and while that might not be particularly easy to sustain, especially when compared with the likes of Lionsgate’s lucrative Hunger Games series, it’s harmless fun that’s disposable but not worthless.

Summary: Johnny Depp knows nobody takes him seriously anymore and goes “what the heck”. While it needs a defter touch, Mortdecai is quite funny and, for the most part, enjoyably silly.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Transcendence

For F*** Magazine

TRANSCENDENCE

Director: Wally Pfister
Cast:  Johnny Depp, Paul Bettany, Rebecca Hall, Kate Mara, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman, Clifton Collins Jr., Josh Stewart, Cole Hauser, Cory Hardrict
Genre: Sci-Fi, Thriller
Run Time: 119 mins
Opens: 17 April 2014
Rating: PG (Some Violence)

In the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Johnny Depp asked “why is the rum gone?” and in Transcendence, he gets to ask “why is the RAM gone?” Depp plays Dr. Will Caster who, along with his wife Evelyn (Hall), is one of the foremost minds in artificial intelligence research. His work has earned the ire of a radical militant anti-technology activist group called RIFT; their operative fatally wounding him. Before Will’s death, he and Evelyn decide to upload Will’s consciousness to a supercomputer, something Will’s best friend Max (Bettany) warns against. As Will in his transcendent form becomes near-omnipotent, Will and Evelyn’s mentor Joseph Tagger (Freeman) works with FBI agent Donald Buchanan (Murphy) to contain and stop Will before he endangers his wife and the world at large.



Transcendence marks the directorial debut of Wally Pfister, winner of a Best Cinematography Oscar for Inception. Perhaps echoing the film’s themes of a wariness of technology in some small way, Pifster is an outspoken critic of shooting on digital format and insisted on shooting Transcendence on 35 mm film. Jack Paglen’s script earned a spot on the 2012 Black List of unproduced screenplays that had garnered the most positive industry buzz. Transcendence is reminiscent of 90s cyber-punk techno-thrillers, bearing shades of The Lawnmower Man, The Thirteenth Floor, eXistenZ, Johnny Mnemonic and The Matrix; also clearly influenced by the works of sci-fi authors William Gibson and Philip K. Dick, both famous for exploring the dynamic relationship between man and machine. Source Code is a recent genre entry that also comes to mind. There’s a bit of Rise of the Planet of the Apes vibe too, with the well-intentioned scientists playing god. While all the above-mentioned films had their outlandish moments (or were outlandish as a whole), Pfister takes great pains to maintain a po-faced plausibility and he is mostly successful.

Pfister’s style as a cinematographer is marked by a clinical precision which curiously didn’t sacrifice too much personality, and that is carried over to Transcendence. As far as directing debuts go, this is an assured first feature and hopefully a sign of great things to come from Pfister. The story has its predictable moments but it makes turns into surprising territory when it matters the most. At the mid-point of the story, Will and Evelyn buy over a dusty, dilapidated town, transforming it into a futuristic cradle of ground-breaking technology, enriching the lives of its residents akin to the forward-thinking pioneer who revolutionises a backward frontier town in a Western. The way in which Evelyn’s love for her husband clouds her judgement is presented compellingly, though there are perhaps one too many spots in which she goes “oh, now you’ve gone too far!” while the story continues apace.



Johnny Depp’s popularity has waned in recent years, moviegoers growing tired of his eccentric shtick and the big-budget bomb The Lone Ranger doing him no favours. You know an actor has played some weird roles when “human consciousness in a supercomputer” is considered relatively normal by his standards. Depp is on good form here, his Will Caster beginning as a loveable just-mad-enough scientist and then progressing into a non-corporeal force of technology without going “the full Skynet”. That’s not particularly easy to play and it is a better career move for Depp than running around with a dead bird on his head.

It might be Depp’s face on the poster (the one that looks like it hasn’t completely loaded) but this is as much Rebecca Hall’s film as it is his. While Evelyn’s characterisation does at times lean towards “female lead being defined by the male character”, she moves the plot forward as much as anyone else does and just like in Iron Man 3, Hall is believable as a scientist and effectively essays a woman struggling with some complex ethical conundrums. Freeman and Murphy’s characters fall squarely into the categories of “mentor figure” and “cop assigned to the case” respectively, but they are as competent as they typically are. Paul Bettany’s part is meatier, as he goes from being Will’s confidant and supporter to being possibly swayed by RIFT’s ideology. As the shady RIFT operative Bree, Kate Mara’s performance brings the likes of The East and The Company You Keep to mind. She’s not the greatest actress but she does lend a degree of sympathetic humanity to what could have been a generic band of bad guys.

Audiences flock to big-budget, spectacle-driven sci-fi blockbusters, but there’s definitely room in the market for techno-thrillers that are smaller in scale but also more thought-provoking, intelligent and carefully-crafted. There are parts of the film that are genuinely chills-inducing – suffice it to say that Cyber-Will doesn’t become a charming, affable Him. Transcendence falls short of brilliance, not digging as deep into its premise as it could have, but it is still engrossing, boasts a top-drawer cast and is satisfyingly cerebral if not mental gymnastics-inducing.

Summary: It’s not quite mind-blowing, but Transcendence is still a well-made, clever and entertaining post-cyber-punk thriller (and the least annoying Johnny Depp has been in a while). Jack in and boot up!


RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Priest

PRIEST

2011 Release

Starring: Paul Bettany, Cam Gigandet, Maggie Q, Karl Urban

Directed by: Scott Stewart

            Paul Bettany seems to have a thing for tough, butt-kicking religious types: he played an assassin monk in The Da Vinci Code, an uzi-wielding archangel in Legion (also by director Scott Stewart), and in this Korean comic book-based film is the titular warrior priest, a specially-ordained vampire fighter. When his niece Lucy (Lily Collins) is kidnapped by vampires, the Priest (Bettany), rendered redundant after the human-vampire wars, goes back into action to rescue her, assisted by small town lawman Hicks (Gigandet), and his former colleague the Priestess (Q), facing off against the villainous human-vampire hybrid Black Hat (Urban).

            The main problem with this movie is that it brings nothing new to the table. Warrior priests aren’t new, vampire wars aren’t new and totalitarian religious regimes aren’t new either. In fact, the whole movie can be turned into a game of “spot-where-this-came-from!” Elements are liberally borrowed from such movies as the Underworld films, the Mad Max films, Blade Runner, Equilibrium, V for Vendetta and so on. Black Hat’s getup is straight out of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and even the monstrous hive guardian brings to mind the rancor beast from Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.

            The film is droll, joyless and takes itself far too seriously. Movies like this are meant to be escapism, and the 3D adds very little to the uninspired mix. The characters are mostly one-note and the cast doesn’t have to do very much. In addition to the cross tattooed on his forehead, all Bettany needs to carry him through the movie is a scowl. However, Karl Urban seems to be having fun, chewing the scenery as the big bad, but even he is underused. Also, what on earth is veteran actor and Oscar-nominee Christopher Plummer doing here?

            Sorely lacking in imagination, energy and about as soulless as the vampires in it, Priest is far from a fun night out at the theatre. However, it does have decent visual effects and a stylish animated prologue going for it. But in the end, maybe paying your own priest at church a visit is more worthwhile– he’s probably more fun.

SUMMARY: Bringing nothing new to the table, Priest is a lifeless, paint-by-numbers post-apocalyptic thriller. Get your warrior priest/vampire war fix elsewhere.

RATING: 2/5 STARS