10 Cloverfield Lane

For F*** Magazine

10 CLOVERFIELD LANE

Director : Dan Trachtenberg
Cast : Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, John Gallagher Jr.
Genre : Sci-Fi/Thriller
Run Time : 103 mins
Opens : 7 April 2016
Rating : PG13 (Some Violence)

In an age where secrets are pretty hard to keep, 10 Cloverfield Lane snuck right under the radar. Industry watchers didn’t think too much of the indie mystery thriller called “The Cellar” starring Winstead and Goodman, but once the connection to the 2008 found footage monster movie Cloverfield was revealed, everyone’s attention was grabbed. Winstead plays Michelle, a woman who is caught in a car accident and awakes trapped in the bunker of a stranger called Howard (Goodman). Howard claims that the outside world has been thoroughly contaminated in the wake of an unknown catastrophe, and that the occupants of the bunker are the only ones left alive. The third person in the shelter is Emmett (Gallagher), another survivor of the attack. Michelle is understandably suspicious of Howard, and she has to determine whether he’s captor or saviour as she tries to put the pieces together.

The original Cloverfield is one of the biggest victims of “director displacement” ever – Matt Reeves helmed the film, but it is most strongly linked with co-writer and producer J.J. Abrams, who also returns to produce 10 Cloverfield Lane under his Bad Robot production company. The Bad Robot offices contain Abrams’ extensive collection of Twilight Zone memorabilia, the classic television series being Abrams’ favourite show and an enduring influence on the filmmaker. 10 Cloverfield Lane does play like a Twilight Zone episode, with a corker of a mystery unfolding in claustrophobic confines, the protagonist plonked into the middle of a situation that appears to make no sense. The influence of Orson Welles’ iconic War of the Worlds radio broadcast is also felt.

The film marks the feature directorial debut of Dan Trachtenberg, who garnered attention for his fan film Portal: No Escape, based on the popular video games from Valve. 10 Cloverfield Lane has its origins in a spec script written by John Campbell and Matt Stuecken, and originally had no ties to Cloverfield. When the script was picked up by Bad Robot, Abrams brought on Damien Chazelle to rewrite the script as a “spiritual sequel” to Cloverfield and to direct; he dropped out of directing after his film Whiplash was given the go-ahead. Of all the directions the much-demanded follow-up to Cloverfield could’ve gone in, it’s safe to say nobody saw this take coming.

Now, all this does sound confusing and the more cynical among us will arrive at the conclusion that the Cloverfield brand has been slapped onto this to boost this film’s visibility and lay the groundwork for a franchise. Rest assured that the connections to Cloverfield are quite subtle and one doesn’t have to be well-versed in the myriad fan theories to enjoy 10 Cloverfield Lane. According to Trachtenberg, this doesn’t even take place in the same fictional universe as Cloverfield, but the connections are there if you’re keeping your eyes peeled for them, and the possibility that the two films could be linked up in a future instalment remains.

Hitching this film to a successful predecessor in no way detracts from its artistry. The storytelling is efficient and taut, Trachtenberg sustaining tension with a real master’s touch. This could almost be a stage play, taking place in just a few rooms, but the end result is distinctly cinematic. Production designer Ramsey Avery’s bunker set has to be at once foreign and intimidating but also feel enough like home. Until Michelle gets a handle on the situation, she can never truly be at ease, and neither can the audience. Information is parcelled out in just the right amounts and the narrative rug-pulls occur in such a way as to not feel cheap or manipulative. A non-diegetic score was a luxury the found-footage Cloverfield did not possess. While Bear McCreary’s soundtrack does fall back on clichés like the use of “Psycho strings”, it is an effective factor in ratcheting up the pit-in-your-stomach sense of dread present throughout most of the film.

The film’s small cast work remarkably off of each other, the push and pull amongst the three of them never letting up as the story progresses. Winstead’s Michelle is terrified, and who wouldn’t be, but also has the presence of mind to be exceedingly resourceful, analytical and clear-headed in the face of danger and uncertainty. Goodman often exudes a friendly warmth, but he does have significant range as an actor and Howard’s ambiguity is something Goodman excels at playing. He has an imposing presence and the doomsday prepper always feels in charge, the king of this small, subterranean domain – and not necessarily a benevolent king. Gallagher comes off as an essential presence in the piece as opposed to a third wheel, Emmett’s apparent good nature easing the tension when it’s required.

There are many thrillers that stage an intriguing, engrossing build-up, only to squander the audience’s investment in the story with an unsatisfying payoff. While 10 Cloverfield Lane’s conclusion might not please all viewers, it’s a finale that this reviewer feels it has really earned. Regrettably, said ending is spoiled in the theatrical poster used in certain territories, including Singapore. Is it entirely necessary for the Cloverfield connection to exist? Perhaps not; it seems the film would work just as well on its own. However, the buzz that has built up around the project due to Abrams’ link to it has given it a wider audience than the film would’ve had otherwise.

Summary: A masterfully constructed nail-biter, 10 Cloverfield Lane is a self-contained mystery thriller that is engagingly performed and thoroughly engrossing.

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Eye in the Sky

For F*** Magazine

EYE IN THE SKY

Director : Gavin Hood

Cast : Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman, Barkhad Abdi, Jeremy Northam, Iain Glen, Phoebe Fox

Genre : Drama/Thriller

Run Time : 102 mins

Opens : 7 April 2016

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones in warfare has, to put it mildly, opened up quite the can of worms. This thriller delves into the myriad complications involved as UAVs are deployed high above the battlefield. British Colonel Katherine Powell (Mirren) is in charge of a secret mission to capture a group of wanted Al-Shabab terrorists in Nairobi, Kenya. Lieutenant General Frank Benson (Rickman) is keeping a close watch on the proceedings in the Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, or COBRA, at Whitehall. At Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, American drone pilot Steve Watts (Paul) has the responsibility of pulling the trigger. When a nine-year-old girl named Alia (Aisha Takow) enters the blast radius, it throws a spanner in the works, with Kenyan intelligence operative Jama Farah (Abdi) sent in to try and mitigate the situation. As the window to hit their high-value targets closes, Col. Powell and the others running the operation will have to make life or death judgements while taking the various consequences into consideration.

            Movies about hot-button issues have the power to generate meaningful and thought-provoking conversations, at the risk of coming off as preachy, heavy-handed or ill-informed. The politics and the human cost of drone warfare are heavy subjects indeed, so it is to the credit of director Gavin Hood and writer Guy Hibbert that Eye in the Sky is taut and thrilling even as it delves into the relevant quandaries. Eye in the Sky unfolds in real time, with an unrelenting urgency sustained throughout its duration. The film unexpectedly steps into political satire, almost as if In the Loop has snuck into this tense thriller. The intentional yet uncomfortable moments of humour are derived from the lattice of red tape that has to be navigated as the decision to deploy the drones’ missiles or not is made. Instead of undercutting the tension, these instances add to the viewer’s frustration, further immersing us in the proceedings. The film effectively highlights how protocol is necessary yet can often stand in the way of things getting done.

            This is not a movie that calls for explosive theatrics, and most of the actors are seated or standing about in small rooms for the bulk of the film. In fact, Mirren, Rickman, Paul and Abdi did not even meet each other during production. Mirren effortlessly projects authority as Col. Powell, modulating her performance such that the character does not come off as a typical military hard-ass type. She eloquently puts across Powell’s thought process and when the character has to make tough calls, we understand she’s backed into a corner yet still question the validity of her judgement. Paul has an inner decency and earnestness which makes up for the fact that there’s not too much to the character. While the “conflicted drone pilot” might be on its way to becoming a cliché in and of itself, the way Paul’s Steve Watts attempts to reconcile his anguish and his obligation to duty is suitably compelling.

            The late Rickman, in one of his final roles, reminds us why his passing is such a loss to film. As General Benson, Rickman is level-headed and focused, and the actor does so much with little more than a withering stare and that sonorous baritone. A scene in which he’s buying a doll for his granddaughter does come off as a too-obvious attempt at humanising the character.

Abdi, best known for his Oscar-nominated role in Captain Phillips, is authentic as the resourceful man on the ground who is in charge of piloting a high-tech surveillance robot disguised as a beetle. The actor was struggling to get by even after his critically-acclaimed turn in that film, so one hopes more roles like that of Jama Farah find him. Iain Glen’s British Foreign Secretary James Willett, recovering from food poisoning while attending an arms manufacturing convention in Singapore, is the most Iannucci-esque the film gets and it does threaten to turn a little silly, but thankfully backs away from that cliff.

            From the film’s opening, which shows Alia’s father ensuring she gets an education and gets to play even as their town is oppressed by religious fanatics, we know we’re in for a degree of emotional manipulation. However, director Hood (who also plays a supporting role as an American Air Force Colonel) displays considerable nuance and the film strives to send the message that there are no clean-cut “good options” in war, no matter how high-tech the arsenal gets. While the multiple settings of London, Nevada, Hawaii, Nairobi, Singapore and Beijing create a sense of scale, there are also points where it feels the story is stretched a little too thin. This Singaporean writer also couldn’t help but notice that the wrong type of traffic lights is seen out the window in the scene set in the Southeast Asian nation. Still, that’s but a small nit to pick in this engrossing and provocative but even-handed thriller.

Summary: Even as it poses heady, heavy questions regarding the ethics of drone warfare, Eye in the Sky does not get bogged down in politics and provides edge-of-your-seat entertainment in addition to food for thought. 

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

The Revenant

For F*** Magazine

THE REVENANT 

Director : Alejandro González Iñárritu
Cast : Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, Forrest Goodluck
Genre : Adventure/Thriller
Run Time : 2 hrs 36 mins
Opens : 4 February 2016
Rating : M18 (Sexual Scene and Violence)

The untamed wilderness has never been wilder and more untamed than in this survival epic. It is 1823 in the uncharted Louisiana Purchase and a party of fur trappers led by Andrew Henry (Gleeson) is hunting for pelts. The group is ambushed by the Arikara Native Americans and many of their number are killed. Hugh Glass (DiCaprio), a hunter familiar with the terrain of the area, recommends a path through the forest for the survivors to take. John Fitzgerald (Hardy) is antagonistic towards Glass and his half-Pawnee Native American son Hawk (Goodluck). Angry about having to abandon the valuable pelts, Fitzgerald betrays Glass and leaves him for dead after Glass is severely mauled by a bear. Fitzgerald tricks the young trapper Jim Bridger (Poulter), who has volunteered to stay behind and tend to Glass, into going along with his plan. Glass claws his way out of a shallow grave, navigating the harsh landscape in search of shelter and vengeance against Fitzgerald.

            The Revenant is based on Michael Punke’s 2002 historical novel of the same name, which in turn drew on the true story of Hugh Glass. The Revenant will go down in film history has having one of the most arduous shoots ever, with the crew deeming the production process a “living hell”. They had to contend with below-freezing temperatures, director Iñárritu’s preference for shooting the film in chronological order and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s insistence on only using natural light, be it from the sun or a campfire. In addition, the lack of snow in the Canadian locations resulted in the whole crew picking up sticks and relocating to Argentina. The shoot went over schedule and Hardy had to drop out of Suicide Squad because of it. Defending his decisions and saying he “has nothing to hide,” Iñárritu told the Hollywood Reporter “If we ended up in greenscreen with coffee and everybody having a good time, everybody will be happy, but most likely the film would be a piece of s***.”

            So, was all of that worth it? Short answer: yes. The Revenant is not a story with particularly inventive twists and turns, but even though most audiences would have a general idea of how the story will progress even without prior knowledge of Hugh Glass, it’s very easy to get invested in this yarn. Iñárritu reels the audience in and doesn’t let go, one can almost feel the film’s grip tighten. Wide panoramas of mountain ridges and roaring rivers are contrasted with extreme tight close-ups of bloodied and bruised characters gritting their teeth. Lubezki serves ups beauty without a hint of artificial polish, uncompromising, raw and majestic. Much has been made of the brutal scenarios depicted in the film, but Iñárritu uses the violence such that the audience doesn’t get too comfortable in their plush multiplex seats, and he never gleefully revels in the gore the way Tarantino does. The wince-inducing moments are numerous, as impactful as they are bracing.

            DiCaprio has yet to win an Oscar. That’s the meme that has been run deep into the ground. With all that he’s put himself through to play Glass, The Revenant might finally be his shot at that coveted golden statuette. He calls it the “hardest performance of his career”, and it’s easy to see why: the vegetarian actor had to devour a slab of raw bison liver, learn to fire a musket and build a fire and study the Native American languages of Pawnee and Arikara. We’ve seen heroes who cling to bitter determination against all odds before, but DiCaprio does hammer home the extent of Glass’ ordeal.

Hardy is just as good, even stealing the show from DiCaprio on occasion, as Fitzgerald. This reviewer is of the opinion that Hardy is at his best when playing aggressive, villainous characters and his portrayal of the avaricious Fitzgerald is thoroughly authentic. Gleeson is just the right pitch of noble and Poulter looks appropriately out of his element as the greenhorn Bridger. Goodluck and DiCaprio share just enough of a father-son bond, though the relationship isn’t as believable as it should be. Arthur RedCloud delivers a truly moving performance as a good Samaritan Pawnee man named Hikuc who aids Glass.

            In order to compete with the ready availability of films to watch in various formats at home, movie theatres truck out gimmicks such as 3D, IMAX, Dolby Atmos sound and D-Box motion seats, promising “immersion”. While this reviewer is often a sucker for such gimmicks, few cinematic experiences come close to offering the immersion that The Revenant does. The film certainly has its shortcomings: at 156 minutes, it is too long, though not egregiously so. It is also ultimately more gruelling than rewarding to sit through and doesn’t say anything particularly poignant about the dynamic between Native Americans and the frontiersman who came to mine North America for its natural resources. Taken as a harrowing survival odyssey, The Revenant is quite the achievement.

Summary: A primal, riveting tale of nigh-superhuman perseverance, you’ll be rooting for Leonardo DiCaprio and against Tom Hardy while taking in the splendour of the untamed wilderness and wincing at the effectively gory moments.

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Crimson Peak

For F*** Magazine

CRIMSON PEAK

Director : Guillermo del Toro

Cast : Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam, Jim Beaver, Doug Jones, Leslie Hope, Burn Gorman

Genre : Supernatural/Mystery

Run Time : 119 mins

Opens : 15 October 2015

Rating : NC16 (Some Violence)

Guillermo del Toro beckons you to enter Allerdale Hall. Dare you step through its foreboding gates? In this period horror flick, Mia Wasikowska plays Edith Cushing, a young author who falls headlong in love with the mysterious stranger Sir Thomas Sharpe (Hiddleston). Sir Thomas comes from Cumberland, England to Buffalo, New York, accompanied by his sister Lady Lucille Sharpe (Chastain). After the tragic and sudden death of her father Carter (Beaver), Edith marries Thomas, while her childhood friend Dr. Alan McMichael (Hunnam) continues to harbour feelings for her. Alan begins to suspect that there is more to the siblings than meets the eye, as Edith is spirited away to Allerdale Hall, the ancestral home of Thomas and Lucille. Situated atop a clay mine, the mansion has fallen into disrepair, its walls hiding restless spirits and arcane secrets. Our heroine must unearth the mysteries buried in Allerdale Hall before it devours her whole. 

Director Guillermo del Toro has said that following the rough time he had making Mimic, he reserves his lyrical macabre fantasy horrors for his Spanish-language films, with most of his English-language movies being more accessible blockbusters. After cultivating a good working relationship with Legendary Pictures’ head honchos on Pacific Rim, del Toro was allowed to unleash his dark imagination in a big Hollywood movie with Crimson Peak. These days, horror movies seem to be predominantly low-budget affairs; found-footage movies proving especially popular with studios. Blumhouse has cornered the market with the Paranormal Activity franchise and its ilk. There is nothing inherently wrong with low-budget horror and there have been several excellent small movies in this genre. However, there is no denying that aficionados of classic horror have been hankering for a grand, lavish fright flick, and Crimson Peak should go a good way towards sating that appetite. 

Crimson Peak is a wholehearted throwback, with del Toro and screenwriter Matthew Robbins citing 1963’s The Haunting and 1961’s The Innocents as primary influences. It also owes a great debt to Edgar Allan Poe’s classic Gothic short story The Fall of the House of the Usher. Clockwork contraptions and dead insects, which the director has a particular fondness for, figure into the plot. The central setting of Allerdale Hall was constructed from scratch at Pinewood Toronto Studios in all its eerily dilapidated glory. Del Toro, production designer Thomas E. Sanders, art director Brandt Gordon and the rest of the film’s creative team can take a bow knowing that they have crafted such a sumptuous, spooky world. Placing the house atop a red clay mine is an inspired touch, allowing for the haunting imagery of the blood-red clay seeping into the snow above, hence the name “Crimson Peak”. The ghosts, rotting carcasses enrobed in wispy, black ether, are suitably grotesque and benefit from the physicality of performer Doug Jones, an oft-collaborator of del Toro’s.

The film is essentially a blood-drenched soap opera, theatrical, highly mannered and often quite arch. As such, del Toro runs the risk of the audience feeling like they are being held at arm’s length, unable to fully sink their teeth into the proceedings. There is very little subtlety to be had – for example, Edith announces upfront that in the story she’s writing, “The ghost is more a metaphor – for the past.” It is possible to step a little too far back and leave the realm of the story. Not entirely dissimilar from American Horror Story or Penny Dreadful, then. One does need to be in the right frame of mind to take in Crimson Peak and this reviewer did appreciate the theatricality; the lurid, saturated palette echoing Italian giallo horror films. In the cut that we watched, a sex scene was truncated, presumably to get an NC-16 instead of an M-18 rating. 

“We have scary ghosts, but even scarier people,” del Toro proclaimed while promoting the film at Comic-Con. A gorgeous set means nothing without a talented cast to inhabit it, so it’s a good thing then that this cast is very talented indeed. Wasikowska, who has played the “ethereal waif” fairly often in her career, is the ideal leading lady for this project. Emma Stone was originally cast, and Wasikowska does seem better-suited to the Edith part. This is a determined woman who would rather be Mary Shelley than Jane Austen, and the balance between strength and vulnerability is one that Wasikowska absolutely nails. She is the outsider who finds herself plunged into an unfamiliar, frightening world – it’s not a new character type in this genre, but Wasikowska does breathe new life into it. 

Hiddleston can play “enigmatically charming” in his sleep, and Sir Thomas Sharpe is enigmatically charming to the hilt. Replacing the initially-cast Benedict Cumberbatch, Hiddleston looks right at home in the period costumes and sets. There’s an immediately appealing warmth that he brings to the part while ensuring we’re still questioning his motives every step of the way. Chastain’s turn could have used a little more ambiguity, but her icily sinister Lady Lucille is threatening and beguiling all the same. Pacific Rim star Hunnam fares a little worse, playing the “nice guy” who lacks the edginess Hiddleston has and whom convention dictates won’t get the girl. He also doesn’t fit into the late-Victorian/early-Edwardian setting as well as his co-stars do. It is pretty fun to see Burn Gorman, also from Pacific Rim, pop up in a cameo.

Crimson Peak is the work of a director who is right in his element, given free rein to indulge his dark imagination and reaping rewarding results while at it. It does veer dangerously close to pastiche at times: Fernando Velázquez’s musical score is very on-the-nose, the climactic confrontation involves somewhat brandishing a giant shovel and there might be one too many uses of the iris wipe transition, which most audiences know best from Bugs Bunny going “th-th-that’s all folks!” However, more than enough of del Toro’s earnestness and adoration for classic horror comes through and the splendid production values are a treat amidst the sea of cheaply-made, grainy, shaky contemporary fright flicks. 

Summary: Guillermo del Toro delivers a handsome, stately horror film that is a throwback to the heyday of the haunted house subgenre, with no shortage of gruesome wince-inducing brutality for good measure.

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

1965 Movie Review

For F*** Magazine
 
1965

Directors: Randy Ang, Daniel Yun

Starring: Qi Yiwu, Joanne Peh, Deanna Yusoff, Sezairi Sezali, James Seah Mike Kasem, Lim Kay Tong
Genre: Drama/history

Run time: 130 minutes

Opens: 30 July 2015

Rating: PG-13

            There’s been no shortage of events commemorating Singapore’s Golden Jubilee – most of us won’t say it, but we are kinda burnt out on SG50, and it’s not even National Day yet. Historical drama/thriller 1965 is probably the most-hyped SG50 film. Set against the backdrop of the lead-up to Singapore’s separation from Malaysia, 1965 focuses on police inspector Cheng (Qi), whose young daughter Xiao Yun (Sun Yi En) goes missing. Khatijah (Yusoff), blames Cheng for failing to save her son during a racial riot, and suspicion arises amongst the Chinese that the Malays have kidnapped Xiao Yun in retaliation. Khatijah’s remaining son Adi (Sezali) is a rookie policeman working under Inspector Cheng, complicating matters. Also caught in the fray is Zhou Jun (Peh), the daughter of a coffee shop owner and Pakistani reporter Raj (Kasem).

            Over the course of 1965’s development, producer and co-director Daniel Yun has had to repeatedly clarify on what the film is not: “it’s not a political film”, “it’s not a biopic about Mr. Lee Kuan Yew”, “it’s not a propaganda film” and so on. Let us issue a disclaimer of our own: this opinion on the quality of the film hasn’t got anything to do with politics. 1965 is a bad movie when judged as, well, a movie. Intended as a sweeping historical drama of great import, it instead comes off as heavy-handed, clumsy and dramatically inert. Andrew Ngin, who co-wrote the screenplay with co-directors Randy Ang and Yun, said that the script required more than 60 revisions. It could have done with 60 more. Film is a visual medium, but 1965 is all telling and zero showing, comprising a flagrant overuse of voiceovers, wall-to-wall exposition and platitude-laden speeches. It’s poor storytelling and it’s a slog.

            We won’t deny the credit that the film’s production design is due; there is a palpable effort made to capture all the tiny details of life in Singapore circa 1963-1965. Period-accurate sets were constructed at Infinite Studios’ facility in Batam and there are many little nostalgic touches that those who grew up in that era will appreciate, in between copious amounts of F&N product placement. That said, the Singapore we see in 1965 is little more beyond a couple of stretches of shophouses, a police station and a kampong (village) – it’s a corner, not a world, sometimes convincing but never wholly immersive. The sound mix is also off, making most of the dialogue sound like an announcement over a public address system.

            The characters are uniformly dull, intended to be a microcosm of Singapore at the time, but always feeling several steps away from being fully fleshed-out. Generally, the acting is fine – Qi Yiwu’s police protagonist is as bland as wet cardboard but he tries to inject some intensity into his performance. Deanna Yusoff’s turn as a grieving, anguished mother is sufficiently compelling. As her son, Singapore Idol winner Sezairi Sezali is earnest but not overeager and is one of the more likeable characters in the film. Joanne Peh does stick out at times, her character never really coming off as authentically from that time period. Former opposition politician Nicole Seah, playing the wife of Qi’s character, turns in a more natural performance, surprising given it’s her first acting gig. Mike Kasem is an odd casting choice for Raj, requiring a whole lot more than that beard to come off as a believable Pakistani. While there is some degree of competence, nothing fits together and everything feels incomplete.

            Of course, the spotlight is trained directly on veteran stage and screen thespian Lim Kay Tong, who shoulders the responsibility of playing the recently-deceased first Prime Minster of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew. Lim does a dutiful re-enactment of the iconic televised speech Lee gave when Singapore separated from Malaysia, but his screen time is extremely limited and Lee’s role in the plot has no direct bearing on our main characters. Lee passed away on 23 March 2015 and the film includes footage of his funeral procession cut to a sappy power ballad. This may seem like a respectful tribute at first, but this reviewer found it to be opportunistic, tacky and manipulative. Instead of constructing emotional stakes from scratch, the film opts for the easy way out, attempting to get audiences to feel something by presenting them with a recent event that will resonate with most of them. This would have been perfectly acceptable if 1965 were all about Lee Kuan Yew, but as Yun empathically stated, this is not a biopic. The further implication is that the story of every Singaporean is the story of Lee Kuan Yew, and that’s a slippery slope this reviewer does not want to slide down.

            Singapore has endured more than its share of tumult as a nation and its history is definitely ripe with heart-rending true stories of courage and tenacity. 1965 ignores all that and serves up a painfully dull, preachy, simplistic and condescending fictional story set against the backdrop of the country’s struggle towards independence. There are elements of the film that may resonate with Singaporeans of a certain vintage, but as a cogent, sweeping historical drama, 1965 is a failure.

Summary: If you enjoy being hit on the head with a social studies textbook for two hours while someone tries to cut open your tear ducts with a scalpel, 1965 is the movie for you.

RATING: 2 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

            

San Andreas

For F*** Magazine

SAN ANDREAS

Director : Brad Peyton

Cast : Dwayne Johnson, Alexandra Daddario, Carla Gugino, Paul Giamatti, Ioan Gruffudd, Colton Haynes, Archie Panjabi, Hugo Johnstone-Burt, Todd Williams, Art Parkinson, Kylie Minogue, Will Yun Lee

Genre : Adventure/Thriller

Run Time : 114 mins

Opens : 28 May 2015

“We all have our little faults,” Lex Luthor told Superman in the 1978 film. “Mine’s in California.” In this disaster thriller, that “little fault” leads to big problems as the entire US west coast is crippled by a devastating earthquake of unprecedented magnitude. Los Angeles Fire Department rescue pilot Ray Gaines (Johnson) has to save his estranged wife Emma (Gugino) and the couple have to put aside their differences in order to reach their daughter Blake (Daddario). Blake is trapped in San Francisco alongside Ben (Johnstone-Burt) and his kid brother Ollie (Parkinson), Ben interviewing for a position at the office of superstar architect Daniel Riddick (Gruffudd), Emma’s new boyfriend. Meanwhile, CalTech seismology professor Lawrence Hayes (Giamatti) has been working on a system to predict earthquakes and is determined to get the word out so as many lives can be saved before the destruction escalates.

            Let’s address the elephant in the room: Nepal has recently been hit by two major quakes, the death toll now exceeding 8500. The marketing for San Andreas has been tweaked with an emphasis on earthquake preparedness and donating to the relief effort, with a portion of the movie’s takings set to be donated to Nepal. Still, it’s understandable that very few audiences, if any, will find harrowing devastation in this specific context very entertaining. It’s a little like when the kids-on-a-space-shuttle adventure Space Camp was released two months after the Challenger disaster. In fact, it leads one to wonder if a movie like San Andreas was ever a good idea, even before the Nepal tremblor, given the tragic frequency with which such calamities occur these days.

Big summer blockbusters are meant to provide escapism rather than continually remind viewers of the problems that plague the world in real life. Post-9/11, many action flicks have deliberately invoked the imagery of collapsing buildings and citizens scrambling away from falling debris in the hopes of eliciting an emotional response through mere association with actual tragedies, which seems to be the case here too. The Catch-22 faced by director Brad Peyton is that if the events depicted in the film are too fanciful and ridiculous, it will pull audiences out of it, but if they are too realistic, it will hit too close to home.

            The phrase “destruction porn” has been tossed about derisively in reference to blockbusters like Man of Steel and just about everything in Roland Emmerich’s filmography. Let’s call a spade a spade – San Andreas is destruction porn. We don’t mean this sanctimoniously; wanton carnage has always been one of the main ingredients in creating large-scale spectacle. It’s worth acknowledging the effort made to craft inventive, thrilling sequences and the amount of work involved in creating the digital deluge must have been mind-boggling. All credit to the armies of artists at visual effects houses Scanline, hy*drau”lx, Method Studios, Cinesite and other vendors for their work here. The scale is suitably epic but one can’t help but have the niggling sense of hollow artificiality throughout. Moviegoers have become harder to impress and even with rippling seismic waves tearing through the L.A. city centre and cargo ships lodged in skyscrapers, San Andreas is rarely truly impressive. The 3D conversion is also something of a let-down.

            When it comes to the plot, San Andreas is predictable to, well, a fault. The involvement of at least six screenwriters performing multiple studio-mandated rewrites ensures that the script is safe, homogenised and dull. Paul Giamatti, playing a seismology professor as if the character were a scientist from a ‘50s creature feature, warns “it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.” We also counted at least nine utterances of the line “oh my god!” (mostly from Carla Gugino). Every disaster movie cliché in the book is flung into San Andreas, as well as clichés from other genres for good measure. You’ve got the strong, hardworking protagonist, his estranged wife, the wealthy douchebag who is his wife’s new boyfriend, the daughter who needs to be rescued but who is largely plucky and capable when required, the daughter’s earnest, handsome love interest and the tagalong kid for comic relief. Oh, and the protagonist has already lost one child in an earlier rafting accident. This doesn’t feel like it needed six writers, it feels like all it took was an algorithm fed into some kind of automated writing software.

            Dwayne Johnson reunites with Peyton, who directed him in Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. The wrestler-turned-action-hero can do the noble, heroic thing in his sleep by now. Carla Gugino spends most of the movie yelling. Alexandra Daddario is the “damsel in a degree of distress”, competent but still in need of dad coming to the rescue. It’s all just tired and cheesy. Hollywood, it’s time to rewrite the disaster movie formula, and no amount of tsunamis smacking shipping crates into the Golden Gate Bridge can distract us from that dire need.

Summary: San Andreas manages to out-‘90s most ‘90s disaster flicks, unintentionally funny in how dated and corny despite several well-crafted set pieces.

RATING: 2 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Good Kill

For F*** Magazine

GOOD KILL

Director : Andrew Niccol

Cast : Ethan Hawke, January Jones, Zoë Kravitz, Bruce Greenwood, Jake Abel, Peter Coyote, Alma Sisneros, Alma Sisneros

Genre : Drama/Thriller

Run Time : 102 mins

Opens : 28 May 2015

Rating : NC-16 (Coarse Language and Sexual Scenes)

            “The war machine keeps turning” – so sang Black Sabbath in their antiwar anthem “War Pigs”. In the 21^st century, the war machine has evolved and the last several years have seen an increase in the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in warzones. Major Thomas Egan (Hawke) is a U.S. Air Force pilot who has been flying UAVs since the demand for manned fighter jets has decreased. It seems like a cushy job, flying the drones via remote control from a base in Las Vegas, far from the thick of it. However, Egan has become disillusioned and longs to be back in the air for real. His work takes a toll on his relationship with his wife Molly (Jones) and when his new co-pilot Vera Suarez (Kravitz) realises the job involves more than she’s bargained for, Egan begins to question the nature of his missions. When the unit is ordered to run ethically dubious missions for the CIA, even Colonel Jack Johns (Greenwood), whom Egan and Suarez answer to, has second thoughts of his own.

            The relationship between Hollywood and the military is a fascinating one. Hollywood is perceived as being run by liberals, but maintaining ties with the military and portraying them in a positive light is key to getting permits and clearances for filming on military installations or gaining privileged access to equipment and personnel. There was even a recent superhero movie that ran army recruitment ads in the theatre before the feature. Good Kill is written and directed by Andrew Niccol, who helmed the underrated, searing arms dealer drama Lord of War. Niccol’s best works, like Lord of War and sci-fi flick Gattaca, examine relevant sociopolitical issues in addition to being stylish and entertaining. Drone warfare is as topical as it gets – the collateral damage resulting from a covert drone strike was recently a major plot point in the fourth season of TV series Homeland. Good Kill spells out its themes in the biggest, blockiest letters available. Watching drone pilots cooped up in a small box flying missions from thousands of miles away does sound somewhat boring, and perhaps this lack of subtlety is compensation for it.

            Niccol takes particular relish in juxtaposing the shiny decadence of the Las Vegas Strip with the life-and-death stakes of the Air Force drone missions being controlled just a few miles out from the casinos and strip clubs, the partygoers oblivious to the war on terror being waged from next door. He has succeeded in creating a war movie unlike any before it, presenting post-traumatic stress disorder and the questioning of authority in a new look but with the same queasy flavour. The disconnect is a big part of it - the targets on the ground are mostly faceless, but so is the ominous voice of Langley, Viriginia over the speakerphone, the CIA portrayed as a shadowy éminence grise. Colonel Jack Johns, played by Bruce Greenwood, gives a big bravura speech to a gaggle of recruits that is gloriously on the nose but yet not out of place in the context of the film. With lines like “this aircraft isn’t the future of war. This is the here and f***ing now” and “war is now a first-person shooter”, the audience is brought up to speed with the changing landscape of combat in layman’s terms, and there’s also the sense that the Colonel is desperately trying to convince himself.

            Ethan Hawke is on a roll following his Oscar nomination for Boyhood, Good Kill reuniting him with Niccol, who directed the actor in Gattaca and Lord of War. Hawke has the unique challenge of playing a shell-shocked soldier who never steps foot into the battlefield and the film is carried by the tormented humanity he imbues the character with. Bruce Greenwood brings his trademark blend of paternal warmth and no-nonsense grit to the role of Colonel Johns, who despite moments like the abovementioned speech, is never a stereotypically over-the-top hard-ass. Unfortunately, January Jones’ character Molly is every bit the stock type of the nagging wife who doesn’t understand the psychological torment her husband suffers as a result of his occupation, even with the requisite scenes that are meant to make her sympathetic. Zoë Kravitz’s Vera Suarez is an archetype as well, the recruit who has her idealism broken down piece by piece. She handles the emotional beats well and is excellent opposite Hawke.

            Good Kill has a lot to say and it does seem like Niccol has taken the effort in understanding the various sides of the drone warfare argument. However, it doesn’t quite need 104 minutes to say what it does and while it is bereft of the raw bombast of most war films, it is still painted in very broad strokes. Even with these shortcomings, the film still is adequately unsettling, tense and moving.

Summary: A different breed of war film, Good Kill can get heavy-handed and repetitive in its exploration of the moral implications of drone warfare, but still has its powerful moments and is anchored by a superb leading performance from Ethan Hawke.

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

            

Unfriended

For F*** Magazine

UNFRIENDED

Director : Levan Gabriadze

Cast : Shelley Hennig, Moses Jacob Storm, Renee Olstead, Courtney Halverson, Will Peltz, Jacob Wysocki, Heather Sossaman

Genre : Horror/Thriller

Run Time : 83 mins

Opens : 30 April 2015

Rating : NC-16 (Violence and Coarse Language)

A leaked personal photo or a dropped Skype call is far from the most terrifying thing that can happen to you online in the horror flick Unfriended. It is a year after high school student Laura Barns (Sossaman) commits suicide after an embarrassing video of her passing out a party is posted on YouTube. Six of her classmates, Blaire (Hennig), Mitch (Storm), Jess (Olstead), Val (Halverson), Ken (Wysocki) and Adam (Peltz) are having a routine Skype call when a mysterious seventh caller enters the conversation. The six friends initially believe that this is some kind of cyber prank, but as eerie happenings unfold both within and beyond the online realm, it appears that Laura may be back from the dead and out for revenge, meaning that they’re up against a high-tech haunting.

            There are many major motion pictures that just don’t feel right when watched on a laptop or smart phone screen. A small screen does undercut the grandeur of something like Interstellar or Skyfall. Here’s a film that is likely at its most effective when viewed on a laptop or smart phone screen. The gimmick here is that the entire movie unfolds on the monitor of protagonist Blaire’s MacBook. The story progresses through interactions on various websites and social media platforms, the likes of Skype, Facebook, iMessage, YouTube, Spotify and even Chatroulette figuring into the plot. One element that makes horror movies particularly scary is the “this could happen to you” factor, Unfriended playing on the ubiquity of a life lived online. “Connection Lost”, a recent episode of Modern Family that plays out entirely on Claire Dunphy’s laptop, uses the format to elicit laughs instead of shrieks.

            Unfriended is directed by Georgian-Russian filmmaker Levan Gabriadze and comes from Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Productions. While Blum is an Oscar nominee for producing Whiplash, his primary stock in trade is low-budget, franchise-ready horror flicks – after all, he has made a killing from the Paranormal Activity series, with The Purge and Insidious poised to spawn several more films. As a Blair Witch Project-type movie for the new media generation, Unfriended has a novelty to it. However, this gets old really fast, and just as how found footage horror movies are now regarded as a nuisance, a whole string of “computer scream” movies could easily become unbearable. Naturally, sequels are already being planned. Still, the effort put into creating a convincing online milieu is praiseworthy. Plotting out the desktop ecosystem and online interaction history of a fictional character isn’t as easy as it sounds and the attention to detail and continuity here is on point.

            While Unfriended’s presentation sets itself apart from the teen-aimed horror movie pack, it still succumbs to one of the most common shortcomings of this subgenre: unlikeable characters.  Strip away the bells and whistles of its format and you’re left with a pretty typical “teenagers get picked off one by one” horror flick plot structure. To begin with, our characters are complicit in cyber-bullying that brings about a girl’s suicide, so they aren’t exactly the nicest kids in town. Still, they are adequately relatable and low-budget horror movies can get away with a cast of relative unknowns – only Renee Olstead is a somewhat recognisable name. There’s the teen high school drama and the skeletons in the closet each friend is hiding from the next but none of this is particularly original or compelling. There are individual moments brimming with tension and a cool ticking clock device, but when you step back and look at Unfriended from a macro viewpoint, there isn’t a lot of overarching suspense. The main “mystery” is perhaps if Blaire and her friends are being targeted by a hacker troll or a literal ghost in the machine, but that question is answered pretty quickly.

            With its cyberbullying theme, Unfriended is topical if more than a touch exploitative of a sensitive subject. The title also walks the line between “moderately clever” and “goofy”, and works marginally better than the rather 90s original title, “Cybernatural”. The specificities of the film’s style means that it will soon become dated and in as little as ten-odd years, will become an amusing time capsule of how we live our lives online circa 2014-15. It is inventive and refreshing, but given a couple of sequels, we have a feeling those heaping praise onto Unfriended now might feel a twinge of regret then.

Summary: “Those Meddling Millenials: The Horror Movie” achieves an admirable level of verisimilitude with its portrayal of online interactions, but whatever originality there is in its presentation cannot offset the teen horror clichés that serve as the movie’s backbone.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong