Wonder Woman (2017)

The fourth movie in the current DC extended universe that has been exploding onto our screens with much aplomb. Well actually no it hasn't but that was the idea wasn't it. So far things have been a bit dodgy to say the least, could this movie turn the tide? Well according to just about everyone this movie did seem to do just that. So has the movies popularity, hype and praise swayed me in any way? Is it justified? Or do we have yet another Ghostbusters (2016) scenario?

The movie is basically a prequel to the 2016 movie 'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice' whereby it shows the origins of Diana Prince (Gal Gadot), whilst at the same time connecting to the events that occur within BvS. The fact its this way around is of course due to WB's lack of patience and coordination in their comicbook universe building (playing catch up with Marvel as fast as possible). The plot however pans out as you might expect, in the usual comicbook fashion. We learn about Diana's homeland, her culture and people. We learn about a pending almighty evil that threatens everything. Outsider shows up and ends up helping Diana in her quest to find and eliminate evil. A bit of exposition, some minor alternate bad guys to deal with, a few key battles and then one big CGI finale.

Much like the recent 'Kong: Skull Island' (2017) I had an initial problem with the fictional Amazonian homeland of Themyscira. This place appears to be a very large group of islands plopped in the middle of an ocean somewhere. The problem being it appears to be hidden by a perpetual weather system and some kind of invisibility force field. Obviously this is a fantasy movie so something like this shouldn't really matter. But the entire notion that no one has ever stumbled across this rather large place, and reported it, just seems completely unbelievable. The other thing that bothered me was the fact that when German forces actually find this location (whilst chasing a downed Steve Trevor), they simply start to attack! Why would they do that?? Such an important discovery like that. Also what exactly happened to the German ship? Did the force field sink it?

The story moves swiftly on as we follow Diana and Steve (Chris Pine) back to London (its 1918). The plan: Steve simply wants to hand back some important stolen information regarding Nazi gas weapon advancements (Steve was an undercover spy). Where as Diana wants to find the evil God Ares and kill him so she can stop WWI. Diana has basically been brainwashed all about Zeus and his dastardly son who wants to wipe out mankind (Zeus' creation) because he thinks they are a destructive race. She believes Ares is the cause of WWI and she can stop it. The thing this narrative becomes extremely annoying truth be told because Diana never shuts up about it.

Diana is essentially very naive and genuinely curious about this new outside world. She clearly has no idea of gender, society rules and the fact that people might treat each other differently. She finds these human elements and more (such as not helping people in need or acting carelessly with other lives), completely reprehensible. She simply does not understand how people could act this way. The thing is, I found it quite grating after a time because Diana mentions it in almost every scene! I fully understood the need to show and express her emotions on these factors but Jesus, you can truly feel Steve's frustration as he tries to help and explain to her. Good acting? Sure, still annoying to listen to over and over though.

This being a 2017 movie I also understand the requirements for diversity and whatnot. So when it came to Steve's little band of merry men, naturally they were gonna be a diverse bunch. I had no problem with this except for a few tiny details. Firstly, the crazy Scot, surely they could of cast someone other than Ewen Bremner, such predictable and safe casting. Then my other gripe was the native American character. No problem including the guy, but did they have native Americans in the trenches in WWI? Hey I could be wrong but this kinda felt like they were going for a bit too much diversity there. Kinda reaching a bit methinks. Also would they really wear their native attire? In other words would Sameer from Morocco (I'm guessing) go around wearing a fez in a wartime situation? Would the Chief Napi go around dressed like a cowboy or hunter? Shouldn't they be wearing protective clothing? Yeah I'm being picky I know.

I have to admit the Wonder Woman theme tune is very catchy and it does work well here. The action scenes are very well executed and look terrific, but when that score kicks in it does get your adrenaline fired up a bit that's for sure. The entire movie looks good in general but I put that down to the charming period setting of the early 1900's and WWI. I'm sure I'm not the only person that has noticed that movies shot during either world wars always seem to look very authentic and adventurous. Indeed this movie like others ('The Rocketeer', 'Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark/Last Crusade', 'Captain America: The First Avenger' etc...) looks authentic, adventurous and harrowing all at the same time. There is a fine balance between the horrors of war and a rollicking comicbook yarn, and its upheld nicely here. Dare I say a bit darker than the first Captain America movie.

I think its safe to say the best sequence is where we get our first glimpse of Wonder Woman in battle. She disrobes in front of the stunned allied troops and simply strolls out into no man's land sword and shield at the ready. Other than that things tended to get a bit CGI obvious for me. In the first battle Diana is leaping around like a frog and merely throwing Germans all over the shop. I'm sure they would have been killed or badly injured but it felt like more of a cop out in the heat of the moment. I wanted to see her run troops through, slice n dice. The German soldiers also became obvious CGI ragdolls once launched.

The finale was also a bit weak in my opinion. Firstly Diana kills off the main German baddie (Danny Huston) on a packed base, yet no one seemingly cares. Then she fights Ares who turns out to be the elderly David Thewlis! Now don't get me wrong, it was quite refreshing to see a villain not played by some roided up meathead. But watching Thewlis become this electrical power wielding super God was a tad silly. Twas also a bit silly seeing these two superheroes slug it out on one side of this military base; then on the other side mortals are fighting their puny war. Oh and Diana lets the evil Doctor poison go in the end too? Like wut??!! Is that female privilege?

So was this as good as all the hype? Yes and no for me. Its certainly a solid superhero flick, its better than virtually all the DC offerings, and it gives some Marvel efforts a good run for their money too. The main problem for me is simple, superhero fatigue. There have been so many of these movies now, and most are generally the same spiel. Its really hard to watch a single superhero movie now and not think I've seen it all before. But that's because I have, you could essentially swap out Wonder Woman here for any other superhero character, and it would still work the same. So yes its a good solid movie, but its nothing special, it does nothing overly original.

7/10

Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)

OK lets just jump into this shall we. The plot: I'm not even going to attempt to explain the plot for this 2 hour plus whirlwind of CGI metal shrapnel. You may well ask why, and the answer to that is simple. Where as I did understand the basic main outline of the plot, its so unbelievably convoluted, choppy, hectic, incoherent, nonsensical etc...that its virtually impossible to explain. Its literally a review in itself, but put basically, it revolves around a mcguffin that can save Cybertron, but is also required to save Earth.

Right OK so the movie kicks off in medieval England, 484 AD. It is a time of Arthurian legend, King Arthur, Merlin, the knights of the round table...errr...transformers. Yes so we know this isn't an accurate account of ancient British history. Its a stupid fantasy movie based on (supposed) legend with large transforming alien robots. Nevertheless this opening sequence did actually look pretty good I thought. The idea of ancient transformer knights in ancient medieval Britain was actually way more interesting than the rest of the modern day set movie. I still have to point out the fact Bay and co actually cast a black actor as a British knight in this Arthurian period. That's just as ridiculous as having the fecking robots! That's the second major motion picture that has done that, what gives?!

Its at this point we learn about the ancient Cybertronian knights coming to Earth and giving Merlin this magic staff mcguffin. But this did raise questions from me initially such as, what's so special about these transformers that they are called knights? Why did they steal the staff from Cybertron? What does the staff do on Cybertron? I believe they hid the staff on Earth because Earth is in fact Unicron (an ancient enemy of Cybertron). They were trying to protect Unicron from Quintessa, a Decepticon sorceress intent on destroying Unicron to save Cybertron. So this led me to think Unicron is a goodie in this movie? Because he was originally a Decepticon. But also, wouldn't the Cybertronian knights wanna help save Cybertron also? It is their home planet after all. Confusing!!!

Its also around this point that Prime (who was spiralling frozen through space, I forget why) lands on Cybertron. But what that intended? He was drifting frozen through space, was it pure luck that he landed on Cybertron or did he put himself on a pre-set course?? Also why was he frozen? Transformers fly through space quite often it seems, or so we've seen before. Heck didn't Starscream fly to Cybertron in one movie? Why didn't he freeze up? Does Bay and co even care what they did in previous movies??? Also when Prime gets to Cybertron he questions what has happened to his homeworld. But...shouldn't he know what happened? The whole Cybertronian war thing...

K lets look at the new characters, or in this new movie, the new politically correct characters because Bay's jumpin' on bandwagons. Firstly we now have kids in this movie, some smartass retro lookin' kids. You know because Bay clearly saw Stranger Things and thought 'I can do that!'. So these kids consist of three tough streetwise kids who happen to be African American, Latino and Asian I think. And then you have the stereotypical curly haired, spectacled, nerdy white kid who's a wimp. These kids are purely in the movie to add more diversity and a kids point of view. Kinda pointless seeing as they do nothing other than get in the way.

The final kid is another tough streetwise girl who's a bit older than the others. This is Michael Bay's strong female character to appease the feminists. She's constantly crying, shouting, growling and acting as deadly serious as possible, you know...for gravitas. This was supposed to be 'empowering' for girls and was clearly pushed as such before the movies release with a string of laughable TV spots/trailers. In them the character talks to the camera as if she was doing an interview. Its shot as if the movie was an account of a real war situation or something, its pathetic. Again its all pointless because after the first ten minutes or so she's hardly in the movie.

Oh and this time there's also a little BB-8 type character in here too, you know because Bay saw 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' and thought 'I can do that!'. So voilà! Instant merchandise for the movie. What's actually amazing is how this little piece of crap is clearly a cross between BB-8 and R2-D2, like in a copyright kinda way.

Things move so thick and fast in this movie its actually hard to keep up. So I realise Transformers have kinda made Earth their new home here and presumably new ones have crash landed over time. But can someone explain where the baby Transformers came from? The baby Dinobots, I presume they were Dinobots. Then you have the same stupid crap carried over from the previous movies with Transformers having hats, chewing cigars, having coats and the Japanese Autobot having a Mercedes badge on him. That really doesn't make sense to me but whatever. But why does this Autobot have the features of a Japanese samurai? I mean...why would he? Then there's the new task force whose job is to hunt down Transformers, they are called the TRF. But...but...what happened to the last task force?

So far we've had a plot that started in the dark ages of England with various characters. It then fast forwards to our present day and a US military point of view; from faceless characters that spend the entire runtime in offices behind computers (or John Tururro on the phone the entire time). It then switches to a children's point of view for literally one action scene before then jumping onto our main protagonists point of view (Mark Wahlberg). This is all in the space of the first 30 minute or so, and we haven't even be introduced to all the characters yet either!

Despite all the obvious pandering and stealing of ideas, Bay still manages to toss countless more overused and unoriginal ideas into the mix. Outta nowhere we get a calling card sequence for some Decepticons; you know when they stick the characters name up on the screen along with some rock music. Its been done to death in loads of movies and can be effective, but here it looks completely out of place and a desperate attempt at riding the coattails of some recent blockbusters. So we get a team of nasty Decepticons that are so badass they required this calling card sequence to showcase their badass names. Yet despite their gangsta speech patterns and bling, these guys get killed off very quickly which kinda makes you wonder why they were introduced in the first place. Next!

Oh my God I could spend the rest of this month writing about this movie and its bollocks. Anthony Hopkins character apparently lives in a huge castle full of ancient artifacts that must be worth millions altogether, not including the castle itself! We get a sequence showing the Autobots helping the allies fight against the Nazi's (wouldn't both world wars have ended pretty quickly with Autobots helping?). There's a high speed chase through Westminster in super performance cars which, if you know London, is a complete joke. Add to that the fact the characters jump from one supercar to another with ease. This all ends with Hopkins, Wahlberg and co stealing British submarine the HMS Alliance (yes indeed!). Would a defunct WWII submarine being used as a museum since 1981 even run anymore? Oh its a Transformer too, of course it is (he says cackling insanely to himself). I also don't think a submarine of that type and age (or any) would have large windows like this one apparently does. Naturally the TRF have their own sub it seems, a regular fecking G.I. Joe unit these guys.

They then discover the sunken alien ship which no one has ever stumbled across before up to this point apparently. Unsure as to where this was located, I guess the Atlantic somewhere but at this point I gave up even wondering because it could have been anywhere lets face it. Its around this time the movie was heading well north of the standard runtime for a crappy movie of this caliber. As the action pointed towards Stonehenge it slowly became more and more convoluted, nigh unwatchable. There are battles kicking off everywhere as Cybertron attaches itself to Earth, which you'd think would cause irreversible damage to our planet but whatever. The goodies fight the baddies, errr...some are defeated, some are killed...I think. The talisman mcguffin is revealed and stops the destruction of Earth, whilst also leaving Cybertron perfectly OK as well. So essentially what was all the fuss about?

In all my days I've never seen such a convoluted mess, which is supposed to be for kids...isn't it?? Jesus fecking Christ it was a chore to get through this; I almost gave up on a few occasions because I was so bored and ultimately confused. Apart from the nonsensical plot and film length, the editing is terrible. Jumping all over the place in a blur of nonstop action (what's new). The aspect ratio is also bouncing around all over the shop. There are multiple characters in here that needn't be, they are literally not required (both human and Transformer). Of course you have all the usual Bayisms we've all come to expect; I don't even need to list them because you know exactly what I'm talking about. Sure it all looks super slick and glossy, but again we've all come to expect that, that no longer holds any weight. Style over substance is an understatement! But we all know that now. It is however ironic that the stupidest part of the movie (the medieval opening), was by far the most intriguing.

If this legendary 80's franchise is to have any kind of future at all, it needs to be completely rebooted. Possibly in animated form, and probably going back to the classic original animated designs. In turn, any and all knowledge of these Bayformer movies should be erased from human history.

3/10

The Fate of the Furious (aka F8, 2017)

Wow so here we are huh, the eight movie in the franchise, this thing just keeps on goin' doesn't it. Obviously by now the entire population of this little blue planet knows how this shitshow works, its not to be taken seriously...at all. Yet despite that clear cut fact I cannot help but tear the opening sequence of this movie apart, and here we go.

It begins in Havana, Cuba where Toretto and Letty are having their honeymoon. Conveniently Toretto's cousin is also in Cuba and is having some debt issues with some local petrolhead. Luckily this all takes place at an auto show (randomly in the middle of the city) which is filled with hot women that are basically half naked (won't someone think of the children?). The perfect scenario for Toretto to show his stuff...aww yeah. So Toretto challenges this young guy with a super modified car to a race to get his cousin outta trouble. Unfortunately Toretto only has his cousins broken down wreck of a car to use. No worries, Dom fixes it up within five minutes (mainly using 'Cuban NOS'? Any different to regular NOS?) and its ready to roll.

What follows is essentially the backbone of the franchise, how it all started, a gritty illegal street race. They throw this in at the start just to remind you of the franchises roots before it goes all xXx and Mission: Impossible on you. Yeah so they have this illegal street race through Havana. All the traffic is stopped merely by two motorbike riders who follow the race and block junctions. Miraculously there are no accidents with other traffic users and absolutely no police presence anywhere. The two cars tear up the city streets with Toretto eventually winning the race in a shit heap that is actually on fire. But no worries because xXx manages to dive out of the car (at top speed) just before it hits a concrete barrier, flies into the air, explodes and lands in the sea. Naturally good old Dom sustains no injuries whatsoever.

As said, this is what we're dealing with now with this franchise, complete disregard for anything actually based within the realms of reality (although this isn't the first time, but its gotten way worse). It also makes it very hard to review such a movie because we all know this. We all know its not supposed to be a serious movie, we all know its throwaway popcorn trash that exists purely to provide Bay-esque visuals. So of course on that front the movie succeeds in every aspect, it does exactly what it says on the tin. The flip side is how far can this be pushed before it just becomes f*cking ridiculous. The answer to that is of course about four movies ago.

Essentially this movie is now practically a superhero flick. All the characters are pretty much invincible and I doubt any will ever be killed off. Hell, if Paul Walker hadn't actually died in real life then I'm sure his character would still be alive and well with the others. But this is a major problem with the franchise (alongside so many other problems). You just don't care about the characters because you know they're invincible. There's no way any of the main protagonists will die, no flippin' way. Even when one does get killed in this movie they end up coming back. All this does is equal zero tension, zero thrills and zero risk. Fuck me even the villain is too big to get killed off it seems, future sequels are gonna have impossibly large casts.

And what is the antagonists goal here exactly? The big bad villain (female of course, Charlize Theron) wants to start off a world war I believe it was, why? And in order to do this she needed Toretto's help to get some vital bits and pieces in order to activate a nuclear sub and start a nuclear war. She couldn't do this herself with her henchmen? And in order to keep Toretto under control she kidnaps one of his ex-girlfriends who is pregnant with his child that he knows nothing about. Convenience much??!! I guess you could say she's lucky Toretto is even bothered about this considering its his ex.

There is so much stupidity and deus ex machina in this movie its painful, so very painful. The way characters (Toretto) seem to just have secret rendezvous or help outta nowhere, like magic, only to be explained towards the end of the movie. Yeah because that's really clever. There are numerous car chase sequences that are essentially fights with various vehicles, its like watching Transformers. Each vehicle also seems to represent its driver so Dwayne Johnson naturally drives a huge, hulking 4x4 jeep thing that probably has really shitty fuel economy and moves like a bus. Its also apparent that in these sequences the hero vehicles don't sustain damage...until its clearly unavoidable (because product placement). The same is often seen with weapons, in other words Dwayne Johnson is always seen with a huge shoulder cannon type thing (what's he compensating for?).

Then of course you have the finale where they all take on a nuclear submarine and we see a sequence which is pretty much straight outta the school of escaping 'Prometheus' style. Toretto survives a massive blast from a heat-seeking missile striking the sub (as do all their vehicles apparently). Roman is even more of an unfunny idiot but unfortunately doesn't get killed here. Other characters from previous movies such as Tej and Frank Petty merely make up the numbers and continuity. Scott Eastwood is in here for no particular reason, I genuinely don't know why he's there. Statham does the same shit as before and some others pop up blah blah blah, who cares. Oh and Toretto names his son (from the ex) Brian after Walker's character, even though in the movie Brian isn't dead sooo...why?

One of the main problems with this movie (and some others) is the fact that you kinda have to know the previous movies to get everything. Bottom line this is not a good stand alone movie, its not a good movie but even more so because you gotta know the backstories to a degree. Other than that its not much different from the Transformers franchise for me, just glossy garbage that ticks all the correct boxes. The epitome of modern movies.

3/10

Despicable Me 3 (2017)

Just when you thought they couldn't milk this franchise any further, we get a trilogy, as if it was obligatory (I actually think it is).

I have never understood why this franchise was even remotely popular. The first movie was reasonably passable capitalising on the now exhausted superhero genre. An evil super genius getting long in the tooth tries to remain relevant amongst the growing number of younger supervillains. And in the end the supervillain becomes the hero. Then came the sequel which simply went straight down the old supervillain versus superhero route. The supervillain from the first movie now essentially a superhero fighting crime. Now along comes the third movie which is clearly struggling for ideas.

It now turns out that old Gru (Steve Carell) has a long lost brother called Dru (ugh!!). Dru of course looks identical to Gru except he has hair, he is also voiced by Carell. Dru is a budding supervillain and dreams of working with his infamous super genius brother. Problem is Gru is now a superhero and can't find a way to break this to his brother. So in the long run Gru ends up tricking Dru into helping him take down a problematic supervillain called Balthazar Brat (Trey Parker). Gru does this by pretending they are actually carrying out an evil plan. But anyway, yes they drag up the old long lost relation plot angle to keep this nonsense going. I really don't need to explain how lame this is do I?

Right so we already know Gru, his wife Lucy and their kids. So what about Dru, what's he like? Well like I said he looks identical to Gru, except for his flowing blonde hair. His voice is fairly similar to Gru's because he's voiced by Carell, oh and he dresses in white...to counter Gru's black. So yeah...that's about as imaginative as it gets for that. But wait! There is actually a positive note here, and that's the new evil character of Balthazar Brat. This is mainly down to two simple reasons. Firstly he's voiced by Trey Parker who has that simple, yet amusing tone of voice that we all know and love from South Park. Really hard to pinpoint why his voice is so catchy because its generally pretty normal. I think its Parker's ability to sound so satirical and mocking in a relatively deadpan manner.

Secondly its because the character of Balthazar is stuck in the 80's. He's obsessed with the 80's, anything and everything to do with that era. Being an 80's gen bloke this of course appealed to me greatly and I enjoyed the various pop culture references. Admittedly most of the references, quips and visual gags weren't anything overly original. He dances to various classic 80's pop songs while he works and plays with various 80's toys and gadgets. He dresses in typical 80's fashions, he has a mullet, and his evil plan involves a giant robot or mech rampaging through Hollywood (in typical Godzilla or 80's Saturday morning cartoon type fashion). So whilst this character was indeed a totally unoriginal idea, for me he was fun to watch. Not overly sure how kids these days would quite get him though. I would of thought most of the references would go sailing over their heads.

Indeed its only when Balthazar is on the screen this movie is any fun. Most of the movie is filled with mind-numbing crapola showing Gru looking after his insufferable kids. Like the sub plot involving one of his daughters trying to find a unicorn...eh? Or the other daughter and her potential boyfriend...ugh! Or spending time with his brother and his supervillain inventions (like we haven't seen that kind of stuff before). As for the minions, hell they've been relegated to a sub plot also. You don't actually get that much minion screen time a tall really because they leave Gru after he refuses to return to villainy. Of course they return for the finale but overall they're in and out of the picture. Odd because I thought they were a cash cow.

I dunno, I just didn't get the point of this movie because it literally offered nothing new. Even the bad guy, who was enjoyable, was completely unoriginal in every aspect. Yes the movie looks great as all CGI animated movies do nowadays, so that's kinda inconsequential at the end of the day. The soundtrack is the usual god awful collection of hip-hop and rap which every kids movie has to incorporate it seems. Its not particularly funny and its not particularly exciting. The entire feature simply feels like a by the numbers production merely chugged out to try and squeeze the last few drops of money out before it inevitably dies. Well its dead alright.

4/10

The Emoji Movie (2017)

I guess it had to happen, we live in a time now where nothing is sacred, nothing is safe from being milked dry, and anything is free game. We've seen it all from various obscure choices in the videogame archives; to Barbie to Thomas the Tank Engine to board games and to Lego. They will make a movie out of bloody anything given half a chance. I'm half expecting an animated movie about the world of marbles to roll along anytime soon (yes I'm proud of that pun).

I think its fair to say I wasn't expecting anything much from this movie, if anything I only saw it out of pure morbid curiosity. I was simply intrigued at how they could construct a narrative around some mobile phone app icons. And my God do they try their best here! They really stretch and reach and twist that thin ass plot as best they can. Does it work? Not really no, but kudos for trying.

I mean I can't deny there are some nice little touches here, its not all terrible. The emoji's live inside a phone (duh) which is owned by a young boy named Alex. Said boy is going through the usual pre-pubescent angst with girls and whatnot and of course being young he uses his phone a lot. Within the phone the emoji's dwell in the city of Textopolis (I like it), their daily job is to produce their emoticon or expression on demand (when Alex uses it). Gene is a 'meh' emoji but he can also make other expressions which is looked upon as freakish, or like having a rare disease. When Gene gets his chance to be used by Alex he has a nervous breakdown and fudges it up. He then finds himself listed for deletion because he is now deemed a malfunction. Gene must now flee the city with another has-been emoji to help him find a hacker to hopefully get himself fixed.

So the plot is pretty much the same old shit we've many times before. The protagonist must go on the run to evade the antagonist and her henchmen (henchemoji's). Along the way the protagonist meets new friends that are considered losers basically; and in the end after numerous scrapes they all discover themselves and make friends (whilst saving the day). Its a standard plot mapped on top of this emoji concept.

Despite that its still flippin' convoluted though, the nonsense they set up to explain how emoji's are used on a phone. Its kinda treated like a gameshow scenario where talented, experienced and obviously popular emoji's are used regularly (almost like a sports team). But if an emoji shows good promise or whatever then they get the chance to be 'promoted' onto the phones main app screen. It sounds ridiculous because it basically is. Then all the emoji's that aren't used anymore get lumped into a loser lounge type scenario. Very predictable but also somewhat daft as I'm sure most emoji's actually get used a fair bit the world over.

Call me stupid but one of the main fun things about this movie was spotting all the different emoji's (sad I know). And sure enough they're all here, right down to the national flags. I quite like how the old emoticons are presented as old age pensioners, umm...that's about as clever as it gets really. Aside from that the entire movie plays out like a long TV advert for various smart phone apps like Twitter, Candy Crush, Just Dance etc...The movie also uses every flippin' bit of computer jargon it can muster, in a very predictable and cringeworthy fashion. For instance, pirating is represented by...yep...pirates. A Trojan horse is...umm...a big horse. A firewall is a big fiery wall (ugh!!!), and a virus is a sick looking electronic bacteria (flip me!). Add to that a whole bunch of nauseating pop songs, modern trendy teen lingo, various brands and voilà!

The sidekick characters bland and unfunny (hi-five and a princess), again totally predictable. Alex decides to completely wipe his phone when a few apps play up, why not just uninstall them? When the phone is almost wiped Alex stops because of an unusual emoji?? (Gene pulling a stupid face). This emoji is then sent to the girl he has a crush on and she instantly likes him because of that?? Most of the emoji's in Textopolis are erased during this process, but they all come back perfectly OK when the phone is rebooted? No side affects from that?

Overall the movie certainly isn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be (but its still quite bad). There are some kernels of a good idea hidden away within, the odd sparse highlight. But again overall its still very very basic, bland, uninspiring, unfunny, and it doesn't even look that great really. This was always gonna be an uphill battle simply because what the hell can you do with emoji's?? I stand by my kudos to all involved for actually managing to produce something that isn't a complete train wreck, but at the end of the day I think we can all agree with was a complete waste of time and money. Heck the aim seems to be to push young kids towards their phones more than ever. As if youngsters need that kind of encouragement these days.

3.5/10

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)

Or as its known in Europe 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge'. Why? I have no idea nor do I particularly care. Which I might add is pretty much how I felt about this movie and this franchise. We're five movies in now and this whole thing is just becoming monotonous and very familiar. The problem is I can't not watch it because I'm somewhat invested in the series; its like I have to watch to simply find out how this shitshow will end. Essentially its the same scenario as the Star Wars prequels, you knew they were poor, but you had to watch them all to see how it all tied up. You just had to!!

So what the hell is going on in Pirateworld this time? Well its basically a soft reboot of the very first movie. The ghostly crew of the Silent Mary, under Captain Salazar, are after Captain Jack Sparrow because of the fact Sparrow landed Salazar and his crew in the devil's triangle which cursed them all (many many years prior). So yes yet again Sparrow is being pursued by undead pirates. At the same time a young Henry Turner (son of Will Turner) is trying to free his father from the Flying Dutchman by locating the Trident of Poseidon. The trident can break all curses upon the sea.

Conveniently, at the same time Henry bumps into the young and beautiful Carina (a Horologist and astronomer) who can help him find the trident (and lead into a very convenient romance). Conveniently Captain Barbossa pops up again who initially sides with Salazar to avoid being killed, but then sides with Sparrow later on to get his hands on the Black Pearl. He then conveniently double crosses Sparrow to take the Pearl and conveniently discovers Carina is his long lost daughter, because of course she is. In the end they all conveniently team up together to defeat Salazar in a highly predictable manner.

The infamous Jack Sparrow is pretty fleeting in this movie it must be said. Apparently director Joachim Rønning wanted to go back to the original concept where Sparrow crashes in and out of scenes as comedic relief. Well they certainly fudged that up because Depp's iconic character is pretty much useless in this movie and could of easily been cut out completely. His character has no story here, he literally pops up here and there for some slapstick. He's just tagging along for the ride, the other characters actually have goals where as Sparrow merely gets in the way. His only hook is that he lost his crew after they lost confidence in him, so he's a bit depressed basically. This is why he accidentally unleashes Salazar from the devil's triangle (by giving up his compass for a drink; something that escapes me because you probably gotta recall the last movie).

I understand what Rønning was trying to do but here's the thing, in the original movie Sparrow was a bright new character. The character took everyone by surprise with his antics. This type of old fashioned visual humour was a real breath of fresh air; but now the character is a has-been, old hat, nothing left, milked dry. Jack Sparrow's run is essentially over and this merely proved it.

Naturally this franchise is now all about the spectacular visual effects and stunts and naturally this movie does maintain that. The movie is chock-a-block with CGI visuals as you would expect, some good, some not so much. I think we can all agree that landscapes and vistas work best for CGI shots. An attack of undead cursed sharks might sound like a cool idea but its also an example of how some CGI sequences looked utter crap. Strangely enough despite the fact the movie is stunning to look at, its nowhere near as good as the previous movies, it didn't feel as grand or lavish to me. There was also quite a lot of bad looking greenscreen shots too.

But the real guff came in sequences and ideas that either didn't make any sense or just went nowhere. At the start of the movie a very young Henry rows out into the middle of the ocean and throws himself over-board tied to a large rock. He then proceeds to sink to the exact spot where the Flying Dutchman is sunk, or waiting? I dunno exactly. Sure the kid had a map but really? The British Navy (that are briefly seen here and there) don't believe in all the supernatural stories they've heard. Again really?? With everything that happens at sea in your world?? You'd think this shit would be common knowledge. Sparrow and his men attempt to rob a bank by pulling its enormous steel safe out of the building (through a wall) by horsepower...yeeeah that's really stupid on so many levels.

At one point the movie literally stops dead just so Sparrow can talk quickly to his uncle Jack. Yep the movie stops dead in its tracks to simply give Paul McCartney a pointless cameo. The guards carrying Jack just haul him over to the cell holding his uncle so they can chat. Why would they do this?? Oh yeah...Paul's cameo. At another point Sparrow is captured by some Irish (?) pirates who want to force him to marry one of their own as payment for a debt or whatever. Clearly there is backstory here but we don't find out what. Then Barbossa turns up and kills the Irish leader and that's that, on with the show. Salazar's ship is just a bare skeleton of the hull or rotting wreck, but somehow it eats other ships or something. This also causes other ships to explode for some reason...eh??

Then in the finale the ocean parts (yes parts) for the characters to find the trident, this is quite a quick process. Yet when the movie reaches its climax and the ocean starts to fall back in on itself, this takes AGES!!!. In fact it takes just enough time for the main protagonists to be rescued. I might add that this entire sequence on the ocean floor with the CGI parted ocean, looks terrible. Then right at the end (God knows where) various characters from the previous movies just all turn up randomly, outta nowhere, conveniently at the exact same spot for a soppy reunion. This led me to simply ask...how on earth is this actually happening? Its like Rønning just said, fuck it! we'll just toss in these characters because we can, no one will question it because its a silly fantasy. Are you even trying anymore with this movie/franchise?

The real problem for this movie I fear is the fact that you gotta remember everything that's happened previously, to some degree. Don't get me wrong, its cool that the continuity is well maintained but with the number of movies in this franchise and their convoluted plots, its more like actual work than anything to keep up. Next to that the action felt very poorly choreographed and edited this time round. Just not exciting really, just mundane and unimaginative. There are way too many characters now, its really ridiculous actually. To top that it seems like they're bringing back yet another character from a previous sequel for the next movie (ugh!!!). As said the movie looks glossy but its by far the worst looking of the franchise. And last but not least, the movie is simply a rehash of the original. We've seen this before and its slowly happening more and more it seems, its just not acceptable.

Folks at the end of the day if you're a fan of the franchise you will probably like this; although I'm very sure you may not rate it highly. If you're not a fan of the franchise or a casual movie goer, I'd say skip it because you've seen it all before I guarantee. Its not really a good stand alone movie. This franchise has officially capsized and sunk.

4/10

Blood Father (FRA, 2016)

Apparently this movie is based on a novel of the same name and a French action thriller. I did not know this and I'm surprised. Surprised that's its a French made movie because I certainly didn't get that vibe in the trailers. And I'm surprised at yet another novel adaptation, like almost every other flick!

Again the plot is nothing really original (a rarity these days), its main hook is the fact we see old Mel Gibson back in action again. The plot starts with Lydia (Erin Moriarty) who is in a relationship with a gang leader called Jonah (Diego Luna). During a hit on some tenants Jonah claims stole money from them, Lydia accidentally shoots Jonah. Thinking she's killed him she runs off and gets in contact with her ex-convict father John (Gibson). Lydia explains the situation and John decides to look after Lydia at his trailer house in the middle of nowhere (hoping no one will find them). Alas Jonah's gang members come after Lydia and drag John into the fray. What follows is a somewhat slow moving chase thriller as John must protect Lydia from the gang out for revenge.

I think the problem with this movie is the fact it doesn't really offer anything new (plus it literally feels like it could be another movie about old man Wolverine/Logan). Gibson's character is your standard gruff, hardassed, tattooed, ex-con who's turned his life around and deep down has a good heart. His slutty looking daughter Lydia is your typical slutty looking mouthy teen, who has gotten herself into shit and needs her daddy to bail her out. All the while being somewhat ungrateful about it along the way. The bad guys are your stereotypical tattooed Latino gangsters. And most of the folk we meet along the way are all scruffy looking redneck biker types, complete with some Nazi and Confederate imagery for good measure.

As the story unfolds its not hard to guess what's gonna happen really. Obviously at first John and Lydia are a tad distant, Lydia doesn't completely trust John, and John wants to ween Lydia off the drugs and alcohol she's hooked on. It really is the all the usual beats. John must ask favours from various friends, some good like Kirby (William H. Macy) and some not so good like Preacher (Michael Parks). Speaking of stereotypical characters, Preacher has his own biker garage/club set up where he sells all his (Nazi and Confederate) war memorabilia. You know straight away not to trust this bloke. Anyway as time passes John and Lydia grow closer together until at the end Lydia realises how much she loves and needs John (naturally when its too late).

I guess the million Dollar question was, was the films main selling point of Mel Gibson being the anti-hero protagonist enough? Could Gibson still deliver a knockout? In my opinion the answer to that would yes and no. Lets not beat around the bush here, Gibson has clearly changed his image in recent years. He's clearly been hitting the gym and getting roided up (health issues at his age?). Anyway performance-enhancing drugs aside, Gibson does look good despite the ravages of time on his looks. Strangely enough he actually looks even more badass in his old age and possibly even more of a better fit for an aged Wolverine.

Gibson definitely dishes out a solid weighty performance bursting with raw scary beardy-faced energy. In fact his beard is almost its own character, its an awesome beard, the white patch on his chin being the clear highlight. So much so that when he shaves it off his character noticeably becomes less interesting. All of a sudden we lose the unhinged, wide-eyed, muscular, Wolverine-esque, bearded one. And we're left with a boring looking Mel Gibson from 'Payback' (1999). The thing is I believe you could swap out Gibson with any number of decent action thriller actors such as...Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe or Liam Neeson, and probably get the same result. So even though I liked Gibson in this movie, I'd say his presence wasn't a make or break factor.

Overall I'd have to say I was actually somewhat disappointed with this movie. The trailer was pretty epic and kinda gave me the wrong impression really. I was expecting a more rock 'em, sock 'em action flick top heavy with kickassery. But what you get is a more heartfelt, slow paced drama with the odd burst of action that isn't really that good. Yes its authentic, its not over the top and stupid, but I just got the impression we'd be seeing more of Gibson kicking ass. We actually see very little of Gibson kicking ass which seems a waste considering all that muscle he's packed on.

In the end the movie finishes as you knew it would do, in fact I'm sure we've all seen the same ending before in other movies. I can't help but think this could have been a really stonking gritty action flick, but Gibson wanted to show his acting chops (which aren't quite there I'm afraid). Its by no means a bad film or a mediocre film, its a very solid film, just not as good as the posters and trailers make out.

7/10

The Mole People (1956)

Only the cinematic era of the 50's could come up with a movie like this, a movie about actual mole humanoids (or humanoid moles). As I've said before, within this decade they pretty much used every kind of insect and animal they could think of to besiege humanity.

The movie starts off in a unique way by having a science and history lesson. And by that I mean an actual Californian professor (Dr. Frank Baxter) talks and explains to the viewer about various old theories of a hollow Earth and how this movie is a fictional representation of those theories. Although I enjoyed this amusing little snippet from a stereotypical looking 1950's professor in his stereotypical 1950's looking study, it all seemed rather bizarre to me. What was the need for this? Did the audience back then really need confirmation that the movie was fantasy?? Did they need to have a professor talking about ancient hollow Earth theories?

'Primitive man, going into caves, reaching back and back and down and down, wondered what lay beyond. Then in terror he fled out!'
Is this proper English, Mr. English professor? Who wrote this?? Its terrible geez!

Any way the plot is what you might expect. Some archaeologists are digging around somewhere in Asia and discover ancient relics that are apparently Sumerian. One thing leads to another and before you know it they're up a mountain discovering a temple, then the ground opens up and some bloke falls down into a deep cave. Well I guess you know what comes next, down the hole they go and piff paff poof! They end up discovering a lost Sumerian civilisation beneath the Earth. These people are of course way behind the times worshiping ancient gods. They are albino, can be killed by sunlight, oh and they also enslave a race of mole people to harvest fungi which they eat.

So first off let me just point out the casting of Alan Napier here as Elinu the High Priest. Yes that Alan Napier of the campy classic 1966 Batman series with Adam West. The rest of the cast are pretty much your standard affair truth be told. There is nothing special about any of them. A couple stout white blokes, a sexy blonde bit of totty for them to rescue...and of course fall in love with. All the native actors are of course white and generally terrible at acting in a charming kind of way. But then you have Alan Napier, clearly a class act, clearly on another level in terms of talent and experience. The man gives this movie credibility it does not deserve. Whilst the rest of the crew are merely meh, Napier's campness is fecking marvelous! When a native girl starts her ritual dance before, what I presume to be virgins, are sacrificed to the light; the girl flirts her way over to Napier's High Priest. She starts to seductively jiggle before him which results in the most brilliant look of disgust, disapproval and exasperation from Napier's priest.

Effects wise its what you have come to expect from these movies. The first opening shot of the lost Sumerian city is a nice matte painting back-projected against some live action of the actors. Again bog standard fair but it looks relatively acceptable, some nice depth. All the caves are generally very basic looking whilst the very clean and in good condition temple areas (they are supposedly 5000 years old) are clearly sets that look more like a theatrical stage productions (although large). As with many of these black and white movies the lack of colour helps sell the effect because it hides the joins so to speak. All the natives are wearing rather hokey medieval/Arabian looking outfits that look more like Halloween costumes. But surprisingly the mole humanoids (or humanoid moles) actually look pretty good. It does appear that maybe the budget was maybe spend on getting the mole masks looking as terrifying as possible...and it was worth it! Obviously they are just men in suits with big rubber claws and rubber masks but they do work.

I must also point out how effective it was seeing these mole people rise from the earth like the undead (hmmm). Its a simple effect for sure but very eerie and again it works wonders here, I'm sure the audience would have been scared shitless seeing this. But like I said, other than the mole people its all a bit average really, stereotypical ancient tribal stuff. Everyone is albino so they're simply painted white from head to toe. The characters generally don't seem fazed by anything such as finding mole people, finding a Sumerian civilisation and vice versa them finding modern humans. The heroes take it all in their stride whilst the natives just wanna sacrifice everyone to their God. Final mention to the native dancing girl for the most obviously made-up native dance ever; plus the actress looks to be Asian as in possibly Chinese or Southeast Asian, whoops!

Lets also just overlook how they managed to get so much metal and precious stones down there, surely the mole people could only mine so much in that region. Oh and how they made their clothes, why they sacrifice young women and not die out, how they only live on mushrooms, and how this civilisation never ventured back to the surface in 5000 years! I suppose I should also mention that the mole people are actually not required in this movie despite being awesome. They have no real point to the plot other than to scare the audience, plus we never find out what they are or how they came to be. You could of quite easily just had a movie about the explorers in this subterranean world. So the movies title is a bit cheeky. I'm also unsure as to how exactly the Sumerians managed to keep the mole folk in slavery for so long with only whips and swords. The mole people aren't allergic to light so that gave them an advantage.

But I think one of the most surprising aspects in this movie (other than the excellent looking mole monsters) is the fact they used a real ancient civilisation. I'm sure I wouldn't be alone in expecting them to just make up some ridiculous sounding ancient race like 'Zynapians' or something (I Googled that word and its definitely not an ancient race). But on the other hand that means they would have had to get the Sumerian culture visually correct, did they? I don't know not being up on my Sumerian culture, but kudos for going there I guess. I suppose we should all just be thankful they didn't resort to using ancient Greek or Roman costumes. This movie is good fun in the usual schlocky way; its certainly engaging with its natives, moles and crazy Fu Manchu priest. Just don't expect anything to be explained much, it all just happens because.

7/10