'We're The Millers' review by Captain Raptor

'We're The Millers' review by Captain Raptor

I had a big ol' bag of mixed feelings before seeing We're The Millers. I was underwhelmed by Jason Sudeikis and Jennifer Aniston's previous team-up Horrible Bosses, but it also stars British child actor Will Poulter, who has a habit of being absolutely brilliant in awful things (School of Comedy, one of the later Narnia films), so I was fairly sure that I would at least see one entertaining performance. 

We're The Millers is the type of movie Judd Apatow wishes he was still making. It's undeniably crass, but infused with heart and still contains a number of more intelligent jokes. It's leftfield enough to stand out from the crowd, but not so much that it becomes niche or inaccessible. For such a manic and energetic film, it's very precisely made. In short, I think that We're The Millers is a total comedic triumph. It lessens my opinion of The World's End and This Is The End, because they were comparatively patchy and had less amusing sections, whereas this film is funny start-to-finish. Jason Sudeikis is so often lumbered with an unfunny 'nice guy' part, and it's refreshing to see him play a character that has some bite. The entire cast nail their parts, in particular Poulter and Sudeikis, and Aniston gives her most entertaining performance in years. Nick Offerman makes a pleasing appearance, essentially playing a slightly weirder version of his character from Parks & Recreation. The film starts with very little sentimentality, and as the characters traded acidic barbs and at times bullied each other (and by 'each other' I mean Will Poulter's hopeless and endearing simpleton Kenny) I laughed and laughed and laughed. 

By the end of the film, this has descended into sugary sweet declarations of affection. I'm on the fence about the issue - the characters are all very likable and I found myself genuinely wanting their cliched happy ending, but it still wasn't very funny, and it was refreshing to see a comedy that wasn't too afraid to be mean. Ed Helms' drug lord is funny on occasion, but it's such an exaggerated character that when the jokes don't stick it becomes kind of irritating. Aside from those gripes, I had pretty much no problems with the film. I guess it can be a bit simplistic at times, but damn, when a cast is as spot-on with delivery and timing as this, it doesn't really matter.

We're The Millers isn't revolutionary, and it's not what you'd call intellectual. However, it's an excellent 90 minutes, with a great cast and script and enough new ideas and humour to please any crowd. Most of the best comedies these days contain an extra element - over-the-top action, or something fantastical like a talking bear or superheroes or the apocalypse - and it's pleasing to know that there are still people who can provide plentiful laughs with just four misfits and an RV (and a metric tonne of weed). Do I recommend We're The Millers? Only if you have a pulse. 

'Kick-Ass 2' review by Captain Raptor

'Kick-Ass 2' review by Captain Raptor

Kick-Ass is a film very close to my heart. The blend of ultra-violence and all-out comedy whilst never sacrificing intelligence was so spot-on that it stands shoulder to shoulder with The Dark Knight and Fight Club as one of my all time favourite films. But part of what made Kick-Ass so great was how unexpected it was - you wouldn't have predicted a film about a foul-mouth purple-costumed murderous tween girl fighting crime alongside Nicolas Cage pretending to be Adam West. Now that we know all its tricks, could round two be just as much of a knockout?

The opening training scene is a callback to one of the early scenes of the original, giving a vibe of 'more of the same', which I would definitely have been willing to see. However, having already established their characters, the sequel decides to focus a little more on emotion. Around twenty minutes into the movie, Hit-Girl (unanimously agreed upon to be the best thing about the film) decides to hang up her boots and cape and try to live the life of an ordinary teenage girl. While Chloë Grace Moretz nails the emotional scenes (as should be expected from somebody who seems incapable of giving a sub-par performance) as she is variably rejected and accepted by a high school clique, it's still not a particularly entertaining sub-plot, being neither as funny or dramatic as it could have been. On top of that, the absence of seriousness in the first film just made those one or two emotional gut-punches hit even harder, so spreading out any attempts to show character depth merely weakens it. Some truly awful stuff happens in the course of Kick-Ass 2, but it was nowhere near as upsetting or as dramatic as it might have been. Only the comedy is derailed by these proceedings, and I'm happy to say that the sequel's action is just as bloody and blackly funny - lawnmowers, shards of glass, 'gravity poles' and even sharks come into play, and there are still plenty of the shocking moments that induce a mixture of laughing and gasping that we saw last time around. 

As I mentioned previously, the comedy has also suffered. The over-the-top violence still has its amusing charm, but in the narrative scenes there's not much that's worthy of an audible laugh, let alone the hysterics that various parts of Kick-Ass would have you in. Aaron Taylor-Johnson's titular hero has already undergone his character transformation from 'Dorky wannabe' to 'Dorky badass, sort of', and he's no longer the wonderfully hopeless underdog, especially when teaming up with all the film's new heroes. The new additions to the cast are on-form, in particular wife-and-husband duo Remembering Tommy (one half of whom, Monica Dolan, I dismissed less than seven days ago as forgettable in my Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa review), a brilliantly out of place suburban middle class couple. Jim Carrey is better than I thought he would be at convincingly portraying a vigilante, (although he's still not quite as badass as the rest of the characters seem to think he is) and the ever-likeable Donald Faison charms his way through the underused role of Dr Gravity. Although my review does appear to be strongly negative, it's only because of the high standard set by the first film. All the criticisms I have with the film essentially come down to a few issues with the script and a failure to fully capture the unpredictable nature of the original. 

While Kick-Ass 2 fails to escape the shadow of its predecessor, it's still an enjoyable display, combining all the winning ingredients of Kick-Ass, just to a lesser effect. I guess that ultimately I was disappointed by the film, but an inferior version of Kick-Ass is still better than a lot of the competition. Moretz and Mintz-Plasse entertain about as much as they used to, the fight scenes are still phenomenal and the film was probably much, much better than this review gives it credit it for. Following up something as brilliant Kick-Ass is no easy task, and in this respect, they didn't really succeed, but as a film in its own right, Kick-Ass 2 is definitely worth your time.

'Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa' review by Captain Raptor

'Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa' review by Captain Raptor

Knowing me, Captain Raptor, knowing you, Alan Partridge, aha. After putting chat among the pigeons and bringing quality broadcasting to the TV and the radio, Alan Partridge takes his first step into big school - the silver screen. TV characters moving to movies is nothing new, but can a littler-than-life character such as Alan be transferred successfully? Partridge has been consistently funny over the years, it's written by Armando Iannucci, who managed to put The Thick of It in cinemas effectively as In The Loop, and it's got the best title of any film this year, but I still had a few doubts.

The 90 minute runtime definitely makes the film seem stretched, but overall Alan Partridge translates well over to the big screen. Steve Coogan's performance is as fantastic as ever, and the large list of quotable lines courtesy of Alan Partridge grows even larger. The script is for the most part excellent, maybe suffering from necessary padding in the middle to extend the runtime, but is full of the mildly offensive and stupid non-sequiturs we've come to expect and a plot that excellently highlights the egotism and strange likeability of the character.  One concern about adapting Partridge to film was that his previous escapades have all been very low-key and even minimalist, but Alpha Papa keeps this (to a lesser extent). There's no huge set-pieces, no litany of celebrity cameos and no exotic location. It's just one guy in a radio station. With a gun toting madman. Colm Meaney's performance as the radio DJ gone postal Pat Farrell  is commendable for adding a fair degree of pathos and even drama without disrupting the flow of the film, and still acing the comedy scenes as the deadpan wall for Alan's jokes to bounce off. Further great reactionary support comes from Sidekick Simon (Tim Key), and recurring characters Lynn (Felicity Montagu) and Michael the Geordie (Simon Greenall) add some laughs of their own. Ultimately though, the film is all about Alan Partridge, and Coogan had me enthralled from start to finish with his now highly-polished act.

It's not all perfect - there's a boring love interest which never really makes an impact, and it does feel like putting such a great character in such an insane situation could be just a little funnier. Aside from this, there's very little not to like about Alpha Papa. The parodies of the action genre are funny, but there's also plenty of comedy to be found in its own right. It keeps the irreverent sense of humour and sprinkles some lightly larger and more farcical elements onto the mixture. It's the same type of jokes used in the old shows, which should please the fans, but there's enough that's fresh and more accessible that newcomers can enjoy this just as much as anybody else. The joke rate is high, so while there's only a couple of genuinely hilarious moments (most of which come through a truly brilliant scene in which Alan tries to evade Pat by running around and hiding on a pier), there's very rarely more than a twenty second gap between laughs.

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa is a very funny film that should please longtime fans by managing to both keep the spirit of the previous shows and change enough that it's not an attempt to repeat past glories. Those unfamiliar with Steve Coogan's Norfolk people's hero may not completely warm to the movie, but there's definitely plenty there to keep them entertained. A good supporting cast, a fantastic script, and one hell of lead performance, Alpha Papa deserves to stand shoulder to shoulder with Knowing Me Knowing you et al. 

'The Wolverine' review by Captain Raptor

'The Wolverine' review by Captain Raptor

The X-Men films have a unique progression of quality: 'good-great-bad-awful-good'. It's interesting because although The Wolverine comes as the sixth installment of a wealthy and established franchise, it's still got a lot to prove - the sideburned stabber's first solo outing misfired on all cylinders and First Class, the franchise's revitalization  featured Wolverine for all of six seconds, so it's been 10 years since audiences last saw a fully entertaining starring Ol' Wolfy. Something must be done.

And something has been done. Admirably, The Wolverine is almost a complete re-invention of the series. Gone are the one-liners, gone are the litany of appearances from other secondary Marvel characters (there are a few, but certainly no fan favourites or big names), gone are the destructive and adrenaline-packed showdowns (at least comparatively); The Wolverine is almost certainly the smallest-scale X-Men film to date (No saving the world this time, just some vengeance and desperation), and definitely the moodiest and most serious. It's a total change from Origins: Wolverine, and in this respect it works spectacularly. Hugh Jackman slips into his role like a comfortable and well-worn shoe, providing a strong foundation to allow the change to occur, and the darker and far less comical nature of the film never feels jarring when anchored by Jackman's solid performance. There are a few attempts at humour, but half of them fall flat, and the other half are about stabbing, so they don't really lighten the mood. Because Wolverine is a melee fighter, all the action is up close and personal, which coupled with his new-found vulnerability makes for much more tense and engaging fight scenes.

The seriousness of the film is both a hindrance and an improvement. By getting darker, The Wolverine manages to stay fresh and avoid the trappings of some previous installments, but it also lacks the humour (and in some senses, the fun) that elevated the good films (in particular First Class) to greater heights. Wolverine is clearly left, right and centre in this film, and the only returning character (apart from an unmissable post-credits scene) is an ethereal Jean Grey, who never really impacts the film that much. This is a more plot-driven venture, but most of the new characters are only OK, not great, and the actress playing the Viper is going a bit overboard in her performance. Hugh Jackman certainly gives his most dramatic portrayal of Wolverine in this film, and he completely succeeds in carrying the film on his shoulders and gives a really subtle performance (we all know that Logan isn't much for speaking his feelings, but Jackman makes them perfectly evident through some great delivery of lines and grunts). The film moves along at a slow(ish) pace, which works here in a more serious film to build the tension and add more drama to the proceedings. The design department, particularly costume, has done a good job, and despite some of the new characters being a tiny bit bland, they are for the most part well presented and well acted.

I've very few complaints to make about any area of the film - everything is done competently, and the film entertains from start to finish. However, there's some spark missing. The lack of humour and over-the-top action strays it away from classic comic book fare, which shows confidence and makes for an interesting change, but nothing has really been supplied in replacement. Regardless, The Wolverine is a tense and fully enjoyable action film, with Jackman continuing to ace the part, and it's certainly a step in the right direction for the upcoming Days of Future Past.