'Twelve Monkeys' review by Captain Raptor

'Twelve Monkeys' review by Jake Boyle

Television adaptations of movies seem to have no middle ground. They're either god-level classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the recent reimagining of Fargo, or lamentable works best allowed to fester in the forgotten garbage pits of entertainment history, like the series of Highlander and Planet of the Apes. The SyFy channel is about to debut it's remake of Terry Gilliam's revered Twelve Monkeys, and while I hold my reservations about the director (a man who has mastered the finer parts of film-making at the cost of neglecting the fundamentals), this seems like a good time to pass judgment on his original work. 

Crucially, Twelve Monkeys manages to keep itself fairly well grounded. Both time travel films and Terry Gilliam films have a tendency to become overly conceptual, bogged down in ethereal inventiveness - not a bad thing in and of itself, but it frequently leads to failing to engage the audience on an emotional or narrative level. Primarily this is avoided by a well-paced story that reveals information at a carefully controlled pace, its mysteries being solved not so quickly that we get information overload, but not so slowly that it's ever unintentionally confusing. The strong performances help give the film a more human side too; Bruce Willis playing a time-travelling criminal hoping to thwart the apocalypse as one of the most down-to-Earth characters of his career, showing depths of confusion and desperation. Madeline Stowe follows suit, and Brad Pitt is on hands to lend energy to the proceedings, an astounding physical performance that's frenetic and infectiously fun, if once or twice straying into cartoonishness.

It's Pitt's grandly gesturing vigor (the loopiness enhanced by nicely off-skew camera angles) that provides the film its major source of comedy, which is substantial, but nothing to boast about. Similarly good but not great, the film's plot is enjoyably twisty and turny although not altogether unpredictable at times (the meaning of Willis' hazily-remembered dream is very apparent, especially after the third or fourth time they've shown it). Gilliam's penchant for world-building is slightly curtailed, but his vision of a post-apocalyptic world is nicely realised and limiting the amount of time he spends on expansive components lets the focus remain tightly onto the story. David and Janet Peoples' script doesn't have much of a flair for dialogue, but there's a few witty lines, especially nearer the end when they're used as tension breakers. Personal investment in the characters is low, but Willis and Stowe display such vulnerability that they are at the very least sympathetic.

Twelve Monkeys is a wild ride of a story, but told very calmly and even ponderously. This allows it to be both exciting and intelligent, and the precision of the pacing gives a thoroughly engaging plot an approachable but thought-provoking slant. The acting does the excellent narrative justice, and while there is a few hitches in the dialogue and tone, they aren't problems that make any major impact on the overall quality of the film. SyFy have big boots to fill, and Gilliam's standing in my estimations has just skyrocketed. An inventive but pleasingly anchored movie. 

'Selma' review by Captain Raptor

'Selma' review by Jake Boyle

At present, it seems like Selma's near-absence from the Academy Awards might go down as one of the biggest Oscar snubs is history. Overblown and somewhat arbitrary as the ceremony may be, such furore at the exclusion certainly further piques interest in what was already an enticing prospect for a film that, really, has been a hell of a long time coming/was already adapted for the screen in 1999 but nobody's ever heard of that one.

Selma takes full advantage of the inherently present drama in its story - the institutional violence is shown in clear, unflinching brutality, but what Ava DuVernay wisely does to really intensify the impact is to immediately follow the outbursts with very slow, silent sequences, and the awfulness of what was just witnesses sinks in and can be fully appreciated. This tense but quiet atmosphere is what dominates the whole movie, showing real sophistication and an ability to provide drama beyond shocks and horrors. It permeates the acting too; David Oyelowo's exemplary performance as Martin Luther King contains as much understated silence and thoughtfulness as it does powerful orating and palpable, chill-inducing anger. There's ample support from Carmen Ejogo as a very strained Coretta Scott King, Oprah Winfrey plays Annie Lee Cooper with impressive stalwartness and Tim Roth embeds his racist governor with enough vigour to be interesting but never so much that it becomes cartoonish or detracts from the seriousness of the film. However, unsurprisingly, the film's focus on King means that Oyelowo has by far the most opportunities to amaze and to enrapture.

Most of the drama in the film comes naturally from the oppression and cruelty that abounds the events, once again heightened by DuVernay's confidently slow and contemplative pace, and from the plethora of emotions that this provokes from its principal characters. On multiple occasions, the film does depreciate its own sense of reality and nuance by talking so overtly about modern day applications of its message of progress and understanding that it's practically breaking the fourth wall, but given the political climate that this film was made and released in, it's a completely understandable decision. Occasional schmaltz is more than compensated for overall, as it still remains genuinely moving and there are glimpses of some emotional beauty here and there, in addition to all the tension that runs throughout.

As an issues movie, Selma is entirely on-point, dissecting the topic of racism with a firm precision and an unambiguous presentation of the problem. It venerates MLK without ever exaggerating, and this is one of the few biographical films that actually makes its subject feel like a real human being. As a drama in its own right, it's occasionally clunky but has guts and brains to see it through any of the minor problems it does encounter. Oyelowo's star turn is noteworthy in the extreme but the biggest salute of all belongs to DuVernay for presenting the subject matter both complexly and relaxedly. 

'Kingsman: The Secret Service' review by Captain Raptor

'Kingsman: The Secret Service' review by Jake Boyle

Kick-Ass. What a film, eh? I've extolled its many virtues on this blog on a few occasions, so I'll spare repeating myself and simply say that I think it's one of the most inventive, delirious and fantastic films of recent years, even of all time. So, when the director of that masterpiece decides to adapt another comic by Mark Millar, using one of the same actors and even bringing in that God of all things cool Samuel L Jackson, 'must-see' doesn't even begin to capture how high a priority this film was for me.

Far from simply being a tribute to old spy movies, Kingsman: The Secret Service is in many ways both an update and an improvement upon them. Sure, there's an enjoyably ostentatious villain, but one that retains the characteristic flare whilst still being nuanced in some small measurement, and his overblown evil scheme is shown in far more darkness than Connery or Moore ever witnessed. If we were to compare it to its inspirations than it's certainly infinitely more subversive and madcap than any of those. However, it's 2015; profanity, violence and sardonic self-awareness are not exactly rare commodities. While the film's commitment to over-the-top bloodiness and tongue-in-cheek references are amusing, it is by no means as daring or as different as its dialogue portends to be, repeatedly dropping out self-satisfied lines like "This isn't that kind of movie". It suffers too from the inevitable comparison to Kick-Ass, which is both a better movie in general and made several of the same jokes as Kingsman (such as violent, rapid massacres set to jaunty music) but to higher extremes, as well as making them 5 years earlier.

However, judged in their own right, the action is pleasingly visceral and the comedy mostly works; Jackson's fainthearted villain steals most of the film's best moments with his reluctance and even disgust at his own actions. It must be said, however, that with such an outlandish character paired to an actor who can be so delightfully bombastic when called upon, the results are a little disappointing and unnecessarily underplayed. The same could be said of Michael Caine's role, which only benefits from an actor of such merit on the delivery of his last line. Colin Firth, however, proves what Summer Glau, Liam Neeson and Chloe Moretz also have: namely that the greatest action stars are those who look least capable of it. Watching Firth demolish an entire room of enemies is made so much more entertaining by his perennial stiff upper lip and droll delivery. A sequence in a church that takes the most advantage of this is by far and away the best scene of the film, as sanguinary and far-out as anything from Millar and Matthew Vaughn's previous team-up.

A bit smug, a bit simple, and (most upsettingly of all, considering what was promised) a bit familiar, Kingsman: The Secret Service is not a fantastic film. It is, however, a highly satisfying one, possessing as much savviness as it does chutzpah, and an impeccable casting choice in Firth. While it doesn't really do much substandardly, it also doesn't do anything exceptionally, and for such a self-aware film, it often forgets to subvert or pastiche the clichés that it's running with. In an ideal world, this middling level of inventiveness and boldness would be average - as it is, it does remain a cut above much of the competion and certainly worth some attention