'Captain America: The First Avenger' review by Captain Raptor

'Captain America: The First Avenger' review by Jake Boyle

For somebody who spends about 10% of every day gushing about how much I love Marvel, it's a personal failing that it's taken me over three years to watch any of the Captain America films. The character's never appealed me, due to nauseating patriotism and a pretty uninteresting backstory, but his appearance in Avengers Assemble and a delightful cameo in Thor: The Dark World has made it clear that I should at least give him a try.

The crucial difference between Cap's first solo outing and the films mentioned above is humour, or namely the former's lack of it. While Chris Evans delivers every droll comeback he's given with perfect capability, there's not a lot of humour to sustain the film through it's most familiar and generic moments, which there are more than a few of. The initial transformation from an eager but scrawny scarecrow of a figure (the CGI used to shrink Chris Evans down to such a meagre build are fantastic) to the beefed up superhero is done smartly, pushing its 'anybody can be a hero' message just shy of breaking point, but once he is combat ready, things get less interesting. The Marvel Cinematic Universe's previous outings, barring the equally underwhelming The Incredible Hulk, compensated for similar problems with humour, charisma and style, but there's only a small amount of these to be found here. The action sequences aren't fantastic either - a fighting style predominantly built around shield-based combat doesn't leave you with a multitude of options - but they're done competently enough. It would have been nice to see one or two more of them, especially given a disappointing segment where the film's entire military campaign finale is mostly reduced to a montage.

The First Avenger isn't just a dumb action flick though, possessing evident smarts through its visual jokes (Cap using a taxi door with a star logo in the centre as a shield, Arnim Zola's face initially appearing onscreen as a holographic projection) and the mind-over-muscle mentality of its hero, although he does certainly find more than a few uses for muscle too. Gratifyingly, the patriotism has been reigned in to a degree where it can't really irritate, but one could argue that this defeats one of the major points to the character. The action is often a little reliant on explosions, and they don't appear to have been spectacularly rendered for such a big budget movie. It's a fairly well-written movie, with dialogue that isn't especially memorable but certainly isn't clunky or overly po-faced. The performances are all up to scratch all round, but nobody's particularly excellent, apart from the eternally sardonic Tommy Lee Jones, who doesn't exactly try very hard, but an actor of his calibre doesn't really need to in order to give an entertaining performance.

Captain America: The First Avenger is a moderately entertaining but pretty forgettable movie, especially when compared to its other Marvel brethren. It feels more like a weak attempt to replicate Indiana Jones (handsome professional Nazi-puncher tracking down a mysterious MacGuffin) than a superhero movie, and nothing else about the film has anything particularly definitive or original. In most regards, the film is so-so, with a few elements being less successful and even fewer being better. Avengers Assemble proves that Captain America can be funny and engaging whilst remaining true to the all-American hero of the comic books. This film does not.

'The Inbetweeners 2' review by Captain Raptor

'The Inbetweeners 2' review by Jake Boyle

Forget grieving families, starving children and oppressed minorities. True struggle is being a British teenager who thinks that The Inbetweeners is a little bit shit. My life is hard. If you're somebody who takes an opposing view on the boys from Rudge Park (which, demographically speaking, is possibly all of you) this might be a review to skip. Not that I think The Inbetweeners 2 is bad, exactly, but I'm likely going to be fairly insulting to its fan base. Sorry, snobbery never rests.

That said, I do think it's kind of bad. The immaturity is demonstrably self-aware, but there's still not enough smarts on display to pacify the increasingly grating stupidity of some of the humour. I probably shouldn't have high expectations for a franchise in which the most popular joke is putting a variety of words in front of 'wanker', but by the time a guy with a faeces-covered face starts projectile vomiting, it's hard not to feel that it's hit a new low. Aside from being actively puerile, some of the jokes simply aren't funny - Will and Simon repeatedly shouting "grow up" at each other quickly descends from dull to actively irritating, and Jay's graphic and obviously false stories about the sex he's having got old by the end of the first series. There's some good moments surrounding all of this - reliably dimwitted Neil is as entertaining as ever, in particular during an incident involving a dolphin, and Simon being forced to deal with a lunatic girlfriend allows him to display some highly amusing exasperation. But a comedy where a third of the jokes don't make me laugh, and a further third of them actually annoy me is taking more than a few steps down the wrong path.

The performances are all fine, if perhaps slightly lazier than in past installments. There's dabblings with character development, although some of it is the same character development from the first film, only more so. The boys still remain (in my opinion) as mildly loathsome prats, but the comedy is mostly at their expense, so there's not much need to feel any sympathy for them. Towards the end, there are a few more tender moments, even reaching towards heartfelt, that I'm sure would have made an impact on somebody who actually likes The Inbetweeners. A problem with the film - especially noticeable when one is attempting to construct a review of it - is that there's nothing to the film without the jokes. Other comedies, both better and worse, tend to contain stories, character arcs, maybe even some messages and beliefs at their core. Any of those that can temporarily be glimpsed whilst watching this have all definitely faded by the end, and that's a notable drawback to somebody who didn't think the things that were there were particularly funny.

Unwise as it is of me to point this out, a review of The Inbetweeners 2 seems fairly pointless. If you liked what has come before, you'll probably like this one. If you didn't, you probably won't. It's more of the same with enough unexplored territory (both in dialogue and in geographical terms) that it's suitably original. I sort-of liked it, but I sort-of liked the first film more. More than anything else I think this suggests it's time to pack it in and quit while they're (relatively) ahead; the actors are mostly in their thirties, there's only so many times you can get laughs from using assorted synonyms for 'vagina', and the law of diminishing returns is gently rapping, rapping at the chamber door.

'Sin City: A Dame To Kill For' review by Captain Raptor

'Sin City: A Dame To Kill For' review by Jake Boyle

Spy Kids aside, Robert Rodriguez's career is practically defined by his close working relationship (and even closer similarities) to Tarantino; if this is indeed the case, then Sin City was his Pulp Fiction - interlinking stories told in a non-linear fashion, violent antiheroes (some of which are played by Bruce Willis) and a world where everybody is a criminal of some sort. Frank Miller's involvement, both as creator of the original graphic novel and as co-director, might be what elevated it to Rodriguez's (arguably) best work - sleek comic book visuals and a captivating setting made of equal parts twisted craziness and twisted darkness.

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For is concrete proof of the law of diminishing returns.  The returning characters are every bit as grizzled and tortured as they were (and Jessica Alba even has her turn at the rough-voiced bitter narration as Nancy descends into the vengeance-fuelled violence that seems to control all the citizens), but they just feel like they're going through the motions. Fan-favourite Marv is played with just as much gusto by Mickey Rourke and kicks just as much ass, but the majority of his presence in the film seems very forced, and this rubs off on how much his gruff bravado can be enjoyed. Bruce Willis reappears as a ghost (never mentioned as such, but that which we call a ghost would by any other name be as dead), and although there has always been some leftfield components in the mix (That Yellow Bastard, for example), introducing what seems to be supernatural is distracting and moderately confusing, especially when it's barely explained. The visuals are still spectacular, but to keep them interesting, the ante has been upped - more animated sequences, more flashes of colour amidst the monochrome surroundings - meaning that there's less of the stylish noir look that made everything look so good. That said, very few directors know their way around a camera like Rodriguez, and some sequences such as a rooftop massacre or a midnight swimming session are sharply, dynamically and even somewhat beautifully shot. 

Like its predecessor, A Dame To Kill For consists of three major plotlines with interwoven characters, and it's the one story about an original character that's the stand-out success. Joseph Gordon-Levitt gives a typically masterful performance as a cocksure gambler out to win big, acing both the highs (smug grins and sly one-liners) and the lows (grievous bodily harm and humiliation - the inevitable outcome of challenging Basin City's elite Roark family) with inimitable coolness. The story itself is the most intelligent, and consequently the most surprising - the ending is so wonderfully nihilistic, and reinforces all that we've come to know and love about this dark, seductive city. The new side characters to this one are also sublime - although they only have one scene each, a grumbling Christopher Lloyd and a barely recognisable Lady Gaga provoke more thought than all the returning 'heroes' combined, and provide just as much entertainment. However, not all the new elements are as successful - Eva Green's eponymous dame is such an exaggeratedly malevolent femme fatale that she feels like she belongs more in an Austin Powers movie. The recasting of many characters is a problem too - Dennis Haysbert gives a good performance, but he's incomparable to the sheer menace of the sadly departed Michael Clarke Duncan's screen presence; Jamie Chung fails to bring as much threatening stoicism as Devon Aoki did to the role of Miho; and as much as it pains me to say this, Josh Brolin was nowhere near as good as Clive Owen. The action is as pleasingly brutal as ever, and people mangle each other with the same level of enthusiasm, but the darkly funny nature of both this and the film in general has gently faded.

Although this review mostly contains criticisms, I did enjoy watching this movie; I just enjoyed the original so much more. Despite the brilliance of the Joseph Gordon-Levitt section, Sin City: A Dame To Kill For is inferior to its predecessor on every level. However, so are many other films, and if you remove the weight of expectation, this movie comes out looking pretty good. The main problem is that which plagues many prequels - we're moving backwards when we should be moving forwards. Marv, Hartigan, Dwight and Nancy are awesome, but we've already told the best stories they have to tell. Anything else is just disappointing, especially when Rodriguez and Miller prove that they're still capable of adding interesting characters to the universe. I'd like to see a third film where they've learnt from the mistakes and successes of this one, but I'm not entirely upset that the lousy commercial performance of A Dame To Kill For rules out that possibility. 

'The Expendables 3' review by Captain Raptor

'The Expendables 3' review by Captain Raptor

An appreciation for the past is certainly a positive thing, but Sylvester Stallone's levels of nostalgia borders on a psychological disorder. With Grudge Match, Escape Plan and sequels to Rocky and Rambo, his entire 21st Century career seems to be based around films he made decades ago. The Expendables has been the best result of this - although that's not saying much - partly because it is at least self-aware enough to mock itself before the audience does. While they've never exactly been astounding, the past two in the series have been reliably amusing forays into ridiculousness, in spite of everything. 

So, there are obvious points to get out of the way first: the characters and plot are threadbare, pathos and emotion are kept to an absolute minimum, it hasn't a single original thought in its brain and the whole affair displays as much intelligence as a squashed grape. But these are the predictable gripes about a series that's never tried to succeed on these levels. The surprising thing is that The Expendables 3 fails at the things it's supposed to be good at. The action is appalling - at first I wondered why the camera angles changed so frequently that you couldn't see what was happening, but after a while I noticed that nothing was happening. The first act has a lengthy action scene in which very little action actually occurs - few bullets are fired, the enemy's casualty rate is almost as low as the film's paltry box office intake, and the whole sequence mostly entails the eponymous mercenaries running away whilst spouting bizarrely nonsensical bravado. The second act is even worse and is one of the most grueling trials of patience I've ever had to endure. Stallone's character kicks out the rest of his team and goes on a recruitment drive, and is taken on a tour of characters who are so boring and undeveloped they can't even qualify as generic. There's literally no set-pieces or action here aside from a few momentary alleyway scuffles, so we're left with something truly god-awful - Stallone delivering dialogue.

This is so awful for two reasons, the first being that the dialogue in this film is absolute garbage. Gone are the ridiculously cheesy one-liners, the angry yelling and the testosterone-fulled repartee, that while all being hit and miss, at least they occasionally contained a hit. They've been replaced with banal, humourless statements that primarily seem to exist purely to take up space. The few attempts made to engage in that style of banter are weak - lines like "But you're still an idiot" are delivered as if they were some sort of cutting insult. The other reason the second act is so resolutely miserable is Stallone himself. He delivers every line as slowly as he can, possibly in a misguided attempt to make it sound more measured and serious. Combined with his signature mumbled register, the actual effect it has is turning an already dull line into a world-class example of  how to bore a viewer into frustration. One of the tiny, minimal redeeming features of this film is a different performance; Mel Gibson's moustache-twirlingly evil villain adds a few moments of spark and panache that livens things up a bit. Credit should also go to Antonio Banderas for being the only other cast member to summon up any energy or vigour, even if he isn't given the material to do anything worthwhile with it. In terms of other things that aren't awful, the final battle of the third act is the only other one I can think of - the action reaches a more substantially entertaining level, and the larger scale makes it easier to forgive all the grating dialogue. 

The Expendables weren't exactly at dizzying heights to begin with, but this third installment has still fallen a remarkable distance. All the expected flaws haven't been improved upon - the repetitiveness, the caricatured characters, the nationalism and other casual bigotry, the self-aggrandizing nature and the general stupidity - but to an extent these can be worked around with good enough action and humour. Unfortunately, both of these aspects are unmitigated failures. An action film can be many negative things and still be enjoyable, but it's unforgivable for a movie so brainless to also be so unrelentingly tedious. The Expendables 3 isn't just bad; frankly, it's pathetic. 

'Hercules' review by Captain Raptor

'Hercules' review by Jake Boyle

Deciding whether or not to see Hercules was no easy task. It was a matter of pitting my innate fondness and trust in Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson against my distaste and resentment of director Brett Ratner, the man who royally ruined the conclusion to the initial X-men trilogy. However, like he always did in the ring, The Rock won in the end, and besides, the film's fairly low concept doesn't leave that much that Ratner could screw up.

The concept in question, of Hercules actually being a simple mercenary who spreads fanciful tales of his own mythology to make himself seem more impressive, is peculiar in some regards. It shows a deliberate move towards realism, and in combination with several other elements such as Hercules' (attemptedly) moving backstory, there's clear attempts to make this version of the Hercules story a grittier affair. This is totally at odds with the rest of the tone of the film, which is an all-guns blazing (all-crossbows, maybe?) action throwdown, low on drama and high on muscles. This contrast does balance out and it all works perfectly fine, but I definitely get the impression that very few, if any, of the creatives involved had a particular idea of what they wanted to do. What they did end up doing, however, is perfectly pleasing: the action is blistering and done with both supreme confidence and glee, and there's enough variety in the methods by which our heroes dispatch their foes that it remains interesting and exciting from start to finish. This is partly down to a smart, compact running time, meaning that the film doesn't have much padding. Aside from exposition and PG-13 violence, the only other thing on display is comedic banter from Hercules' entourage of warriors. A limited range, admittedly, but all in working condition and highly enjoyable.

It's the performances that really make Hercules worth watching. Johnson is everything I hoped he'd be - charismatic, slyly funny, and punching things with as much force as humanly possible. There's strong support from Hercules' band of merry men, in particular a droll Ian McShane, the only element of this movie that shows any subtlety, and Rufus Sewell as what must surely be one of the most sarcastic characters in the history of film. John Hurt hams it up so much that it's fairly obvious he think he's above this (although to be fair he might be). A few reoccurring jokes about McShane's character trying (and failing) to embrace his death and Hercules acting humble about his totally false achievements add a sprinkling of comfortable humour to the film, the latter especially improved by Johnson's well-practised eyebrow raising technique, which would undoubtedly win Oscars if such a category existed.

Although it greatly pains me to say it, Ratner's come good on this one. Hercules, while incredibly generic and excelling at nothing in particular, is a bundle of joy and giddily entertaining. The action and the humour all work and it's all performed with confidence by Johnson and a good supporting cast. It's fun and enjoyable, and very little else, but for 90 minutes of pure satisfaction, it's worth a watch.

'Guardians Of The Galaxy' review by Captain Raptor

'Guardians Of The Galaxy' review by Jake Boyle

I normally open my reviews with some sort of introduction to the film but it's going to be short and sweet this time, because I'm far too excited to wait to talk about this one. I have been waiting for it with bated breath for nearly two years, I love the source material and I'm fans of so many of the people involved in the project. So, in case it's not apparent, I might not be an entirely neutral, unbiased reviewer here.

How can I begin to sum-up the two hours of heaven that is Guardians Of The Galaxy? From a heart-wrenchingly tender opening scene to a high-octane, truly dazzling conclusion, this marvel of a movie is packed to bursting with jokes, thrills and great ideas. Gratifyingly, both jokes and gravitas are provided by all the characters, instead of dividing the cast into earnest straight faces and comic relief. Every fantastic line of dialogue is delivered equally fantastically by a cast that's as eclectic as the sort-of heroes they're playing. Everybody from charmingly dim leading man Chris Pratt, through Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper's absolutely stellar voice work, to masterfully entertaining small roles courtesy of John C Reilly and Karen Gillan - they're all at the top of their game. While everybody is probably of equivalent excellence overall, two performances particularly impressed me - Lee Pace manages to be genuinely threatening as the fanatical villain, despite seemingly being one the most genteel people in existence, and Dave Bautista adds more evidence to the slowly-growing, Dwayne Johnson-sized pile that suggests wrestlers can make surprisingly good actors.

Films are more than their actors, of course, and this can clearly be seen here. James Gunn, the Marvel team and the myriad of special effects experts working on this film have crafted a truly awe-inspiring world, full of epic, spell-binding settings filled with small, inventive touches, such as blades that are controlled by whistling. The depth and wildness of this film's universe puts its other sci-fi competitors to shame. The visuals are beautifully crafted, and all of the special effects - the motion capture, the CGI characters and the bright, ballistic, brilliant action sequences - are phenomenally rendered. One thing that could be said against the film is that it follows a definite formula, but rarely has the formula been played so seamlessly, and with such madcap and charismatic elements. The film's approach to the realities of space isn't exactly accurate, but one expects the script-writers were aware of this, and it's telling that this is the most substantial flaw I can think of. 

Guardians Of The Galaxy is the best film of the year so far, quite possibly the best Marvel film so far, and to put it simply it is an outrageously fun, exciting, joyous experience. The writing, the characters, the acting, the visuals, the soundtrack, the action and the way it ties in to the larger Marvel canon (stick around for a post-credits sequence that should bring a smile to any comic book reader's face) are superb. A lot of us were hoping for it to be a revolutionary game-changer, and it might not be that, but it sets a nigh unreachable benchmark for the rest of the game, and it takes itself wholly seriously without ever letting that lessen the fun or the general insanity. Basically, it's a fucking masterpiece.

'Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes' review by Captain Raptor

'Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes' review by Jake Boyle

2011's Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes was a film that was better than it had any right to be. Despite being a prequel to an already ruined franchise, the groundbreaking motion-capture and strong performances raised it beyond my expectations. The follow-up actually proposed quite a tantalizing prospect - 10 years after the ape-ocalypse, and the two races have to balance conflict with co-operation. Any exploration of morality would hark back nicely to the original, and post-apocalyptic futures not only make great backgrounds for allegories and metaphors, but also generally fill me with excitement.

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes starts off with all the characters in a nice, interesting grey area and slowly and disappointingly moves them all into black-and-white camps. It does attempt to give legitimate motivations for everybody involved, but when half the characters are always choosing the peaceful option and the other half are always opting to go down the violent route, good guys and bad guys become pretty firmly defined. The film's intelligence seems to fade away at intervals, and particularly during the last half an hour or so. There's one great action sequence where the apes charge the human stronghold, and in addition to being thrilling, it points out the senseless and horrific nature of war through showing you far more of the consequences than a conventional blockbuster might (One advantage of using monkeys as characters is that you can show them dying by the dozen and not get in as much trouble, but still provoke a substantial reaction from the audience). However, cut to the end, and (spoiler alert) Caesar killing his opponent after 2 hours of spouting messages of peace and forgiveness is portrayed as a moment of unabashed triumph, and he starts being treated like the monkey messiah.

Andy Serkis' Caesar is still the main event, confidently performed and spectacularly animated. The other apes are just as fancy-looking, but they don't possess much (if any) complexity to their characters. It's completely different human characters this time around, the film pleasingly choosing not to undergo the huge coincidence that would be any of the first film's principle human characters surviving. The opening scene where a fancy graphic shows the spreading of 'simian flu' around the world in tandem with the extinction of the species is both chilling and one of the most strongly atmospheric points of the movie. In terms of the new cast additions themselves, they're all the standard stock post-apocalypse characters - the hero, the scientist who has a miraculous knowledge of every single branch of science and medicine, the leader with grand ambitions, the violent asshole - but Gary Oldman brings his character nicely to life, especially in one wordless scene where he just stares at pictures of his family.

In all honesty, the worst thing about Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes is how good some of it is. It's a perfectly enjoyable blockbuster action flick with occasional flashes of brilliance from its high concept, occasional moral dubiousness and wonderful motion-capture effects. However, the first two of those are inconsistent and somewhat patchily done, so rather than feeling like a more generic film with interesting additions, it's like having something promising dangled in front of your face only to have it whipped away. All things considered, Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes was an enjoyable (if overly prolonged) experience, but it's frustratingly close to being something much better.