'Still Alice' review by Captain Raptor

'Still Alice' review by Jake Boyle

During the filming of Troy, Brad Pitt tore his Achilles tendon while playing the very character that the tissue was named after. Most instances of life imitating art are mildly amusing anecdotes like that, but occasionally they're a little more painful. While co-writing and co-directing a movie about Alzheimer's with his husband, Richard Glatzer contracted a degenerative disease of his own. His final movie talks deeply about the effects that conditions like this have on the individual and their loved ones, a sadly fitting departure from a man no longer with us.

Out of tragedy, however, comes triumph. Still Alice takes a delicate, understated approach to its subject matter and very rarely (if ever) makes attempts at overtly melancholic moments, and the tenderness of the disease's presentation feels deeply personal. While perhaps skimming over some of the realities of the problem, this does allow for incredible moments of drama from very small touches. At one point, Alice knocks over a stack of papers and its a genuinely nerve-racking moment of tension. The occasional appearance of lines such as "my brain is fucking dying" and "I wish I had cancer" feel like punches to the stomach, and they work fantastically, but drama is mainly created through a very slow-burning process. The worsening of Alice's condition is made very clear without being transparent about it, and Glatzer and Westmoreland use dramatic irony very effectively in the early scenes to make the audience wince. The pacing in general is incredible; Alice becomes practically unreconcilable to her former self but at no step along the way does the transition feel rushed, and neither is too long spent on one phase of her decline.

Of course, this complete transformation of character is only made possible through Julianne Moore's utterly remarkable performance. Her excellence in this role is the most widely known thing about Still Alice, and rightly so - the conveying of so much intensity and emotion whilst outwardly being downplayed and restrained is testament to Moore's impeccable confidence and skill. More subdued commendations are also in order for the supporting cast; Alec Baldwin is entirely convincing and provides strong support, and while Kristen Stewart's gestures occasionally slide into the robotic, unnatural style of body language she's oh so frequently accused of having, for the most part she gives a well-delivered and stirring performance. However, it's Moore's show front and centre, both because of how excellently she acts and because the rest of the characters really only exist to show us things about Alice. The film's tackling of Alzheimer's is nuanced and moving (although much more the latter than the former), but aside from one or two side dalliances about her daughter's acting career, there's no secondary plotlines or asides throughout the film.

Really, the only negative thing there is to say about Still Alice is that it isn't excellent. Overall it's a pretty great film that does everything to a very high standard, but as good as it is, there's nothing here that's exemplary or especially innovative. That's a fairly weak criticism, however, and not changing the entire landscape of film is obviously not a damnation. The praise piled upon Moore is entirely deserved, but what I found more captivating was not the portrayal Alice herself but the portrayal of Alice's disease. It's done intelligently, subtly, realistically yet still creates an optimum sense of regret and trepidation. The underplayed, relatively undramatic conclusion (which comes indirectly after two more climactic, heightened scenes that would be more obvious final scenes, but trite ways to end a narrative) best exemplifies this film's qualities - quiet, simple yet incredibly upsetting.

'Life After Beth' review by Captain Raptor

'Life After Beth' review by Jake Boyle

Zombies are the ultimate example of having too much of a good thing. More often than not it feels like they're being used as the sole ingredient of entertainment, a sort of Get Out Of Boredom Free card. It's remarkable that in the ten-and-a-half years since Shaun Of The Dead, supplanting zombies into more mundane situations has moved from an exciting new take to utterly uninspired. For every Death Valley, it feels like there's a dozen versions of the BBC's woeful I Survived A Zombie Apocalypse. 

Life After Beth moves around this by not really featuring much actual zombie-ing until over halfway through. It doesn't move it to anywhere funny, though, and eventually the whole charade just gets boring. The film is distinguished by this habit of making interesting albeit ultimately ineffective choices: the aura of creepiness from Dane DeHaan's protagonist is a nice departure from slacker everymen, but it's never really used to enhance the proceedings and only serves to make him significantly less likeable. The tone severely wavers between darkness and silliness, without ever really embracing either aspect for long enough to make something of it. There's probably good jokes to be made about burning corpses, and equally good ones about zombies liking smooth jazz, but the concepts are just brought up and left alone with no real attempts at constructing humour out of them. Aubrey Plaza's deadpan delivery can be phenomenally funny when paired with the right script, but when heard here it just sounds like she's as uninterested as the audience.

Life After Beth's most redeeming feature is Matthew Gray Gubler, mostly because his character's humour is derived from the ever-reliable 'being an asshole' variety of comedy, but his performance does seem a little more spirited than the others. By not asking us to feel much sympathy for him, he immediately becomes the most entertaining character, because everybody else in this movie is both so bland and so morally grey (and not in a complex way) that there's no real urge to give a damn about any of their dilemmas. Certain elements seem irrelevant altogether; delighted as I am to see Anna Kendrick in anything, her character adds absolutely nothing to proceedings, and one closing moment featuring her character threatens to completely overturn any dwindling sense of inventiveness and emotion that the film had clung on to. It's a scene that attempts to be sweet and optimistic but feels utterly forced, completely pointless and devalues any of the investment someone might have (hypothetically) had in the main characters. 

Save for a few amusing moments and some encouraging but fruitless methods of presenting characters, this is just a poor movie. A weak script, unsure direction and a basic lack of comedy are major problems that can't really be overcome by any film, let alone one with as many other flaws as Life After Beth. It's analogous to a zombie itself; lifeless, grey and limp, but still just about crawling along. There are worse films out there (and equally bad ones that are much longer), but this is something that should only really be watched in circumstances of extreme boredom. Hard to believe it may be, but quite seriously, one of the funniest things about this comedy is that stupid title.

'Chappie' review by Captain Raptor

'Chappie' review by Jake Boyle

Neill Blomkamp is, on aggregate, a good filmmaker, having created one modern classic and one waste of time. District 9's genius was so great that it made the flaws of similarly aspiring Elysium all the more obvious, so taking things in a different, lighter direction for a third film makes sense - although perhaps at the same time a little disheartening, Blomkamp being one of the few directors in science-fiction who still retains the genre's original socio-political colouring. 

Chappie is handicapped by an error so colossal that I can't be sure that anything else wrong with the film isn't just a ripple effect. Somewhere along the line, somebody decided it would be funny to have the unbelievably appalling rap duo Die Antwoord play themselves as two of the main characters. To fully discuss how disastrous, woeful, awful, deplorable and misjudged this is would require a review longer than War & Peace. They show as meagre a capability for acting as they do for music and basic human decency, and anything coming out of their mouths doesn't even have the semblance of any real human being, let alone a modicum of emotion. Further dragging down the tone is a script packed with dialogue very overtly explaining things that were painfully obvious, often because they'd already been said three or four times. The concept itself is interesting but it's significantly marred by the constant reiteration of basic information and things that really go without saying.

It's a shame that so much went wrong because Chappie himself is an absolute delight. His inhuman naivety makes him an appealing cute character, and the few jokes of the film that stick exploit this to the max, contrasting his good-natured enthusiasm with the street crime he gets tricked into committing.  The design and seamless CGI nicely brings the character to life, and the always brilliant Sharlto Copley perfectly embodies the character even while mostly restricted to posture and inflections. The rest of the characters aren't developed enough to really provide the other actors with much opportunity, but Dev Patel is convincing and likable in his role as the nebbish engineer/father figure, and Hugh Jackman seems to relish the opportunity to play such an obnoxious character, even if his level of evil seems to ricochet up and down as the plot demands it. 

'Lucy' review by Captain Raptor

'Lucy' review by Jake Boyle

Lucy received a fairly hostile reception upon its initial release, mostly based upon its portrayal of Asians and the now widely known to be bullshit 'you only use 10% of your brain' factoid. While the former of these criticisms makes perfect sense, in a world of superhero films that bear as much resemblance to scientific reality as climate change deniers, quite why this particular film's erroneous logic was a sticking point isn't clear to me, but we'll bypass that.

It's an easily forgiveable error because it's indicative of the genuine effort that's been made to make Lucy more intuitive and dramatic than its competitors. This particular example, aiming to achieve those qualities by grounding the film in a sense of authenticity, failed pretty miserably, but decisions made by Luc Besson such as splicing in footage of animals as (very blatant) symbolism do give the overall experience an edge of smarter drama and even thoughtfulness. I particularly enjoyed the film's steady descent into madness; starting off with some very tense scenes where 90% of the dialogue is unsubtitled Mandarin that makes the audience feel Lucy's bewilderment and trepidation, the film then journeys through superpowered beat 'em up and into existential thrillseeking before an ending that's so gloriously insane it defies description. It's all nonsense, obviously, but a refreshingly ambitious brand of nonsense. 

Scarlett Johansson's game performance anchors the film, and she comfortably does whatever's needed of her. Julian Rhind-Tutt's single scene is a particular treat, delightfully chewing the scenery as a villainous character far more entertaining than the primary antagonist. These characters are fun because they possess the silliness and energy that drives the film, something that the other characters sorely lack: Morgan Freeman appears in yet another film where nobody asks him to act and instead just spouts rhetoric about Besson's chosen themes, and Amr Waked's lifeless cop only exists so that Lucy has a reason to explain what's going on to the audience via proxy. Once the initial plot's served its purpose and the action sequences begin, the film quickly encounters the Superman problem wherein there's never any real sense of threat or danger because Lucy's newfound abilities are so overpowering. The obvious inferiority of her enemies is played nicely a few times for comic effect, but it quickly loses any impact to see her so easily overwhelm generic henchmen.

Lucy isn't by any measure a spectacular or eye-opening affair, but it's a highly fun, diverting piece of cinema. It's leaner and wiser than the average modern action movie, wisely sticking to a compact running time and injecting little doses of exploratory sci-fi or out-of-the-box thinking that don't make the film much smarter or adventurous but do give it just a little bit of extra flavour. It's definitely a flawed piece of cinema, but not to the extent that viewing it wasn't enjoyable, and the film is strong enough to stand up under the weight of its own absurdity. 

'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