Jeff, Who Lives At Home

Jeff, Who Lives At Home
2012
15
Written and directed by Jay and Mark Duplass
Starring Jason Segel as Jeff
              Ed Helms as Pat
              Susan Sarandon as Sharon
       and Judy Greer as Linda












The mumbling indie comedy is a cottage industry in and of itself, and, just as you can rely on an action film following the Bay school of film-making to be filled with explosions and incomprehensibly bad writing, you can rely on a studio like Fox Searchlight to put out at least 5 twee, cutesy, pigeon-toed mumbling comedies per year.  Jeff, Who Lives at Home, as you may have guessed is one of those films.

Jeff (Segel) is a 30 year old pothead living in his mother's basement, drifting through life aimlessly, and living his life by a philosophy derived from the film Signs.  The film actually opens with his description of the events of the film.  It comes across as a little on the nose, and it's not the last time the film could be accused of that.  Anyway, Jeff's mother, Sharon (Sarandon) has tasked Jeff to go and get some wood glue to fix the airing cupboard.  On this pilgrimage, he decides to follow his destiny, centred around the recurring name 'Kevin', and ends up trying to help his brother, Pat (Helms), save his ailing marriage through all manner of mumbling indie mishaps.

I know that I sound like I am being very hard on the film, and that I find the style of it to be a big turn off.  I actually did enjoy watching it, it just didn't feel ambitious in any way.  The Duplass brothers may have constructed a pleasant comedy with likeable characters, but that's the problem.  It doesn't feel like it was created through any real drive or artistic inspiration.  It felt like it was built using a D.I.Y. manual for the sort of films that makor studios love putting out and pretending they were surprise hits when they take off.

The script is quite nice, but wholly predictable.  It doesn't push any boundaries, or challenge any taboos, but it's not the sort of film that sets out to do that either, so it would be unfair for me to punish the film on that basis.  All round, there are really great performances across the board, especially from Ed Helms, who, considering his bread and butter tend to be very broad roles in things like The Office and The Hangover, gives a refreshingly subtle showing here.  Jason Segel and Susan Sarandon also play their roles well, but neither really seems to be pushing themselves.

Which is a good summation for the film, really.  It's nice, and perfectly enjoyable, but it lacks ambition, it's predictable, and it doesn't really linger in the memory for very long either.  And, whilst the film might try to show that it all has a point in the end, it does just come across as twee pointlessness, almost bordering on smugness, especially considering that the film lacks any real feeling of surprise throughout. Enjoyable, but certainly not an essential comedy film.

3.5/5

Dark Shadows

Dark Shadows
2012
12A
Directed by Tim Burton
Story by John August and Seth Grahame-Smith
Screenplay by Seth Grahame-Smith
Starring Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins
              Michelle Pfeiffer as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard
              Helena Bonham Carter as Dr. Julia Hoffman
              Eva Green as Angelique Bouchard







Depp and Burton.  Burton and Depp.  It's a bit like Scorsese and De Niro, if they made one kooky film after another, and didn't really try to make great films that people would remember as classics for years to come. Well, at least, that's what the popular backlash to the pairing would have us believe.

This is the eighth time that Depp has been the lynchpin of a Burton film, and, despite their first two collaborations, Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood being the best films Tim Burton ever directed, their most recent film, Alice In Wonderland, was not a career highlight for either man.  Nevertheless, it was a roaring commercial success, so you would hope that Burton would have used this success, as he normally does, as leverage to make a passion project.  After all, what could be more of a passion project than a film based on a campy soap opera that ended 40 years ago, and was unseen outside the United States?

As it happens, the film turns out to make all the same mistakes that Alice In Wonderland made, and some new ones too.  It's a big, dull, meandering mess, and no amount of pretty colours or dated cultural references can save it.

The story concerns the story of Barnabas Collins, a wealthy young man, and heir to something of a dynasty, if fishing businesses were considered as such.  Anyway, he makes the mistake of breaking the heart of a young witch who fell for him, and so she curses him by killing all of his loved ones, turning him into a vampire, and having him buried in a coffin for 2 centuries.  Campy, gothy melodrama is well and present.  We then cut to the early 1970's and we see a young woman, who looks a lot like the woman Barnabas was in love with, applying to work as a minder, or something to that effect, for the young child currently living in the Collins household, which, for some reason, the family still live in, despite the fact that it seemed that Barnabas was the end of the family line.  Here we see Elizabeth Collins Stoddard and her family, all dysfunctional in variously comic ways.  So that's them established. Through some contrivance, Barnabas is risen from his grave, and rejoins with his family, convincing Elizabeth to pass him off as some sort of European relative who is totally not a vampire.  And I haven't even started to get into all the rubbish that concerns the family fishing business, and how it is circling the bowl, thanks to their rival muscling them out.  The rival company is run by Angelique Bouchard, the witch who cursed Barnabas all those years ago.

Well, where to start?  Grahame-Smith's script is an utter mess.  It spins wildly from terrible dated jokes, to melodrama, to action sequences, with no sense of rhythm or pace.  It really does feel like everything was written the night before, like a series of sketches.  The story and plot are meandering and wildly disjointed, meaning it's quite easy to get lost, in a bad way, in a film that isn't actually very long, but certainly feels lenghtly.

Then there is Burton's direction.  Either he could have reined all the silliness in and went for some level or consistency, or just went with the poorly written script, and went crazy with what he put on screen.  Neither happens.  This doesn't feel like a film that was made, this feels like someone put a huge pile of money into a blender and let it happen.  Burton doesn't conjure up anything interesting that reminds you of the highlights of his career, this actually feels like some jobbing director being told to make a film like Tim Burton, without bothering to see what that actually means.  A director who once was a distinctive voice on Hollywood has just become as formulaic as the things he was a break from, on this evidence. 

Furthermore, for all the craziness, it's just so utterly boring.  I actually drifted to sleep for a five minute segment.  It's filled with expositionary dialogue, scenes with no point or purpose, characters that serve no purpose and are not developed... really not good enough.  Those characters that are developed, are done so poorly that I really didn't care what happened to anyone in the end.  When it isn't boring, it's trying to be funny, and it does a pretty poor job at that too.  At least there is a vague level of competence in making the film melodramatic.  The jokes and comedy scenarios constantly fail to crack the smallest of smiles. 

Also, whoever thought Eva Green should play someone with an American accent should be thown to the wolves.  Her performance is probably the worst element of the film, acting wise, although Chole Grace Moretz is a close second.

What's good?  Well, it's actually looks nice, as you would expect from Bruno Delbonnel, and the performances from Depp and Bonham Carter are altright, although they are hardly stretching themselves.

Overall, it's quite possibly the worst Tim Burton has directed to date.  It's not very funny, not very interesting, not much of anything.  It just happens on the screen, for two hours.  If the idea of comedy sex scenes, nonsensical plot twists and erratic character development float your boat, go right on ahead.  I personally think someone should have driven a stake through this really ill-advised project altogether.

2/5

American Reunion

American Reunion
2012
15
Written and directed by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg
Starring Jason Biggs as Jim Levenstein
              Alyson Hannigan as Michelle
              Chris Klein as Oz
              Thomas Ian Nicholas as Kevin
              Tara Reid as Vicky
              Seann William Scott as Steve Stifler










Ah, the late 90's. Wasn't it all so good then?  So much better, yeah?  Everyone liked better music, there were better films, all the young boys with their erections and frustrations were looking for the 'Lara Croft is naked' cheat.  Such wonderful times.

Such golden age thinking is required to view this film, really.  Ignore the fact that the late-90's, early-00's engendered the 'mediocrity is the new great' attitude.  After all, it's from that time period we were left with the horrible hangovers like Ricky Gervais and Robbie Williams, and it's also from that time period the American Pie series flourished, a film series whose most memorable joke is a teenage boy engaging in intercourse with a pie.

Of course, this is not the first time someone thought it wise to go back to a dried up well.  Despite coming to a natural conclusion with an underwhelming third film, we were still burdened with Scream 4 last year.  That's probably the closest comparison I can make to another needless sequel, both in terms of quality and plot.

As I stated above, if you did not watch the previous films, or don't hanker for that time, this is not the film for you.  It's the cinematic equivalent of a big tub of Hagen-Daaz when you've just been dumped.  Instead of getting on with life, and looking for new options, instead this film wants you to wallow in comfort and nostalgia, and feels like it can get by on this alone.  It can't.

The story concerns all the main characters getting together for a high school reunion, as we see where they all are with their lives.  Jim and Michelle's marriage has become sexless now that they have a child, Oz is a sports commentator, and a celebrity phony, it would seem, Kevin is a house husband, Finch is full of tales about his world travels, and Stifler is a temp working in a firm of some sort.  They are not in the places they imagined they would be, and this comes to light after they all sit and read their yearbook together in a bar.  What a dilemma.

So far, so dull.  And predictable.  You know in the first five minutes what the outcome of the film will be, seeing as it rehashes the plot points of it's predecessors to a tee.  There is not a single deviation from the formula anywhere in the film.

That's not what really gets me though.  What really baffles me is what a lifeless affair it all is.  Not one laugh, in the whole running time.  And 2 hours in a comedy film with no laughs is a very long time.  Nothing feels fresh in the slightest, the jokes rely on pop culture references, both dated and current... it's just really bland.

So bland, in fact, that I cannot be bothered writing any more about it.  Overall, it's inoffensive rubbish, but still rubbish.  If you don't like engaging stories or good jokes in your comedy films, and instead like tired gross-out humour and over-reliance on familiarity with the characters, go for it.  Otherwise, it's a poorly paced waste of time, and a relic that should have stayed where it was.

2/5

Marvel Avengers Assemble

Marvel Avengers Assemble2012
12A
Directed by Joss Whedon
Story by Zak Penn and Joss Whedon
Screenplay by Joss Whedon
Starring: Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man
               Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America
               Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/The Hulk
               Chris Hemsworth as Thor
               Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow




As a boy, I loved reading comics.  I still, do, but it's not quite as magical as it was to me then.  The main reason that I was able to read so well, so early, was almost certainly down to my love of reading any comics I could get my hands on.  Mainly, it would be Batman reprints and 2000AD, with some Spider-Man reprints later on.  I would always remember when a character would refer to an event in a previous issue, or even in another comic altogether, and there would be an asterick, pointing the reader in the direction the story being referred to.  Which, at the time, I found very frustrating.

It was my love of comics that also spawned my love of films, as my absolute favourite film as a three year old by was Tim Burton's Batman.  So I would often dream about the next Batman film, or the possibility of a Spider-Man film, or an X-Men film.  The lineup of the Avengers, however, never really crossed my mind.  Iron Man, Captain America and Thor?  All so second rate!

Well, that was twenty years ago, and now Marvel's The Avengers, or, to give the terrible UK title, Marvel Avengers Assemble is the the big hype of the moment, inescapable in the sheer magnitude of promotion it has recieved.  But for all the sound and fury, there was still good call for concern.  After all, despite Iron Man turning out rather impressive, the subsequent Marvel Studios films, from The Incredible Hulk to Captain America: The First Avenger were all just... okay.  Entertaining, yes, but really quite forgettable, and certainly nothing worth getting overly enthusastic about the concept of all the titular heroes appearing in a film together.  After all, if their solo films felt a padded out and shallow, surely cramming them all together would result in utter disaster?

Surprisingly, it turns out that this is not the case.  Whilst the film is certainly not flawless, it's an unstoppable barrage of action packed entertainment that I have not seen the like of in a long time.  A good way to describe it would be to say 'Like Transformers, but good.'  It's not the most original film, and it certainly takes elements of other big superhero films and chucks them in the blender, but it's done with such a sense of fun and style that it matters quite little.

Having said that, I have two issues with the film, although they are certainly not deal-breakers.  Firstly, the plot is almost skeletal in its weakeness.  In fact, it is not too far removed from the sort of film like Battleship in this regard.  Aliens want to invade the planet, for some reason, and the heroes must come together to save the day.  That is all there is to the story.  Furthermore,  there is not much fleshing out of the characters.  It assumes that the audience has already seen these backstories, and there is no time to go over it again.  Whilst I understand that there was no real room in a film already quite crammed into a long running time, it suffers as a narrative in that respect, and cheapens it as a film to be taken seriously.

However, when I was thinking about these flaws, it was when I discovered that it is, to date, the closest a film has come to capturing the spirit of a US comic book.  Big silly crossovers, big silly fights and explosions, and, when it's written well, bags of fun.

Here is where the film manages to shine, where the last few Marvel adaptations did not.  The writing and direction of Joss Whedon.  Light-hearted without being goofy, action packed without being brainless, the screenplay is perfectly pitched.  He also manages to draw out much better performances from the lead actors than I had expected.  Robert Downey Jr.  looks like he is actually engaging with the film a lot more than he did in Iron Man 2, and, despite arguably being given the short straw in terms of screen time, Chris Hemsworth is just as charming as he was in Thor.  Mark Ruffalo is also a big surprise, and arguably the best portrayal of the Hulk seen in the cinema to date.  The weak links, however, would be Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans.  Despite his feminist politics, Whedon can't find much for Johansson to do apart from have fight scenes and look sexy.  It's a little disappointing when it comes from both an actor and director capable of much more, but that's the problem with it being a 'boy' film, I suppose.  Also, whilst I liked Chris Evans the last time I saw him as Captain America, in this film he comes across as a little unconvincing.  Obviously the character was meant to be a wet blanket, and it's not Evans' fault that his costume looks a little silly, but he just doesn't seem as connected here.

All these complaints, though, are minor quibbles.  Marvel Avengers Assemble is a a grand old time at the cinema, and I don't mean it as a veiled insult.  It's thoroughly entertaining, and, despite lacking in substance for such a long film, it never feels boring or like you wasted your time.  Whilst I certainly don't consider it the best film based on a comic book, I would say it is the best film that evokes the spirit of superhero comic books, and all of their strengths and weaknesses.  Highly recommended.

4.5/5

Battleship - A review

Battleship
2012
12A
Directed by Peter Berg
Written by John and Erich Hoeber
Starring: Taylor Kitsch as Lt. Alex Hopper
               Alexander Skarsgard as Stone Hopper
               Brooklyn Decker as Samantha Shane
               Rihanna as Petty Officer Cora Raikes
               Liam Neeson as Vice Admiral Shane


I blame Pirates of the Caribbean.  A film based on a theme park attraction will naturally lead to adaptations of more terrible ideas.  The Haunted Mansion was an early example of such failure, but it was Paramount who first hit on the idea of making films about toys.  And so, Transformers and GI Joe.  Surely, though, the seam must have been worked dry when it comes to Battleship?  Or are we going to get the long-awaited Hungry Hungry Hippos film next?

Joking aside, a game of Battleship is hardly the sort of thing that lends itself well to a narrative structure in any way.  With the aforementioned Transformers and GI Joe, you at least have heroes and villians to work with. However even with that, those films barely succeeded in telling interesting or coherent tales, so what hope for Battleship?  Especially when it is aiming for the same audience?

The answer to these questions is, it seems, to remake Transformers, whilst bolting on elements of other successful science fiction films.  Whilst there is a very ill-advised scene which seems to just have the heroes of the film playing the game, we mostly get the plot of Independence Day and Armageddon rolled into one, with plenty of cribbing from big book of James Cameron cliches, and even a bit of Pearl Harbour as well.  Whilst I begrudgingly admit that this was probably the best way forward for a film that should not have been made, it certainly does not justify how derivative the whole affair feels.

As you have guessed by now, it's a big, brainless blowout of a film, geared very much towards the sort of people who liked Transformers.  The main problem here is that, whilst Transformers successfully left me not caring about the fate of the world, or being able to tell one big robot apart from another, this film is actually even more faceless and generic than that one was.

The film opens with a satellite trying see into space, as all alien invasion films do, with plenty of ominous foreshadowing.  Then, after it has been decided that we have had enough expostion, we are introduced to the main character of the film, Alex Hopper, the sort of charming but troubled young stud that I had assumed had died out in the cinema by 1995.  After one mischevious scrape too many, his token responsible older brother Stone has him enrolled in the navy alongside himself.  We then flash-forward five years, and Alex seems to have learned nothing, still bucking authority in the navy, and attracting the ire of Vice Admiral Shane, played by Liam Neeson, with all the intensity and strength of a man who needs to pay a tax bill, but doesn't particularly want to.  Of course, Alex also intends to marry Shane's daughter, Samantha.  So far, so familiar.

With the very high chance that the wargames that the Japanese and U.S. Navies are (conveniently) engaging in (Hey, just like the game!) will be Alex's final campaign before he is booted out of the Navy for one altercation too many, the stage is now set for the action.  The above takes up the first 45 minutes or so of the film.  The rest concerns big scary alien ships that come landing in the middle of the wargames, all set on invading the Earth, and seemingly taking no prisoners.  Naturally, it ends up that Alex Hopper and his compatriots in arms are the last hope for humanity, and the spectacle can commence.

If it sounds like a video game, that's not too wide of the mark.  Product placements, glorified excuses to show off potential toys, and guns 'n' bombs galore.  As you would expect, it's not really an actor's film.  Taylor Kitsch is the lead, and serves his purpose, but doesn't linger in the memory.  All the other main leads just stand around, making dramatic poses and looking attractive, and Liam Neeson pretends to be a grizzled veteran, but really, he just can't be bothered.

Peter Berg is in the director's chair, with his last film probably being his best known, Hancock, and phones in another lazy, visually unappealing and all round sub-standard job.  The odd part is that, through dull direction and a plodding pace, he was able to take an interesting idea such as Hancock, and drag it down into inescapable mediocrity, even with talented lead actors.  Yet, with a terrible idea and, on the whole, uninteresting actors, he is able to make what should be a truly atrocious film into something that is simply only slightly rubbish.

If you are looking for action and well done visual effects, I guess you will probably enjoy it.  The action beats are entirely predictable, but still staged with a degree of competence, and overall it can be sat through without too much discomfort.  It certainly whips through at a brisk pace, and I was actually very surprised to learn it was over 2 hours long, so that is a minor plus.  Overall though, not a film I particularly enjoyed or would recommend to anyone who enjoys things that are aimed at those over the age of 12.

2/5