Based on Robert Graysmith's book The Murder of Bob Crane, Auto Focus is one of director Paul Schrader's finest works. Similar to the likes of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, which were written by Schrader, the film is a rather depressing yet insightful portrait of a man's oblivious decent into self-destruction, whose actions end up isolating everybody around them. Crane was best known for the successful sitcom Hogan's Heroes which, after getting past initial criticism for its World War II POW camp setting, made the former DJ into one of the most recognisable faces in America. On the surface, Crane was a clean-cut, church-going Republican, but his private life was laced with many sordid secrets, many of which only became public knowledge after he was bludgeoned to death in his bed in 1978.
Crane's fame attracted the attention of many women and hangers-on. The most notable of his new acquaintances was John Carpenter, here played by Willem Dafoe, the self-proclaimed technician to the stars who boasts of carrying out stereo installation work for the likes of Elvis Presley. Carpenter, or 'Carpy', was drawn to the ease with which the family man attracted the opposite sex, and Crane at first seems rather taken aback by all the females now throwing themselves at him. With Carpy's encouragement, Crane starts to indulge in a fantasy life, one full of alcohol, orgies and video cameras. He gets a taste for the life, and it soon begins to consume him. It never becomes clear whether the pair get a kick out of the sex itself, or recording it to watch back later. Their motto is "a day without sex is a day wasted," and Crane seeks it out at every opportunity, gaining a reputation amongst his peers despite warnings from his agent (Ron Leibman) that his actions may have a devastating effect on his career.
His career happened to nosedive once Hogan's Heroes ended anyway, but that didn't slow him down. Openly flaunting graphic photographs of his adventures to anybody who looks his way, Crane is the very definition of oblivious. He defends his hobby as perfectly normal, and the film suggests that he probably remained unaware of his casual creepiness up until the moment of his murder. As Crane, Greg Kinnear manages to bring a complexity and subtlety to the role despite the relative simplicity of the character, and his Hogan impression is spot-on. Seemingly always by his side, Carpenter is a sleazy, cloying and unnervingly clingy presence, and Willem Dafoe is precisely the man you would want in the role. Their friendship bristles with a strange homosexual tension, with Crane constantly talking down to his friend, becoming agitated when he spots Carpy's wandering hand while viewing one of their many orgies. Perhaps the saddest scene shows the two casually masturbating in front of each other without halting their everyday conversation, revealing a man whose addiction has completely engulfed him. It's a very sad story indeed, and it's all brought vividly to life by Schrader and his two stars.
By the time Greg Motolla's Superbad hit cinema screen back in 2007, it felt like this story of two high school boys looking to acquire booze in the hope of scoring with some hot chicks had arrived almost a decade too late. The teen sex comedy craze kicked off by American Pie in 1999 had finally fizzled out, and comedy was giving way to the man-child humour of Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell. Yet like Knocked Up did for the romantic comedy the same year (the two films share many of the same cast and crew members), Superbad digs deep and finds genuine heart as its main characters go to increasingly desperate lengths to finally get laid. This may be because screenwriters Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg had been writing the film since they were teenagers, and the film is clearly based on their experiences (the two central characters are even named Seth and Evan). The dialogue is often so vulgar it makes you wince, but it also offers an insight into what it's like growing up these days. With all the knowledge on offer for these youngsters, the pressure is more about how well they will perform than simply doing the deed.
Seth (Jonah Hill) is a chubby, curly-haired teen whose lowly position on the school coolness hierarchy doesn't stop him from running his mouth about practically everything. He talks to his best friend Evan (Michael Cera) not only about watching porn, but everything from which websites he's considering paying for and all the crazy shit they offer. Evan is more softly-spoken and ethical, preferring to respect women (mainly the girl he's got the hots for) while Seth wails about the sex he could be getting. Like many best friends, they share little in common other than their lack of other friends, but have spent so much time together they've become inseparable. They do have another friend: the small, bespectacled Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who is so unpopular that even Seth and Evan don't particularly like him. Today, however, he is their saviour. Fogell has purchased a fake ID that lists him as an organ donor from Hawaii named McLovin, and the trio manage to bag an invite to party, only they are given the task of buying all the booze. The questionable fake ID and Fogell's youthful appearance aren't the only problems standing in their way, as a brush with two police officers (played by Seth Rogen and Bill Hader) sends their night spinning out of control.
Motolla occasionally moves away from the wittiness of the teenagers' word play in favour of slapstick, and these moments don't so much as raise a titter. Seth gets his by a car, and the two police officers (who look like they've wandered in from a different movie) chase an old drunken guy through a bar while fumbling with their weapons. Thankfully, these moments are brief, as Superbad is undoubtedly at its best when focusing on the awkward smaller moments of teenage life. Often they are so nervous they look away or answer a question that hasn't been asked, and when they finally get the nerve to talk, it all comes out as near-incomprehensible gibberish. If you were a nervous teenager of questionable popularity, these scenes will likely strike an uncomfortable, but hilarious, chord. When the bedroom antics finally arrive, they are either a complete disaster or, in Evan's case, events take a surprisingly mature turn. They don't quite know what they want romantically and the movie isn't interesting in exploring it, as the main love story here is between Seth and Evan themselves. Yes, there are shades of homoeroticism in their relationship (with the two heading to different schools, and the fact that Evan is to live with Fogell, it feels like a romantic break-up), but their friendship goes far deeper. Superbad is one of the funniest films of the last twenty years, and somehow one of the most touching.
James Whale's The Old Dark House had a somewhat troubled journey from box-office disappointment to modern re-discovery. After the success of Frankenstein in 1931, Universal Studios brought screenwriter Benn W. Levy - who had worked with Whale on Waterloo Bridge - over from Britain to work on adapting J.B. Priestley's novel Benighted. The result was The Old Dark House, a gothic horror with added levels of comedy that opened to positive reviews, although negative word-of-mouth for audiences led to underwhelming box-office takings in the U.S. It fared better in Britain, but the damage was already done, and The Old Dark House was locked away in Universal's vaults for decades. The negatives lay there for so long that it was considered a lost film, until William Castle's 1963 remake reignited interest in the film and Whale's friend Curtis Harrington pestered Universal until the original reel was found. It was in a terrible state of decay, but a restoration was funded and the rest is history.
When The Old Dark House finally saw the light of day again, horror fans rejoiced, although I doubt the film was anything like they had imagined. Running at just over an hour in length and with little to truly raise the goosebumps, Whale's gothic tale of a bunch of stranded travellers is a true oddity indeed. Husband and wife Philip (Raymond Massey) and Margaret Waverton (Gloria Stuart), along with their friend Roger Penderel (Melvyn Douglas), are driving in the Welsh countryside during a dangerously heavy storm. As landslides and a waterlogged road start to make their journey impossible, they stop at the first house they see: the old, dark house of the title. At the door, they are greeted by the building's most terrifying resident, the grunting, hulking servant Morgan (Boris Karloff). Nevertheless, they seek a bed, or even a chair, to rest for the night. They are welcomed by the gaunt and timid Horace Femm (Ernest Thesiger), but are met with steeliness by his sister Rebecca (Eva Moore), who is keen to hound the group with warnings of sin and 'pleasures of the flesh'. The Femms are clearly a strange clan, but they aren't the only Femms in the house, and when Morgan gets his hands on a bottle of booze, the party are in for an interesting night.
What The Old Dark House lacks in genuine frights and thrills is countered by an abundance of thick gothic atmosphere. In fact, the film works much better as an off-kilter comedy than it does as anything resembling what you would normally expect of a 1930's Universal production. Things perk up as the Femm's household is called upon by two more weary travellers, the buoyant businessman Sir William Porterhouse (Charles Laughton in his first Hollywood film) and chorus girl Gladys (a lovely Lilian Bond). Laughton threatens to swallow up any scene he appears in, but his presence adds a layer of amusement as events get even weirder. As Roger and Gladys embark on a somewhat strange love affair (one would assume Gladys and William are an item since they arrived together), the film takes on a romantic angle that feels neither forced nor unnecessary. Whale somehow manages to balance all these elements while maintaining the mystery of the Femm household, teasing the presence of something all the more sinister and dark locked away upstairs. Whale gently lampoons the genre without making a mockery out of it, and The Old Dark House can even be interpreted as one of the very first spoofs. Karloff impresses in a physical role not too different from his Frankenstein's monster, receiving top billing for his efforts. But this is very much an ensemble effort, and the cast gel together to create one of the most original horrors of its day, and a real treat for buffs of the genre.
The buddy-action-comedy movie was born in the cocaine-pumped 1980s, and should have been put to rest for good when they stopped being funny around the time Lethal Weapon 4 was released in 1998. But when you take two bankable stars and place them together side-by-side, studios cannot resist the pull of the buddy movie. What they don't realise however, is that the sub-genre is very tricky indeed, and the only good example in recent years that springs immediately to mind was helmed by the guy who really kicked the whole thing off - Shane Black's The Nice Guys. I'm sure there are others, but these films are mainly lazily-written and clumsily-plotted, mainly because it's easy to make money from them as long as you have two likeable stars to splash across the poster. Central Intelligence is one such movie that leans too heavily on the charisma of its leads - Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson - failing to make the most of what is actually an intriguing premise.
Back in high school, Calvin Joyner (Hart) was an all-star athlete, homecoming king, and all-round decent fella. Fast forward twenty years and he is working as a forensic accountant, watching the youngster he once schooled get promoted above him and having it all rubbed in his face by the obligatory office douchebag. Out of the blue, he is contacted via Facebook by somebody named Bob Stone, and Calvin curiously accepts his friend request. Bob turns out to be Robbie Weirdicht (Johnson), the once-chubby kid who was humiliated in high school when he was thrown buck-naked into an assembly hall during Calvin's honorary speech. Robbie, however, has grown up to be The Rock and is now tall, muscular and confident, although he is still goofy. He loves unicorns and fanny packs, and worships Calvin ever since the most popular guy in school was the only one to feel sympathy for Robbie by handing him his sports jacket to cover up. They meet for drinks and have a good time, but when the CIA come knocking on Calvin's door the next day, it becomes clear that Bob isn't everything he appeared to be, and may in fact want Calvin's help with tracking down a shadowy criminal known as the Black Badger.
There are some darker, more interesting paths director Rawson Marshall Thurber (Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, We're the Millers) could choose to explore here, but Central Intelligence turns out to be the very definition of formulaic. It actually stars off well, with Hart and Johnson proving to be a highly watchable pair who share great chemistry, and both actors playing against type. When the shaky, poorly choreographed action sequences kick off, they fall back into familiar routines, with Johnson effortlessly disposing of bad guys and Hart shrieking as chaos ensues around him. The comedy becomes uncomfortably forced, and proves that improvisation isn't as easy to direct as Hollywood seems to believe it to be. Someone like Larry Charles or Adam McKay would have likely made much more out of this, but in Thurber's hands the tone shifts wildly, and the actors' energy levels change vastly from one scene to the next. The likes of Amy Ryan and Jason Bateman are wasted in forgettable roles, and as soon as you see who plays Bob's former partner via flashback (there's a sub-plot questioning Bob's mental stability and ultimate goal), you'll likely unravel what little mystery the film flirts with. Hart and Johnson won't be harmed by this, as they simply aren't the problem here. The problem is the flat direction, tiresome plot and unforgivably boring action scenes.
Sean Baker made his mark in 2015 with Tangerine, a comedy-drama about a transgender prostitute searching for their pimp in Hollywood. Originally it was lauded for being filmed on three iPhone 5s, but Tangerine eventually emerged as a powerful piece of work that gave a voice to a group of characters typically marginalised by society, and in a setting usually reserved for a more glamorous story. Baker continues his terrific work with his follow-up, The Florida Project, and although it boasts the presence of a famous face in Willem Dafoe, the writer/director has lost none of his social insight and gift for squeezing fantastic performances from an otherwise unknown cast. The setting is Florida, just outside of Disney World, where the struggles of the residents of a rather grim motel called the Magic Castle are in stark contrast to the paying tourists just across the road.
While many filmmakers would lean heavily on this metaphor, Baker has too much interest in his characters to make a big deal out of it. His main concerns lie with Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), a fierce little six-year old who, along with her neighbour friends Scooty (Christopher Rivera) and Jancey (Valeria Cotto), turn the areas surrounding the motel into their very own magic kingdom. They convince strangers to hand them money for ice-cream, beg for free waffles, and are generally a nuisance to everybody, especially motel manager Bobby (Dafoe). When we first meet the children, they are covering a neighbour's car with spit, but are soon made to clean up after themselves when the owner catches them in the act. It's rather disgusting to watch, but that's kids for you. Baker doesn't concern himself with weaning out sympathy for his characters, but simply wants to give them a voice. The Florida Project is light on plot but rich in drama. It feels as though any situation can combust at any moment, and this literally becomes the case when the gang come across an abandoned housing project.
Much of this sense of unease stems from Moonee's mother Halley (Bria Vinaite), who has recently lost her job and is forced to resort to more desperate measures to feed herself and her child. She is far from a great mother, or even a nice person, regularly taking advantage of Bobby's forgiving nature as she fails to meet rent deadlines and verbally abusing anybody who questions her. Simply telling it like it is is Baker's priority, and part of what makes The Florida Project so powerful is trying to piece together the path that led these characters to where they are, and how and why society allowed it. However, despite the heavy themes the film explores, this isn't the grey bleakness of Ken Loach. Cinematographer Alexis Zabe is always seeking the brightest part of the frame, whether it be Florida's sunny urban wilderness or a dimly-lit motel room. It makes for a surprisingly joyous experience, and this is helped to a great degree by the performances. Dafoe gives one of the best performances of his career, but its the unknowns who truly impress. Vinaite, who Baker found on social media, stomps her way through the film like a force of nature, and Brooklynn Prince is a truly astonishing find. It's further proof of Baker's keen eye, and it'll be interesting to see where he goes next.
With Sleeping Dogs, director Roger Donaldson near enough single-handedly cemented New Zealand's place on the cinematic map. It was, at the time, the biggest box-office hit the country had seen, and also boasted what is only the second big-screen appearance by Sam Neill. With Ozplotation in full swing just across the water, Sleeping Dogs kicked off a New Wave in New Zealand, with the likes of Donaldson's Smash Palace and Vincent Ward's Vigil following in the subsequent years. The film is odd and off-kilter, but never less than fascinating. Donaldson clearly looked at Adolf Hitler's own rise to power in post-World War I Germany for inspiration, as he depicts a New Zealand of the near future falling foul of a rising dictatorship who are eager to hunt down anybody they believe could belong to a growing band of freedom fighters. It all starts with television reports of fuel strikes across the country, and quickly spirals out of control from there.
The report is being watched by Smith (Neill) as his children write him goodbye letters and his wife sobs in the kitchen. He is the victim of infidelity, so decides to pack up and live off the grid for a while, but not before his wife's new lover Bullen (Ian Mune) arrives before he has even left the house. He spots an island on the Coromandel peninsula, arranging with the Maori owners to live out there untroubled, even exchanging his expensive car for their rusty old boat. He fishes, listens to the radio, and befriends the locals nearby, but his idyllic existence is soon interrupted when the government goes into full crackdown mode, arresting anybody on suspicion of assisting the revolution. He is taken in by the police to be interrogated and tortured, and likely sentenced to death. Seeing no other alternative, Smith takes his chance and escapes his captors, fleeing to a quiet camping ground where he meets a nice local girl. Smith is no guerilla revolutionary and is quite happy to live in ignorant bliss, but when US Army Colonel Willoughby (Warren Oates) arrives with more on his mind than policing the country, it becomes clear that Smith's destiny lies with the uprising, whether he likes it or not.
Donaldson deliberately holds back certain pieces of information to keep the goings-on away from Smith a mystery, making Sleeping Dogs a rather frustrating experience. But frustrating isn't always bad, and here the loose, drifting storyline gives the film a unique style and atmosphere. You're never quite sure where the story will go next, and when Warren Oates arrives with a smile and willingness to party, there's a disorientating sense of unease as the beads of sweat drip off his quivering moustache. Cinematographer Michael Seresin, who would go on to work on the likes of Midnight Express, Angel Heart and the third Harry Potter, captures the country beautifully, imbuing the scenery with a sense of beauty and peace one minute, and a sense of terror the next. It all sounds a bit George Orwell, but it really isn't. It's actually much stranger than that, and has a rich vein of humour throughout, usually stemming from Smith's frustration as he unwillingly grows into a revolutionary leader. In many ways, it mirrors Gary Bond's experience trapped in the small, violent town of Ted Kotcheff's masterpiece Wake in Fright, only with less booze, more humour, and some bizarre turns along the way.
For his debut film, 2015's Bone Tomahawk, writer, director and composer S. Craig Zahler delivered one of the most unforgettable films of the year. As it begins, Bone Tomahawk seems to be a familiar men-on-a-rescue-mission movie set in the Old West, with four vastly different personalities set up to clash on the way. If you've seen it, you'll know that the western tropes soon give way to something all the more horrifying and tense, before descending into a horrific gore-fest at the climax. It was one of the best films of 2015, and Zahler once again rummages around in the genre sack for his follow-up, Brawl in Cell Block 99, another unpredictable and incredibly violent genre-bender that seems to take much of its inspiration from the grindhouse films of the 1970s, both visually and tonally. It also features a career-best performance from a monstrous Vince Vaughn.
Bradley (Vaughn) is an ex-con and former drug addict earning an honest living at an auto-repair shop. When the state of the American economy ensures that his services are no longer required, the imposing giant returns home to the revelation that his wife Lauren (Jennifer Carpenter) has been having an affair for the past 3 months. Bradley deals with the situation calmly, informing his wife that he is to return to his drug-dealing roots to earn the cash required for a fresh start, but not before tearing her car apart with his bare hands. Fast forward 18 months later, and Bradley is still peddling drugs, getting involved with a Mexican gang and a couple of their idiot enforcers. When a deal goes horribly wrong, Bradley is sent to the slammer to serve a hefty 7 year sentence, but the cartel aren't quite done with him. In order to repay his debt for the lost property, he must carry out a hit under the orders of Euro-sleaze 'the Placid Man' (who else but Udo Kier?), otherwise a surgeon will remove the limbs of his unborn child and ensure that it lives on to be deformed. With his target in Cell Block 99, a maximum security prison ran by the sadistic Warden Tuggs (Don Johnson), Bradley must brutalise his way through the system until he is close enough to carry out the hit.
Brawl in Cell Block 99 begins as a slow-paced crime drama, establishing Bradley as a wall of strength when taking care of business, before moving on into wince-inducing, bone-cracking, head-stomping B-movie territory. It maintains an atmosphere of tension throughout, with each scene carrying a sense of dread and an expectancy that violence could erupt at any second. At the centre of it all is Vaughn, who laces the character with a dry wit and a simmering rage. He has no desire to hurt people without reason, so often turns his rage elsewhere. His first few minutes within a jail cell is spent looking for something, anything, to smash. But hurting people is what he does best, and he thumps, stomps and breaks his way through anyone foolish enough to stand between him and his quest to save his family. In many ways, the explosions of violence and gore mirror the second half of Bone Tomahawk, and while we may not understand why, it feels utterly exhilarating while we watch on between our fingers. Itseems to have flown under many people's radar, somewhat unfairly, but cult adoration will surely come. It further cements Zahler's reputation as a filmmaker to keep an eye on, and while his second feature could certainly do with a 15 minute trim, Brawl in Cell Block 99 explores the nature of rage with ferocious and unflinching execution.
Just like their main rival Hammer Films, British production company Amicus Productions was attempting to conquer the lucrative horror market in the 1960s and 70s. While Hammer found success with their literary properties such as Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolf Man, Amicus found a niche in portmanteau films; anthology tales containing multiple stories, with each featuring one of the hapless chumps gathered together for the opening scenes. The first was Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, directed by Freddie Francis and starring Peter Cushing, and Terror's moderate success led to Torture Garden, with both director and star returning. We open at a fairground sideshow, where showman Dr. Diablo (Burgess Meredith) is inviting customers into his tent for some cheap thrills. When the group fail to be impressed by Diablo's shtick, he dares them behind the curtain where more terrifying revelations await them. It will cost them an extra five bob though.
Naturally, the group's curiosity gets the better of them, and they proceed behind the curtain. Awaiting them is a motionless fortune teller (Clytie Jessop) holding a pair of shears. Stare into the shears, Diablo tells them, and their destiny will appear before them. First up is Colin (Michael Bryant), who holds back his rich uncle's (Maurice Denham) medicine as he lays dying in the hope of finding out where his dough is hidden. The uncle dies however, so Colin searches for the loot. What he stumbles upon is a demonic cat who demands murder in exchange for gold coins. Next is Carla (Beverly Adams), a Hollywood up-and-comer who steals her best friend's date for the night, and winds up at the table of big time producer Eddie Storm (John Phillips) and heartthrob actor Bruce Benton (Robert Hutton). Benton has been around for years but hasn't seemed to have aged a day. She soon discovers his secret and the reason why stars of the silver screen maintain their youthful beauty. The third story, seen through the eyes of Dorothy (Barbara Ewing), tells of her doomed romance with concert pianist Leo (John Standing), and how their relationship comes under threat when Leo's piano becomes jealous with murderous rage.
Torture Garden saves the best story for last, and features two screen heavyweights in Jack Palance and Peter Cushing. In The Man Who Collected Poe, Palance plays Poe enthusiast Ronald, who visits renowned Poe collector and the possessor of the greatest screen name ever, Lancelot Canning. Canning has collected everything from the great writer's possessions to his actual manuscripts, but Ronald notices that some of these unpublished writings have been scribbled on 1966 paper. Like all anthology films, some stories work better than others. The first three segments range from passable to downright terrible, with the third part, Mr. Steinway, proving the most ridiculous and forgettable. Amicus would go on to make more, such as The House That Dripped Blood, Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror, and Torture Garden may just be the most disposable of the bunch. It's worth seeing for Palance and Cushing trying to out-ham each other in what is the only truly engrossing story of the bunch, and Burgess Meredith has fun in what is essentially a re-hash of his Penguin character from the Adam West Batman television series. As a complete film, it's both too camp to be scary and not camp enough to be charming.
Although much of Kenji Mizoguchi's early work is now lost, the Japanese director is regarded as one of the country's finest thanks mainly to a handful of films made in the 1950s, many of which are considered masterpieces. The likes of Ugetsu Monogatari, Sansho the Bailiff and Street of Shame will no doubt be known to anyone with a keen interest in cinema, but none have the same lasting impression as The Life of Oharu, Mizoguchi's tale of one woman's plight in 1600's Japan. He was considered one of the first feminist directors, and much of his life was spent writing about their mistreatment at the hands of a matriarchal society rooted in class tradition. He was also known for frequenting brothels, but rather than paying for their services, Mizoguchi would instead listen to their stories. We meet Oharu (Kinuyo Tanaka) as a middle-aged prostitute, spending her nights by the city's gates begging or trying to sell her body to drunken wanderers.
She tells her friends how earlier that night an older man had brought her to a home full of young men, displaying her ageing face to the group as a way to convince them not to pay for prostitutes. They ask Oharu about her past, but she doesn't want to talk about it. Visiting a Buddhist temple, she notices that one of the statutes of Buddha bares a striking resemblance to her one and only love, a lowly retainer named Katsunosuke (Toshiro Mifune). Decades earlier, Oharu was a woman of high station, and shunned the advances of the young page simply because society wouldn't allow it. She could not resist true love however, and the two are eventually caught. While he is sent to the chopping block, Oharu's family are stripped of their status and forced to live out in the country. Her father (Ichiro Sugai) blames Oharu, but his attitude changes when she is chosen to produce the heir of Lord Matsudaira (Toshiaki Konoe). However, she is banished after giving birth to a boy to return to a family who will soon sell her into prostitution.
What transpires is a series of cruel punishments inflicted on our protagonist, and tragedy is born out of the fact that Oharu makes few of her own choices. There seems to be no place for true love in this society, something that still effects many countries today. A system seems to be in place that deflects the blame from the men who usher Oharu into these positions. She eventually serves as a maid, but loses her post when she is recognised from her days as a prostitute, and is even turned away from becoming a nun because of her 'sinful' past. The plot may sound like pure melodrama, but Mizoguchi is careful to avoid using broad strokes or losing focus of the larger picture. The camera is mostly still and precise, and also keeps its distance. Mizoguchi isn't interested in grand emotive close-ups - he wants you to see the whole picture as Oharu is shoved through her life like a puppet of little value. Most of us have gone through our lives making choices based on our core values, having the opportunity to stand up against anything that may threaten our moral code. The Life of Oharu is about a character completely stripped of this freedom, and her strength to bend rather than break. It's incredibly bleak stuff, but a masterpiece of measured character study.
After the fate-of-the-universe shenanigans of Avengers: Infinity War just three months ago (two months if you live in a country where football isn't that popular), Marvel's twentieth entry into their unstoppable cinematic universe, or MCU, understandably plays the role of palette-cleanser. Infinity War included every Marvel superhero so far, except Hawkeye, and while we still await a solo outing for nobody's favourite Avenger, Ant-Man - who was also absent from the cosmic battle against Thanos - is back for a sequel. The first Ant-Man somehow survived the loss of director Edgar Wright and emerged as a lighter, smaller-scale branch of the ever-expanding MCU. It may have followed the formula of Iron Man's origin very closely, but it was incredibly inventive when its hero suited-up and scaled-down to dodge everything from huge feet pounding a dancefloor, a hungry rat, or the sight of his giant best friend naked. Without the comforts of the origin story however, Ant-Man and the Wasp and returning director Peyton Reed are at a loss which direction to go, and end up throwing multiple storylines at the wall to see what sticks. Sadly, not much does.
It's been two years since Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), aka Ant-Man, was drafted into Captain America's crew for a battle against Tony Stark and the Sokovia Accords in Germany. As we saw from the ending of Captain America: Civil War, Lang was imprisoned, but is now being allowed to serve the remainder of his sentence under house arrest, under the watchful eye of FBI agent Jimmy Woo (a scene-stealing Randall Park). With his new friends off fighting global threats and Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) not talking to him for stealing one of his suits, Lang passes the time building huge play-houses for his superhero-obsessed daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson), as well as playing drums, watching a lot of television, and crying reading The Fault in our Stars. At night, he is plagued by nightmares of the Quantum Realm, the microscopic world he found himself in during his showdown with Darren Cross, where time and space become irrelevant. He doesn't know it, but Hank and his daughter Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) are also thinking about the Realm, in the hope of finding their wife/mother Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer), who disappeared thirty years earlier during a mission with her husband. When Lang starts to receive strange messages seemingly from Janet, Pym has no choice but to bring the cat-burglar back into the fold in the hope of nailing her location.
The first Ant-Man kept its exposition zippy, sweeping you up into its flow so that all the scientific jibberish being explained simply washed over you. Ant-Man and the Wasp must hold the world record for the number of times the word 'quantum' has been used within two hours. Janet can communicate with Lang through quantum entanglement, where particles interact in ways that essentially make them indistinguishable, even when they are separated by a huge distance. The film's 'villain', Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) experiences molecular instability due to an accident during a quantum experiment, meaning that she can phase through solid matter at will. At one point, Lang questions if the boffins tasked with explaining all of this to us simply put the word 'quantum' in front of everything. This is played for laughs, but doesn't necessarily absolve the film of the problem. Also thrown into the mix is slimy businessman Sonny Burch, played by a wasted Walton Goggins, who wants his greedy hands of Pym's tech and will stop at nothing until he has it. For a series that now prides itself on a lighter tone, it's a lot of plot to take in. The trippy Quantum Realm was teased in the first Ant-Man, and it remains a tease here. There's literally a whole new world to explore at sub-atomic level, yet it remains a frustrating mystery.
While there's way too much going on plot-wise, Ant-Man and the Wasp doesn't disappoint with its set-pieces. As glimpsed in the trailer, the heroes turn everything from a salt-shaker to a Hello Kitty pez dispenser into a weapon, normally hurled at their enemies and used to block their path. With her ability to fly and shoot from the wrist, Wasp gets to kick the most ass, dispensing a vehicle full of baddies with speed and efficiency, and all brought to life with stunning special effects. Lang's motor-mouthed associate Luis (Michael Pena) also returns for a beefier part, with his gift for story-telling once again proving a highlight. Laurence Fishburne helps establish some gravitas whenever he is on screen as Bill Foster, Pym's former co-worker on the G.O.L.I.A.T.H. project and whose existence was teased as far back as Iron Man 2. It's ultimately two hours of fluff and Peyton Reed (along with his five writers, including Rudd) knows it, and while this was very much part of the character's charm the first time around, many jokes here fall flat. There are nice touches, such as Pym's laboratory, populated by giant ants carrying out maintenance work and tiny objects blown up in size stitching the whole thing together, which can be shrunken down to luggage size with the click of a button. Lang's relationship with his daughter is also very touching. But Reed never fully commits to one idea and refuses to run with the many promising ideas the film touches on. With the likes of Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor: Ragnarok willing to embrace the crazy, Ant-Man and the Wasp was always going to pale in comparison.
One of the aspects of the Mission: Impossible franchise that really helps separate it from the conveyor belt of action/spy/thriller movies that hit our cinema screens and streaming services every year is the idea of introducing a new director for each new entry. Such an approach helps prevent fatigue from Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt and whatever team he assembles, and gives each film its own feel without disrupting the flow of the series. Brian De Palma riddled his movie with unbearable moments of tension, while John Woo favoured slow-motion gunplay. J.J. Abrams introduced a darker tone to the proceedings, only for Brad Bird to lighten the tone while packing more of a physical punch. They aren't all great, but you can at least recognise a style. Christopher McQuarrie was the choice to envision part five, and with him he brings a bland, by-the-numbers style that infected his previous movie, the Tom Cruise vehicle Jack Reacher.
What also has helped this series to survive over the years are set-pieces built around real stunts and genuine danger. In this regard, Rogue Nation doesn't disappoint, although it clearly blows its load far too early. If you've seen the trailer, you'll know the film's signature jaw-dropping moment involves Tom Cruise clinging to the side of a plane as it takes off, the ground behind him shrinking rapidly with each passing second. Simon Pegg's Benji Dunn frantically bashes an iPad while Jeremy Renner's returning William Brandt barks panicked directions over loud-speaker, and it's all edited to guarantee maximum thrills. In fact, the entire first half of the film manages to maintain this exciting pace, delivering a high speed motorcycle chase and a stealthy mission in the Vienna Opera House. Plot has never been the strong suit of this franchise, and things grind to a halt when McQuarrie decides to slow things down for the finale. A plot involving the kidnapping of 'the British Prime Minister' (played by Tom Hollander) and a shadowy organisation called The Syndicate are plot devices straight out of James Bond, and it often feels like Rogue Nation is simply trying to be America's version of Britain's most popular fictional spy.
McQuarrie does have some aces hidden up his sleeve however, and the biggest of these is Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust, a fellow spy working within the Syndicate for her own dubious reasons. While her character shares no chemistry with her lead co-star, she makes a fantastic impression in the action stakes as she repeatedly crosses paths with Hunt, and hordes of bad guys, in the field. Cruise does share great chemistry with Simon Pegg however, and although the Shaun of the Dead star is little more than comic relief and the guy who can push a few buttons on his laptop and open any door in the world, his screen time with Cruise helps to humanise Hunt, which is important in a universe looking to turn its hero into an unstoppable super agent. It's a perfectly passable two hours, but will likely fade from memory mere seconds after the credits have rolled. Unlike the lit fuse during the opening credits, Rogue Nation fails to explode into life, fizzling out when the film starts to think that this series can be anything more than a bunch of people chasing a McGuffin and having to retrieve a few things in spectacular fashion along the way. Woo's effort remains the worst in the series, but Rogue Nation lacks an identity. While the first hour is certainly fun, it often feels like McQuarrie is auditioning for a different franchise altogether.
Graphic designer Saul Bass was best known for his work with movie title sequences and posters, working with the likes of Otto Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese over a career spanning more than four decades. When he was offered the chance to direct a film himself, he jumped at the opportunity. The poster for his directorial debut, Phase IV, boasted of "ravenous invaders controlled by a terror out in space... commanded to annihilate the world!" At first glance, it would seem this is your basic B-movie fare about killer ants taking over the world, but Bass set his ambitions much higher, with Walon Green and Ed Spiegel's Oscar-winning documentary The Hellstrom Chronicle a huge inspiration for the project. The result is a strange mixture of Hellstrom and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and is as engrossing as it is frustrating.
After an unexplained cosmic event, scientists have started noticing strange behaviour within the insect kingdom, with a rapid decline in ant predators such as spiders and birds, and huge monolithic towers popping up everywhere in desert regions. There has been heavy ant activity in Arizona, and their sheer numbers and aggression have resulted in the evacuation of whole towns. Scientists Ernest D. Hubbs (Nigel Davenport) and James Lesko (Michael Murphy) are sent to the area to study the insects' behaviour, erecting a huge dome in the desert to conduct their experiments. They have different plans to tackle the ants, with Hubbs seeking a way to eradicate them completely, and Lesko developing methods of communication to try and understand their motivation. A chemical spray takes many ant casualties, and it soon turns to war. However, the humans get more than they bargained for when the super-intelligent creatures come up with ways to fight back, including building structures capable of deflecting sunlight onto the dome to slowly cook their enemies alive.
The premise is silly enough to warrant the film a place in the bargain bin, but Bass and writer Mayo Simon (Futureworld) take the subject matter seriously, hoping to capture the imagination of a 70's audience hungry for new ideas within science-fiction. A lot of time is spent with the ants in extreme close-up, and these scenes are some of the film's most hypnotic. We watch their strange behaviour in incredible detail, as they plan, evolve, and mourn. One moment sees a soldier line up the dead bodies of its comrades in what appears to be some kind of funeral procession. Things become more formulaic when the action returns to Hubbs and Lesko, with the introduction of an unnecessary romantic sub-plot involving Lesko and Kendra (Lynne Frederick) - the latter the only survivor of a family taken out by the scientists' chemical distribution - occasionally grinding the story to a halt. These niggles aside, Phase IV is a sprawling visual feast designed for the thinking man, leaving many unanswered questions which shroud the film in mystery. How have the ants evolved so quickly, and what's their beef with humanity? We don't get to know, but it's pretty scary to ponder. Studio tampering saw the film cut and the ending changed, which soured Bass to the extent that he would never make another feature. It's a damn shame, as there was real promise here.
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol continues the series' trend of introducing a new director with each new instalment, hoping that a pair of fresh eyes will prevent the franchise from growing stagnant. A few eyebrows were raised when it was announced that J.J. Abrams' successor would be none other than Brad Bird, director of such animated classics The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Ratatouille, with what would be his first live-action picture. However, it becomes clear early on that Bird is more than up for the task, with his background in colourful animated efforts (including one of cinema's all-time best superhero adventures) perhaps inspiring him to make something all the more physical. This fourth entry is the most action-packed yet, and carries a hell of a punch, with one jaw-dropping set-piece in particular blowing any stunts from the previous films completely out of the water.
IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is spending time locked away in a Moscow prison, keeping tabs on Bogdan (Miraj Grbic), a fellow inmate who may posses vital information on a man known as 'Cobalt'. With Cobalt now in possession of a file containing Russian nuclear launch codes, time is running out, so agents Jane Carter (Paula Patton) and the recently-promoted Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) break him out in order to infiltrate the Kremlin and gather information on their mysterious target. During the mission however, a bomb is detonated, leaving the Kremlin in ruins and Hunt and his team, who are the main suspects, disavowed by their government. Despite IMF's reputation lying in tatters, the agency Secretary (Tom Wilkinson) tasks Hunt with continuing his hunt for Cobalt, who has been revealed to be Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), a nuclear strategist who feels that an extinction event is long overdue.
If there is a major flaw in Ghost Protocol, it's Nyqvist's villain. While Philip Seymour Hoffman was brought in last time to truly jangle the nerves, Hendricks isn't given enough screen-time or a clear enough motivation to make much of an impression, despite being played by a damn fine actor. This does, however, open more space for the team itself, who are eventually joined by intelligence analyst William Brandt (Jeremy Renner). Their mission takes them across the globe, and eventually to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, where of course Hunt must scale the highest building in the world in the most vertigo-inducing sequence ever captured on film. With Hunt wielding only a pair of high-tech suction gloves to save him from certain death, Bird uses every camera angle and editing technique to make it a moment to dread for anybody with a fear of heights. Once again, Tom Cruise does all of his own stunts, demonstrating why he one of the most respected actors around, despite the inherent craziness of his personal life. It's basically none stop action surrounding the flimsiest of McGuffins, but when the fights and stunts are choreographed so spectacularly, it's easy to forgive the picture's flaws and simply go with it.
The third instalment of the Mission: Impossible franchise took a while to get off the ground. Originally trusted to director David Fincher (which would have been fascinating to see), the Fight Club director opted out when another project caught his eye, so the reigns were passed to Joe Carnaghan, who had his supporting cast ready to go before a dispute with the studio resulted in his departure also. In stepped J.J. Abrams, who faced the difficult task of reviewing the previous movies' vastly different tones in order to settle on which Ethan Hunt he wanted to bring to the screen. Quite wisely, he went for a bit of both. This was the intuitive, opportunistic Hunt from Brian De Palma's well-staged original, rather than the trigger-happy super-agent from John Woo's effort. Yet he still retains an edge, and Abrams sets out his movie's darker tone from the get-go, as we start during the third act with Hunt in precarious situation with Philip Seymour Hoffman's big bad.
Hunt (Tom Cruise) has left the IMF in favour of a normal life with his bride-to-be Julia (Michelle Monaghan). He has kept the extent of his work for the government quiet and seems to be enjoying being a regular Joe, but his head is soon turned when fellow IMF agent John Musgrave (Billy Crudup) contacts him regarding his former protegee, Lindsay Farris (Keri Russell), who has gone missing in the field while investigating an arms dealer named Owen Davian (Hoffman). Hunt accepts the job and assembles a team (consisting of the returning Ving Rhames, as well as Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Maggie Q) to track her down, but when the mission goes spectacularly wrong, the group are left to track down an item known as the 'Rabbit's Foot', a device capable of global catastrophe. With the head of the IMF (Laurence Fishburne) breathing down his neck and Davian proving himself to be a ruthless and cunning foe, Hunt and the rest of his troupe face their most difficult task yet.
He may have been third choice (although he was cherry-picked by Cruise himself), but the then up-and-coming Abrams proved to be the perfect director to steer the series back on course without upsetting the tone. He finds a perfect balance, delivering spectacular set-pieces that Cruise is, as always, keen to sink his teeth into, as well as re-establishing the team element and tasking them with missions that require a combined effort, and not just Cruise blowing away bad guys in slow-motion. De Palma's original may have been spectacular on occasion, but this third instalment is probably the best of this opening trilogy. There is also an uncomfortable atmosphere throughout, and this is mainly down to Hoffman's spectacular turn as Davian. He is a one-note big bad, and hardly physically intimidating, yet Hoffman's dead-eyed delivery oozes menace, and when he threatens the lives of those closest to our hero, we completely accept that he's capable of butchering the innocent in his pursuit for riches and power. It's hardly new territory for the action genre, but Abrams should be credited with reinvigorating a franchise still going strong 22 years after it introduced itself.
John Woo was already a highly acclaimed director by the time he transferred his trade to Hollywood. With the likes of A Better Tomorrow, The Killer and Hard Boiled, produced in his native Hong Kong, he had earned his reputation as an action maestro, one capable of delivering a gun-fight with balletic grace, almost like watching poetry in motion. His Hollywood career started off okay with Hard Target and Broken Arrow, two forgettable if sufficiently entertaining vehicles for Jean-Claude Van Damme and John Travolta. He went up a couple of gears in 1997 with Face/Off, an outrageous thriller with two off-the-leash central performances, and it felt like Woo had finally worked out the formula of translating his chaotic brand of action and humour for American audiences. That was all before Tom Cruise suggested him for the follow-up to Brian De Palma's nifty thriller Mission: Impossible. M:I-2, as the posters branded it, not only manages to be completely hollow, but incredibly boring.
While De Palma made some controversial changes to the formula of the original TV series, the first Mission: Impossible still embraced much of what was loved about it. It was grounded in a world of espionage and secret government departments, with Tom Cruise's relatively inexperienced Ethan Hunt at the centre of the unravelling plot. Woo throws the majority of this out of the window in favour of something more flashy and violent, changing Hunt from an opportunistic rookie to a leather-jacket wearing superhero capable of gravity-defying kicks and physics-defying driving. When we first meet him, he's free-climbing in Utah, in what is the movie's only heart-pounding moment. It establishes this new Hunt as a fearless adrenaline-junkie, and when he finally makes it to the top, he is handed his next mission, should he choose to accept it, via a pair of soon-to-be self-destructed sunglasses. The mission is to track down and retrieve a deadly virus stolen by rogue IMF agent Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott). To assist him, Hunt must also recruit professional thief Nyah Hall (Thandie Newton), who also happens to be a former flame of Ambrose.
After the baffling plot of the first Mission: Impossible, it's something of a relief that Woo chose to keep things as simple as they are here. With films like this, the story only really serves as a way to get us to the next set-piece. The major issue is that Woo and writer Robert Towne (of The Last Detail and Chinatown fame) fail to inject any life into their characters, or at least give us anyone to root for. I like Tom Cruise and have nothing but respect for his desire to do all of his own stunts, but this smirking, floppy-haired version of Ethan Hunt comes across as a bargain-bin James Bond. Dougray Scott, who is one of the blandest actors around anyway, isn't helped by his one-note villain. Ambrose is simply an evil version of Hunt, only without the hero's plot armour. By the time Ving Rhames and John Polson are brought in for the final showdown, it's all too little, too late. By this time, Mission: Impossible II has already established Hunt as a one-man army, who naturally finds the time to romance his prettiest recruit when she's not busy trying to run him off a cliff. All of this could be forgiven if the action was on point. Guns are pointed dramatically and the camera swirls in slow-motion, but not even the obligatory flying doves can save M:I-2 from yawn-inducing mediocrity. It was a smash-hit at the box-office, but it's reputation meant that it would take six years for J.J. Abrams to save the franchise from an early demise.
Crane's fame attracted the attention of many women and hangers-on. The most notable of his new acquaintances was John Carpenter, here played by Willem Dafoe, the self-proclaimed technician to the stars who boasts of carrying out stereo installation work for the likes of Elvis Presley. Carpenter, or 'Carpy', was drawn to the ease with which the family man attracted the opposite sex, and Crane at first seems rather taken aback by all the females now throwing themselves at him. With Carpy's encouragement, Crane starts to indulge in a fantasy life, one full of alcohol, orgies and video cameras. He gets a taste for the life, and it soon begins to consume him. It never becomes clear whether the pair get a kick out of the sex itself, or recording it to watch back later. Their motto is "a day without sex is a day wasted," and Crane seeks it out at every opportunity, gaining a reputation amongst his peers despite warnings from his agent (Ron Leibman) that his actions may have a devastating effect on his career.
