Review #1,445: 'Bohemian Rhapsody' (2018)

Bohemian Rhapsody started out life way back in 2010, with Sacha Baron Cohen set to star as Queen's hypnotic frontman Freddie Mercury. With band members Brian May and Roger Taylor heavily involved in the development, Baron Cohen eventually left, citing creative differences with the way they wished to approach the story as the main reason for his departure. The years went by, and in 2017, the wheels were well and truly in motion with Bryan Singer in the director's chair and Rami Malek in the lead role. The production was famously dogged with problems, and when Singer was eventually fired for unprofessional behaviour (reports say he was frequently disruptive on set, even failing to turn up for three days straight), it felt like the film would never see the light of day. But Dexter Fletcher filled the vacant director's chair and Bohemian Rhapsody was released to huge box-office numbers, and recently received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Actor, amongst others.

Remarkably, despite the film's difficult production, there's no sign of patchwork or a clash of directorial styles. Bohemian Rhapsody actually has much greater problems, and while anybody looking for an easily-digestible Queen sing-a-long with find much to love here, anybody hoping for a deeper re-telling of one of the music's most enigmatic figures with likely be baffled at the film's eagerness to share the credit and Wikipedia-entry approach to story-telling. We briefly get to see Mercury before he took to the stage, working as a baggage-handler at Heathrow while his parents worry about his lack of academic ambition. His experience as a young immigrant is summarised by a single racial slur, and the film isn't too concerned with exploring this any further. Perhaps screenwriter Anthony McCarten (who wrote last year's similarly formulaic Oscar-baiter Darkest Hour) felt like this would be too much of a drag for the audience, so he quickly moves to Mercury introducing himself to Smile guitarist Brian May (Gwilym Lee) and drummer Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy), coincidentally mere seconds after the band loses its lead singer.

A few montages later and the band now known as Queen (bassist John Deacon (Joseph Mazzello) completes the group) are signed up by manager John Reid (Aidan Gillen) and land a contract with EMI Records. The characters act and talk like they already know how the story turns out, and the film only manages to scratch beneath the surface when dealing with Mercury's relationship with love-of-his-life Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton) and her gradual realisation of his sexuality. The rest consists of band squabbles that always seem to conclude with the writing of a hit song, rock movie cliches like the alcohol-fuelled parties and accelerating ego, and cartoon supporting characters (Mike Myers' meta appearance as EMI executive Ray Foster spectacularly misses the mark). By aiming for 12A/PG-13 certificate, Mercury's story is oddly sexless. For a man that radiated sex and sexiness with every air-punch and pout, the lack of raunchiness adds an unwelcome TV-movie quality. It only really comes alive when Malik is allowed to do his thing on stage, climaxing with an extended Live Aid performance that will have you singing along and waving your arms. It's a great impression by Malik, if hardly a great performance, and it helps reminds us of how great Queen really were and how timeless their sound is. Bohemian Rhapsody has certainly made me a bigger Queen fan, but this isn't the biopic the band deserve. That being said, I haven't come across a single person that agrees with me, so what do I know?


Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joseph Mazzello, Aidan Gillen, Allen Leech, Tom Hollander, Mike Myers
Country: UK/USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,038: 'X-Men: Apocalypse' (2016)

Following Matthew Vaughn's enjoyable franchise reboot X-Men: First Class (2011) and Bryan Singer's mind-bending follow-up Days of Future Past (2014), the latest entry into the ever-expanding world of the X-Men that began back in 2000 promised - according to writer Simon Kinberg - a scale and scope on such a level never before seen in a superhero movie. While the latest villain to face Professor X and his crew certainly ups the ante by offering the threat of global extinction, X-Men: Apocalypse suffers mainly because we have seen the likes of this before, after all Ultron threatened the same thing just last year in Marvel's Avengers sequel, and Roland Emmerich and Michael Bay have been doing this since the mid-1990's.

Apocalypse just doesn't offer the same sort of unique strangeness that assisted Days of Future Past in being the best entry since X2 in 2003, nor the impressive grip it kept on its large ensemble of super-beings and superstars in First Class. When it all boils down, Apocalypse is simply a tale of good vs. bad, introducing a hefty influx of new characters and old (with many of the latter re-cast with up-and-comers) in the process. The threat facing the wheelchair-bound telepath Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and his School for Gifted Youngsters this time is the first and most powerful mutant of them all, En Sabar Nuh aka Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac). When we first meet him, Nuh is in Ancient Egypt where he is worshipped as a god. Fearing his power, his worshippers betray him, leaving him entombed within a collapsed pyramid and killing his Four Horsemen.

In 1983, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), the shape-shifting mutant, is in East Berlin rescuing teleporter Kurt Wagner aka Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) from a human-run underground fight club and its winged champion Angel (Ben Hardy). Erik Lehnsherr aka Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is hiding out in Poland with his wife and child following his attempt to assassinate the President of the USA ten years previous. Charles is still running his school, which has added some interesting new recruits in fellow telepath Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) and Scott Summers aka Cyclops (Tye Sheridan). When Apocalypse re-awakens and decides that humanity has lost its way, he sets about recruiting his four new Horsemen, including Magneto, to help him destroy the world and rebuild it with him as its leader.

Anyone who loved Quicksilver's scene-stealing appearance in Days of Future Past will no doubt appreciate Evan Peters' extended role here, as he is again central to an impressive set-piece that is equally playful, inventive and exciting. For a movie with such a grim outlook at stake, it ironically works best when going about its business with a sense of humour. In the dramatic moments, its fails to offer any real impact, almost completely ignoring any religious undertones that would have made the film infinitely more interesting, and covering familiar ground in terms of Charles and Erik's somewhat rocky friendship. Although Isaac gives it his all, it is the young actors that are the standouts. Turner, Sheridan and Smit-McPhee manage to both channel the actors who came before them and making the characters their own. Hopefully then, the franchise is in safe hands moving forward (there are no signs of it stopping), but for now, Apocalypse is very much a case of same-old, same-old, and not much more than a relatively entertaining way to kill 2 and a half hours.


Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Oscar Isaac, Rose Byrne, Evan Peters, Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, Kodi Smit-McPhee
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #796: 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' (2014)

After Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class (2011) injected a bit of life back into the X-Men franchise, any further instalments faced the headache of what to do with a bunch of fantastic actors playing the same characters decades apart. Inspired by the 1981 Uncanny X-Men comic of the same name, Days of Future Past switches between a nightmarish, dystopian future overrun by giant sentinels, and the boogie nights of the 1970's. We get the best of both worlds, and thankfully, in his seventh appearance over the course of 14 years as his most recognisable character, Hugh Jackman's Wolverine inhabits them both.

After narrowly escaping a sentinel attack in the near-future, a band of mutants including the returning Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) and Kitty Pride (Ellen Page) meet up with Wolverine, Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Magento (Ian McKellen), Storm (Halle Berry) et al to hatch a plan before the next inevitable attack. Kitty transfers the mind of Wolverine back to 1973, where a young Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) is soon to assassinate Dr. Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), setting off a chain of events that could result in the apocalypse. The only problem is, the young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is depressed and mansion-bound, still struggling to deal with his powers and the loss of the use of his legs. They also need to help of Magneto (Michael Fassbender), who is imprisoned in a plastic cell for allegedly assassinating John F. Kennedy.

For all it's time-travelling gobbledegook, Days of Future Past doesn't spend too much time trying to explain the mechanics behind it. Like Rian Johnson's mind-bending Looper (2012), it recognises the folly in attempting to spell it out for you. When you look at it under a microscope, time-travel makes little sense in movies as it is, so it's best to accept what you're seeing and move on. McAvoy's Xavier even dismisses Wolverine's ramblings as 'future-shite'. This frees up more time in an already packed movie to concentrate on the damaged Xavier, brought to life by another fantastic performance from McAvoy. If First Class was Magneto's origins, this is Professor X's, showing a scared, conflicted and broken man and how he became the father to mutants he is when embodied by Patrick Stewart.

Of all the many mutants on show, some are not given as much time as their name would suggest. Storm, Anna Paquin's Rogue, and most notably, Ian McKellen's Magneto are somewhat left out to dry, while Nicholas Hoult's Beast, Kitty Pride, and a first appearance for Evan Peters' Quicksilver, are more prominent, and thrive in their larger roles. Trask, a rather fascinating villain thanks to the performance of Dinklage, is left undeveloped. We glimpse into his mind and ambitions, but there's little clarity given to his motivation. But with a film this packed with characters, it would take four hours or more to explore them all, and some inspired set-pieces pepper the film at the points where you start to think the plot will make your head explode. The (possibly) plot-hole laden climax aside, it seems like the franchise is as good as it was at the end of X2 (2003), seemingly serving to delete all the poor decisions made in returning director Bryan Singer's absence. Now, the wait for X-Men: Apocalypse.


Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Peter Dinklage, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Ellen Page
Country: USA/UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #744: 'X2' (2003)

Seemingly using the first film to practice big-budget movie-making, Bryan Singer followed the mediocre X-Men (2000) with X2 (one of many dodgy titles attributed to the film), a balls-out, mutant mash-up full of genuine characters focus, an intriguing storyline, and set-pieces worthy of the money it earned. In fact, the opening scene, which depicts newcomer Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming), a mutant with a forked tail and the ability to teleport, attack a small army of helpless government agents to get through to the President, blows anything the first film had to offer right out of the water.

With mutant antagonist Magneto (Ian McKellen) imprisoned in a plastic cell, Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) is focusing his time on helping the maturing students at his school for gifted youngsters. He has sent Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to Alkali Lake, in the hope of helping him discover more about his past, but he finds nothing but an abandoned military base. After the attack on the President, government operative William Stryker (Brian Cox) leads an attack on the unsuspecting Xavier's school, capturing Xavier and Cyclops (James Marsden) in order to strengthen his mysterious plans.

The plot summary is as compressed as can be, as, like the first film, X2 has a lot of big personalities with big, special powers with their own individual stories to tell to cram into a two-hour film. Although there are mutants with far more interesting powers and greater physical potential, the focus remains on the fan-favourite Wolverine. It's Jackman's enigmatic performance that makes him so easily likeable, and he is finally allowed to roam free here. There are no soft fights where nobody dies as in X-Men; Wolverine massacres many of Stryker's men during the attack on the school. When he first drives his claws into an agent who makes the mistake of firing on him, it is the first of many air-punching moments throughout the film.

It's hard to fathom a threat that could actually make a dent in a race of people with such unbelievable powers, so Stryker, a man with no liking for mutants but a fascination with harnessing their powers, has found a way to subdue them. Seeing a mutant like Magneto so helpless is oddly affecting, so, after his spectacular prison break-out, he becomes a sort of anti-hero, doing the kind of dirty work Xavier would not lower himself to. But ultimately, it's the Xavier-Magneto good vs. evil fight that remains the most fascinating, and even with Stryker playing the main villain, Magneto is far from forgotten and has plans to bend Stryker's actions to his own personal gain.

It's a shame then that X2 marks the high-point of the series. There is now a remarkable 7 instalments set in the X-universe, and although X-Men: First Class (2011) injected some life back in the series, and hopes are high for the new X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), none have come close to the kind of energy and invention of this. Though you could complain about the lack of a coherent narrative, and that some of the minor characters are left out to dry, X2 is a near-perfect superhero movie, and is still Marvel's greatest achievement. And with almost 15 years of men in tights and capes, that is high praise indeed.


Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Brian Cox, Anna Paquin, Rebecca Romijn, Alan Cumming
Country: Canada/USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #743: 'X-Men' (2000)

It's hard to believe that back in 2000, Marvel's first crack at creating a superhero universe on the big screen, X-Men, was a near perfect summer movie. 14 years on, and the cracks are as clear as day in Bryan Singer's hesitant and rather tame blockbuster. Don't get me wrong, X-Men still has plenty to enjoy, but the meatier, more confident recent efforts such as Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy and Marvel's own Iron Man (2008) and Thor (2011), as well as the vastly superior sequel two years later, form a rather large shadow over Professor X and his pupils' first outing.

In the near future, evolution has taken a huge leap forward, creating 'mutants' - humans with special powers and abilities that defy anything science has seen before. Tensions between humans and mutants is at an all-time high, with the idea of mutant cataloguing being passed around by Senator Kelly (Bruce Davison), despite the efforts of telepaths Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Jean Grey (Famke Janssen). Mutant Magneto (Ian McKellen), a Holocaust survivor with the ability to control anything magnetic, has different ideas, and plans to induce mutation on world leaders gathering on Ellis Island.

As the machine, powered by magnetics, could easily kill him, Magneto seeks Rogue (Anna Paquin), a young girl with the ability to temporarily steal a mutant's power. Having just met Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), a beast of a man with a skeleton covered in an indestructible metal, which he can shoot out like claws, and an uncanny healing ability, Rogue's abduction fails and is foiled by Storm (Halle Berry) and Cyclops (James Marsden). They end up in Professor Xavier's school for gifted children, where Wolverine learns about mutant struggle and falls in love with the powerful Jean Grey.

With a film this packed with personalities and powers, it's only natural that it loses it's grip on a lot of its characters. Sensibly, the main focus is on Wolverine, who has always been the most interesting X-Man, and is perfectly played by Jackman, a performance that made him a huge star. The rest of the characters, with the exception of Professor X and Magneto, do little but fall flat. They either suffer because their powers aren't particularly interesting, or spend the duration of the film using what little dialogue they have to explain who they are and what they can do. The movie also has one of the worst lines in cinema history, uttered by Storm. You'll know it when you hear it.

For all its lack of ambition and absence of any real set-pieces, X-Men is still the first of its kind. Refusing to give in to the idea of comic books being light, colourful and mainly for kids (which was still the general idea back in 2000), the opening scene depicting a young Magneto in a concentration camp ensures this is something that should be taken seriously, yet still enjoyed. Singer grew in confidence and made X2 two years later, which is still considered by myself and many others to be one of the best superhero movies ever made. X2 showed that the vast ensemble can be given room to breathe, and had the set-pieces to match, and in hindsight, makes X-Men a much tamer, yet still very entertaining, animal.


Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, Bruce Davison, Rebecca Romijn
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #740: 'The Usual Suspects' (1995)

Thanks mainly to Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992), the 1990's saw the re-emergence of crime noir - talky, violent thrillers packed with colourful characters and even more colourful language. Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects was one of the best of the bunch, thanks mainly to the director taking influence from past masters such as Hitchcock, Lang and Kurosawa, rather than the many Tarantino copycats that flooded the 90's cinema market, who did little but poorly imitate the big-chinned one's chatty screenplays and outlandish, darkly humorous violence. It also had a killer twist; one that will baffle as much as it will surprise, or possibly induce cries of cheap manipulation.

After what appears to be a heist gone wrong on an exploded boat, the only surviving witness, Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey), a disabled con-man, is brought in to be interrogated by customer officer Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri). Having already been acquitted by some mysterious higher powers, Kint is probed by Kujan for more information. He tells a story of five criminals who meets in a line-up - Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), a steely criminal gone straight, Michael McManus (Stephen Baldwin), an entry man with a short fuse, Todd Hockney (Kevin Pollak), a hijacker, Fred Fenster (Benicio Del Toro), McManus's partner, and Kint himself. Having being picked up one time too many, the group hatch a plot to pay the crooked cops back, and eventually start taking jobs from the shady Redfoot (Peter Greene).

While the build-up to the explosion seen at the beginning of the film is relatively formulaic in its execution, Singer and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie (who won an Oscar for his efforts) inject enough humour into the script to bring these characters alive, and bring them over to your side. The clever thing is that it soon becomes apparent that everything were seeing either isn't true or isn't at all relevant, and it's the increasingly looming presence of the mysterious and infamous criminal mastermind Keyser Soze, who may in fact hold all the cards. The twist is not particularly clever at all, and isn't that hard to guess, but the director's skill in capturing it is what makes it so memorable.

The now-iconic poster wouldn't be so iconic if the characters hadn't been so memorably played by it's cast. With the exception of Kint, the characters are little but stock characters, but there is genuine chemistry, especially in the line-up scene where they crack up after Baldwin's over-the-top delivery of a line. Byrne proves again that he is much more deserving than the mediocre roles he tends to land, and Spacey bagged a Supporting Actor Oscar for his puppy-dog con-man. It's far, far from deserving of its place as #23 on IMDb's top films of all time, but The Usual Suspects is riveting stuff, even after it's umpteenth viewing.


Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Pollak, Benicio Del Toro, Pete Postlethwaite, Giancarlo Esposito
Country: USA/Germany

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #353: 'Apt Pupil' (1998)

In the late 1990's there was a small resurgence in interest in the work of Stephen King, who had been popularised in the 1970's and '80's as the prime horror author. What was slightly more interesting about this late reprisal, was that the stories were not directly linked to the horror genre, and led to one of the most loved films of the 1990's, The Shawshank Redemption (1994). Whilst this film did not do well in the cinemas, it made it's impact on video, and therefore the more dramatic, cerebral and often realistic King adaptation's were given the green light. Hot off the success of 1995's The Usual Suspects, Bryan Singer was brought in to direct this story of power over other humans, and the devastation this can cause.

Todd Bowden (Brad Renfro) is a top student in his high-school, and the film opens on a closing class focusing on the holocaust. The subject has clearly opened up something in the young man. Being convinced that there is an ex-Nazi officer living secretly in his neighbourhood, he decides to pay the man, Kurt Dussander (Ian McKellen), a visit. What transpires is that Todd had collected research on the subject, and uses this to blackmail Kurt into revisiting and verbalising his war stories, with particularly macabre focus on the killing of Jews. As the relationship between the two progresses it becomes clear that what fascinates Todd the most, is the power that was exerted over a people, and he has a hunger to know what this power is like. This begins with his power over Kurt; he revels in a display of power after he purchases a Nazi uniform for Kurt and makes him march on the spot. However the power that Todd exposes, is also resurfaced in the very isolated old man.

Well, as this is a Stephen King adaptation, the film obviously leads to murder. But the main theme of the film is the abuses of power, and the corrupting nature of power over others. It's a very interesting film, and Singer's direction is spot on. Seeing this now also highlights the loss of a very promising actor, Brad Renfro, who unfortunately died of a drug overdose in 2008. However, without any doubt this is McKellen's film. He is note perfect for this ageing, lonely man, who has had to live with his knowledge of the concentration camps for many years. The film does tend to lose it's effect at times, and falls into a cliched trap; for example, after Kurt has attempted to kill a homeless guy, but has to get the young Todd to finish the job after suffering a heart attack, Todd repeatedly hits the tramp with a shovel - a jump moment proceeds as the tramp gets back up after 'being killed' - yawn. However, this seems mainly to be the fault of the narrative, and is easy to overcome, particularly with the two fine central performances.


Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: Brad Renfro, Ian McKellen, Joshua Jackson
Country: USA/Canada/France

Rating: ****

Marc Ivamy

Review #295: 'Superman Returns' (2006)

Wisely ignoring the two farcical sequels (Superman III (1983) and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)), Superman Returns uses the original two - which were both originally to be directed by Richard Donner but was fired during the filming of the back-to-back shoot - as a starting point for the narrative of this first "super" film for 20 years. Many attempts had been made over the years to get a new Superman film greenlit. Bryan Singer had previously rejuvenated the superhero film with his two X-Men movies, so this (along with the death of Marlon Brando) made this particular story possible.

Superman (Brandon Routh - who has an uncanny resemblance to '70's/'80's Superman incarnation, Chrisopher Reeve) has been away from Earth for 5 years, due to astronomers discovering what may have been Kryptonite (Superman's home planet). Returning, he assimilates himself back into his role as Clark Kent at the Daily Planet newspaper, where he discovers that Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) has had a little boy, and is in a relationship with Richard White (James Marsden), son of newspaper editor, Perry White (Frank Langella).

Meanwhile, the uber-criminal Lex Luthor (brilliantly played by Kevin Spacey) , has discovered Superman's hidden fortress of solitude. Luthor discovers all of Superman's secrets through the crystals of Jor-el (the aforementioned Marlon Brando - who would have requested an immense sum of money had he still been alive), and finds that one of these crystals can create land. Obviously, Luthor's main criminal activity throughout the Superman world, is the accumulation of land and property.

I first saw this film at the cinema in 2006, and have to say that I was very disappointed with the result - although I have to confess that at the start (when the familiar John Williams theme tune, and the swooshing titles), I was excited. Perhaps my expectations were a little too high, and the expectation of "super" action was palpable. However, this film offers very little in action, and focuses mainly on the relationship between Supes and Lane.

Moving forward, the film was shown on television, and it seemed like a perfect time to revisit the film. Thankfully, the film holds up very well, and I enjoyed the experience so much more than at first. Singer and writers, Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris have conjured up an almost perfect follow up to Richard Donner's originals, keeping thoroughly in line with his philosophy of verisimilitude. The emotional arc of Superman is very well handled and the film feels more like a drama at times. I stated previously that there is little action, but the two action set-pieces here are effective, and work very well in the context of the narrative. Here's hoping that next years Superman film has as much to offer (hopefully more) than this subdued delve into the Superman universe.


Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, James Marsden, Parker Posey, Frank Langella
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Marc Ivamy