Review #1,022: 'Trumbo' (2015)

Jay Roach's Trumbo, like many recent biopics so accurately lampooned in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007), plays like a film version of a Wikipedia page, covering all the necessary key events from the topic's life without so much as attempting to dig beneath the surface of the man at the centre of it all, ushering in actors to do their best impressions of famous people, a device that seems to serve as a 'spot the movie star' game for the audience as opposed to having much of an immediate effect on the story. You may leave the film a bit more educated on the subject of the infamous 'Hollywood Blacklist', but you'll learn little about Dalton Trumbo himself.

The film is far too polished to truly transport you back in time to the 1940's and 50's, failing to achieve a 'lived-in' sense of time and place. Beginning with Trumbo (played by Bryan Cranston) on the set of Our Vines Have Tender Grapes and on the verge of signing a contract that will make him the highest-paid writer in Hollywood, his affiliation with the Communist Party of the USA comes under scrutiny by gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren) and actor John Wayne (David James Elliott), with the latter seen delivering a speech on the threat of communism. Trumbo, along with other screenwriters, are called to testify by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and find themselves blacklisted from Hollywood when they refuse to answer questions.

What follows is little more than the key points in the history of this frightening abuse of free speech by a country that prides itself upon its democracy. It's a topic that will anger, confuse and frustrate you, but the film fails at doing the story any kind of justice by demonstrating a startling lack of emotion. Cranston, who somehow received an Oscar nomination for his efforts, seems to sleep-walk through the proceedings. Every line he is forced to deliver seems to be plucked right out of a Hollywood movie, almost as if it is destined to be someday carved into stone. Having loved Cranston since Malcolm in the Middle, I don't blame him for the limp performance. Director Jay Roach has made a career out of mediocre comedies, and he doesn't seem to possess the skill to convincingly juggle the facts with any resemblance to character development.

The people surrounding Trumbo are a collection of biopic archetypes and Hollywood celebrities. Trumbo's relationship with his wife Cleo (Diane Lane) predictably goes from solid to strained, as the lengths he must go to in order to find work begins to take its toll. On paper, Helen Mirren as Hedda Hopper seems like an Oscar in the bag, but her antagonist is painted in such broad strokes that she may as well have been called Rita Skeeter, On a positive note, the only character acting like a believable human being is Frank King, a larger-than-life B-movie producer played by John Goodman, who employs Trumbo, working under a pseudonym, to doctor his scripts. He arrives like a force of nature, breathing fresh air into a film so utterly devoid of life. For a more informative and intimate film on the subject of the genius Dalton Trumbo, check out the 2007 documentary, also called Trumbo, instead.


Directed by: Jay Roach
Starring: Bryan Cranston, Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, Louis C.K., Elle Fanning, John Goodman, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alan Tudyk
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,010: 'Austin Powers in Goldmember' (2002)

It's easy to forget that the first time the world was introduced to Mike Myers' wonky-toothed and bespectacled British superspy back in 1997 with Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, precious few people went to see it. The film eventually gathered a huge following when it was released on VHS, and the formula was recycled again for the smash-hit sequel, The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999). The character and his arch-nemesis Dr. Evil are now so ingrained in popular culture that it's quite bizarre to think that you could once shout "oh, behave!" or "yeah, baby!" at a friend to receive a look of utter bewilderment in return.

The franchise proved so popular that its two sequels repeated the same gags and failed to really move the story on. Despite this obvious flaw, The Spy Who Shagged Me and the (as of 2016) final instalment Goldmember still managed to generate enough belly laughs to give them a pass, often relying on the irresistible comedic charm of its star Mike Myers. However, it was clear that the series was running out of steam by the time number 3 came around, as Goldmember remains the least funny of the trilogy, introducing a forgettable baddie in the form of the titular gold-obsessed, skin-munching Dutch supervillain, also played by Myers.

Yet the film kicks off with the greatest gag of all the movies. Just as we think we're watching an over-the-top set-piece from one of Austin's missions, its soon revealed to be a movie within a movie, with Tom Cruise wearing the spectacles and Kevin Spacey as Dr. Evil. We are then treated to the expectedly ridiculous, but entirely endearing, opening dance sequence, this time involving Britney Spears. Its a level of hilarity that the remainder of the movie sadly fails to maintain. For the first time we get to meet Austin's father in the form of Michael Caine, and Beyonce Knowles donning an impressive afro and plenty of sass as Foxxy Cleopatra, in a loving tribute to blaxploitation.

The bulk of the movie consists of the characters being restrained by their own eccentricities, which after two previous movies starts to stretch the humour a bit thin. Like Fat Bastard from the second entry, Goldmember is a one-joke character when the joke isn't that funny to begin with. His innuendos and disgusting habit repulse to the point of being simply unpleasant. Its at its best when it sticks to what made the franchise so loveable to begin with - the Bond pastiches. There's a ludicrous masterplan in there somewhere and the scenes in which Austin and Evil go face-to-face are as priceless as ever, but when Myers tries to insert some dramatic weight to the mix involving Austin's daddy issues the movie starts to drag. By the end, its clear that he picked the right time to wave goodbye to his most successful character (although he hasn't had much luck since).


Directed by: Jay Roach
Starring: Mike Myers, Beyoncé Knowles, Seth Green, Michael York, Robert Wagner, Michael Caine, Mindy Sterling, Verne Troyer
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #908: 'Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me' (1999)

It's surprising to think that the first Austin Powers movie underwhelmed at the box office back in 1997, only picking up a cult following after its VHS release, and soon enough you couldn't escape the sound of someone yelling "yeah, baby!" every 5 minutes. By the time it's sequel hit the cinema screens, the character, along with the super-spy's arch-nemesis Dr. Evil, had garnered a huge mainstream following, and the movie was a big hit. Yet the film, subtitled The Spy Who Shagged Me, suffers from the same problems as most comedy sequels, which is basically to re-tread the same successful jokes from the first movie, and forgetting what made the original so fresh and charming.

Powers (Mike Myers) is a randy, free-love type-of-guy from the 60's. When he was re-awoken from his cryogenic state in the 90's, his out-of-date attitudes put him at odds with a society that had grown more stiff-upper-lipped. Crowds of screaming girls would no longer chase him down the street a la A Hard Day's Night (1964) and sexy girls wouldn't be willing to bed him at the drop of a hat. When Dr. Evil (also Myers) arrives back to Earth with a plan to steal Powers' mojo, the characters find themselves time-travelling again back to the 60's, where gorgeous super-agent Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham) is ready and willing, but Powers lack the mojo to do anything about it. Most of what made the first movie so successful was that Powers was a man out of time, so by placing him back into his natural surroundings, the opportunity to create funny set-piece's are few and far between.

The dentally-challenged Brit is instead lumped with a dull romance with Shagwell, which is a carbon-copy of the relationship between Powers and Vanessa Kensington (Elizabeth Hurley), only with the roles reversed. In fact, Powers seems to play second-fiddle to Dr. Evil, whose ridiculously outlandish plots and newly-created sidekick Mini-Me (Verne Troyer) annoy his estranged son Scott Evil (Seth Green) and provide the majority of the film's laughs. An early scene where Evil appears on Jerry Springer with his son is hilarious, and the film is at its most inspired when the focus is on the bad guys. The Spy Who Shagged Me is also more gross-out than it's predecessor, continuing a trend set by There's Something About Mary (1998) and re-establishment of the teen sex comedy set by American Pie (1999), so Myers introduces a vile character called Fat Bastard who speaks with a Scottish accent and is permanently covered with chicken bits, whose scenes tend to induce more cringes than laughs. It's funny enough to justify its third instalment, but it lacks the satire, sweetness and freshness of the original.


Directed by: Jay Roach
Starring: Mike Myers, Heather Graham, Michael York, Robert Wagner, Rob Lowe, Seth Green
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #772: 'Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery' (1997)

It's surprising to think that the second of two inspired characters thought up by Mike Myers, the flamboyant, sex-crazed super-spy Austin Powers, took so long to catch on. A modest showing at the box-office soon led to rampant word-of-mouth with it's VHS release, and soon enough, around the early 2000's, everybody seemed to responding to questions with "yeah, baby!". While it's hook is a mixture of (very accurately) spoofing 60's kitsch spy movies and outright silliness, Myers' Powers is winning thanks to the puppy-dog appeal of it's creator.

After seeing his nemesis Dr. Evil (also Myers) escape his clutches by cryogenically freezing himself and escaping in a Big Boy-shaped space rocket, Austin Danger Powers joins the likes of Evil Knievel and Vanilla Ice and freezes himself for 30 years. When Evil returns, planning on stealing the world's nuclear weapons, Powers is thawed out and is unleashed into a changed world. No longer are people experimenting with mind-altering drugs and having care-free, unprotected sex, and Powers gets lumped with his ex-partner's buzz-killing daughter Vanessa Kensington (Elizabeth Hurley).

Myers seems fully aware that the 1960's were camp enough already to raise laughs, so the film spends a lot of time paying homage to the likes of the hyperactive energy of A Hard Day's Night (1964), the big-boobed laden, pervy fun of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), and even the ultra-chic photo-shoots of Antonioni's classic Blowup (1966). These scenes are surprisingly spot on, and Myers is in his element running away from an army of screaming girls to that now-iconic theme song. Of course, the film spends the majority of the film in the 1990's, and Powers seems incredibly out-dated, and people now notice his terrible teeth.

Most of the laughs come from the clever observations made of the early James Bond movies. Anyone who remembers Honor Blackman's ridiculously named Pussy Galore from Goldfinger (1964), will get a laugh from the character named Alotta Fagina, or Dr. Evil's shoe-throwing henchman Random Task. Or for anyone who has seen any of the Sean Connery Bond's, will no doubt be amused at Dr. Evil's insistence on placing Powers in an easily-escapable and elaborate death device and refusing to even watch the deed, much to the annoyance of Evil's son (Seth Green). The rest of the laughs are hardly clever - they tend to derive from Myers gurning or daft innuendo - but this is a silly and effortlessly humorous 90 minutes, full of quotable lines that are no doubt as dated as Powers' outfits.


Directed by: Jay Roach
Starring: Mike Myers, Elizabeth Hurley, Michael York, Robert Wagner, Mimi Rogers, Seth Green
Country: USA/Germany

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie