'The Hangover: Part II' review:

No film in recent years has made me quite as paranoid as 2009's 'The Hangover'. Everyone said it was hilarious - and I do mean everyone, as it went on to make half a billion dollars at the box office. Yet it just left me wondering whether I had suffered some massive sense of humour failure. "Why don't I get this?" was my bewildered refrain.

'The Hangover' had a few things going for it though: its premise, that a bunch of guys can't remember what they got up to the night before because they were totally wasted, seemed fairly original at the time (even if it was really just an up-market re-hash of 'Dude, Where's My Car?') and the presence of then-obscure funnyman Zach Galifianakis was joyful. Galifianakis is one of those comedians whose every mannerism and utterance is funny irrespective of the material and 'The Hangover' reaped the rewards of his charming naive-innocent act wholesale. However, these two redeeming qualities are largely absent from its sequel, 'The Hangover: Part II', with the film a scene-for-scene remake of the original (the tiger has been replaced by a monkey) and with Galifianakis long since over-exposed.



One of the sequel's main problems is with pacing. It takes an age for director Todd Phillips and his writers to contrive a way for all the conditions to be exactly the same as last time, with Bangkok standing in for Vegas. The guy who was missing in the first film, Doug (Justin Bartha), must again be absent from their escapades - though not before he's convinced soon to be married Stu (Ed Helms) to invite his deranged brother-in-law Alan (Galifianakis) to Thailand for the wedding. Phil (Bradley Cooper), of course, completes the "wolf pack" trio along with Alan and Stu. However, after going out for one beer, the trio wake up the day before the wedding only to find "it's happened again!" This time they have lost Stu's future bother-in-law Teddy (Mason Lee) and must retread their crazy, debauched trail looking for clues to find the kid - all in time for the big day. Every step of the journey is much the same as last time, with Mike Tyson returning and, yes, singing us a song.

As with the original, the funniest moments still belong to Galifianakis, such as when he shouts the unlikely line "when a monkey nibbles on a penis, it's funny in any language." That this is the comic highpoint should probably set alarm bells ringing, but at least he always looks funny, whether he is frowning at his new primate buddy or simply wearing a big hat. But 'The Hangover: Part II' is seriously low on written jokes. Mostly it relies on a heady mixture of institutionalised racism, school-yard homophobia and the popular assumption that anything is funny if it involves drugs and alcohol. For instance, one of the characters (I won't spoil which) comes to realise that he was "fucked in the ass" by a Bangkok ladyboy. You have to find this event funny in itself because there really aren't any jokes around it. The man in question gets upset that he's had a willy inside him and everybody else laughs. "Ha ha", they cry, "he's had a willy inside him!" In this context the issue of the accidental homosexual act quickly overshadows the character's infidelity. He thought it was a lady prostitute!



This lack of any decently written dialogue leads to the criminal waste of Paul Giamatti, who turns up halfway through as an antagonist of sorts. Giamatti gets to shout and chew scenery, but he isn't given anything really funny or memorable to do. I don't care what anyone says: Paul Giamatti has the capacity to be much, much funnier than Mike Tyson and any film which doesn't assign him that comic value is committing a crime against humour. Instead, the film is content for Ken Jeong's grating stereotype to return so he can say "erection" over and over again in side-splittingly hilarious broken English. When Phillips and company really find themselves struggling for laughs they just cut to shots of the little monkey smoking a cigarette. I'm not immune to the inherent comedy charms of that image but, again, it's pretty cheap.

'The Hangover: Part II', like it's forbear, is certainly better shot and lit than a standard American comedy. Lawrence Sher's cinematography breaks from a conventional logic which dictates that everything in comedy must be bright and loud. Instead, it's a seedy, grimy looking film and its use of Bangkok as a setting is diverse and interesting. The soundtrack is also pretty decent, as you'd expect with Wes Anderson regular Randall Poster working as music supervisor. The film's use of Billy Joel is fun, starting with a huge 'Glass Houses' poster in Alan's room and followed by obscure tracks like 'The Downeaster Alexa', which are employed well. A comic highlight is when Ed Helms performs an acoustic cover of Joel's 'Allentown', changing the words to tell the story of the film. Phillips also shoots a car chase sequence with considerable dynamism and no small amount of flair, though the very inclusion of this scene represents an increase in budget which will ensure that this sequel can't hope to repeat the vast profitability of the original. Especially when the ubiquitous marketing campaign is factored in.



If any of the humorous elements I've casually dismissed above sound good to you, then we can just chalk this up as another sense of humour failure on my part. I'm certainly willing to concede that just don't "get" this film. Maybe I just don't find the word "semen" funny enough. As is so often the case, this sequel is the same again done less well. I'd wager even huge fans of the original will find themselves a little disappointed by a follow-up that lacks imagination as much as belly laughs.

'The Hangover: Part II' is rated '15' by the BBFC and is out everywhere from May 26th.

This trailer is freakin' awesome!

I just wanted to post this...



It's apparently due for release on November 23rd. Can't wait.

'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' review:

"It's not the destination so much as the journey" Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow assures his weary audience somewhere near the end of this fourth installment of the lucrative 'Pirates' franchise. And he'd be right too, if the journey itself wasn't utterly tedious. I assume this line was written as a tacit meta-apology for the film's unabashed pursuit of 3D spectacle over anything resembling a plot or approaching character development. Although admittedly character development would have been difficult in this series, enamoured as it is with the exaggerated pantomime turn of its once-promising lead.

The story of 'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' can be summed up thus: the perpetually feisty Penelope Cruz recruits a reluctant Jack Sparrow into the service of her father Blackbeard (TV's Ian McShane) as they seek the Fountain of Youth. Jack was in possession of a map to the Fountain and knows the way. The map, however, is now in the hands of the British Navy, headed by a reformed Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) who has been charged, by Richard Griffiths' rotund King George II, with claiming the same prize in the name of the crown. Also in pursuit of the treasure are the Spaniards, of whom we see very little - presumably because their crew contains no name actors. It's all apparently inspired by Tim Powers' novel On Stranger Tides, but after a quick read of the Wikipedia plot summary it would seem that the only two base elements of the novel that survive the book's transition to film are Blackbeard and the Fountain of Youth itself.



Gore Verbinski, director of the first three films, wisely opted out of this installment and was quickly replaced with Rob Marshall - whose 'Nine' is notable for being one of a small handful of films actually worse than 'Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End'. A former Broadway director, Marshall was never going to rein in the kitsch and, indeed, everything is big. Every single main character is introduced in shadow, or in a hood, or from behind so we can anticipate the exciting moment when we finally get to see Ian McShane or Geoffrey Rush's hairy face. In one of the film's five-thousand interminable sword fight sequences, Penelope Cruz is introduced as an exact double of Depp, before being revealed - at which point she becomes markedly shorter and somewhat chestier than the beloved wastrel.

In fairness, Cruz is an instantly appealing force in the movie, even if her Angelica fluctuates uneasily between being Jack's piratey equal and a helpless damsel. McShane bucks the franchise trend and bravely underplays Blackbeard, which is admirable but tends to get lost amongst all the mugging. Meanwhile Rush is easily the most engaging actor in the piece and in his performance lie the last vestiges of comedy left to the series. However, these actors are easily counterbalanced by Depp's increasingly charmless mincing and by the presence of Sam Claflin as a bare-chested missionary who has defied the odds to become thirteen times more grating than Orlando Bloom.



More perplexing though is the film's calculated exploitation of the '12A' certificate. Like the 'Transformers' movies before it, 'On Stranger Tides' is essentially a kids film front-loaded with sex. Depp and Cruz speak in naughty little double-entendres ("I support the missionary's position"; "how is it we can never meet without you pointing something at me?"), and Angelica's back story is that Sparrow took advantage of her in a Spanish convent, mistaking it for a brothel. Often they hold erotic conversations in a breathy hush, speaking of "writhing" and such. The film's lustful energy is also shamelessly channelled into its depiction of mermaids - shot with the exact same aesthetic as a Lynx deodorant advert as they tantalise us with their carefully concealed breasts. I'm not offended by this - it's just one small example of the tacky sexualisation of all things everywhere - I'm just confused by it. Didn't young boys and girls used to think kissing was icky? What I'd have made of this aged nine I cannot begin to imagine.

Whilst I'm sermonising, it's also odd that the film's only black "character" is a mindless, brutish zombie. I'm not saying this is a pre-meditated act of racism, but it's at least a bit careless (again, 'Transformers' comes to mind). Furthermore, the message of 'Pirates 4' (if it has one) seems to be that women are deceitful and the ruin of men. The mermaids here, as in folklore, delight in luring sailors to their deaths with their wiles, whilst Angelica (the film's only prominent female) is also a proficient liar: introduced concealing her identity and gender, and manipulating men throughout. Not that these politically dubious elements should necessarily prevent you from seeing this sea-faring adventure yarn - after all, if you took that kind of moralistic stand, how many Hollywood films would you be left with each year? No, in fact what should stop people from seeing 'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' is the fact that it's total and utter dross. And not fun dross, but deeply cynical dross. In 3D.



As 'Pirates' films go, it's not worse than the third one. But that will have to remain the highest praise the film can expect to receive from any but the most ardent 'Pirates' apologists. What started as a happy surprise and a breath of fresh air in 2003, has long since worn out its welcome. Nevertheless, prepare yourself for films 5, 6 and 7. Depp and co will always be willing to appear, as long as the "material" stays this good.

'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' is showing now and has been rated '12A' by the BBFC.

'Win Win' review:

"Well, it's no trick to make a lot of money... if what you want to do is make a lot of money" says Everett Sloane in 'Citizen Kane'. It's a point of view shared by Paul Giamatti's character, lawyer Mike Flaherty, in Tom McCarthy's indie comedy 'Win Win'. Unlike his best friend Terry (Bobby Cannavale), Paul hasn't pursued the almighty dollar with any fervor and, as a result, he finds himself struggling to support his wife (Amy Ryan) and daughter and keep his legal practice open. Like a figure straight out of a Robert Riskin screenplay, Paul has chosen to dedicate his life to the less than lucrative cause of helping the poor and vulnerable.

All around him expensive problems are mounting, each of them ticking time bombs ever present in his thoughts (a fact which is giving him regular anxiety attacks). A tree threatens to fall down on his house and the boiler under his office could explode at any moment, but he is unable to afford the solutions to these problems and can't bring himself to tell his wife. To make matters worse, the high school wrestling team he coaches (along with Jeffrey Tambor) can't win a single game. In an effort to solve his financial problems, Paul soon takes the desperate and deeply immoral step of becoming the legal guardian of an elderly client (Burt Young) suffering from dementia - checking him into a care home and pocketing the money intended for his upkeep. By the standards of American movies Paul is something worse than a "loser" - though this most certainly isn't the view of McCarthy's compassionate humanist film.



The scheme is complicated when the old man's estranged teenage grandson arrives on the scene. Kyle (Alex Shaffer) has run away from his unstable mother (the terrific Melanie Lynskey) and is looking to live with his grandpa, only to find him at the old folk's home apparently under the care of Paul. Unwilling to return home, Kyle moves into Paul's house where it is soon discovered that he is something of a wrestling prodigy. This accounts for the other half of the titular win-win situation, though this being a movie, things don't go smoothly for very long.

Compared alongside other Fox Searchlight indies, 'Win Win' is not all that wacky or, in reality, infused with jokes. Cannavale's man-child character is certainly written as broadly comic, and 'Arrested Development' actor Tambor can't help but be at least a little funny, but overall the film is content to provide occasional wry titters as opposed to hearty guffaws. Even the usually explosive Giamatti is oddly subdued, though he gives a compelling and watchable performance. Much like his recent turn in 'Barney's Version', Giamatti can't help but elicit sympathy and brings his unorthodox brand of charm to the role.



Meanwhile, Amy Ryan (Beadie Russell in 'The Wire') is good value as Paul's forthright and disarmingly sweet wife Jackie. Moments of tenderness and sentiment in 'Win Win' are never allowed to be cloying and are usually quickly diffused - though they last just long enough to ensure that the film has a heart. First-time screen actor Shaffer, hired because of his real-life wrestling prowess rather than his stage chops, is the only weak link amongst the cast. His delivery is wooden and his character reads as emotionless, though it's hard to be sure how much of this is down to bad acting and how much is down to his character's written emotional distance.

'Win Win' is in some ways boldly unconventional for a mainstream American film, not only in its refusal to moralise about its characters, but also in its depiction of the relationship between a sports coach and his wunderkind. The usual Hollywood narrative of their relationship would involve both parties bonding, before coming away having learned some home truths - the triumph is that they grow as people and win the big game. Here things are less clear cut and ultimate sporting victory is less than assured. But as promising as all this sounds, any recommendation of the film must come with a huge caveat.



All too often the film indulges in cringing, heavy-handed metaphor. For instance, as a half-hearted Giamatti jogs before the titles, we see him overtaken by two other joggers - at which point he stops, turns almost to camera and sighs. "Oh dear", we think, "things are not looking up for this guy". Cut to: his wife lying in bed with her daughter. "Where's daddy?" asks the little girl. "He's out running" comes the reply, before the child's all-too-cute response: "from what?" And what is a falling tree or a volatile boiler if not a sort of sword of Damocles metaphor, for forces which could quite literally crash down on his life or explode under the build-up of pressure at any moment? And being wrestled into the dirt by his pupil at the start of the film's third act is nothing if not a symbol that he has reached his lowest point. A skillful use of imagery is to be admired and enjoyed, but McCarthy's movie suffers under the weight of all too on the nose symbolism.

The film is also host to one of my pet hates, as almost every argument results in someone running out of the room hysterically - though I concede that a stroppy sixteen year-old kid, with a history of anger management issues, might behave this way (it's just irritating to watch). It must also be said that 'Win Win' contains some of the most contrived, cynical and obvious product placement seen in recent memory, with frequent mentions (and depictions) of the Nintendo Wii. These moments also break the film's believability. After all, nobody has actually played with their Wii since some time in 2010. There are also some unfortunate cack-handed comedic references to 'Star Wars' which are ironically less funny than Jar Jar Binks. All told though, 'Win Win' is as admirable as it is imperfect, mostly for its refusal to buy into the American Dream and thanks to a decent cast.

'Win Win' is out now in the UK and is rated '15' by the BBFC.

'LA Noire': Game changer?

Rockstar, the video game developers behind the popular 'Grand Theft Auto' series, today released 'LA Noire' - an open world detective game set in 1940s Los Angeles, which boasts almost miraculous, hitherto unprecedented motion capture technology. For the best part of a decade video games have been shamelessly aping Hollywood, often even drawing from the same talent pool, but 'LA Noire' comes with the added credence of having been shown off at the recent Tribeca Film Festival.

The "video games as art" discussion is increasingly tedious and redundant, but 'LA Noire' is - at least in terms of acting - a potential game changer for how the medium is seen as a means of telling stories. I've only played it for a few hours so far, but its characters make realistic facial expressions, display subtle changes in emotion and are even often played by recognisable US TV actors giving really decent performances (including the bulk of the cast of 'Mad Men'). Personally, I think the games that best make the case for the art form are those which try less to copy Hollywood and try to play on the medium's own strengths (for example 'Flower' or 'Shadow of the Colossus'). However, whilst games from 'Resident Evil' to 'Call of Duty' have, for years, attempted to tell Hollywood stories using a faux-Hollywood aesthetic, 'LA Noire' may be the first game to do so with this degree of credibility. (Yes, I've played 'Heavy Rain', but that was woeful.)



In any case, 'LA Noire' wishes it was a film and is no doubt written by a frustrated film student. Like Rockstar's other games, it puts you in a world informed by the movies and television much more so than history (which is not to say that it isn't a rich and interesting world all the same). And in that spirit I am going to review it on this blog as if it were a film. Too often a story that would be laughed off a cinema screen is given the benefit of the doubt (if only by gamers) because we don't expect games to have the same quality - the same ability to tell stories. In order to see whether 'LA Noire' bucks that trend I'm going to be reviewing it as if I'd watched it as a show on HBO.

So, if you're interested in that, check back in the week for that. And for reviews of 'Pirates 4: On Stranger Tides' and US indie comedy 'Win Win'.

'Attack the Block' review:

The success of 'Attack the Block', a comedy-horror movie written and directed by Joe Cornish (of 'Adam & Joe' fame), was always going to hinge on how the director portrayed his protagonists: a gang of so-called "hoodies". The film is set on a South London council estate which is invaded by ravenous extra-terrestrial monsters and follows a group of youths as they attempt to defend their housing block with samurai swords, fireworks and whatever else they have to hand. It's sort of like 'The Goonies' meets 'Aliens' via 'Shaun of the Dead'. But since the earliest trailer, (for me at least) question marks have hung over whether the comedy was going to be derived mainly from cynically picking on the country's inner city poor - with nothing more than a string of cheap, tired and obvious jokes at the expense of a feckless group of stereotyped "chavs".

Yet whilst the film opens with our would-be "heroes" mugging a young woman at knife point, Cornish manages to strike a delicate balance between humanising his gang of hoodlums, moralising about their actions and poking fun at them, and in the end the film is pretty perfectly pitched. Yes, there are gags at the expense of the kids' social class: for instance the film revels in the absurdity of their "urban", youth culture patois. But the film also riffs on the speech patterns of white, middle class, West London stoners. Almost everything that isn't scary, or at least jumpy, is played for good natured laughs, and the film most definitely has its heart in the right place.



The young actors feel authentic and bring a measure of understated comic brilliance to their delivery. Especially Alex Esmail as Pest, who looks something like "Dappy" from N-Dubz (only he's funny on purpose). It's also great to see a British film which revels in locally specific detail and which focusses on a number of black characters. At a first glance it would seem that Cornish has made his debut film very much in the mould of friends Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg. Nick Frost has a supporting role and Cornish plays with Hollywood genre conventions - especially those of sci-fi and horror - throughout. The screenplay is peppered with pop culture references and, as with the likes of 'Hot Fuzz', humour is mostly drawn from contrasting everyday British banality with an improbable hi-octane situation, with the alien invasion prompting lines like "I've got one text left. This is too much madness to explain in one text."

Yet compared to the Pegg/Wright oeuvre, Cornish's film is less obviously a sustained pop culture geek-off, in spite of frequent references to video games such as Gears of War. Instead it works quite capably on a surface level - as a comedy with scary bits, even for those without an encyclopedic knowledge of the work of Steven Spielberg. The in-jokes lie under the surface - satisfying for those in the know, but not intruding on the film's tight structure and engaging forward momentum.



It's terrifically well realised too, especially in the early shots which frame the housing block as some sort of futuristic, science fiction obelisk, and trace the hallway strip lighting as if it were on the inside of a spaceship. As a setting the block is versatile and filled with several distinctive environments which cleverly break up the film's predominantly black and grey colour palette. The alien creatures themselves are really well designed and fairly frightening, and Cornish has admirably shunned a more commercial '12A' certificate by filling the film with some pretty visceral, over the top gore.

Far from being the sustained, middle class wink that I'd feared, 'Attack the Block' is the smart, funny and slickly produced feature that I'd hoped for. As a first time director, Joe Cornish has displayed a level of assuredness that is encouraging and - if he can resist the inevitable overtures of Hollywood (he has already co-written the upcoming 'Tintin' film) - his brand of eye-catching, socially conscious and unpretentious comedy could be a sizable boon for British cinema for years to come.

'Attack the Block' is out now across the UK and has been rated '15' by the BBFC.

'Midnight in Paris' review:

The 64th Cannes Film Festival opened last week with an out of competition screening of Woody Allen's latest, 'Midnight in Paris'. I wasn't in Cannes but managed to see a showing of the film (appropriately enough) in the French capital, where it went on general release later that same day. Maybe it had something to do with the film's local setting - and certainly the ubiquitous posters for it on the city's streets won't have done any harm - but the showing I attended was a sell out, as a diverse crowd flooded in to the main screen of a Pathé multiplex in Montmartre. Of course, it's become a truism that Allen's films are much better appreciated on the continent than in the US/UK (a fact acknowledged by the director himself in 'Hollywood Ending'), but I was still surprised to have to queue up to see a Woody Allen film - and in a mainstream cinema.

'Midnight in Paris' follows Gil Pender (Owen Wilson), a surrogate Woody Allen figure - a Hollywood screenwriter who is in love with a romantic view of the French capital and with an idealised view of the past. He loves the city and its cultural legacy so much in fact, that he wants to get away from his home in California permanently and have a shot at being a "serious writer" - an ambition not supported by his high-maintenance fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams). Gil wants to take long walks in the rain and sit in left bank cafés working on his novel, but his peace is disturbed by Inez's cynical, right-wing parents and the intrusions of her pretentious, know it all friend Paul (Michael Sheen).



Like Miniver Cheevy before him, Gil feels like a man out of time and wishes he were born in a more intellectual, artistically vital era - for him, the Paris of the 1920s. And it is to that period of time that he finds himself magically transported every night at the strike of midnight, where he mingles with his heroes, among them F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston), Salvador Dali (Adrien Brody), Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll) and Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates). This bizarre twist in the tale - not hinted at in the trailer - that harkens back to Allen's work as a short story writer or his 'Deconstructing Harry' and 'The Purple Rose of Cairo'. Over the course of these late night visits to the romanticised past Gil meets and falls in love with Adriana (Marion Cotillard) and has to decide between the past and the present.

Owen Wilson is fantastic as the central character, with his easy charm and impeccable comic timing working perfectly with this - his best role outside of a Wes Anderson film. Wilson's unpretentious likeability has seen him too often wasted in disposable rom-coms, but he was really made for intelligent roles such as this. He is supported by a brilliant ensemble cast too, with everyone from McAdams to French-Moroccan comic Gad Elmaleh (who brought the house down with his wordless appearance as a private detective) superbly cast. Especially Cotillard (I shouldn't need to tell you how appealing she is a screen actress). But alongside the laid back naturalism of most the performances, it was actually the showiest and most exaggerated turns that thrilled me the most.



Adrian Brody's appearance as Dali caused me to shed tears of laughter. Genius casting making for an inspired cameo. Whilst Corey Stoll as Hemingway was absolutely perfect, with a level of earnestness and intensity that was, for me, hilarious. Praise must also go to Michael Sheen for his slimy portrayal of Paul, a role reminiscent of all the New York pseudo-intellectual archetypes seen in all of Allen's best loved 1970s work. He manages to make the character just the right level of obnoxious and pedantic without seeming over the top and it's a pity he isn't in more than a couple of scenes.

It's the performances rather than the writing that is funniest and 'Midnight in Paris' is perhaps lacking in the sort of deft one-liners that were once the hallmark of Woody Allen's style. And unlike the adored 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' this won't be up for any Oscars, if only because it's so relaxed and deceptively simple. But 'Midnight in Paris' is every bit as beautiful as anything Allen ever shot with Gordon Willis, and it's a screenplay full of interesting ideas even if they're not all explored with any depth. As the calamitous 'Cassandra's Dream' testifies, Allen can't write "British". But he does the American abroad very well and with this he has given every reason to anticipate his next film, the Rome-set 'The Wrong Picture', with some degree of optimism.



You might say that I was pre-disposed to enjoy 'Midnight in Paris', what with being in Paris and watching the film with an enthusiastic crowd. And you may have a point. And, after a patchy last decade (to put it kindly), it is fair to say my expectations for it were set extremely low - especially given that Allen's last film was utterly abysmal. But for the first time in what feels like a decade, I absolutely loved a new Woody Allen film, almost without qualification. For the first time since childhood I laughed during one of his movies: not knowing laughs of polite recognition, but hearty, belly laughs. For the first time in around a decade, here is a Woody Allen film with imagination.

'Midnight in Paris' has not yet been rated by the BBFC and will probably not see a UK cinema release until 2012. However, the film is currently on general release in France.