John Wick: Chapter Two

#StokerScore 6/10

Do you ever find yourself eating in a restaurant that you occasionally like to go to because the food is usually good and it's one of the best places to get a specific dish that you like? Not the only place that you can buy it, just a preference? Yeah, me too. That was what I was doing just before watching the highly anticipated second outing for Keanu's latest franchisee. 

It was a Thai-themed place that does pretty good Som Tam. For those of you unfamiliar with Thai food, this is a vegetarian, shredded papaya salad that is mixed with tomatoes, green beans, peanuts, chillies and fish sauce. It's pretty fiery and I think it goes really well with grilled meats or other finger food. If I was going to review the meal and the restaurant, I'd probably tell you that they didn't meet my expectations. The salad wasn't as spicy as usual, there was an obvious lack of attention to detail with the shredding of the papaya - some of which had come off the mandolin in a whole, slightly serrated slice rather than the individual julienne. The grilled chicken also seemed half-hearted with some bits being a single bone with no actual meat on it. Top that off with the waiter's apology that they'd run out of beer and I left feeling decidedly underwhelmed. The Som Tam was still Som Tam, just not the kind of Som Tam that leaves me with a big smile on my face (trust me, it does when it's good).

Remarkably, this was pretty much how I left the movie too. Chapter Two ticks all of the boxes that made Chapter One such a huge success; guns, mixed martial arts, sartorial villain and this time even reminded me of a couple of Bond set pieces which if you're familiar with classic Bond movies will hopefully stand out to you as much as they did to me. But it lacked the heart, the soul that made the first one so fun and not as predictable.

Maybe I'm too cynical. Maybe I should try to be less subjective and not allow my frame of mind or mood to cloud my judgement. Maybe if the Som Tam had been better I would have enjoyed the movie more, but I doubt it.

Keanu is still Keanu, Peter Stormare makes a great bad guy and is one of two characters to resume an on screen relationship with Reeves (Stormare played Lucifer in Constantine and Morpheus makes a return, or at least Laurence Fishburne does) and the transfer to Rome, highlighting that the crime syndicates are global, is a nice touch. Yet still I felt underwhelmed. It was like watching a chef make something he's made a thousand times and, rather than be interested in investing the dish with his enthusiasm, he just looks at the finished article and says "yeah, thet'll do".

As I said, the boxes are ticked and at times there is enough excitement to put you closer to the edge of your seat, you'll just never quite reach that far because something inside tells you it isn't really worth it.

iBoy

#StokerScore 3/10

Having seen the trailer for this new Netflix Original a couple of weeks ago, I was intrigued. It reminded me of The Matrix with a couple of visuals, the casting of Rory Kinnear as 'the bad guy', following up his turn as the monster in Penny Dreadful, and Maisie Williams, whose character in Game of Thrones suggests a real talent is about to explode were well placed, the London setting was even reminiscent of Joe Cornish's 2011 sci-fi surprise Attack The Block, so all looked good. 

I haven't read the Kevin Brook's novel, on which the movie is based, so was coming to it with only the trailer's information. The unwinnable 'book vs novel' argument is not something I ever want to discuss as it is, IMO, unfair to both genres in terms of putting the story on the screen, but it does allow for some interesting comparisons in visualising the authors intentions. 

All was going along swimmingly, if slightly predictably, in this story of an underdog righting wrongs for the love of a fair maiden. It's every superhero story you've ever seen, but with a tweak rather than a twist, the tweak being the superpowers and how they are, unexplainedly, happening. That being said, it's easy to guess between the lines and is enjoyable right up to the introduction of Kinnear's Ellman. At this point, either the editor of the movie left a hugely important scene on the cutting room floor or the audience is expected to believe that a line has been drawn between two invisible dots. I was gobsmacked. What came after, the way the movie ended was right there alongside all superhero movies, but that hole in the story, that was really unexpected and quite spoiled the movie for me.

After forty minutes or so, I was looking at a solid 8 on the stokerscore-o-meter but the missing link, so to speak, has left me still annoyed after sleeping on my review thoughts. 

Incarnate

#StokerScore 4/10

I think there was a time when an actor's name was enough to sell a movie. It's a bit like buying branded goods at the supermarket compared to the supermarket's own-label product, you just have a feeling that what you're getting is going to be better quality. But some own-brands are actually made by the same company whose quality product sits side-by-side on the shelf with its competitor. So what and who do you trust any more?

Well, if you see a movie title, say something like Incarnate compared with a poster saying Incarnate starring Aaron Eckhart, you're probably more likely to watch the second one because you remember how good he was in The Dark Knight and Thank You for Not Smoking. But then you'd go and remember the twoddle that was I, Frankenstein and Olympus/London Has Fallen. But then you'd think again and say that he was good enough to carry off that moustache in Sully so surely it wouldn't be that bad, would it? and all of a sudden you'd be in some sort of Mobius loop....

...this was how I ended up at the cinema, convinced by this argument and an interesting trailer. 

 Was the movie all bad? No, not really. The general concensus is that when it comes to religion the guy is a non-denominational exorcist. If you think about that it's actually surprising that it has never been done before. But it's also a bit of a lie, too. Eckhart's character is also wheelchair-bound, so that's also a bit different. The scares are generally ok but the mechanics and rules on which the movie tries to base itself are sometimes too silly.

I think as a one hour episode of a tv show it would have been better than what it turned out to be as a movie. Even with a novel premise, the movie was predictable and you just can't really forgive that.

Spectral

#StokerScore 8/10

Whatever your feelings are regarding Netflix, you can't accuse them of niche programming. Through their Netflix Originals brand, they have given us critically acclaimed shows such as House of Cards, Orange Is The New Black, and a variety of Marvel comic characters for television whilst they've also released a number of movies of which Spectral is the latest. I wasn't particularly impressed by the last Netflix Original movie that I saw, I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House was a bit too ponderous for my taste but as I said at the beginning, they do seem to be trying to provide something for everyone.

Before watching Spectral, I vaguely remembered reading about it on IMDB earlier in the year and reminding myself to look out for it. However, this vague memory was challenged somewhat by the other movie poster I saw recently. In it, it looked to be more like a nod towards Aliens (this film does seem remeniscent in parts) or maybe even Starship Troopers, that was the vibe I got from seeing it. Certainly the tech looked less like a standard military battling ghosts, which is what I had been led to believe from an earlier synopsis.

In the end, Spectral is a mixture of things which I certainly won't go giving away here. The lead actors all do their jobs but James Badge Dale who I last saw kicking Robert Downey Jr's arse in Iron Man 3 didn't seem to be cast correctly as the Macgyver-esque engineer. It was definitely good to see Emily Mortimer again, I still love her role in The 51st State, and Bruce Greenwood always brings gravitas to whatever part you see him play. 

The 51st State

Sure at times it's a bit formulaic but I also liked the originality in the story too. It could have gone in a number of different directions but the one it chose was interesting, even if the bad guys were defeated a little too easily in what felt like a rushed third act. 

Spectral is an enjoyable movie with what seems to be a big budget to provide cast and effects. The story is so nearly perfect were it not for the at times predictable events. 

Underworld: Blood Wars

#StokerScore 3/10

International film distribution is a matter of pot luck in my opinion. Herte in Indonesia we sometimes get movies well in advance of the release dates in The UK and US, at other times we can be a long way behind. Still, whenever we get the advance screenings I can't help feeling a little priviledged, well, in most cases that is.

I can never remember if the Underworld franchise began as a movie that became a comic book, or a comic book which became a movie but what I do know is this; Kevin Gervioux, a Canadian actor and screenwriter-cum-bodybuilder with a voice that reminds one of a cross between the Bald Eagle on the Muppets and walking on loose gravel, created a visually excellent if not particularly well written account of a war between vampires and werewolves...and he was the writer! 

Coming out five years before the drivel that was the Twilight, Underworld had blood and battles, a fancy steampunk-ish/celtic visual, Matrix-style, fetishistic black leather and pvc costumes and Kate Beckinsale. The story, as I said earlier, was a little bit confusing with some plotholes and narrative devices that didn't warrant too close a scrutiny but dammnit the first couple were FUN.

With Blood Wars the whole thing just seems to be a mess. Internal politics in the Lycan and Vampire ranks are messy, the dialogue is messy, the plot is messy, and it's just NOT FUN anymore. I can tell this because none of the cast, even Cahrles Dance and Lara Pulver hamming it up, seem to be having any fun any more either. It's as if the whole oh-no-we-have-to-rid-the-world-of-vampires-/-lycans-again thing has just become too much for everyone and the end of the movie comes as a relief for both audience and cast alike. Sure they've left the door open for may more movies but I hope they can agree not to.

The Monster

#StokerScore 2/10

Movies have been trying to scare people ever since they started putting images on celluloid. The invention was so totally mesmerizing to the first viewers that it didn't take the early directors long to decide to combine that feeling of awe with stuff that would also scare the living daylights out of the audience too.

The Germans were probably the best of the first bunch and the French could be pretty trippy as well.  Early horror movies from the 1920's included classics like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu and The Phantom of The Opera. These movies are still held up as scary today and often get hailed as inspirational by modern day film makers, even though their special effects appear silly and the lack of gore makes them seem tame alongside the horror porn and splatterfests we are bombarded with these days. You just need to consider how they must have appeared to people who were still coming to terms with other inventions like cars.

Horror movies have generally grown since then, although there are enough examples to contradict that last statement. Directors have taken their influences and either tried to create something new, or just gone for the quick buck and churned out more of what people want to see. The latter style has resulted in ordinal numbers resembling rugby scores being added to the end of a movie's title. That these are now being called franchises adds some legitimacy to the studios' need to keep coining in the greenbacks from movie titles that would never usually see the light of day.

Then there is the argument over studio vs independent movie. The movies that are blessed with the budget to visually create cinema magic usually come from the studio system who use logarithms to decide that they know what audiences like (and by that I mean will make a pile of money). Indie movies struggle to get funding but are often considered more artistic because the director's vision reaches the screen unmolested. 

The Babadook's budget was only $2m

Personally I prefer story over special effects and adhere to the belief that what happens off camera can be way more disturbing than having a Rob Zombie/Eli Roth decapitation shown in all of its supposed glory. Hitchcock was constrained by the film censors of his time so had to find ways around those restrictions if he wanted to scare his audience. That didn't turn out too bad, did it?Alternatively, 1960's Hammer Studios added Technicolour blood to the 1930's Universal monsters and there will always be a market for that visceral horror. But there is also room for the cleverly paced, well acted and carefully scary horror movie too. 

So when I saw the title The Monster and having understood the basic synopsis of a mother and daughter struggling against something nasty, I wasn't really expecting too much. I'd read nothing about it, knew nothing about it except that I'd heard of the director's first movie but still something intrigued me. Perhaps it was the poster, perhaps not.

The most disappointing part for me is that the first 40 minutes of the movie do a great job of looking at a dysfunctional mother and daughter relationship. It sets up the fact that the daughter is the emotionally stronger of the two. The inclusion of flashbacks to instances of family clashes go a long way towards investing us with some sympathy for the characters. If they had met nothing on that isolated road except their paranoid expectations, I'd have been happier than the actuality of the director suddenly changing from a solid, character-based story to a man-in-a-suit monster munch.

Seriously, if that was the movie that he'd wanted to make then he might as well have ditched the first forty minutes in favour of a back story involving genetic engineering, pods arriving from space or some sort of hybrid transformation (none of these are true, at least I don't think so) and then a stream of stereotypical victims. This movie had an estimated budget of nearly three million dollars but I can't say I can see that on the screen. It's as if there were two movies and two directors. Even the writing alters in the second half of the film, contradicting what we know of the characters.

I'm disappointed....

Doctor Strange

#StokerScore 10/10

Have a quick look at a general synopsis of these two Marvel Superhero movies and imagine what it would take to make them a success. Not only that but one that would sell to a wide audience, at least wide enough to claw back the money spent making them and also not affect the ability of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to continue raking in the box office receipts;

Guardians of the Galaxy: An (at times) annoyingly arrogant leader who sides with a talking raccoon, a green-skinned alien, a red-skinned alien and a talking tree to defeat a blue-skinned sociopath.

Ant-Man: A wisecracking ex-con who finds a suit that allows him to make himself small and communicate with ants, allowing him to stop world domination by a megalomaniac scientist.

will we ever get to see 3-D Man and do we really need to?

These movies really shouldn't have worked (and I speak as a huge fan of Marvel comics) yet, through a diverse director-hiring and casting policy, the groundwork that was laid with the earlier movies such as Iron Man and Thor meant that people did turn out in droves to see them.

With continued director and acting-talent selection, Doctor Strange movie hit the ground running, at least in terms of hype. Benedict Cumberbatch isn't just bankable, he's a global star because he seems so love-able, I don't think I've met anyone who doesn't like the guy. Add to that his acting range and the movie was, if anything, setting itself up to be Marvel's first failure. 

Not a chance.

The movie looks awesome, at times resembling the view through a kaleidoscope I remember having as a kid. The (amazing) special effects aside, the story is, admittedly, no big shakes on the surface. Guy overcomes adversity, gets superpowers and de da, de da, de da. But the way in which it's done, the humour and pathos working side-by-side, made it a great experience.

The supporting cast are just excellent, they need to be to go toe-to-toe with Cumberbatch, and I found myself wanting more and more of this story.

In what seems to me to be Marvel's biggest problem, the villainous side of things is, well, not as super as the heroes. It's no secret that Marvel has been setting up the fight against blue/purple-skinned Thanos for ages, and maybe they don't want to have a particularly strong villain being compared to the threat that is coming from the cosmic menace but I do think they need to start and venture further with their bad guys and girls, a bit like they did with the open-ended defeat of Red Skull who I'd still like to see make a return to the movies.

Finally as to the debate on white people playing parts intended for people of colour, Tilda Swinto nails the part of the Ancient One

The villainy problem is a small thing and I'm not going to let it affect the overall score because, for 2 hours, I was immersed in the antics of a brave new character. Even if I can't quite forget the 70's version...

....Oh, and look out for a couple of extras in the mid credit and end credit parts