Trailer round-up: GI Joe Retaliation

I’m not a fan of GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra; the first film was a giant turd with few redeeming features. It was ugly, nonsensical and it featured one of the Wayans’s brothers. If you’re going to aim low then that’s the way to do it.

I don’t understand the appeal of the series unless it really is about stuff blowing up and since I have absolutely no connection to the property (apart from disliking the original film) then I’m not sure why I should/would be looking forward to this film. I hope I’m proven wrong but not even the presence of The Rock Dwayne Johnson can boost my expectation levels from up off the floor.

GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra is out on the 22 June 2012 in the UK

Cinema Review: Fast and the Furious – Rio Heist

“The men we’re after are professional runners. We find them; we take them as a team and we bring them back. And above all else, we never ever let them get into cars.”

I think it’s a little stunning in seeing the Fast and the Furious franchise enter its fifth instalment. Who would have thought that in 2001 that The Fast and the Furious would have gone on to have another four instalments? They’ve carved out a niche as a money maker, delivering a specific kind of automotive spectacle that’s undemanding and occasionally underwhelming. The series slightly redeemed itself with its fourth entry after the disappointing efforts of 2 Fast 2 Furious and Tokyo Drift; with the fifth entry it goes some way to getting back to the original’s spirit.

After Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto is liberated from a prison transport, we find our protagonists on the run in Brazil with the always tempting setup of one last job so they can have the funds to be able to disappear forever and stop running from the law. If that sounds familiar it’s due to the franchise now assuming the conventions of the heist film assembling a cast, each with a specific talent, in the hope of pulling the job off. Up against a Brazilian drug lord and being chased by US Federals, Toretto and his gang orchestrate an audacious attempt; to steal $100 million dollars.

As the series has progressed there has been a distancing from reality, a cartoon esque vibe has infiltrated the series after the (relatively) practical and realistic effects of the first film. Rio Heist serves to bring it back to some semblance of normalcy even if it is as ridiculous as some of the previous entries treading a fine line between reality and complete disbelief. It helps that most of the main cast have been reunited from the first as well as a few stragglers from the second and third. There’s a bond between them and an easy rapport that can be hard to extract from an ensemble cast this big.

Despite the camaraderie character has always been troubling in a franchise known for its cars and girls with substance a distant third after style and spectacle. Asking us to care about characters (especially for those who aren’t familiar with the franchise) is a bit much especially when they’re played by the unremarkable Paul Walker and the rock like Vin Diesel. Both have emotional storylines but much of the emotional impact is negated by the visual frippery on display. I’d rather watch cars smashing into each than these actors trying to emote; I’m a bit of Neanderthal that way.

Speaking of rock, Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) is probably the best thing in the film bar the car chases. Constantly sweating, he’s a no-bullshit, no-nonsense, I-will-catch-you-if-its-the-last-thing-I do type of Federal agent, he looks like Vin Diesel but with a goatee as if he were Vin Diesel’s evil twin in a bad soap opera and when they get to fight it’s everything that Clash of the Titans should have been, actual titans fighting.

What lets down Rio Heist is the lackadaisical plotting, the thinly sketched villain in Joaquim de Almeida’s crime boss (sharp suit, kills indiscriminately, cups girls bums, he must be bad right?) who’s only there to make sure that our cast of would-be felons pale in comparison and a third act change of mind that’s completely laughable. It fits in with the sensibility of the franchise and to take it seriously would leave you with egg on your face. The final dash to the finish line is wholly ridiculous with our heroes decimating parts of Rio in a manner that makes you wonder if our “heroes” are doing as much damage as a villain would.

Rio Heist is good, it’s not clever but it’s fun and undemanding and its main remit is to devise ways in which it can fling cars at one another but the franchise is never going to reach the heights of generally being excellent. It’s a B-film, a diversion and a fun one at that.

Fans of the franchise should wait until the end credits for an interesting epilogue…

Review: Faster

“God can’t save you from me!”

When an action film is called Faster you go in expecting a few things. One thought is a tagline that manages to feebly contextualise its title in some way (slow justice is no justice). Another, probably your first thought, would imagine the film had some reference to driving and you would be partially correct. On this basis you may even expect something that is tense, exciting, hurtling across the screen at a breakneck pace. What you don’t expect is a film that despite a few stylistic tics here and there is more anaemic than it is thrilling.

Faster is not a complete wreck of a film, it knows what it wants to be but it’s not very convincing in its attempts. Dwayne Johnson (still fondly remembered as The Rock) is introduced as Driver (none of the main characters have real names), an ex-con released from prison and immediately sets out to avenge the death of his big bro after their gang was double-crossed and he was left with a hole in his head. He’s tracked by a cop who’s called…Cop (Billy Bob Thornton) and an assassin who we’re told is called Killer (Oliver Jackson Cohen), each out to stop Driver for their own reasons that undoubtedly will reveal themselves over the course of the film. The point of swapping their names for monikers is probably a reference to The Good, The Bad and the Ugly but really what it serves is to prove just how hollow and derivative these characters are. While the theme of the toll revenge takes on the soul is an interesting one that the film works its way towards the characters never affect any sense of interest from the audience. Things happen. Menacing words are voiced. People are killed. The film ends.

While Johnson jumps back into the role of action man after his family film hiatus, embodying a man who’s a whirling dervish of violence, the rest of the film veers from the dour to the very erratic. Thornton’s performance is suitably grim as a cop who is a burnt out addict on his way to retirement but Cohen as the Killer is in a different film entirely. His character may have been designed as a neurotic, egotistical but driven assassin but his storyline is distracting and uninvolving.

Ultimately what sinks Faster are pretensions of being something that’s (semi) serious but in the end is rather timid. It’s not trash but it’s not particularly exciting either, plodding along as humdrum entertainment that gets the blood pumping in a few instances but never gels as anything more than the sum of its parts. If you’re still thinking about that title, think tortoise rather than hare to get an idea of what to expect.

Also available to read at MouthLondon

Review: Southland Tales

“I’m a pimp. And pimps don’t commit suicide”

I’m not a fan of Donny Darko. I remember watching it once and not really caring about what happened; just confused about where it was all going and to what end. Since that first viewing I haven’t gone back and watched the film despite the inkling that I might view with it a different perspective (I did watch it in 2003 or so). I didn’t get the hype and I don’t subscribe to the idea that the film was too clever for me; I just didn’t connect with the material and couldn’t find any sort of bearing in this strange, hyper-realised world. So it’s with Richard Kelly’s past work in my mind that I approached Southland Tales, aware of the criticism that’s been heaped on it and of my own expectations of what to expect from a film with Kelly as both writer and director.

Let’s say I wasn’t looking forward to it.