In Cinemas: Safe House

Remember rule number one: you are responsible for your house guest. I’m your house guest.

Safe House exists as a copy and as a result it’s inferior to the films it imitates. Still, it’s enjoyable, even if it is hackneyed and derivative, coming across as a synthesis of 24 and The Bourne trilogy but nowhere near as innovative as those two productions. Safe House’s biggest flaw is that it doesn’t have an original bone in its body and that produces a film that offers few surprises to go along with its brutal fights and big explosions.

Ryan Reynolds is Matt Weston, an inexperienced agent who’s stuck twiddling his thumbs looking after a safe house in Cape Town. When a rogue CIA agent, in the form of Denzel Washington’s Tobin Frost, turns himself in to the US consulate and is subsequently transported to the safe house, all hell breaks loose when a hit team tries to kill him. Weston and Frost escape but the former’s allegiance to the CIA is tested when he’s marginalised by his superiors as he tries to keep Frost under control.

It’s not a hugely original plot, the twist and turns the story takes are all pretty conventional and the roles don’t really test or stretch the combined talents of Reynolds and Washington. Despite the David Guggenheim’s script featuring on the prestigious Black List in 2010, what it excels at is taking all the tropes from action films of the past five years and embedding them into one story. It probably read well on paper, on screen it lacks a certain inspiration of its own.

The lack of interesting ideas spreads to the cast who all perform amicably but are weighed down by clichés and stereotypes. Since there is no overt ‘baddie’ (unless you consider Frost to be one) then it’s no real secret as to where the villain emerges from. The real mystery is why they even bothered to keep it a secret. Washington is, as always, good. His natural charisma creating a character that’s always in charge even when he’s not; always one step ahead of everyone else. Reynolds is okay, holding his own against Washington in the scenes the two actors share but he’s saddled by a rather pointless romance subplot that every action film has to shoehorn in.

The real star of the film is Cape Town, the location lending the film a look and feel that doesn’t feel like it’s a simple copy and paste exercise. The action on the other hands is borrowed wholesale from the Bourne films and implemented in an almost dizzying array of quick cuts. The best thing to say about the action is that it’s not as bad as other films (I’m looking at you Colombiana) but it’s getting to the point where someone needs to get the director, cinematographer or editor to take a sedative and calm down. These frenzied sequences don’t have the effect of putting the viewer in the scene unless they’re having an almighty seizure.

Despite that, Safe House is entertaining, it’s just disappointing that it aims so low and is comfortable in doing so. Director Daniel Espinosa handles everything in the manner you’d expect of big Hollywood action film, a by-the-numbers action film that’ll be probably forgotten.

6/10

At Home: The Change-Up

Is it weird I miss your penis?

Comedies are a difficult thing to execute. Not only do they have to be funny on the first watch but they have to hold up on repeat viewings otherwise they’ll have a half-life of a couple of months. The Change-Up is a film that I found to be hilarious on first watch but is less so a second time.

The premise is, initially, bare-bones. Dave Lockwood (Jason Bateman) is a married man with two kids and a stressful, all encompassing job (lawyer). Mitch Planko (Ryan Reynolds) is his best friend from school; a slovenly, lazy man-child who screws anything that isn’t tied down and has a father (Alan Arkin) who looks down on him. One night, after a round of drinks, they drunkenly piss into a fountain wishing they had each other’s lives and ‘Hey Presto!’ that wish is granted the next morning when they switch bodies.

It’s not the most original concept but The Change-Up does take it in a different direction from you twee Disney body-switch films. It’s filthy, raucous and depraved, stretching the low-brow humour of the Bridesmaids toilet scene to a whole film. The Change-Up loves its filth, taking any opportunity to (literally) shit in someone’s mouth. Reynolds plays Mitch as a confident, insensitive man who lacks self-awareness. Bateman’s Dave puts more effort into his work than he does his family. When they switch it causes them to reassess their priorities with both of them realising their rather selfish ways.

If that sounds lofty for a film in which one of the characters sticks a finger up a woman’s ass or Bateman’s screen wife Leslie Mann takes an excruciatingly noisy trip to the toilet then yes, The Change-Up’s sense of humour doesn’t sit too well with its more maudlin moments. It’s a little too syrupy and hackneyed but it is fun if you share its depraved point of view. A second and third watch is where the (gross) charm of the film may wear off completely, if you weren’t already affronted by a baby projectile shitting into Bateman’s mouth.

It’s no surprise to see that this film is from the scribes of The Hangover Part II, the debauched sequel that mined Bangkok for every lazy joke it could. Unlike that sequel this film doesn’t turn its characters into irritating idiots but it does share its affinity for nudity, broad cultural jokes (some funny, some not) and a redemptive storyline that you could see coming from years away, let alone a few miles. If you like depraved antics, then The Change-Up is definitely your kind of comedy. If you want something a little smarter, then head in any other direction.

6/10

Green Lantern’s light is not very bright – review

No matter how bad things get, something good is out there, just over the horizon…

Hal Jordan is a test pilot chosen by a “dying, purple alien” named Abin Sur to take his place and become a member of the Green Lantern Corps, an intergalactic police force tasked with keeping peace within the universe. Chosen as he has the ability to overcome fear, Hal Jordan must rise to task of not only dispelling the doubt within himself but fending off the twin threats of Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) and Parallax to stop Earth from being destroyed.

Even for a comic book, the premise of Green Lantern is slightly out there and more than a little silly and at times director Martin Campbell (The Mask of Zorro, Casino Royale) recognises this, having a few laughs at the film’s expense. However what’s so surprising about Green Lantern is just how bog standard the narrative and direction are. It’s sorely missing a spark that enlivens proceedings and more often than not the film strings scenes together in a most obvious and predictable manner. Its by-the-numbers directing and scripting mean whole sequences lack any visible energy and characters lack the necessary chemistry in their interactions with each other. Featuring plot holes the size of asteroids, Mark Strong’s Sinestro tries to valiantly plug them with chunks of exposition, the film teetering on being distinctly pedestrian. There’s a rule in filmmaking, “show, don’t tell” and Green Lantern has to get through so much mythology that it educates the audience at every opportunity, making the drama rather inert.

Much is squandered, whether it’s through the unsatisfying relationships (Hammond, Ferris and Jordan, in a love triangle?), its disappointing villains (Hammond – hammy, Parallax – CG) or the romance which is by the book and lethargic. Even worse is the squandering of Oa and the Green Lantern corps as they’re relegated to secondary status as Jordan’s plight is given more screen time than the discovery of this new universe. Animated film Green Lantern: First Flight managed to introduce the corps in a better, more organic way, staying away from Earth and embracing the galactic possibilities, by comparison this film feels grounded.

Reynolds is fine but the rest of the cast make the smallest of impacts and despite the whole world being at stake it all feels very low key and a little humdrum. That said I didn’t find Green Lantern to be a total bore, seeing Jordan create various constructs (objects his ring can create through will) is fun and the climactic scene is good if a little obvious in how the script calls attention to it earlier on. Green Lantern is not a disaster; it’s just a disappointingly average take on a mythology that deserved better.

What they said about…Green Lantern

I haven’t done this feature as often as I would have liked (once!) but on both occassions the film in question has managed to disappoint critics. Will Green Lantern follow the same trajectory as Sucker Punch and crash and burn in cinemas? Probably not, it’s been heavily marketed and that usually means that the opening weekend will be respectable (apparently it’s on track to gross $58 million in the US). The true test will come in the following weeks, if word of mouth is as bad as critics’ take on the film then I can’t see it being one of the top grossers of the summer. Warner Bros will be expecting this one to at least make its budget back (somewhere between $150 to $200 million).

I’ve mentioned Green Lantern a few times and was hoping the Martin Campbell who directed Casino Royale and The Mask of Zorro would turn up. I guess he didn’t. I’ll be going to see it (my friend seems to be excited by it), so I’ll be able to give my own opinion on it soon enough.

Here’s a few quotes from a sample of reviews:

Martin Campbell made Zorro and Bond work as contemporary heroes, but doesn’t quite have the feel for poor old Hal Jordan. Green Lantern is dazzling in pieces, but we’ve seen too many sharper versions of the superhero origin story in the last few years. It’s not Jonah Hex, but the battery runs low too quickly.

Read more at Empire

Muscular, well-cast launch of a proposed new franchise can’t help but replay a lot of familiar notes.

Read more at THR

At this point the best I can hope for is that the movie makes enough to warrant a sequel and somebody else can come in and make a good Green Lantern film using the excellent existing elements.

Read more at BadAss Digest

In a summer stuffed with superheroes, this underwhelming offering will likely leave you jaded. How it could have used some of Thor’s charm and The Green Hornet’s chutzpah.

Read more: Green Lantern review | TotalFilm.com

It’s not entirely Green Lantern’s fault that it’s the third superhero film to hit theaters in the last two months, or the 30th or so in the last decade, but at this point in the genre the same old origin story simply isn’t enough. Instead of being bold with Green Lantern’s out-there source material, Campbell and company have reverted to the tiresome, too-familiar mean.

Read more at Cinema Blend

Campbell’s successful re-booting of the James Bond franchise in Casino Royale may just have been the thing that helped greenlight Hal Jordan and his inter-galactic friends. He brings the same ‘less frills, more thrills’ approach to bear here.

Read more at Den of Geek

There are movies willed to life by the passion of their creators, and there are movies like Green Lantern, which are willed to life strictly by market forces.

Read more at The AV Club

I have no idea how Green Lantern purists will react, but the film as it is remains a weird combination of ghee-whiz kid-friendly superhero antics and truly disturbing horror elements.  That the film is not quite the triumph we wanted may be tragic.  That the film as it stands works at all may qualify as a miracle.

Read more at Mendelson’s Memo’s

Not quite the mammoth disaster that some are labelling it, nevertheless, Green Lantern is a big disappointment and has to rely constantly on its star to make things work and compensate for a weak script and a director who is clearly ill at ease with CGI. Reynolds should use that magic ring of his to summon up a new agent who is capable of finding him a big-screen role (and potential franchise) worthy of his talents

Read more at HeyUGuys

And I thought the film had a singular identity in a genre flooded with derivation, which is no small feat.

For me, it’s great summer fun.

Read more at InContention

Green Lantern Wonder-Con trailer

Although I’m loathe to put extended trailers on the site, especially ones that give a fair chunk of the film away, its bright outside and the sun has affected my brain.

I for one liked the first trailer and since then I’ve read Green Lantern: Rebirth. Didn’t understand a single thing about it since I’m relatively new to the Green Lantern corps mythology and the only thing I had encountered involving the Green Lantern was the animated film First Flight (which I thought was decent).

Anyhoo, in this soon to be post-Potter world Warner Bros needs to strike big with its properties outside of Potter and Nolan’s Bat-verse. With Martin Campbell at the helm I’m hoping for something more  likeGoldeneye/Casino Royale/Zorro type of form and less like Legend of Zorro/Edge of Darkness/Vertical Limit.

Review: Buried stuns and enthralls

“I need one million dollars by nine o’clock tonight or I’ll be left to die in this coffin!”

Spanish director Rodrigo Cortés has pulled off quite a feat with his debut film Buried. Setting a film six feet underground with only one character, spanning the entirety of the film’s duration, is a brave experiment to try. From the Hitchcock style credits to opening on a black screen do you realise you’re going to spend ninety minutes in the presence of a man in a coffin. It’s hard not to be sceptical, especially when such an idea is reliant on its execution. What follows however, is one of the more unique and visually arresting films of the year.