CREED: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

Scott Stapp, the lead singer of crappy ’90’s soft-rock Christian band Creed isn’t the biggest fan of the new movie Creed, mostly because it lacks any resemblance to his band and the film’s lack of “epic guitar solos on top of a mountain.” Thankfully, no one gives a sh*t about Scott Stapp’s opinion because he was the lead singer of crappy ’90’s soft-rock Christian band Creed.* However, the movie Creed is definitely worth your time and effort.  

Creed is the story of a young up and coming boxer who’s ambitious, angry but in serious need of a mentor, oh yeah, and just happens to be the youngest illegitimate son of former World Heavyweight Champion Apollo Creed. Not wishing to ride on the coattails of his father’s name, he seeks out his father’s former rival and friend Rocky “The Italian Stallion” Balboa. That’s right, this is a Rocky movie! And quite honestly, probably the best Rocky movie since the first one.

Look, for full disclosure, I should admit that I’m a massive Rocky fan, I enjoy all of them, even number five, well maybe not number five. Very few films can make me cry, the original Rocky film is one of those films. Every time Rocky screams out Adrian’s name at the end of the film after getting the Hell beaten out of himself just gives me watery eyes and a lump in my throat. This new film will also make you shed a tear on more than one occasion and for very different reasons.

There are so many good things about this film. Yes, it is a Rocky film, but it is a modern day Rocky film that uses many of the Rocky templates but is not a slave to these templates. We have some really creative camera work, particularly in the boxing scenes; the camera always floats over one of the boxer’s shoulders which really brings you into the ring. The editing cuts effortlessly to small intimate details of a scene to really paint a picture from the set up of a fight to the conversations two lovers can have together. The lighting dips in and out to draw attention during intense scenes to highlight the character’s focus during a fight.

The narrative has a much more human approach than you’d expect in the Rocky film series. They’re not afraid to touch on the darker implications of life as a boxer, there is far more humility in this film, the kind of humility that hasn’t been seen since the first two Rocky movies. The characters in this film are far more human with genuine motivations and relationships that go past the motivations of previous Rocky films such as “I must break you” or “respect”. As a matter of fact, the motivation for Creed is revealed in the final fight of the film and it’s a real punch in the gut which makes the final fight all the more meaningful.

But let’s focus on the two leads: Michael B Jordan is charming and likable, he’s has a remarkable likeness to Carl Weathers and has worked hard to get in shape for this film. He is in many ways the new and improved Rocky. However Sylvester Stallone is the surprising talking point of the film. This is Rocky at his most humble, gone is the vanity that often hindered the other Rocky movies as we finally see a broken down and retired Rocky Balboa. Many have been suggesting that Stallone could be up for an Oscar nomination and to be honest, I would be shocked if he wasn’t nominated. This is the best version of Rocky we have seen since the very first Rocky movie, the emotion is there on his face and is real - from when he talks about his son to when he receives some devastating news.

Ultimately, Creed is a solid film that lives within the world of Rocky but still stands on its own two feet. In many ways it’s like an indie film that just happens to exist in the Rocky universe. This film work for Rocky fans and is still accessible for people new to the Rocky franchise.

Creed gets Four and a Half Stars (or Four and a Half guitar solos on a mountain top)       

* Disclaimer: Yes I know that the Scott Stapp Creed review is a Funny or Die sketch.

ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW

Monty Python are back, and this time they have brought along Simon Pegg to star in their first feature film in over 30 years. Not only that but they even have the late great Robin Williams voicing a dog. That should be a three hit combination and after seeing it I can confidently say, that you should see ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING else!

Absolutely Anything features a bunch of poorly CGI’d aliens, voiced by the cast of Monty Python, that decide the best way to choose the fate of the planet Earth is to bestow absolute power to one human, if that human uses the power for good, the Earth survives, if not, well... you know. If the plot sounds familiar it’s probably because it’s been used constantly from Bruce Almighty to episodes of The Simpsons and so on and so forth.

So look, this is supposed to be a comedy: it has Simon Pegg, it involves the creative team from Monty Python, it should be a home-run, but it’s not. It’s an unfunny mess of a film with so many awkward and uneven jokes with no real story. The film sets up a basic story with basic jokes, the biggest problem is that the story is too basic and the jokes don’t land mostly because they don’t know what kind of comedy they want to be: the jokes are either family-friendly but then switch to expletives that don’t really fit with the rest of the jokes. The only real saving-grace of this disappointing movie is that it mercifully only lasts 81 minutes.

Monty Python has always been an acquired taste when it comes to comedy; I’m a huge fan but I understand if people find the comedy too random and too left-field to always comprehend. It just seems in this film though that they have played it far too safe to the point where it really is unrecognisable as a Python endeavour. Gone is the iconic visual animation we’ve seen from The Flying Circus in favour of really poor CGI and the humour lacks any of the clever overtones, play on words or silly walks that make it recognisable to fans of the ensemble.  

You know, I really feel for Simon Pegg because I’ve been really hammering a lot of his films lately. I thought Man Up and Kill Me Three Times are horrendous pieces of sh*t and Absolutely Anything slides perfectly into the middle of this sh*t sandwich. He’s a great comedic actor and I am forever in his debt for his work on the TV series Spaced not to mention Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz. Outside of that though, he seems to only work well when he’s likable side-kick in blockbuster franchises such as Mission Impossible and the revamped Star Trek. Put him in as the leading man for anything else and it just seems to be a waste of his talent. Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s a great guy, he just really needs to make better film choices.  

At the end of the day, this could have been so much better and really should have been so much better. This is one of Robin Williams’ last roles and unfortunately it is not one that he will be remembered for. The script for this film sat on the shelf for years, how it ever got off the shelf is a mystery, but as I said at the beginning: do yourself a favour and watch Absolutely Anything else.

Absolutely Anything gets Half a Star (that’s Half a Star for that one time that I laughed while watching this movie - although that might have been gas)

JESSICA JONES: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

She's a hard-drinking, hot-tempered mess of a private eye who is also capable of punching a hole through your chest. That might not seem like the recipe for the kind of person you'd want to hang out with, but you could definitely afford to lose 13 hours of your life getting to know Marvel and Netflix's new small-screen super-heroine, Jessica Jones.

Yes, the sophomore follow-up to the smash-hit that was Daredevil earlier this year is Jessica Jones, a private dick (without the dick) in Hell's Kitchen who uses her wit, intelligence, smart mouth and super-strength along with the ability to fly and consume copious amounts of liquor to solve whatever case needs to be solved. Just imagine Veronica Mars with super-powers and a bad drinking habit. When distraught parents hire Jessica to help find their missing daughter, this reluctant superhero with severe PTSD becomes caught in a deadly cat and mouse game with a man known as Kilgrave, who has the ability to control anyone with just a few simple words.

Filled with the grit and darkness that had Daredevil leaving all other comic book TV series looking slack-jawed, Jessica Jones ups the dark tones with some really disturbing concepts and scenes touching on domestic abuse, sexual abuse, self-harm and all those other feel-good, happy-fun time themes. 

One of the great things about these Netflix series is that it’s a lot like watching one 13 hour long comic book movie, so we aren’t dependent on having the “freak of the week” approach to the storytelling that you often get in other shows like The Flash, Arrow and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. We essentially have one long overarching narrative that’s sprinkled throughout with supporting character’s stories that for the most part serve a genuine purpose. Often one of the biggest cliches in comic book TV series and movies is the “will they/won’t they?” trope; The Flash does this, Arrow does this, Iron Man did this for three films, but with Jessica Jones, the big question is “will they/won’t they stop f*cking?” which is so incredibly refreshing as it is good to see a real adult relationship fleshed out in the superhero genre (no pun intended).

One of the strongest elements of the show is its unflinching portrayal of abusive relationships and how the strong female characters handle and react to these situations. Kristen Ritter and Rachel Taylor are perfectly cast and bounce off each other so well; you can see a genuine friendship and what is also refreshing is that at no point are any of the female characters pining for men or succumbing to other negative stereotypes associated with women in leading roles in TV and film. The show also really comes alive whenever Mike Colter’s Luke Cage or David Tennant’s Kilgrave are on screen, but both for completely different reasons: Luke Cage is calm and confident, not to mention indestructible, but in a surprise gender-reversal he plays the femme-fatal to Ritter’s hard-boiled detective. Whereas Kilgrave is skin-crawling creepy, incredibly funny and yet able to, on occasion, make you feel sorry for him despite some of the horrific things that he does.            

The show itself is not perfect. Admittedly the slow burn approach can sometimes be a little too slow. There is a sudden and dramatic character change for one of the supporting cast which really comes out of left-field and is never really explained and doesn’t really make sense when you think about how that character was first introduced. The show, much like Daredevil, is continually building to several things including a final confrontation but unlike Daredevil, none of these things really pay off come the end of the final episode. The show teases everything from flying, to the “Purple Man” to “The Man Without Fear” just to name a few, but I honestly wouldn’t hold your breath for many of these things.

Overall Jessica Jones is an absolute train-wreck of character but with some great humour, charm and strongly positive feminist messages this is definitively the show you should be watching right now. It may not quite reach the lofty heights of Daredevil, but the tension this series ratchets up throughout its thirteen episode run really does give the other hero of Hell’s Kitchen a run for his money.

Jessica Jones gets Four and Three Quarter Stars out of Five (What are you doing? You need to be watching this show now!! Already watched it? Watch it again!!)

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY PART 2: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

It seems you can’t be a legitimate franchise nowadays unless you’re willing to split your final installment into two parts. Let’s face it, Harry Potter did it with The Deathly Hallows, Twilight milked it with Breaking Dawn, Divergent is going to be doing it, The Avengers are doing it to squeeze the most out of Robert Downey Jnr’s contract, plus Peter Jackson turned a f*cking 300 page book into a nine hour three part film with The Hobbit; so now we have The Hunger Games milking all those young adult fiction audience’s wallets with Mockingjay Part 2.

Granted the most frustrating part of this approach is that as an audience we are being forced to pay twice for what is essentially one long film that clearly didn’t need to be so long. As seems to be par for the course with these films, Part 1 is nothing more than filler before hitting the part everyone wants to see. In the absolute final chapter we see reluctant rebellion leader Katniss Everdeen risk everything to form an army to take out evil President Snow played by Kiefer Sutherland’s dad Donald.

As we’ve already said, everything has been building to this, so it’s fair to assume that we are going to just jump right into it, but yet again, we have to build. This franchise has been very good at tricking you into thinking you’re watching a full-blown action movie, but when you step back and look at it, there’s a lot of talking. We’ve got deep heart-to-hearts, lots of pontificating, strategic meeting after strategic meeting always focused on building the importance of what is at stake. This may seem like a criticism, and in some ways it is but in other ways it is not.

As far as films based on Young Adult fiction go, The Hunger Games series is far stronger than your Twilights and Divergents. They cover broader themes, they know how to build tension, story and character, they have a stronger pedigree of acting talent involved between Lawrence, Harrelson, Sutherland, Moore and the final on screen performance of the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman; but the series still has Peeta. Yes Peeta, the most useless person to have in a death-battle royale. Once again, Peeta is being dragged around by other characters and like always, he serves as more of a hindrance than help, which really makes you wonder about his appeal or purpose beyond a forced love interest.

Now let’s quickly get through the nit-picky stuff: There are some conflicting narrative elements between propaganda and priorities; characters are killed for not confirming Everdeen’s death but then later the Capitol are completely happy to televise and report on her supposed death with no actual confirmation. We have two warring factions obsessed with their own brand, yet do nothing when they are being hacked during their own broadcasts. It all seems to just be convenient for the plot. Jennifer Lawrence has definitely outgrown this franchise to the point where throughout most of the film she just looks bored and looks to have taken a leaf out of the Kristen Stewart book of acting. The film is overly long and easily could have been condensed, you know, like into one film. The ending is so long and drawn out that it makes Return Of The King seem conservative.

However, all these negatives don’t overshadow what this series does well. For a blockbuster, it is not afraid to tackle themes that really relate to our current climate. Previously, they have tackled the issues behind Reality Television and have shown the impact of propaganda; this time the focus is on the politics and casualties of war, the impact of being displaced, allusions to the Syrian refugee crisis and blurring of the lines between heroes and villains during times of war. Say what you will, but you will not find themes like that in your Transformers movies or many other of your big-budget affairs.

The finale is dark and grim with some huge action set-pieces, explosions, black-oil runs, weird alien-like faceless creatures, falling ground and all the other things you’ve come to expect from a Tomb Raider game - I mean *cough-cough* a Hunger Games movie.

Overall, the film series wraps everything that needs to be wrapped up nicely, if not grimly, but the question of whether it was worth splitting into two would best be answered by readers of the books. For my money though, I still feel that I’ve been charged twice for one film.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 gets Three and a Half out of Five Stars (although if you half that like they did this final installment then that score doesn’t seem too crash-hot)

SPECTRE: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

What does an estimated $350 million get you? Unfortunately second place when compared to previous Bond efforts. Yes Bond is back, and after reinvigorating the franchise by punching us in the face with a fist full of stripped back, low-tech awesomeness that was Casino Royale, and then delivering the ADD-fueled continuous chase sequence clusterf*ck that was Quantum of Solace, we were then treated to the sleek class that was Skyfall with it’s beautiful cinematography and old school charm; now we have Spectre and... um.... yeah.....

When Bond goes rogue during an unsanctioned mission in Mexico this begins a series of events that sends 007 on a personal mission to uncover the sinister organisation that has been teased since Casino Royale. Meanwhile, Ralph Fiennes’ M battles it out with his bureaucratic counterpart C, no I’m not making that up, who’s played by Sherlock’s Andrew Scott, who to be fair is a bit of a C. Well anyway, giving away anymore of the plot verges on spoilers territory, so let’s try to answer the big question: does Spectre live up to the incredibly high standards set by Skyfall?

Now the follow up to Skyfall was always going to struggle to match the bar that was set, let alone exceed such standards, but you can’t deny that both Daniel Craig and Sam Mendes have given it their all in what could be their final Bond. Like any Mendes’ film the stunts, set-dressing and cinematography are all top-notch, don’t believe me, then watch any other film he’s ever made. Craig is still brooding, intense and pretty mopey for a Bond but at least this time he looks like he’s having fun from time to time.

The rest of the cast are quality when they are on screen, but that’s part of the problem, many of them are not on screen for very long. We have Monica Bellucci, who stuns as the most age appropriate Bond girl in a long time, she’s cool, calm and sexy, but she’s also hardly in the film. Of course then there’s the second Bond girl who has a lot more screen time but very little to do, even though she is a great actress, just see Blue Is The Warmest Colour for evidence of that, her character’s priorities and beliefs turn on a dime meaning she has very little impact on the story and will not be a memorable Bond girl. Then there’s Dave Bautista, who finally brings back the Bond henchmen to the series and is nothing short of a muscle-bound bag of fantastic but once again he’s only in a few short scenes. It honestly feels like they’ve dropped in a series of great characters and alluded to the fact that they are important to the narrative but in most cases, when all is said and done they actually aren’t. And then of course there’s the villain.     

Since the very beginning of the Bond franchise, these films have lived and died on their villains and during the Craig era we have had Mads Mikkelsen’s brilliant Le Chiffre in Casino Royale, Javier Bardem’s ultra creepy villain in Skyfall and the forgettable one in Quantum of Solace, sorry but do you even remember the character’s name? We now get an in-between kind of villain from two time Oscar winner Christoph Waltz. Look, Christoph Waltz is a great actor but highly under utilised in this film. As a villain, there's lots of room for development and unfortunately doesn't even come to the menace of Le Chiffre or his Oscar winning role of Col. Hans Landa. This is due mostly to the fact that his whole motivation for his angst towards Bond is cliched, far-fetched and confusing when you really think about it. He’s the character that ties the three previous Bond films together but this is where the far-fetched stuff comes into play, because, if he really is the architect of all of Bond’s pain then he’s been playing the long game to the point where you almost expect him to claim responsibility for that time Bond nearly choked on a peanut. 

Spectre covers some of the same old ground with regards to the "meta" question of whether Bond is actually relevant in the modern world, which is fine to a point, but considering the extent that Skyfall went in to exploring this idea and proving that he is still relevant, kind of makes it a bit repetitive here and regresses any progress the characters made in Skyfall. The film also explores themes of surveillance and data retention in the modern world which echoes many of the ideas touched on in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, however The Russo Brothers massaged these ideas far better when they tackled them. There is also a question of tone for the film. For the most part the film keep the same over serious tone that we've had throughout the Daniel Craig era but this time we get very brief and rare moments of humour that borders almost on slapstick. Some critics say that this film is more akin to the Roger Moore films but I honestly don't think there's enough of that kind humour to really make a legitimate comparison.

Overall, the film struggles to reach the lofty heights set by Skyfall. The twists can be seen a mile away so there are no real surprises, just the audience waiting for the film to acknowledge what everyone already knows. It may not be the best Bond of the series but you can’t deny that even a mediocre Bond films can easily outdo most blockbuster movies these days.

Spectre gets Double-O Three Stars

MAN UP: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

Imagine going on a blind date with what you expect to be a talented and funny person; only to discover that you’re actually trapped on a date with a hypocritical, narcissistic, self-absorbed couple that ends after 87 minutes with very few laughs. That may not be the exact plot for the new Simon Pegg film Man Up, but it is definitely the feeling you will have after you have left the cinema.

Man Up is the new British Rom-Com from the Director of The Inbetweeners, which sees a down on her luck yet still incredibly smug, Lake Bell going on a blind date with a newly divorced, incredibly shallow and highly hypocritical Simon Pegg after she is mistaken for someone else. Taking place over the span of one night, Lake Bell’s character struggles to keep up the charade of being someone else as the evening becomes more and more chaotic and when the truth finally comes out you still have to sit through another 48 minutes of the film.

Now it may sound like I’m giving this film an unnecessarily hard time considering the talent that is involved, but that is actually part of the problem. Yes Simon Pegg and Lake Bell are both incredibly charming people, but that doesn’t mask the fact that their characters are incredibly horrible people. Simon Pegg’s character is incredibly hung up on his divorce, so shouldn’t really be going on a blind date, but also is obsessed with rubbing  fake relationship in his ex-wife’s face and fixating on the idea of dating a 24 year old at the age of 40. Add to this the fact that Lake Bell’s character is actively choosing to ignore one of the most important nights of her parent’s life, a 40th anniversary, in order to keep up this lie, but then makes it all about herself when she arrives at the party.

One of the other big issues with the film is that it doesn’t know whether it wants to be a raunchy, dirty comedy or a Richard Curtis film. It tries to be both and fails on both ends: the raunchy jokes do not land as well as they would in The Inbetweeners and the characters and situations do not live up to the standards set in a Richard Curtis film. A Richard Curtis film will have flawed yet endearing characters worthy of redemption, yet this film is filled with self-serving unlikable characters from the two leads all the way through to Lake Bell’s family who clearly created a pathological deceiver within their daughter by fixating on relationships being the defining feature of an individual.

On top of all this the film seems to have borrowed it’s soundtrack from, well, whatever seems to fit at the time. The soundtrack moves from odd covers, to piano renditions of familiar tunes used in much better movies to every cliched tune you’d expect to hear when the film verges into the romantic or comedy cliche.

Overall, the film does not really know what it wants to be with many of the jokes falling flat, many of the situations being nauseating, and many of the characters being incredibly unlikable when you actually stop and think about it for a minute. It is unfortunate because all the talent involved really do deserve better than this featherweight Notting Hill Rom-Com of banality.

Man Up gets One out of Five Stars (the one star comes from the fact that the film is mercifully short)