ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

My eyes just water at the idea of the rendering time required to produce these pixelated colourful digital worlds. The countless hours spent in front of computer screens getting paid minimum wage to produce these lush visuals. If only they had spent even half this amount of time on an actual story for the sequel to the 2009 hit, Alice In Wonderland, or as I like to call this one, “Bloated Johnny Depp Looking Like A Carrot-Top Drag Queen Featuring Alice.” 

Alice Through The Looking Glass follows the adventures of Alice who returns to Underland to help The Mad Hatter find his long lost, quite possibly dead family. In order to do this she must steal the Chronosphere from Time himself, played by Sasha Baron Cohen who seems to be doing an accent somewhere in between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Werner Hertzog. Essentially chaos ensues, Alice does a lot of green-screen Ninja Warrioring and a flimsy pretext for an origin story for The Mad Hatter and The Red Queen fills up the one hour and fifty-three minute runtime. 

Now the Tim Burton original was a breakout hit making over a billion dollars worldwide back in 2010. To be honest, a lot of that success was probably riding on the coattails of Avatar’s resurgence of 3D cinema and the pulling power of Johnny Depp at the time - however, I don’t remember anyone really clamouring for a sequel after it was released. Six years later, with the interest in 3D drying up, Johnny Depp’s stocks at an all-time low and no Tim Burton, this film really struggles to capture any of the heart that was in the original. Sure it looks great, but it certainly doesn’t feel great. 

Probably the biggest issue with the film is the story. It doesn’t hold enough weight to support even the key characters of Alice, The Mad Hatter, The Red Queen and Time. The film features all of the original cast from the first film, however they serve no purpose other than to remind you that this is a film set in the world of Lewis Carroll’s original stories. Those hoping for a great villain from Sacha Baron Cohen will be sorely disappointed, mostly because despite the great steam-punk design, he serves no threat at all. But this is not Cohen’s fault, it’s just that his character has so little to do, and this can be said for all of the cast. Helena Bonham Carter gives it her all in the film along with Mia Wasikowska - but ultimately they are just rehashing stuff we already know. Anne Hathaway gives the typical Anne Hathaway performance, and it is good to hear the voice of the late great Alan Rickman, if it is only for a fleeting moment. 

Of course, as always with a film starring Johnny Depp, your ability to enjoy this film will entirely depend on your tolerance of “wacky” Johnny Depp performances. If you’re a fan then you’re in for a treat. If you’ve grown tired of it over the years then maybe give this one a miss because it is more of the same with Depp lisping and switching accents and doing silly talks along with silly walks in his usual unapologetic way. Fun fact though, you know your career has hit rock bottom when 47 year old Rhys Ifans is being asked to play the father of Johnny Depp who is 53 this year.   

For a film that theme is the importance of time, it’s very telling that you will spend most of the film looking at your watch, seeing the ticking clock slow down to a snails’ pace. Granted the film is firmly targeted at little kids, but even they may feel that the film is overly long and a little boring compared to the other films on offer at this time of year. 

Alice Through The Looking Glass gets One and a Half out of Five Stars (or at least One and a Half out Five grave concerns for the well-being of the poor graphic designers sitting in front of those servers waiting for the f*cking film to render - I hope they have a good union.)    

   

THE NICE GUYS: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

I want sequels, lots and lots of sequels. I seriously just want films where Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling just hang out and rip on each other for two hours at a time. The Nice Guys could easily be my favourite film of the year, but if your not into action/buddy-comedies, with dark-humour, bare-breasts and a little bit of bloody violence then this film is probably not for you. However if this film is not for you, then spoiler-alert, you’re probably a pretty boring person.  

The Nice Guys is the spiritual sequel to 2005's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang; don't know what Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is? Stop everything you're doing and watch it now, then come back to this review. It's the film credited as being responsible for getting Robert Downey Jnr the Iron Man role, which subsequently led to Shane Black writing and directing Iron Man 3. If you're unfamiliar with Shane Black's work, don't worry, you know all of his films. He's the guy responsible for writing the  Lethal Weapon series, The Long Kiss Goodnight and The Last Boyscout. So you know, quick witted dialogue, creative action sequences and an odd obsession with setting his films at Christmas. 

The Nice Guys involves two mismatched private eyes played by Ryan Gosling, the guy your girlfriend or wife wishes you were, and Russell Crowe, the guy guys wish they were. Whilst joining forces to find a missing girl, they discover a whole series of things including porn stars, assassins, law suits, district attorney's, senile old grannies, mermaids and somehow by the end of the film it all makes sense but keeps you guessing from one scene to the next. 

The  film is set in the 70’s, and this is just brilliantly realised in a way that makes the film feel like it really was made in the 70’s; It’s so slick, and has the sensibilities of the time and place that makes it feel fresh in the current cinema climate that’s always so keen to play it safe. The humour is dark and not always appropriate. The violence is harsh and brutal when it needs to be, but most importantly the film doesn’t pander to the audience as it subverts many of the conventions of the genre which makes for some clever rug-pull moments in the movie.  

The film really does play to Shane Black's strengths: it's a buddy-comedy wrapped around a film-noir style mystery. There's great characters, regardless of whether they are in one scene or the whole film. Everything in his films are always linked in one way or another; what may seem like throwaway statement or discussion comes back in interesting and funny ways. There's twists and turns but at the heart of the film is just this amazing chemistry between Gosling and Crowe that just leaves you wanting more. It’s also great to see Ryan Gosling playing it for laughs, you forget just what great comedic timing he has. He can keep doing his dark brooding sometimes depressing Nicholas Winding Refn movies just as long as he keeps punching out these kinds of comedies from time to time. 

Overall, the film is not perfect, but for all the great one-liners, action and twists the film keeps churning out, you can forgive the occasional plot hole. It’s easily one of the most quotable films of the year, and with this newly discovered comedic pairing of Crowe and Gosling this film definitely deserves your time, especially during a blockbuster season filled with superhero movies, remakes, reboots, sequels, turtles and Mad Hatter’s.  

The Nice Guys gets Four and Three Quarter out of Five Stars (or Four and Three Quarter out of Five Gooch’s gushing over this film like a school-girl or some sh*t) 

   

X-MEN APOCALYPSE: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

After the fun of Deadpool, the glumness of Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, then the dizzying heights of Captain America Civil War, we are back to the glum of X-Men; but that’s not necessarily a bad thing - it’s what X-Men has always been about and most of the time, it’s worked out well for them. So how does Bryan Singer’s fourth attempt at creating a cohesive X-Men universe go at surviving the Apocalypse? 

After a return to form with X-Men Days Of Future Past, Bryan Singer hit the reset button on the whole universe in a vain attempt to remove X-Men The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine from existence. So now we find ourselves in the 1983 where all the characters look the same age that they did in X-Men First Class despite the 20 year gap between stories. Anyway, the first mutant Apocalypse, a delusional mutant from  the times of Ancient Egypt, who has a severe God-complex and a grab-bag of powers gets buried for several millennia at the beginning of the film. Once resurrected, he becomes Hell-bent on destroying the world for well, reasons, and he organises four horsemen to help him on his quest to turn the world into a pixelated wasteland of ruined iconic landmarks. These horsemen include Michael Fassbender’s Magneto and who gives a f*ck because the rest of them share about ten lines of dialogue between them for the length of this overly long film. 

Look, I’m a massive fan of the X-Men franchise, I read the comics as a kid and if it wasn’t for Bryan Singer’s first two stellar X-Men films we wouldn’t have the comic book movies that we have today. But after 16 years, five sequels, three spin-offs and multiple ridiculously thin-reasons to ensure that Wolverine, Professor X, Magneto and Mystique get as much screen time as possible, you just can’t help but feel that they have finally run out of ideas - sure it’s only taken nine films in total to finally have characters look like their comic book counterparts, but even then, that is saved until the very end of this movie. 

The film does feature the biggest action scenes to date for an X-Men film, but unfortunately the care-factor teeters along at mostly zero often because we are rehashing origin stories of origins we’ve already seen before. It’s almost like Bryan Singer wasn’t happy with how other directors handled said origins and decided to do his own versions of these moments we’ve already seen before. Granted many of these moments look cool, but it doesn’t shake the fact that we’ve seen it all before and that it doesn’t feel fresh. I guess this begs the big question of whether Bryan Singer let his own ego overrule his ability to make a film akin to his usual high standards when it comes to the X-Men films. 

The film features some highs and lows. The most obvious high is the return of Evan Peter’s Quicksilver who steals every scene he’s in and has another sequence that leaves his last one in the dust. The films lows are ultimately due to the fact that the movie has so many ideas running at the same time that it never really knows what to focus on. There are many scenes that feel completely unnecessary and written in just to fill in some time or to retread stuff from previous movies.

At one point, the film makes a very deliberate dig at X-Men The Last Stand by saying that “we can all agree that the third film is always the worst”, this may be good for a cheap laugh, however I don’t think Singer and writer Simon Kinberg realise just how many similarities this film shares with the Brett Ratner directed third entry: both films remove Professor X from the story early on to give more screen time to certain fan-favourite actors, both films feature huge pixelated third-act destruction on a level that looks cool, but ultimately borders on the absurd, and both films feature shameless fan servicing that doesn’t respect the mythology set up in the previous films, nor helps to further the story that’s being told. 

Overall, Jennifer Lawrence and her occasional X-Men, featuring Oscar Isaac in prosthetics, is enjoyable for the most part, frustrating at other times, but ultimately a forgettable entry in the long running X-Men franchise. Despite taking a dig at third entries in film series, it has become it’s own self-fulfilling prophesy: it’s not the worst, but when the theme is “survival of the fittest”, X-Men Apocalypse is certainly the weakest of the series.      

X-Men Apocalypse gets Two and a Half out of Five Stars (or Two and a Half out of Five extras dressing like it’s the 80’s in the film, whilst the rest dress like it’s 2006 or something) 

WHISKEY FOXTROT TANGO: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

It's the Hurt Locker of Afghanistan journalism movies and to be honest, that's probably the best comparison I can give this film. Both feature people doing really stupid things just for the thrill and rush they get in war-torn countries. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot will surprise you with it’s smarts and intelligence, but will really surprise you when you realise just how good Tina Fey is at drama.  

The story follows real-life journalist Kim Baker, played by Fey, who chooses to pack everything up and move to Afghanistan, for the less than subtle reason that because she is one of the only unmarried, childless personal in this bureau and with no kids she is deemed the least expensive insurance risk by her network. So, kick in the uterus aside, she takes the opportunity and very quickly becomes an adrenaline junkie searching for the next big story as she competes with other reporters and spends way too much time watching dogs humping. 

The film has the usual Tina Fey humour but also has the intelligence and commentary that comes with a Tina Fey production. The film asks big questions about war and cultural differences, but not in a way that is dismissive or generic. The soundtrack is also really interesting in the sense that it's a collection of songs that do not really belong together, but that's not a negative. The film starts with House Of Pain's Jump Around and ends with The National's Green Gloves and in between we have Aha, Radiohead, Kid Rock and The Chipmunks just to name a few. If nothing else, these songs at least keep you on your toes. 

The film is directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, who have given us films like Crazy, Stupid Love, Focus and I Love You Phillip Morris. Some of the great strengths of what they’ve done is the use of cutaways to really help paint the picture of not only the surroundings but the situations. Between shots of dogs humping, you'll see bags of zip-locked money sitting in army helicopters, and little unicorn stickers on automatic weapons. All of these things help to tell a story but are never actually explained, they just make the film feel more real and allows you, as the audience, to fill in the gaps yourself. 

Putting the white-washing casting choices aside, you can't fault any of the performances with Tina Fey showing she can act without having to do the whole ugly-crying-I’m-a-serious-actor-now thing. Martin Freeman gives Malcolm Tucker a run for his money as the sweary-Glaswegian love-interest along with lots of great, intelligent supporting cast members including Margot Robbie, Alfred Molina and that guy from Home and Away that has the fake drawn on tattoos. However the word intelligent is an important distinction here as opposed to other films like American Sniper, because instead of generalising Afghanistan-culture or succumbing to xenophobic stereotypes, the film tackles aspects of the culture in a fair and balanced manner. It's not perfect, but at least it's not dumbing everything down to “terrorist”/"not-terrorist."

Overall, it’s funnier that Fey’s last film Sisters and is not trying to provide answers to the conflict in Afghanistan or the cultural differences between America and Afghanistan. It’s a funny, sweary, two hours of your life that has the scenes to make it both a drama and a comedy. It’s one of those films that probably won’t stick with you too long after leaving the cinema, but at least you’ll have fun while you’re there, along with discover a whole new combination of swear words you never knew existed. 

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot gets Three out of Five Stars (or Three out of Five Donkey -R****g-P**s-E****g-S**t-G******g-Pieces-Of-C**k-Swaddle)