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) 

LEGEND: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

What’s better than Tom Hardy in a movie? Two Tom Hardys in the same movie. The strongest selling point about the new gangster movie Legend is easily Tom Hardy’s dual performance, unfortunately though, this might be its only selling point.

Based on the true story of the infamous London gangsters known as the Kray Twins, we see Tom Hardy flexing his acting muscle as both Reggie and Ron Kray as they built their criminal empire during the 1960’s. Using many of the techniques we’ve seen in The Social Network to make Armie Hammer appear as the Winklevoss Twins, we have Tom Hardy go one better by shaping two very different twin brothers. We have Hardy playing the charming and stylish Reggie Kray, who can easily break some hearts and break some heads, but then we also have him as Ronald Kray, a physically and mentally twisted man who will really get under your skin.

The film also stars Emily Browning as Reggie’s long-suffering partner along with some other great English stalwarts such as David Thewlis, Christopher Eccleston and Paul Bettany to name a few. One of the surprising pieces of casting is Kingsman’s Taron Egerton who plays one of Ron’s gay lovers/heavy-hitters, I almost didn’t realise it was the same actor. But all other actors aside, it really is Hardy that everyone is going to be talking about.

Much like the fantastic series Orphan Black, Hardy has created two very distinct individuals within these roles. He has tweaked each character to appear as if they are completely different people; from tone of voice, delivery of lines, how they walk, how they stand, facial ticks, stares and gestures all really shape these two equally volatile people. Reggie is tall, handsome and could easily make you go all gay for Tom Hardy, but then there’s Ron who’s short, always flaring his bottom teeth, looks like an angry rabid pit bull and... seems to have no neck, and even though his character is gay, you don’t want any of that, even though it’s still Tom Hardy - that’s how good he is in this film!

Once we get past Hardy’s performance though, the film starts to feel a little hollow and empty. Sure the film has some great things going for it with regards to a solid cast, great back and forth between characters, some cool swagger here and there, but it doesn’t really feel like anything amounts to anything. There’s no development of characters outside of the Kray Twins and despite all the jokes, the violence and the cockney banter you feel like you’ve seen this story a thousand times before. Sure it’s based on a true story, but it just feels like every other gangster movie. It attempts a lot of the tropes and techniques used in other gangster films which make this feel a little tired, but even though this might sound a little contradictory, the film really could have used some Guy Ritchie editing flair.

Overall, the film has a lot of fun elements and the performance of Hardy-squared is worth the cost of the ticket alone, but despite all the swagger and cool the film tries to deliver you are not going to get anything new out of this retread of the gangster genre... Except for Hardy, that guy is the f*cking man!

Legend gets Three out of Five Stars (or Three out of Five no-necked-rabid-pit-bulls with a cockney accent)

BLACK MASS: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

Goodfellas, Godfather, Donnie Brasco and Carlito’s Way. These are all fantastic gangster movies and Black Mass has certainly taken a leaf from each of these films and manages to hold its own in many ways against these cinematic heavyweights and mostly because of Johnny Depp.

Yes that’s right, Johnny Depp. The man obsessed with eye liner, hairspray and prosthetics being stuck to his face as he prances around and pulls odd ball faces whenever he needs to emote a reaction to camera pulls back from his consistent pantomime performances of the last decade to give us a truly terrifying performance as James “Whitey” Bulger. Black Mass is the true story of how FBI Agent John Connolly colluded with Irish mobster “Whitey” Bulger to take down the Italian mob, however as the story went on the balance of power shifted to Bulger who was in to anything, as long as it was illegal and became almost untouchable.

With Boston as the backdrop for the story and a large ensemble cast of quality actors such as Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch and Breaking Bad’s Jesse Plemons it becomes a competition for who can pull off the best Boston accent. We’ve got the Brits, the Aussies, and the Texans all battling it out for who can out-BOSTON the others in the cast. But Boston accents aside this film is all about Depp’s performance.

Johnny Depp looks f*cking scary and intimidating as Bulger which is refreshing after his long foray into silly faces and wide eyed reactions in big budget pirate movies and the like. It shows that he can still give a great performance when he gives a sh*t. It’s his eyes that really sell it in this film with a death stare so criminal he could easily serve six consecutive life sentences just off one look. On top of this it’s his delivery that makes him sound like a man you do not want to mess with along with the skin crawling way he’ll touch people when he wants them to feel uncomfortable.

The film itself borrows from all the great gangster movies of the 70’s and 80’s but not in a way that feels like a blatant rip-off and not in a way that is to the film’s detriment. At times it has the lighting of The Godfather whilst using the camera moves of Scorsese’s Goodfellas and borrows here and there from the other greats. This all adds to the look and feel of the film, it feels like this could have been made in the late 70‘s or early 80‘s it just feels so authentic. The only issue I find these homages is that the originals still did it better. For all the violence of Black Mass it doesn’t compare to the Goodfellas and the Godfathers it just feels that little bit more reserved. Whilst the camera is not willing to linger uncomfortably the way DePalma or Scorsese might have done back in their heyday. This doesn’t hurt Black Mass in any way, it just reminds you that other films have done it better.

Overall, this film holds itself up as a good example of a modern day gangster film that has the look and feel of Scorsese and Coppola if not necessarily the edge of their work. It’s a return to form for Depp and a wish that he would take on more roles like this in the future and if you only need one reason to see the film then let Depp be that reason.

Black Mass gets Four out of Five Stars (or Four out of Five reasons for Depp to put down the eye-liner)

THE MARTIAN: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW

So Matt Damon is stranded on a desolate planet again so it kind of feels like a prequel to Interstellar. Thankfully though, it's a much more energetic and fun version of Interstellar, however you will still need to brush up on your maths and science skills.

The Martian is the latest film from director Ridley Scott, based on the best selling book by author Andy Weir which sees astronaut Matt Damon left for dead on the fourth planet from the Sun after a brutal storm forces the rest of his crew to make an early exit from their Mars expedition. With limited food and resources Damon’s character Mark Watney must find a way to communicate with Earth and stretch his resources for the best case scenario of four years before he can be rescued.   

Watching The Martian, its hard not to compare it to Interstellar with the whole last "Mann" on the planet thing and even though I'm a big fan of Interstellar, The Martian just reminds you of what Interstellar sorely lacked: humour. I mean Interstelllar is great with all the crying and existential wondering, but it really could have used more "I'm going to have to science the shit out of this" and less sobbing. It’s good humoured and well paced throughout whilst using science and maths in fun and creative as Damon runs around Mars.

Much like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, Matt Damon has the unenviable job of carrying most of the film by being the only guy on a desolate planet so as a result there's a lot of pontificating to a GoPro camera but if anyone can pull that off its Matt Damon. And he does it with charm and good humour throughout, there’s just something incredibly funny about him talking to a camera about how he’s going to need to ration food whilst continually eating peanuts and jelly beans.

Being a Ridley Scott Sci-Fi there are a few things that you can guarantee: the alien-landscape is shot beautifully, the spaceship design work is sleek and the spacesuits always look cool. Another strength of Scott’s is his ability to handle large ensemble casts because for a film about one man stranded on Mars, the supporting cast is great with a combination of Oscar nominated and comedic actors. This combination means that we get some great banter between characters that’s very natural but also very funny.

Now some critics are saying that this is Ridley Scott's best film in years and a return to form, and for me, I think that's incredibly harsh on Ridley Scott. His direction, skill and attention to detail has never faltered. Prometheus and Exodus look amazing, it's just that they have incredibly weak scripts. And keep in mind, even if the script is weak, Scott still always gets great performances out of his casts, hell, he even almost made Orlando Bloom appear interesting for once in Kingdom of Heaven. Almost.

Overall, The Martian has got a lot going for it and as enjoyable as it is you’ll eventually pick up on the narrative pattern within the film. It’s basically “Science yay! Maths yay! F*ck you Mars!! Science yay! Maths yay! F*ck you Mars” and repeat. Of course that’s not a negative in this case. 

The Martian gets Four and a Half out Five Stars (I took half a star because the film really needed more Donald Glover - I think I have a man-crush) 

EVEREST: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

You know, I’m never going to climb Everest. Not because of the danger, the risk of death, the fact that my fitness level is the equivalent to a half-eaten Big Mac, no, I’m never going to climb Everest because it just looks too damn tiring.

So Everest is out and with such a hugely talented ensemble cast, breath-taking cinematography and some edge of your seat moments you’d expect this to be released during the blockbuster season considering all the trappings of a blockbuster. Probably one of the reasons that this wasn’t released during the blockbuster season is because it does choose to play it safe on one too many occasions, but that’s not to say that this is not an exciting film.   

Touching back on the cast again, I can’t emphasise just how much everyone looks like they belong in this film. They just all feel so genuine with lots of great weathered actors like Josh Brolin, Jake Gyllenhaal and Emily Watson looking like they belong on a mountain, and we even get some decent turns from people like Sam Worthington. Jason Clarke is the heart of the film as climber Rob Hall and he brings a real human and humble touch to the role, he’s just a good man trying to do the right thing as opposed to the usual Hollywood approach of making him overly heroic. The only weak link in the cast for me was Keira Knightley as Rob Hall’s wife. Her acting is top notch with respects to the ugly crying and I mean ugly crying with the snot and everything, the only issue is her very distracting accent. It could be Australian, it could be a New Zealand accent, I don’t think even she knows... 

It is filled with large sweeping scenes of mountains and the amazing terrain of Nepal that really needs to be seen on a decent quality I-Max screen to appreciate the magnitude of what the maniacs who trek the mountain actually overcome. Unfortunately this is a movie about characters who don’t necessarily overcome said mountain, so don’t get too attached to any of the climbers. Character deaths are interesting in this film, often choosing to have someone disappear off screen as a reminder that in an environment like Everest, there's no way to know what is going on around you.

There is no ham fisted foreshadowing like in other similar films. Instead we are treated to the process and procedure that everyone must go through when attempting Everest. It’s detailed, it’s thorough and the main reason I’d never go up Everest because it just sounds so tiring.

Now you have certain expectations going into a film like this, especially off the back of the trailers however the film chooses to forgo a lot of the cliches and goes down a much safer path. Was this the best choice by the filmmaker? Hard to tell... It's still a survivalist movie but might have been misleading advertising it as s disaster movie. Instead of going for the big over dramatic avalanche scenes or everyone screaming in terror whenever something happens you have very downplayed but realistic moments for what would probably happen all the way up there. And considering that this is based on true events it would probably be doing the people this film is based on a huge disservice by presenting it any other way.

Overall, this is a really well made film that needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible, but just adjust your expectations from a disaster film to a survivalist film and you should not be disappointed... except for the weird Aussie/Kiwi hybrid accent.

Everest gets Four and a Half out of Five Stars (or Four and a Half nightmares about frostbite)