You know I think it’s a little misleading to call the John Wick films action movies, they’re more like action-porn, but you know, high class action-porn with like a storyline and everything. Of course like any good action-porn, it starts with the action foreplay and teases us and teases us with all the potential gun-play and then we get hit the full-blown gun-porn going all over the walls, along with your back, neck and chest to the point where you’ll probably be spent before the end of the film.
So Keanu Reeves is back as John Wick, a hired gun who kills like he’s Neo in The Matrix - however after killing eighty-four people in the last film over a dog and a stolen car, he is simply looking to retire once more; but when an old debt is called-in, John Wick must lock and load one more time for a gun-porn-extravaganza. Now this film could have easily run the risk of being another Taken 2 or Hangover 2 but instead, director Chad Stahelski delves further into the shady and clandestine assassin society and brings an assortment of new and returning actors with Deadwood’s Ian McShane returning and a Matrix reunion with Lawrence Fishburne. We also have Common as a hard-hitting assassin and Ruby Rose as, well, just a mute version of Ruby Rose, so you know, if that’s your thing…
Much like the original, the film is incredibly creative with all it’s kills. Influenced from the Korean action movies, we have unflinching death-battles that involve Glock 17’s, Glock 26’s, AR-15’s, Benelli M4’s, fists, vehicles, pencils, knives and rope just to name a few. Once again, it’s more of a ballet of action sequences than the Jason Bourne-style shaky-cam of the last decade and it’s just as refreshing as it was in the first film mostly because they build so much on all the things you loved in the first one. There is an array of assassins, some cool, some funny, but all brutal killers; we have an expanded understanding of the secret societies John Wick is associated with and the film still plays with the extreme hard-hitting violence being broken up with a samurai-like respect for holy ground and moments of peace.
Of course don’t let the quiet moments fool you into thinking the film has pacing issues, the movie does some really clever editing to propel the narrative forward and for the most part you’re just white-knuckling it for the majority of the film. We delve deeper into the world both inside and outside of The Continental and before the credits roll and you’re clearly spent the filmmakers are good enough to confidently let us know that there’s another John Wick film coming and all I can say about that is: where can I buy my ticket for that film?
John Wick Chapter 2 gets Four out of Five spent shell casings all over the walls, along with your back, neck and chest.
Space, where they only send the smartest dumb people to die, or is it the dumbest smart people, either way, space, the place people go to die.
Remember when the Alien films were just straight-forward monster movies set in space where unsuspecting crews always wound up faced with one or more fearsome Xenomorphs? You know, we had two good ones, two not so good ones, those Alien Vs Predator movies that really shouldn’t count and then we had Ridley Scott come back to the series and decided that we needed a shit-ton of backstory, mythology and theological questions about the origins of human existence and the whole Alien-aspect of the movies can just kind of take a backseat. After Prometheus disappointed most fans and has been the subject of so many video essays on how just painfully dumb it was, does Alien Covenant fair any better?
Set ten years after Prometheus we find ourselves on the spaceship Covenant, a deep space mission where vicious solar-winds cause the ship to lose it’s captain and in the process they intercept a distress signal that means the team diverts from their current mission to find another spaceship which ultimately leads to their doom (wait, wait, I know that that sounds like the synopsis to the movie Sunshine, but that is exactly how this film starts). So anyway, with over two thousand souls on board the Covenant, it is up to the fourteen brave crew who clearly skipped out on the three day training course that involved contamination and contagion control, to scout a new planet and avoid alien-creatures that don’t believe in personal boundaries.
Look, I really wanted to like this film and it is a step up from Prometheus, but it still suffers from a lot of the same problems: a lot of pontificating about the meaning of life, a lot of people making very stupid decisions and a lot of characters you just don’t care about; Danny McBride is a stand-out plus the only good thing from Prometheus, Michael Fassbender, is back, and this time they double-down on him - which is both good and bad. There are some good points though, the film, much like Prometheus, looks great and this is all down to Ridley Scott, regardless of the varying quality of his work, he is a brilliant visual stylist. We get more Alien looking Aliens this time and the film seems to be heading in the right direction when it comes to connecting with the original films, all be it very slowly.
There are pacing issues in the film, with yet again, too many ideas trying to be explored in a two hour runtime. Scott even went as far as producing a series of short films to help fill in some of the gaps which is great if you knew they were out there to watch, otherwise audiences unaware of these short films would just be wondering why big name actors only had thirty seconds of screen time in the actual film. Honestly, a lot of the elements in the short films could have been put into the actual film and they could have cut out some of the duller and unnecessary moments from the overall runtime.
Overall, the film is still a disappointment, it is better than Prometheus, but not by much. When you bring back the director that started it all, you kind of hope that they remember what made the series so great in the first place: the original films thrived on regular people being out of their depths in an isolated location dealing with really horrific creatures. These last two films seem focused on characters with Icarus-Syndrome which ultimately makes them less empathetic to the audience.
Alien Covenant gets Two out of Five Stars (or Two out of Five really overly ambitious ideas which make me yearn for the Neil Blomkamp Alien film that will never come…)
If the new intense Horror-Satire Get Out teaches us only one thing, it is do not go to meet the parents (as in do not go to meet the parents the event as opposed to do not go to Meet The Parents the movie - actually you know what, do not watch Meet The Parents the movie, it’s a horror, but in a completely different way.) Having just hit Australian shores, having dominated the American box office, Get Out is a must-see in theaters so that you don’t feel left out of everyone else’s conversation.
So the story is about a young talented African-American photographer who goes to meet his caucasian girlfriends parents all the way out at their secluded family-estate, and once they arrive, something just doesn’t seem right. Now I’d love to tell you more but the less you know about the film the better. Honestly, going in as cold as possible is probably the best way to experience this well-crafted social-horror movie that explores so many aspects about racism in America, if not the wider world.
Written and directed by comedian Jordan Peele, this film really explores the social awkwardness, the in-built racism and prejudice people can have, the out-and-out racism, along with the back-handed racism in a way that is tense, unnerving, uncomfortable, horrifying, but also incredibly funny. You'll be surprised how much you laugh in the film in between all the moments where you are covering your eyes. Not because the film is violent or gory , but because each scene, each moment is just shaped in a way where you are thinking and rethinking the words or actions of characters, you hold your breath as someone says something or your heart-rate picks up as two characters look at each other and you are wondering if this is going to be the lynchpin that sets off the horror you know is going to come.
Now a lot of this is down to the way Jordan Peele drip-feeds information to you throughout the film. Things happen, people say things that can be taken multiple ways, and still you know very little about what is actually going on; You spend your time trying to piece story threads together, figure out people’s motivations and intentions, you start guessing and re-guessing what’s really happening with all these weird white people and even when things come to a head, you’re still questioning what’s really happening and if there are still more twists to come.
Much like 2014’s It Follows, this film is effective in its horror with an understated approach. And where It Follows explored STDs, Get Out has something to say about how African-Americans are generalized and how even a perceived compliment can be an example of brutal back-handed racism. The film will have you talking afterwards, obviously after you’ve seen the doctor about what to do when you’ve bitten all your fingernails off, so don’t be left out of the conversation and get yourself to the cinemas to see what many are already calling not just the best Horror of the year, but the best film of the year.
Get Out gets Four and Three-Quarter Stars out of Five (or Four and Three-Quarter fingernails bitten right down to your friggin’ knuckles)
So the A-holes are back and after setting such high expectations and such a huge box office result with the first film, how do you really follow that up? Well, with a whole lot of close-to-the-bone daddy-issues peppered through a series of huge set-pieces, massive splashes of colour, on-point musical cues and mostly well placed humour. They’re off to save the galaxy for a second time, but can this band of misfits win the audience over for a second time? The short answer: yes!
Set six months after the original film, the Guardians Of The Galaxy essentially are guns for hire, not necessarily mercenaries, but they are willing to do the jobs that others are not. After pissing off their latest employer, the guardians have a chance encounter with none other than Peter Quill’s dad, Ego The Living Planet (or Ego The Living Human who looks frightfully like an aged-up Jack Burton who went full-Big Trouble In Little China all up in his own planet). The team get split up, The Ravengers get involved, there’s lots of quips, lots of action, and if you allow yourself, maybe a tear or two come the end.
When comparing this to it’s predecessor, I have to say that honestly, I enjoyed it more than the original - however I might be in the minority in that department. I personally, was not as big a fan of the original as many other people were; I felt the humour beats were always half-a-second out of whack, I thought the action sequences were too “wire-worky” and the characters were a little flat. This sequel has improved on all of those aspects. The humour hits, the action looks and feels a whole lot better and a lot of the characters, including second-tier characters such as Yondu and Nebula get really fleshed out in this film. There are a few similar story beats to the original such as a visit to Earth, a music-lead title sequence amongst other things, but each of these beats are done in a refreshing way which doesn’t make it feel like they’re just retreading the same formula.
This film thankfully steers away from the Star Wars feel of the original and now appears to be veering more into the Star Trek tone, which I believe the series is all the better for, but most enjoyably, writer/director James Gunn has taken influences from beyond just the Trek and Wars Universes and you even have the look and feel of other great Sci-Fi series such as Firefly and the criminally under-appreciated Lexx.
The film also delivers on the soundtrack once again, playing a key role in Peter’s relationships with his many different family quadrants within this film. There are songs that will make you smile, songs that will amp you up and songs that will hit you in the cavity where your heart used to be. Much like the original, the songs help shape the overarching themes of the film, and this time the film goes much deeper than a normal Marvel film and far deeper than anything Star Wars has ever done. The theme of family is strong in this film, and not in a Vin Diesel having a barbecue and saying the word “family” as many times as he can in the run-time kind of way. No the family themes go deep in this film and are centred very much around Chris Pratt’s Peter Quill - exploring the differences in fatherly-relationships - the difference between the biological father and the father that raises you, the family you are born with and the family that you choose.
Of course, in-between all this heavy “family stuff” there are some cool sequences such as a really inventive Yondu whistling spear sequence, a Rocket holding his own set-piece, cameos from Sylvester Stallonethat are brief, but clearly world-building, plus we get a Stan Lee cameo that finally supports one of the biggest fan-theories that people have had since Stan started appearing in the MCU. We get a whole bunch of post-credit scenes, some funny but some that are making bold statements about what to expect for the third Guardians movie, and of course there is Baby Groot. Many will call him the scene-stealer, but I wouldn’t go that far, I found many other things that were more enjoyable than Baby Groot - but none the less, he was still awesome.
The film isn’t without its’ faults though: It’s easily fifteen minutes too long, and there are one of two sequences where you feel the need to call B.S. on how the characters survive some of the big explosions and fights. The film also suffers from one of the big problems that struck Avengers Age Of Ultron; some moments are just undercut by the desire to make a joke - it’s not as bad as Age Of Ultron in many respects and admittedly the third act negates a lot of this complaint, but it would be nice every now and then not to be reminded every twenty-five seconds that these characters are funny. Thankfully though, one of the biggest complaints about Marvel films is notably absent in this movie: the “death from above” trope has been replaced with a “death from everywhere” approach. It’s coming from above, below, the left, the right and places we haven’t even thought of yet - and this certainly makes for a refreshing change passing through Phase Three.
Overall, if you fell head-over-heels in love with the original, then you might feel just slightly let down by this film because you are not necessarily getting “more of the same”, however, if you’re like me, and felt the original was just slightly lacking, then this might just hit all the right notes. With a whole universe of cosmic possibilities on the horizon, Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 2 will have you buying soundtracks, have you buying Baby Groot figures and will have you rewatching Kurt Russell’s back catalogue of films.
Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 2 gets Four and a Quarter out of Five Stars (or Four and a Quarter out of Five questions about where Baby Groot got that severed toe from…)
You know, it’s taken eight films, but I finally get it. I finally understand the Fast And Furious franchise. If you just put your brain into neutral, and go along for the ride, you’ll enjoy it. If you just dim the headlights, pull in the side mirrors and don’t look in the rear-vision mirror, then you are bound to enjoy the gas-guzzling craziness that is the eighth film in the forever going series that started as Point Break with cars and has now become The Avengers with cars, The Fate Of The Furious.
In a post-Paul Walker world, the gang from the Fast & Furious family must face their toughest challenge yet: they must avoid being sucked into the charisma-vacuum that is Vin Diesel as he turns against his teammates for “reasons”. Now when the trailer first hit, hardcore fans of the series were shocked to see that Dominic Torretto would be playing the villain, leading many of them to come up with a variety of theories as to why he would do such a thing. Some thought that it might be a Dom from an alternative universe or possibly a clone, a long-lost twin brother, the character of Riddick trying to wedge himself into this franchise, it could have been a highly sophisticated robot, it could be Dom from an alternate future coming back to reset the past, the list goes on. Spoiler alert: it is none of those things and even though the reason for going rogue is somewhat understandable, literally every single one of those previous theories was a legitimate probability because, after watching this instalment, this series really has lost all sense of reality - but it’s still fun.
Zombie-cars - zombie-friggin’ cars, cars vs. submarines and physic-defying stunts just go to prove that this film didn’t just jump the shark - that happened a couple of films ago; this film jumps the shark, takes the shark out for dinner, wines and dines the shark, gives the shark the best night of its life, promises to call the shark the next morning, and then several weeks later the shark discovers that the film is now dating the shark’s sister and she’s already pregnant. So yeah, the film really does go over the top with some of its’ ideas, however it does need to be acknowledged that everything is done really well: the practical stunts are impressive, the fight sequences are like high-end music videos and the special effects really do bring scale to these crazy ideas.
The cast is huge and ever expanding as each film seems to add more and more characters to the line-up - it seems that if you’ve shown up once in one of these films, you’re guaranteed recurring roles in all of the subsequent sequels. Although, I am starting to notice a pattern in the series: the big-bad from the previous film always seems to join the team and they become bosom-buddies for the next chapter. Of course, these films are painfully formulaic now anyway so what do you expect. You know the drill: open in an exotic location for a street-race to remind the audience that these films used to be about street-racing, a big-bad arrives, the team get back together, team formulate a plan, and ends with cars jumping or exploding out of planes, tanks, submarines, dinosaurs, whatever they can get their hands on. But once again, I have to admit: it is fun.
Getting back to the cast though, fans should be happy to know that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has a bigger role than the previous film, he teams up with Jason Statham and this has now become my new favourite on-screen couple (sorry Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence) and a Rock/Statham spin-off movie needs to happen. The rest of the cast do what they do so well: Tyrese Gibson is the comedy, Ludacris is the nerdy-charm, Michelle Rodriguez is the bad-ass and we add Scott Eastwood as cut-price Kurt Russell for when he’s had enough of the series, HelenMirren as a bad British stereotype and Charlize Theron as Cipher - a cyber terrorist who blah, blah, blah, let’s just get to car chases and explosions. And then there is Vin Diesel, the charisma-vacuum, I know hardcore fans will say that he is the heart and soul of this franchise (now that Paul Walker is gone), but his character has just been frozen in stasis since the first film - there is no development to his character, stuff happens to him but he seems incapable of reacting in anyway that may affect his “tough-guy” brand. With characters like Hobbs and Deckard keeping the interest, it may be time for Diesel to take a backseat to the franchise once more.
Overall, The Fate Of The Furious is exactly what it says on the label: a car chase movie of logic-defying proportions. If you can switch your brain off then you are bound to have some fun, but seriously, do not think too hard. If the calculations of the length of the runway in the climax to the sixth film did your head in then you will not want to do the calculations of how fast a submarine can move through ice that can support the weight of cars, tanks and humvees. The film is very fun, but very dumb; it is fun, but man it is very, very dumb.
The Fate Of The Furious gets Three out of Five Stars (or Three out of Five jaded sharks waiting for that phone call that will never come…)
Kong: Skull Island! It’s big, it’s hairy and it’s a very interesting beast of a movie, all be it a beast that’s over a 100 feet tall and weighing about 300 tonnes. You see, it’s an interesting beast because it’s got all these really amazing parts such Loki, Captain Marvel and Nick Fury all in the same film, it has a very sweaty and humid Apocalypse Now look and feel, along with a surprisingly larger number of monster smack-downs than you’d usually expect in the film’s lean two hour run-time, however the care factor for both the characters and the beast in question seem to be lost somewhere within this enigmatic island of mystery….
So Kong: Skull Island is set in 1973 where a team of US soldiers fresh from the war with Vietnam are sent in as escorts to an island where scientists hope to uncover an abundance of gigantic pixel-based lifeforms. No sooner do they arrive on the island than they meet with said pixel giants and it becomes a battle for survival to get to the other side of the island without getting killed by, well literally anything - it seems these guys can’t seem to even sit down on a log without it coming to life.
Now even though it sounds like I’m wailing on the film, it is surprisingly fun, there is no drag time within the film and the giant monster fight sequences are all very cool. You can definitely see ever cent of the $190 million budget up there on the big screen, even if sometimes it just amounts to a bunch of pixels beating the sh*t out of each other in an environment where gravity and physics seem to be an optional extra.
The film itself opens pretty lightening quick. We get our first glimpses of Kong in the first two minutes and they don't drag their feet with his reveal once the cast reach the island. This isn't a Jaws or 2014's Godzilla with their long drawn out reveals, we just get straight to the point, especially when compared to the 2005 Peter Jackson remake. Of course in between that first and second reveal of Kong, the film works at a coke-fueled screenwriters pace to get through all the necessary character development which often means revealing character plot points and motivations with very forced and clunky expositional dialogue that's not too dissimilar to a Christopher Nolan film, although this is even clunkier than that.
The film introduces us to the usual archetypes of the army along with the traditional scientist types: we have Shea Whigham's surly but dedicated army type, a slimmed down John Goodman as the shady scientist government agent, Toby Kebbell in thankless soldier role number 1 and then Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, and Thomas Mann as thankless soldier and scientist roles number 3,4,5 and so on and so forth; and then of course we have Tian Jing, recently seen in The Great Wall, as a scientist who has a total of maybe 6 lines but helps to guarantee a Chinese release date.
But the big stars of the film are Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson who are, just kind of there, they don’t really have much to do nor do we really know anything about them other than he’s a tracker and she’s a photographer, but thankfully we have Samuel L. Jackson and John C. Reilly to pick up the slack. Once again, both these characters have very little development but at least Jackson is given a Captain Ahab style intensity whilst Reilly plays up the Dennis Hopper psychedelic-acid-trauma victim from Apocalypse Now, who provides some good humour and the only bit of heart to the film.
The visuals in this film are incredibly striking. Cinematographer Larry Fong, who lensed *cough-cough* Batman V Superman Dawn Of Justice really lets loose with some snappy fast paced visuals that gives us some real spectacle whether it be a quick bar fight featuring Hiddleston or Kong himself slam-dunking army helicopters left right and centre. The score by Henry Jackman, who gave us soundtracks for films like Kick Ass, Captain America The Winter Soldier and Big Hero 6, sounds fantastic, if not a little familiar, which is kind of the trick to a Henry Jackman score but none the less still sounds awesome. And of course director Jordan Vogt-Roberts gives us some inventive action sequences that have been somewhat inspired by James Cameron’s Aliens and John McTiernan’s Predator, although there are one or two sequences that are just laugh out loud stupid - now I’m sure they looked good as storyboards and sounded good on paper but once they are on the actual screen, you can’t help but think to yourself, “really?”
Overall, the film is fun and fast-paced with flashy visuals and incredible pixel-related death-matches aplenty, however the film does suffer from the care-factor issue where when a character dies it has no impact and when a character survives you’re neither bothered to see them alive or still in the film. It is worth seeing on the big screen for sure but go for the monkey and not the people.
Kong: Pixel Island - I mean Kong: Skull Island gets Two and a “Meh” out of Five Stars, maybe three stars if I add an extra “Meh”
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So this is it, if Hugh Jackman is to be believed, this will be the last time we see the Jacked-Man play Wolverine. Although he has been said on more than one occasion before that he was hanging up the claws. Hell, he’s probably said “one last time” more often than Michael Bay has with Transformers. However, this time it feels like it could be true, because after seeing Hugh Jackman and James Mangold’s Logan, there is no better farewell for a character that has been with us for seventeen years.
Loosely based on Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s comic book classic Old Man Logan, we find ourselves in the year 2029 where mutants are now few and far between, Professor X’s once brilliant mind is slowly deteriorating and Logan himself is a broken man, covered in as many scars as he has regrets. Hiding out as a limo driver along the Mexican border and trying to avoid everything that makes him the Wolverine, Logan takes one last job to protect a mother and her young daughter from some savage men and get them both to a safe place.
Now when actors or directors say they will only return to the role if the script is right you’re often left walking out of Spectre or Jason Bourne going “seriously, that’s the best script you can come up with?” so it’s acceptable to be a little sceptical when Jackman said he would only do one last Wolverine movie if the script is absolutely perfect. Thankfully though, Jackman was true to his word.
So the film itself excels in comparison to all the previous X-Men films: the stakes are more personal, the tone is as coarse as the grittiest of sandpaper, and the violence in this film makes you realise just how comical last year’s Deadpool really was. Make no mistake about it, this is a violent movie, do not be bringing your kids to see this because you think those X-Men movies are so family-friendly and adventurous. Getting back to the film as a whole, this is the Wolverine that Hugh Jackman has promised from the very beginning, we get the berserker Wolverine, we get a Wolverine who walks away from a fight looking like he just lost a three-way machete-match between Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger. But throughout all those beatings, the most important thing this film delivers on is a character study of not only James Howlett, but Professor Charles Xavier.
Between the burst of well orchestrated violence and action set pieces that often defy the traditional conventions and then turn those conventions on their head to be used in new and inventive ways, we explore the mindset of both Jackman’s Logan and Stewart’s Xavier. Knowing that this may be the last time we see these character together again, James Mangold isn’t afraid to have some long stretches where character moments just get the chance to breathe. In this J.J. Abrams ADD-riddled approach to storytelling nowadays where there needs to be an action sequence every ten minutes in case the audience gets sleepy, Logan takes the more 70’s approach to filmmaking and lets us really get to know the characters so that when the action hits, and hits hard, it really is like three Adamantium claws to the guts when we see these beloved characters fighting, bleeding and screaming, for their lives. Some may find the pacing in this 137 minute road movie a bit of a slog, but the pay offs and character arcs are worth taking the “Ritalin” for.
Even though the trailers have all been stellar, along with the amazing black and white photography James Mangold has been releasing constantly throughout production, there are still some concerns that people may have had. The great thing is, none of these concerns are even remotely an issue. Those comic book fans who don’t feel it can live up to the Old Man Logan story for obvious licensing reason need not worry, Logan is just a brutal and affecting as the original story and stands on its own above all previous X-Men films. Those who thought introducing a kid into the mix was going to be a recipe for box office poison, fear not, Laura, or as she is also known X-23, is a bad-ass and a real scene stealer at times, but make no doubt, it is not at the expense of Hugh Jackman or Patrick Stewart who both bring their A-game to this film.
So a lot of other reviewers seem to be drawing comparisons to The Dark Knight with regards to quality and quite frankly, I think that’s lazy and pretty inaccurate: Logan is its’ own beast and more in line with some of Clint Eastwood’s classics such as Unforgiven and Gran Torino. Jackman, much like Eastwood is putting his well-known persona to rest in this film. It has sprinkles of Unforgiven with the Western look and feel all throughout whilst the themes of coming to terms with age and attitudes that were so heavily laboured in Gran Torino can be found within Jackman’s very nuanced performance. On top of this there are countless other influences throughout the film such as Children Of Men with the “no more mutants” theme, there’s a Mad Max aesthetic to the wastelands they travel through, there’s elements of The Terminator along with classic cowboy movies like Shane and Mickey Rourke’s redemption tale in The Wrestler.
Is the film perfect? Near enough. The only complaints I would have would be the most fickle of complaints. Moments where I felt that another character from Wolverine’s past may have served as a better physical antagonist, however the physical threat that Logan goes up against, really is surprising. The villains are not really fleshed out, however that doesn’t mean that they aren’t interesting, and much like in the Marvel Studio films, the villains are never as important as the heroes journey, and I’m ok with that.
Overall, this is nothing short of a fantastic stand-alone X-Men movie that doesn’t labor the previous films mythology or continuity which makes for one of the more refreshing comic book films we have seen in a long while, mostly because it’s not trying to be a comic book movie, but rather just be a great film. With seventeen years of investment in these characters, Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart have definitely earned their dues, whilst for the first time in a comic book movie, we have a film that hits you like three Adamantium claws in the heart, and you will find yourself crying on more than one occasion. And if that’s not indicative of how this film sets a new standard for comic book movies, then I don’t know what is.
Logan gets Four and a Half out of Five Stars (or Four and a Half out of Five Adamantium claws right through your very soul)
