Film Reviews by Alphaville

Messy hugely overlong not-very-interesting saga of a post-war Jewish immigrant making his way in the US. Slow-paced, long drawn-out scenes, a boring plot that takes ages to go anywhere. All this detracts from any emotional involvement and just irritates. Get in with it! After three hours, at last there’s an interesting scene… but it’s hardly worth the wait .

Familiar but engrossing robot-goes-bad horror trope. Not to everyone’s taste, but it’s well directed and keeps you watching. Might be more convincing if supposedly attractive robot Megan Fox wasn’t so horribly glammed up. It’s effective at what it does, with some unexpectedly moving scenes between our hero and his ailing wife, for whom Megan has been assigned to help, but the main problem is we’re just waiting for Megan to go bad.

It’s astonishing that such ancient theological rituals are still meaningful to many otherwise-sensible people, but if you can get past the flummery and silly costumes this is more a more engrossing film than might seem possible. The plot moves along nicely as the cardinals vie for the prize of becoming pope and the voting rounds add an almost-thriller component. Add to this enough Vatican architecture to give it visual variation, a jolting staccato soundtrack and a startling climax. All in all, an unexpectedly enthralling watch.

Lo-budget single-set 80-minute three-hander. Apart from the first and last minutes, the complete set is the interior of a small plane that contains a cop, a crime witness and a baddie. Mark Wahlberg as the baddie is an OTT pain. Touted as a suspense thriller, it’s undermined by supposedly wise-cracking dialogue that makes it all seem ridiculous and unbelievable. Cgi shots of the plane over Alaskan mountains do little to open the film up and the set-up soon runs out of steam. Given set restrictions, the plot simply has nowhere to go. Hence time-filling devices such as backstory character monologues and phone conversations with off-screen characters. You’ll soon give up caring.

This is a Columbian ‘film’ about the impact of the drug trade on the Wayuu community. Yep, it’s documentary realism at its arthouse festival worst. A real-life documentary would have had more impact. Ridiculously over-praised as “intoxicating”, it’s one long yawn from start to finish, not that you’ll last till the end. Do yourself a favour and watch the trailer first.

High-flying older company exec (female) has affair with younger underling (male). Not a great pitch, but someone gave it the green light, perhaps owing to Nicole Kidman’s so-called ‘brave’ performance. It takes nearly half the film for them even to get together. Nicole does her best with some kinky sex scenes, but there’s nothing here to make us care at all. The DVD blurb touting it as a thriller is a joke. It’s one long bore.

If you find Bob Dylan interesting, you’ll like this. If not, it will probably bore, although it’s very well made and doesn’t just give a one-sided view of its subject (unlike the hatchet-job on Donald Trump released around the same time). It’s very music-heavy and some of the early material does tend towards dirge, but Timothy Chalamet’s performance as Dylan is riveting and Elle Fanning’s portrayal of his long-suffering girlfriend is genuinely moving. The depiction of the 60s music scene is fascinating, as is the climax at the Newport folk music festival, when Dylan horrified the die-hards by discovering the benefits of electricity. Shame we heard none of the music after that.

Wobble-cam gone mad. Something to do with a motorbike gang. Someone please tell the director (her first film) that shaking the camera does NOT increase realism. So badly filmed that it’s unwatchable.

Leigh Whannell has made some good films (Upgrade, The Invisible Man). This tedious affair of a family man turning into a werewolf in an old farmhouse in the woods isn’t one of them. After a promising opening it turns into an entirely predictable tale that takes place in dim light over the course of a single night. His wife and daughter act worried. For prosthetics fans only.

High school kid Taylor Lautner and his girlfriend are on the run from gun-wielding baddies. Pacy plot and plenty of action. Well filmed by John Singleton, who keeps cringing teen moments to a minimum. The climax in a baseball stadium is a tad old-hat, but at least Taylor gets to showcase some of the parkour moves he’d later use in Tracers.

Period adventure with goodie Kazakhs fighting baddie Dzungars. Unfortunately characters and plot hold little interest and the odd battle scenes are underpowered. Nice scenery.

Right from the opening round of facial close-ups set to a droning voiceover, you know this is a dud. The plot is stodgy, the acting over-wrought, the theatrical dialogue barely speakable, the orchestral score dull… Even the few good shots of majestic Swiss Alps have been shorn to shreds by over-editing. As for stern baddie Ben Kingsley and his golden eye patch, well that’s just silly. This should be a rip-roaring adventure, but even the old tv series had more zest.

After watching Ti West’s excellent Pearl, I thought I’d give this earlier work a shot. Mistake. It’s just another boring ‘haunted house’ scenario. Even near the beginning there’s a standard shock jump-cut just in case you’re already nodding off. Then it’s just talk, talk, talk.

Filmed mostly in big close-ups with a wobble-cam, presumably in the mistaken notion that it makes the viewer more involved, this is virtually unwatchable. Could they not afford a steadicam?

I hoped to be excited by the opening sea battle, but it was just another cgi sequence. I hoped to be excited by the next set piece in the arena, but the cgi baboons were just laughable. Our hero is little more than a cipher to carry the by-the-numbers plot. The only multi-dimensional character is his nemesis the Roman general, who has moral qualms about his role, but he‘s just a peripheral figure. Gladiator boss Denzel Washington has little to do but gurn. As for the caricatures that represent the two Roman emperors, the least said the better.

I don’t blame the cast. The plot is predictable, the dialogue is stilted to the point of laughable, the direction is static and the climax is simply embarrassing.

In its favour, there’s one dramatic fight in the arena and the sets are convincingly rendered, although there’s nothing here to match the more realistic entry of Elizabeth Taylor’s entry into Rome in Cleopatra. Oh for the halcyon days of Hollywood epics such as Ben Hur and El Cid, directed by the likes of William Wyler and Anthony Mann, with great scores by Miklos Rozsa. The score here is forgettable.

A two-star film with an extra one for trying in these days of dumbed-down superhero fare. And at least it’s sent me back to the more watchable Spartacus.