Film Reviews by Alphaville

Straightforward retelling of how groups of Jewish survivors turned the tables on Nazis at the end of the Second World War. Despite unflashy direction and an uncharismatic leading man, it’s nevertheless a great story that holds the attention throughout. It explicitly asks the viewer: what would you do if your whole family had been butchered? Our hero, ironically, has to stop one group that’s planning to poison 6 million people, which would turn the superpowers against the formation of Israel, but where do his loyalties lie? Cue an exciting and poignant climax.

After the cgi bores of the Marvel franchise, it’s refreshing to see a monster movie in which only the monsters are cgi. The South African scenery is fantastical, from the Namibian desert to the rock domes and caves of the Cederberg mountains. Real landscapes make the monsters seem more realistic and director Paul WS Anderson films the vistas with a sweeping camera that’s a joy to watch. When a film opens with a ship sailing through sand dunes, you know you’re in for something interesting. It’s based on a video game, but for once that’s irrelevant.

Bad-ass Milla Jovovich leads a team of expendable soldiers, Tony Jaa executes his trademark wire-free stunts and it’s all-action with no dull talking-head scenes. In an echo of Hell in the Pacific and Enemy Mine, the two leads don’t even speak the same language. Cue a treat of a crunching fight. As an east-west collaboration, there’s also some Chinese fantasy elements thrown in for good measure. Add to that a pulsating electronic score instead of boring orchestral muzak.

The result is a smorgasbord of sets and action that never dips for a minute. The crew came to call it “Lawrence of Arabia with monster hunters”. It won’t suit anyone who prefers indoor character-driven conversational scenes populated by luvvies (as certain reviewers seem to want), but if you want to see a proper movie and loved Starship Troopers look no further.

Unless you follow the comic fare of the so-called ‘Marvel universe’, this film will leave you comatose. Grown-ups will feel like it’s walking into a movie half-way through. None of it makes any sense. Of course, that’s not important if all you want to see is cgi fights, but even they are very poorly done. Apart from a couple of brief imaginative sequences and some exotic locations, it’s the usual bish-bash, shot with shaky cam and over-edited into oblivion. Even die-hard cgi nerds will surely find the endless scenes of dull dialogue boring. And why is it that baddies in these films are never taught how to shoot straight?

The music is equally atrocious, beginning with a funereal cover of Smells like Teen Spirit over the opening credits. The ten-minute pre-credit sequence is the best part of the 2hr film, showing the childhood of Black Widow before the main stars appear on screen. As for the bore of the usual cgi cartoon ending, the less said the better.

This is a real slow burn that builds into a shocking climax. Kevin Costner and Diane Lane (both excellent) search North Dakota for their young grandson. The scenery’s fine but they move slow and talk slow to plinky-plonk piano music. It can get a tad wearisome, but if you stick with it you may find yourself getting drawn into the cosy home-on-the-range vibe and becoming increasingly concerned for them. Their meetings with the throwbacks that have their grandson crackle with tension and prefigure a brutal and exciting climax that carries a real emotional punch.

Is it family drama? Gothic western? Redemptive thriller? Maybe all of these. Worth a look to find out. As usual, the trailer gives away the ending so avoid if possible.

Writer/director Taylor Sheridan (Sicario, Hell or High Water, Wind River) has previously had problems keeping a story going, but his best film yet grows into an action-packed thriller that will keep you hooked. Unlike most action movies, the good guys have emotional depth and the bad guys are not just ruthless but so relentless and resourceful that you might even end up rooting for them!

What could have been a silly story about a smokejumper (Angelina Jolie) and a boy on the run from gunmen in the forests of the Rocky Mountains becomes something more involving. Add an encroaching forest fire and you have plenty of opportunities for tension, excitement and some scenes that are even quite moving.

It’s a film that’s never going to win awards but, as Angelina says on the Making Of featurette, it’s got both grit and soul and revels in all the excitement you want in an action thriller.

On the minus side, this sequel is a bit of a retread that lacks novelty and surprise, with lots of creeping around waiting for a creature to pounce. Eventually the film just stops, presumably to set up a possible third film in some deteriorating franchise. On the plus side it’s as well acted and directed as the original and has some tense and exciting creature scenes. Like most sequels, it’s not as good as the original, but it’s intelligent, well made, better than your average creature feature and remains very watchable from beginning to end.

A Sky-backed visually-impaired film for the small-screen generation, more a play than a film. Expect long drawn-out dialogue scenes of talking heads. Any good reviews it has received all talk about the concept, as if it’s conceptual art, where lack of skill in execution is irrelevant. The concept, to attract punters, is a feminist revenge thriller. Thrills? If only. The trailer uses fast edits and exciting music to lure you in. Don’t be fooled.

Naturally all the men are stupid, sexist and pitiable, ripe to be put in their place. On its own the script has some good dialogue and might work on stage, but anyone who loves a good movie is in for a long haul to get through this. Something does happen near the end. Ho-hum.

As with her last film, the equally staid Vita and Virginia, director Emerald Fennell has no idea what to do with a camera so just plonks it down and wrings the life out of every scene. She should stick to writing. To see how to make an enthralling feminist film with real characters and big-screen skill, check out Mimi Leder’s On the Basis of Sex.

Gritty US cop movie in the Training Day mould. Nearly every cop (black or white) is corrupt and nearly everyone they’re policing is a low-life (wokists won’t like the fact they’re all black). The rap soundtrack doesn’t help. It’s a depressing view of America, you’ll feel dirty after watching it and you’ll never ever want to visit New Orleans.

The plot has good cop Naomi Harris (hence both black and blue) on the run from everybody. With a perfect American accent, she holds the film together, even if you can probably foresee the climax. Deon Taylor, showing no favours to any skin colour, directs with a sure hand to produce a gripping thriller, but still it’s hard to believe that nearly everyone in it is so awful.

A crowdfunded German film shot in a Finnish forest apparently over three years. The basic premise is that machines are taking over the world as in War of the Worlds, but there’s no plot, no dialogue (for the international market?) and only two characters. A man wanders around the forest with a big gun. Eventually a woman joins him and does the same thing. There are glimpses of the machines and a few explosions, but anyone looking for sci-fi excitement here will be sorely disappointed. Lots of trees to look at, though.

The dedication of the filmmakers and their supporters simply in getting this project off the ground is to be applauded. Sadly, judged by what’s on screen, it’s turned out to be one long bore.

This Die Hard clone is certainly no masterpiece of the genre, but it’s better than many of its ilk, so let’s be kind. Martial arts fighter Ruby Rose, actually less wooden than usual despite what other reviewers say, is trapped in a hotel with a gang of vicious art thieves. These are led by veteran French baddie Jean Reno, here struggling even more than Ruby to infuse the English dialogue with feeling. The plot and characters are more developed than normal in this kind of B-feature and Jean’s struggle with English is a joy to behold. The one big disappointment, surprisingly, is the poorly shot and edited fight scenes. But put your brain and your expectations on hold and it may keep you amused for an hour and a half.

This is an old-fashioned British WW2 drama about female spies. We see them being recruited, trained and sent to France. In other words, it’s a by-the-numbers plot. You can almost predict what’s going to happen next. The film opens with a torture scene followed by the dreaded caption Three Months Earlier – always a sign of a film not confident that it’s first act will keep you interested.

It’s based on true stories of brave women and is well-meaning, but that doesn’t make it a good film. Stolid first-time direction by an ex-producer drains every scene of life and gives it a Sunday evening TV drama vibe that makes it disappointingly flat and uninvolving.

If you know director Kelly Reichardt (eg Meek’s Cutoff) you’ll know her films are deathly slow. As soon as this opens you know you’re in for a long haul, with still shots that go on forever. 15 minutes in and all that’s happened is that someone has picked some mushrooms. Then it gets worse. At least you can see the mushrooms. Much of the rest is filmed in darkness because there was no artificial lighting back in Old Oregon, don’t you know.

The thing is, you see, Kelly doesn’t make films. She seems like a nice person, but she makes anti-films. Which must be why the arthouse crowd like her, because otherwise her success is unfathomable. She even films in the old 4:3 ratio, apparently for close-ups but patently because the big wide screen is beyond her capabilities. She should exhibit in a conceptual art gallery for like-minded souls who think Duchamp’s urinal constitutes high art. A cow appears in a few scenes.

Here’s some advice, Kelly. Open up the screen, learn what a camera can do, learn to compose a shot, learn to edit, stop shooting in the dark, give your actors more to do than mumble and add at least a modicum of life to the occasional scene. In short, watch some real films and go to film school.

The Hong Kong film industry’s 2000 attempt to go international with an English-language martial arts movie fails miserably. The irrelevant plot features two clichéd cops played by pop idols. The acting is woeful and the direction unimaginative. The silly choreographed fights, accompanied by soundtrack grunts, soon pall. Wirework has never been more obvious. Nearly all the best bits are in the trailer, so watch that instead.

If you’re drawn to this by Leigh Whannell’s terrific second and third films as director (Upgrade, The Invisible Man), this first feature will be a terrible disappointment. It’s nothing more than a clichéd jump-scare wannabe horror film. It’s shot mostly in the dark (which people of course explore with torches) and gets its “horror” tag from a “supernatural demon” who may or may not appear out of the shadows or jump from off-screen to a shriek of orchestral muzak. Nothing wrong with the direction, but the whole film is just one long boring cliché. The only thing worth watching is the Making Of featurette about the one interesting scene featuring a car crash.

A family of ordinary Brits, with American accents for foreign sales, are terrorised by silly humanoid monsters that are attracted by sound. Yes, it’s a rip-off of the far superior A Quiet Place. Still, it begins well enough, with people acting unusually normally for a horror film and a welcome absence of annoying American teens (even if the acting is a bit hit-and-miss). Director Scott Jeffrey has an eye for framing and composition that makes for a nicely tense first act.

Unfortunately the film then runs out of ideas and, even with a run time of only 68mins (always a warning sign), becomes repetitive. Some of the characters keep screaming and whining even though the whole premise of the film is that they need to keep quiet. Among a host of other things that don’t make sense is their liking for being covered in blood instead of wiping it off. Overall, a disappointing failure after a promising start, but if you want to be amused and annoyed, it’ll pass an hour and a bit.