Fast & Furious 7 (2015) - Movie Review

I have to admit, as much as my last review may have given the impression that I’ve always loved this series and I’ve been there from the beginning, this is not so. After seeing Fast & Furious in cinemas, and not really being that into it, I didn’t give the series any more mind aside from the triple pack DVD of the first three films at home. However, two big things came through the grape vine about this film in the lead-up to its release that not only got me interested again but made me a bit compelled to revisit the series as I did. The first was the announcement that Jason friggin’ Statham was going to be playing the bad guy, and if you need me to clarify on why this is an awesome casting decision then you’ve probably never seen a good action film in your life. The second was that Justin Lin, who has been in the director’s chair with this franchise since Tokyo Drift, was stepping down and the direction was going to be handled by James Wan, an Australian director better known for horror films like Dead Silence, The Conjuring and most (in)famously Saw and a man who has become one of the new figureheads of the genre in my opinion. How does this all equal up?

Fast & Furious 6 (2013) - Movie Review

It’s catch-up time again on this blog, this time as part of the lead-up to Fast & Furious 7. I remember getting a triple DVD pack of the first three films in the franchise for Christmas one year and getting a tad obsessed with them for a time, to the point where they got me interested in racing games like the Need For Speed series just to further feed that hunger for high-octane ridiculousness. Honestly, it’s kind of spellbinding that what started out as a loose adaptation of a Vibe magazine article about an anonymous street racer has since turned into the primary action franchise of the 2000’s. The fact that this evolved out of a Rob Cohen film only makes this more confounding. So, before we get into the seventh instalment, time to check out the one that came.

The Gunman (2015) - Movie Review

Sean Penn is one of those legendary Hollywood actors that even if you’ve somehow managed to never see anything that they’ve been in, you most certainly know the name at least in passing. As someone whose knowledge of cinema mostly consists of what came after the year 2000, it should come as no surprise that I’m not as familiar with Penn’s work as I should be. Outside of some surface knowledge about his relationship with Madonna and how badly that ended up, I’ve only seen him in one other film to my knowledge: 2013’s Gangster Squad, where he was exceptionally awesome as the enemy gangster Mickey Cohen. In fact, that performance was just that good that I’m actively excited about this based on that alone. So, how does Penn turn out in what looks like an attempt to Takenise him, what with this being directed by the same guy who made Neeson a modern day action fixture?

The Age Of Adaline (2015) - Movie Review

When it comes to speculative fiction, there are a number of narrative ideas that are fairly universal across that rather nebulous umbrella: Totalitarian regimes that are only slight exaggerations of the governments of today, using intergalactic aliens as an analogy for illegal aliens, taking the idea of those who don’t learn the past are doomed to repeat it to its logical extreme, fashion in the future will only continue to get more ridiculous, etc. One of the ideas that is surprisingly common is that of the immortal lover: A romantic interest that has far less or far more of a lifespan than your own and the consequences of having a relationship with them. Anyone who has experienced the now-faded scourge of the vampire romance, or watched Doctor Who since the 2005 reboot, will be more than familiar with this idea so telling it in a way that won’t just be digging up old narratives is difficult. Hell, it’s been used that many times that even I’ve written about it before (Shameless plug, I know, but check it out here; it was as part of a crowd-sourced book on the idea of Immortality).

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (2015) - Movie Review

I’ve made fun of Jai Courtney serving as a human signpost that what he’s involved in will most likely be crap, but that’s small potatoes compared to some production companies out there that say the same thing. Namely, the production studio behind today’s outing: Happy Madison Productions, also known as Adam Sandler’s production company. Now, as much as many parts of me want to jump onto the anti-Sandler bandwagon, given how little regard I hold for films like That’s My Boy, the fact remains that his films took up a rather large portion of my childhood: Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison, 50 First Dates, even Little Nicky are all on good standings with me. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll happily call them out when they screw up, and they do so with surprising relish and on a colossal scale, but if my defence of Blended proves nothing else than it at least shows that I have some mercy in my heart for the man and his stable of friends after all this time. So, where does their latest offering land with me?

Cinderella (2015) - Movie Review

Choosing to remake one of the classic Disney Princess films was a risky decision, bordering on suicidal considering how poorly the last attempt at this was taken. Sure, I may not have disliked Maleficent as much as other people, in fact I honestly think it was pretty decent, but in terms of the bottom line that is the almighty dollar, this is kind of lopsided. It is also completely understandable: Cinderella is one of the most recognisable fairy tales of all time, to the point where Cinderella as a term is fully ingrained in the human lexicon, and releasing a new version of the tale is always going to draw attention. But just because they are able to convince a lot of people to see their movie doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be fulfilled upon leaving the cinema. So, time to see what a person in the completely wrong demographic for this film has to say about it to help you make your mind about it, because that makes all kinds of sense.

Home (2015) - Movie Review

Comedies and kid's films are the two genres with the highest probability of failure, as the former can't bank on ironic enjoyment as well as others and the latter typically has less thought put into them because filmmakers tend to think that all children are idiots that will watch anything. Now, whether or not that statement rings true in any respect is not for me to say, but with the rather high quality of family and children's films we've been getting lately, I'd say that that probability factor isn't as crucial as it once was. Of course, get the actor who played Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory, or The Geeky Minstrel Show as I call it, to be your lead and any optimism I have will go straight down the crapper. But is this kind of cynicism warranted? I mean, Dreamworks have more than proved that they can hold their own against their competition; maybe this won't be so bad... but somehow, I really fucking doubt it.